wergild: The amount that must be paid to make recompense for killing a man.
White Christ: The Vikings’ name for the Christian God, believed to reflect their derogatory opinion that it was cowardly for Christ to allow himself to be captured and killed without fighting back against his captors.
HISTORICAL NOTES
The history of the Vikings is inextricably linked to that of those peoples of northern Europe whose lands bore the brunt of the Vikings’ raids and invasions: the Irish, the various peoples and kingdoms of England and Scotland, and the Franks. Because the Franks play so large a role in books two and three of the Strongbow Saga, some brief background on their history is in order.
The area of Europe which comprises modern France was, during Roman times, known as Gaul. The various tribes that peopled Gaul before the Romans came were mostly Celtic in origin. Near the end of the second century B.C., southern Gaul, running from northern Italy in the east along the Mediterranean coast to the Pyrenees in the west, was annexed as a province by Rome. The remainder of Gaul, however, did not become a part of Rome’s expanding empire until around 50 B.C., when Julius Caesar conquered the restive tribes of northern Gaul. The Gallic tribes benefited greatly from the organization, culture, and enforced peace that came with Roman rule, and over the centuries that followed Gaul became one of the wealthiest and most stable of Rome’s provinces.
Fast forward several centuries. One area of Europe which Rome never succeeded in subduing was the lands known as Germania, lying east of the Rhine and Danube Rivers. Around 250 A.D., Germanic tribes began raiding out of this area into the Roman Empire. The initial Germanic raids into the Empire were not unlike the raids into Europe, centuries later, by the Vikings during the early portion of the Viking era: they were largely hit and run affairs, to steal wealth from the more settled, civilized lands of the Roman provinces. One of the more powerful Germanic tribes that raided into the Empire during this period, in the region of Gaul, was the Franks.
The great events of history are often the result of a series of chain reactions. During the latter part of the fourth century A.D., a nomadic people called the Huns, about whose origin little is known, came out of the east and began attacking the lands of eastern Europe inhabited by the Germanic tribes. The Germans, retreating before the Huns, pressed forward into the Roman Empire, overwhelming the defenses of its eastern frontier. Over a period lasting roughly a hundred years, the western provinces of the Roman Empire were wracked by successive waves of Germanic invasion and conquest until, by A.D. 476, virtually all of western Europe had fallen under the control of the Germans, and the Roman Empire in the west had been shattered.
The lands of Gaul were conquered and settled by three tribes: the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks. But led by their king Clovis, the Franks moved against the other two tribes, and after decisively defeating the Visigoths in 507 A.D., their rule was extended over virtually all of Gaul.
Prior to Rome’s conquest of Gaul, the lands along the Seine River where the city of Paris is now located were inhabited by a Celtic tribe known as the Parisii. After Gaul became a Roman province and the Parisii were conquered, a town—called Lutetia by the Romans—was established on the left, or south, bank of the Seine River, on the top and sides of the large hill that later came to be known as Mount St. Genevieve. Over the next two centuries the town grew into a thriving city, one of the cultural and commercial centers of the Roman province of Gaul. The large island in the Seine below Mount St. Genevieve, now known as the Ile de la Cite, appears to have originally housed some sort of Roman regional administrative and possibly military headquarters. Around the year A.D. 280, in response to the Germanic raids into Gaul that had begun roughly thirty years earlier, the island was fortified with a wall around its perimeter.
The city of Lutetia declined in population and importance during the period when Rome’s vast empire was crumbling. But in A.D. 486, the city was captured by the Frankish King Clovis, and its fortunes began to change. It was apparently during this period that the city began to be called Paris, after the original Celtic inhabitants of the area. Clovis converted to Christianity and made Paris the capital of the kingdom of Frankia, which—by the time Clovis completed his conquests—encompassed virtually all of Gaul.
Clovis established the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings, which ruled Frankia from roughly A.D. 486 until 752. During the Merovingian period, the population of Paris is estimated to have reached as high as 20,000. However, the Frankish kings of the Carolingian dynasty, which began in A.D. 752, did not use Paris as their capital, and over the next hundred years the city’s size and importance again declined.
Under the rule of the ambitious kings of the Carolingian dynasty, the already large Frankish kingdom expanded into an empire. The Franks pushed west into Germany, south into Italy, and battled the Moors in Spain. One of the peoples the Franks tried repeatedly to conquer, but failed, were the Danes.
