Hauts Lieux›The great stories

The Normans: from Rollo to William the Conqueror (911-1087)

13 min read

Rouen burnt in 841, Paris ransomed in 845 and besieged from 885 to 886; Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in the autumn of 911 and baptism of Rollo in 912; the Bessin ceded in 924, the Cotentin and Avranchin in 933; abbeys rebuilt from Jumièges (c. 930) to Lessay (c. 1056); William born at Falaise c. 1027, Val-ès-Dunes in 1047, the abbeys of Caen from 1059 to 1077; Hastings on 14 October 1066; death at Rouen on 9 September 1087, tomb at Saint-Étienne de Caen

In 911, a Carolingian king at the end of his resources grants a Viking chief, Rollo, "a land running from the Epte to the sea": in three generations, the raiders of the Seine become Christian dukes who rebuild the abbeys their fathers had burnt, and the great-grandson of their grandson, William the Bastard, conquers England in a single October day of 1066. The route follows this story from Paris to the Epte, from Rouen to the abbeys of the lower Seine, from Falaise to Caen, Bayeux and the Cotentin, and goes to Déas and Tournus to find what became of Saint Philibert, driven from Noirmoutier by the same ships.

Longships on the Seine

In May 841, a fleet sailed up the Seine, burnt Rouen and set fire to Jumièges; the Annales de Saint-Bertin record it in a single line. In March 845, a chief named Ragnar led his ships as far as Paris, plundered the city and its abbeys, and the king paid him seven thousand pounds of silver to leave. It was the first of the tributes. Fontenelle, the abbey of Saint Wandrille, bought its peace and then gave way: around 858-862, its monks left with the relics of their founders, which they carried from Boulogne to Chartres before laying them to rest in Ghent; those of Jumièges took refuge at Haspres, in the Cambrésis; the bishops of Coutances and Avranches abandoned their sees. The siege of Paris, from November 885 to the autumn of 886, was the high point of this war: the monk Abbo, of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, who saw it, counts seven hundred ships — a poet's figure — and tells of the defence of the Cité by Count Odo, the future king, and of the arrival of the Emperor Charles the Fat, who did not fight but paid.