Paper 13 - Vikings in Francia PDF

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The impact of Viking invaders in Francia...

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Vikings in Francia Harald Klak, was a member of the Danish ruling clan, who was driven away by his rivals. He commended himself to Louis the Pious and was frequently aided by Louis in internal Danish politics. Harald was baptised in Mainz and was given a fief in northern Frisia. Harald later joined Lothar in his rebellion against Louis, helping him defend the Moselle in 842. In 836 Horik asked Louis for money in return for killing and capturing some of Harald’s men. Horik was given satisfaction by the emperor for the murder of some of his envoys in Cologne. In 839 Louis dipatched dukes to deal with Frisian attacks on Denmark. The Viking chieftan Weland commended themselves to Charles the Bald and swore fealty, his family and himself were also baptised. He died as a result of trial by combat, having been accused by other vikings in Charles’s service of disloyalty to Charles. Harald Klak’s son Rudolf became the man of Lothar’s son Lothar II, who made a substantial payment to him in 864. An Annal entry regardin Weland tells us that when winter stopped his vikings from returning, they found winter quarters in Charles’s kingdom, splitting into groups. There are many references to Viking leaders, but this rarely meant the king of a geographical area in their country of origin. Often Viking leaders were members of royal lines who had left their country. In a letter of Einhard, he states that it would be unfair to fine the men that were unable to attend to an assembly because they were defending the coast at the emperors command. In 865, Pope Nicholas I wrote that the majority of the bishops and other royal vassals are guarding the coast. In 820 a group of Danish ships was repelled from Flanders and then the mouth of the Seine, they had to travel to Aquitaine until they found a place undefended enough. By the late 830s, it appears that this system was breaking down. The lantweri were specifically intended to counter invasion. A proclamation by Charles the Bald at Meerssen in 847 tells us that this involved the conscription of the entire Frankish population, whether they regularly served in the host or not. A capitulary of 865 states that the missi in charge of the region under attack were responsible for assembling an army to oppose the invaders. Local bishops, abbots, and abbesses were instructed to send their full complement of troops, while counts and royal vassals were to command contingents in person. In 869 the Loire Vikins were defeated by the men from between the Seine and the Loire, under the command of two local counts. In 880 Abbot Gauzlin of St Denis sent word to the people that they should ammass and annihilate the Northmen. Conscription was done by magnates. The Edict of Pîtres repeated the demand for rolls to be maintained. The magnates were responsible for mustering their followers and leading them to a place of assembly. A capitulary of Lothar I from

846 reveals that each squadron was led by between two and four missi. There are many instances recorded of soldiers abandoning the battle once their magnate had died. Vikings could always escape, there are only three recorded cases of siege, in two of these cases, the Franks won. Vikings avoided battle wherever possible. No capitularies survive for the reign of an East Frankish king, including Charles the Fat. We know that the emperor held assemblies to coordinate military defence throughout 882. In 882 the army sent to attack the Norse camp at Asselt in Lotharingia was made up of Lombards, Bavarians, Alemans, Saxons and Thuringians. The same thing was said of the army he brought to the relief of Paris, according to Abbo of St-Germain-des-Prés. In 881 Charles’s grandson Louis III had a stronghold put up Étrun to try and block the River Scheldt. Carloman II granted an abbet to the bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne on the conditio that it be held for the time by a royal vasallus to defend the kingdom from the pagans. Charles the Bald proclaimed in the 864 capitulary of Pîtres that fortifications could only be built with royal approval. The lack of capitularies might cloud the royal initiative involved later in the ninth century. The narrative source which tells us about the fortification of the monastery of St-Vaast makes no mention of the king. A charter of King Odo from 890 spells out that this work had been done explicitly on the authority of Charles the Fat. In 887 Bishop Geilo of Langres came to the imperial court to gain approbal for his building work, and to be granted extra resources. Charles made a significant grant of land to the monastery of Prüm in 882 to compensate for the Danish attacks of that year. Gifts were made to the abbeys of St Martin, Tours, and St Medard granting royal authority to build cells on the property they had been given. A royal charter of 887 to the monastery of Korvey insists on the temporary reversion of past grants of exemption due to the time of crisis. Thirty homines nobiles were to accompany the abbot if he were to go on missions for the king. The two defendors of Paris were close to the emperor. Theoderic was one of Louis III’s main commanders against the Vikings. When Carloman organised defence for the bridge at Châlons-sur-Marne, our text tells us that it was on the advice of Theoderic. Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés tells us that the force commanded by Theoderic and Aletramnus was the same force that had been sent to Paris by Charles the Fat. This suggests that they were commanders of imperial defence. Ecclesiastics were the ones who would be taxed heavily for tribute. Abbo does not reproach Charles, and instead reports the joy of the Parisian populace at his arrival. Regino of Prüm and Abbo both justify the decision to allow the vikings to winter in Burgundy. In 881 the Great Army is said to have ‘laid waste’ to the palace at Aachen in 881, yet in the next sentence the writer states that the Northmen stabled their horses in the royal chapel. In 877 and 884 the St. Vaast annalist commented that the churches are being plundered, but in reference to royal demand for tribute.

