Rollo
Rollo, likely born in Scandinavia, emerged during the peak of Viking raids in the ninth and tenth centuries. He is traditionally believed to be the son of a Norse earl and became a prominent figure among Viking raiders in France. Legends suggest that Rollo initially participated in raids across Western Europe, eventually leading a group that besieged Paris. In 911, he negotiated the Treaty of St.-Clair-sur-Epte with the Frankish king Charles the Simple, which granted him control over the lower Seine Valley in exchange for defending it against other Viking incursions. This agreement marked the beginning of Rollo's transformation from a raider to a ruler, as he adopted some aspects of Christian governance while maintaining elements of Norse culture. Rollo's leadership helped establish Normandy, where he oversaw the restoration of monasteries and built a political system that would influence the region for centuries. His lineage continued to shape European history, culminating in his great-great grandson, William the Conqueror, who became Duke of Normandy and later invaded England in 1066. Rollo's legacy is significant as it illustrates the complexity of Viking integration into European society and the development of feudal governance in medieval France.
On this Page
Rollo
Norwegian-born count of Rouen (911-c. 932)
- Born: c. 860
- Birthplace: Present-day Norway
- Died: c. 932
- Place of death: Rouen, Normandy (now in France)
Rollo established the Norman Dynasty made up of Scandinavians who settled the lower Seine Valley after signing an agreement with Charlemagne to protect the region. The Normans under William the Conqueror eventually invaded England in 1066.
Early Life
Rollo (RAHL-oh), probably a son of the Norse earl of Möre, was born in Scandinavia at the height of the Viking raids on the entire coastline of Western Europe, including the British Isles. Most of what is known about Rollo’s early life is based on legend or superstition. Among these tales is one that suggests that he joined the journeys of the Swedes into Russia in his early years. Another has him taking part in a conspiracy against the Norwegian king Harold Fairhair. According to the legend, the king broke up the conspiracy, and Rollo was sentenced to banishment. Whatever the initial impetus, Rollo became part of the wave of Scandinavian raiders that terrorized Western Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries.
Although the conditions that prompted this assault on Christianized Western Europe by men dedicated to pagan beliefs are not well established, it is probable that overpopulation in Scandinavia, attributed by some writers to the common Norse practice of polygamy, was the chief cause. Another factor was the development of a new type of ship, the clinker-built, low-draft vessel sometimes called a dragon ship. The legends of the Vikings are closely bound up with such ships, which figure prominently in medieval portrayals of the Vikings. Possession of these craft enabled the Vikings to sail out to sea instead of hugging the shore, allowing them to range over all the Atlantic coastline of Europe and eventually as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and North America.
Life’s Work
Rollo appears to have left the ancestral home in the early 880’. Some legends suggest he went to England, others that he may have gone to Ireland. For whatever reason, he went either directly or indirectly to the coast of France, where he quickly became the leader of the Viking band located along the lower Seine River. The Vikings had been conducting raids up the Seine as far as Paris since 845, but the earlier raids had ended with the Vikings sailing back down the river and retreating to Scandinavia. In the early 850’, however, instead of returning to Scandinavia, the Viking bands wintered on the lower Seine, conducting intermittent raids into the surrounding countryside. In 876, another raiding party advanced on Paris but was persuaded to leave when the Frankish king offered a ransom. Still, ransom sufficed only to induce the Vikings to retreat to the lower Seine. It was there that Rollo joined them around 885 and became their leader.
Under Rollo, the Vikings resolved on another attack on Paris. After an intermittent siege of the city lasting some two years, the Frankish ruler, Charles the Fat, bought off the band, which retired to the lower Seine Valley around Rouen. There, the Viking camp was gradually converted to a colony, joined by new immigrants from Scandinavia after 887.
Many legends accumulated around Rollo at this time. One is that he was so tall that he was unable to ride a horse because his long legs easily reached the ground when he was mounted. The Vikings, when asked to name their lord, were said to have replied to their questioners, “We have no lord, for we are all equal.” They apparently regarded Rollo not as their lord but simply as their leader in battle.
From their camp on the lower Seine, the Vikings under Rollo staged regular raids into the surrounding countryside. Although the Vikings were unable to capture the town of Chârtres when they besieged it in 887, the Frankish king was unable to oppose them effectively. They were able to find many areas where they could collect booty, mostly from the monasteries that dotted the countryside. It was at this time that the popular prayer arose: “From the fury of the Northmen, dear Lord, deliver us.”
Increasingly, in all parts of Western Europe, the Vikings no longer sailed again for home after a successful raid but instead remained in settlements along the coast. New bands joined the older ones, adding more fighters to the group. Until the middle of the following century, a continuous surge of men and even some women built up the population of the Viking settlements along the coast of France. Similar settlements occurred in Scotland, Ireland, and England; in England, the English king, Alfred the Great, finally reached an agreement in 878 that effectively turned over the northwestern part of the country to the Scandinavians.
The assaults of the Vikings reflected not only the ethnic differences between the Vikings and the Franks (the inhabitants of the France of the time) but also the religious differences. The Franks had been Christians for more than three centuries; the Vikings, by contrast, worshiped a collection of gods headed by Odin or Wotan. Many of the targets of the Viking raiders were monasteries, not only because more portable booty was to be collected there but also because the monasteries represented and symbolized a religion the Vikings did not respect.
Moreover, in those turbulent years, religion was one of the principal means rulers had to pacify their subjects. From the days of Charlemagne, who was crowned emperor of a renewed Roman empire in Western Europe in 800, the rulers had used the advance of Christianity as both a justification for imperial expansion and a means of keeping control of the lands conquered. Charlemagne had pushed Christianity into northern Germany, into lands bordering Scandinavia; some authorities believe that the threat of Christianity sparked the earliest Viking raids.
