Note 188 — Chapter IV · SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF NORMANDY DURING THE TENTH CENTURY.[188]

For the Norman and French history of the tenth century there are three principal authorities. The only writer on the Norman side is Dudo, Dean of Saint Quintin, whose work will be found in Duchesne’s Rerum Normannicarum Scriptores. His history is nearly coincident with the century, going down to the death of Richard the Fearless. He is a most turgid and wearisome writer, without chronology or arrangement of any kind. He is in fact one of the earliest of a very bad class of writers, those who were employed, on account of their supposed eloquence, to write histories which were intended only as panegyrics of their patrons. It is only just before the end of his narrative that Dudo begins to be a contemporary witness; up to that time he simply repeats such traditions as were acceptable at the Norman court. Of the two French writers, Flodoard or Frodoard, Canon of Rheims (whose Annals will be found in the third volume of Pertz), is a far more valuable writer in himself, but his notices of Norman affairs are few and meagre. He perhaps avoids speaking of the terrible strangers any more than he can help. Flodoard is a mere annalist, and aspires to no higher rank, but in his own class he ranks very high. He is somewhat dull and dry, as becomes an annalist, but he is thoroughly honest, sensible, and straightforward. His Annals reach from 919 to 966, the year of his death, so that he is strictly contemporary throughout. The other French writer is Richer, a monk of Rheims, whose work was discovered by Pertz, and is printed in his third volume (also separately in his smaller collection, and in a French edition by M. Gaudet, with a French translation, 2 vols. Paris, 1845). He was the son of Rudolf, a knight and counsellor of King Lewis the Fourth, and derived much of his information from his father. He also makes use of the work of Flodoard. He goes down to 998, which was seemingly the year of his death. Richer is not content with being an annalist; he aspires to be an historian. He is much fuller and more vivid than Flodoard, but I cannot look on him as equally trustworthy. On this writer see Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, i. 748. The second volume of Sir Francis’ own work contains a most vivid, though very discursive and garrulous, history of the time before us, full of all the merits and defects of its author. I would refer to an article of mine on it in the Edinburgh Review for April 1859; also to another, “The Franks and Gauls,” in the National Review for October 1860, since reprinted in my first series of Historical Essays.