Normans

From Metapedia

The Normans were a people from medieval northern France, deriving to a large extent their aristocratic origins from Scandinavia (the name is adapted from the name "Northmen" or "Norsemen"). They played a major political, military and cultural role in the northern and Mediterranean parts of medieval Europe and the Near East, eg. the colonisation (and naming) of Normandy, the "Norman Conquest" of England, the establishment of states in Sicily and southern Italy, and the crusades.

In fact, by the time of the invasion of England, most "Normans" were derived from the indigenous populations of eastern Brittany and western Flanders, but their lords retained a memory of their own Viking origins. They began to occupy the northern area of France now known as Normandy in the latter half of the 9th century. In 911, Charles the Simple, king of France, granted the invaders the small lower Seine area, which expanded over time to become the Duchy of Normandy. The invaders were under the leadership of Rollo, who swore allegiance to Charles the Simple.

The Norman people adopted Christianity and the Gallo-Romance language and created a new cultural identity separate from that of their Scandinavian forebears and French neighbours. Norman culture, like that of many other migrant communities, was particularly enterprising and adaptable. For a time, it led them to occupy widely dispersed territories throughout Europe.

The Normans should not be confused with the Northmen, that is, the Vikings from the North. In Russian historiography, however, the term "Norman", is often used for the Varangians, as for example in the term "Normanist theory". In French historiography, too, the term is often applied to the various Viking groups which raided France in the ninth century before settling down to found Normandy.