Rollo the Viking

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about Scandinavian Vikings and their influence on the British Isles. In that post, I mentioned the great viking Rollo or Gange-Rolf, without going into any detail about him. I'll pick up on that here. Given that Rollo is the ancestor of among others the present-day British royal family, he is arguably one of the most influential Scandinavians of all time. He was also one of the Norsemen causing the most trouble on the European continent.

The exact origin of Rollo is a matter of dispute, and has been subject to heated debate between Norwegian and Danish historians. According to some Danish historians as well as the Norman historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo was a Danish viking, son of a certain King Erik. According to the Icelandic historian Snorre Sturlason, he was son of the Earl of Møre in Western Norway, Ragnvald Øysteinsson. As the good Norwegian I am, I will go with Snorre's account, although I acknowledge that it is probably impossible to settle the matter of his origin.

As many others of his contemporaries, Rolf was only a young boy when he participated on his first viking raids. Only 13 years old he would take part in raids on the areas eastwards, around the Baltic Sea. The young Rolf kept participating in these raids for several years, until in his early 20s his group did a raid in the Viken-area, i.e. the area around the Oslo-fjord. King Harald Fairhair had explicitly prohibited the Norse from raiding inland, and this raid led to Rolf being exiled from Norway. The fact that Rolf was the son of the Earl of Møre, Ragnvald Øysteinsson, one of King Harald Fairhair's closest friends and allies, did nothing to stop Harald from exiling him. Neither did the pleading of Rolf's mother to the King.

After being exiled from Norway, Rolf traveled to the Orkneys and the Hebrides. In 885 Rolf joined the attacks on the area around Paris under the Danish viking leader Sigfred. Sigfred and his company must have posed a grave danger for the settlements in this area, for they were being bought off and paid tribute several times to cease the raiding. However, the raids lasted for several years, and Rolf slowly made himself chieftain of these vikings.

Only in 911 were Rolf's forces defeated by Charles the Simple at the Battle of Chartres. Instead of turning Rolf away, Charles decided to make Rolf his ally. With the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Rolf pledged allegiance to the King, who gave him the areas that became known as Normandy. Rollo, as he was known from now on, would be Charles' first bulwark against any other vikings launching attacks on the Frankish areas.

Contrary to his pledges to Charles, Rollo did not stop his raids. From their base in Rouen, Rollo and his chieftains launched several raids on the surrounding area, constantly expanding their territory. In time they came to control a large area of what is now western France, their territory reaching as far west as the the river Vire. A few years before his death, Rollo passed on his fiefdom to his son William Longsword in 829.

Rollo must have been an imposing figure - according to Snorre, he was so large that no horse could carry him. Although Snorre no doubt was exaggerating this quite a bit, Rolf's physical size earned him the nickname of Gangerolf or Rolf the Walker. He also seems to have been a very proud person. According to legend, when he was to kiss King Charles' foot as part of the Treaty of of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Rolf flat out refused to do this. When Charles extended his foot to him, Rolf ordered one of his men to kiss it in his place. Rolf's warrior then lifted Charles foot up to his mouth, causing the king to fall over backwards.