Vikings - The Carolingian Army and the Struggle against the Vikings

Four long months without a post on this blog have transpired; I apologize, but little happens in archaeology during winter - you know, the ground is frozen in northern climes. However, the following writing from Simon Coupland, in a University of California document on the Vikings, complete with footnotes, may make up for the dirth of posts of late. The author has imparted a trememdous volume of very interesting information on the Viking raids on England and the English response. (ED.)

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VIATOR

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

Volume 35 (2004)

PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

THE CENTER FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY AND THE STRUGGLE

AGAINST THE VIKINGS

by Simon Coupland

There have been many previous studies of the Carolingian army, but none

examining the ninth-century armies which faced the Viking invasions. Earlier works

have tended to focus on the age of expansion in the eighth century, particularly the

capitularies and campaigns of Charlemagne.' Yet the armies which fought

Charlemagne's offensive campaigns differed significantly from those which

defended the Empire against the Vikings in terms of their composition, size,

armament and purpose. The present study will thus begin by considering the

different types of defensive force which opposed the invasions: the host, the coast

guard and the lantweri. The royal army has naturally been the focus of previous

studies, but against the Viking incursions the initial line of defense was the coastal

guard, both at sea and on land. Another form of resistance was that offered under the

lantweri, the defense of the realm in case of invasion, which was obviously of

primary importance against the Vikings, but which has been accorded scant attention

in the past. The article will then turn to three more general issues: the size of the

Frankish armies which fought the raiders, the leadership and muster of those armies,

and the particular role played by the cavalry. The final three sections will address the

range of military tactics employed against the Northmen: the strategy of

containment, by which the Franks attempted to confine Scandinavian fleets to the

rivers; siege warfare; and finally pitched battle. Throughout the study a more

fundamental question will also be kept in view, namely, why it was that the a11-

conquering war machine of Charlemagne's time apparently found itself unable to

deal with the Scandinavian incursions barely half a century later.

After a long period in which the only interest shown in Carolingian military matters

was in the form of short survey articles, two significant recent books have

turned the spotlight on warfare in the Carolingian period. The first, by Bernard

Bachrach, considers the Frankish military in considerable depth, though again it

concerns itself primarily with the eighth rather than the ninth century.i The second is

Guy Halsall's important survey of warfare and society in the early medieval period,

including discussion of the ninth century and paying particular attention to the

Viking raids.' However, the fact that Halsall discusses a 450-year period across the

whole of Western Europe allows the present study to go into detail where he uses a

'se, for example, an article about the Carolingian anny by F.-L. Ganshof contained such a preponderance

of references to the reign of Charlemagne that the English translation was entitled "Charlemagne's

Anny": "L'armee sous les carolingiens" in Ordinamentl militari in occidente nel/'alto medioevo, 2

vols., Settimane 15 (1968) 1.109-130, trans. in F.·L. Ganshof, Frankish Institutions under

Charlemagne (New York 1970) 57-68.

2Bemard S. Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire (Philadelphia 2001).

3G. HaIsaII. Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450--900 (London 2003).

50 SIMON COUPLAND

broader brush; and the conclusions reached here will frequently complement those in

his work. As for earlier studies of the Carolingian army, a valuable detailed survey

can be found in a bibliographical article by France published in 2001, though as was

noted earlier, the great majority of these sources concentrate on the era of

Charlemagne," The occasional references to the struggle against the Vikings in these

previous works tend to be brief and relatively superficial.' One incident which has

received unusually close attention is a battle between Franks and Vikings at the Dyle

in 891, whose significance for the role of cavalry will be discussed below, but this is

a rare exception." The present study is consequently long overdue. It should be

emphasized that this article will focus exclusively on the armies which opposed the

Viking invasions; broader defensive strategies employed by the Franks, such as the

fortification of bridges, the payment of tributes and the hiring of Viking leaders as

mercenaries, have all been discussed elsewhere, as has the role of the church in

resisting the invasions.'

MILITARY SERVICE (1): COASTAL DEFENSE8

The first reference to defensive measures taken specifically against sea-borne

raiders from Scandinavia dates from 800, when Charlemagne ordered a fleet to be

stationed on the North Sea coast against "pirates."? Ten years later further measures

were taken, and in 811 the emperor inspected ships of the newly constructed

fleet at Ghent and Boulogne." Despite this, there is no record of a North Sea fleet

ever having seen action, and in 820 it was the shore-based guards who repelled an

attempted Viking raid on Flanders and the Seine mouth. I I A North Sea fleet was

not mentioned again until 837, when Louis the Pious ordered the construction of

ships in Frisia to counter repeated Viking raids on the region around Dorestad.

FCJ.France, "Recent writing on medieval warfare: from the fall of Rome to c. 1300," The Journal of

Military History 65 (April 200 I) 441-473, esp. at 445-450.

'Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) mentions them just five times in his index; see

also C. Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., 2 vols., (London 1924) 1.101-

107; F. Lot, L 'Art militaire et les armees au moyen age en Europe et dans le proehe Orient, 2 vols.,

(Paris 1946) 1.105-111; J. F. Verbruggen, "L'art militaire dans I'empire carolingien (714-1000),"

Revue beIge d'histoire militaire 23.4 (1979) 289-310, at 302-306; 23.5 (1980) 393-412, at 406-407;

P. Contamine, "L'espace carotingien: dilatation, dislocation, invasion" in P. Contamine, ed., Histoire

militaire de la France, 4 vols. (paris 1992-1994) 1.36-42.

6See below, "The role of the cavalry."

's. Coupland, "The fortified bridges of Charles the Bald," Journal of Medieval History 17 (1991)

1-12; "The Frankish tribute payments to the Vikings and their consequences," Francia 26/1 (1999)

57-75; "From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings," Early Medieval

Europe 7.1 (1998) 85-114; "The rod of God's wrath or the people of God's wrath? The Carotingians'

theology of the Viking invasions," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42 (1991) 535-554, esp.

547-553. For the construction of fortifications against the Vikings, see F. Vercauteren, "Comment

s'est-on defendu, au IXe siecle dans I'empire franc contre les invasions normandes?" Annales du AXXe

congres de la Federation archeologlque et historique de Belgique (1935-1936) 117-132; R. M. van

Heeringen, P. A. Henderikx and A. Mars, eds., Vroeg-Middeleeuwse ringwalburgen in Zeeland (Goes

and Amersfoort 1995); and S. Coupland, "Charles the Bald and the Defence of the West Frankish

Kingdom Against the Viking Invasions, 840-877" (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University 1987) 167-186.

·See also H. Sproemberg, "Die Seepolitik Karls des Grossen" in Beiträge zur belgisch-niederländischen

Geschichte (Berlin 1959) 1-29; and John Haywood, Dark Age Naval Power (London and

New York 1991) 118-130, both of which concentrate on the first quarter of the ninth century.

9Annales Regni Franeorum [ARF] 800 and 800 (revision); ed. F. Kurze, MGH Scriptores rerum

Germanicarum in usum scholarum (hereafter MGH SSrG) (Hanover 1895) 110-111.

IOCapirulare missorum Aquisgranense primum c. 16: MGH Capitularia regum Franeorum (hereafter

MGH Cap.) J.J53;ARF811 (n. 9) 135.

IIARF820 (n. 9 above) 153.

12Annales Bertiniani [AB] 837: ed. F. Grat, 1. Vielliard, and S. Clernencet, Annales de Saint-Bertin

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 51

This implies that the existing coastal defenses, which had been reorganized in 835

and again in early 837,13 did not include a fleet at that time. Although the ships

were definitely built," there is no reference to them actually being deployed

against the Viking raids, and the lack of an attack in 838 was said to be due to a

storm which sank part of a Scandinavian fleet on its way south." There is indeed

no indication that any Carolingian ruler ever used a naval force at sea against

Scandinavian attack, in contrast to the explicit references to the deployment of

Carolingian fleets against Arab raiders in the south 16 and also to the naval

victories won by Kings Ethelred and Alfred against the Vikings on the other side

of the Channel."

On land, it was the coast guard which had the dual function of keeping watch

for sea-borne raiders and defending the shore if such raiders attempted to land.

Although no one text describes how the system functioned, a number of details

can be gleaned from various sources. For instance, in 800 all the North Sea ports

and river mouths navigable to ships were guarded by detachments of troops. IS

Where such guards might come from is revealed in a letter of Einhard, abbot of

St.-Bavo in Ghent, in which he reported that the abbey's men had been unable to

attend the autumn assembly of 832 because they were serving in the coast guard.

Einhard complained that it was unfair to fine these men for failure to perform their

military service when they were defending the coast at the emperor's command."

The maintenance of the coastal defense was evidently the responsibility of the

aristocracy, for in 865 Pope Nicholas I wrote that "the majority of the bishops and

other royal vassals are guarding the coast day and night against sea-borne

raiders," in this case undoubtedly from Scandinavia.2o If danger threatened,

everyone living along the coast had to turn out to support the regular guards. Free

Franks who failed to respond faced a fine of twenty solidi, while the unfree would

pay half this sum and receive a flogging.i' To sound the alarm, some sort of

signaling network was employed, though it is unclear whether it involved

beacons, flags, bells, or some other means of communication."

The potential effectiveness of the system was illustrated in 820, when thirteen

Danish ships tried to plunder the coast of Flanders. They were repelled, managing

to steal only a few cattle, and so sailed on to the mouth of the Seine, where they

met even stiffer resistance from the coast guard, losing five of their men in a skirmish.

In the end they were forced to travel as far as Bouin in Aquitaine to find a

(paris 1964) 22; ed. and trans. J. L. Nelson, The Annals of St-Bertin (Manchester 1991) 37.

13AB 835, 837 (n. 12): Grat 18,21; Nelson 33, 37.

"Annales Fuldenses [AFJ 838, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SSrG (Hanover 1891) 28; T. Reuter, ed. and

trans., The Annals of Fulda (Manchester 1992) 15.

