C.J. Adrien's Blog, page 24
July 8, 2014
July 7, 2014
The Vikings in Bretagne
A remnant of the Viking Age: depicted are the Vikings in Guérande.
A skaldic verse from Egill Skallagrimson paints the picture of what once was considered the perfect Viking; created impatient from birth, presumptuous, and with a burning desire for a far-off adventure:
“My mother promised me, and soon she will buy me, a vessel and oars, to leave to distant lands with the Vikings…and to strike and fight.”
The Vikings brought the world to its knees, but the Viking Age began rather slowly. For a hunter to hunt effectively, he must first study his prey. As early as 793 and 799 C.E. Scandinavian raiders struck fast and hard in isolated areas of the known world. Following these abrupt and shocking attacks, a period of thirty or so years remained relatively calm. In Brittany, the first recorded attack saw the pillaging of the monastery of Saint Philbert on the island of Noirmoutier, but few further incursions occurred until the 830’s. Coastal defenses built by Charlemagne provided ample protection for the western Frankish Empire, but those defenses rapidly waned under the poor leadership of Louis the Pious. What the Franks failed to realize was that a new threat waited in the shadows, watching, lurking, and learning.
Historians agree that despite an early strike on Noirmoutier in 799 C.E. the Viking Age began much later in Brittany than in England or Normandy. The region had already developed a strong sense of Breton identity and frequently revolted against the Frankish Empire. By the early 9th Century, the Bretons had won their independence under the leadership of Nominoé, a charismatic politician and talented tactician. With this victory came the burden of independence: political organization, defenses, and economic ties. Unfortunately for the Bretons the timing could not have been worse for the Viking Age was about to spill into their lands.
In 843, Brittany experienced what they interpreted as the Apocalypse. Chroniclers struggled to find the words to describe the cold blooded reality of the events of the 24th of June, 843. The denizens of the city celebrated the festival of Saint John (La Saint Jean in French). Everyone participated, including the city guards. None thought to fortify the city for they had not imagined that God would allow anything to disturb their festivities. By the time the people of Nantes realized their sort, it was too late for them to organize any kind of resistance. It is proposed that the raiders had entered the city posing as merchants, but that under their cloaks they bore the weapons of Nantes’ demise. The bishop of Nantes, a man named Gunhardus, continued his sermon on the steps of the cathedral and proclaimed, “Sursum Corda!” (high hearts) before he was violently gutted before the townspeople. With no consideration for age, sex, or status, the Northmen slit the throats of all whom they could find. By evening, the city burned in ruin.
The retelling of this event comes to us from the Annales d’Angoulême compiled by nearby priories who rescued some of the survivors of the event. In the Annales, we learn that the Northmen were Westfaldingi, in other words Men of Westfold (a region on the continental coast of the Fjord of Oslo). Their movements had been traced and recorded as far as the Hebrides, and they ostensibly travelled through the Bay of Saint George to arrive in the Bay of Biscay where they improvised a raid on the Saint John festival. They continued along the Loire River and terrorized the Pays de Retz further inland. Once they had filled their ships they returned to the coast, but not without incident. Two of the fleet’s ships wrecked along the river, too heavy from their booty to keep afloat. Finally, the Northmen established a base on the nearby island of Noirmoutier where they stored and split their spoils. Some returned north, while others continued their voyage south. They avoided returning to the Loire thereafter, for the new count of Nantes, Lambert, fortified the Loire River’s banks to prevent a repeat of the monumental catastrophe in Nantes.
Some of the Northmen sailed as far as Spain where historians lose track of their movements. But the damage to the region had been done. The horror of the events reverberated across the Carolingian Empire, and nearly all the Annales, or chronicles, of the time make reference to the carnage of the sack of Nantes. Of course the Bretons seized the opportunity to solidify their independence from the empire, but the disunity on the Breton March would prove to be their demise. While the people hoped they had heard the last of their attackers, the Viking Age had formally begun in Brittany, and it would last for over a century.
