Siege of Paris (845)
The siege of Paris in 845 ended not with a battle but with a payment. King Charles the Bald handed over 7,000 French livres of silver and gold, roughly 2,570 kilograms of precious metal, to a Norse chieftain named Reginherus. The Vikings took the ransom, left the city, and on their way home pillaged the Abbey of Saint Bertin for good measure. What draws historians to this moment is not just the brazenness of the attack. It is the chain of consequences that followed: a plague that terrified a king half a continent away, a diplomat's visit that helped open Scandinavia to Christianity, and a payment that set a precedent the Franks would repeat twelve more times.
Viking raiders first struck the Frankish Empire in 799, a decade after the earliest known Viking attack in England at Portland, Dorset. Charlemagne responded by building a defence system along the northern coast in 810. That system held well enough to repulse an attack at the mouth of the Seine in 820, but it broke down against renewed Danish raids in Frisia and Dorestad beginning in 834. Systematic raiding did not take hold until the mid-830s, with activity alternating between both sides of the English Channel.
The Franks' political instability made them an easy target. The Danes were, according to the sources, well informed about the situation inside France. In the 830s and early 840s, they timed their strikes to coincide with Frankish civil wars. Large raids hit Antwerp and Noirmoutier in 836, Rouen in 841, and Quentovic and Nantes in 842. By the time Reginherus assembled his fleet, the Seine had already proven itself a highway into the Frankish heartland.
In March 845, 120 Viking ships carrying more than 5,000 men entered the Seine under Reginherus's command. The chieftain has been tentatively identified with the legendary saga figure Ragnar Lodbrok, though that identification remains uncertain. What is clearer is his personal history with the Frankish crown. Around 841, Charles the Bald had granted Reginherus land in Turholt in Flanders, a concession the king later withdrew. Reginherus lost both the land and royal favour.
The fleet raided Rouen on the way upriver. Charles assembled an army in response but divided it, placing half on each bank of the Seine. The Vikings attacked one of these divisions, defeated it, and seized 111 prisoners. They hanged those men on an island in the river, an act intended to honour Odin and to break the nerve of the remaining Frankish forces. Charles, unwilling to risk the royal Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris, did not press a second engagement. The road to Paris was open.
The Vikings arrived in Paris on Easter Sunday, the 29th of March. They entered the city and plundered it. Not long after, a plague broke out in their camp. The Norse had already encountered Christianity before reaching Paris, and when their own gods did not stop the sickness, they turned to a Christian prisoner for advice. He recommended fasting. The plague subsided.
Charles could not mount a credible defence. The Vikings withdrew only after receiving the ransom. Given that Reginherus had earlier lost his land grant from Charles, the sources suggest the payment may have functioned partly as compensation for that grievance, and the invasion itself as an act of revenge. The 7,000 livres was the first of what would become 13 separate danegeld payments the Franks made to Viking raiders, though the term danegeld was not expressly recorded as being used at this point. Even in withdrawal, the Viking army struck again, pillaging several coastal sites before reaching home, including the Abbey of Saint Bertin.
Criticism of Charles's decision to pay the ransom circulated among his contemporaries. His defenders pointed out the constraints he faced. Disputes with his brothers, regional revolts, disgruntled nobles, and foreign pressures all competed for his attention at the same time. He had difficulty trusting his own counts to assemble and effectively lead forces against a Viking army of this size.
Paying the Vikings bought him time. It may also have bought him a measure of security against further raids in the near term. The siege had one additional, unexpected administrative consequence: the synod of Paris was forced to relocate to Meaux while the city was occupied. It moved back to Paris only after the siege was lifted.
The same year as the Paris siege, a Viking fleet sacked Hamburg. Hamburg had been elevated to an archbishopric in 831 by Pope Gregory IV, at the initiative of Louis the Pious, to oversee Saxon territory and to support the spread of Christianity into Scandinavia. King Louis the German of East Francia responded to the Hamburg attack by sending a diplomatic mission to the court of Danish King Horik, headed by Count Cobbo, one of two court counts. Louis demanded that Horik submit to Frankish overlordship and pay reparations.
Horik agreed to the terms, promised to return treasure and captives, and requested a peace treaty. He had reasons of his own to cooperate: he faced a conflict with King Olof of Sweden and domestic struggles. The treaty required him to regularly send embassies and gifts to Louis and to withdraw support from Viking raiders.
Ragnar survived the plague in Paris and returned home to Horik's court. A member of Cobbo's embassy later reported what happened next. Ragnar had attacked the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, then in the outskirts of medieval Paris, which Cobbo himself later visited. Ragnar showed Horik the gold and silver he had taken and boasted that the conquest of Paris had been easy. Then, the story goes, he collapsed crying. The only resistance he had encountered, he said, had come from the long dead Saint Germain of Paris, to whom he attributed the plague. Several of Ragnar's men died shortly afterward. Horik was so frightened that he ordered the execution of the surviving raiders and released his Christian captives. That sequence of events played a part in Horik receiving Archbishop Ansgar, known as the Apostle of the North, on friendly terms in his own kingdom.
Vikings returned to the Seine in the 860s and extracted loot or ransom on multiple occasions. The pattern that began in 845 held: Paris was a target worth returning to. But the city's walls finally proved decisive during the 885-886 siege of Paris, which the sources describe as the Vikings' greatest attacking force. That siege marked a turning point in French history. The defences held, and the Viking strategy of using the Seine as a corridor into Frankish wealth met a different outcome than it had forty years earlier.
Common questions
Who led the Viking siege of Paris in 845?
The Viking force was led by a Norse chieftain named Reginherus, also referred to as Ragnar, who has been tentatively identified with the legendary saga figure Ragnar Lodbrok. He commanded a fleet of 120 ships carrying more than 5,000 warriors up the Seine.
How much did Charles the Bald pay to end the 845 siege of Paris?
Charles the Bald paid 7,000 French livres of silver and gold, approximately 2,570 kilograms of precious metal, to persuade the Vikings to withdraw from Paris.
What happened to the Frankish prisoners taken during the 845 Viking siege?
The Vikings captured 111 men from one division of the Frankish army and hanged them on an island in the Seine. This was done to honour the Norse god Odin and to break the resolve of the remaining Frankish forces.
What plague struck the Vikings during the siege of Paris in 845?
A plague broke out in the Viking camp after they occupied Paris. On the advice of a Christian prisoner, the Norse undertook a fast, and the plague subsided. Ragnar later attributed the illness to the power of Saint Germain of Paris.
How many times did the Franks pay danegeld to Viking raiders after 845?
The 845 ransom was the first of 13 total payments the Franks made to Viking raiders, though the term danegeld was not expressly recorded as being in use at the time of the original payment.
What was the outcome of the 885-886 siege of Paris compared to the 845 siege?
Unlike the 845 siege, which ended with a ransom payment, the city's walls held against the Vikings' greatest attacking force during the 885-886 siege of Paris, marking a turning point in the history of France.
All sources
1 references cited across the entry
- 1A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship, 300–850Michael E. Moore — Catholic University of America Press — 2011