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Rollon, 1st Duke of Normandy was born circa 860 in (Scandinavia) and died circa 932 France of unspecified causes. He married Poppa van Bayeux (c870-c910) . He married Gisla (c912-) .

Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

Rollo of Normandy (860–932 ?) was the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy in modern-day western France.

Biography details

Rollo the Viking, also known as Rollo of Normandy, was a famous Viking leader who lived during the 9th and 10th centuries. He is primarily known for his role in the establishment of the Duchy of Normandy in northern France. Rollo was originally from Norway and was one of the many Viking warriors who raided and settled in various parts of Europe during the Viking Age. In the 9th century, he led a group of Vikings who raided the region that would later become Normandy, in northern France. After years of raiding and fighting, Rollo and his men were eventually offered a settlement by the Frankish king Charles the Simple. In amajor treaty dated 911 AD signed with the French King, Charles the Bald, Rollo was granted a large piece of land, if he agreed to swear allegiance to the king and convert to Christianity. Thus becoming the Count of Rouen and what would later be called the Duchy Normandy. Rollo is often depicted as a brutal and bloodthirsty Viking, but he is also credited with bringing stability to the region that would later become Normandy. He established a powerful dynasty that would rule the region for centuries, and he helped to establish a unique blend of Viking and Frankish culture in the area.

Rollo's legacy can still be seen in modern-day Normandy, where he is celebrated as a founding father of the region. He is also a popular figure in popular culture, having been depicted in a number of films, TV shows, and video games.

885 Siege of Paris

In 885, Rollo was one of the lesser leaders of the Viking fleet which besieged Paris under Sigfred. Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right. In 886, when Sigfred retreated in return for tribute, Rollo stayed behind and was eventually bought off and sent to harry Burgundy.

911 Invasion of Western France

Later, he returned to the Seine with his followers (known as Danes, or Norsemen). He invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy.

In 911 Rollo's forces were defeated at the Battle of Chartres by the troops of King Charles the Simple.[1] In the aftermath of the battle, rather than pay Rollo to leave, as was customary, Charles the Simple understood that he could no longer hold back their onslaught, and decided to give Rollo the coastal lands they occupied under the condition that he defend against other raiding Vikings. In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with King Charles, Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert.[2] In return, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required to kiss the foot of King Charles, as a condition of the treaty, he refused to perform so great a humiliation, and when Charles extended his foot to Rollo, Rollo ordered one of his warriors to do so in his place. His warrior then lifted Charles' foot up to his mouth causing him to fall to the ground.

Settlement of Normandy

Initially, Rollo stayed true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time he and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet. Eventually, however, Rollo's men intermarried with the local women, and became more settled as Frenchmen. At the time of his death, Rollo's expansion of his territory had extended as far west as the Vire River.

Death of Rollo

Sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshipped, and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true God in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, some of his pagan roots surfaced at the end.

Residence at Falaise

In Falaise, France, is a series of statues that pays tribute to the six Norman Dukes from Rollo to William the Conqueror. The castle here was the principal residence of the Norman Knights.

Château Guillaume-le-Conquérant Place Guillaume le Conquérant / 14700 Falaise / Tel: 02 31 41 61 44


Children


Offspring of Rollo of Normandy and Poppa van Bayeux (c870-c910)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942) 893 17 December 942 Sprota (c898-c950)
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978)
Gerloc de Normandie (c912-962) 912 Rouen, Normandy, France 14 October 962 William III of Aquitaine (c900-963)


Dudo ii, 16 (p. 39) makes Poppa the mother of William, but does not give the mother of Gerloc/Adele. Guillaume de Jumièges (GND ii, 6 (v. 1, pp. 64-5)) makes Poppa the mother of both Guillaume and Gerloc.

William I Longsword (893 – 17 December 942) was the second Duke of Normandy from his father's death until his own assassination. Little is known about his early years. He was born in Bayeux or Rouen to Rollo and his wife Poppa. All that is known of Poppa is that she was a Christian, and the daughter to Berengar of Rennes, the previous lord of Britannia Nova, which eventually became western Normandy. According to the William's planctus, he was baptised a Christian.


  • William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942) - Son and heir to Norman Duchy
  • Gerloc de Normandie (c912-962) AKA: Gerloc or Adele - Daughter m. Guillaume (William) Tête d'Étoupe, count of Poitou and duke of Aquitaine. See Dudo iii, 47 (pp. 69-70, which mentions the marriage but does not give her name), p. 201 (note 256, and sources cited therein, for Adele as the Christian name of Gerloc); GND ii, 13 (v. 1, pp. 68-9). Around 942, monks from Saint-Cyrien de Poitiers arrived at Jumieges. They had been sent by William’s sister Gerloc who had married William III, duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitiers.

Disputed Children

Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

More children are listed on the Royal Genealogies Website (ROYAL92.GED), online RGW - Hereinafter cited as Royal Genealogies Website. However no supporting documentation is available:

  • Robert of Corbeil
  • Crespina de Normandie
  • Gerletta de Normandie
  • Kathlin de Normandie

Disputed origins

The question of Rollo's Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy's 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.

