Norman Conquest

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings and the events leading to it.

The Norman conquest of England began in 1066 with the invasion of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy), and his success at the Battle of Hastings resulted in Norman control of England. The Norman Conquest was a pivotal event in English history for a number of reasons. This conquest linked England more closely with continental Europe through the introduction of a Norman aristocracy, thereby lessening Scandinavian influence. It created one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe and engendered a sophisticated governmental system. The conquest changed the English language and culture, and set the stage for a rivalry with France that would continue intermittently until the 20th century. It has an iconic role in English national identity as the last successful military conquest of England.

Origins

Normandy is a region in northwest France which in the years prior to 1066 experienced extensive Viking settlement. In the year 911, French Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple had allowed a group of Vikings, under their leader Rollo, to settle in northern France with the idea that they would provide protection along the coast against future Viking invaders. This proved successful and the Vikings in the region became known as the Northmen from which Normandy is derived. The Normans quickly adapted to the indigenous culture, renouncing paganism and converting to Christianity. They adopted the langue d'oïl of their new home and added features from their own Norse language, transforming it into the Norman language. They further blended into the culture by intermarrying with the local population. They also used the territory granted them as a base to extend the frontiers of the Duchy to the west, annexing territory including the Bessin, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands.

Meanwhile, in England Viking attacks resumed in the late tenth century and in 991 the King of England Aethelred II agreed to marry Emma, the daughter of the Duke of Normandy, to cement a blood-tie alliance for help against the raiders. When King Edward the Confessor died in 1066 with no child, and thus no direct heir to the throne, a power vacuum arose in which several competing interests laid claim to the throne of England.

One was Harald III of Norway, commonly known as Harald Hardrada, whose claim was based on a supposed agreement between the previous King of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harthacanute, whereby if either died without heir, the other would inherit both England and Norway. Another claimant to the English throne was William, Duke of Normandy because of his blood ties to Aethelred through Aethelred's wife Emma. A third was the Earl of Wessex Harold Godwinson who had been elected king by the Witenagemot of England. The stage was set for a battle among the three.

Tostig and Harald

In spring 1066 Harold's estranged and exiled brother Tostig Godwinson raided in south-eastern England with a fleet he had recruited in Flanders, later joined by other ships from Orkney. Threatened by Harold's fleet, Tostig moved north and raided in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, but was driven back to his ships by the brothers Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. Deserted by most of his followers, he withdrew to Scotland, where he spent the summer recruiting fresh forces. King Harald of Norway invaded northern England in early September, leading a fleet of over 300 ships, carrying perhaps as many as 15000 men. This was further augmented by the forces of Tostig, who threw his support behind Harald's bid for the throne. Advancing on York, the Norwegians were met on 12 September by a northern English army under Edwin and Morcar, but defeated them at the Battle of Fulford and occupied York. Harold had spent the summer on the south coast with a large army and fleet waiting for William to invade, but on 8 September he had finally been forced by the exhaustion of his food supplies to dismiss them. He now rushed north, gathering forces as he went and took the Norwegians by surprise, defeating them in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September. King Harald of Norway and Tostig were killed and the Norwegians suffered such horrific losses that only 24 ships were required to carry away the survivors. The victory came at great cost, as the Anglo-Saxon army was left in a battered and weakened state.

The Norman invasion

Meanwhile William had assembled an invasion fleet of approximately 600 ships and an army of 7000 men. William had recruited soldiers not only from Normandy but from all of Northern France, the Low Countries and Germany. Many soldiers in his army were second- and third-born sons who had little or no inheritance under the laws of primogeniture. William promised that if they brought their own horse, armour, and weapons to join him, they would be rewarded with lands and titles in the new realm. William also gathered over 2000 horses, transported across the channel in specially adapted horse transports.

England, 1066: Events in the Norman Conquest.

William had gathered his ships at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. After a delay of several weeks, supposedly due to unfavourable weather, he arrived in the south of England just days after Harold's victory over the Norwegians. The delay turned out to be crucial; had he landed in August as originally planned, Harold would have been waiting with a fresh and numerically superior force. William finally landed at Pevensey in Sussex on 28 September and assembled a prefabricated wooden castle near Hastings as a base. The choice of landing was a direct provocation to Harold Godwinson, as this area of Sussex was Harold's own personal domain. William began immediately to lay waste to the land. It may have prompted Harold to respond immediately and in haste rather than to wait at London long enough to reassemble the full strength of the southern English fyrd. Again, it was an event that favoured William. Had he marched inland, he might have outstretched his supply lines, and possibly have been surrounded by Harold's forces.

Harold rushed south at the news of William's landing and paused at London to gather more troops, then advanced to meet William. They fought at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October. It was a close battle but in the final hours Harold was killed, along with his brothers Earl Gyrth and Earl Leofwine, and the English army fled.

