The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1885]
Note: M. Goutier d'Arc has discovered a translation of the Chronicle of Aime, monk of Mont Cassino, a contemporary of the first Norman invaders of Italy. He has made use of it in his Histoire des Conquetes des Normands, and added a summary of its contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was supposed to have been entirely lost. - M.]
[Footnote 16: Some of the first converts were baptized ten or twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one hundred captives. But in a generation or two, the national change was pure and general.]
[Footnote 17: The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans of Bayeux on the sea-coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem (Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiae suae principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica, suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit. Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640 - 1656) has given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians and lawyers.]
[Footnote !: A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet of Saracens. Gainar, the Lombard prince of Salerno wished to retain them in his service and take them into his pay. They answered, "We fight for our religion, and not for money." Gaimar entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans with Italy. See Histoire des Conquetes des Normands par Goutier d'Arc, l. i. c. i., Paris, 1830. - M.]
[Footnote 18: See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d'Italia, p. 250) and Baronius, (A.D. 493, No. 43.) If the archangel inherited the temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the soothsayer, (Strab. Geograph l. vi. p. 435, 436,) the Catholics (on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of their superstition.]
[Footnote *: Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique d'Aime, tom. i. p. 21 quoted by M Goutier d'Arc, p. 42. - M.]
[Footnote 19: See the first book of William Appulus. His words are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters: -
Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos
Confugiebat eum gratanter suscipiebant:
Moribus et lingua quoscumque venire videbant
Informant propria; gens efficiatur ut una.
And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy: -
Pars parat, exiguae vel opes aderant quia nullae:
Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant.]
[Footnote *: This account is not accurate. After the retreat of the emperor Henry II. the Normans, united under the command of Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when Pandulf IV., prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a foreign dominion he retired to Aversa; and when, with the assistance of the Greeks and that of the citizens faithful to their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and reentered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into a count's fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf. Hist. des Rep. Ital. tom. i. p. 267]
Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian emperors had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but their efforts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the distance and the sea. Their costly armaments,