Mind-Munitions

60
Propaganda in the Middle Ages
Charlemagne was written in about 850 to provide a model of how
kingship should work just at the time when Louis the Pious’ reign
was going wrong. In fact, decentralization of government was
matched by decentralization of warfare, with feudal lords levying
their own armies from their own lands, which meant that armies
became smaller but the aristocrats who raised them became more
powerful within their own society.
The political chaos that followed Charlemagne’s death merely
left western Europe open to a new threat of invasions from the
Vikings. Originally indiscriminate pillagers, the Vikings may be
said to be the last of Europe’s barbarian fighters whose purpose
was ‘trade and raid’. Following the departure of the Romans from
Britain in 436, Britain had been successively invaded by the Jutes,
Angles, Saxons, and, from 784, the Vikings. Despite the successes
of Alfred, King of Wessex, against the Norse invaders, a Scandinavian
monarchy was established in England in 1016. Alfred,
however, had proved himself to be an able propagandist through
his construction and consolidation of the idea of the English
nation, as celebrated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and his
organization of national defences against the Viking invaders.
Meanwhile, following the demise of the Carolingians, large
numbers of pillaging Norsemen began to raid the towns of western
and northern Europe, beginning seriously in 834, and penetrating
the Rhine, Seine, and Loire rivers. Militarily and psychologically,
their greatest asset was surprise, appearing without warning in
their swift long-boats to plunder and pillage towns and monasteries
before escaping back to their Scandinavian bases. Given that
the Carolingian empire was also subjected to Moslem raids in the
south – in Spain, Italy, and France – the Vikings provided Charlemagne’s
successors with a guerilla war on two fronts, extended to a
third when the Magyars crossed the Danube at the end of the ninth
century. The Vikings were not slow to take advantage of the
internal disintegration of the Carolingian empire. Between 840 and
865, the Franks reacted ineffectively but thereafter more effective
resistance was organized and the Vikings changed their tactics.
Instead of hit-and-run raids they began to establish fortified base
camps and conducted mounted raids deeper into the countryside.
It was from such sites, such as in the north-east of England (the
Danelaw), that more permanent settlements were established. In
911 they were granted land around Rouen which became the basis