The Frankish Empire reached its peak during the reign of Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, who was crowned emperor of the Romans in the year 800 A.D. But by the year A.D. 845, during which the first three books of the Strongbow Saga are set, the Frankish Empire was past its heyday, and had split into three separate kingdoms.
Paris in the year 845 would still have borne a strong resemblance to its Roman-era predecessor. In addition to numerous smaller buildings and homes from the Roman period, the great forum, the center of every Roman city, still existed, although apparently some of its upper-level structures had been dismantled to provide a source of stone for later building projects, possibly including the defensive wall around the Ile de la Cite. The arena, one of the largest outside of Rome, was also still in existence—in fact, its lowest levels can still be seen in Paris today. As with the forum, by the ninth century, the upper levels of the arena had been dismantled to provide a source of stone for later buildings, but the arena is known to have been partially restored around the year A.D. 577 by the Frankish King Chilperic I who used it as a site for horse racing. The large Roman-era building now known as the Cluny baths, which in Roman times housed a massive Roman public bathhouse on the lower north slope of Mount St. Genevieve, still stands to this day in a remarkable state of preservation. It was used as the royal palace during the Merovingian era.
The Franks put their own stamp on Paris, however, and it is possible to identify some of their buildings from that period which the Viking army would have encountered. After converting to Christianity in A.D. 508, King Clovis built a large stone church on the top of Mount St. Genevieve. By A.D. 845, it had become the center of a convent, the Abbey of St. Genevieve. Similarly, the Church of St. Germain de Pres, built in A.D. 542 at the base of Mount St. Genevieve near the banks of the Seine, by A.D. 845 had become the center of a large and wealthy monastery, the Abbey of St. Germain. The Abbey of St. Denis was another large and important monastery located in Paris in the mid-ninth century. The town and surrounding countryside also contained a number of other churches and smaller monasteries built by the Franks. Because the city had not seen war or been looted for several hundred years, Paris was without a doubt a very rich prize when the Viking army captured it in A.D. 845.
The Danish campaign against the Franks during which Halfdan becomes a full-fledged warrior and wins his name is based on an actual Viking attack up the Seine River in the spring of A.D. 845, which was described in various contemporary Frankish sources, including several annals maintained by different Frankish monasteries. Each of the sources provides slightly different details about the campaign, but most agree that the Vikings’ fleet made it as far up the Seine River as Paris, and all report that Charles the Bald, the king of the Western Kingdom of the Franks, ultimately paid a large sum—described in one account as a “bribe,” and another as “tribute”—to the invading Viking army, to persuade it to leave his kingdom.
From careful comparison of the various contemporary sources which contain accounts of the expedition, the following additional details ab
out the campaign can be determined to be probably accurate: the Vikings’ fleet numbered 120 ships; the Franks’ King Charles responded to the Viking attack by dividing his army, sending part down each side of the Seine River; and the Vikings fought and resoundingly defeated one part of the divided Frankish army. After their victory, according to some sources, the Vikings killed 111 Frankish prisoners by hanging them. After defeating the Frankish army, the Viking army went on to capture the city of Paris in a surprise attack on Easter morning. The amount King Charles paid the Viking army to leave his kingdom was 7,000 pounds of silver—for that time period, an incredible sum.
I have used these bare facts as the framework upon which to build the story in books two and three of the Strongbow Saga. The leaders of my fictional version of the Vikings’ army—Ragnar Logbrod, his sons Ivar the Boneless and Bjorn Ironsides, and Hastein—are all based on actual Viking chieftains of the latter half of the ninth century. One Frankish source, the Annals of Xanten, does identify Ragnar as the leader of the Viking fleet that attacked up the Seine in A.D. 845. I felt it plausible that on so major a campaign, Ragnar might very well have been accompanied by his famous sons, Ivar and Bjorn, and Hastein could possibly have participated, too, because Bjorn and Hastein are known to have raided together on other occasions.
Hastein—sometimes called Hastings in English and Frankish sources—seems in particular to have been a colorful character. He is known to have harried the Atlantic coast of western Frankia, particularly Brittany, for many years. And together with Bjorn Ironsides, and possibly Ivar, he led a large-scale raiding tour of the Mediterranean that lasted from A.D. 859 until 862. Like the fictionalized Hastein who befriends Halfdan in the Strongbow Saga, he is known to have enjoyed using clever stratagems to win victory over his foes.
