In 881 Charles ‘the Fat’, son of Louis the German, of Strasbourg Oath fame, succeeded, owing to the deaths of his rival cousins and uncles, in uniting for a few years all the dominions of Charlemagne under his sceptre; but, weak and unhealthy, he was not the man to control so great possessions, and very shortly he was deposed and died in prison on an island in Lake Constance. With him faded away the last reflection of the Carolingian glory that had once dazzled the world. In France the descendants of Charles ‘the Bald’ carried on a precarious existence for several generations, despised and threatened by their own nobles, as the later Merovingians had been, and utterly unable to defend their land from the hostile invasions of Northmen, that, beginning in the eighth century, seemed likely during the ninth and tenth centuries to paralyse the civilization and trade of Europe as the inroads of Goths, Huns, and Vandals had broken up the Roman Empire. The long ships of the Northmen had been seen off the French coasts even in the days of Charlemagne, and one of the chroniclers records how the wise king seeing them exclaimed, ‘These vessels bear no merchandise but cruel foes,’ and then continued, with prophetic grief, ‘Know ye why I weep? Truly I fear not that these will injure me; but I am deeply grieved that in my lifetime they should be so near a landing on these shores, and I am overwhelmed with sorrow as I look forward and see what evils they will bring upon my offspring and their people.’ The Northmen, we can guess from their name, came from the wild, often snow-bound, coasts of Scandinavia and Denmark. Few weaklings could survive in such a climate; and the race was tall, well built, and hardy, made up of men and women who despised the fireside and loved to feel the fresh sea-wind beating against their faces. Life to them was a perpetual struggle, but a struggle they had glorified into an ideal, until they had ceased to dread either its discomforts or dangers. Here is a description of the three classes, thrall, churl, and noble, into which these tribes of Northmen, or ‘Vikings’, were divided. ‘Thrall was swarthy of skin, his hands wrinkled, his knuckles bent, his fingers thick, his face ugly, his back broad, his heels long. He began to put forth his strength binding bast, making loads, and bearing home faggots the weary day long. His children busied themselves with building fences, dunging ploughland, tending swine, herding goats, and digging peat.... Carl, or Churl, was red and ruddy, with rolling eyes, and took to breaking oxen, building ploughs, timbering houses, and making carts. Earl, the noble, had yellow hair, his cheeks were rosy, his eyes were keen as a young serpent’s. His occupation was shaping the shield, bending the bow, hurling the javelin, shaking the lance, riding horses, throwing dice, fencing and swimming. He began to wake war, to redden the field, and to fell the doomed.’