Gone Medieval - Rollo: The First Norman

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Rollo was a Viking leader who became the first ruler of Normandy in the early 10th century. His descendants, the Normans, later conquered England and southern Italy, leaving a lasting legacy on European history. So how did a Viking outlaw became a respected Frankish Jarl and founder of a conquering dynasty? In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega meets Mathias Dilys, cultural interpreter at Château de Falaise in Normandy, to find out why canny political manoeuvres are often as important as military prowess.Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega and edited by Ella Blaxill. The producers are Joseph Knight and Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Don’t miss Dr. Eleanor Janega’s forthcoming series on the Normans on the History Hit TV channel. Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘MEDIEVAL’: https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Today I'm joined by Matthias Delis, historian and cultural interpreter at Flaise Castle in Normandy. To find out exactly how a Viking outlaw came to be a respected Frankish Yarrow and why canny political maneuvers are often as important as military prowess. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga and this is Gone Medieval. I was recently in Normandy to film an amazing program, if I do say so myself, all about the rise of the Normans, which will be out next month on the history hit TV channel.

It was during filming that I first met Matthias when he showed me around Philaise Castle, the birthplace of William the Conqueror. But I wanted to have a longer conversation with him to dig into the details of the founder of Normandy, Rolo. So I invited him to Gone Medieval to find out more about this anime. Anigmatic ruler. If you lovely listeners want to see the castles and cathedrals we're discussing, do check out the Norman's program next month on History Hit TV. There's a link in the show notes. Well, Matthias, first of all, thank you very, very much for joining us. It's so wonderful to speak with you again. Hi, Anna. Yeah, thank you. I'm so happy to be talking with you again. I'm really excited to speak with you today, especially because Rollo is one of these people that really excites historians. But he's kind of a little unscised. sung in general in the public imagination because we kind of don't really know much about him, right?

So we know he's the founder of the Norman dynasty. He founds Normandy itself as a province. But we know very little about his early life. Is that correct? Yes, exactly. He's a bit of a mysterious figure. So we need to take a look at the chronicles. He pops up in very separate chronicles.

So it's very difficult to take all of the chronicles at face value. but we can piece things together. So perhaps we could focus on his actual name because we call him Rollo, which is very convenient for us. It's rose of the tongue. That's the Latinized version of his name. But his actual Scandinavian name is a bit more of a mouthful. So let's start with the actual name.

So it's spelled H-R-O-L-F-R. So the H is aspirated. The R's are rolled and the O is O. And so it would sound something like Grolv, Grolv. So it's understandable that we wouldn't be able to very easily pronounce it. And this itself is two words combined together. The first half is

which means famous, glorious. And second half, which means wolf, which is a very common name among Vikings. So Grolv means glorious wolf, which is really quite nice. And he's got a nickname, which is a nickname, which is a very got a nickname, which was attributed to him later on. And his nickname is Genggu, Gengu, which means the wanderer, the walker. So it's the same origin as to go or Gien in German, the idea of

traveling. And the reason why he's got this nickname of Gengu is that there are two reasons, basically. First one is that he's been traveling all of the map in Europe. So he's really a wanderer. So that's the good part of the nickname, but there's also sort of a ridiculous part of the nickname, meaning that he was quite a tall person, apparently something close to six foot five for 280 pounds, which is really quite massive. And the legend says that people would have made fun of him because they tried to get him to ride a horse, but his feet would be dragging. So he was left with walking. We just have to remember that horses in those days were more like large ponies. So you had to have imagined tall Viking sitting on a pony.

That's not really a good look. So that's why his name. So there is this mystery as to his nationality. Was he a Norwegian or was he a Dane? And it's still not really settled to this day. So it depends essentially who you ask. So if you ask a Dane, Röler's going to be Danish. If you ask a Norwegian, he's going to be Norwegian, obviously.

