Among the Rabble: Early Medieval Crowds
Pablo Scheffer, 6 November 2025
In 859, a group of peasants from the lands around the Seine took up arms against the Viking raiders ravaging the French coast. It was a rather desperate attempt at resistance. ‘They fought bravely,’ the Carolingian chronicler Prudentius wrote of the battle that followed, but were ‘easily slain’. Not slain by the Vikings, however: local elites were so alarmed by the...
