At the end of the 10th century, Frankish nobility faced a constant Viking threat. Here I explain the importance of the battle of Chartres and its connection to my family

The Viking threat

In the late 900s, Charles III was the King of France, also known as Charles the Simple¹. He was the great-grandson of Louis the Pious, Emperor of the West¹. At the time, he faced internal strife from the descendants of Robert the Strong who wanted to wrestle the crown of France from him¹. At the same time, after many Viking attacks on northern France, including a siege on Paris, Viking leader Rollo wanted to attack once more².

Both Louis the Pious and Rollo are my direct ancestors but are not related to each other. Rollo’s daughter, Adele, ended up marrying Louis’ great-great-great-grandson.

This was not unexpected because the Frankish Kings’ policy up till then was to buy the Vikings out. This was unsustainable; especially because French gold and silver reserves were running low². Over the years about 120 pounds of silver had vanished from France in Viking pockets.

This is one-third of all the money in circulation at the time². (In 2021, an archaeologist found a stash of this money in a farm in Poland³).

Unaware of these monetary problems, Rollo wanted to attack for monetary gain.

The battle of Chartres

In the summer of 911, Rollo attacked Paris². He hoped that a small army would be able to breach the walls of the city but Paris proved to be too hard to capture². Undaunted, Rollo focused his attention on the city of Chartres².

The Frankish army was ready for the battle². On Saturday 20 July, after ferocious combat, the Vikings were on the verge of winning. The Bishop of Chartres led the city’s population in a counter-attack, brandishing the Roman Catholic cross in one hand and holy relics in the other². By nightfall, Rollo and his men were trapped on a hill, north of the city². The Frankish army counted 6 800 Viking corpses left behind on the battlefield⁴.

The Frankish army withdraw to be able to recharge overnight². One of the noblemen in the Frankish army was my ancestor Ebalus Manzer. He and his army turned up late and hadn’t taken part in the main battle⁴. The Frankish and Burgundese army mocked him for this⁴. They taunted Ebalus and his army that there were enough Vikings left on the hill for them to prove their valour⁴. Ebalus accepted the challenge, without realising the Vikings held a superior position on the hill⁴.

Rollo sent some of his men to infiltrate the enemy’s camps, and sound their war horns². Thinking they were being attacked at night, they woke in a panic which let Rollo and his men escape to safety². Ebalus ran away and hid himself in a workshop; his cowardice was later immortalised in ballads sung about him⁴.

As dawn broke, the Franks attacked again to stop Rollo from boarding his ships and leaving².

The Vikings slaughtered livestock to build a wall of carcasses as protection². The Frankish cavalry couldn’t cross because the stench of blood and rotting meat unnerved the horses². This stalemate at the Battle of Chartres led Charles the Simple to make peace with Rollo⁵.

The end of the battle

Charles offered Rollo and his men all the land between the Seine in Paris and the English Channel². In return, Rollo had to:

• Pledge allegiance to Charles
• Convert to Christianity².
• Agree to defend France from further Viking attacks^{2 5}.

This was controversial but it served both sides well.

• Charles the Simple’s authority had waned in recent years². This power move helped to restore his authority.
• Who better than a Viking to protect against Viking attacks? Rollo and his men would have to focus on any sea-based attacks leaving Charles to run the kingdom, not defend it.
• Rollo had, like most Vikings, been at war for several decades. He was in his fifties at this point and was ready to retire from his war-mongering ways. He also knew that many of the coastal regions were now no longer as good for raids as they had once been. This was an opportunity to reward his men with land and become respectable too.

The peace treaty

The treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte laid out the conditions of peace^{1 2}. This created the region known as Terre Normanorum, which we now know by the name of Normandy². Charles harboured a secret plan to be able to regain the land within a generation or two². He didn’t realise that Rollo was cunning enough to value what he’d won.

Rollo converted to Christianity⁶ and changed his name to Robert I of Normandy. He married Charles’ daughter even though he was already married to Popa of Bayeux.

He had married Popa according to Viking customs, or more danico. For this reason it was invalid in the eyes of the Church.

He also leveraged some of the finest farmland in the country. Within a decade he and his men morphed into successful landowning knights².

Within a generation, the Northmen, or Norsemen, controlled the region⁵. They abandoned their dependence on naval warfare and launched many attacks on European countries from this base⁵. The best known attack is the Norman invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror⁵.

References

1. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1998). Charles III | Bourbon Dynasty, Reformer, Edict of Nantes. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-III-king-of-France#ref266993 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2024][↩][↩][↩][↩]
2. The Northman’s Duchy; Weapons and warfare; 2018-12-16[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. King’s ransom that saved Paris from the Vikings ‘found in Polish field’; Oliver Moody; The Times of London; 2021-07-13[↩]
4. The history of Normandy and England, Volume I; Sir Francis Palgrave; London; 1851[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
5. Norman people; Encyclopedia Britannica; 2015-09-04[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
6. Rollo of Normandy; Ancient.EU; 2018-11-08[↩]