-

VIII. A Criticism of the Life of Rollo, as told by Dudo de St. Quentin. By HENRY H. HOWORTH, Esq., F.S.A.

Read January 29th, 1874.

The survival of types is a recognised feature in the philosophy of geology. Long after their contemporaries have disappeared we find stray shells outliving catastrophe and change, and recalling the features of times which have passed away. Similarly we encounter in our historical inquiries, even if we choose for our guides the most patient and scrupulous of writers, errors that have survived a crushing exposure of many years' date. They linger about the sentences of fastidiously critical historians, the relics of an uncritical age, to the great delight of some simple-minded scholars, who for the first time in their lives discover the fallibility of their master.

Destructive criticism is not an amiable occupation. The methodical examination of an idol endeared to our recollection by much poetical tradition, and the calm application of the critic's scalpel to its surroundings, are not always easy to bear. It was undoubtedly a rude shock to many when Achilles and Brutus (the British Brutus I mean), Romulus, and William Tell, were severally tilted at by criticism, and reduced to very mythical characters. Many have suffered in the same way, others still survive. Among them perhaps Rello, the founder of the ducal house of Normandy.

The story of Rollo depends mainly upon the testimony of the biographer and panegyrist of his grandson Richard the First, Dudo of St. Quentin. Dudo's narrative of the reign of Rollo was examined with great ingenuity and skill in the earlier half of the present century by M. Le Prevost, the annotator of Wace, and by M. Licquet, the historian of Normandy, and by each of these writers it was shown to be very unreliable and false. Notwithstanding this exposure, Sir Francis Palgrave, perhaps of all historians the one most thoroughly conversant with the details of European history from the ninth to the twelfth century, in his account of Rollo, follows the narrative of Dudo with little hesitation, and, apropos

of this very criticism, naïvely asserts that "unless we accept Dudon, such as he is, we must abandon the history of the first three Norman sovereigns." He accordingly does so accept him, and transfers the crooked details of the old canon of St. Quentin, in great profusion, to his own pages. Mr. Freeman, with much greater caution and sounder judgment, has not committed himself so far. Lastly, we have the able and recent editor of Dudo's history, M. Jules Lair, whose edition and commentary were published by the Society of Antiquaries of Normandy in 1865, after having been crowned by that valuable Society in 1858. In this last quoted work, which is very worthy of the Society, an attempt has been made to resuscitate Dudo's account of Rollo. Taking up the defence which had already been essayed by Depping, the author of "Les Expeditions Maritimes des Normands," this attempt, like preceding ones, is a failure, and the position of Le Prevost and Licquet still remains, in the main, intact. The question is an interesting one, and I propose to re-examine it, more especially as my results differ in some important particulars from those of previous critics.

Prima facie we may allow with M. Lair that it does seem extraordinary that a writer who was specially commissioned by Rollo's grandson to write the history of the three first Dukes of Normandy, who had access to the sons of those who were Rollo's actual contemporaries and companions, should have failed so utterly in one portion of his narrative, and should have given us such a false and unsubstantial account. But a little consideration will partially explain this anomaly. In the first place he was a stranger to Normandy. "Sed quod colonus non fui quondam tuus" are his words in apostrophising Rouen and Normandy in general. The place of his birth is not known. It was, says M. Lair, in the county of Vermandois, and possibly at St. Quentin itself. We first meet with him in the service of Albert Count of Vermandois, performing the delicate functions of an envoy. Hugh Capet had made a raid upon Vermandois, and its count sent Dudo to ask assistance from Richard, the first duke of Normandy. He was well received, visited the several monasteries there, and was presented by Richard with two livings in the district of Caux. He himself tells us he was at the Norman Court "more frequentativo" during the two years preceding the death of Richard in 994-996. It was on this occasion Richard prevailed upon him, after some coy resistance, to write the history of the Norman dukes. He seems then to have revisited Vermandois, but returned to Normandy. In 1015 Richard the Second confirmed and altered the donation of his father. The advowson of his two livings was made over to the canons of St. Quentin, while he retained the income for life, and shortly after, when he published his work, he became

