276

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

ferent. The first cause of their rising greatness was exactly similar to thatwhich had elevated, some centuries earlier, the power of the Russians, andof the Saxons. The inhabitants of other countries, too impotent, or, to speaknearer the truth, too indolent to defend their own territories from the ravagesof strangers, were so imprudent as to invite those nations, with whom war hadbecome as it were a natural and common occupation of life, to become theirdefenders. The fatal experience of the inconveniences and miseries, whichattended the adoption of this strange and imprudent system among the Britons,was not sufficient to prevent the Sicilians from inviting the Normans, thoughthey were then considered as a barbarous, and totally uncivilised people, whosefriendship could at best be considered as doubtful or dangerous, to protect themfrom the attacks of the Scandinavian pirates *. This circumstance took placeas far back as the year 1016, but was of too trivial consequence to render itnecessary that the thread of history should be broken, for the purpose of intro-ducing it more particularly, since by avoiding that interruption, the account ofthe maritime transactions of the emigrators from that enterprising people, isrendered more connected and traceable to the fountain head.

Uncivilised as their state was, notwithstanding it had considerably improvedsince their intermixture with the Franks, on their first entrance into the Me-diterranean seas, and the genial climate of Sicily, they soon considered it politicto cast off the coarseness of their manners, and assume the more polished cus-toms as well as demeanour of their guests. They entered, with seeming avidity,into all the projects and systems of the Sicilians, and followed the banner ofthe cross with an enthusiasm apparently little inferior to that of the mostzealous among the crusaders. By this conduct they acquired strength and con-sequence, while at the same time they gained the unlimited confidence of theirnew friends. Sicily being in great measure secured, though not as yet in thatstate of actual subjection which was derived from a regularly effected conquest,the Norman arms were transferred, in the year 1046, to Italy, where their suc-cesses, under the valiant Guiscard, soon rendered their very name an object of ter-ror and affright to the enervated inhabitants. So rapid were their victories, thatafter being regularly invested, as well by the Emperor of the West, as of theEast, with the possession of Apulia, which they might be said to hold by the addi-tional, and perhaps stronger right of conquest, they completely overcame every

■* See page 229.

-opposition