"AB 838 (n. 12 above): Grat 24; Nelson 39.

'~aywood, Dark Age Naval Power (n. 8 above) 113-116.

"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 851, 875, 882, 885, 896: D. Whitelock, D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker,

eds., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London 1961) 43, 48, 50, 51, 57-58.

'IARF 800 (n. 9 above) 110; Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni c. 17, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SSrG (Hanover

1895)21.

'9Einharti epistolae no. 23: MGH Epist. Karo!. Aevi 5.121; trans. in P. E. Dutton, Charlemagne's

Courtier (Ontario 1998) 139.

7I:iNicolaiI epistolae no. 38: MGH Epist, Karo!. Aevi 6.309.

2'Capitulare missarum specialia (802) c. 13: MGH Cap. 1.100-101.

~ithard, Historiarum libri Illl 3.3: P. Lauer, ed., Nithard: Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux

(paris 1926) 94. The word signum can have all these meanings: J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis

lexicon minus (Leiden 1976) 971. 

52 S[MON COUPLAND

site which was sufficiently poorly defended for them to pillage.P Yet by the late

830s the increasingly successful Scandinavian raids on Frisia and Aquitaine indicate

that the system was breaking down, and after 840 Viking fleets apparently

penetrated Frankish rivers at will, with repeated raids on the Seine, Loire, and

elsewhere.r' A monk at Noirmoutier, Ermentarius, blamed the civil war: "Their

disagreement gives strength to foreigners ... the defense of the shores of the ocean

is abandoned.?" Another monastic chronicler, this time on the Seine, blamed the

cowardice of the magnates, who "prepared to flee rather than to resist, being absolutely

terror-struck.?" A third factor, not mentioned by contemporaries, was the

increased size of the Viking fleets. Whereas earlier raiders had operated in small

groups-such as the thirteen vessels of 820 or the nine which raided Noirmoutier

in 835-a fleet which attacked Nantes in 843 numbered sixty-seven ships, and

two years later 120 ships entered the Seine." Nevertheless, in 854 Charles the

Bald issued a capitulary decreeing that the coastal defense should be deployed

with the usual vigilance," and the papal letter cited earlier proves that some kind

of defense was still being offered in the 860s. The Flemings also repelled an

attempted Viking landing on their coast in 864,29 but the regularity and apparent

ease with which the Vikings entered Frankish rivers suggests that-as

Ermentarius of Noirmoutier claimed-the coastal guard was largely inoperative or

ineffectual, so that increasingly the fight had to be taken to the Vikings on land.

 If a Scandinavian fleet overcame any resistance offered by the coast guard and entered

Frankish territory, the king might muster the royal host to oppose them.

Mobilization of the army could be cumbersome and slow, however, and it has been

claimed that this was one of the reasons for the Vikings' success." What this

argument overlooks is that there was a second, much more rapid type of

mobilization, specifically intended to counter invasion. This was the lantweri, when

"all shall come to the defense of the fatherland, without any excuse.,,32 The

distinction between the usual situation and the lantweri, "that is, the defense of the

2JARF820 (n. 9 above) 153-154.

2"1be raids in the 840s are discussed exhaustively in Coup land, "Charles the Bald" (n. 7 above) 7-

32.

2'Ennentarius, De translationibus et miraculis sancti Filiberti, preface to bk. 2, in R. Poupardin,

ed., Monuments de /'histoire des abbayes de Saint-Philibert (Paris 1905) 60.

26Translatio sancti Germani Parisiensis c. 3: Analeeta Bollandiana 2 ([883) 72.

27ARF 820 (n. 9 above) 153; Ermentarius, preface to bk. 2, 2.11 (n. 25 above) 59, 66-67; AB 845

(n. 12 above): Grat 49, Nelson 60. See further S. Coup land, "The Vikings in Francia and Anglo-Saxon

England to 911" in R. McKinerick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History 2 (Cambridge 1995)

190-201, at 194.

28Capitulare missorum Attiniacense c. 2: MGH Cap. 2.277.

29AB 864 (n. 12 above): Grat 113, Nelson 118.

3'Mentioned briefly, without discussion, by Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) 53-

54; Contarnine, "Espace carolingien" (n. 5 above) 399-400; and T. Reuter, "The End of Carolingian

Military Expansion" in P. Godman and R. Collins, eds., Charlemagne's Heir. New Perspectives on the

Reign of Louis the Pious (Oxford 1990) 391-405; idem, "The recruitment of armies in the Early

Middle Ages: what can we know? in Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European

Perspective, AD 1-/300 (Copenhagen 1997) 32-37, at 34-35.

llA claim made, e.g., by Oman (n. 5 above) 1.101; H. Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im

Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, 7 vols. (Berlin 1900-1936) 3.76; A. d'Haenens, Les Invasions

normandes, une catastrophe? (Paris 1970) 55.

12Edictum Pistense (864) c. 27: MGH Cap. 2.322.

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 53

fatherland/'" is most clearly expressed in Charles the Bald's proclamation at

Meerssen in 847: "It is our wish that a man serving anyone of us [se, Charles,

Lothar I, or Louis the German] ... shall join the army with his lord or perform his

other duties, unless, God forbid, an invasion of the land should occur, which is

called lantweri, in which case all the people of that land shall turn out together to

repel it.,,34 The lantweri thus involved the conscription of the entire Frankish

population, both those who regularly served in the host and those who were usually

exempt. Even those who were normally forbidden from bearing weapons on

penitential grounds were permitted to take up arms against pagan invaders; at times

like these every able-bodied fighting man was expected to turn OUt.35 Another

example of the way in which the customary criteria for conscription were ignored

under the lantweri can be found in the Capitulary of Quierzy of 877. In the decree,

provision was made for any royal vassal who might wish to relinquish his benefice

to his heir on the king's death, declaring that the only duty required of such a man

would be to turn out in defense of the realm."

The procedures to be followed in the event of invasion were laid down in detail

in a capitulary of 865.37 The missi in charge of the region under attack were

responsible for assembling an army to oppose the invaders. The local bishops,

abbots, and abbesses were instructed to send their full complement of troops, fully

equipped and led by a standard-bearer, while counts and royal vassals were to

command their contingents in person. Although the capitulary referred to the

defense of Burgundy against hostile incursions from neighboring lands, similar steps

were almost certainly taken when any local army was raised to resist the Vikings. It

has been suggested that the aristocracy were less motivated to defend their own

kingdom than when taking part in potentially profitable foreign campaigns.P but the

fact that these men were defending their own territories and ultimately their own

properties seems to me to outweigh such considerations. Likewise, although such

forces were undoubtedly less well equipped than the regular army, since many of the

common people were too poor to afford much more than a spear or bow," the fact

that the men were defending their own region with their local leaders means that

their morale and loyalty may have been as high as or even higher than that of the

royal host. It would also have been possible to mobilize such troops much more

quickly than the regular army.

Many of the recorded instances of opposition to the Vikings almost certainly represented

examples of the lantweri, even if the term was not used in contemporary

accounts. For instance, in 869 the Loire Vikings were defeated by the Transsequanani,

that is, the men from between the Seine and the Loire, under the command of

3~is definition is found in an otherwise unknown capitulary included in Paris, BN lat. 10758 and

4628A, reproduced in MOH Cap. 2.71, note.

)4Hlotharii, Hludowici et Karoll conventus apud Marsnam primus, Adnuntiatio Karoli c. 5: MGH

Cap.2.71.

3lK. J. Leyser, "Warfare in the Western European Middle Ages: The Moral Debate" in K. J. Leyser,

Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Gregorian Revolution and Beyond (London

1994) 189-203, at 197. Cf. Coupland, "Rod of God's wrath" (n. 7 above) 547-548.

36Capitulare Carisiacense c. 10: MGH Cap. 2.358.

37Capitulare Tusiacense in Burgundiam directum c. 13: MGH Cap. 2.331.

31HalsaII, Warfare and Sociery(n. 3 above) 134, cf. 90-91.

39S.Coupland, "Carolingian arms and armor in the ninth century," Vialor 21 (1990) 30, 42, 46-47,

48-49.

54 SIMON COUPLAND

the local counts, Hugh and Gauzfrid." Similarly, in 880 Abbot Gauzlin of St Denis

"sent word to the people on the other side of the Scheldt that they should come on an

appointed day, and with one group on each bank of the river, they would between

them annihilate the Northmen.?" In areas where royal authority was weak, local

resistance might be organized independently. This seems to have been the case in

867, when the Viking chieftain Rorik was driven out of Frisia by the local inhabitants,

as a result of which Lothar called up the host to defend the kingdom against

Rorik's expected return.f Local initiatives were not always so successful, however.

In 880 Gauzlin's army not only failed to achieve any success, but only just managed

to escape by fleeing in disgrace, and a great many of them were captured or killed.

The potential weakness of these local forces was even more forcefully brought out in

882, when the inhabitants of the region around Prilm banded together to try to drive

off a Viking army. As Regino commented, because they were "not so much

unarmed as lacking any military discipline," they were slaughtered by the Northmen

"not like human beings but like brute beasts.?" In 859 it was the common people

between the Seine and the Loire who were massacred, not on this occasion by

Scandinavians, whom they had actually defeated in battle, but by the local Frankish

magnates. The reason was that exasperation with their leaders' failure to offer

resistance had led the local people to form a sworn association (coniuratio) to fight

the Vikings, and such armed groups were seen as too dangerous to the authority of

the establishment to leave unchecked."

