Laudator Temporis Acti

Dudo of St. Quentin, History of the Normans 2.28-29, tr. E. Christiansen, in Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald, edd., The Viking Age: A Reader, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2020), pp. 272-273 (the king = Charles the Simple):

And so the king gave his daughter, Gisla by name, to be the wife of that same duke, and he gave the specified territory from the river Epte to the sea as an allod and property; and the whole of Brittany to live off.

Rollo was unwilling to kiss the king's foot, and the bishops said: "He who accepts a gift such as this ought to go as far as kissing the king's foot." And he replied: "I will never bow my knees at the knees of any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." And so, urged on by the prayers of the Franks, he ordered one of his warriors to kiss the king's foot. And the man immediately grasped the king's foot and raised it to his mouth and planted a kiss on it while he remained standing, and laid the king flat on his back. So there arose a great laugh, and a great outcry among the people.

Dedit itaque rex filiam suam, Gislam nomine, uxorem illi duci, terramque determinatam in alodo et in fundo, a flumine Eptae usque ad mare, totamque Britanniam de qua posset vivere.

Rolloni pedem regis nolenti osculari dixerunt episcopi: "Qui tale donum recipit, osculo debet expetere pedem regis." Et ille: "Nunquam curvabo genua mea alicujus genibus, nec osculabor cujuspiam pedem." Francorum igitur precibus compulsus, jussit cuidam militi pedem regis osculari. Qui statim pedem regis arripiens, deportavit ad os suum, standoque defixit osculum, regemque fecit resupinum. Itaque magnus excitatur risus magnusque in plebe tumultus.

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