“The Northmen, coming from Scandinavia and the coasts of England, appeared in our country. They plundered and burned all the towns in their path. Clermont became their prey. Monuments were reduced to ashes.”
– Abbé Georges-Régis Cregut
There was plenty to fear in medieval France. Plague, the mysterious assassin, always struck invisibly. Wolves, enemies of the day, ruled the night. And Vikings, perhaps more ferocious than wolves, terrorised the coastlands.
Under ideal circumstances, local soldiers had enough pluck and resources to deter them. But like the winds that bore their ships across the sea, the Northmen had an unpredictability about them, an elemental tricksiness that made their invasions difficult to repel. Once on land, they sometimes overwhelmed seaside towns and made incursions deep into the heartland, laying waste to entire cities. Several Frankish provinces suffered this fate, and in the ninth century, Viking raiders also laid siege to Clermont-Ferrand (then known as Clermont).
In his recent paper, “Vikings in Aquitaine and their connections, ninth to early eleventh centuries” (2021), Stephen M. Lewis argues that around 863 AD, groups of Vikings landed on the coast of Aquitaine in Western France and set up base near the river Charente. Possibly led by a commander named “Sigfrid”, the party launched a campaign eastward, easily overmastering anyone who tried to stand in their way.
Once in Clermont, they plundered all the city’s riches, abandoning what they couldn’t carry off to the flames. Tradition has it that the Viking warriors also destroyed one of Clermont’s holiest landmarks, the Notre-Dame-du-Port basilica. Fortunately the church — now a UNESCO World Heritage site — has since been rebuilt.
Despite suffering devastating losses, the people of Clermont-Ferrand never avenged themselves. Their enemies, according to Hincmar of Reims, “returned unpunished to their ships”. This likely emboldened other Viking warriors, some of whom returned to plunder the region in the early tenth century.
In the words of the American folklorist Charles G. Leland: “Minor local legends sink more deeply into the soul than greater histories.” To learn more about Clermont-Ferrand’s seemingly endless secrets, sign up for our newsletter below.
