The Normans: Land Vikings

The Normans. Among my favourite warrior peoples and that is why they're the Warrior Peoples of the week. Who were these strange peoples?

Imagine you're a French King in the 800s. Charlemagne, your great-great grandaddy is dead. Leaving you with a hefty inheritance, beset by barbarians. Including the Northmen. You need a plan, your native levies are terrified by these peoples. You decide to be smart about this. Why not invite these Northmen to stay instead of pillage. That way, you dont have to pay the greedy blondies everytime they threatned Paris.

A Danish Norsemen, Rollo was invited to stay with his people on coastal French land. Just as long as he defended it from other Vikings. Simple enough. In time, he became Christian but he was buried the traditional Viking way in a burning warship. His men soon intermarried with the local woman and a new people began to form. The Normans. The Normans weren't the only pseudo-Norsemen on the move. A group of Swedish ones went to Russia and the Volga River, Norwegian ones pillaged and settled in the British Isles. But the Normans were different...

Sure, most Vikings would pillage than settle down eventually. After all, Scandinavia was a bit crowded in those days. However, the Normans didn't stop after they settled down. Their greatest triumphs were AFTER they settled down. Their first adventures were in Italy. Some Norman pilgrims would go down to Italy to get to the Holy Land and Italian lords saw their natural martial skills. Soon, Norman bands were working for the Italians killing their enemies for some land and cash.

By the early 11th century, bands of Normans wandering around finally got some leadership. Under Robert "the Weasel" Guiscard. They conquered Sicily and soon Normans were all over the Mediterranean including the Byzantine Empire helping hold back the many Bulgars, Slavs, Arabs, Turks, Armenians, Russians etc who wanted them dead. This was all before 1066.

In England, King Edward the Confessor had died. He'd promised his throne to William, Duke of Normandy. Another person who wanted the throne was Harald Hardrada, a Norsemen from Norway. Harold Godwinson got the throne in the end and both Harald and William went about getting their forces ready to conquer England for themselves, since such was the Norse way.

Harold had to rush his troops to the north of England to defeat Harald's troops but just as soon as the battle was ended. News arrived that William of Normany had landed in the far south. He had to trot his army, though exhausted down south again. Perhaps the exhaustion did the Saxon Housecarls in but the Normans destroyed the Anglo-Saxons at Hastings and set about crushing England. So thoroughly was England crushed that only Norman lords resided over the country. This pattern was repeated in Wales and Scotland. Some Scottish clans like Montgomery are of Norman ancestry. Ireland was treated this way too.

The Normans didn't stop in England. Italian-Normans joined in the crusades as soon as they were started. Ever land hungry, the founded the Kingdom of Antioch. Surrounded by hundreds of thousands if not millions of Muslims, this kingdom lasted till near the 13th centuries.

Well, what happened to the Normans. Why aren't we speaking "Normish" or whatever language they spoke. Well, the Normans didn't have a culture. The Normans took on French culture after all. Wherever they went, they became the indigenous peoples. They became French, Italian, English, Scottish, Irish, Greek and Syrian. That's what happens to the best of them I suppose. They fade away....