Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

by Neil Price

The Viking fleets began to return in the early years of the tenth century, bigger and now also driven by what seems to have been a lack of targets in the rest of Europe—there was not much mileage in Scandinavians attacking England, Ireland, or the Scottish isles unless it was in direct alliance with their countryfolk who were already there. In Frankia, the new raids were much more focussed than before and hit the estuary of the Seine repeatedly. The situation grew so quickly unstable that, following a battle at Chartres in 911, the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, was forced to negotiate with the Vikings, and in the process made a fatal mistake that was to shape his nation even down to our own times. In some desperation, and with considerable lack of foresight, Charles granted the Scandinavians a swathe of territory in what was then called Neustria, along the northern coast of the kingdom facing England. Because of its new overlords, it would soon gain a new name, one that it has kept to the present day: Nordmannia, ‘the land of the Northmen’, the province we call Normandy.