The Vikings all laughed their butts off. But the deal was done, and Hrolf the Walker, Viking marauder, was now Robert I, Count of Rouen. His land, a big chunk of coastline in present-day France, became known as the Terra Normannorum, “Land of the Norsemen.”
Nowadays we call the region Normandy.
Despite living the life of an outlaw up to this point, Count Robert took his job very, very seriously. His first task was to clean up this area that he and his buddies had just ravaged into charred cinders. He rebuilt towns. He erected huge, impenetrable walls around important cities. He constructed fortresses overlooking coastal waterways and organized a militia to deal with raiders. He sent his Viking warriors to wipe out bandit gangs and highwaymen, and to clean up the roads and forests of punks, evildoers, brigands, and other dastardly fellows. He also went to work cracking down on crime, ordering that offenses like robbery and assault were to be punished by summary execution.
Diligent, hardworking, and iron-fisted in his rule, Count Robert adapted his Viking-style sense of vengeance to every aspect of his government. Once, a man and his wife hid some of their farming tools and then accused their neighbor of stealing the stuff. When the truth came out, Robert had the man and his wife beaten, hanged for a few minutes, then cut down and “finished off by a cruel death.” Another time, a man looked at Robert’s wife funny, so Robert had that guy and his friends tortured to death with red-hot irons.
Count Robert’s wrath terrified the population of Normandy, but it worked. Before long, crime was wiped out, bandit gangs had been eradicated, and churches and towns were bustling with people flocking not only from Frankland but also from Denmark and Norway. Viking raids on the Seine ended, and any Northman dumb enough to test Count Robert found himself facing an enemy who not only knew all their tricks but had already done them better.
Once his borders were secure, Count Robert expanded the land of Normandy through treaties with other Frankish nobles as well as through military campaigns that destroyed rivals along the northern coast of France.
At the time of his death in 931, Hrolf the Walker had gone from a little-known but gigantic Viking pillager to the Count of Normandy. His heirs, descending from his son, William Longsword, would eventually be upgraded from Counts of Rouen to Dukes of Normandy and would become more and more integrated with Frankish (and later French) society.
The most famous of these descendants was Hrolf’s great-great-great grandson, a man known as William the Conqueror, who would lead a mighty, history-changing invasion of the British Isles in 1066 that would end with his being crowned King William I of England.
But that’s a tale for a different chapter. (Check out chapter 20 if you just can’t wait.)
KNOW YOUR VIKINGS
NAME:
Hrolf “the Walker”
RANK:
Count of Rouen
RELIGION:
Catholic (converted 911)
BORN:
Unknown, probably Denmark, around 846
DIED:
Natural causes, Normandy, 931
AREA OF OPERATION:
France
NOTEWORTHY:
Was appointed Count of Rouen by the king of the Franks, who wanted to stop him from ravaging the countryside