But the leading theory is that he probably was a Norwegian. We know this probably because his father was probably a Norwegian count. called Rognvald, and his mother was probably a Norwegian countess called Rognhild. So Rognvald and Rognhild have a child. He's called Rolf, and that's the start of his epic. So he probably started his life already being a Viking, pillaging areas around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea as well, and one day he's going to commit a grave mistake,

going to change the course of his career, which is he's going to attack and pillage, a village in Norway called Vic. And from then on, the king of Norway will banish him. He will declare him an outlaw, which is the worst punishment, you can imagine, for a Scandinavian. And then he's going to be now a free agent. He's going to be his own man. And from there, his actual career as a Viking is really going to take off. So we can suppose that he traveled westwards towards the the British Isles, maybe even the Hebrides. And there is a bit of mystery as to what happened there, because he probably met a woman. We don't exactly know who she was, but he had a daughter with her,

and she was called Kathleen. The reason why I's a bit mysterious is that Kathleen is a Christian name, and it's also a Celtic name. So maybe his first relationship was with a Christian Celt from Northern England, meaning that religion was perhaps not that important in terms of marriages. And then from this moment when he was in Northern England, then he traveled south. And then we suppose that he arrived in Normandy around the year 905, probably. And that's when his history gets really interesting. So we also have some evidence, though, that is not just based on actual text. But we've got DNA evidence for where these guys have come from, correct?

Yeah, so I don't want to spoil things because that story is a bit of a bust, but it's interesting all the same. So in 2016, a team of Norwegian archaeologists and scientists were granted permission to open the usuraries of two of Williams descendants, two of his dukes. So Richard I and Richard the second entered in the Abbey of Fechon. So they were in lead boxes. So they opened those boxes, found bones and teeth, most importantly, because teeth are great if you want to extract DNA, because They're still pulp in the teeth and it's protected by the enamel of the teeth. So they took with them five teeth. They took a few bones and then returned to Norway to analyze this in their lab.

But the results were hugely disappointing because first of all, the DNA was not usable because the remains had been moved a lot through time up until the 1950s. They said, okay, well, if we can't extract DNA, let's at least try and date the bones. And so remember, these were supposed to be really the bones of Richard I'm first and Richard the second revered quite a long time. And so when they analyzed the DNA of those bones, the first set of bones was from the 8th century, so that's a good two centuries before Rodo even showed up in Normandy. And the second set of bones was basically a thousand years older.

So even before the Romans even showed up in the area. So we have no idea how these two gentlemen ended up in those boxes, but there was certainly not the remains of Richard I, Richard the second. So unfortunately, the question whether Rwold was Norwegian or not is not going to be settled anytime soon. Sorry about that. So, I mean, obviously, here we have a consummate Viking. And the big Viking thing to do at this time is rather to be attacking in the Frankish lands, what we now call France, right?

What are all the Vikings kind of doing down here in the first place? Well, we suppose that in Scandinavia, population was increasing. So there were more and more mouth to feed, and the agricultural land was not as productive as it used to be. So there's a huge incentive to be moving south. And so that means that there's going to be this new profession that's going to develop. You're not going to be a farmer. You can be a farmer full time. You can sometimes do what you call your vikinger, which means it's like a job. That means that for a few years, you're going to leave off with a merry band of pirates and try your luck in southern lands. For sure, a rollo is one of them. There are many examples of very epic Vikings like

Hastings. He's a very interesting character. He's really your typical Viking because he's really done basically everything the Viking does. And another famous one is Lord Brock, famously because we see him in the TV show, the Vikings. And so he's a very colorful character as well. What sort of distinguishes Rollo from the rest of these epic Vikings is that the chronicles oftentimes won't list all his accomplishments or the CITES he besieged, attacked, they just mentioned him as the person who conquered Normandy, and that's it. So that's really interesting in itself, because they don't really see him as just this lone adventurer who's just after riches and plunders. He's a founder and he's the person who thinks long term, not just

out of self-interest, but also because he's integrated into a new political system. From that, what areas is he conquering and raiding? Is he involved, do we know, in any sorts of raids that don't lead to the establishment of Normandy? Is he in any other bits? For example, the attacks on Paris that happen, anything like that? So it's generally around the area of the San River. There are a few other areas in northern France, but it's mainly around the San River. The reason why the San is just great for this is because it's almost like a motorway to go attack Paris. If you're Viking, just put a few signposts and off you go. Just this way,

