Система гуманитарного и социально-экономического знания. Языковая подготовка. Учебное пособие

2. The Norman (from Nortmanni: «Northmen») were originally pagan barbarian pirates from Denmark, Norway, and Iceland who began to make destructive plundering raids on European coastal settlements in the 8 raids on the northern and western coastlands of France grew in scale and frequency, and the Vikings had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine River by about 900. A Viking named Rollo, who had already won a reputation as a great leader of Viking raiders in Scotland and Ireland, soon emerged as the outstanding personality among the new settlers. In 911 the Frankish king Charles III the Simple made the Treaty of St. ClairsurEpte with Rollo, ceding him the land around the mouth of the Seine and what is now the city of Rouen. Within a genera tion the Vikings, or Norman, as they came to be known, had extended their rule west ward to the districts of Lower Normandy. From then on until the mid11 the history of the Norman in Normandy was marked by a line of ruthless and forceful rulers calling themselves counts, or dukes, of Normandy and struggling to establish political hegemony over the indigenous Frankish population of the region.