Noricum

“ It extended between the Danube, and part of the Alps and Vindelicia. Its savage inhabitants, who were once governed by kings, made many incursions upon the Romans, and were at last conquered under Tiberius, and the country became a dependent province. In the reign of Diocletian, Noricum was divided into two parts, Ripense and Mediterranean. The iron that was drawn from Noricum was esteemed excellent, and thence Noricus ensis was used to express the goodness of a sword. Dionysius Periegetes.—Strabo, bk. 4.—Pliny, bk. 34, ch. 14.—Tacitus, Histories, bk. 3, ch. 5.—Horace, bk. ”

“ Urban development.Civil development, such as we meet in Noricum and on the coast of Dalmatia, shows itself likewise in Pannonia only at some districts situated on the Norican frontier, and in part belonging originally to Noricum; Emona and the upper valley of the Save stand on an equality with Noricum, and if Savaria (Stein, on the Anger) received the Italian municipal constitution at the same time with the Norican towns, that place must doubtless, so long as Carnuntum was a Norican town, have belonged also to Noricum. ”

“ The Barbarian still aspired to the rank of master-general of the armies of the West; he stipulated an annual subsidy of corn and money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have commanded the important communication between Italy and the Danube. If these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a disposition to relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to content himself with the possession of Noricum; an exhausted and impoverished country, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the Barbarians of Germany. ”

“ The first step was the annexation of Noricum and Raetia (16–15 B.C.) , which brought under Roman control the mountainous district through which the direct routes lay from North Italy to the upper waters of the Rhine and the Danube. East of Noricum Tiberius reduced to order for the time the restless tribes of Pannonia, and probably established a military post at Carnuntum on the Danube. To Drusus fell the more ambitious task of advancing the Roman frontier line from the Rhine to the Elbe, a work which occupied him until his death in Germany in 9 B.C. In 13 B.C. Augustus had returned to Rome ”

“ In the former country, Pisistratus, a Spartan, is said to have founded Noricum near Celænæ on the river Marsyas.508 Selge in Pisidia is generally considered by the ancients to have been a Lacedæmonian colony, and we frequently find on coins of a late date this origin recognised. ”

“ And notwithstanding all the stir and eager revival of the Fourteenth Century in religion, politics, literature and general life, there was much both of sin and of sorrow then to exercise the pitiful soul—troubles enough in Norwich itself, of oppression and riot and desolating pestilence—troubles enough in Europe, West and East,—wars and enslaving and many cruelties in distant lands, and harried Armenian Christians coming to the Court of Edward to plead for succour in their long-enduring patience. ”

“ Norwich is very remarkable for its antiquities, its historical associations, its manufactures, and its trade; and also for the eminent men who have flourished at various periods in the city. It was the scene of many important events in the times of the Iceni, the Romans, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans. It was the royal seat of Anglo-Saxon princes. It was the Hierapolis Monachopolis of the middle ages; famous for its churches and convents; and in later times, celebrated for its Norman castle and cathedral. ”

“ Nortmanni or Hyperboreans
“The Dani and Sueones and the other peoples beyond Dania are all called by the Frankish historians Normans (‘Nortmanni’) , whilst however the Romans similarly call them Hyperboreans, of whom Martianus Capella speaks with much praise.”
It does not seem as though Adam made any distinction between the names Norman and Norseman.
[iv. 21.] “When one has passed beyond the islands of the Danes a new world opens in Sueonia [Sweden] and Nordmannia [Norway] , which are two kingdoms of wide extent in the north, and hitherto almost unknown to our world. ”

“ Proceeding eastward out of the Fenland and among the hills of Norfolk, the little river Wensum is found to have cut a broad, deep, and trench-like valley into the chalk and gravel plateau. Upon the elevated bank of the river is the irregularly picturesque town of Norwich, with the castle keep rising above the undulating mass of buildings, and the cathedral and its noble spire overtopping the lower portion of the city on the right hand. Norwich is an ancient town, but very little is known with certainty about it anterior to the Danish invasions. ”

“ Taking, then, Norwich for the Venta Icenorum of the Romans—called Caer Guntum by the British, and Northwic by the Saxons and Danes—you find the Capital of the Iceni, founded on the shoulder of the promontory overlooking the Wensum, towards the great estuary, which formed a natural stronghold for successive races of inhabitants. Whilst the Romans, fixing their permanent camp at Caistor, on the Taes, where that river joined the estuary, into which the Wensum, the Taes, and the Yare, all discharged themselves, would command the passage into the interior of the country ”

“ When the Normans settled in Neustria, their lively fancy caught up all that was imaginative among those around them. It is from their arrival that the first dawn of French literature dates, and it seems to have been they who first listened to the Breton lays, and brought them forward in the French tongue. At the central court of France, the Norman trouvère met the Provençal troubadour, and their repertory of tales was exchanged, the one giving his native Norse myths, tinctured with Keltic heroic tales, the other the Greco-Roman and Arabic stories that had travelled to him. ”

“ The Church of Rome reigned supreme over all Europe for a thousand years, but in the 15th century, reason revolted against her authority. Lutheranism and Calvinism were the first forms of the revolt on the Continent, and they assumed the names of Presbyterianism and Puritanism in England and Scotland. Norwich, in common with Norfolk and Suffolk, eventually took up the cause of the Reformation with a zeal and vehemence which make them stand alone in the annals of history. ”

“ The days when Rolf (Rollo, or Rou) , the Viking chief, won Normandy were not yet so long gone by that the fierce piratical instincts of his followers had ceased to influence their descendants: piety and learning, feudal law and custom, had made some impression upon the character of the Norman, but at heart he was still a Northman. The Norman barons fought for their independence against Duke William [Pg xxvi] with all the determination of those Norse chiefs who would not acknowledge the overlordship of Harold Fairhair, but fled to colonise Iceland when he made himself King of Norway. ”

