Toward the end of the 9th century all Frisia between Walcheren and the German ocean seems to have been possessed by the in vaders. The serious attacks of the pirates in any part of the em pire distant from their own lands began about the middle of the century, when they first wintered in the Seine territory. Their first attack on Paris was in A.D. 845 ; in A.D. 885-887 a much more important but unsuccessful one took place, the invaders receiving an indemnity for raising the siege and leave to pass beyond Paris into Burgundy. The settlement of Danes under Rollo on the lower Seine, i.e., in Normandy, belongs to the next century.
The third region is the mouth of the Loire, where the island point d'appui was Noirmoutier. The Northmen wintered there in A.D. 843. No region was more often ravaged than that of the lower Loire, so rich in abbeys—St. Martin of Tours, Marmoutiers, St. Benedict, etc. But the country ceded to the Vikings under Hasting at the Loire mouth was insignificant and not in permanent occupation.
Near the end of the 9th century, however, the plundering ex peditions which emanated from these three sources became so incessant and so widespread that we can signalize no part of west France as free from them, and at the same time much mischief was wrought in the Rhine country and in Burgundy. Unfor tunately, at this point our best authority ceases ; and we cannot well explain the changes which brought about the Christianization of the Normans and their settlement in Normandy as vassals of the West Frankish kings.
For the Viking attacks in the British Isles, the course of events is clearer. In its general features it follows the normal course. The Vikings had begun to visit the English coast about the end of the 8th century, but their serious attacks do not begin till 838. Their first wintering was on the contiguous island of Thanet in A.D. 851. In 865 England was visited by a "great army," which overthrew the ancient kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex was saved only by Alfred's victory at Eding ton, after which Guthrum, the Danish leader, accepted baptism and settled with his men in East Anglia. But the forces defeated at Edington represented but half of the Viking army in England at the time. The other half had already settled in Northumbria, and the region between Humber and Welland.
The six territories which we have signalized—Ireland, Western Scotland, England, the three in West Francia which merge into each other by the end of the 9th century—do not comprise the whole field of Viking invasion. To the east they twice sailed up the Elbe (A.D. 851, 88o) and burnt Hamburg. Southwards they plundered far up the Garonne, and in the north of Spain ; and one fleet of them sailed round Spain, plundering, but attempting in vain to establish themselves in this Arab caliphate. They plun
dered on the opposite African coast, and at last got as far as the mouth of the Rhone, and thence to Luna in Italy.
In the third quarter of the 9th century two distinct tendencies appeared among the Vikings in the West. One section was ready to settle down and receive territory at the hands of the Christian rulers ; the other section adhered to a life of adventure and of plunder. A large portion of the great army, unable to obtain settlement in England, sailed to the Continent and spread dev astation far and wide. Under command of two Danish "kings," Godfred and Siegfried, they were first in the country of the Rhine mouth or the Lower Scheldt ; afterwards dividing their forces, some devastated far into Germany, others extended their ravages on every side in northern France down to the Loire. The whole of these vast countries, Northern Francia and part of Burgundy and the Rhineland, were as much at their mercy as England before the battle of Edington, or Ireland before the death of Turgesius. But in every country alike the wave of Viking conquest now began to recede. The settlement of Normandy was the only per manent outcome of the Viking age in France. In England, under Edward Rie Elder and Aethelflaed, Mercia recovered a great portion of what had been ceded to the Danes. In Ireland a great expulsion of the invaders took place in the beginning of the loth century. In the following generations the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden became consolidated, and the energy of the Nor wegian peoples found vent in the settlement of Iceland.
Severe as were the raids in Europe, and great as was the suffer ing—on account of which a special prayer, A furore Normannorum libera nos was inserted in some of the litanies of the West—if the Vikings had been nothing more than pirates their place in history would, be insignificant. But the Viking outbreak has to some extent the character of a national movement. While some were harrying in the West others were founding GarOariki (Russia) in the East; others were pressing farther south till they reached the eastern empire in Constantinople, so that when Hasting and Bjorn had sailed to Luna in the Gulf of Genoa the northern folk had almost put a girdle round the Christian world. There is every evidence that they were not a mere lawless folk, but under suit able conditions, as in their loth century colony of JOrnborg, could develop an elaborate discipline and a strict code of honour. They were not entirely unlettered, for the use of runes dates back considerably earlier than the Viking age.