Paris is on the end of the line and there are so many riches and the thing is, the King of France won't actually really give up much of a fight. So it's all there for the picking. So Rolo certainly wasn't the first one to attack and besiege Paris. So there were a few ones that had attacked Paris beforehand, but he had his eyes on Paris, so Rouen and Paris especially. We should also mentioned perhaps a figure from Rolo's early life, who was a bit of a mentor for him. Some of the chroniclers in France described this person as his father, even though he was not his father. He's a guy called Kutil. Ketil means in Scandinavian, Kordron. It's quite a common name as well for the Vikings, like Tor Kutil, Thor Ketil, Kordron of the god, Thaw. And Kutil gave our word Kettle. So he was a bit of a

mentor for Rolo. So he taught him how to navigate complicated political landscape because France certainly was a very complicated place to navigate because the King of France, I should say the King of the France, because the Kingdom of France didn't really exist, the way we understand it today. The King of the Franks was just one of the aristocrats of the area. He wasn't really that powerful and there was a lot of infighting, really brutal play. So it's just this constant climate of incursions, reprisals, devastations, payback. And so you've already got this very sort of nasty environment in the kingdom, and then the Vikings show up.

And they certainly don't improve the situation, let's say. And so Rolo already knew how to navigate this landscape. The reason why I mentioned Kutil is that he probably taught then Rolo how to really navigate politics, but he himself met quite a gruesome end, which is also in itself a story that's very representative of how the Vikings were sometimes received in the kingdom. So he laid siege to a city. It failed. He got captured by the King of France, the King of the Franks.

And then he was forcibly converted. He was taken to the Cathedral of Limoges. And so during the ceremony, what happened is that the own standard bearer of the king, a character called Ingon, approach him from behind and just stabbed him with his sword, thrust right through him. So there was this very sort of cinematic moment where this Viking Kirtil shared a sort of frozen look

with the bishop who was baptizing him. A few seconds pass and then Kutil collapses. Of course, Ingon was tried because it's basically murder essentially during the ceremony. But he was acquitted because his legal defense was essentially

that he had just been baptized and so I just hastened him to his natural home. So I guess all is forgiven. So we can imagine that this was probably a bit of a cautionary tale for Rollo. And so he knew exactly how to navigate all the tensions with those leaders and to avoid assassination himself. Because Rollo actually lived to be quite an old man. He lived until the ripe age of 86, which is absolutely extraordinary considering his line of work.

You know, if you're a Viking, 40 years old is pretty good. So 86 really is pushing it. So that means he was very successful in understanding his environment. Speaking of him understanding his environment, by around 9-11, he becomes much more embedded into the fabric of, I guess, Frankish society, we can say, because this is when he apparently becomes annoying enough to the King Charles the Simple that they decide something needs to be done. They make this Treaty of Sinclair-sur-Ept. And this, for historians, you know, we love this. And it's wondering if you can walk us through it a little bit and explain why it is so important in this. the making of Normandy. Yeah, so he was in Normandy already around the years 905. So we can imagine that he already had time to establish a few connections there with the church, with local Carolingian aristocracy. So he was not really a newcomer. People knew him already. But still, that means that even though he was known by the locals, he was just this basic nuisance because

he could pillage, ransack, devastate any area he wished. So the locals were crying for help to the King of France. And the idea is that the King of France of the time, Charles Stimple, as you mentioned, will seize the opportunity. What happened in the year 911 is that Rolo had tried to besiege Paris. It failed. So he moved on to Chartre and there it failed as well because Vikings were not always successful. And at this moment, Charles de Simple, understanding that he can negotiate from a position of strength, decide to meet with Rolo.

and then he's going to agree on a deal with him. So it's not a unique deal because this had been tried in other areas of France, but the idea simply is that Rolo is going to be granted land around the mouth of the seine near Rouen. And it's a very basic contract. It's basically, okay, you are there. Your main job is to prevent other Vikings from sailing upstream because we're pretty tired of seeing those Viking ships sailing up, surrounding the island of the city in Paris and then again completely dismantling all of our finances. So that was the contract and the other part of the contract, of course, was to be baptized.