By 847 C.E. it became clear that the Viking invaders of Western Europe had developed political ambitions beyond the sporadic raiding of the previous three decades. Their sights moved beyond Britain and Normandy to other, less defended lands such as Ireland and Brittany. At first, resistance was effective. For example, within one year the Irish won an unprecedented four victories over the Vikings which effectively expelled a tremendous portion of the invaders from Ireland. But That same year in Brittany, Viking raiders began an invasion of the mainland peninsula and won three decisive victories over the Bretons who at the same time were repelling an invasion from the Franks. The Vikings used Noirmoutier, an island in the Bay of Biscay, as their base to launch a massive invasion attempt and to supply the warriors involved. The resources of the island, salt, was a necessary resource for any army of the time, and the Vikings were no exception.
With great cunning and strategic thinking, the Vikings exploited the rift along the Breton March between the Franks and the Bretons. A struggling Breton army even solicited the help of the Vikings to help defeat the Frankish army on two separate occasions. Once defeated, the Franks could no longer defend their borders, and the Viking invasion quickly saw the sack and occupation of Nantes on the Loire. With Nantes under Scandinavian control, the great citadels of Brittany followed: Cornouaille, Broweroch, Poutrocoët, Domnoée, and finally Saint-Brieuc. Pitting the two sides against one another, the Vikings expertly divided the lands and conquered them. By 854 C.E. a state of full military occupation was in place. So it seemed, Brittany would remain under their dominion.
Vikings, however, were ambitious people. No two groups thought alike, and no two groups settled for sharing power. In Normandy, the heavy influence and frequent raids of Vikings changed the political landscape. Charles the Bald, king of France, began a campaign to use the variable alliances of the Vikings against them. On the Seine, Charles hired Vikings to defend certain areas of the river. Once secured, Charles turned his attention to Brittany where a powerful warlord, Salomon, ruled over a large area of the region. At first, Salomon appeared keen on an alliance with Charles; the Vikings in the Loire themselves had recently been troubled by raids from other groups. Charles offered Salomon land rights and the status of vassal. Unfortunately for Salomon, a simultaneous Danish raid on Chartres and Tours following the new alliance sent the counts of Neustria (Western France) into revolt. Charles was forced to cancel his promises to Salomon.
Free of the protectorship of Charles the Bald, the Vikings on the Loire suffered a heavy defeat by Robert the Strong, the leading Neustrian Count who had had enough of the Scandinavians invading his lands. The conflict ended in a stalemate. For the next 20 years a similar political and military climate dominated the region. Along the Seine the Vikings continued to sack and pillage, and the Franks continued to rebuild and attempt to mount a resistance. Along the Loire, things settled. It had more or less been decided that Brittany had been lost to the invaders.
As luck would have it for the Bretons, Salomon was murdered by his rival in 874. The ensuing power vacuum caused a civil war between the Vikings in which a Breton-Frankish alliance emerged to drive an even deeper wound into the heart of the occupiers. Hope glimmered a moment, until the realization that the power vacuum left by Salomon would attract more raiders with ambitions of their own. The raids intensified. An internal struggle again erupted between the Bretons and the Franks, causing the resistance to dissolve. Sole one leader remained with a guerrilla force to fight the Vikings: a man named Alain of Broweroch. Alain mounted an effective resistance and pestered the invaders constantly. His big break came when the Carolingians successfully pushed out the Seine Vikings who fled into Brittany and disrupted the power structure there. With a renewed civil war between the Vikings, Alain fielded two Breton armies and led them to repeated victories. By 892 Alain had completely expelled the Vikings from Brittany. Scandinavian fortunes were not good along the Seine either: the Great Danish Army left mainland Europe and sailed for England to focus on the kingdom of Wessex.
Alain the Great ruled over Brittany after the expulsion of the Vikings as a sovereign king not loyal to Charles the Bald. The Bretons saw the Franks as incapable of defending them, and thus loyalty to the empire served them no benefit. A period of peace ensued. Through military endeavor, judicious alliances, and payment of Tribute, Alain kept the peace in his lands. Upon his death in 907 C.E., his successor, Gurmhailon should have had no trouble keeping this peace. The system put in place by Gurmhailon’s predecessor quickly fell to pieces. Scandinavian invaders again sacked the Breton coast and began deep incursions into Breton lands. In this chaos, one man would emerge to put an end to this long struggle. One man would rise to become the first true and remembered Duke of Brittany.
