The prudent Dane, finding that no advantages could be gained over such
a people, governed by such a prince, soon turned his enterprises against
France, which he found more exposed to his inroads;[**] and during the
reigns of Eudes, a usurper, and of Charles the Simple, a weak prince, he
committed the most destructive ravages, both on the inland and maritime
provinces of that kingdom. The French, having no means of defence
against a leader who united all the valor of his countrymen with
the policy of more civilized nations, were obliged to submit to the
expedient practised by Alfred, and to offer the invaders a settlement in
some of those provinces which they had depopulated by their arms.[***]
[** Gul Gemet lib. ii. cap 6.]
[*** Dudo, p. 82.]
The reason why the Danes, for many years, pursued measures so different
from those which had been embraced by the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
Burgundians, Lombards, and other northern conquerors, was the great
difference in the method of attack which was practised by these
several nations, and to which the nature of their respective situations
necessarily confined them. The latter tribes, living in an inland
country, made incursions by land upon the Roman empire; and when they
entered far into the frontiers, they were obliged to carry along
with them their wives and families, whom they had no hopes of soon
revisiting, and who could not otherwise participate of their plunder.
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