Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/31

Rh prevails and draws its children back to itself. The seafaring impulse declines; activity turns inward; the province is finally absorbed in the nation; Normandy is again a part of France, and the originality and distinctness of its history fade away in the life of the whole.

Philosophy or no philosophy, the history of Normandy falls for our purposes into three convenient periods. The first of these extends from the earliest times to the coming of the Northmen in 911, the event which created Normandy as a distinct entity. The second is the history of the independent Norman duchy from 911 to the French conquest in 1204, the three splendid centuries of Norman independence and Norman greatness. The third period of seven hundred years deals with Normandy as a part of France.

The interest and importance of these several periods vary with the point of view. Many people are of the opinion that the only history which matters is modern history, and the more modern the better because the nearer to ourselves and our time. To such everything is meaningless before the French Revolution or the Franco-Prussian War— or perhaps the War of 1914. To those who care only for their own time the past has no perspective; as a distinguished maker and writer of history has said, James Buchanan and Tiglath-Pileser become contemporaries. This foreshortened interes