The Civic Platform - A Political Journal of Ideas and Analysis

edited, translated and commentary by Elisabeth van Houts; 2000;
ISBN 0719047501

[The book is a collection of source materials and commentary
concerning the Normans. This will be a 32 part series of both the
sources and the author's commentary.]

The Normans were the people of Normandy, the northwestern province of
France that came into existence at the beginning of the tenth
century. The frontiers of Normandy fluctuated, but the region in
which Norman customs prevailed during the duchy’s lifetime (from c.
911 to 1204) stretched from north to south and from east to west as
follows. From Eu near the mouth of the River Bresle in the north, to
the Rivers Epte and Eure in the east, towards Dreux where the Rivers
Avre and Sarthe formed the south-eastern borderline. From Saint-
Ceneri in the south-east corner, the frontier went westwards
following the River Mayenne as far as a point halfway between
Domfront and Ambrieres, from where the line continued westwards to
pick up the River Couesnon at Pontorson. This region roughly
corresponded to the ecclesiastical province of the archbishopric of
Rouen, which itself was based on the Roman administrative unit
centred on that city.

The inhabitants were for the most part Frankish but included a
significant minority of Scandinavian settlers from Norway, Denmark
and from Scandinavian settlements in Britain, who formed the ruling
elite. The immigrants assimilated so rapidly with the Frankish
people, however, that within three generations they ceased to use
their own language and lost most of their customs. What they retained
were personal names, some legal practices, stories which reminded
them of their homeland in Norway and Denmark, and above all their
collective name. That name derives from ‘north men’, which means ‘men
who came from the north’, an etymology that was well understood by
the Normans themselves. From Normandy they set out later to conquer
southern Italy and the greater part of Britain and some established
themselves elsewhere in Europe. They were at the height of their
power in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries.