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Rh Friesland. For some forty years he remained there, now in friendly, now in hostile relations with both Charles the Bald and Louis the German, and he does not disappear from our records until after 873. About the same time Horic the Younger must have died, for we find two new kings reigning simultaneously in Denmark, the brothers Sigefridus and Halbdenus. Both were probably sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók, the former being the famous Sigurðr Snake-eye and the latter the already-mentioned Halfdanr.

In the year 879 the tide of invasion turned once more towards France, chiefly owing to two causes. The great attack on England had failed. or at least had led to a peaceful settlement, which furnished no outlet for Viking energy, while at the same time affairs in France were once more unsettled. Charles the Bald died in 877, followed 18 months later by his son Louis the Stammerer, who left two youthful children, Louis and Carloman, and a posthumous son Charles. Factions arose and the Vikings were never slow to hear and take advantage of them. When a great fleet which had wintered at Fulham found no opening in England, it crossed to France. There the young Louis won a decisive victory over it at Saucourt on the Somme, and the victory finds its record in the well-known Ludwigslied. An attack by the Northmen on Saxony and the lower Rhine was more successful. In a great fight which took place somewhere on the Lüneburg Heath 2 February 880, there fell Duke Bruno of Saxony together with two bishops, eleven counts and eighteen royal vassals. In 882 the Emperor Charles the Fat came to terms with the Viking leaders, Sigefrid and Guðröðr. King Guðröðr, who was probably a son of the Harold of Mayence, himself accepted Christianity and was granted lands on the lower Rhine, and at the same time undertook to defend Charles's territory from attack. King Sigefrid retired with a heavy payment of money. Guðröðr received his lands on much the same conditions as Charles the Simple granted Normandy to Rollo, but intriguing with the enemies of Charles he aroused hostility and was slain in 885. He had thrown away the chance of establishing a Normandy in the Low Countries. Viking rule was now brought to an end in Frisia, and henceforward we hear only of sporadic attacks which continued into the tenth century. So also from 885 Saxony was free from attack, and when trouble was renewed in the tenth century the attack was not made by sea but across the Eider boundary.

The West Frankish kingdom was still in the midst of the storm. Louis III and Carloman and the local magnates offered a stout resistance, but it seemed impossible to throw off the yoke of the here which ravaged the whole country between the Rhine and the Loire. The contest culminated in the great siege of Paris by King Sigefrid in 885-7. The Viking army numbered some 40,000 men with 700 vessels, and it was only through the stout resistance of Count Odo, and Bishop Joscelin and the withdrawal of the Vikings to Burgundy by an arrangement with Charles