For our general understanding of the Normans and their work, it is well that we should trace them in the lands where their direct influence grows faint and dim, as well as in those where their descendants still rule. Only a formal and mechanical view of history seeks to ticket off particular races against particular regions as the sole sources of population and power; only false national pride conceives of any people as continually in the vanguard of civilization. Races are mixed things, institutions and civilization are still more complex, and no people can claim to be a unique and permanent source of light and strength. Outside of Normandy the Normans were but a small folk, and sooner or later they inevitably lost their identity. They did their work preeminently not as a people apart, but as a group of leaders and energizers, the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump. Wherever they went, they showed a marvellous power of initiative and of assimilation; if the initiative is more evident in England, the assimilation is more manifest in Sicily. The penalty for such activity is rapid loss of identity; the reward is a large share in the general development of civilization. If the Normans paid the penalty, they also reaped the reward, and they were never more Norman than in adopting the statesmanlike policy of toleration and assimilation which led to their ultimate extinction. Plus ça, change, plus c’est la même chose!
