Normans original ?

[Lust4Life]

The title pretty much says it.

We all know that the Normans were Vikings who settled in northern France but whenever I try to find out where they actually originated from it just says Scandinavia.

Does anyone here know if they were Norweigan,Danish,Swedish or even maybe a mixture of them(though I think thats would be highly unlikely )

Cheers for your time.

[silenus]

“The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romantic language and intermarried with the area’s previous inhabitants and became the Normans – a Norman French-speaking mixture of Scandinavians, Hiberno-Norse, Orcadians, Anglo-Danish, and indigenous Franks and Gauls.” - from Wiki.

“The question of Rollo’s Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy’s 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.’” - also from Wiki.

So it seems that they people were a mix, and Rollo is…unknown.

[Bridget_Burke]

@silenus

“The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romantic language and intermarried with the area’s previous inhabitants and became the Normans – a Norman French-speaking mixture of Scandinavians, Hiberno-Norse, Orcadians, Anglo-Danish, and indigenous Franks and Gauls.” - from Wiki.

“The question of Rollo’s Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy’s 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.'” - also from Wiki.

So it seems that they people were a mix, and Rollo is…unknown.

Yes! Historical details of how The Normans came to be are extremely obscure. My library is unavailable, but this article on the Sicilian Normans agrees.

To call them “Vikings” (Norsemen) is to oversimplify the culture of the medieval Normans, for their society, heritage and genetic make-up were as Frankish and Roman as they were Norse. The term “Norman” refers to the residual Norse and Frankish civilization of Normandy. Much as the Lombards of Lombardy were not purely Longobardic, the Normans of Normandy were not purely Norse. In fact, they were descended not only from Vikings but from Franks, Romans and Celts, and their language was a dialect of French.

The use of “Viking” for settlers from the North is inexact. From my new favorite website:

Scandinavian pirate, 1807, vikingr; modern spelling attested from 1840. The word is a historical revival; it was not used in M.E., but it was revived from O.N. vikingr… The connection between the O.N. and O.E. words is still much debated. The period of Viking activity was roughly 8c. to 11c. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the raiding armies generally were referred to as þa Deniscan “the Danes,” while those who settled in England were identified by their place of settlement.

Of course, the Irish & other peoples had other ways of referring to the Vikings.

(And don’t get me started on “Celts.”)

[Polycarp]

Hrolf (Rollo)'s father is in fact given in some near-contemporary sources: Rognvald, Jarl of More, which is, IIRC, in Vestfold. Whether his followers were from the same area, of course, is a completely different question – as, also, whether the “near-contemporary” sources were in fact accurate.

[samclem]

vikingr, using Google Books, is found in print from 1775.