The central fact of Norman history and the starting-point for its study is the event so brilliantly commemorated by the millenary of 1911, the grant of Normandy to Rollo and his northern followers in the year 911. The history of Normandy, of course, began long before that year. The land was there, and likewise in large measure the people, that is to say, probably the greater part of the elements which went to make the population of the country at a later day; and the history of the region can be traced back several centuries.