Genevieve, the young Frankish noblewoman who is captured by Halfdan, is a fictional character, as is Halfdan himself. However, her father, Count Robert, is based on an actual Frankish leader. Robert the Strong was a very powerful nobleman in western Frankia who ruled as count over a number of towns, the list of which in various Frankish sources includes Angers, Blois, Tours, Autun, Auxere, Nevers, and Paris. Count Robert was killed in A.D. 866 fighting a force of Viking raiders which, according to at least one source, may have been led by Hastein. But one of Robert’s sons, Odo, went on to become a revered French hero who, as the Count of Paris, led that city’s successful defense against a year-long siege by a Viking army from A.D. 885 to 886.
My description in this book of the battle between the Viking and Frankish armies, which occurred when the Viking fleet moved upriver from Rouen, is entirely a work of fiction, because no details of the actual battle are known. However, I have based my descriptions of the tactics used by both sides on descriptions of various battles and skirmishes of the period. The Vikings, for example, are known to have often made heavy and effective use of archery fire, and the battle-line formation Ragnar uses is loosely based on descriptions of the formation used by Norwegian King Harald Hardrada against an English army containing a large force of cavalry in the battle of Stamford Bridge in A.D. 1066. Similarly, my description of the Frankish force as being composed entirely of mounted troops is based on the fact that by the mid-ninth century, the Franks had come to increasingly rely on cavalry when maneuvering in the field.
The Bretons, who play a major role in my fictional account of the battle, were a people of predominately Celtic origin who lived in the area of France known as Brittany, along the southern Atlantic coast. Although they were not Franks, by the ninth century the Bretons had somewhat reluctantly become subjects of the Frankish empire, and as such were required, on occasion, to contribute troops to fight for the king of western Frankia. The Bretons were noted for being skilled mounted warriors who fought protected by relatively heavy armor, armed with spears, javelins, and swords.
It is known that after the battle, the Viking army hanged 111 Frankish prisoners, although detailed descriptions of that action, and the reasons for it, have not been recorded. One modern historian has suggested that it was an act of intentional terror, an effort to demoralize the remainder of the Frankish army. A far more likely explanation is that the mass hanging was a religious sacrifice. In the Vikings’ culture, great victories were sometimes marked by religious celebrations thanking the Gods. The Vikings are known to have offered animal sacrifices to their Gods, and on rarer occasions to have sacrificed human victims as well, and sacrificial offerings were sometimes hung on trees. A description from the year A.D. 1070 of worship practices at the great pagan religious complex at Uppsala in Sweden, for example, describes huge periodic sacrifices where men, as well as numerous types of animals, were hung from the trees of a sacred grove surrounding the temple.
Readers who would like to learn more about the Vikings and Franks, their culture and history, and the world in which the Strongbow Saga is set, are urged to visit www.strongbowsaga.com, an educational website dedicated to the Vikings and their age. And those seeking news about the Strongbow Saga series are encouraged to visit my website, www.judsonroberts.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people have been of great assistance in my work on the Strongbow Saga, but I would like to give my special thanks here to some of those who assisted in various ways with this particular book: my former agent, Laura Rennert, whose belief in this series helped bring it into existence; my editors at the book’s original publisher, HarperCollins, Susan Rich and Patricia Ocampo, whose valuable insights and suggestions helped me hone the story’s focus; my writer friends Luc Reid, Tom Pendergrass, and Laura Beyers, for acting as critical readers and helping me spot weaknesses in the story; and to Professor Michael Livingston of the Citadel, for invaluable help in tracking down translations of original Frankish sources.
The republication of this book in its revised Northman Books edition would not have been possible without the assistance of my good friend and fellow writer, Luc Reid (www.lucreid.com/dbweb), who was able, with his mastery of programming and graphic design, to take my rough ideas and turn them into the new cover of this edition, to transform my crude sketches into the map of the Danish campaign in Frankia which is a new feature of this edition, and who provided tremendous assistance in preparing the text and layout for the new print edition of this book. My thanks also go to Jeremy Rowland, (www.jprowland.com) who graciously allowed the use of his photograph of the French town of Bonnieux to be used as a stand-in for 9th century Paris in the background of the cover.
And finally, my greatest thanks go to my wife Jeanette, for her unwavering support and faith in me.
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