After his victory at Hastings, William expected to receive the submission of the surviving English leaders, but instead Edgar Atheling was proclaimed king by the Witenagemot, with the support of Edwin and Morcar, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury and Aldred, Archbishop of York. William, who had received reinforcements from across the Channel, therefore advanced, marching through Kent to London. He defeated an English force which attacked him at Southwark, but was unable to storm London Bridge and therefore sought to reach the capital by a more circuitous route. He marched west to link up with another Norman force near Dorking, Surrey. The combined armies then moved up the Thames valley to cross the river at Wallingford, Oxfordshire. While there, he received the submission of Stigand. William then travelled north-eastwards along the Chilterns, before advancing towards London from the north-west. Having failed to muster an effective military response, Edgar's leading supporters lost their nerve and the English leaders surrendered to William at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire. William was acclaimed King of England and crowned by Aldred on December 25, 1066 in Westminster Abbey.

English resistance

Despite this submission, local resistance continued to erupt for several years. In 1067 rebels in Kent launched an abortive attack on Dover Castle in combination with Eustace II of Boulogne, while the Shropshire landowner Eadric the Wild raised a revolt against the Normans in western Mercia, attacking the Norman castle at Hereford in alliance with the Welsh rulers of Gwynedd and Powys. In 1068 William besieged rebels in Exeter, including Harold's mother Gytha; after suffering heavy losses William managed to negotiate the town's surrender. Later in the year Edwin and Morcar raised a revolt in Mercia, while Earl Gospatric led a rising in Northumbria, which had not yet been occupied by the Normans. These rebellions rapidly collapsed as William moved against them, building castles and installing garrisons as he had already done in the south. Edwin and Morcar again submitted while Gospatric fled to Scotland, as did Edgar the Atheling and his family, who may have been involved in these revolts. Meanwhile Harold's sons, who had taken refuge in Ireland, raided Somerset, Devon and Cornwall from the sea. Early in 1069 the newly installed Norman Earl of Northumbria Robert de Comines and several hundred soldiers accompanying him were massacred at Durham, igniting a widespread Northumbrian rebellion, which was joined by Edgar, Gospatric and other rebels who had taken refuge in Scotland. The castellan of York, Robert fitzRichard, was defeated and killed and the rebels besieged the Norman castles at York. William hurried with an army from the south, took the rebels by surprise and defeated them in the streets of the city, bringing the revolt to an end. A subsequent local uprising was crushed by the garrison of York. Harold's sons launched a second raid from Ireland but were defeated by Norman forces in Devon under the Breton Count Brian.

In the late summer of 1069 a large fleet sent by Sweyn II of Denmark arrived off the coast of England, sparking a new wave of rebellions across the country. After abortive attempted raids in the south, the Danes joined forces with a new Northumbrian uprising, which was also joined by Edgar, Gospatric and the other exiles from Scotland as well as Earl Waltheof. The combined Danish and English forces defeated the Norman garrison at York, seized the castles and took control of Northumbria, although a raid into Lincolnshire led by Edgar was defeated by the Norman garrison of Lincoln. Meanwhile resistance flared up again in western Mercia, where the forces of Eadric the Wild, together with his Welsh allies and further rebel forces from Cheshire, attacked the castle at Shrewsbury. In the south-west rebels from Devon and Cornwall attacked the Norman garrison at Exeter, but were repulsed by the defenders and scattered by a Norman relief force under Count Brian. Other rebels from Dorset and Somerset besieged Montacute Castle but were defeated by a Norman army gathered from London, Winchester and Salisbury under Geoffrey of Coutances. Meanwhile William himself advanced northwards, attacking the Danes, who had moored for the winter south of the Humber in Lincolnshire, and driving them back to the north bank. He left part of his army in Lincolnshire under Robert of Mortain, while he turned west and defeated the Mercian rebels in battle at Stafford. When the Danes again crossed to Lincolnshire the Norman forces there again drove them back across the Humber. William advanced into Northumbria, defeating an attempt to block his crossing of the River Aire. The Danes again fled at his approach and he occupied York. He bought off the Danes, who agreed to leave England in the spring, and through the winter of 1069-1070 his forces systematically devastated Northumbria in the Harrying of the North, subduing all resistance. In the spring of 1070, having secured the submission of Waltheof and Gospatric, and driven Edgar and his remaining supporters back to Scotland, William returned to Mercia, where he based himself at Chester and crushed all remaining resistance in the area before returning to the south. Sweyn II of Denmark arrived in person to take command his fleet and renounced the earlier agreement to withdraw, sending troops into the Fens to join forces with English rebels led by Hereward the Wake, who were based on the Isle of Ely. Soon, however, Sweyn accepted a further payment of Danegeld from William and returned home.

After the departure of the Danes the Fenland rebels remained at large, protected by the marshes, and early in 1071 there was a final outburst of rebel activity in the area. Edwin and Morcar again turned against William, and while Edwin was soon betrayed and killed, Morcar reached Ely, where he and Hereward were joined by exiled rebels who had sailed from Scotland. William arrived with an army and a fleet to finish off this last pocket of resistance. After some costly failures the Normans managed to construct a pontoon to reach the Isle of Ely, defeated the rebels at the bridgehead and stormed the island, marking the effective end of English resistance.

