Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/162

 CHAPTER XI EAST AND WEST : FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO HILDEBRAND When Charlemagne died a new force was just beginning to make itself felt in Western Europe. A portion of the Teutonic stock had occupied Norway and Sweden and the shores of the Baltic, and had pushed its way into Denmark. Hitherto this Scandinavian group had not come into contact with the comparatively civilised nations of the The North- west. But by the close of Charlemagne's reign men - they were beginning to display a formidable activity. The first raiding bands of the Norsemen or Danes calling themselves Vikings, that is, the men of the creeks, sallied out from the fjords and inlets of the north, intent on plunder. As the ninth century advanced, the occasional pirate ships grew into pirate fleets, which carried their ravages along every coast, up every navigable river, till they found their way even into the Mediterranean. Presently they were not content merely to ravage and destroy, to carry off booty and slaves ; they came in force, remained in armed occupation of the lands they seized, and wrung cessions of territory from the kings of the west. Half England, known as the Danelagh, fell under their sway, though they settled down and mixed with the English, and Their Con- generally acknowledged the sovereignty of the quests. English kings. In France they won from the Carolingian monarch the fair province of Normandy, the land of the Northmen. Whether they came from Denmark or Norway, the Northmen had a great aptitude, when once they 150