MILITARY SERVICE (3): THE HOST4S

It is clear from contemporary sources that the entire army of the kingdom, the royal

host, was called up to fight the Vikings on numerous occasions. To give two early

examples, in 845 Charles the Bald "ordered that the whole army of his kingdom

should, once summoned, mass together to fight," and in 852 Charles and Lothar I

besieged the Vikings at Jeufosse ''with their entire army.?" Arrangements for

conscription were largely unchanged from earlier in the century, as is evident from

the repetition of earlier capitularies." Every man who could afford to go on campaign

was ordered to join the army, and those owning a horse had to bring a mount

as well. The less well-off had to pool their resources, enabling one man to serve with

the help of up to four others, while the poorest free men were exempt from

conscription. Even so, a point which has been insufficiently appreciated in the past is

that even these pauperi played their part in financing the army's campaigns through

the payment of the army tax, the hostilitium. A number of references in ninthcentury

texts suggest that this tax was levied on those who owned property worth

less than one pound.

The first indication is in the Edict of Pitres of 864, in a decree about the heriban-

4°AB 869 (n. 12 above): Grat 166, Nelson 163.

41Annales Vedastini [AV] 880, ed. B. de Simson, MGH SSrG (Hanover and Leipzig 1909) 47, 48.

42AB 867 (n. 12 above): Grat 137, Nelson 139-140.

4lRegino ofPrüm, Chronicle 882, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SSrG (Hanover 1890) 118.

«AB 859 (n. 12 above): Grat 80, Nelson 89. SeeJ. L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (London 1992) 194.

45A fuller discussion of the question of military service can be found, with references to the secondary

literature, in Coupland, "Charles the Bald" (n. 7 above) 85-93; see also Halsall, Warfare and

Society (n. 3 above) 93-101.

46Translatio sancti Germani c. 12 (n. 26 above) 78; AB 852 (n. 12 above): Grat 65, Nelson 75.

47E.g., Praeeeptum pro Hispanis (844) c. 1 (MGH Cap. 2.259) repeats a capitulary of 815: MGH

TIlE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 55

num. Originally a fme on those who failed to perform their military service, this

came to signify a payment in lieu." The full heribannum was a fme of sixty solidi,

but the Edict of Pitres repeated a system of graded penalties which required

individuals owning property worth more than one pound to pay according to their

means/" Those free men who were even poorer than this were apparently exempt,

suggesting that they were not required to serve in the host. Secondly, a tribute

payment to the Vikings in 866 differentiated between those who paid the

heribannum and those who farmed free mansi, suggesting that the latter did not

serve in the army;" and an Italian capitulary of the same year similarly distinguished

between those who could afford to serve in the host, either independently or with

assistance, and ''the poor," who were required to defend the coast and country, or, if

they owned less than ten solidi, exempted from any duties whatsoever/" Ninth century

polyptychs likewise record that differing military obligations were required

of tenants according to their means. The wealthy few served in the host, as for

example those at St, Maur-des-Fosses who owed ''the heribannum for two oxen,

twenty solidi."52 The vast majority of free tenants, however, paid a tax to the army,

the hostilitium, evidently instead of serving in the host themselves. The maximum

appears to have been four solidi, just below the smallest amount levied under the

heribannum, five solidi.s3 Given that the latter sum was exacted from men owning

property worth only one pound, the obvious conclusion is that those who paid the

hostilitium possessed even less than that. The overwhelming majority of free tenants

on the great ecclesiastical estates were consequently too poor to serve in the host,

even with the assistance of others, but paid the army tax instead.

One other aspect of the hostilitium is significant in the present context. Records

from the early ninth century indicate that the tax was originally paid in oxen and

carts," and its primary function was evidently to provide the army supply train.ss

Even at the beginning of the century, however, the payment could be in cash rather

than in kind,56and this had apparently become the norm by the time of the Viking

invasions. Even so, the carts and oxen which Charles the Bald sent to the

fortification work at Pont-de-I'Arche in the 860s were presumably provided through

the collection of the hostilitium.S7

According to the Edict of Pitres, the hostilitium was not the only duty imposed

upon those free Franks ''who cannot join the army." They were also required to

work on the construction of new fortifications, bridges and swamp crossings, and to

Cap. 1.261; Edictum Pistense (864) c. 27 (MGH Cap. 2.321) reproduces one of829: MGH Cap. 2.7.

"See, e.g., Capitulare Bononiense (811) cc. 1-2: MGH Cap. 1.166; Nienneyer (n. 22 above) 481.

.9Edictum Pistense c. 27: MGH Cap. 2.322.

50AB 866 (n. 12 above): Grat 126, Nelson 130. See Coupland, "Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 62-

64.

51Constilutio de expeditione Beneventana e. 1: MGH Cap. 2.94.

52C.6: B. Guerard, ed., Polyptyque de l'abbe Irminon, 2 vols. (Paris 1845) 2.284.

53Coupland, "Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 64.

54F._L. Ganshof, ed., "Le polyptyque de I'abbaye de Saint-Bertin (844-859)," Memoires de

l'institut national de France, Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres 45 (1975) 57-200, at 80, 81,

82 (twice) 83, 84, 85, and St. Maur-des-Fosses: Guerard (n. 52 above) 2.285 (c. 9).

55A. Longnon, ed., Polyptyque de l'abbaye de Saint-Germain des Pres, 2 vols. (Paris 1886-1895)

1.121-123; 1. Durliat, "Le polyptyque d'Inninon et l'impöt pour I'armee," Bibliotheque de l'ecole des

chartes 141 (1983) 185, 197; see also Nienneyer (n. 22 above) 504.

56t.ongnon (n. 55) 1.122.

57AB 869 (n. 12 above): Grat 153, Nelson 153-154; cf. AB 862, 866 (carts alone): Grat 91, 127,

Nelson 100, 131.

56 SIMON COUPLAND

perform guard duty in forts and border regions." Charles the Bald emphasized that

these duties were required "following ancient practice and that of other nations"

(iuxta antiquam et aliarum gentium consuetudinem). The reference to "other

nations" probably refers to the Anglo-Saxons, while "ancient practice" may refer to

established Frankish custom-a charter for Metz cathedral of 775 described the

duties of the church's free tenants as military service, guard duty and work on

bridges-or possibly to late Roman precedents.i" At this time, 864, the king was

undoubtedly keen to assemble sufficient manpower to continue the important

defensive works at Pont-de-l'Arche." while the bridges and swamp crossings served

to increase the army's mobility against the Viking raiders.

THE SIZE OF ARMIEs

The size of Carolingian armies has long been a subject for debate, with the

discussion typically focusing on the size of the expansionist forces of Charlemagne

in the late eighth century. On the assumption that the Carolingian administration was

too primitive to raise large forces, DelbrUck offered the guesstimate of 5000 to 6000

troops in anyone army, though this figure appears to have been plucked from thin

air.61 It has been roundly rejected by Bachrach, whose own estimate of "a total

mobilization of armies for expeditionary operations on all fronts in the 100,000

range" would nevertheless have few supporters.f Verbruggen proposed that

Charlemagne's armies might have contained 2500 to 3000 cavalry and between

6000 and 10,000 infantry, a figure followed by Contamine, though again neither

offered any real justification for these figures." A minimalist view has been put

forward by Reuter, proposing armies "numbered in two or at most three figures,"

though he did emphasize the difficulty if not impossibility of assessing the size of

anyone particular army."

These variations are due in large measure to the paucity of figures in contemporary

sources, and the likely unreliability even of those that are reported. From the

ninth century I am aware of only two authors who specified the number of troops in

a Frankish army, Regino of Prüm and Abbo of St. Germain. Regino stated that

Charles the Bald had over 50,000 men at Andernach in 876, but the qualifying

phrase "so people say" (utfenmt) and Regino's unreliability about events earlier in

the century raise considerable doubts about the accuracy of his report." Figures

5BEdictum Pistense C. 27: MGH Cap. 2.321-322. For other instances of civitas meaning "fortification"

see, e.g., ARF 809,817 (n. 9 above) 129, 147.

59C. GiIlmor, "Charles the Bald and the small free farmers, 862-869" in Anne Nergärd Jergensen

and Birthe L. Clausen, eds., Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD

1-/300 (Copenhagen 1997) 38-47, at 39-40; J. L. Nelson, 'Translating Images of Authority: the

Christian Roman Emperors in the Carolingian World" in M. M. MacKenzie and C. Roueche, eds.,

Images of Authority; Papers Presented to Joyce Reynolds on the Occasion of her 70th Birthday

(Cambridge 1989) 194-205, at 197. •

6OCoupland, "Fortified bridges" (n. 7 above) 4-6; C. Gillmor, "The logistics of fortified bridge

building on the Seine under Charles the Bald," Anglo-Norman Studies 11 (1988) 87-106, at 99-106.

6JDelbrUck, Geschichte der Kriegskunst (n. 31 above) 3.16.

62B. S. Bachrach, "Early Medieval Military Demography: Some Observations on the Methods of

Hans DelbrUck" in D. J. Kagay and L. J. A. Villaion, The Circle of War in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge

1999) 3-20; Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) 58.

63J. F. Verbruggen, 'L'armee et la strategie de Charlemagne" in W. Braunfels, ed., Karl der Grosse,

Lebenswerk und Nachleben, 4 vols. (DUsseldorf 1965) J.42a-436; Contamine, "Espace carolingien"

(n. 5 above) 30.

64Reuter, "Recruitment of armies" (n. 30 above) 36.

·'Regino 874, 876 (n. 43 above) 107, 112. On Regino's unreliability see at nn. 79, 135, and 136 be

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 57

given by Abbo in his poem about the siege of Paris are scarcely more credible,

including the claim that a Frankish army of just 1000 men defeated 19,000 Vikings

at Montfaucon in 888.66 Although no concrete evidence exists to contradict Abbo's

figure, throughout his work the Franks are said to have overcome massively superior

odds: in the most extreme case a force of at most 200 Franks is supposed to have

resisted a force of 40,000 Vikings."

