Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/475

Rh church, had lost much of that bold, masculine vigor which characterized their hardy ancestors.

Settlement of the Northmen in Gaul.—The Northmen began to make piratical descents upon the coasts of Gaul before the end of the reign of Charlemagne. Tradition tells how the great king, catching sight one day of some ships of the Northmen, burst into tears as he reflected on the sufferings that he foresaw the new foe would entail upon his country.

The record of the raids of the Northmen in Gaul, and of their final settlement in the north of the country, is simply a repetition of the tale of the Danish forays and settlement in England. At last, in the year 918, Charles the Simple did exactly what Alfred the Great had done across the Channel only a very short time before. He granted the adventurous Rollo, the leader of the Northmen that had settled at Rouen, a considerable section of country in the north-west of Gaul, upon condition of homage and conversion.

In a short time the barbarians had adopted the language, the manners, and the religion of the French, and had caught much of their vivacity and impulsiveness of spirit, without, however, any loss of their own native virtues. This transformation in their manners and life we may conceive as being recorded in their transformed name—Northmen becoming softened into Norman. As has been said, they were simply changed from heathen Vikings, delighting in the wild life of sea-rover and pirate, into Christian knights, eager for pilgrimages and crusades.