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40 A History of Sweden
ture and were dreaded in war. Under William the Con-
queror, a descendant of Gange-Rolf, they conquered
England and established there a strong centralized
kingdom, 1066.
Results of the Viking Expeditions. The Northmen
thus proved that they could not only ravage and plun-
der, but also establish states where law and order pre-
vailed. A Northman might at this time travel along
the coast of Europe, across the plains of Russia along
her great rivers, and on the borders of the Black Sea,
and nearly everywhere hear his own language spoken.
The Northmen were masters of the sea. Many useful
arts were introduced into the North by the vikings
from the new and wonderful world they had visited
and seen. The chieftain who had gone forth to foreign
lands, had fought under the walls of Paris or at Con-
stantinople, or had engaged in trade with Saracen mer-
chants, was a different person from him who had all
his life sat at home under the sooty ridge of his dwell-
ing. The age was a period of greatness for the North-
men, but it was also a period of terror and suffering
for other peoples.
B. INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
St. Ansgar. The people of the far North, hardly
known before, had now become a terrible scourge to
the people of central, southern, and western Europe.
The unhappy people on bended knees in their churches
prayed : "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord,
deliver us/’ The ancestors of these very people had in
earlier days overthrown and partitioned the Roman
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