This highlights the hyperbole in many contemporary accounts. For instance,

Hildegarius of Meaux described the army which Charles the Bald mobilized against

a Viking incursion in 845 in the following terms: "We can but marvel at how large

an army the kingdom fruitlessly brought there with its king, Charles: the earth could

scarcely sustain it, and overshadowed the sky under its covering, though we do not

know how many there were.'.68 Given that the Viking fleet in question numbered

120 ships, it is likely that the Frankish force was a sizeable one, but hardly of the

magnitude suggested by Hildegarius. As Halsall has recently underlined, reflection

shows that medieval clerics are unlikely to be reliable guides as to the true size of

contemporary armies, for even if they had the testimony of eyewitnesses, the

numbers involved were too large, their ability to estimate too poor, and their concern

for precis.e accuracy too Ii'mi.te d.69

Given this dearth of trustworthy material, some authors have tried a more deductive

approach. Ferdinand Lot drew on nineteenth-century census figures to assess the

potential number of West Frankish troops from the area of Francia he regarded as

loyal to the king, but unfortunately his unsupported assumptions about the criteria

for conscription and the equivalence of the rural population in the ninth and

nineteenth centuries render his conclusions worthless.I" Karl Ferdinand Werner

consequently put forward two other methods for estimating the size of Carolingian

armies." The first was to multiply the number of districts (pagl) by an estimated

minimum of fifty horsemen per district; the second to assume that each royal vassal

could have mustered at least twenty mounted followers, a figure amply supported by

contemporary sources. These calculations were not intended to determine the size of

any particular army, but rather to give a ball-park estimate of the kind of numbers

involved. If we apply Werner's calculations to the supposedly vast army assembled

in 845, they suggest that Charles the Bald had a potential pool of 7500 to 13,000

horsemen, not including footsoldiers." Given that not all the available troops would

low; also S. Coupland, "The Vikings on the Continent in Myth and History," History 88 (2003) 187-

203,at 193-194,199-200,202.

"Abbo, Bella Parisiacae urbis 2, lines 492-493, 496-497: H. Waquet, ed., Abbon: Le siege de

Paris par les Normands (Paris 1964) 102, 104.

67Abbo I, lines 114-115 (n. 66) 24. This figure is also quoted in N. P. Brooks, "England in the

Ninth Century: the Crucible of Defeat," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., vol. 29

(1979) 1-20, at 4, who judged Abbo "in a class of his own as an exaggerator": 6. Wallace-Hadrill was

unwilling to believe that Abbo was "simply employing a literary device to highlight their heroism" but

it seems to me that in this instance at least that is precisely what Abbo was doing: J. M. Wallace-

Hadrill, The Vikings in Francia (Reading 1975) 5.

61Vita Faronis c. 122: MGH SS rer. Mer. 5.200.

6'11alsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 12Q...124.

wr.ot, Art militaire (n. S above) 1.94-98.

71K. F. Werner, 'Heeresorganisation und KriegfUhrung im deutschen Königreich des 10. und 11.

Jahrhunderts" in Ordinamenti mi/itari (n. Iabove) 2.791-843, at 813-822.

72Based on ca.ISO West Frankish pagi or some 650 royal vassals, i.e., ISO counts, 300 vassi

dominici (following Wemer, who doubled the number of counts), 70 bishops, and an estimated 130

abbots.

58 SIMON COUPLAND

have mustered on any given occasion, the West Frankish army would have been

smaller than this.

A further pointer to the scale of Frankish armies is the size of the Viking forces

they opposed. Again contemporary figures must be handled with caution: for example,

when the Viking leader Rodulfwas killed on Oostergo in 873, were 500 Danes

killed with him, as the Annals of St. Bertin and Annals of Xanten reported, or 800, as

the Annals ofFulda claimed?73The correct answer is undoubtedly "a large number,"

probably several hundred; we cannot be more specific than that, nor should we try to

be. Although Sawyer proposed in 1971 that even the Scandinavian "Great Army"

consisted of no more than a thousand men, this has since been demonstrated to

have been an underestimate, and a more likely figure is that the armies contained

thousands, rather then hundreds, of men." This is consistent with most contemporary

reports of Viking fleet sizes, casualty figures, and references to raiding parties

such as those on the Seine in 865 numbering 200 and 500 men, or at St. Omer in

891 consisting of 550 men.7S The figures on the Frankish side are likely to have

been similar: armies numbering in their thousands, but not tens of thousands, a conclusion

also reached by Halsalllooking at a broader range of evidence." At the same

time it is important to bear in mind that the Frankish armies which opposed the Vikings

were not always the entire host, but individual squadrons (scarae) which presumably

numbered only in the hundreds. For instance, in 868 Charles the Bald sent

his son Carloman into Neustria with a single squadron, and in 871 it was only the

Neustrians whom Gauzfrid and Hugh the Abbot led against a Viking camp on the

Loire."

Finally, one ninth-century text which has been overlooked in previous

discussions provides valuable support to these conclusions. In a detailed account of

the battle of Saucourt in 881, the Annals of SI. Vaast described how a few Northmen

attacked the Franks, "and killed many of them, namely up to a hundred men.,,78

Whether plures is understood as relative to the size of the army or as an absolute, the

implication is clearly that the army was sufficiently small for the loss of a hundred

men to have made a noticeable difference. It therefore seems highly unlikely that

such an army could have killed eight or nine thousand Vikings, as claimed by

Regino and the Fulda annalist respectively"

LEADERSIllP AND COMMAND

The overall commander of the Carolingian army was the king; he gave the order to

mobilize the host, and on major campaigns led the army in person. For example,

Charles the Bald defeated a Viking army besieging Bordeaux in 848, capturing nine

enemy ships and killing their crews, and eight years later the same king won a re-

73AB 873 (n. 12 above): Grat 193, Nelson 184; Annales Xantenses [AX] 873, ed. B. de Simson,

MGH SSrG (Hanover and Leipzig 1909) 32-33; AF873 (n. 14 above): Kurze 80, Reuter 72.

"Coupland, "Vikings in Francia and Anglo-Saxon England" (n. 27 above) 194-195 engages with

earlier discussions by P. H. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings, 2nd ed. (London 1971) 128; and Brooks

(n. 67 above) 4-11.

"AB 865 (n. 12 above): Grat 123, Nelson 127; Miracula sancti Bertini c. 6: MGH Scriptores

15.1.512.

76Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 123-133; see also T. Reuter, "Carolingian and Ottonian

warfare" in M. Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare: A History (Oxford 1999) 13-35, at 28-30.

77AB868, 871 (n. 12 above): Grat 151, 181, Nelson 152, 174.

71AV881 (n. 41 above) 50.

79AF 881 (n. 14 above): Kurze 96, Reuter 90; Regino 883 [sic] (n. 43 above) 120.

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 59

sounding victory over the Northmen in the forest of Perche." There was evidently

an expectation that in times of crisis the ruler should take on this significant role, so

that when Paris was besieged by the Great Army in 886, Count Odo left the tOMIto

plead that Charles the Fat should bring the host to their rescue." Although Charles

did assemble an army and eventually assume personal command, it was his inability

to defeat the Vikings which reportedly led to his deposition shortly afterwards/" By

the same token, it was undoubtedly Odo's heroic resistance at Paris which made him

the popular favorite to succeed to the throne of the western kingdom.

Although the king was the supreme army commander, conscription, mobilization,

and command were organized on a regional basis by the magnates. The first step

was the creation of lists recording how many men in each district were liable for

conscription. The Edict of Pitres repeated the demand for such rolls to be

maintained, and Hincmar of Rheims is known to have supplied just such a list for

Count Theoderic's campaign against the Vikings in 882.83 The magnates were

subsequently responsible for mustering their followers and leading them to the place

of assembly. Thus Abbot Odo of Ferrieres wrote in 840 that illness had forced him

to dispatch his men with the local count.84 They also commanded squadrons in the

field: a capitulary of Lothar I from 846 reveals that each squadron was led by

between two and four miss;,85 though it appears that many squadrons which opposed

the Vikings were commanded by just one missus, accompanied by one or more other

magnates. For instance, in 854 the Vikings on the Loire were prevented from

attacking Orleans by Bishops Burchard of Chartres, a royal missus'" and Agius of

Orleans." To give another example, a squadron sent against the Vikings on the

Seine in 866 was commanded by Rohert, missus in charge of western Neustria, and

Odo, count of'Troyes/"

The same capitulary of Lothar I from 846 reveals that the second important group

in the military chain of command consisted of the standard-bearers. It listed between

three and six per scara, all of them royal vassals, several of them counts." Standard-

bearers were clearly officers of high rank, although subordinate to the missi.

One of the functions of standards was to act as symbols of authority, so that to capture

the enemy's banners was proof of victory. Robert the Strong proudly presented

standards captured from the Vikings to Charles the Bald in 865, and Adrevald wrote

that in 843 Lambert had failed to carry off Rainald's victory standards

(yictricia

10AB 848 (n. 12 above): Grat 55, Nelson 65; Annales Fontanellenses [AFont] 848, 855: J. Laporte,

ed., "Les premieres annales de Fontanelle," Melanges de la Societe de I'histoire de Normandie, XVe

serie (Rouen and Paris 1951) 63-91, at 81, 91; Tertium missaticum ad Francos et Aquitanos directum

c. 3: MGH Cap. 2.285.

"AV 886 (n. 41 above) 60. On military command as an essential attribute of the monarchy, see Halsall,

Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 25-30; K. J. Leyser, "Early Medieval Canon Law and the

Beginnings of Knighthood" in 1. Fenske, W. Rösener and T. Zotz, eds., Institutionen; Kultur und

Gesellschaft im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen 1984) 549-566, esp. 560.

12AV887 (n. 41 above) 64.

11Edictum Pissense c. 27: MGH Cap. 2.321; Flodoard, Historia Remensls ecc1esiae 3.26: MGH

Scriptores 13.545; for the dating, see AB 882 (n. 12 above): Grat 246, Nelson 223.

