It seems so long ago that I wrote this, and, desparingly, if I wrote it a thousand times, it would be listened to even less; because ancient genealogy is for too many people merely the persuit of the psychological need for certainties, where none exist.

Regarding the colonisation of Normandy by any distinct ‘nation’ group; on the principle that language adheres to the soil, it is claimed that Scandinavian words are frequently found in Normandy place-names, with affixes indicating settlement, such as ‘bye’ (Danish), proving this. In that we can not be certain of the primitive form of words claimed as Scandinavian, they may also be representatives of the Belgic, Anglian, or Saxon dialects; the latter being spoken by the Otlingua-Saxonica of the Bessin, who had established themselves on the channel coast centuries before the arrival of Rollo.

‘Scandinavianism’ occurs more probably in proper names, compounds of the name and a French noun, as in Toufreville; yet, again, many of these can not be assigned to a distinctly Scandinavian origin. Given the paucity of tenth-century charters, early spelling is absent, and names appearing in later charters are latinised and influenced by local vernacular. It may be added that the total number of place-names containing the elements ‘bye’ in Normandy is neglgible when compared to the number of them in England. It is questionable reasoning to explain this in terms of Normandy not being settled by ‘ordinary’ Scandinavians, who formed settlements, but by ‘aristocratic’ ones that did not. A less contorted explanation is that Normandy was colonised by Rollo’s ‘birds of many colours’, a coalition of many ‘nationalities’, not by a Scandinavian hegemony.

As shown by Isaac Taylor (Words and Places: Or Etymological Illustrations of History, pp. 94-95, 1873), in the Bessin we find Sassetot (Saxons field), Hermanville, Etreham, or Ouistreham (Westerham), Hambye, Le Ham, Le Hamelet, Cottun (cows’ yard), Ethainus, Heuland (hayland), Plumetot (Blomfield or Flowerfield), and Douvres (the shore).

Charlemagne transported into France a vast multitude of Saxons – ‘multitudinem Saxonorum cum mulieribus et infantibus’. After another Saxon conquest he transplanted every third man – tertium hominem – of the vanquished people. Many of the German names in France may be due to these forced emigrations.

The area and intensity of this German colonization may conveniently be traced by means of the patronymic village names, of which there are more than 1100 in France. In addition to these names, about five hundred words were introduced into the French language by the German conquerors. Most of them are names of weapons and military terms, such as gonfanon, or guerre, from werra, war.The other words are chiefly the names of articles of dress, of beasts of the chase, and terms belonging to the feudal system. To these must be added the points of the compass, nord, sud, est.

As late as the year 812, A.D., the Council of Tours ordained that every French bishop should be able to preach both in the Romance and Teutonic languages. Thus, it is impossible to distinguish between early Saxon settlers and later ones, and it may have been the case that the Saxons of Bayeux joined with later colonisers in a anti-French coalition.

I would propose that a significant part of the early Norman aristocracy were not Danes or Norwegians, either in appearance, custom or manner. They were beardless, short of stature, and dark of skin. The Dane was large of frame, blond, and bearded. The Irish term for the Norman invaders of their country was ‘dark haired Normans’.

That a significant part of the early Norman aristocracy were of this ‘dark’ Saxon genotype was suggested by Knopf (The Racial Basis of Civilization: A critique of the Nordic doctrine, 1931), who claimed that ‘the inhabitants of the German Tyrol, who have been declared to represent the true type of the primeval Teuton, have dark or black hair. In short, the most genuine sons of this (Teutonic) race may be black-haired’.

‘Norwegians, Swedes,and Danes certainly came to Normandy – in as much as these modern concepts of statehood have relevance – Bernard the Dane was a companion of William Longsword, son of Rollo, in the early 940s. However, the fact that Bernard’s origins were remarked upon may mean that he belonged to a minority group’ (David Crouch, The Normans: The History of a Dynasty, app. 1., 2006). To which could be added – a disreportianally powerful minority.

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