Rollo (, Rolloun; ; ; – 933), or Rollo "the Walker", was a Viking who, as Count of Rouen, became the first ruler of Normandy, a region in today's northern France. He emerged as a war leader among the Norsemen who had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine. He was a prominent figure among the Vikings who besieged Paris in 885 and led the ill-fated Siege of Chartres in 911. The latter was nonetheless the catalyst for the consequential Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, which saw Charles the Simple, king of West Francia, grant Rollo lands between the river Epte and the sea in exchange for Rollo agreeing to end his brigandage, swear allegiance to Charles, convert to Christianity, and pledge to defend the Seine estuary from other Viking raiders.
Rollo's life was recorded by Dudo of St. Quentin. Historians such as W. Vogel, Alexander Bugge, and Henri Prentout have debated whether Dudo's account is historically accurate, and Rollo's origin and life are heavily disputed.
Rollo is first recorded in a charter of 918 as the leader of a group of Viking settlers, and he reigned over the region of Normandy until at least 928. He was succeeded as ruler of the new Duchy of Normandy by his son William Longsword. The offspring of Rollo and his followers, through their intermingling with the local Frankish and Gallo-Roman population, became known as the "Normans". After the Norman conquest of England and of southern Italy and Sicily over the following two centuries, their descendants came to rule England, much of Ireland, Sicily and Antioch from the 11th to 13th centuries, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the histories of Europe and the Near East.
Name The Heimskringla (written in the 13th century) records that Rolf the Ganger went to Normandy and ruled it, so Rollo is generally presumed to be a Latinisation of the Old Norse name Hrólfr, a theory that is supported by the rendition of Hrólfr as Roluo in the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus. It is also sometimes suggested that Rollo may be a Latinised version of another Norse name, Hrollaugr.
The 10th-century French historian Dudo in his Historia Normannorum records that Rollo took the baptismal name Robert. A variant spelling, Rou, is used in the 12th-century Norman French verse chronicle Roman de Rou, which was compiled by Wace and commissioned by King Henry II of England, a descendant of Rollo.
Origins and historiography
In medieval Norwegian and Icelandic historiography, Rollo, the Viking leader who established himself in Normandy, was identified with Hrólfr "the Walker" Rǫgnvaldsson, the son of the jarl of Møre in western Norway. The earliest written testimony appears in the Latin Historia Norvegiæ, composed in Norway. In his royal sagas, Snorri relates that Hrólfr conquered Normandy after raiding through the Hebrides, the Irish Sea region, and Francia, and that many Norwegians settled there with him.
In the late nineteenth century, a vigorous debate emerged over Rollo's identity, partly along national lines, with Danish and Norwegian historians often taking opposing positions. Alongside the question of who Rollo was, historians disputed the meaning of terms such as "Norwegians" and "Danes" in medieval sources and the extent to which the Norman settlement should be regarded as Norwegian or Danish.
The debate was initiated by the Danish historian Johannes Steenstrup, whose central argument rested on the explicit claims of the French chronicler Dudo of Saint-Quentin that Rollo was Danish. While British, French, and Norwegian scholars have generally accepted the Norwegian-Icelandic tradition, Danish, Swedish, and German historians have tended to follow Dudo. The question cannot be settled conclusively, but among Norwegian, French, and British historians it is now common to hold that, on balance and given the surviving evidence, the case for a Norwegian origin remains the stronger.
The point on which the evidence is comparatively unambiguous, however, is that Rollo was almost certainly born in Scandinavia—either in Norway or Denmark—in the mid-9th century, as his tomb states he was in his eighties when he died in 933.
Among biographical remarks about Rollo written by the cleric Dudo of Saint-Quentin in the late 10th century, he claimed that Rollo "the Dane" was from Dacia, and had moved from there to the island of Scandza. Dacia originally referred to the region near the Black Sea, but Dudo identified it with Denmark by making a false etymology between Daci (Dacians) and Dani (Danes). One of Rollo's great-grandsons and a contemporary of Dudo was known as Robert the Dane. However, Dudo's Historia Normannorum (or Libri III de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum) was commissioned by Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy and while Dudo likely had access to family members and/or other people with a living memory of Rollo, this fact must be weighed against the text's potential biases, as an official biography.
According to Dudo, an unnamed king of Denmark was antagonistic to Rollo's family, including his father – an unnamed Danish nobleman – and Rollo's brother Gurim. Following the death of their father, Gurim was killed and Rollo was forced to leave Denmark.. Dudo uses the terminology of the day, Scandia for the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula and Dacia for Denmark (also the name of a Roman province near the Black Sea). Dudo appears to have been the main source for William of Jumièges (after 1066) and Orderic Vitalis (early 12th century), although both include additional details.
A Norwegian background for Rollo was first explicitly claimed by Goffredo Malaterra (Geoffrey Malaterra), an 11th-century Benedictine monk and historian, who wrote: "Rollo sailed boldly from Norway with his fleet to the Christian coast." Likewise, the 12th-century English historian William of Malmesbury stated that Rollo was "born of noble lineage among the Norwegians".
