NORTHMEN, a name applied to the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, or Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, but more generally restricted to those sea rovers called Danes by the Saxons, who sailed on piratical expeditions to all parts of the European seas, made their first ap pearance on the coast of England in 787, and from the year 832 repeated their invasions, till they became masters of all the country under their King Canute, and reigned in England during the next 50 years, down to 1042, when the Sax'- dynasty was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor. A Danish inva sion penetrated to the Meuse in 515, but was repelled. The victories of Charle magne over the Saxons led to a league being formed between that people and the Danes; and Gottfried, King of Jut land, with his piratical bands, ravaged the French and Spanish coasts, even as far as the Straits of Gibraltar. Their great invasion of France took place in 841, after which the whole coast of W. Europe, from the Elbe to the Guadal quivir fell a prey to the Northmen. In 837 they had sacked Utrecht and Ant werp, and fortified themselves on the island of Walcheren. Flanders was obstinately defended; but Friesland, Lower Lorraine, and Neustria fell with out resistance, Roland devastated Hol land, and appeared on the Seine, while Gottfried ravaged the valleys of the Meuse and Scheldt. Hastings, at the head of a band of Northmen, sacked Bor deaux, Lisbon, and Seville, defeated the Moorish conquerors of Spain at Cordova, overran Italy and Sicily, and crossed the straits into Morocco.
In 885 they laid siege to Paris, but were bought off by Charles the Fat. Rollo, after ravaging Friesland and the countries watered by the Scheldt, ac cepted the hand of a daughter of Charles the Simple, and received with her pos session of all the land in the valley of the Seine, from the Epte and Eure to the sea, which then went by the na,ae of Normandy. Their conquest of Eng land, in 1066, gave that country an ener getic race of kings and nobles. Though the Normans had acquired comparatively settled habits in France in the course of the 11th century many nobles, with their followers, betook themselves to S. Italy and engaged in strife with native princes, Greeks and Arabs. In 1059, Robert Guiscard, one of the 10 sons of the Norman count, Tancred de Haute ville, was recognized by Pope Nicholas II. as Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and in 1071 as lord of all lower Italy. His brother Roger conquered Sicily, 1060 1089. Roger II. of Sicily united the two dominions in 1127; but in the person of his grandson, William II., the Norman dynasty became extinct, and the kingdom passed to the Hohenstauffen family.