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Rh was formerly Lorraine and the kingdoms of the East and West. A victory gained over them at Thion on the Sambre by Louis of Saxony in 880, had led to no results, for in the same year they burnt Nimeguen, while another band made their way into Saxony. The Abbot Joscelin had in vain attempted to drive out those on the Scheldt, who from their fortified camp at Courtrai made perpetual raids for pillage into the Western Kingdom. Nevertheless, King Louis III won over them at Saucourt in Ponthieu a renowned victory, commemorated by a cantilène, a popular song in celebration of it, in the German language which has come down to us. Yet it did not hinder the Danes settled at Ghent from reaching the valley of the Meuse and forming a new entrenched camp at Elsloo. During the winter of 881-882 they burnt Liège, Tongres, Cologne, Bonn, Stavelot, Prüm and Aix, and took possession of Trèves. Walo, the Bishop of Metz, who with Bertulf, Archbishop of Trèves, had put himself at the head of the defenders, was defeated and killed in April 882. At the assembly held at Worms (May 882), Charles the Fat, who was returning from Italy, determined to act with vigour, and gathered a numerous army at the head of which he placed to second his efforts two tried warriors, Arnulf of Carinthia, and Henry, Count or Duke of Thuringia. But on the point of attacking the camp at Elsloo his courage failed. He fell back on the dangerous method, already too often practised by the Carolingians, of negotiating with the invaders. Of their leaders Godefrid (Guðröðr) obtained Frisia as a fief on condition of receiving baptism, and Sigefrid (Sigröðr) was paid to withdraw.

The chief part of the great Northman army then turned to attack the Western Kingdom. By the autumn they were ravaging it up to the gates of Rheims. The aged archbishop, Hincmar, was forced to leave his metropolitan city and flee for refuge to Epernay, where he died on 21 December 882. Carloman succeeded in checking the Danes more than once on the banks of the Aisne and of the Vicogne, but the invasion was not beaten off. Another fortified camp was formed by the Northmen at Condé on the Scheldt. The bands which came forth from it next year seized Amiens, and ravaged the district between the Seine and the Oise without meeting with resistance. Carloman was obliged to negotiate with them, and, thanks to the intervention of Sigefrid, he obtained a pledge that the band in cantonments near Amiens should evacuate the Western Kingdom in consideration of the enormous sum of 12,000 pounds of silver (884). The engagement, moreover, was respected. The main part of the great Northman army crossed over to England, but other bands passed into the kingdom of Lorraine, and a party among them settled down behind the woods and marshes which covered the site of the present town of Louvain.

Such was the position of things at the time when Charles the Fat became sole ruler of the Frankish Empire and the magnates of France and Lorraine came to do homage to their new sovereign at Gondreville