So Rollo would be converted. So it's supposed that it was a sincere conversion. We never can be sure 100%. But as was often the case as he was baptized, he had a new name, which was Robert. because Robert was his godfather for the baptism and that's often what Vikings will do once they get baptized, they'll have another name. There are examples like Roller Robert.

If you're called Gerlock, your name's going to be Adelais. If you're called Gunor, you'll be called Albarada and if you're called Thurston, you'll be called Richard. So you have this sort of double tradition of names. And so from then on, his official title is Yarl. Yarl is means Earl basically. So he's Yarl of the Normans and count of Roubo. And so that's really the beginning of the dynasty. What's really remarkable is that even though we are in Carolingian France, even though there was this strong feudal system, that agreement was not really feudal at all. It was just, okay, just settle over there, prevent Vikings from sailing up stream upriver and I'll be happy with that. And that was it. and the deal was enormously in favor of the Vikings. There were no particular obligations,

and it was more in the spirit of a donation. It was just like, okay, this land is yours, run it the way of it, and I'm not going to interfere. And from then on, Rolo felt very independent. Regarding the links with the King of France, there was one specific anecdote that sort of tells the story. So the King of France of the time had a daughter called Gisela and to cement the sort of alliance between King of France.

of France and the Count of Roubois, he offered his daughter a marriage to Rollo. So, Gisela was in Normandy, and the King of France decided to send two bodyguards to protect Gisela, but he didn't bother to tell Rolo that he had sent two bodyguards. So these two bodyguards were actually circulating around Normandy, unauthorized, and this really, well, piss Rollo off, basically. And so he captured those two bodyguards, and he had them executed in Rouen publicly. Just to show, okay, so even if you're my king, you're absolutely not allowed to get your own soldiers into my land.

You have to ask for permission first, which is really extraordinary. When you think that he was just a Norwegian, he was just a pirate, and then now he's the one who dictates terms to the king of the Franks. That is absolutely incredible. And I suppose it really speaks to the level of power that Rolo held in his confidence in this. It very much does seem as though he, is the person who's kind of calling the shots here. Absolutely.

He's forcing Charles's hand, really. Exactly. Yeah, that's the most surprising part. And it was even quite humiliating for the subjects of the Kingdom of the Franks. And actually, after the deal with Roller was done, Granta Kim Normandy, the other aristocrats of the kingdom,

just saw him as such a weak and feeble figure, and he was deposed shortly after, because he didn't need to actually cede so much to the Normans, but he basically just gave the farm, that's how you said, gave away the farm to the Normans. And the terms were really incredible. Among the terms, it meant that the land would be granted for all eternity to the Normans with a promise not to actually take them back. So they were there for all eternity.

Something that was just there as a convenient deal preventing other Vikings from attacking Paris turned out to be the basis of a permanent structure and even the beginning of a dynasty. That's really the most striking part of that history. Now, speaking of this, when this land is seeded, is this the amount of land that we now call Normandy, or was this something smaller at the time? Oh, so it's a lot smaller. So around Ruon, so it's from a river because the rivers oftentimes are used as natural borders. So it's the river Ept, which is east of Roan, all the way to the river. If you picture Normandy in your mind, so the way it looks today, you'd have to imagine just the east.

and half of it. That's where normally really originated, and then it's going to expand very shortly after that. And do we know particularly if this treaty was actually signed in 9-11, as it were, or is this, you know, kind of a date we've slapped on later? Things can be a little bit fuzzy around about in the 10th century at times. Yeah, because the chronic is writing about it oftentimes right, something like 20, 30, or even up to 100 years later. So the date is fairly certain. We don't quite sure of the place. Today we call this the treaty of Saint-Clair-Suerre but it's very likely that the chronicler who tells the story, who's called Dudon de Saint-Contin. He's our leading chronicler. He's the most important source for this period,

probably mixed up the place with an other treaty signed later on. So we're not sure about the place, but we are sure about the date, 911. That really is very certain. Okay, so one of the conditions of this treaty is, in theory, you know, that Volo is going to be preventing Viking attacks, you know, and that's probably the most important condition, I would argue. But Rollo is also kind of using this already, as you said, as a way of throwing his own military weight around, you know, and he moves back and forth, making deals with people across borders. He's not particularly servile to Charles Asimple at the very least. You know, is he able to sort of exploit these weaknesses of the others around him in order to acquire more territory? Because, you know,

