Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/586

540 NORMANDY and they were rewarded by a further acquisition of terri tory at the expense of the French duchy, namely, the Bessin or land of Bayeux. France was now nearly or wholly cut off from the sea. The Norman princes further claimed, by virtue of these early grants, a supremacy over both Britanny and Maine, which they were never able fully or lastingly to enforce. Land Of the nature of the settlement made by the Northmen an< l in the part of Gaul which they changed from France to people Normandy we can judge only by the results. The new mandy. s ^ate for a while had no recognized territorial name. To the end of the century it is simply " Terra Northman- norum." " Northmannia," a name which with Einhard meant Denmark, which in Adam of Bremen commonly means Norway, becomes, in the shapes of " Nortmannia," "Normannia," "Normendie," and the like, fully estab lished in the next century as the name of the Norman land in Gaul. In English chronicles it appears as " Ricar- des land," from the princes of that name; it is not "Nor- mandi," "Normandie," "Normandig," " Normandige," till after the Norman Conquest. The chief again has no cer tain titles ; at Rheims he was " princeps Northmannorum," or, more heartily, " dux piratarum." In the next century he becomes regularly "dux" or "comes Normannorum " ; that is, he was "dux" as regards the Norman people, " comes " as regards his overlord the Western king. The people become definitely "Normanni," "Normend." It is not easy to say to what extent the Scandinavian settlers became mingled with the earlier occupiers of the land, or again how far those earlier inhabitants were of Frankish and how far of Celtic descent. It is plain that the land was parted out among Scandinavian landowners very much as in the Danish districts of England, and many places, just as in those districts, keep the name of the first Scandinavian lord. And it can hardly fail that, after the long harryings which went before the actual settlement, the population of the lands which lay open to the Northmen must have become scanty, and many parts are likely to have been quite forsaken. On the other hand, it is certain that before the end of the 10th century there was an oppressed peas antry in the land, and it is hardly likely that descendants of the original conquerors could have sunk so low in so short a time. The actual tillers of the soil were most likely to a great extent descendants of the earlier inhabitants ; that is, they would belong to the same mixed nationality as the people of the duchy from which Normandy had been cut off, to that mixture of Celtic, Latin, and Teutonic elements which has formed the modern Frenchman. Yet in Normandy, as elsewhere, the tendency would come in which makes the actual cultivators of the soil sink rather than rise, and it is by no means unlikely that the later peasantry of Normandy were largely the descendants of the Scandinavian conquerors. Anyhow, a nobility gradually sprang up among the Normans themselves, consisting chiefly, it would seem, of those who could claim any kind of kindred or affinity, legitimate or illegitimate, with the ducal house. Some of the greatest Norman houses sprang from kinsfolk of wives or mistresses of the dukes who were themselves of very lowly degree. This is always likely to happen when a nobility is first forming. Early in the llth century the order of "gentlemen" as a sepa rate class seems to be forming as something new. By the time of the conquest of England the distinction seems to have been fully established. The Norman, with the softened form of his name, is distinguished from the Northman by his adoption of the French language and the Christian religion. In the case of Rolf himself, as in the case of Guthrum, his baptism formed one of the terms of the agreement. The convert took the name of Robert, from the duke of the French, who acted as his godfather ; but, as in other cases of baptized Danes, he was still always spoken of by his earlier name. Whether Rolf himself learned French we are not told ; his language at the time of his homage is spoken of as English. This doubtless means any Low -Dutch or Scandinavian tongue, as opposed alike to High -Dutch and to French. Among his followers the twofold change took place with very different degrees of speed in different parts of the duchy. At Rouen and Evreux and in the eastern part gener ally, the first grant to Rolf, the change seems to have been very speedy. In some other parts circumstances made it much slower. Thus, at Bayeux it would seem that an earlier Saxon colony coalesced with the Scandinavians ; at all events, a Teutonic tongue of some kind lived on there long after Rouen had come to speak no tongue but French. In the Cotentin, a still later acquisition, both the Northern speech and the Northern creed were kept up by fresh settlements from Scandinavia. The result was a wide distinction between the eastern and the western, the French and the Scandinavian, parts of the duchy, which led to important political consequences as late as the reign of the Conqueror. The Cotentin, with its appendage of the Channel Islands, William seems not to have been added to the land of the Northmen Long- till after the accession of its second duke, William surnamed sword - Longsword, about 927. Whether Rolf died, or abdicated, or was killed in battle, and the exact date of his son s accession, do not seem clearly fixed. The certain point is that William became the man of King Charles in 927, and that he refused all allegiance to the rival king, Rudolf of Burgundy, as long as Charles lived. His own reign lasted till 943. It is one of the most confused periods in the history of Gaul, and a good deal of the confusion is owing to the shifting policy or caprice of William himself. He changed sides more than once in the struggles between Lewis, the Carolingian king at Laon, and the more power ful Duke Hugh of Paris. At last, there can be little doubt, he was murdered by the practice of Count Arnulf of Flanders. In Normandy itself the history and effects The of his reign are more marked. We see the struggle Heathen between the heathen or Danish party and the Christian, ?? . which may be also called the French, party. By this must p ar t y . be understood the party of the French speech and French civilization, not at all a party in the political interest of France. Its policy was to make Normandy a Christian and French-speaking state, an independent member of the Western kingdom, alongside of France and Flanders. The two parties are distinctly marked as geographical. The first years of William s reign are marked by a revolt of the heathen party, who demand the cession of the lands west of the Risle. The Christian and French-speaking duke might reign in the region which had adopted his creed and tongue ; the western Normandy should form a separate state, heathen and Scandinavian. Though all this rests on the not very high authority of Dudo, it bears the stamp of truth ; it falls in with facts earlier and later ; it is not the kind of story to grow up in the hands of a rhetorical panegyrist. William, successful over the rebels, appears as a Christian, not without fits of special devotion, and as anxious to take his place among the great princes of the Carolingian kingdom, notwithstanding the reproach of pirate origin that still cleaves to him. Yet he does not show himself the enemy of the other side. Himself speaking both tongues, he has his son Richard sent to Bayeux to gain a fuller mastery of the Northern speech, and he seems even to have admitted fresh settlement from the North in the western part of the duchy. The deep and clearly intentional darkness in which contemporary writers at Rheims leave the Norman history of this period makes any minute knowledge of this feign quite hopeless. But