Episode 2 - Richard the Fearless

10/12/09 • 8 min

Norman Centuries | A Norman History Podcast by Lars Brownworth

With the death of Rollo and his son, Normandy seemed poised on the brink of disaster. Its nobles were in open revolt and the King of France had seized the capital of Rouen. The legitimate heir, Richard I, was only nine years old- and a captive of the crown- yet against all expectations he grew into one of early Normandy's most formidable Dukes. Along the way he acquired the nickname of Richard the Fearless, and is remembered chiefly as the man who put Normandy on the map. Join Lars Brownworth as he looks at the dramatic career of the first Norman Duke.

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Episode 1 - Rollo and the Viking Age

They were the great success story of the Middle Ages, a footloose band of individual adventurers who appeared out of nowhere to blaze across the face of Dark Age Europe. In the course of two centuries the Normans launched a series of extraordinary conquests, transforming Anglo-Saxon England into Great Britain, setting up a powerful Crusader state in Antioch, and turning Palermo into the dazzling cultural and economic capital of the western Mediterranean. Their story, however, begins rather humbly in the fierce Viking Age, when a group of Scandinavian raiders came crashing into Charlemagne's empire. Join Lars Brownworth as he follows the ferocious warrior Rollo, the first Norman, who began life as a simple raider and ended it as a great lord of the West.

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Episode 3 - Richard the Good: Inventing the Past

At the start of Richard II's reign northern Europe was once again subjected to a wave of Viking attacks. The young Duke was faced with the question of what to do with his distant Norse brethren. Assist these pagans in their plunder and be labeled a pirate himself - or resist and become their next victim. His solution would intertwine the fate of Normandy with the kingdom of England, and lay the groundwork for the great conquest to come. In the process he would commission the first court historian and create a new identity for the Normans. Join Lars Brownworth as he looks at both England and Normandy in the time of Richard the Good.