Danish theory

Dudo of St. Quentin, in his De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum (Latin), tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Denmark, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumièges also mentions Rollo's prehistory in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum however he states that he was from the Danish town of Fakse. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Rou and Garin), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.

Norwegian theory

Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified this Rollo with a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas that mention a Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker). The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, and became a Jarl in Normandy. The nickname of that character came from being so big that no horse could carry him.

Disputed Marriage: Gisela of France

Gisela (French: Gisèle; fl. 911) was a French princess who was married to Rollo, Duke of Normandy.[lower-alpha 1][1]

According to limited early records, Rollo was betrothed to Gisela, daughter to the king of West Francia, Charles the Simple, after Rollo's conversion to Christianity upon his ascension as ruler of Normandy in 911.[1] The marriage and the existence of Gisela are not independently confirmed, allowing for a legendary character of Gisela. There is some debate whether, if she did exist, she was a legitimate or an illegitimate daughter of Charles.[2][3]

Norman chronicler William of Jumieges refers to Rollo having two relationships: a captive taken at Bayeux Poppa to whom he joined himself to her by marriage more danico ("according to Norse custom"). She was mother of his son William Longsword. He relates that he put Poppa aside to marry Gisela more Cristiano ("according to Christian custom") at the time of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, and that when Gisela died, he returned to Poppa. However, the absence of any record of this royal princess or her marriage in Frankish sources suggests the entire supposed marriage to Gisela may be apocryphal. If Gisela existed and bore Rollo children within a legal Christian marriage, it is unlikely that Poppa's son William would have been seen as legitimate by Christian Franks. [4]

See Also

Bibliography

  • John Morby, Dynasties of the World: a chronological and genealogical handbook (Oxford, Oxfordshire, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), page 86. Hereinafter cited as Dynasties of the World.
  • Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 39. Hereinafter cited as Britain's Royal Families.
  • Richard Glanville-Brown, online <e-mail address>, Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
  • Royal Genealogies Website (ROYAL92.GED), online Hereinafter cited as Royal Genealogies Website.
  • Marek, Miroslav. "Genealogy of the Dukes of Normandy". Genealogy.EU. http://genealogy.euweb.cz/normandy/normandy.html. 
  • D.C. Douglas, "Rollo of Normandy", English Historical Review, Vol. 57 (1942), pp. 414-436
  • Robert Helmerichs, [Rollo as Historical Figure]
  • Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdom under the Carolingians, 751-987, (Longman) 1983
  • Dudonis gesta Normannorum - Dudo of St. Quentin Gesta Normannorum Latin version at Bibliotheca Augustana
  • Dudo of St. Quentin's Gesta Normannorum - An English Translation
  • Gwyn Jones. Second edition: A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press. (1984).
  • William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Smithsonian Institute Press. (2000)
  • Eric Christiansen. The Norsemen in the Viking Age. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. (2002)
  • Agnus Konstam. Historical Atlas of the Viking World. Checkmark Books. (2002)
  • Holgar Arbman. Ancient People and Places: The Vikings. Thames and Hudson. (1961)
  • Eric Oxenstierna. The Norsemen, New York Graphics Society Publishers, Ltd. (1965)

External Links

Ancestry Trees

Rollo is a direct ancestor of many notable people of history:

Contemporary Sources

There are several contemporary sources that provide information about his life. It's worth noting that none of these sources were written during Rollo's lifetime, and they may contain some inaccuracies and embellishments. Nevertheless, they provide valuable insights into Rollo's life and the historical context in which he lived:

  1. The primary source of information about Rollo is the "Gesta Normannorum Ducum" (Deeds of the Norman Dukes), written by the Norman chronicler William of Jumièges in the 11th century. William's work provides a detailed account of Rollo's life, including his early years as a Viking raider, his conquest of Normandy, and his relations with the Frankish king Charles the Simple.
  2. The "Chronicle of Fontenelle" is another contemporary source that provides information about Rollo. This chronicle was written by an anonymous monk at the abbey of Fontenelle in Normandy in the 10th century. It includes a brief account of Rollo's invasion of the region.
  3. The "Annals of Saint-Bertin" is a set of annals written by Frankish chroniclers in the 9th and 10th centuries. They provide brief mentions of Rollo's raids and battles in the region.
  4. The "Chronicle of Adémar de Chabannes" is a chronicle written in the 11th century that includes an account of Rollo's invasion of Rouen and his eventual conversion to Christianity.
  5. The "Life of Saint Philibert" is a hagiography written in the 10th century that includes a brief account of Rollo's conversion to Christianity and his donation of land to the monastery of Jumièges.

Royal Succession Charts

French nobility
New title Count of Rouen
911–927
Succeeded by
William I

Footnotes


Footnotes (including sources)

MainTour, Bergsmit, Robin Patterson, AMK152, Thurstan, Rtol, Phlox
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