By concentrating on the monasteries as the objects of their raids, the Vikings undermined the authority of the Christian rulers of the Franks and captured the wealth that many monasteries had acquired during the preceding centuries. Unable to rely on the network of monasteries created by his predecessors, the Frankish ruler, Charles the Fat, lasted but three years on the throne and was replaced by one of the powerful nobles who had defended Paris effectively against the Viking assault. After five years of civil war, another Charles, Charles the Simple, won the throne. He was no more able than his predecessors to hold off the Vikings, and in 911, he conceived of another policy to deal with the Vikings: signing a treaty with them that made them, in effect, the defenders of the lower Seine Valley against future Viking assaults.
Although the precise terms of the Treaty of St.-Clair-sur-Epte between Rollo and Charles the Simple were not recorded (or, if they were, the records have not survived), it is fairly clear that the agreement envisaged ceding to Rollo and his followers responsibility for the defense of the lower Seine Valley. Rollo was made count of Rouen and of Evreux (the title of duke of Normandy was first acquired by his grandson, although it is commonly applied to him) and agreed to be baptized as a Christian, an event that apparently occurred the following year, in 912. It may also have been agreed that Rollo would marry a daughter of Charles named Gisela. According to legend, Charles required Rollo to kiss his foot as a demonstration of subordination. Rollo refused to do so and assigned the task to a member of his entourage. This bold Viking, so the story goes, seized the king’s foot and lifted it up before kissing it, so that the king fell backward. True or not, the story illustrates Rollo’s unwillingness to accept subordination to anyone.
Although Rollo had agreed to be baptized a Christian, it is doubtful that he took his conversion seriously. His followers continued to raid the parts of France not consigned to his responsibility as count of Rouen. He is reported on his deathbed to have required his men to make a typical sacrifice to the pagan gods of the Norse, along with the rites of Christian burial. He also adhered to the marriage rites of his people, taking as his wife a daughter of one of the local Viking bands named Poppa. Poppa was the mother of William, who was to succeed Rollo as count of Rouen at his death.
Yet although he retained much of the Norse culture into which he was born, Rollo seized on his new responsibility to create the beginnings of an administrative system that became the hallmark of the Normans, as the Scandinavian inhabitants of the area around Rouen came to be called. Reversing one previous policy of the Vikings, he began the restoration of the monasteries his men had so wantonly destroyed. Particularly around Rouen itself, he rebuilt the church and used his control of the archbishops of his new possession to maintain his authority. He built fortresses along his border and assigned them to followers on whose allegiance he could count. He effectively played politics among the many contenders for political power in the France of his day, and for his allegiance to the Carolingian ruler, he won the addition to his holdings of land around Bayeux, to the west of Rouen.
Rollo died, probably in Rouen, around 932; he was buried in the Rouen cathedral. He was succeeded by his son, William Long-Sword, whom he had associated with himself in managing his realm for several years. In the years following Rollo’s death, Normandy quickly became absorbed into the prevailing Frankish culture, until little survived of the Scandinavian origins of the Normans. Despite vicissitudes, the family of Rollo retained control of Normandy for several centuries. Rollo’s great-great grandson was William the Conqueror, the duke of Normandy who seized England in 1066.
Significance
Despite his origin in a society dedicated to vandalizing neighboring countries, Rollo revealed that, properly engaged, the Norse who became the Normans had constructive political skills of a high order, especially noteworthy in that turbulent time. Normandy under Rollo and his descendants was almost always at peace, whatever might be the state of affairs elsewhere in the land that was to become modern France. In some respects, he set the stage for the feudalism that was to become the primary method of providing a minimal degree of government in an age when military prowess was the mark of leadership. Rollo, and his successors, used the alliance between the Church and the secular authorities most successfully as a means of preserving peace.
Bibliography
Bates, David. Normandy Before 1066. New York: Longman, 1982. Emphasizes the distinctive features of Norman society, distinguishing them from those of Norman England.
Chibnall, Marjorie. The Normans. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000. Part of the Peoples of Europe series. The author briefly explores the life of the Normans in the medieval period, including their emergence as a distinct people in Normandy, their conquest and settlement of lands such as England, and more. Brief bibliography and index.
Crouch, David. The Normans: The History of a Dynasty. London: Hambledon and London, 2002. Explores the history of the Norman Dynasty and the dukes of Normandy. Illustrations, bibliography, and index.
Dudo of St. Quentin. History of the Normans. Translated by Eric Christiansen. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 1998. The first English translation, with introduction and notes by the translator, of a work written around 1015. A partly fictionalized history of the Normans, which follows the trials and tribulations of Rollo’s “family.” Language might be difficult for beginning readers, but the text discusses why certain words are used in their respective ways.
Haskins, Charles Homer. The Normans in European History. New York: Ungar, 1959. The classic account in English, first published in 1915, of the Normans and their place in European history. The chapters deal with successive developments in the Norman role, chiefly in England; the first two chapters serve as general background.
Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Although the Vikings in Normandy constitute only a small part of the whole story of the Viking expansion, Rollo can best be approached by reading about the Vikings in general.
Mawer, Allen. “The Vikings.” In The Cambridge Medieval History/Middle Ages. Vol. 3. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1929. Old text but still useful for hard-to-find information about Rollo. A look at chapter 13, as well as chapters 3 and 4, will introduce Rollo and help set the stage for his accomplishments within the context of the Frankish kingdom.
Shopkow, Leah. History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1997. A critical evaluation of the writers on whom historians depend for accounts of the achievements of Rollo and his successors. Since there are virtually no contemporary accounts of Rollo, a critical view of the writers of subsequent accounts is vital to knowing about him.