Muddied and trite, the Bretons began a long period of restoration to repair damage done by the Vikings. Still, the overlords from the north seemed a new permanent feature to the Breton landscape. Raids intensified in the continuing decades after the apt Alain the Great — who expelled the Vikings under Solomon — died without a suitable or qualified heir. The situation grew more difficult when a Viking force comprised primarily of Danes sacked and occupied Nantes a second time. Defeated, the Bretons retreated to their countryside where they squabbled in civil war over who should lead them to victory against the invaders.
Then, a glimmer of hope appeared in 913 C.E. with the birth of a child. His legend says that saints attended his birth and he received many blessings. In actuality, his birth would have been as unremarkable as any other, only this child was the grandson of Alain the Great. Through a strangely contrived marriage, the child received an invitation from his godfather King Athelstan of Wessex to live under the protection of his kingdom. No manuscripts have survived which tell us of the child’s upbringing in England, but he emerged a giant among men. His name was Alain Barbe-Torte. He earned his name from the uneven cut of his beard, which was a trait he shared with his grandfather according to one chronicle.
Alain held all the virtues of an effective leader: charismatic, cunning, quick-whited, and of course full of the utmost prowess in combat. Upon his return he laid claim to the throne of Brittany. The little resistance he encountered was squashed. It took little more than a fortnight for Alain to gain support from the entire kingdom. Thus began one of the more aggressive and seldom known military campaigns of the Viking Age. Alain led an army beginning in Normandy where many Vikings entered into Brittany having been forced out of the Seine river valley by Charles the Bald. It is difficult to imagine that Vikings could be the victims of a massacre, but at the hands of Alain Barbe-Torte they certainly were.
After cleansing the northern territories of Brittany of the Vikings, Alain marched south: straight for Nantes. As they passed through Viking held villages Alain’s troops left a wake of devastation behind them. Further and further they marched into the Loire river territory, and the more nervous the usurpers of Nantes became. The final push besieged Nantes where, conveniently enough, a fresh fleet of Vikings had sailed up the river to sack the city. Alain recruited these Vikings to help him sack the city. His agreement with them included something unusual: a settlement charter. The agreement was that if these Northmen joined him in battle, Alain would grant them rights to fertile lands in the Loire River Valley; so long, of course, they also convert to Christianity. With a deal brokered, the two armies converged on a heavily fortified Nantes. Within two days the city was taken.
The end of the Viking Age was upon Brittany. After over a century of turmoil and strife, the invasions and raids subsided. This was due to a global slowing of the Scandinavian exodus that changed the world, as well as the harsh tactics utilized by Alain Barbe-Torte. Alain established a strict legal code in Brittany, as well as permanent coastal defenses, secured trade routes, and a navy capable of intercepting approaching fleets. The Bretons had reclaimed their independence. Breton Sovereignty lasted until the 15th Century when the dukes of Brittany finally accepted to join the kingdom of France.
June 26, 2014
The Chateau de Noirmoutier
The Chateau de Noirmoutier is one of the oldest castles in France and Europe. While not originally built in the moat and bailey style, the lords of the region in the medieval period refitted the castle with four large towers, an outer wall, and of course a moat. Originally built to defend the island against the Vikings, the Chateau de Noirmoutier has played a tremendous role in the history of the region. It has withstood assaults from a variety of enemies throughout the Middle Ages. In the early 18th century, the castle was home to Dutch engineers and businessman — with the last name of Jacobssen — who worked to build dikes and levies around the region known today as the Vendée, much of which was under water prior to the Dutch constructions. The entire operation was conducted to increase the production of salt from the region, as well as open up new fields for raising livestock. Noirmoutier island today is referred to in French as “use presqu’Ile”, or an “almost island”, because at low tide an overland passage connects the island to the mainland. Prior to the Jacobssens, however, the island was only connected to another island known as Bouin which today is no longer an island. During the Viking Age, Bouin was a popular town to pillage due to its separation from the mainland.
