New research opens up for a whole new understanding of the history of early Normandy in the 10th century.
Around 911 the French king, Charles the Simple, recruited the Viking Chieftain, Rollo and his band of warriors in his effort to establish at least some defence against the ravages of other war-bands in and around the area along the Seine. It is probable that Rollo was already bastioned there and that the grant of land along the northern part of the Seine was more or less nothing but a recognition of status. However, as opposed to a series of other “grants” of the same type, Rollo and his descendants succeeded in carving out a duchy, which inside two centuries fostered William the Conqueror and his invasion of England.
Naturally this rather astounding story has attracted historians for a very long time. And much ink has been used in the effort to get a grasp of what really took place in the 10th century and what the main actors in Normandy – the church, the local Franks, the Viking immigrants, the Dukes and their comrades-in arms etc. – thought about this, while going about their business of living with or protecting and expanding this new bridgehead.
However the history of the early years of the formation of Normandy has been bested by a number of scholarly idiosyncrasies and political machinations, which until the beginning of the 21st century has made it really complicated to write this story in a credible fashion.
One challenge has been the special Francophone character of much of the historical writings [1] about the happenings in Normandy in the 10th century. The central role here has been played by the work of Lucien Musset (1922 – 2004), who wrote extensively about the history of Normandy in the 50s and 60s; as much of his work is still being republished, it continues to have its mark on students entering the field from afar. According to him the Viking Rollo and his compatriots soon adopted the (obviously superior) French system of law and administration as well as language. More than anything they were the epiphenomena of the successfully assimilated immigrants – whether from Algeria or Scandinavia. It is of course apparent that much of this was (as was later work done by his colleagues) written in the aftermath of the two world wars, when France was culturally bent on recovering at least tiny bits of “Gloire”. (Making the Normans “French” was a nice way of turning the tables on the victorious invaders coming ashore on D-Day and lessening the French shame.) Even though this is an exceptionally unacceptable foreshortening of the huge work of recovering sources, editing and reflecting upon them, which has been done at the universities at Caen and Rouen, it has for several decades been known, that a radical rethinking of the whole field was beckoning for a courageous new generation of scholars.
Unfortunately this stranded early on in France due to another form of historical “abuse”, carried out by the editor and founder of the French publisher “Heimdal”, George Bernage, known for his books on both the Middle Ages and WW2 and for his political leanings to the far-right. The numerous uncritical publications on the Vikings in Normandy published by Heimdal have obviously created an atmosphere in France, where serious and scholarly interest in the “Viking-ness” of Rollo & co plus descendants – an otherwise legitimate scholarly preoccupation – would quickly be quashed. Perhaps not always known among Anglophone scholars, studies on “Vikings in Normandy” have generally had a bad press.
Part of this blind angle has also been nourished by much of the British historical writings in the last three decades with its tradition of sometimes looking askance at what might be termed Historical Anthropology. Although permeating Carolingian Studies, it has never really been taken seriously inside “Normannic Studies”. Here the idea, that culture – as concrete tangible ways of living and ways of thinking – can be studied has not had a very good press; as was for instance witnessed in some of the scathing reviews, which were published of the work of Eleanor Searle [2]. Culture is not a concept which sits comfortably among English historians, witness the fact that the Latin Mores often seems too complicated for them to translate (many British scholars leave it inside their texts in its Latin form).
Finally a fourth challenge seems to have been fostered by the French Archaeological establishment. Whereas England allows people in general to go metal detecting (granted they turn any finds in for inspection), France prohibits this by law. This means that the explosion in stray finds, which has helped archaeology to totally redefine Anglo-Saxon and Viking England, has not taken place in Normandy (or France for that matter).
It might be, that there are no more Viking-silver hoards – like for instance the Vale of York hoard – hidden in the ground in Normandy, waiting to be found [3]. However, we cannot know until the law is changed and retired French businessmen are allowed to wander seemingly aimlessly around the French countryside. In this connection it is worthwhile to note that before metal-detecting was allowed in England, archaeologists knew of only 20 small Viking-brooches from the Danelaw. Nowadays they total more than 550 (and still growing) [4]. Whatever the future will bring, it is still worth to read the overview by Anne Nissen Jaubert [5], Published in 2001, which may function as an important base-line for this discussion.
Early Normandy in the 21st century.
In the last decades four major scholarly developments have nevertheless taken place.
One has been the renewed reflection upon and edition of the pertinent Chronicles [6] and other written sources. Not least has there been a renewed effort to understand the true “beast in the garden” – the Chronicle by Dudo of St. Quentin. Written on behest of duke Richard I around the turn of the millennium, it famously recounts the “Culture and Deeds of the first Norman Dukes” in a way, which has inspired most historians to follow in the footsteps of (amongst others) H. Prentout, who famously declared it nothing but a history of fables and picturesque legends. Recent careful studies of the text by historians like Pierre Bouet, François Neveux and Pierre Bauduin have helped to soften the discredit of his history. Other scholars have begun to understand more about the inspiration, Dudo found both in Vergil, Roman History and contemporary hagiographical texts. Very recent studies seem also to have uncovered the rationale behind the form and the content of Dudo’s Chronicle. It appears it was probably most of all a didactic instrument written to support the moral education of students in the learned schools in Rouen. They were – although perhaps still heathens – to become “Courtly Vikings”. Whether Dudo could register a success is quite another matter. Careful reading of some later hagiographic texts and theological treatises seem to contradict this.
