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| c. 787–925 |
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| The 9th-century invasions. In the north: Bands of Northmen (also called Norsemen, Danes, Vikings; (See 1171), pushed outward from Scandinavia. The Swedes penetrated into Russia, the Norwegians and Danes moved into the northern islands (including the British Isles) and south to the Continent. Within a half century of the first raid (c. 787) on England, the British Isles had been flooded. Masters of the sea in the west, the Northmen pushed inland from the mouths of the great rivers (the Rhine, Scheldt, Somme, Seine, Loire), sacking the cities (Utrecht, Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Seville). “Normandy” was invaded (841), and a simultaneous attack was made (845) on all three Frankish kingdoms. The Mediterranean was entered (843). In the east, Constantinople was attacked by Swedes (Rus), who came down from Russia. A great attack on Paris (885) was heroically met by Count Odo (Eudes), son of Robert the Strong. Raids pushed farther into France and the Mediterranean in the course of the 9th century. | 1 |
| In the east: Bulgarian expansion produced a great Bulgar state between the Frankish and Byzantine Empires. The Bulgars were converted to the Greek communion (870). Hungarians (Magyars), closely followed by Pechenegs, crossed the Carpathians and the lower Danube, pushing into Venetia, Lombardy, Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony, the Rhineland, Lorraine, and Burgundy (925). | 2 |
| In the Mediterranean: Muslim domination of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands made the Mediterranean virtually a Muslim lake. Raids were almost continuous, Rome was attacked (846) and later Monte Cassino (883). | 3 |
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| 852–86 |
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| Political and social consequences. The pressures of Muslim, Magyar, and Viking invasions, combined with the civil wars among Charlemagne's descendants who could do little to halt those invasions, accelerated the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire and hastened the development of what modern students call feudalism and manorialism. As regional aristocracies assumed responsibility for defense and the protection of the weak, aristocratic authority accordingly increased. Strong men governed virtually independent territories in which weak and distant kings could not interfere. “Political power became a private, heritable property for great lords and counts,” in the apt words of Joseph R. Strayer. Feudalism concerned the rights, powers, and lifestyle of the military elite; manorialism involved the services and obligations of the peasant classes. Since the economic power of the military elite rested on estates worked by peasants, feudalism and manorialism were inextricably linked. During the great invasions, peasants needed protection, and lords demanded something in return for their protection. Thus, free peasants surrendered themselves and their land to the lords' jurisdiction. The land was given back to them, but the peasants were then tied to the land by various kinds of payments and services. Local custom determined what those services were, but everywhere in the old Carolingian world peasants became part of the lord's permanent labor force and were obliged to turn over to him a portion of their annual harvest—usually in produce, sometimes in cash. In entering a relationship with a feudal lord, free farmers lost status and became servile, or serfs. They were subject to the lord's jurisdiction and were bound to the land and could not leave it without his permission. The unstable conditions created by the Viking assaults on Europe led to a great loss of personal freedom. | 4 |
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