s they were the terror of Europe, North and South. The
sea-kings of Norway appeared before Constantinople in 866, and afterward a
body-guard of the emperors of the East was composed of these pirates, who
were called the Varangians. Even before the death of Charlemagne their
depredations brought tears to his eyes; and after his death they pillaged
and burnt the principal cities of France, and even his own palace at
Aix-la-Chapelle. They carried their arms into Spain, Italy, and Greece. In
844 a band of these sea-rovers sailed up the Guadalquiver and attacked
Seville, then in possession of the Moors, and took it, and afterward
fought a battle with the troops of Abderahman II. The followers of
Mohammed and the worshippers of Odin, the turbaned Moors and the
fair-haired Norwegians, here met, each far from his original home, each
having pursued a line of conquest, which thus came in contact at their
furthest extremes.

The Northmen in Italy sold their swords to different princes, and under
Count Rainalf built the city of Aversa in 1029[332]. In Sicily the
Northern knights defeated the Saracens, and enabled the Greek Emperor to
reconquer the island. Afterward they established themselves in Southern
Italy, and took possession of Apulia. A league formed against them by the
Greek and German Emperors and the Pope ended in the utter defeat of the
Papal and German army by three thousand Normans, and they afterward
received and held Apulia as a Papal fief. In 1060 Robert Guiscard became
Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and at last of the whole kingdom of Naples.
Sicily was conquered by his brother, Count Roger, who, with a few
Northmen, routed vast numbers of the Saracens and completed the subjection
of the island, after thirty years of war. Meantime his brother Robert
crossed the Adriatic and besieged and took Durazzo, after a fierce battle,
in which the Scandinavian soldiers of the Greek Emperor fought with the
Normans descended from the same Scandinavian ancestors.

Sec. 8. Relation of this System to Christianity.

The first German nation converted to Christianity was that of the Goths,
whose teacher was Ulphilas, born 318, consecrated a bishop in 348. Having
made many converts to Christianity among his people, a persecution arose
against them from the pagan Goths; and in 355, in consequence of this
persecution, he sought and obtained leave to settle his converts in
Maesia. He preached with fervor, studied the Scripture in Gre