As you say, when we think about Normandy now, it's much larger than what Charles had envisioned at the time. Oh, yeah. He really has that skill of knowing exactly where he can go. And the reason why Normandy expanded the way it did is also quite interesting, because the Normans had their eye towards the northern part of France. If you're a Norman, if you're a Viking, you're quite greedy. You really want more. That's really what Vikings are all about. So Rolo had his eyes on the north of France because if you control the northern coast of France, you control the northern coast of France,

you control a lot of trade, a lot of ports, so that's really important. So he went merrily up north with his army and attacked the Counts and Dukes that were further up north because he felt that he had the military mind to be able to do that. There was this whole cycle of attack, counterattack, reprisals, and so the Counts and Duce of Northern France as a revenge came back to attack Normandy, besie, Rwain. And the extraordinary thing is that after this reprisal, Rolo complained to the King of France. And the king of France said, okay, yeah, I guess it's really bad. So you know what? I'm going to grant you more land. And so out of this, because he actually took the risk, he's the one who attacked.

He's the one who, in the end, got more land for it. So it really tells you how much leverage he had on the king. I absolutely love this. It's a real bullying moment, almost, I suppose. It shows you how much you can do with rather a few northern men as. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And who's going to be a flinching first. a bit of a staring contest all the time and most of the time the Normans actually were the victors when they tried to stare down the kings of the Franks. And so that

means that in 924 then Rolo's going to be granted Morland to the west. So if once again you have, if you see Normandy then you can add a central sort of vertical stripe next to what Roto originally was running and then later on

in 933 for the same reasons there's going to be more land added to the west, completing the whole shape of Normandy, and for the same reasons, just reparations for incursions. That's not a bad way to get some reparations, I suppose. Start a fight, see what happens. Complain if it doesn't go your way. It sounds great.

It's a very stable plan. Okay, so one way or another, though, we have to hand it to Rollo because this really does work. And despite his fighting back and forth, he certainly does create a very prosperous is Norman settlement. You know, he's got lots of other Northmen who are kind of moving over the agriculture in the area is absolutely fantastic and pretty stark contrast to what's going on in Scandinavia at the time.

But I think one of the things I find most interesting about him is how he does manage to really pull off an integration of both Viking culture and Frankish culture. So he's got this, we start fights all the time, like Vikings kind of a thing. But at the same time, he's really good at kind of learning about Frankish laws and understanding what the rules are and how he can play things off for his own betterment. And, you know, these are the things that really turn this into a lasting duchy later on. It's not just, I mean, you can fight back and forth. But if you've got a really great military leader and he dies suddenly, then that's not going to last forever. You really need actual borders in place.

Yeah, exactly. And that's really what I find most fascinating about the whole story is that there were not an extension of Norwegian power. There was nothing really completely political about it. It's almost like a free enterprise. They had to make it work. And so they were smart enough to understand that if we are this Scandinavian colony, we're not going to get anywhere because we need to work with the other ruling families of the kingdom. So we need to be respectable and show that we are really integrating. Probably one of those, the greatest challenges, was to convince the locals that they were working together now. So imagine you're the king of the Franks and you're attending this area formerly known as a new strier, now that, you know, those people who used to pillage you every year who would assassinate your clergy, who would burn down your churches, who would take away all your supplies and valuables. These are your leaders now. So I'm going to ask you to respect them and obey their role.

That really was a tall order. So Rolo was quite skilled in the fact that he learned a few lessons. So he knew, for instance, that in England, the Vikings had the same problem in trying to get the locals to really respect them and obey their rule. And what they did, especially the kings of York in Northern England, they had used monks and bishops as an escort. They would be traveling around, meaning that if you show up in a village and you've got a priest and abbot or monk,

then you'll be just signaling that the church is. with these people. So you might as well fall in line because now we are respectful. That's really going to help. And then from there, once the local population will sort of accept their rule, they'll be able to try and experience. And exactly, if you are Scandinavian, you are used to a system that's quite different to the feudal system in the Carolingian kingdom. In Scandinavia, there was a system called the Elodio system, which means that you're not completely a vassal. if you run land, you've almost got free reign. You're like a free man, not free the way we understand it today.