"'Lupus of Ferrieres, letter 15: L. Levillain, ed., Loup de Ferrieres: Correspondance,2 vols. (paris

1964) 1.94.

ISHlotherii capitulare de expeditione contra Sarracenos facienda: MGH Cap. 2.67-68.

II>Capitularemisserum Silvacense, list of misst, c. 9: MGH Cap. 2.276.

17AB 854 (n. 12 above): Grat 69, Nelson 79.

uAB 866 (n. 12 above): Grat 125, Nelson 129.

19As n. 85 above.

60 SIMON COUPLAND

signa).'XJ That they also served a tactical purpose, by giving signals to the army, is

evident not only from the term signum itself, but also from the recurrent use of

phrases such as levatis vexillis or erectis vexillis to indicate the army's departure,"

and from the comments of Hrabanus Maurus that soldiers should use their position

in relation to the standards to keep in formation.92 No contemporary text describes

the appearance of a standard," though manuscript illuminations depict simple

three-tailed banners and a dragon." The latter probably consisted of a metal head

attached to a cloth windsock, to judge from a comparable Roman standard found in

Germany." Horns were also used to give commands, such as setting the army in

motion or summoning aid in battle," and are likewise pictured in contemporary

manuscripts."

Although the king was commander-in-chief of the army, he was utterly reliant on

the magnates who controlled the military organization beneath him. Therein lay a

major weakness, for if the magnates failed to fulfill their obligations, not only was

the king's authority undermined, but also the kingdom left defenseless. This was

precisely the charge leveled against Bishop Hincmar of Laon in 871 when he

retained men who, it was argued, should have been fighting the Northrnen."

Furthermore, the loyalty and determination of the common soldiers frequently

depended on their lord, and if he were killed, they would often give up the fight.

Several instances of this are recorded, such as in 885, when "as soon as they came to

join battle, it so happened that Duke Rainald of Maine perished with a few others,

and as a result they all turned back in deep despondency, having achieved nothing of

any use.,,99Similarly, if the magnates withdrew their support, the king would be left

powerless. This occurred in 858, when the blockade of a Viking camp on the Seine

had to be abandoned because many of Charles the Bald's leading men defected to

his brother Louis, who had invaded the West Frankish realm.i'"

These factors must be taken into account in the ongoing debate about the degree

to which the Carolingian army (and indeed the Carolingian state) was centralized

90AB 865 (n. 12 above): Grat 122, Nelson 127; Miracula sancti Benedicti c. 33: MGH Scriptores

15.1.493. See also Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 199-200.

9IE.g., AB 876 (n. 12 above): Grat 208, Nelson 196; Regino 891 (n. 43 above) 137; or Hincmar, De

fide Carolo regi servanda: Patrologia Latina 125, col. 963; compare also Ludwigslied I. 27: Huob her

gundfanon ul W. Braune and E.A. Ebbinghaus, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 16th ed. (TObingen 1979)

137.

92Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) 97, 189, citing De procinctu Romanae

miliciae, c. XIII.

9lIt has been suggested that the amictum / auribus inmodicis croceum carried by two signiferi was

an oriflamme, but the meaning of the phrase is unclear: Abbo I, lines 153-155 (n. 66 above) 26-28,

esp. 28, n. I.

94A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sächsischen Kaiser,

4 vols. (Berlin 1914-1926) I, pI. XIX and XX; or Psalterium aureum 140-141: F. Mütherich and

J. E. Gaehde, Carolingian Painting (London 1977) pI. 46-47.

9sR. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, 3 vols. (London 1975-1983) 2, fig. 312.

~rmold the Black, Carmen in honorem Hludowici line 1589: E. Faral, ed., Ermold le Noir: Poeme

sur Louis le Pieux et epitres au roi Pepin (Paris 1964) 122; Abbo I, lines 91-92; 2, lines 234-235,

511-518 (n. 66 above) 22, 82-84, 104.

97DerStuttgarter Bilderpsalter, 2 vols. (Stuttgart 1965-1968) I, fol. 88r; San Paolo Bible, fol. 59v:

C.R. Dodwell, Painting in Europe. 800--1200 (Harrnondsworth 1971) pI. 43.

91Concilium TuJ/ense 1apud Saponarias, Epistola synodalis ad Wenilonem; Concilium Duziacense

I: I.-D. Mansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum col/ectio IS, col. 530; 16, col. 662.

99AV 885 (n. 41 above) 57; see also AV 886, 62; Regino 867 (n. 43 above) 93; AF 882 (n. 14

above): Kurze 97, Reuter 91.

If"LibeJlus procJamationis adversus Wenilonem c. 5: MGH Cap. 2.451.

THE CAROLINGlAN ARMY 61

and controlled.!" On the one hand Carolingian monarchs such as Charlemagne,

Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald clearly pursued an imitatio imperii, not least in

the appearance of the royal guards;I02 and the apparatus of state, including the

arrangements for equipping, mobilizing and directing the host, represented

significantly more than the leadership of a loose confederation of magnates'

warbands. On the other hand, as Charles the Bald found to his cost in 858, the

Frankish rulers' leadership of the army was completely dependent on the magnates.

They could and did let their royal masters down, sometimes through negligence,

sometimes through weakness and sometimes through their own deliberate fault.

When royal concerns and aristocratic interest coincided, the Franks could offer a

potent defense against the Scandinavian raiders; when they differed, as often as not

it was the Vikings who benefited. As a result, the Franks' internal conflicts

repeatedly gave the Northmen a window of opportunity. This was not just the view

of the monk Ermentarius; the St. Vaast annalist explained the devastating arrival of

the Great Army from England in 879 as follows: "While they were quarrelling

amongst themselves, the Northmen who were situated across the sea heard about

their discord and crossed the sea,,103Finally, another harmful consequence of the

Frankish internecine struggles noted by contemporaries was the fact that the deaths

of the flower of the Frankish nobility in the civil war and its aftermath deprived the

land of some of its ablest defenders, men who would otherwise have offered stout

resistance to the Vikings.l"

THE ROLE OF 1HE CAVALRY

There is widespread agreement among historians that cavalry formed an important

element in Carolingian armies, though disagreement over whether horsemen outnumbered

infantry, or vice-versa 105 A passage relating to a battle against the

Vikings has been central to the debate and much misunderstood, and so deserves

close consideration.l'" At Louvain in 891, a Scandinavian camp was protected on

one side by the river Dyle and on the other by a swamp. King Arnulf therefore

hesitated to advance, because the situation gave the cavalry no chance to attack, and

because Francis pedetemptim certare inusitatum est.107 This was long held to

indicate that the Franks no longer used infantry,108but that is clearly incorrect: for

IOIThe Problemstellung is usefully summarized in Halsali, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 89-

101.

I02Coupland, "Carolingian arms and annor" (n. 39 above) 41; Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare

(n. 2 above) 70-71, 86.

1.3N.25 above; A V 879 (n. 41 above) 44.

I04Miracula sancti Benedicti c. 33: MGH Scriptores 15.1.494; Andreae Bergomatis Historia, MGH,

Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et ltaIicarum 221; Regino 841 (n. 43 above) 75.

losGanshof, "Charlemagne's Army" (n. I above) 66; Lot, Art militaire (n. 5 above) 1.92-93; Oman

(n.5 above) 1.l03-105; B. S. Bachrach, "Charlemagne's Cavalry: Myth and Reality," Military Affairs

47 (1983) 181-187; J. France, "The Military History of the Carolingian Period," Revue beige d'histoire

militaire 26 (1985) 81-99; Verbruggen, "Art militaire" (n. 5 above) 295-297, 304-310.

I06B.S. Bachrach, "Charles Martel, Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup, and Feudalism," Studies

in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (1970) 47-75, at SO-53; J. France, "La guerre dans la France

feodale a la fln du IXe et au Xe siede," Revue beige d'histoire militaire 23 (1979) 177-198, at 191-

192; Verbruggen,"Art militaire" (n. 5 above) 305; Reuter, "Carolingian and Ottonian warfare" (n. 76

above) 30; Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 186-188.

107AF891 (n. 14 above): Kurze 119-120; Reuter 122.

100See,e.g., L. White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford 1962) 3; Lot, Art militaire

(n. 5 above) 94; J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages

(Amsterdam, New York and Oxford 1977) 96.

62 SIMON COUPLAND

instance, foot-soldiers defended the monastery ofSt. Bertin in 891 and infantry were

deployed in Conrad's army in 906.109 Reuter, believing he was following Bachrach,

translated as ''the Franks are not used to fighting while advancing step by step,"!"

Bachrach has since explicitly contradicted this interpretation, however, setting out

his own understanding of the passage as rather that "in this context ... the Franci

were unaccustomed to advancing slowly over very rough terrain under a barrage

of enemy missiles.t''!' This may have been true, but it is hardly a plausible

translation of the Latin text, which makes no mention of missiles or terrain. The

more straightforward and likely interpretation is that these particular Franks

(compare primores Francorum-"Ieaders of the Franks"-in the same sentence)

were unused to fighting on foot, a fact which was amply demonstrated by

subsequent events.112 In other words, this text indicates that there were Carolingian

troops in the late ninth century who fought only on horseback. but not that

Carolingian armies consisted exclusively of such men.

The composition of ninth-century Frankish forces is seldom described; a rare exception

is a reference to the army at Paris in 845 as consisting of equitum et peditum.