Secondly there has been a renewed interest in looking at the evidence, which might be gleaned from the study of Scandinavian traces in place-names, personal names, vocabulary, semantic fields and linguistics characteristic of Normandy even today. Careful examination of the different types of sources have shown that the presence of Scandinavian immigrants were relatively widespread, especially in the central area along the Seine and tributaries and that they seem to have had day-to-day intercourse with the locals in such basic life-spheres as sailing, fishing and the tilling of land; but also that the immigrants seem to have been predominantly male and that they married French girls. Finally new research points to a marked linguistic Scandinavian (Danish) influence on even present day dialects in Normandy. Pace the Norwegian sagas, it seems even Rollo may have spoken Danish!
Third, there has been a renewed archaeological interest in getting a sense of what went on in Normandy in the 10th century. This effort has primarily been spearheaded by the French archaeologist, Jaques le Maho, and his excavations in Rouen. But also the recent identification of Viking “harbours” along the Seine [7] is complementing our view of a what went on in the formatting years of the new duchy. Another important dig, although often overlooked, was already conducted at Fécamp from 1973 – 1984.
And finally, fourth, historians – both from France and England – are slowly recognizing (in view of the above) the need to rewrite the political history of the Duchy in the formative years. We do not as yet have a clear overview of such fundamental matters as the allocation of resources, the organization of minting and finances and the physical organization of the landscape, although they are topics have been treated sporadically in the more specialist literature. But we are promised such an account in the near future [8]
Slowly, but inexorably, new knowledge seems to be uncovered making it a possible feat to write a political, socio-economic and cultural history of Early Normandy for the 21st century.
Does it matter?
The question is, of course, whether it really matters to what extent the Norman ventures in the 11th and 12th centuries were rooted in a Danish, Scandinavian, French or even Anglo-Danish culture – or perhaps a mixture of them all; and how this may have shifted over time. The answer is double:
For one thing, it seems to have mattered to the people themselves. Their Scandinavian heritage – whatever they more specifically thought of it – seems to have made a difference to them. Plainly – at least in the beginning – they obviously lived it. Later they definitely began to orchestrate it, play with it and talk about it (memorize it). As far as we know from historical writings and snippets left accidentally in other texts, the people in Normandy thus both lived with and tackled a cultural praxis, marked by their Scandinavian roots in as well as the the mores in their (new) habitat.
Secondly, it seems especially to have mattered later, when the leading cadres in the duchy began to create a new cultural identity meant to bolster them in their quest for further riches, land and power.
As such the culture(s) of the early Normans deserves to be studied – both as they unfolded as a concrete, tangible way of life, mores, but also as they was later formulated by and reflected upon in their histories, told or written down.
______
NOTES:
The articles, listed here or linked to above, are meant as only a few pointers to either specific cases or tentative overviews, which have begun to float around in the last decade and which are busy changing this scholarly landscape. Through these a new and perhaps less ideologically framed history of Early Normandy may seem to leave its embryonic stage.
[1] A short list of the major works:
Nordica and Normannica: recoil d’études sur la Scandinave ancienne et medieval, les expeditions des Vikings et la Fondation de la Normandie. By Lucien Musset. Paris 1997. (Basically a selection of Musset’s earlier work from post WW2)
Histoire de la Normandie. By Michel Boüard, Toulouse, Privat, 1970. New edition, Rennes, Éd. Ouest France, 2001
La Première Normandie (Xe –Xie Siècles). Sur les frontières de la Haute Normandie: Identité et construction d’une principaux. By Pierre Bauduin. 2nd edition, Caen 2006
For a (somewhat dated but still important) English introduction to the history: Normandy before 1066. By David Bates. London and New York 1982
For a recent review of the work of David Bates, see Normandy and its Neighbours, 900-1250: Essays for David Bates. Turnhout, Brepols, 2011. Here Janet Nelson (Normandy’s Early History since Normandy Before 1066 pp. 3 – 16) reviews the scanty archaeological evidence and caution against over-explotation.
[2] Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840–1066. By Eleanor Searle, Berkeley, California University Press 1988). For instance as reviewed by David Bates In Speculum in 1990.
[3] The best – and most recent – survey in English of coin production in Normandy may be found here: A Survey of Coin Production and Currency in Normandy 864 -945. In: Silver Economy in the Viking Age. Walnut Creek 2007, pp. 99 – 121.
[4] We should be grateful for Lesley Abrams, who has pointed this out
[5] Some aspects of Viking Research in France. By Anne Nissen Jaubert. In: Acta Archaeologica vol 71, 2001, pp. 159 – 169.
[6] Recent editions of the more pertinent – contemporary – chronicles from the 10th century (with translations into English):
Dudo of Saint- Quentin, History of the Normans. Translation and Introduction by by E. Christiansen. (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1998)
Flodoard of Reims 919 – 966, ed. and translated by S. Fanning and B. Bachrach. Peterborough, Ontario and Plymouth: Broadview Press, 2004
Richer of St. Remi. Edited and translated by Justin Lake. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Vol 1 – 2, Harvard University Press 2011
[7] The incursion of the Vikings into the natural and cultural landscape of upper Normandy. By Laurent Mazet-Harhoff. In: Viking Trade and Settlement in Continental Western Europe. Ed. by Iben Skibsted Klæsøe. Museum Tusculanum Press. University of Copenhagen 2010, pp. 81 – 122.
[8] As promised by Mark Hagger in: Confrontation and Unification: Approaches to the Political History of Normandy, 911 -1035. In: History Compass Vol 11, issue 6 (2013) pp. 429 -442 .