Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/142

 NORTHMEN

116

NORTHMEN

The Finns occupied the northern part of modern Swe- den, and the Danes the southern extremity and the eastern shores of the Ciittogat, while tlic N'orwi'KiatiH stretclied down the coast of the Skagcr-liurk, culliiii^ off tlu' Sweili's from the Western si'a. The inhabi- tants of those kingdoms liore a general resemblanee to the Teutonii- pccples, with whom they were connected in race and language. In their social condition and religion they were not unlike the Angles and Saxons of the sixth century. Though we cannot account satis- factorily for the exodus, we may say that it was due generally to the increase of the population, to the breaking down of the old tribal system, and the efforts of the kings, especially of Harold Fairhair, to consoli- date their power, and finally to the love of adventure and the discovery that the lands and cities of Western Christenilom lay at their mercy.

The Northmen invaded the West in three main streams; the most southerly started from South Nor- way and Denmark and, passing along the German coast, visited both sides of theChannel, rounded the Hret(m promon- tory, and reached the mouths of the Loire and the Garonne. It had an offshoot to the west of England and Ireland and in some cases it was prolonged to the coasts of Spain and Portugal (where Northmen came into contact with Sara^ cen) and even into the Mediterranean and to Italy. The midmost stream crossed from the same region directly to the east and north of England, while the northern stream flowed from Norway westwards to the Orkneys and other islands, and, dividing there, moved on towards Ice- land or southwards to Ireland and the Irish Sea. The work of destruction which the first stream of North- men wrought on the continent is told in words of de- spair in what is left of the Frankish Chronicles, for the pagan and greedy invaders seem to have singled out the monasteries for attack and must have destroyed most of the records of their own devastation. A Danish fleet appeared off Frisia in 810, and ten years later another reached the mouth of the Loire, but the systematic and persevering assault did not begin till about 835. From that date till the early years of the following century the Viking ships were almost annual visitors to the coasts and river valleys of Germany and Gaul. About 850 they began to establish island strongholds near the mouths of the rivers, where they could winter and store their booty, and to which they could retire on the rare occasions when the Frankish or English kings were able to check their raids. Such were Walcheren at the mouth of the Scheldt, Sheppey at that of the Thames, Oissel in the lower Seine, and Noirmoutier near the Loire. For over seventy years Gaul seemed to lie almost at the mercy of the Danes. Their ravages spread backwards from the coasts and river valleys; they penetrated even to Auvergne. There was httle resistance whether from king or count. Robert the Strong did, indeed, succeed in defending Paris and so laid the foundations of what was after- wards the house of Capet, but he was killed in 866. In the end the success of the Danes brought this period of destruction to a close; the raiders turned into col- onists, and in 911 Charles the Simple, by granting Normandy to Rollo, was able to estabUsh a barrier

Viking Boat, Norway

against further invasion. Meanwhile, England had been assailed not only from the Channel and the south- west, but also by Viking ships crossing the North Sea. Till' Danes for a time had been even more successful than in tiaul, for Northern and Eastern <listricts fell altogether into their hands and the fate of Wessex seemed to have been decided by a succession of I )anish victories in 871. Alfred, however, succeeded in re- covering the upper hand, the country was |)artitioned between Dane and West Saxon, and for a lime further raids were stopped by the formation of a fleet and the defeat of Hastings in 893.

To Ireland, too, the Northmen came from two directions, from south and north. It was one of the first countries of the West to suffer, for at the begin- ning of the ninth century it was the weakest. The Vikings arrived even before 800, and as early as 807 their ships visited the west coast. They were, how- ever, defeated near Killamey in 812 and the full fury of the attack did not fall on the country till 820. Twenty years later there ap- jiear to have been three Norse "king- doms" in Ireland, those of Dublin, Wa- terford, and Limer- ick, with an over- king, but the Irish won a series of vic- tories, while war broke out between the Danes coming by the Channel .and the N orwegians descend- ing from the north. For the next century and a half the Dan- ish wars continued. Neither party gained a distinct advantage and both the face of the coun- try and the national character suffered. Finally in 1014, on Good Friday, at Clontarf, on the shores of Dublin Bay, the Danes suffered a great defeat from Brian Born. Henceforth they ceased to be an aggres- sive force in Ireland, though they kept their position in a number of the coast towns.

During the earlier attacks on Ireland the Scotch Is- lands and especially the Orkneys had become a per- manent centre of Norse power and the home of those who had been driven to a life of adventure by the cen- tralization carried out by Harold Fairhair. They even returned to help the king's enemies; to such an extent that about 885 Harold followed up a victory in Norway by taking possession of the Orkneys. The result was that the independent spirits amongst the Vikings pushed on to the Faroes and Iceland, which had been already explored, and established there one of the most remarkable homes of Norse civilization. About a hundred years later the Icelanders founded a colony on the strip of coast between the glaciers and the sea, which, to attract settlers, they called Greenland, and soon after occurred the temporary settlement in Vin- land on the mainland of North America. But the prows of the Viking ships were not always turned towards the West. They also followed the Norwe- gian coast past the North Cape and established trade relations with "Biarmaland" on the shores of the White Sea. The Baltic, however, provided an easier route to the east and in the ninth and tenth centuries it was a Swedish Lake. By the middle of the ninth cen- tury a half-mythical Ruric reigned over a Norse or "Varangian" Kingdom at, Novgorod and, in 880, one of his successors, Oleg, moved his capital to Kiev, and ruled from the Baltic to the Black Sea. He imposed on Constantinople itself in 907 the humihation which

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