A History of the Vikings
Chapter 7
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Maal, and once more peace had to be bought, this time by a new grant of Dorstad to Rorik, Harald's brother, for this turbulent chief had lately been expelled from the town and had taken refuge in Saxony whence he set forth as a viking to rob his former fief. By reaccepting Dorstad from Lothar Rorik laid himself under the obligation of protecting to some degree his portion of Frisia from further viking attacks, but his promises, perhaps because he lacked the power to fulfil them, were speedily proved worthless and Frisia was repeatedly ravaged by pirates throughout the two following years. Afterwards, however, the unhappy country, by this time almost completely under Danish rule, secured some peace from the raids of mere plunderers. (1)
The autumn of 851 saw a new attack on the Seine country, the vikings concerned being commanded by Asgeir, who had now left Bordeaux. The chief event of this raid was a land expedition from Rouen to Beauvais, which was plundered and burnt, but on the return the vikings were surprised by a army and lost many of their men. The defeat, however, did not drive them from the Seine, and at the beginning of the next year the Fontanelle monastery near the river-mouth was burnt to the ground by the same vikings. In the summer of 852 they returned to Bordeaux, but in October of that year a Danish fleet led by two vikings called Sigtryg and Godfred appeared on the Seine to continue the plunderings of the vikings who had left. The new arrivals used as their headquarters an old camp known by the name of Givold's Fosse, probably at Jeufosse on a bend of the river between Vernon and Bonnières.
Charles and the Emperor Lothar had by this time no illusions as to the real danger of the viking menace, and it seemed that a chance had come when by concerted action they might reasonably hope to teach the Danes a salutary lesson. Accordingly, they each assembled an army and together laid siege to Givold's Fosse. There ought to have been no doubt as to the result, yet, probably because of the inevitable Frankish jealousies, the
1. Rorik died in 876. In 857, three years after the accession of Horik II, he had also won for himself land near Hedeby, and seems to have been the lord of a large and important realm that included most of Sleswig and North Frisia; but he seems to have lost his Danish possessions by 862, and, though his Frisian fiefs were restored by Charles the Bald in 873, he never succeeded in establishing a stable colony. For the identification of Rorik with the Rurik who founded the Russian state, see N. T. Belaiew, Saga-Book of Viking Society, X, Pt. 2 (1925-7), p. 267, a most valuable and well-documented paper.
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siege was not pushed to a victorious conclusion, and in the following year the hostilities ended, hard though it is to believe, in some sort of treaty, the vikings being allowed to make their way back to sea unpunished and at their leisure, and, what is worse, Godfred himself receiving a grant of land in Flanders. 'The heathens', a chronicler had written four years earlier, (1) 'more and more put the Christians to shame', and it is easy to imagine how this last contemptible weakness of the Frankish kings must have deepened the terror reigning in the land to a dark and settled despair.
'It is wretched to have to write these things,' said the same chronicler, and, in truth, the long tale of viking raids that followed is a miserable record. Fortunately, however, there is no need to name them here one by one or to report in detail each year's disasters, and it will be sufficient to note any outstanding act of pillage, keeping a watch at the same time for any symptoms of change in the manner and policy of the viking attacks.
Nantes was sacked again by the Loire vikings in 853, Poitiers and Angers were plundered by cavalry raids from a new viking depot well up the Loire, and in November of this year took place that memorable act of sacrilege, the plundering of Tours and its two famous monasteries. One of these was without the walls at Marmoutier (here 126 monks were killed), and the other in the town itself, that beloved and venerated house of St. Martin, the home of Gregory, the historian of the Merovingian Franks. In 854 Blois was burnt, and an unsuccessful attack made on Orleans. Two years later the vikings, issuing from their new depot at Besse, an island near Nantes, returned to Orleans and sacked it. In 857 Paris fell to Björn Ironside, one of the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok, and there was a systematic and terrible burning of its churches, only four escaping destruction. In the same year a party of vikings, in shameful alliance with Pepin of Aquitaine, once more plundered Poitiers, and Tours and Blois were attacked a second time. In Frisia Utrecht was rased to the ground, and in 858 there was viking plundering in an hitherto unmolested region on the Bremer and the Weser. The Seine vikings pillaged Bayeux and slew its bishop; Chartres and Évreux were sacked; two prominent ecclesiastics were captured, the abbots of St. Denis and St. Maux, and Charles was compelled to redeem them by the payment of an enormously heavy ransom.
The sufferings of the Franks in the western kingdom were
1. Ann. Xant., 8 49) (Pertz, M.G.H., SS. II, p. 229).
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now almost beyond endurance, and their king, though he had many more pressing cares, had no other choice than to attempt once again to oust the pirates. Accordingly, in the summer of 858, he attacked the Seine vikings in their stronghold of Oissel, an island opposite Jeufosse. He had prepared for this purpose not only an army, but, more important, a fleet; and he had enlisted the support of Lothar II, the new lord of that portion of the middle kingdom lying between Frisia and the Alps, and of his own son Charles the Young. Even Pepin of Aquitaine promised his aid. The position of the vikings, when they were blockaded in their island-fastness, was indeed serious, and for a while it seemed that the Christian armies must crush the heathen force. But Charles fell ill, and, once again, the siege wavered. Then, twelve weeks after the siege had begun, there happened a sudden and unexpected event that immediately brought freedom to the vikings; for Louis the German cruelly chose this moment to invade his brother's kingdom, and Charles had no other course open to him than to withdraw at once from Oissel and to move with all possible speed to Lorraine to oppose his brother.
