Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The English name "Normans" comes from the French words Normans/Normanz, plural of Normant, [17] modern French normand, which is itself borrowed from Old Low Franconian Nortmann "Northman" [18] or directly from Old Norse Norðmaðr, Latinized variously as Nortmannus, Normannus, or Nordmannus (recorded in Medieval Latin, 9th century) to mean "Norseman, Viking".
The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries . People or things connected with the Norman conquest of southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries
Whereas the term "Normans" in English usually refers to the Scandinavian-descended ruling dynasty of Normandy in France from the 10th century onwards, and their scions elsewhere in Western Europe, in the context of the Rus' people, "Normanism" is the idea that the Rus' had their origins among the Normans (i.e. among "Northmen"). [9]
Historians have few sources of information for this period of Norman history: Dudo of Saint-Quentin, William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, Flodoard of Reims, Richerus and Wace. Diplomatic messages are the primary source of information for the succession of dukes. Rollo of Normandy was the chief – the "jarl" – of the Viking population.
Vikings and Normans are Ethnically linked in ancestry from the 9th to 11th centuries and who raided and settled in Britain and Ireland. In Ireland the Vikings became completely Gaelicized and established the first towns. The Normans invaded and conquered England in 1066 and later had similar success invading Ireland in the late 12th century.
The Normans were descended from Vikings who had settled in Normandy, and although they had adopted the French language, their heritage was essentially Viking. In this manner, the Vikings ultimately (if indirectly) finally conquered and kept England after all.
Rollo left a legacy of the Founder of Normandy and his leadership and integration of Viking settlers into the region transformed it into a stable political entity. [56] His lineage played a key role in shaping medieval Europe, as it was William the Conqueror , a descendant of Rollo's, who famously led the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.
The formation of the Norman state also coincided with the creation of an origin myth for the Norman ducal family through Dudo, such as Rollo being compared to a "good pagan" like the Trojan hero Aeneas. Through this narrative, the Normans were assimilated closer to the Frankish core as they moved away from their pagan Scandinavian origins. [5] [6]