dean of the chapter. The date of his death is altogether uncertain. All we can say is that he was dead in 1043, when his successor in the deanery is mentioned. For these facts I am indebted to M. Lair's introduction, pages 18, 19, and 21. From them it is clear that Dudo was more of a guest than aught else at the Norman Court, a guest who was well treated, and returned his host's consideration with fulsome flattery, but after all only a guest. His history was published in Vermandois and dedicated to Adalbaron, archbishop of Laon. Again, Dudo was a priest, and, more than that, a Carlovingian priest, to whom Norsemen and Norse ways of looking at things were utterly alien. He was as conscious inwardly of the inferiority of this sea vermin as the Greeks ever were of the Barbarians. It was his method, if not actually his aim, to make Rollo a preux chevalier from the point of view of a Carlovingian annalist. He would have been at a loss, even if it had been his intention, how to describe the rough and briny manners of his hero as he was in the flesh, nor would such manners have sounded well when described in the measured turgidity which he affected. Again, it may well be that the Christian dukes, who we know had the zeal of converts, were anything but proud of their heathen ancestry, that their intercourse with the chivalry of France made them fastidious in such matters, and that they willingly drew a veil across them. It is equally probable that the sons of the old invaders, who chiefly dwelt in the Bessin and the Cotentin, still preserved much of their old faith and their old language; that they were not partial to monks and priests, and reserved their Sagas for their firesides, and were reticent about them; or it may further be that Dudo did not deem it worth while to make such inquiries. In the fashion of his age, he preferred to turn to the annals of the monasteries and copy them out rather than make a venture of his own among the traditions still living around him. Whatever the cause, the result is very certain. He does not seem to have picked up any independent evidence about Rollo, but to have copied and altered the statements in the greater monastic annals, those of St. Bertin and St. Vedast, of Fulda and of Rheims, in the last of which were the chronicles of Frodoard and Richer. But, if so, how comes it that his story is pronounced to be false? Here it is that I differ from other critics. I believe that the old canon invented very little; that he tells us little that is actually false; only that he has transferred the doings of other men to Rollo. Where the annals say Godfred or Sigfred, he retains the exploit, but assigns it boldly to his hero. M. Licquet and others have partially seen this, but I believe it to be a general failing of his. This is more satisfactory, for, although we curtail thereby the deeds and prowess of Rollo, ours is not absolutely

destructive criticism, and we reassign to others what we take from him, The person whose doings have been chiefly thus pirated is Godfred or Guthred, a renowned Danish chieftain, and a much more important individual in his own lifetime than our historians seem to be aware. But this is another matter, and we must proceed to our criticism. The biography of Rollo is contained in the second book of Dudo's work, the first being occupied with an account of the pirate Hasting, &c. He commences his account by deriving Rollo from Dacia. M. Lair would make out that Dudo here employs Dacia as a generic term for Scandinavia, and that it is not, as some critics have urged, a synonym for Denmark (vide introduction op. cit. 50, note). But he overlooks the fact that Dudo uses Dacia in opposition to Scanzia, i.e. Scania, and makes his hero when he leaves his house in Dacia go across the sea to Scanzia (book 2, pars. 4 and 5). He also has the words "Igitur Daci nuncupantur a suis Danai, vel Dani" (book 1, par. 3). This shows that the old writers were not mistaken in understanding by Dacia the peninsula of Denmark. Now, if one fact about Rollo is more clear than another, it is that he had nothing to do with Denmark and that he was a Norwegian. Not only is this the Norse account as preserved by Snorro in the Heimskringla, but it was, according to the best evidence we have, the tradition among the Norman dukes themselves. In the Laws of King Edward the Confessor, which it is well known were put together in their present shape after the Conquest, occurs the following paragraph:-" Proferebat quod antecessores ejus et omnium baronum fere Normannorum, Norvegienses exstitissent, et quod de Norveia olim venissent. Et hac auctoritate leges eorum, cum profundiores et honestiores omnibus aliis essent, præ cæteris regni sui legibus asserebat se debere sequi et observare."*