The Chateau de Noirmoutier also served as the last bastion of the Vendéen forces during the Guerre de Vendée, fought from 1793-1796. Vendée, a fiercely catholic and pious region, remained loyal to the king of France during the French Revolution. Republican forces entered the region and committed what many today consider to have been a genocide. A significant population was massacred. Pictured below is the execution of the leader of the Vendéen forces at the Chateau de Noirmoutier:
(photo: the death of Générale D’Elbée, executed in his chair. The chair, filled with bullet holes, is still on display at the castle)
Author C.J. Adrien is currently visiting the island and the chateau, and using his connections with the local historical association to access exclusive archives kept at the chateau. The history of the island, and the chateau, inspired his first novel, “The Line of His People”, and its unreleased sequel, “In the Raven’s Wake”, all based on the exploits of the Vikings in the region in the 9th century A.D.
The Line of his People is currently on sale no in the U.K., buy your copy today!
June 16, 2014
June 11, 2014
Three Lessons to Learn from the Vikings
It is easy to dismiss the history of the Dark Ages as irrelevant to the development of modern society. Yet, looking back to the days of pillaging and conquest, there are a few simple lessons which we can apply today.
Lesson 1: Terror is Effective.
In the era of “war on terror”, enemies have become difficult to distinguish from ordinary people. Because of this, it appears the world has elected to militarize more than ever and impose massive intelligence operations on the denizens of nations. This is not necessarily different from the beginning of the Viking Age in the Frankish Empire. The Norse raiders attacked speedily and departed from the crime scene before any formal defense forces could be mustered. Take for example the attack on Nantes in 843 A.D. in which the Vikings entered the city in disguise during a religious festival. They sneakily unleashed a violent and bloody fury upon the city. In a chronicle mentioning the event, the people of Nantes were especially shocked that they were unable to identify the evil attackers, nor able to tell them apart from the regular tradesmen who frequented the city. The ambiguity behind the threat of the Vikings created a sense of terror. It might even be said that the first Viking raids were in fact acts of terrorism. As a result of the constant raids and inability of the Frankish leadership to retaliate, the Viking Age ushered in a new era of violence and discord. A massive shift towards militarization specifically to defend against the Vikings heralded the new epoch of violence we today associate with the Dark Ages. After all, with more soldiers, one can wage more wars. The Frankish Empire collapsed and fell into civil war. This perhaps should serve as a lesson: the wisest response to terror may not be to militarize, for it will undoubtedly plunge us into a series of unintended conflicts.
Lesson 2: People Use Religions to Justify Ridiculous Things.
One need look no further than Charlemagne’s massacre of his Saxon prisoners on the Elbe river to see that religion was used to justify ridiculous things. The Saxons were forcibly baptized, then drowned in the name of Christ. Blatant murder was justified as doing God’s work. But of course the story does not end there. No, it continues at Lindisfarne some half a decade later when the Vikings first attacked the English coast. In Scandinavian warrior culture, it is not acceptable to slaughter the unarmed unless merited by either a blood feud or a legitimate cause such as plague or famine. Yet, the Vikings at Lindisfarne massacre everyone in sight. Some of the priests were even dragged to the shore where they were forcibly drowned in the waters. And therein lies the evidence: Lindisfarne — according to a growing number of academics — was a retaliation in the name of religion. Many more priests would find this out the hard way throughout the Viking Age. This tug of war between religions at the beginning of the establishment of Christendom is an incredible insight into the folly of religious sentiment and fervor insofar as it was during this time used to justify horrendous acts of violence. But wait, that sounds indelibly familiar…
Lesson 3: Exporting Money Collapses Economies.
Danegeld was a tribute of gold and silver given to the Vikings in return for not attacking you. This worked well, except for the fact that the Vikings continued to return and ask for more money. The Danegeld tributes became so large in fact that it collapsed the primitive economies of the kingdoms of Charles the Bald and his brother Louis the German. It turns out that sending all of your money abroad tends to have a negative impact on your economy. How does that relate to today? Well, the super rich (i.e. the 0.01%) don’t like to keep their money in one place, especially away from places that might want to tax them. Thus, a significant portion of money is leaving the economies of western economies favoring the emerging economies of the east and south. What will be the result? Let’s just say that people were very, very hungry in 9th and 10th century Europe.
