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Archiver > DENMARK > 2006-07 > 1152191160


From: Michael King <>
Subject: Re: Who were the Normans??
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 09:06:00 -0400
References: <000801c6a08c$0dd200d0$2308e23c@acer22085ff5f5>
In-Reply-To: <000801c6a08c$0dd200d0$2308e23c@acer22085ff5f5>


At 9:37 AM +1000 6/7/06, Cai Bobbarækus Andersen - wrote:
>Who were the Normans?
>permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine
>River by about 900. A Viking named Rollo, who had already won a
>reputation as a great leader of Viking raiders in Scotland and
>Ireland, soon emerged as the outstanding personality among the new
>settlers. In 911 the

The origin of Rollo is debatable. Some say he was a Norse Viking,
some say he was a Dane. Even the problematical link to a father who
was Jarl of More opens the question of "which More". There appears to
have been one in Skåne and one in Norway. The reference to More comes
from later Icelandic sagas and the Icelanders may have confused the
two. Skåne was, at that time, part of Denmark. To confound things
further, the Icelanders also had access to the Frankish annals, and
some of the names (in Frankish) may have been improperly equated with
Norse names.

Stewart Baldwin writes, "If an Icelander in the eleventh or twelfth
century came across the Frankish annals which mention Ragenold and
Rollo (also mentioned by Flodoard), he might reasonably assume that
these two names correspond to the Norse names Rognvald and Hrollaug.
Noting that other sources had a Rognvald and Hrollaug who were father
and son (namely, Rognvald of More and his son Hrollaug, the early
Icelandic settler), this writer might mistakenly assume that the
Ragenold and Rollo of the annals were the same men as Rognvald of
More and his son Hrollaug. This "name is the same" mistake is one
which is commonly made by modern genealogists (i.e., incorrectly
identifying two individuals with the same name), and was also common
among medieval writers."

There are no known contemporary sources that mention Rollo. It seems
clear that William the conqueror's ancestry before Rollo, as quoted
in lots of places, is a 12th century "invention".

Cheers,

Mike King.
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Michael King
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