Dudo goes on to say that Rollo was the son of a distinguished man in Dacia, whose name he does not give, and says he had a younger brother called Gurim. Most people, even sceptical people, now allow, that, however the Sagas may fail in accuracy when describing foreign countries, or when exaggerating the exploits of some hero, their genealogy is generally trustworthy. They make Rollo, or Rolf as they call him, a son of Ragnvald earl of Möre, in Norway. They tell us he had two own brothers and three half-brothers, whom they name; but Gurim is not one of these. Gurim is a corruption, in fact, of the Danish name Gurm, Guthrum, or Vurm. Now the Guthred whom we have already mentioned, curiously enough, had a brother Gorm or Vurm (vide Hincmar), and he was, of course, a Dane. Dudo proceeds to tell us that Rollo and his brother Gurim quarrelled and fought with the king of Dacia, that Gurim was killed, upon which * Houard, Traité sur les Coutumes Anglo-Normandes, vcl. i. cited by Depping, page 514.

Rollo set sail for Scanzia with six ships. From Scanzia he proceeded to England, partially impelled by a dream which was interpreted to him by a Christian (cuidam sapienti viro et Christicola). I will not stop to criticise this queer estimate of a Norse pirate's modes of thought. "At this time," says Dudo, "there lived in England the most Christian King Alstelmus," and with him Rollo is made to have friendly relations. We need not say that no English king was called Alstelmus; for a long time it was thought that Alstelmus was a corruption of Athelstane, and that the great Athelstane was here meant. A closer criticism showed that for chronological reasons this could not be; it was then ingeniously suggested that the name stands for Guthrum Athelstane, the Danish rival and protegé of Alfred. This seems to me a very forced and improbable explanation, and, besides, Dudo assigns this intercourse to the period preceding Rollo's alleged landing in France in 876, while Guthrum was only converted and christened Athelstane in 880. This seems to dispose effectually of the theory. I believe, with the author of the Histoire Ecclesiastique de Normandie, Trigan (M. Lair's Introduction, 53, note), that Alstelmus is a corruption of Alfred, and not of Athelstane, and this is considerably confirmed by the fact that in Brompton, who wrote in the thirteenth century, and who borrowed the story probably from Dudo, the name is Alfred, and not Alstelmus. The story, then, resolves itself into this: that Rollo landed in England, and had relations with Alfred the Great; yet it is strange that we search the contemporary annals in vain for any mention of such intercourse, strange also, as Trigan says, that a Christian prince like Alfred should have given aid to pagans in ravaging a Christian land. The only English writers who mention this intercourse, says M. Licquet, are John Wallingford and Walsingham, and they doubtless took their account either from Dudo or from one of his Norman copyists. But is the story entirely false? By no means. England was then tormented and harassed by the northern pirates, but these were Danes, and among them the most prominent were a Guthred or Godfred, who shortly after became Earl of Northumberland, and Guthrum, the great opponent of Alfred. Here, then, is the explanation. Once more we have the exploits of a Guthred, or of a Guthrum, assigned to Rollo. On leaving England Rollo, according to Dudo, sailed to the country of the Walgri, i.e., Walcheren. Here he is made to enter into a sustained struggle with Ragner Longi Collis, count of Hainault, and Radbod, Duke of the Frisians. The name

of Ragner Longi Collis, which is well known in the annals of this period, has been found in a document dated as early as 877, and a Radbod "comes in Lake et Ysella," occurs in the year 875 (M. Lair's Introduction, 55). This, pro tanto, supports Dudo's account; yet it is strange that the chroniclers of the