of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imitation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavishness and greediness. Their chief men were especially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skilful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the very boys were orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold, whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasures of horses, and of all weapons and garb of war.

"Several of these features stand out very clearly in Norman history. The cunning of the Normans is plain enough; so is their impatience of restraint, unless held down by a strong master. Love of imitation is also marked. Little of original invention can be traced to any strictly Norman source, but no people were ever more eager to adopt from other nations, to take into their service and friendship from any quarter men of learning and skill and eminence of every kind. To this quality is perhaps to be attributed the fact that a people who did so much, who settled and conquered in so large a part of Europe, has practically vanished from the face of the earth [that is, as Normans]. They adopted the French tongue, and were among the first to practise and spread abroad its literature. They adopted the growing feudal doctrines of France, and worked them both in Normandy and in England into a harmonious system. From northern Italy, as it would seem, they adopted a style of architecture which grew in their hands, both in Normandy and in England, into a marked and living form of art [a style characterized by the round arch and heavy,

massive columns]. Settled in Gaul, the Scandinavian, from a sea-faring man, became a landsman. Even in land-warfare he cast aside the weapons of his forefathers; but he soon learned to handle the weapons of his new land with greater prowess than they had ever been handled before."

In the realm of intellect, the Norman "welcomed the lore of every stranger":

"Lanfranc brought law and discipline; Anselm brought theology and philosophy. The gifts of each were adopted, and bore fruit on both sides of the Channel. And no people ever knew better how to be all things to all men. The Norman power in England was founded on full and speedy union with the one nation [the Anglo-Saxon] among whom they found themselves."

It was this union of races that made the English people and the English nation, and made them conquerors. Without this power of adaptation, if the Norman conquerors had remained a separate ruling caste, holding down the Saxons as serfs if they could, a great, murmuring, discontented host, ready at any time to side with any invader against their hated masters, England could not have held its own against the Armada or against Napoleon, not to speak of conquering. Because the Normans had the good sense and the pliancy to fuse with the sturdy, stubborn Saxons, the nation has inherited the mingled qualities of both the mighty races from which it sprung, and no enemy has ever been able

to play off Norman noble against Saxon serf, or Saxon serf against Norman noble. Every foe who has tried it has found one English people.

With the above-quoted description should be read Macaulay's splendid sketch:*

"The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valor and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long the terror of both coasts of the channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea, which was their favorite element. In that province they founded a mighty state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighboring principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying aside that dauntless valor which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they settled. Their courage secured their territory against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Christianity, and with Christianity they learned a great part of what the clergy had to teach. They abandoned their native speech and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a barbarous jargon; they fixed it in writing, and they employed it in legislation, in poetry and in romance. They renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the other branches of the great

* MACAULAY, "History of England," vol. I, ch. 1, p. 8.

German family were too much inclined. The polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbors. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armor, gallant horses, choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite flavor than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, and manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation and by a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of their historians that the Norman gentlemen were orators from the cradle. But their chief fame was derived from their military exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and valor."

It must not be forgotten that the Normans were racially akin to the English whom they conquered, though both sides had long forgotten the relationship. Not Frenchmen but Normans conquered the AngloSaxon realm. England's trouble was still from the Northmen. Almost at the moment when, just after the death of Alfred the Great, the English had begun the reconquest of the "Danelaw," as the northeastern portion of England was called, which the Northmen known as "Danes" had subjugated— in 910-other hordes of the terrible Northmen, under Rolf or Rollo, known as the Ganger (the

Walker), had mastered territory in the north of France. They came as pirates, and their land was long known as the "pirates' land"; but the French king, Charles the Simple, deemed it wisest to cede the land and have the conquerors as subjects rather than as foes. Rolf was baptized, received the king's daughter in marriage, and became his vassal for the conquered territory, which he now received as a fief of France. As showing the temper of the newly settled barbarians, it is related that, in the course of the ceremony of doing homage for his land, Rolf was told that he must now kiss the king's foot. This he bluntly refused to do. Then a courtier suggested that he could do it by proxy, deputing one of his men to perform the service. The sturdy Northman detailed for the purpose obeyed his chief, but had no thought of kneeling before the king. He walked forward, seized the king's foot and lifted it for the kiss, with the result of throwing the king on his back. In view of the quality of their fierce guests, the French seem to have passed the incident without remark or protest. The name of Northman now came to be softened into Norman, and the newly acquired land of the Northmen or Normans came to be known as Normandy. Gradually the conquerors laid aside their barbarian customs and traits.

"No race has ever shown a greater power of absorbing all the nobler characteristics of the people with whom they came in contact, or of infusing their own energy into