It was also Danish Norseman; in particular, who ravaged the western coasts of European mainland, from the E.he to the Garonne. As early as 810, the Danish king, Gottfried, had overrun the power of the-great Charlemagne was too much for these undisciplined barbarians, and they were overawed and subdued for it time. Soon after his death, however, they recommenced (circa 820) their piratical expeditions, and favored by the weaknesses and dissensions of the Carlovingian rulers, became, dur ing the 9th c., the terror and scourge cf north-western German?• and France. They plundered Hamburg.several times, ravaged the (-oasts of the Frisians (which then ex tended as fir as the Scheldt), and in 843 firmly planted themselves at the mouth of the Loire. But ere long they ceased to be satisfied with making descents and settlements on the coasts, and in their small piratical craft they swarmed up the great rivers into the in terior of the country. which they devastated far and wide. Thus in 845, they ascended the Seine inaPphindered Paris—nit exploit which was frequently repeated. In 885, not loss than 40,000 of these Vikings are said to have ascended the river from Rouen, under the leadership of one Siegfried in 700 vessels, and besieged the capital for ten months. It was only saved at the expense of Burgundy, which was abandoned to their ravages. In 881, Louis or Ludwig III., king of the West Franks, inflicted a severe defeat on the invaders at Vineu, near Abbeville in Picardy, the memory of which has been preserved in a song still popular among the country people; but neither that, nor the repulse which they sustained from the brave German monarch Arnulf, near Louvain in 891, could hinder them from making fresh irruptions. In 892, they appeared before Bonn, and tradition says that bands of Danish rovers penetrated even into Switzerland, and estab lished themselves in the canton of Schweiz and the vale of Hash. From their settle ments in Aquitaine they proceeded at an early period to Spain, plundered the coasts of Galicia in 844, and subsequently landed in Andalusia. but were defeated near Seville by the Moorish prince Abd-ur-Ralunan. During 839-60, they forced their way into the Mediterranean, wasted the shores of Spain, Africa, and the Balearic Isles, penetrated up the Rhone as far as Valence; then turning their piratical prows in the direction of Italy, entered the Tyrrhene sea, burned Pisa and Lucca, and actually touched the distant isles of Greece before their for destruction was satiated, or before they dreamed of returningwest.
Doubdess Norwegian rovers also took part in these so-called Danish expeditions. We know that as early as the beginning of the 9th c. they made voyages to the n. of Ireland, Scotland, the Hebrides, the Orkney and Shetland isles; and the increasing power of Harald Haarfager in the 9th and 10th centuries, exciting great discontent among the smaller chiefs, great emigrations took place., and these islands became the new homes of these Norwegian Vikings. About the same period, colonies were settled in the Faroe Isles and Iceland, from which some Vikings proceeded westward across the North Atlantic to Greenland in 982, and thence in 1002, south to a region which they called Vinland, now universally believed to be the coast. of New England, thus antici pating the discovery of America by Columbus by nearly 500 years. From Norway also issued the last and most expedition against the Coast of France. It was led by Rolf or Rollo, who hart been banished by Harald Haarfager on 'Account of his piracies. Ralf forced Charles the simple to grant him possession of all the land in the valley of the Seine, from the Epte and Eure to the sea. By the time of Charles the bald the in vaders had firmly planted themselves in the country, which then went by the name of Normandy (q.v.). They and their descendants are strictly speaking, the Normans of
history—warlike. vigorous, and a most brilliant race. They rapidly adopted the more civilized form of life that prevailed in the Frankish kingdom—its religion, language, and manners, but inspired everything they borrowed with their own splendid vitality. At a litter period (the 19th.c.), they even developed a great school of narrative poetry, whose cultivators, the Troupeurx, or Trour?rex, rivaled in celebrity the lyrical troubadours at southern France. Their conquest of England, in 1066, gave that country an energetic race of kings and nobles, on the whole well fit to rule a brave, sturdy, but somewhat torpid people like the Anglo-Saxons. But though the Normans had acquired compara tively settled habits in France. the old passion for adventure was still strong in their blood; and in alp course.of the lltb,c., _many nobles with. their followers betook them selves to southern Italy, where 'ale the Wire prinecs,!Greeks and Arabs, opened lip a fine prospect for ambitious designs. In 1059, Robert Goiscard. one of the tcu sons of the Norman count, Tancred de Hauteviile, all of whom had gone thither, was recognized by pope Nicholas II. as duke of Apulia and Calabria, and in 1071 as loud of all lower Italy. His brother and liegeman, Roger, conquered Sicily, 1060-89. Roger II. of Sicily united the two dominions in 1127; but in the person of his grandson, William IL, the Norman dynasty became extinct, and the kingdom passed into the hands of the Hohenstauffen family.
The Swedish Norsemen directed their expeditions chiefly against the eastern coasts of the Baltic—Courland, Esthonia, and Finnland, where they made their appearance in ; the 9th c.—the very time .when their Danish and Norwegian brethren were roving over ithe North sea, the English channel, the bay of Biscay, and were establishing themsel•ea on the shores of England and France. According to the narrative of the Russian an nalist, Nestor, they appear to have penetrated into the interior as far as Novgorod, whence they were quickly banished by the native Slavic and Finnish inhabitants, but were as quickly solicited to return and assume the reins of governinent. Hither, conse quently, in 862. accompanied by other noted warriors, came three Swedish chiefs, Rurik, Sineus, and Truwor, sons of the same father, and belonging to the tribe of _Hos (whence Russ and Rossiuns). Rurik founded one kingdom at Novgorod, which stretched northward as far as the White sea. His successor, Oleg, united with that a second established by other Swedish adventurers at Kiev, which town now tceame the capital of the wide-extended Russo-Swedish kingdom. - See Russi.k. For a long period these Norsemen, who, it appears, became completely identified with their Slavic-speaking subjects in the 10th c. were dangerous enemies of the Byzantine empire, whose coasts they reached by way c., the Black and whose capital, Constantinople, they frequently menaced, as, for instance, in 941, when Igor is said to have appeared before the city with upwards of 1000 ships or boats. Earlier in the same century, these Swedo-Russiau warriors had found their into the Caspian sea, and actually penetrated to the coasts of Tartary and Persia. Partly from them, and partly from native Scandinavians, came those soldiers who f tun the 9th to the 12th c. formed the body-guard of the Byzantine emperors.---See Deppings's Histoire des Expeditions Maritinms des Normands et de lour Etoblissement en France au Siecle (2 vols. 2d edit. 1843); Wheaton's History of the Northmen from the Earliest Times to the Conquest of Englund (1831): Worsaae's Minder OM de Danske og iVormandene i England, Skotland, og Island (1851); Freeman's History of the i_Nerman Conquest (1867-76),