1 RAGENOLD, ROLLO AND OTHER NORTHMEN IN FRANCE, c.919-925 Stephen M. Lewis 1 Université de Caen Normandie and Université Bordeaux Montaigne 2021 This thesis 2 is about the connections of the Northmen in Aquitaine, not simply what they did in Aquitaine - this or that raid or this or that battle. With the exception of the attack on Tours in 903 which was discussed in the previous chapter there had been no Scandinavian attacks into Aquitaine since the brief incursion over the winter of 897-98 made by Northmen who had recently arrived back in France following four years in England. In terms of Brittany, the attack on the Breton monastery of Landévennec at the end of 913 was undertaken by Northmen who had probably originated in the British Isles and who certainly returned there immediately afterwards. This all changed in c.919 when a new and significant fleet of Northmen came to Brittany. These Northmen’s subsequent attacks into Aquitaine proper, south of the Loire, only covered a short period in the early 920s and then again in the first half of the 930s. Most of their activities over a twenty-year period took place along the Loire, in Francia north of the Seine, in Neustria between the Seine and the Loire, and in Burgundy and Brittany. This makes this period a prime example of the very close connections between Northmen operating in Aquitaine, throughout France and even overseas, and a closer examination of all these connections than has hitherto been attempted is called for. This chapter and the following one 3 will attempt to do just this. At the end of the day many things will still remain obscure, including where these Northmen had come from and what became of them after 939, but a number of other things will be illuminated. 1 Dr Stephen M. Lewis undertook and defended his doctoral thesis entitled Vikings in Aquitaine and their connections, ninth to early eleventh centuries at the Université de Caen Normandie under the direction of Pierre Bauduin, it is available online at https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-03339358v1 and at https://unicaen.academia.edu/StephenLewis. He is a member of the Centre de recherches archéologiques et historiques anciennes et médiévales (CRAHAM) at the Université de Caen Normandie, and a member of the research centre for Histoire, civilisation, archéologie et art des mondes anciens et médiévaux (AUSONIUS) at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne. His research interests include the ‘vikings’ in Aquitaine and elsewhere in Western Europe and trans-Pyrenean matters in the early medieval period. 2 This paper is extracted from Chapter 12 of my Ph.D thesis as referenced above. 3 Chapter 13.