Page 65 - BV17

The House of Israel 65

character of the English people of the 11th and earlier cen- but the Viking chiefs were easy on the matter of mar-
turies is very closely akin to that of the modern English. riage and frequently had concubines as well as lawful
There is danger that nonsense may be promulgated about wives.
the line of English sovereigns beginning with William the
Conqueror. Among the British peoples, the English are Rollo was styled the Patrician of Normandy,
distinguished by the dreadful trait of snobbery. It is true as was his son, but thereafter the title of Duke was
that Normans settled in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but used. The 6th Duke was Robert II known as the Devil
few if any Scots, Welsh or Irish would dream of priding and the Magnificent. It was his bastard, William, the
themselves on Norman descent. In England, families of son of Arlotta, daughter of a tanner of Falaise, who
note love to talk of “coming over with the Conqueror,” al- conquered England. William was thus descended from
most always a myth. Rollo whose descent is traced from Fornjot King of
Finland, some centuries before 911. This information
Scandinavian Ancestry comes from the Heimskingla, the chronicle of the
Kings of Normandy, which contains an account of
In the 9th and 10th centuries the lands of Norway Odin, who led his people from Asia into Europe, and
and Denmark sent bands of adventurers in search of loot. who figures in the direct ancestry of Her Majesty,
Very soon many of these Danes, or Vikings as they were Queen Elizabeth II.
collectively named, began to settle in the lands which they
had raided and found them far more economically attrac- The Numbers of the Normans
tive than the rocky barrenness of Norway. In Ireland, the
Danes settled around the coasts and founded most of the It is important to be sure of this. In most cases
ports. In England they secured the north eastern part of the of Viking settlement the numbers were not over large
country which became known as the Danelaw. Their influ- -- judging by the size of the long ships which have
ence is shown in many place names, like Grimsby (Grim’s been preserved. There could always, of course, have
Cliff) and Whitby, and in words of Norse origin which been arrivals of reinforcements, but the Viking settle-
came into the English language. Alfred the Great fought ments were not like those of the English in the 5th cen-
them to a standstill in the 9th century. His successors, the tury. The latter were migrations of peoples which
Kings of Wessex, reconquered the Danelaw and became turned the former ex-province of Britain into England.
Kings of England. When they declined in the 11th century The Viking settlement in Normandy was that of a rela-
the Danes conquered England, and Danish kings reigned tively small body of warriors, who for the most part
from 1016 to 1042. The English King, Ethelred the Un- found their women among the natives. If we reckon
ready fled to the court of his brother-in-law, the Duke of 20,000 as the number of Rollo’s adherents we are
Normandy, Richard II. probably putting the number too high.

The Origin of Normandy Within a few generations they were absorbed
into the French population. In the 150 years after 911,
A century before Richard II, the Vikings had rav- the only place where Scandinavian speech still lin-
aged northern France. The French King Charles the Sim- gered was Bayeaux. Odo, William’s brother, the
ple finding that he could not expel them, made a settlement bishop needed help to talk to this section of his flock.
with their leader, Rollo or Rolf. In 911, in a treaty between
Charles and Rollo, the latter was recognized as ruler over William himself, though illiterate, was far too
the country which came to be known as Northman’s land intelligent not to know of his Norse ancestry; so, too,
or Normandy. In return, Rollo and his men became Chris- must his closest associates have known. But they
tians, i.e. were baptized. Rollo did fealty to the French thought of themselves as Frenchmen, and they had the
King. He is supposed to have married the latter’s daughter audacity to feel superior to the English who were a

The Berean Voice September-October 2002