Doubtless Norwegian rovers also took part in these so-called Danish expeditions. We know that as early as the beginning of the ninth cen tury they made to the north of Ireland, Scotland, the Hebrides. the Grkney and Shetland Islcs: and the increasing power of Harald Haar iagr (q.v.). in the ninth and tenth centuries, exciting great discontent among the smaller chiefs, great emigrations took place, and these islands becallW the new homes of these Norwegian Vikings. About the same period colonies were settled in the Faro;; Isles and Iceland, from which some Vikings proceeded westward across the North Atlantie to Greenland about 083. and thence about 20 years later smithward to a region which they called 1 inland, believed by sonic to be the coast of Canada or of New Eng land, thus probably anticipating the diseovery of America by Columbus by nearly 300 years. From Norway also issued the last and most important expedition against the coast of France. It was led by !troll or Rollo (q.v.). IlroIf 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 (011 or 912). The invaders thinly planted themselves in the eituntry, which hence forth went Inc the name of Normandy (qx.)• They and their descendants are, strictly speak ing. the Normans of history. They rapidly adopt ed the more civilized form of life that prevailed in the Frankish kinHom—its religion. language, and manners. At a later period, the twelfth cen tury, they even developed a great school of nar rative poetry. whose cultivators. the Troureurs, Troureres, rivaled in celebrity the lyrical trou badours of Southern Franee. But though the Normans had acquired comparatively settled ha hits in France, the obl passion for adventure was still strong in their blood; and in the course of the eleventh century many nobles with their followers betook themselves to Southern Italy, where the strifes of the native princes, Greek and Arab, opened up a tine prospect for ambitions designs. In 1050 Robert Guiseard (q.v.), one of the ten sons of the Norman Count Tattered de Ilanteville, all of whom had gone thither, was recognized by Pope Nicholas 11. as Duke of Apu lia and Calabria. Ilk brother and liegeman. Roger, conquered Sicily. Roger 11. of Sicily united the two dominions in 1127 and in 113o assumed the title of King of Sicily; hut in the person of his grandson. William 11,. the Norman
dynasty became extinct, and the kingdom passed into the hands of the Hohenstauffen family. These Normans of Italy played also a consider able ride in the Crusades. especially in the first, of which Bohemund 1. (q.v.) and Tattered (q.v.) were among the principal leaders. Sec Catsma:.
The Swedish Norsemen directed their expedi tions chiefly against the eastern coasts of the Baltic—Courland, Estlionia, and Finland—where they made their appearance in the ninth century, at the very time when their Danish and NOr• wegian brethren were roving over the North Sea, the English Channel, and the Bay of Biscay, and were establishing themselves on the shores of England and France. According to the narra tive of the Russian annalist 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. hut were as quickly solkdted to return and assume the of government. Iturik (q.v.) founded one kingdom at Novgorod (862), which stretched northward as far as the White Sea. Ilis successor, Oleg, united with that a second, established by other Swedish adventurers at Kiev. (See st+.,) For a long period these Norsemen. who, it appears, became eompletely identified with their Slavic-speaking subjects in the tenth pen flirt, were dangerous enemies of the Byzantine Empire, whose roasts th(F reached by way of the Black Sea. and whose capital, Constantinople, they frequently menaced. as. for instance. when Igor is said to have appeared before the city with upward of 11)01) ships or boats. about the middle of the tenth century. Earlier in the same century these warriors bad found their way into the Caspian Sea, and actually retie• trated as far as Persia. Partly from them and partly from native Scandinavians came those soldiers who from the ninth to the twelfth cen tury formed t Ile bodyguard of the Ityla tIle em perors, the celebrated Varangians (q.v.). Con sult: 1)epping. 11 istoire ilex c.riaditimrs mari• times des Normands (2d ed.. Paris. 15431 t Free Man, of the Nmlnail ('oitqurst Delarc, Les ,Vormands to Italic I Paris, 18S'31 ; Kea ry. Vikings in IVestern Christendom (London, 1801) Du Chailln, Age (New Viol:. 18001 Gman. Ilistory of the .1r1 of ll'ar t London. 189S1.