“ How different was the rough and perilous life of the ancient sea-kings of the Normans from the proud and secure existence of the barons in Normandy! Yet the eye of the observant historian can trace a unity of national character even in the most different circumstances. By a similar analogy, this remarkable expedition of Doric adventurers from Hestiæotis to Crete will explain the zeal of the Cretans for the worship of Apollo, the ancient connexion of Crete and Delphi, and the early existence in Crete of notions respecting a strict regulation of public life (κόσμος) . ”

“ The Northern goddesses of fate, who were called Norns, were in nowise subject to the other gods, who could neither question nor influence their decrees. They were three sisters, probably descendants of the giant Norvi, from whom sprang Nott (night) . As soon as the Golden Age was ended, and sin began to steal even into the heavenly homes of Asgard, the Norns made their appearance under the great ash Yggdrasil, and took up their abode near the Urdar fountain. ”

“ Still more and more of these settlers came, and thus Normandy rose among the nations. It became a tremendous power. Not so much at first with her sword as with her civilization. It may seem rather strange that this Norse colony should take the lead in western Europe, should take the lead in civilization, in culture, learning, architecture, scholarship; yet that is the fact. Norman will, both of the noble and weak kind, had its way in enlarging this realm during the sway of four successive dukes. ”

“ By Normans are meant the governing race in Neustria, the duchy of Normandy. The Northmen who settled in Neustria, and who became the foremost people of those times,—they and their descendants,—did in a portion of France what their kinsmen the Danes were doing in England. Circumstances gave to the Normans a consequence in history that is denied to the Danes; but the influence of the latter was very great on English life, and on the course of English events; and Norman influence on that life, and over those events, was materially aided by the earlier action of the Danish invaders of England. ”

“ The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes having subjugated the fair territory of England, they divided it into seven kingdoms, called the Heptarchy, in which Norfolk formed a part of East Anglia. The Anglo-Saxon leader, Uffa, established himself in this part of the island, in 575; and assumed dominion over that portion of the eastern district now divided into Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, giving it the name of East Anglia, of which Norwich was made the metropolis. Norwich was, therefore, a royal city, and the residence of the kings. ”

“ A Vala, druidess, or prophetess, consulted by the priests, revealed that the Norns had decreed that whoever wielded it would conquer the world and come to his death by it; but in spite of all entreaties she refused to tell who had taken it or where it might be found. Some time after this occurrence a tall and dignified stranger came to Cologne, where Vitellius, the Roman prefect, was feasting, and called him away from his beloved dainties. In the presence of the Roman soldiery he gave him the sword, telling him it would bring him glory and renown, and finally hailed him as emperor. ”

“ The Danes soon came over in such large numbers and so frequently, that they at last got possession of the whole of East Anglia, and became the parent-stock of the inhabitants of parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. In 1003, Sweyn or Swaine, King of Denmark, came over with his forces and, in revenge for the massacre of the Danes in the previous year, burnt Norwich and its Castle, as well as many other places. They afterwards rebuilt the city and castle, and came hither in such large numbers, that Norwich became a Danish city, with a Danish Castle, about 1011. ”

“ There is no evidence of the existence of Norwich as a city for 400 years after the Christian era. The whole island was a howling wilderness, and Norfolk was a vast common, like Roudham Heath. The natives lived by hunting or fishing, and sheltered themselves in the woods, or in caves, or huts. Water covered nearly all the area in which the city is now built, and filled all the valley of the Yare. The aborigines, called the Iceni, probably lived in huts near the banks of the river, as it afforded a good supply of fish ”

“ Under the name of “Normans” are included all those swarms of Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes, which, from the close of the eighth until far into the eleventh century, either laid waste or settled on the eastern and southern coasts of the Baltic, as well as the coasts of the west and south of Europe. “Norman” signifies neither more nor less than a man from the north. The Danish conquest of England was therefore just as fully Normanic as the conquest, by the Norwegians and Danes, of a part of France, called, after them, Normandy. ”

“ This Northern civilisation was peculiar to itself, having nothing in common with the Roman world. Rome knew nothing of these people till they began to frequent the coasts of her North Sea provinces, in the days of Tacitus, and after his time the Mediterranean. The North was separated from Rome by the swamps and forests of Germania—a vague term given to a country north and north-east of Italy, a land without boundaries, and inhabited by a great number of warlike, wild, uncivilised tribes. ”

“ The Norsemen settled around the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, England, and, especially, Wales, and [Pg 60] added a very considerable contribution to the pure Nordic element of the population.
The next and last invasion of Britain by the Nordics was the Norman conquest in 1066. The Norman leaders and soldiers were pure Nordics from the most Nordic part of France. In fact, the Normans were heathen Danes speaking a Teutonic tongue when they arrived in Normandy in 911 A.D. so that on coming to England they had been in France only a little over one hundred and fifty years. ”

“ By their repeated attacks upon Roman territory the Gaulish tribes had brought upon themselves the invasion which, after some stubborn fighting, made their country a province of the Roman Empire. Inter-tribal strife having now ceased, the civilisation of Rome made its way all over the country including that northern portion known as Neustria, much of which from the days of Rollo came to be called Normandy. ”

“ We hear of fresh arrivals on the Seine, Vikings who worshipped Thor and Odin, of an independent band at Bayeux under a certain Haigrold or Harold, and even of appeals for reinforcements from the Normans to the Northmen beyond the sea. The dukes of Rouen, says the Saga of St. Olaf, "remember well their kinship with the chiefs of Norway; they hold them in such honor that they have always been the best friends of the Norwegians, and all the Norwegians who wish find refuge in Normandy." ”