It still is medieval Scandinavia after all, but you're free. And this assembly of free men is called the thing, just like a thing. And so when you gather for a thing, it's like a council of the free men. And so Rerlo could have installed that system in Normandy, but wisely he understood that it really would not work, because these are newcomers. These are not old families, old aristocrats. So nothing is basically forcing them to really obey central rule. So he knew that straight away here to enforce law and order very quickly.

So you're going to understand that a loader system, that freemen system, the thing, that's not going to work. So let's switch to the carringen system, which is much more vertical, a lot more authoritarian, and there are many more conditions between a ruler and his vessels. It's really a whole contract. So this did not always go well with the local Vikings. Some of them even rebelled against Rolo. They even besieged Roel. And as a result, Rolo defeated them. And this was really important because he was able to show the ruling class that essentially he would not be challenged.

And so it basically is, you know, okay, I'm a Karolingian. Get used to it because that's the way I'm going to govern from now on. But still, he's going to use a few Scandinavian political. tools at his disposal, which will make Normandy a very sort of peaceful territory. So we can probably say that there are four pillars in the institutions set by Roto. The first one is, of course, public order. That's very important. Number one.

Second one is family. That means peaceful family life, family lineage, because that's how you get stability. The third one is the agricultural industry. You need to make sure that it's prosperous. and the fourth is the fishing industry, because of course, the Vikings, Scandinavians, being Scandinavians, they do fish a lot and there are long lines of coast in Normandy, so fishing is very important. And so once he establishes this, then he knows that he's got stable territory on his hands. But perhaps we could mention a few of the Scandinavian means of law enforcement that he used, which were quite extraordinary and not at all practice in the rest of the kingdom. The first one is called Ulac U-A-C.

So it means basically declaring somebody outlaw. That's just the way Rolo had been banned it from Norway. And so now that the dukes can declare undisciplined barons count outlaw, then he can get rid of troublemakers on his land. That's very important. And that's why to some extent we'll find Normans in southern Italy or in England, because they were kicked out of Normandy and settled over there and started their own ventures.

That's also really a fascinating part of history. So there is another element that's also quite striking that didn't exist in the rest of the kingdom. It's something we call Hamfara. Hamfara means home visit, home visit. So that means that in Scandinavia sometimes, a lot of time, actually. When you wanted to attack somebody,

you could attack him within the four posts of his home. It was a very sort of disloyal and an equal way of attacking somebody. So if, for instance, you had committed a crime to somebody, the reprisal would be that people would show up at your house, almost like a posse. And they would set fire to a house, smoke the family out, the man would be trapped inside and would die. And so Rolo wanted to really make sure that this would not happen in Normandy because there would be an endless cycle of reprisals. And so he declared Humphiler to be quite a grave crime. But don't many more examples. We could list a few others.

but it's interesting to know that he knew exactly what to keep and what to leave out. What do you think is an example of the things that are very useful to keep here? So we know the bad things about Vikings, but there are still good things that he manages to bring in that help to create this Norman sensibility. Oh, yes. So a few of the good things are making sure that the skills like carpentry are going to be very much alive. Shipbuilding, navigation, that's very useful. because that means that now if they need, they can sail very far and be respected, even feared by dux and counts in faraway lands.

So that's very important. So they'll keep that really alive. And even in terms of prosperity, we can argue that Normandy became a very prosperous land thanks to those Scandinavian practices. For instance, there is something called shipwreck rights. So in old north, we call that vagrek. The idea is that if something lands on a beach, if it's sufficiently large, then it's going to be the property of the Counts of the Duke. And so if a whale is beached, then the Duke of the Counts gets it. If it's a large ship, it's his property.

If it's a sturgeon, it's also its property. And if it's smaller, that's going to belong to the local tenant of the land. So that means that for every situation, there's going to be a case law adjudicating it. there is also something called the Leithonger, which is the ability for a count to mobilize a fleet of ships. And this was something that was only in Normandy. No other count or duke of the kingdom of the Franks had the ability to raise a fleet. So we suppose that Roelho had the ability to do that. He didn't really use it, but it's going to be used later famously in another date in the century,

not too far off, intents William the conquer mobilizes the whole fleet to conquer England, and this is probably thanks to one of those Scandinavian traditions that had been preserved.