There are many more lessons to be learned from the Viking Age, and they are easy to find. It is as simple as opening up a book and learning. Oh yes, the Vikings liked to learn too.
Don’t forget that The Line of His People is on sale on kindle this week for $0.99! Buy your copy today to experience the next great Viking adventure novel to pillage the literary world!
June 10, 2014
Odin: Seeker of Knowledge
One of the most prevalent myths in Norse mythology is Odin’s visit to Mimir’s well. In the myth, Odin visits the well for he knows that a drink of the well’s water will give him knowledge of the future. The price? Odin must sacrifice an eye. The myth is demonstrative of an important value in Scandinavian society: learning. Vikings, while known for their conquering virtues, were also very interested in learning about the world. From their travels they brought back new knowledge which helped them in metal work, agricultural practices, building and crafts, among other things. These were by no means an unenlightened people, despite what the Christian chronicles might want their readers to think.
Don’t forget that The Line of His People is on sale this week for $0.99 on Kindle! Buy your copy today!
June 9, 2014
June 8, 2014
Horses in Viking Age Scandinavia
DID YOU KNOW that the Vikings made little use of horses? While contrary to the portrayal of Vikings in the movies and certain television shows, animal husbandry was both incredibly expensive and difficult to manage in Viking Age Scandinavia. Clues to the limited availability and quality of horses can be found in the various sagas which either neglect to ever mention horses or make reference to small horses used specifically for farming purposes. In the sagas we know of a legendary king who even challenged a horseman to a race through Jutland and won, demonstrating the king’s exaggerated prowess as well as the shortcomings of horses at the time. In fact, the first cavalry (if we may call it that) put together by a Scandinavian army was the army of William the Conqueror, whose Knits would become the prototypes for the well known medieval knights. In Normandy, the settler Scandinavians were able to raise horses due to the open spaces and plentiful crop yields of the land, all of which were unavailable in Scandinavia. Hence, the shield wall and advanced ships were the tools utilized by the Vikings, and not horses. Their armies travelled by sea or river, or occasionally on foot, but horses were too expensive and difficult to raise and field for them to be practical.
If you love the Vikings, buy The Line of His People, on sale Monday June 9th for $0.99!!!
June 6, 2014
The Vikings: Excellent Raiders, Poor Field Soldiers, and Why They Did Not Conquer Europe.
Photo: 881 Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu: Louis III of France defeated the Vikings, an event celebrated in the German poem Ludwigslied.
Recently, the Vikings have experienced a surge in popularity through the show Vikings on History Channel. In the show they are portrayed as ruthless warriors who easily subdue their victims on raids in England. The myth that the warrior culture of Viking Age Scandinavia allowed the raiders to dominate the rest of the known world for a short time certainly has an appeal to those who profess some sliver of Norse heritage. However, it must be noted and known that the Vikings, although prominent in historical discourse of the early medieval period, did not make effective land armies. The reason for this lies precisely in the warrior culture which many attribute to the success of the Vikings. Their desire for glory in battle, for songs of great deeds, and for recognition from their peers made the Vikings an unusually individualistic society of warriors. Individualism, while effective on small scales, creates problems for large armies competing for supremacy.
One need look no further for the damaging effects of individualism in western warfare than the battle of Crécy of the 100 Year’s War. A small band of English soldiers faced the prospect of annihilation before a much larger and better equipped coalition of French noblemen under the command of the French king. Knights, who comprised the bulk of the French army, tended to be haughty and individualistic and sought glory on the battlefield to justify their lifelong devotion to the art of warfare. As the French army arrived, the knights nearest the English army — composed primarily of conscript archers under the command of a select few knights — decided to charge the English head on in an attempt to singularly defeat the English and earn the recognition and respect of the other knights. In reality, this foolhardy attempt at glory allowed the English to pick off the French knights one by one, taking full advantage of their disunity. The result was complete devastation for the French army. (To read the full account of the battle, read Chronicle, by Jean Froissart)
Disunity allowed a smaller, better organized force of soldiers with less training to triumph at Crécy, and in this same way the Vikings displayed a similar disconnect between their warrior culture and the style of warfare utilized by the Franks in Western Europe. It could be argued that the Vikings were in fact unified, citing the shield wall as an example of how they worked together. The idea behind the shield wall is interesting, but lacks real credibility in the sense that no one really knows what a shield wall would have looked like for sure, and we know from our primary sources that most engagements resorted to singular combat. We also know from our sources that Viking culture was individualistic; hence the plethora of heroes who exist within the various sagas and emerge as treasured example setting leaders. It is therefore not absurd to conclude that the Vikings were intensely individualistic. In fact, one of the great cultural vestiges left by the Vikings in Western Europe after the Viking Age was this same warrior culture which led to the age of knights. That age too came to an abrupt end however during the slaughters of the 100 Year’s War.