The Libellus adversus Wenilonem of 859 describes the looting carried out by Louis the German’s troops during an invasion of the West Frankish kingdom. A letter written by Hincmar to Louis the German in 862 claims that the churches were the victims of these events. The Annals of St Bertin claim that Lothar looted churches in 841 and accuse Charles the Bald of the same crime in Aquitaine in 854 and 868. Two reports of the sack of Nantes in July 843 differ. One reports that the Vikings laid waste, plundered and razed the buildings, the other reports that it was people who were killed, claiming that the churchw was reconsecrated three months later. Altfrid in his Vita Liudgeri claimed that along the Frisian coast, churches had been burned, monasteries destroyed and that these regions were reduced to a wilderness. There were no monasteries along the Frisian coast, however, raids were reduced in size by the time he was writing, single coin finds demonstrate continuing commercial activity in the Frisian region through the 840s and beyond. At the Synod of Savonniéres in 859 various West Frankish magnates, including Robert the Strong, Odo and Heriveus were accused of plundering churches. Vikings could cause upheaval, but locals often took advantage of the dissaray, in Ademar of Chabannes story about the monks of Poitevin, the villains are not the vikings, who forced the monks to give their piece of the cross to Count Vulgrin, but the count himself for refusing to give it back. Bishop Gunbald issued an edict in 922 lamenting the fate of the church ‘prostrated by the persecution of pagans and thrown into disorder by treacherous Christians’. In her study of three religious houses in Aquitaine, she finds that the charter record indicates the re-emergence of activity whilst the restoration charters and chronicle entries emphasise sudden destruction and sudden restoration. The Fragmentum de Petragoricensibus episcopis, a late twelfth-century chronicle claimed that monks fled Saint-Astier after the Vikings destroyed the house. Bishop Radulf, meanwhile, who restored the house in 1013, stated that the original church had fallen due to old age. Bernard Gui stated that the house of Saint-Augustin was destroyed by Vikings, though Turpio of Limoges, the restorer of the house only blaims his own shortcomings as a pastor. Paganism was problematic because they weren’t confined by religious rules of warfare, nor were they bothered about systematically targetting religious houses. Ninth-century Frankish writers reacted strongly to the payment of tribute, often blaming this tactic for the impoverishment of the kingdom and for disgrace. Tribute was an established way of settling military and political disputes. A besieged fleet of Vikings on the Loire in 853 fave their opponents tribute, so did a group of raiders in Frisia in 873 when they were trapped by a local army. Often, the payment of tribute was militarily successful, ithere is no suggestion in contemporary sources that any of the armies which took tribute from Charles the Bald returned to the West Frankish realm. The string of victories won over the Vikings who were based in Aquitaine in the 860s did little to restrain their activities. The sources very rarely tell us that the Vikings demanded tribtue, rather it seems to have been a Frankish incentive.

