Rollo the Viking
Died 931 A.D.
I
For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian
countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens
of Spain, and on the northwest by the Norsemen, or Northmen. The
Northmen were so called because they came into Middle Europe from
the north. Sometimes they were called Vikings (Vi'-kings), or
pirates, because they were adventurous sea-robbers who plundered
all countries which they could reach by sea.
Their ships were long and swift. In the center was placed a single
mast, which carried one large sail. For the most part, however,
the Norsemen depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes
there were twenty rowers in one vessel.
The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbors; but the two
regions that suffered most from their attacks were the Island of
Britain and that part of Charlemagne's empire in which the Franks
were settled.
Nearly fifty times in two hundred years the lands of the Franks
were invaded. The Vikings sailed up the large rivers into the heart
of the region which we now call France and captured and pillaged
cities and towns.
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