113 The general impression is nonetheless that the host was predominantly

mounted, as at Louvain in 891.114 For instance, when in 835 a Viking attack on

Noirmoutier was repulsed by the local count, Rainald of Herbauge, it was reported

that the Frankish casualties included ''very many horses killed and several horsemen

wounded."m Or when the Vikings launched a counter attack on King Louis III at

Saucourt in 881, it was said that the Franks would have fled "had not the king

swiftly dismounted from his horse to give his men courage and a point of

resistance,"!" Evidently the king, and presumably also at least some of his men,

were fighting on horseback. This is consistent with reports of engagements which

did not involve the Vikings: Nithard stressed the importance of horses in the armies

of the civil war, and the battle of Andernach in 876 evidently included cavalry, since

Charles's troops were described as trying to spur their horses into the battle.'!" It is

also consistent with the contemporary pictorial evidence, since several Carolingian

manuscripts depict pitched battles on horseback. including the Stuttgart Psalter and

San Paolo Bible.lls These illustrations can be taken as reliable indicators of

'I»Miraeula sancti Bertini c. 7: MGH Scriptores 15.1.512; Regino 906 (n. 43 above) 151.

II°Reuter (n. 14 above) 122, citing Bachrach, "Charles Martel" (n. 106 above) 51-53.

IIIBachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) 320 n. 108, in which he states clearly: "There

is no reason to suggest on the basis of this text that the Franci were unaccustomed to advancing in a

'step by step' fashion."

1I2Coupland, "Charles the Bald" (n. 7 above) 105. See also Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3

above) 186-188.

113Audradus Modicus, Liber revelationum: L. Traube, "0 Roma nobilis: Philologische

Untersuchungen aus dem Mittelalter," Abhandlungen der bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,

philosophisch-philologische Klasse 19 (1892) 297-395, at 380.

'''References to the presence of horses are not necessarily significant, since troops may have dismounted

to fight, and the army's baggage was usually transported on horseback: AF 896 (n. 14 above):

Kurze 127, Reuter 132.

'''Ermentarius 2.11 (n. 25 above) 66-67.

116AV881 (n. 41 above) 50.

117Nithard2.6, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 3.6 (n. 22 above) 56, 60, 66, 72,112; AF876 (n. 14 above): Kurze 89,

Reuter 81.

IIIDer Stuttgarter Bilderpsalter, 2 vols. (Stuttgart 1965-1968) I, fol. 71v; 1. E. Gaehde, "The

Pictorial Sources of the Illustrations to the Books of Kings, Proverbs, Judith and Maccabees in the

Carolingian Bible of San Paolo Fuori Le Mura in Rome," Frühmittelalterliche Studien 9 (1975) 359-

389, pI. 75, 100 (fol. 83r, 243v); A. Boinet, La Miniature carolingienne (Paris 1913) pI. 124 (fol. 59v).

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 63

contemporary conditions because they include ninth-century Frankish military

equipment, even if their composition may have been influenced by antique

iconography.i" The significance of horses in resistance to the Vikings is underlined

by the provisions in the Edict of Pitres for all Franks with the means to own horses

to bring them on campaign, and the warning to state officials not to hinder such men,

although these could of course have been for mobility as much as for combat.120

The proportion of cavalry would undoubtedly have been higher in the royal host

than in local forces raised under the lantweri given the high cost of horses: up to

twenty or even forty solidi in the mid-ninth century.'!' For example, when a Viking

army landed between Bordeaux and Saintes in 845 and Count Siguin of Bordeaux

raised a local army to resist them, the ensuing battle was fought on foot (pedestri ...

proelio). It was a disaster for the Aquitanians: Siguin was captured and killed, and

after suffering heavy casualties the remainder of the army fled.122 Similarly, when

the common people at Prüm turned out to fight the Northmen in 882, there were no

horsemen, but "a countless mass of foot-soldiers, gathered together from the fields

and villages into a single unit.,,123Here, too, the result was a massacre, and even

though on this occasion the lack of military discipline and armor were doubtless also

contributory factors, such defeats as these help to explain why Carolingian rulers

concentrated on raising a well-armed, well-trained fighting force containing a

significant proportion of cavalry.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS (1): CONTAINMENT

When Viking fleets began to penetrate ever deeper into the West Frankish river

system in the 840s, Charles the Bald had to develop tactics to stop them. He

adopted a policy of containment, lining the banks with troops to restrict the invaders

to the rivers. This was first employed on the Seine in 845, but failed when the

Northmen unexpectedly landed on the south bank and put the Frankish troops to

flight. Realizing that the Vikings could not be expelled by force, the king agreed

to pay a tribute.!" This highlights the fundamental weaknesses of the strategy: the

soldiers on the banks were unable to reach the enemy but were themselves vulnerable

to attack. and the tactic was dependent on the discipline, courage and loyalty

of the Frankish forces, who were not always equal to the task.

Nevertheless, Charles adopted the same strategy against a Danish fleet which

camped on an island on the Seine in 852.125 Once again his plans were frustrated,

because the Franks evidently lacked the right sort of ships to launch an assault on

the island. Although river craft were employed in military operations, they invariably

acted as ferries, not as springboards for attack, since they had a deeper

draught than the Viking longships and so could not land on the flat, sloping shores

119Coupland,"Carolingian anns and armor" (n. 39 above) 31-50.

,21>Edictum Pistense c. 26: MGH Cap. 2.321.

'1'20 solidi: Gesta sanetarum Rotonensium 1.7: C. Brett, Irans. and ed., The Monks of Redon: Gesta

Sanetarum Rotonensium and Vita Conuuoionis (Woodbridge 1989) 128-129; L. A. J. W. Sloet, ed.,

Oorkondenboelc der grofschappen Gelre en ZutJen (The Hague 1872-1876) 43; 40 solidi: Miracula

sancti Vedasti 1.5: MGH Scriptores 15.1.398.

'Z2Lupus letter 44: Levillain (n. 84 above) 1.186; cf. Annates Engolismenses 845: MGH Scriptores

16.486.

'13Regino 882 (n. 43 above) 118.

""Vita Faronis c. 122: MGH SS rer. Mer. 5.200; Translatio sancti Germani c. 12 (n. 26 above) 78;

Coupland, "Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 59--60.

123AB 852, 853 (n. 12 above): Grat 65, 66, Nelson 7S.

64 SIMON COUPLAND

of islands.i" Faced with the inability of his troops to mount an assault, Charles

subsequently abandoned the siege and paid a tribute to one of the Viking leaders.

127

In 854 Bishops Burchard and Agius nonetheless proved that the strategy of

containment could be made to work with the help of river vessels. They prevented

the Vikings from advancing up the Loire "by making ready against them ships

and soldiers": presumably the ships blocked the river while the troops lined the

banks.128 It was perhaps this episode which inspired Charles the Bald and Lothar

11to deploy a river fleet "the like of which had never before been seen in our land"

when another Viking band camped on an island at Oisse! in 858.129 The ships

were presumably moored in midstream to prevent the Vikings' passage up- or

downriver, while the army blockaded the island from the shore. Yet as was

mentioned earlier, the siege had to be abandoned when Louis the German invaded

the West Frankish kingdom, and in the subsequent debacle, the entire fleet fell

into the Vikings' hands.l3O Only two other attempts to attack Viking island bases

are recorded, both similarly ending in failure. In 864 Lothar 11fitted out ships to

launch an assault on an island on the Rhine, but his men refused to attack, and

seven years later Hugh the Abbot and Count Gauzfrid of Le Mans tried to capture

an island camp on the Loire, but made little headway and suffered heavy losses.'!'

The Vikings' island camps appear to have been virtually impregnable.

Despite its repeated failures, Charles the Bald nonetheless still believed in the

strategy of containment, and in 862 he at last found a defensive tactic which could

enforce it effectively. He managed to trap a Viking fleet by blocking a bridge

across the Marne at Isles-les-Villenoy and deploying troops along the banks as

usual. The Vikings were forced to come to terms, and the king subsequently

pressed ahead with the fortification of a bridge at Pont-de-I' Arche to try to

achieve the permanent exclusion of the Vikings from the upper Seine.l32 The

inherent weaknesses of containment were again exposed in 865, however, when a

fresh fleet entered the Seine. First the guards failed to turn up on time and then the

raiders fell on one of the Frankish detachments, which turned and fled.m This is

the last occasion on which the strategy is known to have been pursued; Charles's

successors appear to have abandoned it. It had seemed inherently sound, and had

indeed succeeded on one notable occasion, but consistently failed because of the

inability of the Frankish troops to land on the Vikings' island bases and their consequent

vulnerability to surprise attack.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS (2): INvEsTMENT

The Franks were past masters in the art of siege warfare, and Bachrach in particular

has underlined the central role played by the engineers in the Carolingian army

under Pippin the Short and Charlemagne.l" Yet the Vikings' mobility, coupled

126B.Almgren, "Vikingatäg och vikingaskepp," Tor 8 (1962) 192.

I21Coupland, "Poachers" (n. 7 above) 94-95, and "Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 60.

mAB 854 (n. 12 above): Grat 69, Nelson 79.

129Vita Faronis c. 125: MGH SS rer. Mer. 5.201.

I30Vita Faronis c. 125: MGH SS rer. Mer. S.201; AB 858 (n. 12 above): Grat 78, Nelson 88.

IJIAX864 (n. 73 above) 21;AB 871 (n. 12 above): Grat 181, Nelson 174.

Il2Coupland, "Fortified bridges" (n. 7 above) 2~.

133AB86S, 866 (n. 12 above): Grat 123, 125; Nelson 127, 129-130.

134Bachrach, "Charlemagne's Cavalry" (n. 105 above) 181-187; "Charles MarteI" (n. 106 above)

lHE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 65

with their habit of keeping to their ships or camping on islands, meant that they

rarely allowed themselves to be trapped by the Franks. In fact, during the whole

period of the Scandinavian invasions there are only three occasions when Viking

armies are known to have been besieged: at Angers in 873, Asselt in 880, and a

small fortress in the Hesbaye in 885.135

In any siege, the attackers' first priority was to surround the enemy, sometimes

throwing up a rampart around the site as well, as is attested at Angers in 873.

