The conquests of the Normans in England, Italy, and Sicily
were effected after they had become a Christian and a French-speaking people.
In these lands they were the armed missionaries of a civilization not their own.
The Normans, indeed, invented little and borrowed much. But, like the Arabs,
they were more than simple imitators. In language, literature, art, religion,
and law what they took from others they improved and then spread abroad
throughout their settlements.
ASSIMILATION OF THE NORMANS
It seems at first sight remarkable that a people who
occupied so much of western Europe should have passed away. Normans as Normans
no longer exist. They lost themselves in the kingdoms which they founded and
among the peoples whom they subdued. Their rapid assimilation was chiefly the
consequence of their small numbers: outside of Normandy they were too few long
to maintain their identity.
NORMAL INFLUENCE
If the Normans themselves soon disappeared, their
influence was more lasting. Their mission, it has been well said, was to be
leaders and energizers of society—"the little leaven that leaveneth the
whole lump." The peoples of medieval Europe owed much to the courage and
martial spirit, the genius for government, and the reverence for law, of the
Normans. In one of the most significant movements of the Middle Ages—the
crusades—they took a prominent part. Hence we shall meet them again.
