THE SIEGE OF PARIS

Vikings at the gates of the City of Love
October AD 885–spring AD 886

On every side arrows sped and blood flowed. With the arrows mingled the stones hurled by slings and war-machines; the air was filled with them. The tower which had been built during the night groaned under the strokes of the darts, the city shook with the struggle, the people ran hither and thither, the bells jangled. The warriors rushed together to defend the tottering tower and repel the fierce assault. Among these warriors two, a count and an abbot, surpassed all the rest in courage.

—Abbo de Saint-Germain, De Bellis Parisiacae

ON THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER 25, 885, a dreadful sight approached on the distant horizon. Making its way up the Seine River, straight for the heart of Paris, was the largest Viking armada anyone had ever seen. Seven hundred black dragon-headed Viking longships, carrying a host of over thirty thousand bloodthirsty warriors, aligned in a battle formation that stretched over seven miles downriver. Their red-and-white sails flying high, their crews of sweaty oarsmen rowing with all their might, the Vikings raced ahead, eager to capture the jewel of the Frankish Empire. Victory would grant them access to a crossroads of three mighty rivers, giving the largest Viking fleet in French history unrestricted access to waterways throughout the countryside.

The small Frankish garrison, probably not numbering more than a few hundred men, sealed the gates, strapped on their armor, and called for their leader, the fearless Count Odo Capet. Son of Duke Robert the Strong, Odo was a valiant knight, a resolute fighter, and the man entrusted with the safety of his beloved city. Within the walls were tens of thousands of loyal subjects, not the least of whom were his own wife and infant son, and he was determined to protect them from the Viking scourge at all costs.

The leader of the Viking flotilla, a humorless, gigantic sea-king named Sigfried, called to Count Odo to meet and discuss terms. Sigfried and a few of his jarls met with Count Odo and Joscelyn, the bishop of Paris, on neutral ground, and Sigfried made his demand: “You open the path for us to travel down the Seine, and we promise we totally won’t double-cross you and sack Paris. You have my word as a bloodthirsty, utterly untrustworthy Viking marauder who wants nothing more than to chop off your head and decorate my living room with it.”

Bishop Joscelyn and Count Odo didn’t trust this guy as far as they could throw a refrigerator full of Norsemen. The clergyman responded by saying, “If, like us, you had been given the duty of defending these walls, and if you should have done that which you ask us to do, what treatment do you think you would deserve?”

Sigfried put his fists down on the table and stared the bishop in the eyes. His response: “I should deserve that my head be cut off and thrown to the dogs. Nevertheless, if you do not listen to my demand, on the morrow our war machines will destroy you with poisoned arrows. You will be the prey of famine and of pestilence and those evils will renew themselves perpetually every year.”

Then he calmly stood, turned, and left, followed closely by his grim companions.

It was about to get real.

Paris was defended by two sets of impressive Viking-proof stone walls that clamped the city up tighter than a fallout shelter. The first wall surrounded the city itself, and the second was a fortified bridge outside town, bristling with arrow loops and turrets that barred access to the Seine. Odo’s men had closed the bridge defenses in time, but throughout the rest of November 25, the Vikings unloaded their ships, started putting together their catapults, dusted off their battle gear, and prepared to take the bridge by force. The count ordered his men to gather any and all weapons and equipment they could find from the town, take up positions in the tower on the bridge, and prepare for the fight of their lives.

Sigfried launched his attack at dawn the next morning with an aerial barrage of catapult stones that hammered into the bridge tower and wall like giant wrecking balls. Each massive boulder was launched out of a catapult the size of a city bus. The defenders, firing out through arrow slits in the tower, tried to take down the catapults, but the sea of warriors in front of them was honestly pretty terrifying (Helm’s Deep kind of stuff). Count Odo and Bishop Joscelyn did the best they could to keep morale up, with the armored count racing up and down the lines shouting pump-up speeches and the bishop offering prayers for the protection of the men and constantly reminding them to fight for God against the heathen enemies.

After softening up the defenses, Sigfried ordered an all-out assault. Teams of Viking warriors raced forward, some of them carrying super-tall ladders and others holding their shields over their heads to deflect the incoming arrows and crossbow bolts raining down on them from the Frankish men-at-arms. The warriors threw the ladders up on the walls, trying to scale the tower, but every time, the defenders threw them back, with Count Odo himself personally dumping pots of scalding-hot oil, boiling water, and burning pitch down on their heads. The Vikings, driven back by a storm of arrows and molten liquid, ran for their lives or jumped into the river to put out the fires, but the damage done to the tower during the day was catastrophic. It was clear the Parisians would not hold for long.