ABSTRACT
In 882, the Emperor Charles III was forced to break off his siege of the Norsemen's camp at Asselt and make peace with them. One of their leaders, Gottfried, got a Carolingian wife and the benefices in Frisia formerly held by Rorich; the other, Siegfried, got a large sum in gold and silver. Tribute was, so to speak, the gilt-edged income of the Franks from warfare; plunder was less calculable, but in the heyday of the Carolingian empire no less important. Tribute came to the king; the question of what happened to the plunder is less easy to answer. It appears certain that the hoards were reserved to the king, even if he did not himself take part in the campaign. The pious and the poor and needy were not the only or even the primary recipients of the king's bounty.
