Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/48

About the middle of the ninth century the number of the Norse pirates greatly increased and their ravages became more regular and constant, leading in many cases to permanent settlements. In 855 the Old English Chronicle tells us "the heathen men, for the first time, remained over winter in Sheppey," at the mouth of the Thames, and thereafter, year by year, it recounts the deeds of the Viking band which wintered in England and is called simply here, the army. It is no longer a matter of summer raids but of unbroken occupation. In 878 during midwinter "the army stole away to Chippenham and overran the land of the West-Saxons and sat down there; and many of the people they drove beyond sea, and of the remainder the greater part they subdued and forced to obey them except King Alfred, and he, with a small band, with difficulty retreated to the woods and to the fastnesses of the moors." The following year a similar band, now swollen into "the great army" made its appearance on the Continent and for fourteen years ravaged the territory between the Rhine and the Loire. Year after year "the steel of the heathen glistened"; in 886 they laid siege to Paris, which was relieved not by the king's valor but by his offering them Burgundy to plunder instead. A century later the English began to buy them off with Danegeld. "All men," laments a chronicler, "give themselves to flight. No one cries out, Stand and fight for your country, your church, your countrymen. What they ought to defend with