So we've got this really interesting cross-cultural connection here. You know, we've got French laws, but this Norman sensibility, I suppose. And all of this means that even though Rollo does manage to acquire a lot of land

through just physically scrapping, he's got a complete duchy that ends up getting passed on. Is there anything else that he really needed to do in order to solidify these borders? Was his reputation enough by this point? Or is it just one of those things where the Normans collectively were like, we quite like this and we want to keep Normandy going at this point in time? Yeah, well, we can suppose that the local population was completely down by that time with the rule of the Normans.

But the threat was mainly from the other ruling families in the kingdom of the Franks. This was a constant threat. It's going to be concentrated all the time, even through the centuries. And so that means that Rolo really needed to understand how to forge alliances. So this wasn't really too difficult for him because even traditionally, when the Vikings were not settled, they knew exactly who they were talking to, Duke's counts, and then knew exactly how to forge alliances against other counts. Sometimes counts and dukes would hire Vikings to attack their own countrymen.

So it was this very complicated game of chess between all those assorts of the kingdom. So Rolo knew immediately how to deal with them. We've touched very briefly also on Rolo's conversion to Christianity, which I would argue is a huge part of this as well. You're not going to be able to bring everybody along with you if they still see you as this sort of pagan who's coming to burn down their church. And we've mentioned briefly, you know, I get asked this all the time, oh, are these conversions to Christianity genuine? And there's no real way for us to know, right? Because there's a huge upside to Rollo converting, which is that he gets this land in theory. But we can certainly say that there's a huge knock-on effect here one way or another because it's not just Rollo that converts. It's his entire family.

It's all of his followers. You know, they're all marching into the cathedral at Rouen and actually converting. And we certainly know, I think, that this is passed down through his family. certainly, you know, his sons, for example, are quite Christian. So how do we look at this context and think about how conversion works? That's such a fascinating part of the story as well. We suppose that pagan practices only lasted for one generation. That's it, which is extraordinarily fast. We know this because among the place names in Normandy that are connected with the Vikings,

there aren't any names that are of gods, basically. it's all just name of actual places. They're not linked to Thor, Odin, which is not the case in England. So we can suppose that the conversion really happened very quickly. But still, there was a bit of impatience on the part of the church because even, as you mentioned, there was massive baptisms happening with royalist companions. The church would still complain that it took too long. And they all said they believed in Christ, no problem with that at all. But in a moment of danger, they would still call on Thor and Odin hedging their bets just to be sure. So the church would complain.

They would write letters to the Vatican. And the Pope at the time would write back and say, okay, yeah, I see exactly what you mean. Don't worry. Be forgiving. Be patient. It's really going to work out at the end. And it did. Because in just one generation, they had completely left behind their pagan practices.

And they had fully embraced Christianity. But we can also take an example of how the Christian church converted the Vikings over in Scandinavia. We can't suppose they did the same thing in Normandy. They just took Scandinavian symbols and imagery and then they just completely flipped it and gave it a Christian meaning. So you'll see Christ on the church looking very much like Thor and there would be this gradual switch in terms of symbols and that was very smart on part of the church. But it was a tough sell when you think about it because on one hand you've got a Scandinavian pantheon which is all about warfare, revenge, violence.

And on the other hand, you've got the religion. It's more about forgiveness, charity. You've got a god who's born in a manger in poverty. So try to sell that to the Vikings. That's very difficult. And they manage to do that, which is really huge achievement. And I suppose this is particularly this alacrity, which is happening in Normandy is testament to the fact that we have this real, again, distinct Norman identity.

You know, it's a very fast conversion process. It's not as a stop-start as it can be in other places in Scandinavia. And I think that really speaks to the fact that the Normans are doing something completely different. You know, they certainly have that Viking DNA. They have certain Viking things about them. But they are really attempting to make something new over here. Yeah, yeah. And it really works.