In the next year a Danish fleet under a viking called Weland appeared on the Somme. The monks fled from the monasteries of the terror-struck countryside and the pirates were left free to plunder where they would; in the end the great town of Amiens was taken by them and burnt to the ground. This year, 859, also saw the beginning of a celebrated long-distance viking raid. The pirates concerned in it started out from the Seine and are next heard of when they attempted a landing on the coasts of Galicia in northern Spain, where, like the vikings of the earlier Spanish raid, they were promptly driven off with severe loss. Thence, 62 ships strong, they sailed down the west coast of the peninsula and, after being worsted by the Moors at the Guadalquivir mouth, they made their way through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. In passing the Straits they had burnt the mosque at Algeciras, and from here they crossed over to Nekor (Mezemma) on the coast of Morocco, where they defeated a Moorish force that attempted to interfere with their plunderings. (1) After a sojourn of eight days in Morocco, the vikings went back to Spain and continued up the east coast.
1. It seems that a part of the fleet, on leaving Morocco, went off to Ireland, taking with them some Moorish prisoners. These Moors are mentioned in early Irish texts as fir gorm (blue men), though the ON. blámenn can be exactly translated dark men.
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They raided the Balearic Islands and then went on to plunder in Rousillon in the south of France; finally they reached the island of Camargue in the mouth of the Rhône. Here they took up winter-quarters, and subsequently they began pillaging the Rhône valley, even raiding as far up-stream as Valence. In the new year, however, they suffered a defeat at the hands of the Franks and, shortly afterwards, they sailed away. Their subsequent adventures are uncertain. The popular version of the tale takes them to Italy, and describes the sack of Pisa and Luna, which they are said to have mistaken for Rome and where they gained entrance by the picturesque stratagem of carrying in their leader, very much alive in his coffin, for Christian burial; but this Italian exploit may quite well have been another and different raid carried out not by Northmen but by Saracenic pirates, for Saracens and northern vikings, both heathens, can be easily confused in the Christian chronicles. What is certain is that the vikings landed north of Gibraltar on their homeward journey and subsequently had a sea-battle with the Moors; then they sailed off to Navarre, where they captured Pamplona, and in 862 they returned to Brittany.
In 860 there had been another act of folly, a shameful betrayal of their weakness, on the part of the Franks, for Charles the Bald attempted to bribe the Somme vikings under Weland to drive their countrymen, the Seine vikings, away. Three thousand pounds of silver he offered; but he had great difficulty in collecting this vast sum, and in the end the Somme vikings departed, unpaid, to ravage England and, afterwards, the Flanders coast. In the next year (861) the Seine vikings attacked Paris and St. Germain des Prés. Then Weland's fleet, over 200 ships strong, returned down the coast and also entered the Seine. Charles, in despair, renewed his offer, and this time the original Seine vikings were besieged by their fellow-Danes in the Oissel stronghold. They bought their freedom for 6,000 pounds of gold and silver, a ransom that is in itself an eloquent tribute to the success of their robberies. But, after a temporary withdrawal, the vikings of both parties were soon marauding again, and in the year 862 Charles was forced to take arms to prevent the further plunderings of Weland. He was too late to stop the capture and burning of Meaux, but he cut off Weland's retreat and, for the first time, inflicted a serious defeat on the pirates. Now, indeed, he acted with the courage and vigour that the poor terrified monks had loyally ascribed to him throughout all their tribulations. His terms were harsh; all the vikings
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were summarily expelled from the Seine valley and forced to release their prisoners instantly. Then he began serious defensive measures, building fortified bridges and other works to bar the river against future raids, and of these the most important and the strongest was to be a great bridge at Pitres (Pont de l'Arche). He also appointed two commanders who were responsible for the protection of the threatened areas, Count Adalhard superintending the Seine defences, and Robert the Strong, Marquess of Neustria and founder of the Capetian line of kings, those of the Loire.
For a while there was peace on the Seine, but Robert, embarrassed by Breton insurrection, was soon attacked by vikings, and despite the resolute opposition that he offered, Poitiers and Angoulême fell to the pirates during the two following years. In 864 Toulouse was threatened. In 865 Orleans was sacked and Poitiers ravaged again, while the vikings and the insurgent Bretons together plundered Le Mans; but the year closed with big victories for the Franks, and for one district at any rate, Aquitaine, the viking menace was ended. On the Seine, however, this year 865 was disastrous. A small viking fleet forced its way up the river to the Pitres bridge; Paris suffered from a land raid; there was an unsuccessful attack on Chartres. And then the little fleet actually broke through the Pitres barrier, probably as yet incomplete, and for the whole of twenty days the vikings plundered in and around St. Denis. Charles superseded Adalhard and put Robert in his place; but at the beginning of 866 the pirates had got past Paris as far as Melun, eluding the Frankish troops who were pursuing them. Thereat Charles weakened and gave in. Four thousand pounds of silver, together with large quantities of wine, was the price he paid the vikings to get rid of them.
For once the bribe seemed to have achieved its purpose. The vikings withdrew, the bridge at Pitres was rebuilt, and for ten years the Seine valley was left unmolested. But it was not the bribe so much as the misfortunes of another country (these were the years of the Danish conquest of eastern England) that gave respite to the Franks of Neustria. And there was no peace for the Franks of the Loire. Hastein, that great viking, appears in Brittany in 866, and Robert the Strong, now recalled to the Loire, was killed in the battle of Brissarthe, near Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe, that followed Hastein's first raid. The loss of this bold and resolute man was a serious one, and as a result the vikings remained unchallenged on the lower Loire. In 867 Hastein destroyed
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