The chiefs and people of the region, and still more the clergy, retained their preference to the Carlovingians. They all offered strenuous resistance to Otho, in which they were joined by Eberhard of Franconia, or of the Franks east of the Rhine. Nor did Otho triumph until fortune enabled him to surprise the chiefs and the armies of his enemies. This was in 939. Eberhard of Franconia, and Giselbert, Duke of Lorraine, had crossed the Rhine on a plundering expedition into the territories of Otho. The greater part of their forces had already passed to the left bank. They were about to follow, when Herman, Otho's lieutenant, came upon them and put them to the rout. Eberhard was slain, and Giselbert drowned in endeavouring to escape over the river. Otho in consequence established without opposition his power and his lieutenants in Lorraine and in Metz, Louis d'Outremer endeavouring to obtain favour with the victor by espousing another sister of Otho's, Gerberga, widow of Giselbert.

Whilst the German monarch thus made himself master of the provinces west of the Rhine, a conquest rendered more complete by the death of Heribert of Vermandois and the division of his estates, attention was called to the west by a quarrel which broke out between the Normans and Arnulph, Count of Flanders. The river Somme was the Norman boundary, which they frequently passed on marauding expeditions. Herluin, Count of Montreuil, was the ally of the Duke of Normandy. Arnulph drove him out of Montreuil, and William of the Long Sword, Duke of Normandy, received and supported Herluin. In pursuit of this quarrel the duke was assassinated in an isle of the Somme by Arnulph. A French historian, Richer, makes Otho and Hugh privy to the deed, and recounts that the immediate cause was the behaviour of the Duke of Normandy at a meeting, which the great magnates had at Attigny. From this meeting, William

CHAP.

II.

CHAP.

II.

was at first excluded, when, forcing his way in, he found Otho seated above King Louis, at which he expressed his indignation, and compelled Otho to rise. Hugh and Arnulph, both present, were also indignant at the Duke of Normandy's taking so strongly the part of Louis; and hence, says Richer, the conspiracy to assassinate him. This historian of the Church and Carlovingian party eagerly records every accusation against Otho or against Hugh, hating alike the German and the French. So that much faith is not to be placed in his recitals.

The heritage of the Duke of Normandy, who left two infant sons, awakened the cupidity of Louis d'Outremer. The duke had been friendly to the prince, and had paid allegiance to him. Louis took advantage of this to proceed to Rouen, and claim the guardianship of the infant Richard. The churchmen of course supported him, as did the Normans of the early conquest. But neither they nor their dukes had at first succeeded in perfecting that feudal organisation, which rendered them equally powerful in war and industrious in peace. The amalgamation of conquered and conquering races could not be so instantaneous. And history testifies the weakness of the Normans in war. On one occasion they could not defend Eu from capture. The military expedient of the Normans, therefore, was to call to their aid, bands of their rude compatriots from Denmark. And these, whilst they preserved the independence of the duchy, caused it to relapse into barbarism and predatory habits. These pagans, as the churchman calls them, were strongly opposed to Louis d'Outremer and his pretensions, who nevertheless carried off the young Norman princes to educate them in his court at Laon. Here Louis is said to have treated young Richard without the respect due to his birth and rights. A Norman follower of the prince, named Osmond, carried him off in consequence, and escaped into the dominions of

Hugh. The latter seized the opportunity to interfere. His object seems to have been to secure in the name of the young duke the towns of Normandy south of the Seine, in order to counteract the party of Louis, which was powerful at Rouen. He thus occupied Evreux, and tried to get possession of Bayeux. As Louis was supported by the Normans of the old settlement, Hugh seemed to be on an understanding with those more lately from Denmark. For Louis was made captive by these, and handed over to Hugh; the latter releasing to them the young Duke Richard. The Duke of France made use of the durance in which he held Louis, first to obtain from him the liberation of the Norman prince, and at last to extract from him the possession of Laon. So that the Carlovingian monarch received his freedom on the condition of giving up his last possessions, and indeed his last hopes.