Another disadvantage for the Scandinavians of the time was the lack of good and consistent animal husbandry. The geography of Scandinavia did not allow the raising of horses in large numbers, and therefore prevented the Vikings from developing cavalries such as the ones found in Spain and France. We know from extensive catalogues of conflicts involving cavalries that horses gave armies a tremendous advantage over non-cavalry-able foes. Horses remained a significant battle tool through the first world war, demonstrating their unique and intrinsic utility in battle. Vikings had no such tool. In fact, it is mentioned in the Heimskringla (King’s Saga) that a legendary king once raced a horsed soldier on foot. The king one, indicating that horses were not seen as necessarily beneficial to a rider, and that the stock of horses available to Scandinavians may have been poor. In any case, no great cavalries emerged from the north, and therefore the Viking warriors on foot would not have posed any significant challenge to the well trained and well organized land armies of the Frankish Empire (who also emulated the tactics of the Romans).
What made the Vikings effective, and what allowed them to make such a deep mark on history was their ability to attack swiftly and depart even faster due to the mobility of their ships. Long ships developed as the result of a long and proud maritime culture which has its roots in the geography of Scandinavia: numerous waterways separate the sparse settlements of the Fjords. Once the population of Europe feared these men, they harnessed the ideals of psychological warfare to intimidate their foe and tricking them into believing they were facing an unbeatable enemy. An example of this comes from the siege of Paris where sources tell that the city guard collapsed and retreated at the sound of the Vikings‘ roaring. Eventually, the armies of Western Europe came to understand the Vikings, and were able to field armies capable of repelling raids. Once this realization became apparent, the Viking Age quickly ended.
We can be certain, however, that Viking warriors were among the most fearsome combatants in history. Their devotion to combat would have made them skilled fighters in single combat. Facing a small contingency of enemies, they were unbeatable. Against the organized, calculated, and clinical stratagems of a professional army, the Vikings stood little chance.
Thank you for reading! Keep in mind that The Line of His People will be on sale for $0.99 starting Monday June 9th for a very limited time!
June 5, 2014
Author Update
Author Update:
To my loyal fans who have supported the adventures of Abriel since the beginning: the adventures are soon to continue! This past year has challenged my abilities to manage multiple projects at once, but this most arduous period of my professional career will soon be at an end. I am now, as mentioned before, about to embark on the most difficult journey any scholar can make; I am currently working towards a ph.D in History with a dissertation focus on Abriel’s world, the island of Noirmoutier (Herius) and the Vikings who both pillaged the island and lived there. This scholarly quest, however, will in no manner mark the end of Abriel’s adventures in the literary world. In fact, his journeys will be much closer to real history than any other fiction character in the Viking genre. This summer, I will be working on re-releasing The Line of His People in a second edition for the one year anniversary of the original release date. The sequel to the first novel, titled In The Raven’s Wake, has an expected release date of December 1rst, 2014. In the Raven’s Wake will follow Abriel to the edge of the know world, to Kiev, where he will fight for freedom, then seek revenge on his new enemies. The third installment of Abriel’s saga will not follow Abriel. Instead, it will follow Abriel’s daughter Asa who will face great peril during the Viking invasions of Brittany (847 C.E.).
I hope that all my fans will be as excited as I in the coming months where I will share with them (you) any and all new and intriguing discoveries about the past that I discover myself on my scholar’s journey. Again, thank you all for your support!
C.J. Adrien
