III. presents us, in every part of Europe, with a large CHAP. unprovided population. A similar class existed, though under different habits, in the ninth century, all round the Baltic and North Sea; and it was from this body of men that the sea-kings and vikingr principally emerged. THIS unprovided population consisted and consists, not of the poor only, but also of many from the wealthier classes of every state. In every age, some portions of the families of all the rich and great have been as unable to continue the state and enjoyment of their relations, and of their own earlier days, as the meaner conditions of life to attain them. The one become the leaders of the other, and both alike desire adventures and employments, by which they can attain the property, the luxuries, or the distinctions which they covet. IN the fifth and sixth centuries, the AngloSaxons of this class poured themselves on Britain, and the numerous petty sovereignties in Norway, Sweden, and the Danish isles, seem to have arisen from the same source. Adventurers, seeking their fortune, appear to have landed from time to time on various parts of the uninhabited regions and islands of Scandinavia, with little bands of inferior companies; and as their posterity multiplied, levelled the forests, drained the marshes, and cultivated the earth: then humble kingdoms, jarlls, and nobility appeared. But the same result, in time, pursued them here which had driven them hither. All the lands they could subject to human culture became appropriated; claims of individual property became fastened on the parts which were left untilled; and unprovided population increased in BOOK each, who had to look elsewhere for the rank and comforts which the rest inherited. IV. Ar the close of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, the unprovided population of the north was. in full activity among their little kingdoms and jarlldoms in every part of the Baltic. The acquisition of property by violence was their object, the sea their road to it, the sword their instrument, and all the settled habitations which they could reach, master, or surprise, were the theatres of their enterprise. The invention of the term sea-king satisfied the ambition of their highest-born chieftains; and the spoil obtained by their depredations, and the energies necessary to be exerted to make the expeditions successful, gratified their associates. BUT the vicinity of their domestic homes for a long time circumscribed the sphere of their exertions. There is not sufficient evidence that they had advanced beyond the Baltic, till that individual to whom we have already alluded, Ragnar Lodbrog, had been expelled by Harald from his insular kingdom; and becoming himself a sea-king, led his fleet of depredators successively to Friesland, Flanders, the British islands, and to France. We do not know enough of the incidents of his youth to delineate the gradual formation of Ragnar's peculiar character: but we can trace some of the circumstances that favoured the new habit which he either began or the most powerfully promoted. His father, Sigurd, was a Norwegian, who had married the Danish princess, daughter of the king of the chief Danish island.25 His spirit of 25 So Snorre states. III. adventure had therefore an encouraging example CHAP. in his father's elevation. But that father had been opposed by the king of Jutland in a battle in which nearly eleven thousand men and both the chieftains perished." On this fatal result the contending partisans compromised their quarrel by raising the sons of their several leaders to their fathers' thrones. Ragnar was made king of the isles, and Harald of the Danish territory in Jutland. But this But this arrangement was too pacific to last long in such a turbulent age; and the friends of Harald were found to be numerous enough to enable him to expel Ragnar from his sea-girt kingdom. This warrior, in all the pride and activity of his youth, was driven with all his followers to seek that provision and distinction on the ocean, and by their swords, which they were not allowed to retain on their domestic territory. IF Ragnar had been a common-minded man he would have been but a common plunderer, and have soon fallen in the usual violent deaths of battle or punishment which most pirates at last undergo. But Denmark was, from its contiguity to the Frankish kingdom and to the improving continental Saxons, the most civilised country of the barbaric north. Its monarchy was also beginning to arise. Its small kingdoms having been subdued or absorbed into two, and these, from their increasing power and dignity, being more cultivated than formerly, Ragnar Lodbrog, before he became a sea-king, had obtained the greatest advantages of education which the Baltic at that time afforded. Son of an enterprising Norwegian and of a Danish IV. BOOK princess, he thus united in himself all the improvements which Norway and Denmark could then confer. His great natural talents thus assisted, he entered upon his new profession with a distinction which led to great exploits. The actual enjoyment of a previous kingdom fixed large objects of ambition in his mind; gave him at his outset an impressive and dignified character, and connected him with more numerous and powerful friends and followers than any ordinary vikingr could influence or command. The insular nature of the territory over which he had reigned favoured his enterprises, and he soon became formidable enough to compel his land-rival to implore the succours of the Frankish empire. BUT this event became only another impulse to the new direction which Ragnar was insensibly giving to all the population about him. That the Franks should presume to interfere in behalf of his enemy, was an affront that fixed in his heart an indignant resolution to avenge himself on them. This vindictive feeling led him out of the Baltic to France itself; and though he could not dethrone his competitor at home, he had followers enough to penetrate to the walls of Paris, and to afflict France, in its then quarrelling state, with the most calamitous depredations. The personal fame which he gained by these distant expeditions was an impressive appeal to the vanity and emulation of all the northern youth; and his booty tempted the most selfish to join his fleets or to imitate his adventures. ABOUT the same period a king of Norway, Harald Harfagre, unintentionally contributed to give the unprovided population and ambitious youth of that country the same external direction and a new impulse to pursue it. He also began the system of subduing in Norway all its petty sovereignties, and of extirpating piracy within his dominions. Nothing then remained in Norway for those who had not lands or property, but to seek them elsewhere. Bands of adventurers now arose from hence, who were resolved to obtain subsistence, plunder, fame, or settlement in other countries by their swords. And one of these, under the command of Hrolfr or Rollo, after harassing France with desolation, extorted from its sovereign the province of Normandy. FROM the operation of these circumstances as they successively occurred, distant expeditions, for temporary plunder, vindictive retaliations, or military colonisation, became, from the end of the eighth century, the regular habits of the active population of the north. We have mentioned that in 787 the fierce visitors first appeared in England. By the year 800, they had begun to molest the Franks 28; and before the death of Charlemagne, which occurred in 814, they had even reached the Mediterranean. He was at dinner in the city of Narbonne when their ships came in sight. By the construction of the vessels and the agility of their mariners, he knew they were not merchants. He rose from the table, and went to the eastern window of the mansion to contemplate them. His tears fell as he gazed: "I fear not," he exclaimed, "that they can injure me; but I weep that they should dare, 28 So the ancient Saxon Latin versifier states. Hist. Franc. Du Chesne, ii. p. 164. CHAP. III. |