And in the rest of the kingdom, they really recognize the Normans as being people who are different. but that's really the beauty of it. In terms of language, for instance, there's going to be something like 150 words in the vocabulary that's going to be integrated into the Frankish language, which is quite extraordinary. And we can imagine that the other count and dukes of the kingdom

probably were a little envious of the Normans because they had managed to really impose public order. They were able to develop agriculture in a very satisfactory way as well, and they had stopped a lot of the infighting going on. So this was really admirable. And I'm sure at the time, people knew that the Normans were definitely on the rise. It was not an adventure that would end anytime soon, but they were really their stay.

I think that this is really testified to by the fact that we're still talking about Rollo a thousand years later, as it were. And he gives birth to these descendants that come after him, William the Conqueror most notably probably, but also, you know, William Longsword, all of these other really important Norman. I am kind of interested in the creation of this legacy and how it's told because, you know, as you've already said, a lot of our sources, you know, they come after the fact. So we're piecing together a rollo to create a story about a dynasty. And he really does loom very large in terms of the way that historians at least think about things. But how much of this is just kind of, oh, I don't know, stories that we tell in order to cement the dynasty. Or is this something

that, you know, William the Conquer would have been like, aha, my grand ancestor Rolo, and certainly I feel connected to this. Well, interesting enough, the Norman sources thought of Rolo, not as a Norwegian, but as a Dane. What that means, basically, is that they weren't able to connect Rolo to a precise location. They saw him as a Dane simply because they were seeking to forge alliances with the king of Denmark, who was called Sven Falkbeard. So that means that any idea of origins was lost. They knew he was a Scandinavian and that's it.

It doesn't really go beyond that. Nationally wasn't really important when he was around. It's only later that they try to attribute a nationality to him. But in the sense, we can probably argue that it's not really the Scandinavian origin. It's important for the legacy, but more the family. That's family. And there are newcomers. They were able to settle and create a ruling family.

and that's really what's most important. So today I talked about a chronicler called Du Don de Saint-Cantin, who is our main source for that particular period. And what's interesting is that he crafts an overall narrative of the first dukes of Normandy. And as a good storyteller, he's going to use each figure

and contrast them with each other. So first of all, he sets up a foe, a baddie, a real one who's called Hasting, the formidable Viking, who was lusty, violent, brutal. So he's really your quintessential bad guy. And he's the one who's going to be contrasted with Rolo, the Viking, newly converted, the good guy, the founder, who really establishes things. Then comes William Longsword, Rolo's own son. So he's going to be described as the martyr because he had been trying to work with the other vassals of the Kingdom of the Franks.

But his life was cut short. in 942 he was assassinated during a plot against him by the other families of the kingdom and so he was recognized as the martyr and then comes around my favorite duke richard de first rollo's grandson and he's the ideal prince that's how he's described he's the one who really lays the foundations and the reason why i really like richard the first is that he's the one who really thinks long term even though rollo's more of a practical guy he's there to make things work for his generation. Richard I first is the one who really thinks about a legacy, permanence.

So oftentimes we talk about the difference between a culture and his civilization. We can imagine that Rolo is more about culture, customs, navigating the landscape, traditions, etc. But Richard is more about civilization. He's the one who now is not really speaking Norse anymore. He's speaking Frankish. He's the one who's going to build our castles, build our churches as well. and so he thinks long term

and he's the one who's actually going to order to commission a story of the first duke, normally, by Duon de Saint-Contin. So if you think about it, if you are going to commission a story of your ancestors, you're not really Viking anymore. You're not there just for the planet of the riches.

Now you are a dynasty. You are there to really found a ruling family that's going to be there for a long time. I suppose that's why we're still talking about these guys today. Yeah, exactly. Matthias, this has been an absolute pleasure, as always. Thank you so much for coming on to talk to us about this. Oh, it was great talking with that. I really had fun. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Gone Medieval. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us out and you'd be doing us a big favor. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries, including my special. series on the Normans next month, where you can see Matthias and I chatting at the amazing Filaise Castle. When you subscribe at history hit.com slash subscribe. As a special gift, you can also get 50% off your first three months when you use the code medieval at checkout. My co-host Matt Lewis will be back on Friday, and otherwise I'll see you again next Tuesday. Until next time.