Normen

All the low German tribes were early distinguished for maritime enterprize, but the Danes and Scandinavians, who all passed by the name of Northmen, or Normen, were by far the most remarkable for bold adventure in the middle ages. […] Westwards the Feroe, Orkney, Shetland, and Western Islands were often visited, and partly peopled by the Normen; […] If we were to relate all the bold deeds which in pilgrimages, in the service of Constantinople, and in expeditions in almost every land and sea, even to Greenland and America, were achieved by the Normen, the relation would seem a romance. […] The Normen were true to one another, and virtuous men in their own eyes; […] The plundering Normen held murder, in the acquisition of their booty, no crime; […] We doubt if Christianity made the Normen more scrupulous, with regard to the property of others, than it did our Scotch and English borderers, who received absolution one day, and stole cattle the next. The Normen settled the matter with their conscience, on the terms of the following low German adage: […] which means that robbing and devastating were no shame, as they were practised by the best in the land.

1821 October, “On the Songs of the People of Gothic or Teutonic Race”, in The London Magazine, volume IV, number XXII, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], pages 412–413

Musulman. The plural of this word, in respectable writers, is often written musulmen, as if the English word man entered into its composition. The true root, however, is salam, an Arabic word. […] It is remarkable that for the words German, Norman, which are really made up of our word man, the plurals Germen, Normen, are never thought of.

[1838 May 26, H. D. S., “On Illusive Etymologies”, in The New-Yorker, volume V, number 10 (whole 114), New York, N.Y.: H[orace] Greeley & Co., page 157, column 2

The King said: “Better would it be that the Swedes should sit at home and lick their bowls of sacrifice than try to mount Ormen Långa with their arms. But who are those who steer the ships to the left?” The people said: “That is Jarl Erik and his men.” Then said the King: “He has a lawful cause of fight against us, and there will be a hard battle for they are Normen like ourselves.” […] Then Jarl Ragwald stood up, and set forth Olof Haraldson’s proposal of peace and courtship of the Princess Ingegerd; he also spoke of how all West Gothland longed for peace, partly because the Normen robbed them of the provisions they were expecting by sea, and partly because they lived in continual fear and uncertainty by the invasions and marauding excursions which ruined their frontier.

1844, Anders Fryxell, translated by Anne von Schoultz, edited by Mary Howitt, The History of Sweden, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 143 (Olof Tryggwason’s Preparation) and 152 (Upsala Ting)

When “the Normen were put to flight,” says the Saxon Chronicle, “the English from behind hotly smote them, until they came, some to their ships, some were drowned, and some also burned; and thus in divers ways they perished, so that there were few left, and the English had possession of the place of carnage.”

1847, Charles Whitehead, “The Wooden Walls of Old England. […]”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XXII, London: Richard Bentley, […], pages 515–516

When full of hope to clasp thy Alfbright form, / Oft am I driven by the envious storm / On Valland’s coast where Normen are enticed, / With snow-white garments to acknowledge Christ. […] I perceive that I have called the ancient Norwegians indifferently Normen, Northmen, and Norsemen. In writing of times subsequent to Rollo’s settlement in France, a distinction should be observed, but Normans (plural of Norman) appears to be a barbarism in our language.

1849, Zavarr [pseudonym], The Viking; an Epic. […], London: E[dward] Churton, […], →OCLC, pages 56 (Sjöfnarillska, lines 355–357) and 170–171 ([Notes.] Ari of Dûfa. (The Eagle and the Dove.))