A chronicler named Benoît (probably Benoît de Sainte-More) wrote in the mid-12th-century Chronique des ducs de Normandie that Rollo had been born in a town named "Fasge". This has since been variously interpreted as referring to Faxe in Sjælland (Denmark), Fauske in Sykkylven (Norway), or perhaps a more obscure settlement that has since been abandoned or renamed. Benoît also repeated the claim that Rollo had been persecuted by a local ruler and had fled from there to "Scanza island", by which Benoît probably means Scania (Swedish ). Benoît says elsewhere in the Chronique that Rollo is Danish.Rollo and his followers are referred to as throughout the Chronique. For example, [...] (Francisque Michel edition, p. 173, available online via Internet Archive).
Snorri Sturluson identified Rollo with Hrólfr the Walker (Old Norse Gǫngu-Hrólfr; Norwegian Gange-Rolv or Gongu-Rolv) from the 13th-century Icelandic sagas, Heimskringla and Orkneyinga Saga. Hrólf the Walker was so named because he "was so big that no horse could carry him". The Icelandic sources claim that Rollo was from Møre in western Norway, in the late 9th century and that his parents were the Norwegian jarl Rognvald Eysteinsson ('Rognvald the Wise') and a noblewoman from Møre named Hildr Hrólfsdóttir.
There may be circumstantial evidence for kinship between Rollo and his historical contemporary Ketill Flatnose, King of the Isles – a Norse realm centred on the Western Isles of Scotland. Both Irish and Icelandic sources suggest that Rollo, as a young man, visited or lived in northern Scotland, where he had a daughter named Cadlinar ( Kathleen). Icelandic sources name Ketill Flatnose's father as Björn Grímsson, which would imply that the name of Ketill Flatnose's paternal grandfather was . That would be limited, onomastic evidence for a connection to Rollo, whose father (according to Richer) was named Ketill, while Rollo also (according to Dudo) had a brother named Gurim – a name likely cognate with . In addition, Icelandic sources report that Rollo's ancestral home was Møre, where Ketill Flatnose's ancestors were also said to have originated. However, there are no surviving sources explicitly claiming a connection; was a common name in Norse societies, as were names like Gurim/.
Biography Dudo's chronicle about Rollo seizing Rouen in 876 is supported by the contemporary chronicler Flodoard, who records that Robert of the Breton March waged a campaign against the Vikings, nearly levelling Rouen and other settlements. Eventually, he conceded "certain coastal provinces" to them. Although, scholars have debated this and have said that Rollo did not even arrive in West Francia until after the year 876, making this timeline given by Dudo wrong.
According to Dudo, Rollo struck up a friendship in England with a king called “Alstem”. This has puzzled many historians, but recently this person has been identified as Guthrum, the Danish leader whom Alfred the Great baptised with the name “Athelstan”, and was recognised as King of the East Angles in 880.
The earliest well-attested historical event associated with Rollo is when he was a prominent leader of the Vikings who besieged Paris in 885–886 but were fended off by Odo of France.
Dudo recorded that when Rollo controlled Bayeux by force, he carried off the beautiful Popa or Poppa, a daughter of Berenger, Count of Rennes. He married her, and they had a son and heir, William Longsword. Her parentage is uncertain, and may have been invented after the fact to legitimize her son's lineage, as many of the fantastic genealogical claims made by Dudo were. She may have come from any country with which the Norse had contact, as Dudo is a highly unreliable source who may have written his chronicle primarily as a didactic tool to teach courtly values.
There are few contemporary mentions of Rollo. In 911, Robert I of France, brother of Odo, again defeated another band of Viking warriors in Chartres with his well-trained horsemen. This victory paved the way for Rollo's baptism and settlement in Normandy. The Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte set down that in return for formal recognition of the lands he possessed, Rollo agreed to be baptised and assisted the king in defending the realm. As was custom, Rollo took the baptismal name “Robert”, after his godfather, Robert I.
The seal of the agreement was to be a marriage between Rollo and Gisela, daughter of Charles, possibly her legitimate father. Since Charles first married in 907, that would mean that Gisela was at most 5 years old at the time of the treaty of 911 which offered her in marriage. It has therefore been speculated that she could have been an illegitimate daughter. However, a diplomatic child betrothal need not be doubted.
The earliest record of Rollo is from 918, in a charter of Charles III to an abbey, which referred to an earlier grant to "the Normans of the Seine", namely "Rollo and his associates" for "the protection of the kingdom". Dudo retrospectively stated that this pact took place in 911 at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte.
Dudo narrates a humorous story not corroborated by other primary sources about Rollo's pledge of fealty to Charles III as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. The attendant bishops urged Rollo to kiss the king's foot to prove his allegiance. Rollo refused, saying "I will never bow my knees at the knees of any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." Instead, Rollo commanded one of his warriors to kiss the king's foot. The warrior complied by raising the king's foot to his mouth as the king was standing, which "caused the king to topple backward" much to the amusement of their entourage. On taking his oath of fealty, Rollo divided the lands between the rivers Epte and Risle among his chieftains and settled in the de facto capital of Rouen.