Jack of Harts

Vikings were the most dangerous brigands of the Old World in the centuries after the fall of Rome. They liked to think of themselves as more traders than brigands, but were not above liberating things they wanted from people who lacked the strength to stop them. They were rather unholy pagan terrors of Britannia, France, and what would become the Germanies. They even effectively conquered much of northern France and laid siege to Paris itself. In the end, the French king and one of the Viking leaders came to an agreement. His Vikings would stop their brigandly ways, swear fealty to the king of France, convert to Christianity, wed a very nice young lady of noble birth, and most importantly, stop all those other Vikings from stealing all of France’s stuff.

It was actually a pretty easy decision for all of them. Northern France was a vacation destination for Vikings who didn’t feel like freezing their balls off every winter, and the weather is barely noticeable to a North Man. But it was a storm-swept Hellscape for the French, so they were happy to give it up if it meant no more Viking raiders attacking Paris. At which point the Normans became France’s best guard dogs.

They left their pagan ways behind and signed up for that Christian God thing. They started speaking French. They learned to like cheese and croissants. They even learned how to do that little pinky thing while drinking tea. And the Normans went to town welding themselves into the highest ranks of local society. If a local ruler had a daughter or son looking for a spouse, the Normans had someone ready to sign up for that. Those Norman kids went everywhere, and treaties and alliances went with them. They are one of the reasons that European royalty are all kissing cousins now.

The North Man’s “settlement” of Normandy is one of histories most successful examples of a mass migration where the immigrants joined up with the locals rather than wiping them out. They became the rough and tumble guards of civilization, and France became the united France we think of now because of the Normans. And if you know French and English history, you know what I just did there…