a leaven to the whole—quick to absorb Frankish law and Christian culture but retaining its northern qualities of enterprise, of daring, and of leadership. It is no accident that the names of the leaders in early Norman movements are largely Norse. And finally a race of princes, high-handed and masterful but with a talent for political organization, state-builders at home and abroad, who made Normandy the strongest and most centralized principality in France and joined to it a kingdom beyond the seas which became the strongest state in western Europe.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best outline of the beginnings of Normandy is H. Prentout, Essai sur les origines et la fondation du duché de Normandie (Paris, 1911). For the Frankish side of the Norse expeditions see W. Vogel, Die Normannen und das fränkische Reich (Heidelberg, 1906), supplemented by F. Lot, in the Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, lxix (1908). Their devastation of Normandy is illustrated by the fate of the monastery of Saint-Wandrille: F. Lot, Études critiques sur l'abbaye de Saint-Wandrille (Paris, 1913), ch. 3. There is a vast literature in the Scandinavian languages; for the titles of fundamental works by Steenstrup, Munch, Worsaae, and Alexander Bugge, see Charles Gross, Sources and Literature of English History (London, 1915), § 42. Considerable material in English has been published in the Saga-Book of the Viking Society (London, since 1895). On the material culture of the north see Sophus Müller, Nordische Altertumskunde (Strassburg, 1897-98), and the various works of Montelius. The early poetry is collected and translated by Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale (Oxford, 1883). Convenient summaries in English are C. F. Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom (London, 1891); A. Mawer, The Vikings (Cambridge, 1913); and L. M. Larson, Canute the Great (New York, 1912).