Louis no sooner regained his liberty, than he betook himself to the Emperor Otho, represented the cruelty with which he had been treated, the straits to which he had been reduced, and at the same time depicted the church and imperial party as so strong in Normandy and in France, that with the aid of a German army, Neustria, as the duchies of France and Normandy were called, might be reduced. Otho listened and believed, and mustering a strong army from his own realms, as well as from those of King Conrad of Burgundy, marched into France in 946. The chiefs of the duchies of Normandy and France combined for defence, so that it was once more a struggle between Neustria and Austrasia, between Celtic and Belgic Gaul. Hugh, as was his wont, exerted himself to defend the course of the Seine. When he failed in this, the Germans effecting a passage, the duke shut himself up in Orleans, giving up the country to be wasted, but leaving every town in so perfect a state of defence, that not one was captured. Otho's troops were repelled from Rouen.

II.

CHAP. An attempt to take Senlis was equally unsuccessful. The great superiority at that time of the powers of defence over those of offence rendered conquest impossible. This was one of the benefits of feudal organisation. Had England been as advanced as the continent in this respect, its conquest a century later would have been impossible.

Otho finding it difficult to crush the west in war, had recourse to ecclesiastical arms, and called a council, to fulminate an excommunication against Hugh, in which even the Pope was made to join. But Hugh, completely master of his territories, laughed at ecclesiastical censures, after having defied imperial armies. He was so completely sovereign, that he did not fear to appoint counts in different districts, who swore fealty to him. Thus Tetbold was Count of Chartres and of Blois, towns avowedly belonging to the duchy of France. At length Otho, acknowledging the power of Hugh to be invulnerable, advised Louis to come to terms, and be contented with Laon, the German emperor retaining Lorraine, and Hugh rounding his territories by the acquisition of the level districts in Burgundy, and the reversion of the entire of that province to his son Otho.

Notwithstanding these proofs of the solidity of his power, which acquired for Hugh the surname of the Great, he declined, on the death of Louis d'Outremer, in 954, to assume the crown. The dignity thereby acquired would have brought him no more than the town. of Laon, unless he proceeded to dispute Lorraine with the German Emperor. Waiving such ambition, Hugh united with Otho's brother, Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, who governed Lorraine, in crowning Lothaire, son of Louis d'Outremer. And he forthwith brought the young king on a tour through the chief towns of his dominions, being Paris, Orleans, Chartres, Tours, and Blois. They then proceeded into Poitou, Berry,

II.

and Auvergne, the counts of which region Duke Hugh CHAP. pretended to consider subject to himself as military vicegerent for the descendant of Charlemagne. The counts resisted, but the city of Poictiers was forced to submit. This expedition was the last act of Hugh, who expired in 956.

The sons of Hugh the Great, Hugh and Otho, were under the influence of their mother Hedwige, as Lothaire was under the guardianship of Gerberge, both sisters of the Emperor Otho and of his brother Archbishop Bruno, who governed the country west of the Rhine. Richard the young Duke of Normandy at the same time married the sister of Hugh and Otho, so that peace and alliance prevailed from the ocean to the Rhine for several years, which, in consequence, form but blanks in the chronicles of the day. Whilst the younger son of Hugh the Great, Otho, who did not long survive, had Burgundy, Hugh succeeded to the Duchy of France, to which the county of Poitou was added. Hugh was a name borne by many chiefs of the time, to distinguish him from whom, as well as from his sire, the young Duke of France was early called Hugh Capet or Capez. Of the many derivations given of the name, not one is satisfactory; the most probable is the most simple, that it came from the cap which he wore.

The peace which prevailed at this time between the dukes and great princes, was disturbed by the feuds of the lesser chiefs or barons, who began to assume importance, and to occupy that place in the annals of the day which the greater princes hitherto filled. Those counts, who had all of them got possession of church property, were on this account in perpetual strife with the prelates, and at the same time with the Carlovingian princes, who made their cause identical with the Church. Tetbold, or Thibaut, Count of Chartres, Geoffrey, or Foulques, Count of Anjou, had each their quarrel with the Church of Rheims or the