born, first as a county, but Rollo’s great-grandson (Richard II) already called himself
a duke, so one often refers to Normandy as a duchy from the very start (Helmerichs
1997 : 57 – 77 ).
THE SCANDINAVIAN SETTLEMENTThe Vikings did not settle all over Normandy, nor did they sever the country from its
roots. But each of the two mainly settled areas reflects a different attitude and different
structures.
In Caux and Roumois, it was a coherent process of both settling and integrating.
As the successor to Frankish counts, Rollo found it advisable to keep the current
Carolingian system in place: he became the Rúðujarl (count of Rouen), as the Norse sagas
later referred to him, but did not recreate a þing, an assembly, where all free men would
meet and take decisions. He seems to have shared the larger estates fairly equally among
his close companions and offered agricultural land to the remaining majority of his men
without segregating the local population from the incomers, who cleared the land, built
new farms and worked the fields.
In the less inhabited North-Cotentin, on the other hand, the settlement was purely
Scandinavian. There is even evidence for the existence of a þing, situated at today’s Le
Tingland (Renaud and Ridel 2000 : 304 ). The names given in their own language to lots
of coastal features also indicate intense navigation. And when the area eventually became
part of Normandy too, three of the ancient pagi happened to bear Norse names (still
attested in a document of 1027 ): Haga, Sarnes and Helganes.
We do not know how much Scandinavian legislation Rollo originally enforced on his
new territory: we only find traces of it in Norman customary law once it is written down
in the thirteenth century, and in some older documents written by clerics who had no
particular knowledge in matters of the north.
The right to exile is of undeniable Scandinavian origin. In a charter of 1050 listing
the so-called ‘ducal cases’ which aroused the duke’s anger (a Frankish tradition!), ullac
(< ON útlagr ‘banishment’) is mentioned. The word is also found in Robert Wace’s
Roman de Rou in the twelfth century, and today’s family names Dodeman and Floteman
(< dauðamaðr ‘man condemned to death’ and flóttamaðr ‘fugitive’) also bear witness of it.
Free union, more danico (‘the Danish way’), was long admitted together with legal
marriage before the Church. It was common practice in Scandinavia and the first
rulers all had a concubine: Rollo’s was Poppa, William’s Sprota, Richard’s Gunnor, who
ensured their lineage.
Scandinavian influence has obviously been most significant in maritime organisation.
The dukes had a monopoly on shipwrecks, the so-called ‘droit du varech’ (< ODa vrek),
in the eleventh century. Besides, they had a right on whales and sturgeon – which
reminds us of the law of Jutland ( 1241 ) stating that treasures, jetsam and fish larger
than sturgeon were the king’s property. All fishing must originally have depended on
Scandinavian law. In a charter of 1030 we hear for example of fisigardum ‘fisheries’ (< ON
fiskigarðr). The law of Scania also mentions fiskigardha. And in several documents from
the eleventh century, whalers are known as valmanni (< hvalmenn) and the word
valseta (< hval[manna]setr) describes a whaling station. But this activity existed before
the arrival of the Vikings, and that also applies to the making of salt, in which they
obviously took a great part as well.
–– chapter 33 ( 1 ): The Duchy of Normandy––