They would then seek to stop all food and water reaching the beleaguered

garrison, a tactic which is said to have proved decisive in the Hesbaye, where the

Franks had reportedly captured the Scandinavians' supplies before the blockade

began. A protracted investment could, however, also create logistical problems for

the besieging army, and Regino claimed that the Franks at Angers began to run

out of food, as well as being stricken by sickness. Even though the historicity of

Regino's account is dubious, as we shall see, clearly such situations did occur in

contemporary sieges.

Apart from undertaking a direct assault, the assailants might try to undermine

the walls, scale the ramparts on ladders, or burn down the stronghold. Siege engines

could also be employed, though not apparently at any of the places where the

Vikings were besieged; in all three cases it appears that the Franks settled in to

starve their opponents into submission. At Angers this was successful: the

Scandinavian leaders commended themselves to Charles the Bald and promised to

leave the kingdom as soon as the winter was over. This is the version of events

reported in the contemporary Annals of St. Bertin, and it is not only quite different

from the account in the later Chronicle of Regino of Prüm, but also significantly

more reliable. As well as claiming that the Franks used siege engines, Regino

alleged that Charles the Bald took a tribute from the Vikings and asserted that the

deciding factor in the Frankish victory was a Breton plan to divert the Maine by

the digging of a channel "of amazing depth and width," leaving the longships high

and dry. If the second detail is implausible, the third is impossible. The river was

nearly 100 meters wide at Angers, rendering the task beyond the capability of the

army in the time available. By way of comparison, the fossa Carolina dug in

Bavaria in 793 was only some 30m wide, 1500m long and 6m deep, yet it has

been calculated that it would have taken a work-force of 4700 men ten weeks to

excavate.l36 Less dramatic but much more plausible is Hincmar's report that the

Northmen were simply worn down by the length of the siege, a claim which is given

added weight by the likelihood that Hincmar was himself present at the siege."?

Once the Vikings had agreed to leave the town, the king ordered the fortification of

47-75; and most recently Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) 102-118.

IJSAngers:AB 873 (n. 12 above): Grat 193-195, Nelson 183-185; Regino 873 (n. 43 above) 105-

107; Asselt: AF 882 (n. 14 above): Kurze 98-99, 107-109; Reuter 92-93, 104-106; AB 882 (n. 12

above): Grat 247-248, Nelson 224-225; Hesbaye: AF 885 (n. 14 above): Kurze 102, Reuter 97. Although

Regino described a purported siege at Brissarthe in 866, his account cannot be trusted: Regino

867 [sic] (n. 43 above) 92-93. (1) The encounter is wrongly dated to 867; (2) Regino makes no mention

of details in other, more reliable sources, such as the presence of Bretons, the context of a raid on

Le Mans, or the fact that the raiders were mounted; (3) he states that the Franks intended to use siege

engines, even though they had intercepted the Vikings with no expectation of a siege; (4) he names the

Viking commander as Hasting, a notorious leader by the time Regino was writing, but not otherwise

attested on the Continent before 882.

I*H. H. Hofmann, 'Fossa Carolina" in Braunfels, ed., Karl der Grosse (n. 63 above) 1.446.

Il7Nelson,Annals of St-Bertin (n. 12 above) 185 n.17.

66 SIMON COUPLAND

the bridge over the Loire at Les Ponts-de-Ce to prevent them from returning

upriver.':"

As for the siege at Asselt, our understanding of events is complicated by the fact

that conflicting accounts are given in the two continuations of the Annals of Fulda.

They at least agree on the outcome of the siege-one of the Viking leaders, Godfrid,

commended himself to Charles the Fat, while the rest left on payment ofa tributebut

differ significantly over why it was lifted. One version claims that the stronghold

was about to surrender, and attributes the deal to bribery, treachery and weakness,

but the author is deeply hostile to those counselors who brokered the agreement. The

other, which is more likely to be reliable,139reports that the presence of large numbers

of putrefying corpses (it was July) spread not only disgust but also sickness

among the besieging army. This is not only highly plausible but also perhaps paralleled

at Angers, as we have seen. Even so, it did nothing for the emperor's

reputation.

In sum, the Franks suffered the frustration of having an army which was skilled

in siegecraft, but fighting an enemy which hardly ever allowed itself to be

trapped.l'" When it did come to a siege, the Franks apparently held the upper

hand, in that two of the three occasions on which Viking forces were besieged

were clear Frankish victories. This was the case at Angers, where the

Scandinavian leaders were forced to come to terms, and in the Hesbaye, where the

Northmen fled by night. The third, the siege of Asselt, was seen at the time as a

capitulation by Charles the Fat, but did result in Godfrid's commendation, which

was a proven and effective method of turning an enemy into an ally."!

Furthermore, we have seen that the emperor's failure to press home the siege was

probably due to the spread of sickness among his troops, a common hazard of

siege warfare, especially in the summer.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS (3): ENGAGEMENT142

Nemine resistente: "resisted by no-one"; the phrase echoes as a plaintive litany

through an array of ninth-century clerical sources describing the Viking raids.!"

Yet it should not be thought that the Franks fought shy of engaging the Vikings in

battle. The description of Charles the Bald in the Annals of Xanten as "suffering

frequent onslaughts from the pagans, continually offering them tribute, and never

emerging victorious in battle" owes more to political rhetoric than historical reality.

l44Time and again Frankish armies and Carolingian rulers (including Charles the

Bald) came against the Vikings in battle, sometimes suffering defeat, but sometimes

emerging victorious. Any roll of honor would include Noirmoutier (835), the Dordogne

(848), Poitiers (855 and 868), le Perehe (856), the Charente (865), the Loire

(862, 865 and 869),.Oostergo (873), West Frisia (876), Saucourt (881), Avaux

13BCoupland,"Fortified Bridges" (n. 7 above) 9-10.

139Coupland,"Myth and History" (n. 65 above) 198-199.

J~e present discussion has been kept short for this reason.

J4JCoupland, "Poachers" (n. 7 above) 108-114.

J42Seealso Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) chap. 9, "Battle."

J4JThe phrase or an equivalent is found in the Annals of St. Bertin, Annals of Fulda, Annals of St.

Vaast, Chronicle of Nantes, Life of St. Faro, Miracles of St. Benedict, Miracles of St. Germanus,

Miracles of St. Remaclius, Translation of St. Philibert and works by Abbo and Audradus Modicus.

J44AX869(n. 73 above) 27; Coup land, "Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 71-72.

THE CAROLINGlAN ARMY 67

(882), Montfaucon and the river Aisne (888), Louvain (891), and le Vimeu (898).145

These victories were, moreover, won by a variety of Frankish forces. In 848, 856,

881, and 882 it was the king leading the host who was victorious; in 835,862,865,

and 869 a local count, possibly under the auspices of the lantweri; while at Poitiers

in 855 and 868, on the Charente in 865 and in Frisia in 873 and 876 it was the local

populace who were defending their territory. These military successes serve as a

reminder that the weaknesses of the Frankish military machine and the failings of

locally raised forces should not be overestimated.

This list of triumphs over Viking armies would also undoubtedly be longer were

it not for the raiders' frequent avoidance of battle. For example, on the Seine in

841 "Wulfard, a royal vassal, opposed them with an army, but the pagans were not

at all prepared to fight"l46 The Vikings' aim was to acquire plunder, not to win

battles, so why risk their lives and loot in combat when a tactical retreat would

preserve both? As a result, they generally sought to pillage poorly defended

targets and withdraw without risking casualties, particularly in the earlier

incursions. Thus when a warband was intercepted at Vardes in 852, they fled into

the woods to escape the Frankish horsemen, who could not pursue them among

the trees.147The same tactic was used by the Great Army in 891 when they were

attacked by Odo at Wallers, and the armalist adds that the Northmen had been

deliberately traveling through inaccessible areas (invia loca).148What was more, if

Viking forces were defeated they often simply withdrew and regrouped. The

lament uttered by the St. Vaast annalist after Carloman's victory at Avaux applied to

many similar situations: "When battle commenced, the Franks emerged victorious,

but this engagement did nothing to subdue the Northmen.,,149

Contemporary sources reveal regrettably little about the tactics employed by

the Franks against the Vikings, though one vital factor was intelligence. Scouts

were seen as extremely important in keeping abreast of the enemy's movements

and trying to predict their intentions. ISO Thus when Louis III defeated a Viking

army at Saucourt in 881, it was after "he sent out scouts, who reported that they

were coming back laden with plunder."lsl Twenty-five years earlier, Charles the

Bald's successful attack on a Viking warband in the forest of Perehe followed his

muster of the Franks at Neaufles, where, Hincmar wrote, ''we were keeping watch

against the Northmen's incursion."m Equally useful was misinformation, to mislead

or trick the enemy. For example, in 873 Charles the Bald was planning to

attack the Vikings at Angers, but announced a campaign into Brittany in order to

lull them into a false sense of security .IS3

Virtually nothing is recorded about Carolingian battle tactics against the Vi-

I"See at on. 40, 66, 73, 80, and 115 above, n. 168 below; also AB 848, 855, 862, 868 (n. 12 above):

Grat SS, 71, 89, 166, Nelson 65, 81, 99, 152; AF 876,891 (n. 14 above): Kurze 86, 119-121, Reuter

79, 121-123; AV881, 882, 888, 891, 898 (n. 41 above) SO-51, 53, 65, 70, 80.

If6AFont 841 (n. 80 above) 75.

147AFont851 (n. 80 above) 89; see also Regino 892 (n. 43 above) 138.

I"AV89I, cf. 898 (n. 41 above) 69, 80. See also at n. 163 below.

149AV882 (n. 41 above) 53.

uOCf.Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) 188-189; Halsall, Warfare and Society (n.

3 above) 147-148, 157.

IIIAV881 (n. 41 above) 50.

112AFont855 [sic] (n. 80 above) 91; Flodoard, Historia Remensis ecclesiae 3.16: MGH Scriptores

13.506; Hincmari Epistolae no. 131: MGH Episto1ae 8.1.72.

mAß 873 (n. 12 above): Grat 192, Nelson 183.