Tribute increased resentment of the Church to the aristocracy. Churchmen saw this as a sign that laymen were failing to do their duty to defend the kingdom and the church. The Lotharingian monastery of Xanten and the Abbey of Fulda criticised Charles the Bald’s payment of tribute, claiming it was cowardice, when in fact he was forced to pay tribute because his troops were unwilling to offer effective resistance. It is important to point out that the Viking raids did not produce a single ‘effect’. This was not a series of military assaults from a politically ambitious, geographically defined polity, rather Viking armies were dynamic, fluid collections of warriors whose purpose was mainly to raid, and then to return. The Vikings did not share a political agenda, nor, even when overwintering, did they seek to establish political control over Francia. Vikings could actually engage in a mutually beneficial relationship with Carolingian rulers if they were provided with incentive, and with the above in mind, this should not surprise us, this did not constitute a betrayal of one’s army or homeland. Harald Klak, a member of the Danish ruling clan, rather than impacting upon the Carolingian empire as an external foe, played a mercenary role in internal political conflict, being first commended to Louis the Pious, then joining Lothar in his rebellion against Louis. Another chieftain by the name of Horik asked Louis for money in return for killing and capturing some of Harald’s men, and later Horik was given satisfaction for the murder of his envoys in Cologne. Again, Horik was not attacking the Carolingian empire, rather he was opportunistic in becoming part of an existing conflict between Carolingian rulers and their clients. A final, remarkable example is that of Weland, who commended himself to Charles the Bald, swore fealty to him, and received baptism at his court; he died as a result of trial by combat, having been accused by other Vikings in Charles’s service of disloyalty to Charles. We must be wary of assuming a singular and negative political impact when discussing Vikings, their attacks were opportunistic, and sometimes this opportunism could manifest itself in alliance rather than attack; they could form an aspect of the political system rather than an antagonistic force. Let us turn to the more destructive aspects of Viking raids. As previously stated, the Vikings were not following a political agenda, thus many of their attacks were directed towards looting and leaving, such action was particularly directed towards religious houses. This in itself is important, and goes some way in explaining the reaction we find in the source material. The destructive nature of such expeditions is often overemphasised by chroniclers. In 881, the Great Army is said to have ‘laid waste’ to the palace at Aachen, but in the next sentence the writer states that the Northmen stabled their horses in the royal palace. Though destruction undoubtedly occurred, we should recognise that Vikings were, for the most part, attempting to steal valuable goods, they were not attempting to lay waste for the sake of it. An interesting comparison can be drawn between two accounts of the sack of Nantes in 843, one reports that the Vikings laid waste, plundered and razed the buildings, the other reports that people were killed, and that the church was re-consecrated three months after. We should be careful in distinguishing between the physical impact of Viking raids, and polemical discourse. If Vikings were, in many cases, looting, rather than destroying, this was

