Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/708

* NORMANS. 608 NORNS. they swarmeil up the great rivers into the in- terior of the country, which they devastated far and wide. In 842 they were at Rouen. In 845 they ascended the Seine and plundered Paris — an exploit which was frequently repeated. In 885 not less than 40,000 of these Vikings, in 700 ves- sels, are said to have ascended the river from Kouen, under the leadership of one Siegfried, and besieged the cajHtal for ten months. It was only saved at the expense of Burgundy, which was abandoned to their ravages. In 881 Louis III., King of the West Franks, inflicted a severe defeat on the invaders at ineu, near Abbeville, in I'ieardy; but neither that nor the repulse which they sustained from the brave German monarch Ariiulf near Louvain in 801 could hinder them from making fresh irruptions. In 8!)2 they ap- peared before Bonn, and tradition says that bands of Danish rovers ])enctrated even into Switzer- land, and established themselves in the Canton of Schwyz and the Vale of Hasli. From their settle- ments in Aquitania they proceeded at an early period to Spain, plundered the coasts of Galieia in 844, and subsequently landed in Andalusia, but were defeated near Seville by the Arab prince AbdurRahman. In 859-800 they forced their way into the Mediterranean, ])lundered the shores of Spain, Africa, and the Balearic Isles, and penetrated up the Rhone as far as Valence; then, turning their piratical |irows in the direction of Italy, entered the Tyrrhenian Sea, burned Pisa and Lucca, and actually touched distant Greece before their passion for destruction was satiated. Doubtless Norwegian rovers also took part in these so-called Danish expeditions. We know that as early as the beginning of the ninth cen- turv they made voyages to the north of Ireland, Sco'tland", the Hebrides, the Orkney and Shetland Isles; and the increasing power of Harald Uaar- fagr (q.v.), in the ninth and tenth centuries, exciting great discontent among the smaller chiefs, great emigrations took place, and these islands became the new homes of these Norwegian Vikings. About the same period colonies were settled in the Faroe Isles and Icelaml, from which some Vikings proceeded westward across the North Atlantic to Greenland about 1183, and thence alxiut 20 years later southward to a region which they called ]'iithi»<l, believed by some to be the coast of Canada or of New Eng- land, thus probably anticipating the discovery of America by Columlius by nearly 500 years. From Norway also issued the last and most important expedition against the coast of France. It was led by Hrolf or Rollo (q.v.). Hrolf forced Charles the Simple to grant him possession of all the land in the valley of the Seine, from the Eple and Eure to the sea' (911 or 912). The invaders firmly planted themselves in the country, which hence- forth went by the name of Normandy ((].v.). They and their descendants are, strictly speak- ing, the Normans of history. They rapidly adopt- ed the more civilized form of life that prevailed in the Frankish kingdom— its religion, language, and manners. .t a later ])eriod, the twelfth cen- tury, they even develoi)ed a great school of nar- rative poetry, whose cultivators, the Trouiciirs, or Trouvcrcs, rivaled in celebrity (he lyrical trou- badours of Southern France. But though the Normans had acquired comparatively settled habits in France, the old passion for adventure was still strong in their binod ; and in the course of the eleventh century many nobles with their followers betook themselves to Southern Italy, where the strifes of the native princes, Greek and Arab, opened up a tine prospect for ambitions designs. In 1059 Robert Gui.scard (q.v.), one of the ten sons of the Norman Count Tancrcd de Ilauteville, all of whom had gone thither, was recognized by Pope Nicholas II. as Duke of .pu- lia and Calabria. His brother and liegeman. Roger, conquered Sicily. Roger II. of Sicily united the two dominions in 1127 and in IKiO assumed the title of King of Sicily; but in the person of his grandson, William II„ the Norman dvTiasty became extinct, and the kingdom passed into tiie hands of the Hohenstautlen family. These Normans of Italy played also a consider- able role in the Crusades, especially in the first, of which Bohemund I. (q.v.) and Tancred (q.v.) were among the principal leaders. See CKi'.s. E. The Swedish Norsemen directed their expedi- tions chielly against the eastern coasts of the Baltic — Courland. Estlidnia. and Finland — where they made their appearance in the ninth century, at the very time when their Danish and Nor- wegian brethren were roving over the North Sea, the English Channel, and the Bay of Biscay, and were establishing themselves on the shores of England and France. Acconling to the narra- tive of the Russian annalist Nestor, they ajipear to have penetrated into the interior as far as Novgorod, whence they W('re quickly lianished by the native Slavic and Finnish inhabitants, but were as quickly solicited to return and assume the reins of government. Rurik (q.v.) founded one kingdom at Novgorod (8(52), which stretched northward as far as the White Sea. His successor, Oleg, united with that a second, established by other Swedish adventurers at Kiev. (See Rus- SIA.) For a long period these Norsemen, who, it appears, became completely identified with their Slavic-speaking subjects in the tenth cen- tury, were dangerous enemies of the Byzantine Kni])ire. whose coasts they reached by way of the Black Sea, and whose capital, Constantinople, they frequently menaced, as. for instance, when Igor is said to have appeared before the city with upward of 1000 ships or boats, about the middle of the tenth century. Earlier in the same century these warriors had fouml their way into the Caspian Sea, and actually |ipne- trated as far as Persia. Partly from them and partly from native Scandinavians came those soldiers who from the ninth to the twelfth cen- tury formed the bodygmird of the Byzantine em- perors, the celebrated Varangians (q.v.). Con- sult: Depping, flinloirr dru rxjUililions iiiori- timcs rfc.s Xormand-s (2d ed.. Paris, 1,843) ; Free- man, Historii of the yonniin Comiiirxl (Oxford, ]807-7(>) ; Dclarc, Lcs ynrmnndx en ItnUr (Paris, 1883) : Keary. ViLinps in BV.s/rni Chrixlrmlom (London. 1891): Du Chaillu, ViAin(7 .4src (New York. 1890) : Oman, History of the Art of War (Lnndnn. 18!I8». NORMANTON, ni".r'mon-ton. .V town in the West Rilling of Yorkshire, England, near the Calder, eight miles southeast of Leeds (Map: England, E .1). It is an important railway junction, and has coal-mining industries and iron works. Population, in 1891. 10.200; in 1901. 12.3.50. NOBNS (Icel. .A'oniir, Fates). The Fate- of the Scandinavian mythology-. They were three young women, by name L'rd, X'erdandi, and