Normans

Piratical North men, who from 912 settled on the Seine, adopted a new language, new laws, customs, and religion, and gave their name to Normandy. They were an enterprising, restle , lawle folk. Their first chief, Rolf, or Rollo, received baptism and swore fealty to Charles the Simple. A prolonged rivalry between a heathen and a Christian party ended ab. 944 in the supremacy of the latter. Ab. 1040 12 Norman counts gained 12 cities with their lands in Apulia and organized a military republic. Robert Guiscard, first duke of Apulia, founded the kingdom of Naples 1059; Roger, his nephew. IMG:content-1584.jpg:[blocks in formation] but was recalled by trouble in Italy. In 1084 he defeated the German emperor and sacked Rome. The Norman Kingdom in s. Italy lasted till 1194. Everywhere the Normans accepted the institutions of the more highly civilized peoples whom they conquered, and so disappeared as a separate race.