Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/38

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NORMANS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY

place of the Normans in European history we shall accordingly pass over those periods, the earlier and the later, which are primarily of local interest, and concentrate ourselves upon the heroic age of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. We shall begin with the coming of the Northmen and the creation of the Norman state. The third lecture will consider the Norman conquest of England; the fourth, the Norman empire to which this gave rise. We shall then trace the events which led to the separation of Normandy from England and its ultimate union in 1204 with the French monarchy under Philip Augustus, concluding our survey of the Normans of the north by a sketch of Norman life and culture in this period. The two concluding lectures will trace the establishment of the Norman kingdom éof southern Italy and Sicily, and examine the brilliant composite civilization of the southern Normans from the reign of the great King Roger to the accession of his still more famous grandson, the Emperor Frederick II.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

There is no substantial general history of Normandy. For a review of the materials, the literature, and the problems, see the excellent résumé of H. Prentout, La Normandie (Paris, 1910, reprinted from the Revue de synthèse historique). For bibliographical purposes this should be supplemented by the Catalogue des ouvrages normands de la Bibliothèque municipale de Caen (Caen, 1910-12). For the general features of Norman geography, see the brief account by Vidal de la Blache, in the Histoire de France of Lavisse, republished with illustrations under the title of La France (Paris, 1908). The subject can best