68 SIMON COUPLAND

kings, though presumably they were similar to those employed against other

opponents in other campaigns. These could include dawn attacks, ambush,

feigned retreat, and attacking from two or three directions in order to stretch the

enemy forces and probe for weak points.P' The latter maneuver seems to have

been used at Fontenoy during the Frankish civil war, and had also been favored

by Charlemagne and Louis the Pious in the earlier expansionist campaigns.F" The

Frankish cavalry evidently charged at speed in close order, as is described in

Regino's account of a battle fought between Franks and Bretons in 851.156

Although Regino is not always reliable on earlier events, in this instance his

account is corroborated by Ermold the Black, who personally campaigned in

Brittany, and by Nithard's description of Frankish military games fought in

842.157 Regino records that the Franks were drawn up en masse (in unum

conglobatii and unlike the Bretons, who were armed with light throwing spears,

held onto their lances, using them as thrusting weapons, as well as fighting hand

to hand with drawn swords. The Bretons advanced towards the Frankish line

hurling their javelins, then fell back in an attempt to lure their opponents to break

ranks and pursue them. This underlines the Franks' preference for fighting in

close order, in contrast to the wheeling, darting Breton cavalry, and King Odo's

command to his men to keep close together as they charged at Montfaucon in 888

suggests the same tactic was still being employed against the Vikings.I" By

contrast, though it is possible that ninth-century Carolingian armies sometimes

fought in a wedge formation or phalanx, the use of the term cuneus by

contemporary authors should not necessarily be interpreted in that sense. By this

time the term could simply denote a body of troops, including units which were

not in battle formation, or even in a wholly non-military context to describe a

crowd of church-goers.i"

Although the Carolingian armies were well armed, highly mobile and very experienced

in mounted warfare, the Vikings quickly developed effective tactics

against them. As we have seen, warbands tended to return to their ships or camp

on islands where the Franks could not reach them. The rare defeat at Noirmoutier

in 835 was only possible because the tide had gone out, allowing Rainald and his

horsemen to cross a causeway from the mainland. On land, the Vikings learned to

use the local terrain to their advantage. To avoid encountering Frankish troops

they kept to invia loca, inaccessible regions.!" including forest and marshland:

Il4Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 188-191, 195-196, 204-206; Bachrach, Early

Carolingian Warfare (n. 2 above) chap. 5, "Battlefield Tactics."

mNithard 2.10 (n. 22 above) 76-78; Verbruggen, Art of Warfare (n. 108 above) 280-282; Halsall,

Warfare and Society(n. 3 above) 147.

156Regino 860 (n. 43 above) 78-79 (recte 851: see AFont 851 [no 80 above] 87; Annales

Engolismenses 851: MGH Scriptores 16.486). See also Halsall, Warfare and Society (n. 3 above) 194-

197.

J57Ermold lines 1494, 1680-1683 (n. 96above) 114, 128; Nithard 3.6 (n. 22 above) 110-112. Cf.

l-C. Cassard, "La guerre des Bretons armoricains au haut moyen äge," Revue historique 557 (1986) 3-

27.

InARF(revision) 782 (n. 9 above) 63; Abbo 2,line 507 (n. 66 above) 104.

I'"AB 864, 869 (n. 12 above): Grat 116, 165, Nelson 121 ("companies"), 162 ("formations");

Ermentarius 2.2 (n. 25 above) 63. A passage in Richer (1.9) sometimes cited as evidence that the wedge

formation was still employed in the late ninth century is unreliable: R. Latouche, ed., Richer: Histoire

de France (888-995), 2 vols. (Paris 1930-1937) 1.24 and n. I; see ix-xi of the same work and Lot, Art

militaire (n. 5 above) 1.102.

160As n. 148 above.

THE CAROLINGIAN ARMY 69

the Vikings at Louvain camped with a swamp on one side and the Dyle on the

other precisely to preclude a mounted attack. On land, Viking armies regularly

surrounded their camps with a rampart topped by a palisade, and perhaps ditches

as well."! The effectiveness of the latter was proved at Paris in 886, where the

commander of the army sent to break the siege, Duke Henry, rode into just such a

ditch. His horse fell and threw him, whereupon a group of Danes hiding nearby

jumped out and killed him.162Here again we see how the resourceful Scandinavians

repeatedly found ways of blunting the edge of the Carolingian war machine.

SUMMARY

This article set out to consider why the Frankish armies which had proved so effective

against other opponents under Pippin III and Charlemagne were apparently

ineffectual against the Vikings in the ninth century. The last section in particular has

highlighted the fact that this is largely a misconception. Carolingian armies won numerous

victories against the Vikings, but to their frustration found that military success

alone was insufficient to deal with the Scandinavian menace. The Northmen

would simply retreat, regroup and later return. What was more, they were masters of

the avoidance of battle, not only through their choice of territory through which to

travel and the location of their camps, but also through their willingness to beat a

strategic retreat. This was equally true in 841, when Wulfard found his opponents on

the Seine unwilling to fight, and fifty years later, when "King Odo caught up with

[the Northrnen] at Wailers, but not in the way that he wanted, for, having abandoned

their loot, they escaped by scattering through the woods, and so regained their

camp.,,163The reason for this behavior is clear, namely that the Vikings were not an

invading army seeking territory to conquer, but a series of fast-moving warbands,

each hungry for loot. Normandy was not conquered by Rollo as Saxony was by

Charlemagne, but granted by Charles the Simple much as tracts of Frisia had been

given in benefice to other Scandinavian chiefs by Frankish rulers before him,

perhaps even including Charlemagne.!" This made it particularly difficult for the

Carolingians to crush the raiders, for defeat in battle might remove them in the short

term, but only some kind of agreement offered the hope of lasting exclusion. That is

why Frankish rulers ended up offering benefices in exchange for conversion and

commendation, or, like their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, paying tribute in exchange

for a promise of departure.l'"

We have also considered the possibility that weaknesses in the Carolingian military

organization might have undermined the defense of Francia and benefited the

Viking attackers. Previous authors have suggested that the mobilization of the army

was too slow to deal with these fast-moving raiders and that the lack of booty might

have lessened the resolve of the Frankish nobility.l'" We have concluded that both

these explanations lack substance, since under the provisions of the lantweri local

armies could have been raised relatively quickly, motivated to defend not simply the

161AF891 (n. 14 above): Kurze 119-120 (sepibus more eorum munlcione septa securi consederunt]

Reuter 121; Regino 891 (n. 43 above) 138 (ligno et terrae congerie more solito se communiunl).

162 AV886 (n. 41 above) 61; Regino 887 (n. 43 above) 126.

163As nn. 146 and 148 above.

164Coupland,"Poachers" (n. 7 above) esp. 87-88.

16sCoupland,"Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 68-69, 72.

166Seeat nn. 31 and 38 above.

70 SIMON COUPLAND

kingdom, but also their own homes and families. Some of these armies were admittedly

poorly trained, armed and equipped, and paid the penalty for their shortcomings,

167but others were more than equal to the task. Their zeal and potential

effectiveness was exemplified in 865, when Robert the Strong led one local force

which "killed more than 500 of the Northmen who were based on the Loire, without

loss to his own side," and an army of Aquitanians "battled with the Northmen who

were camped on the Charente under Sigfrid, and killed around 400 of them, while

the rest fled back to their ships.,,168The principal weakness of the Frankish forces

which has been identified here was the lack of assault ships which could attack the

Vikings' island bases, leaving the initiative always with the Scandinavians and the

Franks vulnerable to surprise attack.

Ninth-century authors offered other reasons for the Franks' inability to overcome

the Vikings. One blamed the cowardice of the army's commanders.l'" but this

almost certainly reflected the strongly held view of the clerical writers of the day that

it was the duty of the laity to defend the church and the kingdom by defeating and

expelling the pagan enemy.'?" There is ample evidence of resistance to the Vikings

by the aristocracy, several of whom gave their lives in the defense of the realm.i"

Other contemporaries, such as Ermentarius and the St. Vaast annalist, saw the

problem as the Franks' internal divisions.l72 This was clearly a factor which

contributed to the Vikings' success, and here there is a significant difference

between the reign of Charlemagne and the later ninth century. Charlemagne of

course faced internal dissent and had to win over his magnates with gifts of wealth

or prestige. Yet he never risked a rival Frankish ruler invading his kingdom while on

campaign, as happened to Charles the Bald and Lothar IT in 858,173nor suffered

incursions from pagan enemies while he was seeking to consolidate his grip on the

throne, as happened to Charles the Bald in the early 840s. Worse, contemporaries

reported that those enemies had been encouraged to attack the West Frankish

kingdom by Lothar I, initially as a way of weakening the position of his father,

Louis the Pious, and later in support of his dream of empire during the civil war.'?'

In the memorable phrase of Gwyn Jones, "It must have appeared to Charles [the

Bald] as though he was a man with a wolf at his throat and a wasp in his hair, and in

this menagerie of menace the Danes were the wasp.,,175

In short, it appears that it was Frankish politics and Scandinavian tactics, including

their choice of island bases, which represented the most significant obstacles

to the Carolingian armies in their struggles against the Vikings, rather than

any innate weakness in their military structures or strategies.

St. Paul's Vicarage

33 Queen's Road, Kingston upon Thames

Surrey KT2 7SF, UK

167Seeat nn. 39, 43, and 121 above.

I6IAB 865 (n. 12 above): Grat 122, 124; Nelson 127,128.

169Seeat n. 26 above.

17°Coupland,"Rod of God's wrath" (n. 7 above) 547-549; "Tribute payments" (n. 7 above) 71.

I7IE.g.,at nn. 40, 17, 99,115, and 122 above.

JnSee at nn. 25 and 103 above.

I7lSee at n. 100 above.

I74See Coupland, "Poachers" (n. 7 above) 90--91.

mG. Iones, A History of the Vikings (London 1968) 213.