standard. He had before this crushed the Norman
rebels, conquered the men of Maine or Anjou or Brittany, defeated the
King of France. But this was a far greater task. Yet if Normans had
won the Kingdom of the Sicilies, Normans should cross the sea to
England and win that as well. And all the faithful of the earth should
help them. It is a mistake to think that Normans alone conquered the
land of Harold. From Flanders, from the Rhine, from Burgundy, Piedmont
and Aquitaine, from all the northern coasts, an army of volunteers
flocked to the standard of the Duke. And their leader went swiftly on
to make preparations worthy of so great a host. While all the woods of
Normandy are ringing to the axe, and all the shipwrights' yards are
sounding to the hammer, we may pause and see what this mighty
expedition means to Rouen.

To Normandy it brings at once the climax of her power and the
beginning of her fall. For a Duchy that was but secondary to the
Kingdom over seas could never claim again the full strength of the
rulers who had raised her first. By degrees she fell away from the
land across the channel and became absorbed in the kingdom of which
she was territorially a natural part. But, as we have seen, she had
already done much towards the making of that kingdom in her
independence, and when she formed an integral part of it herself she
was its firmest bulwark against invasion from the North. In Rouen
itself the beginnings of commercial greatness had been indicated, even
before the coming of Rollo, by the Mint which had been established
there, as a branch of that founded by Charlemagne at Quantowitch,
which was destroyed by the first Pirates. The money of Rouen was
marked with the letter B to signify that it was the second in
importance in the Kingdom. That the trade of the town soon justified
this proud distinction on its currency is evident from the law of King
Ethelred II., which exempted all Rouen merchants from taxation on
their wine and "Marsouin" within the port of London. Other signs of
commercial activity are to be found in bridge-building, and the
numerous Fairs which arose under the Norman Dukes. In 1024 a toll upon
the wooden bridge of Rouen is recorded, and when in 1030, it was
destroyed by a revolt under Robert the Devil, the timbers were very
shortly afterwards replaced, and remained until in 1160 the Empress
Matilda built the famous "Pont de Pierre" that lasted for so many
centuries. Of the great Fairs of R