not too far removed from the actions of Frankish magnates. At the Synod of Savonniérs in 859, various West Frankish magnates were accused of plundering churches. In an edict of 922 which lamented the effects of the period in question, Bishop Gunbald lamented the fate of the church ‘prostrated by the persecution of pagans and thrown into disorder by treacherous Christians’. Indeed, there are numerous examples of Frankish magnates seizing on times of uncertainty to make gains from the church. Ademar of Chabannes vilifies Count Vulgrin in an account of him using Viking conscripts to force the monks of Poitevin to give up a piece of the true cross. Looting of Church property was not a specifically ‘Viking’ impact, this urges caution in how much significance we attach to this process alone. Again, this weakens the argument for the Vikings being a threat to the political order, their actions were not always distinct from those which could occur within the Carolingian political order. It is not clear that Viking invasions highlighted inherent weaknesses in the Empire’s ability to defend itself. Reuter argued for Carolingian offensive warfare as something based on warfare itself, in the sense that it was the products of offensive warfare which financed the more powerful expeditions, whereas defensive warfare, having little such incentive was necessarily local and less the prerogative of the Emperor. Implicit in this argument is a weakness in Frankish defence. This does not seem to have been the case, a proclamation by Charles the Bald at Meerssen in 847 tells us that the entire Frankish population was to react in response to an invasion, whether they served in the host or not. A capitulary of 865 states that missi in charge of the region under attack were responsible for assembling an army to oppose invaders. Bishops and abbots were to provide troops, whilst counts and royal vassals were to command contingents in person. That such measures were instituted is suggested by an annal entry of 869, whereby the Loire Vikings were defeated by men from between the Seine and the Loire under the command of two local counts. This suggests there were royal directives aimed at defence, and that these defensive measures were not simply ad hoc reactions, but systematised processes, headed not only by agents of the king, but by counts, who in these cases, had no loot-based incentive. Other methods of repelling the Vikings, particularly the provision of tribute, is seen by many ecclesiastical writers as a sign of weakness. We should be aware of the fact that churches often bore the burden of such payments, and were more inclined to blame such tactics on a failure by the monarch to defend his realm, accounts from Xanten and Fulda criticise the cowardice of Charles the Bald for paying tribute, when in fact, in this context, hi troops were unwilling to offer effective resistance. The payment of tribute as a means of defence was not a new initiative, in fact it was a common practice, the Vikings even paid tribute, as did a besieged fleet on the Loire in 853. Often tribute payment was not demanded, but the initiative of Franks, indeed such a measure provided the incentive that Viking sought, whereas military expeditions often ended in the Vikings fleeing, reforming and attacking again. The string of victories won over the Vikings in Aquitaine in the 860s did little to restrain their activities. The Carolingian Empire was thus able to defend itself effectively given that the Vikings were innately such a difficult foe to oust permanently, moreover defence was part of an organised royal initiative.

The siege of Paris, occurring in the reign of the last Carolingian Emperor, seems like a potent example of intrinsic political impact, and it is easy to link this deterministically to Carolingian ‘downfall’. No capitularies survive for the reign of an East Frankish king, but this silence should not be taken as inactivity. There are important markers of strong, coordinated royal initiative in defence. In 882 for example, we know that an army made up of Lombards, Bavarians, Alemans, Saxons and Thuringians attacked the Norse camp at Asselt, the same thing was said of the army brought to the relief of Paris. These were not then local initiatives, which highlighted political fracture, but initiatives organised at the centre, taking troops from a series of regions, united under a royal directive. Other measures can be obscured by source survival, indicated by a narrative source which makes no mention of a king in describing the fortification of St-Vaast, though a charter from King Odo spells out that this work had been done explicitly on the authority of Charles the Fat. We know that in 887 the bishop of Langres came to the imperial court for approval of his building work, and to be granted extra resources. Gifts were made to the monastery of Prüm in 882 to compensate for Danish attacks of that year, and a charter to Korvey insists on the temporary reversion of past grants of exemption due to the time of crisis. There is therefore much evidence for royally directed defensive measures across a wide area, moreover that the king was able to compensate monasteries at the same time cautions against assuming weakness on Charles’s part, or disillusionment on the part of those affected by raids. There is much to suggest that the defenders of Paris were royal agents. Theoderic was one of Louis III’s main commanders against the Vikings, Carloman’s organisation of defensive works was apparently on the advice of Theoderic. Abbo tells us that the force commanded by Theoderic and Aletramnus was the same force that had been sent to Paris by Charles the Fat. We get the impression that these men were commanders of imperial defence. Abbo, as someone who was close to the event, tells us that the Parisian populace was overjoyed at his arrival, and both he and Regino of Prüm justify his decision to allow the Viking to winter in Burgundy given the recent disloyalty of the Burgundians....