Many of the Norman sources which survive today were written in order to justify their actions, in response to Papal concern about the treatment of the native English by their Norman conquerors during this period.

Control of England

Once England had been conquered the Normans faced many challenges in maintaining control. The Anglo-Norman speaking Normans were in very small numbers compared to the native English population. Historians estimate their number at 5,000 armoured knights. New Norman lords constructed a variety of forts and castles (such as the motte-and-bailey) to provide a stronghold against a popular revolt (or increasingly rare Viking attacks) and to dominate the nearby town and countryside. Any remaining English lords who refused to acknowledge William's accession to the throne or who revolted were stripped of titles and lands, which were then re-distributed to Norman favourites of William. If an English lord died without issue the Normans would always choose a successor from Normandy. In this way the Normans displaced the native aristocracy and took control of the top ranks of power. Absenteeism became common for Norman (and later Angevin) kings of England, for example William spent 130 months from 1072 onward in France rather than in England, using writs to rule England. This situation lasted until the Capetian conquest of Normandy. This royal absenteeism created a need for additional bureaucratic structures and consolidated the English administration. Kings were not the only absentees since the Anglo-Norman barons would use the practice too.

Keeping the Norman lords together and loyal as a group was just as important, as any friction could give the native English a chance to oust their minority Anglo-French speaking lords. One way William accomplished this was by giving out land in a piece-meal fashion. A Norman lord typically had property spread out all over England and Normandy, and not in a single geographic block. Thus, if the lord tried to break away from the King, he could only defend a small number of his holdings at any one time.

Over the longer range the same policy greatly facilitated contacts between the nobility of different regions and encouraged the nobility to organize and act as a class, rather than on an individual or regional base which was the normal way in other feudal countries. The existence of a strong centralized monarchy encouraged the nobility to form ties with the city dwellers, which was eventually manifested in the rise of English parliamentarianism.

Significance

The changes that took place because of the Norman Conquest were significant for both English and European development.

Language

One of the most obvious changes was the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect of Old French, as the language of the ruling classes in England, displacing Old English. French retained the status of a prestige language for nearly 400 years and has had a significant influence on the language, which is still visible in modern English.

Governmental systems

Even before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon England had one of the most sophisticated governmental systems in Western Europe. All of England had been divided into administrative units called shires of roughly uniform size and shape, and was run by an official known as a "shire reeve" or "sheriff". The shires tended to be somewhat autonomous and lacked coordinated control. English government made heavy use of written documentation which was unusual for kingdoms in Western Europe at the time and made for more efficient governance than word of mouth.

The English had also developed permanent physical locations of government. Most medieval governments were always on the move, holding court wherever the weather and food or other matters were best at the moment. This practice limited the potential size and sophistication of a government body to whatever could be packed on a horse and cart, including the treasury and library. England had a permanent treasury at Winchester, from which a permanent government bureaucracy and document archive had begun to grow.

This sophisticated medieval form of government was handed over to the Normans and grew even stronger. The Normans centralised the autonomous shire system. The Domesday Book exemplifies the practical codification which enabled Norman assimilation of conquered territories through central control of a census. It was the first kingdom-wide census taken in Europe since the time of the Romans, and enabled more efficient taxation of the Norman's new realm.

Systems of accounting grew in sophistication. A government accounting office called the exchequer was established by Henry I; from 1150 onward this was located in Westminster.

Anglo-Norman and French relations

Anglo-Norman and French political relations became very complicated and somewhat hostile after the Norman Conquest. The Normans still retained control of the holdings in Normandy and were thus still vassals to the King of France. At the same time, they were their equals as King of England. On the one hand they owed fealty to the King of France, and on the other hand they did not, as they were peers. In the 1150s, with the creation of the Angevin Empire, the Plantagenets controlled half of France and all of England, dwarfing the power of the Capetians. Yet the Normans were still technically vassals to France. A crisis came in 1204 when the French king Philip II seized all Norman and Angevin holdings in mainland France except Gascony. This would later lead to the Hundred Years War when Anglo-Norman English kings tried to regain their dynastic holdings in France.

During William's lifetime, his vast land gains were a source of great alarm by not only the king of France, but the counts of Anjou and Flanders. Each did his best to diminish Normandy's holdings and power, leading to years of conflict in the region.

English cultural development

One interpretation of the Conquest maintains that England became a cultural and economic backwater for almost 150 years. Few kings of England actually resided for any length of time in England, preferring to rule from cities in Normandy such as Rouen and concentrate on their more lucrative French holdings. Indeed, a mere four months after the Battle of Hastings, William left his brother-in-law in charge of the country while he returned to Normandy. The country remained an unimportant appendage of Norman lands and later the Angevin fiefs of Henry II.

Another interpretation is that the Norman duke-kings neglected their continental territories, where they in theory owed fealty to the kings of France, in favour of consolidating their power in their new sovereign realm of England. The resources poured into the construction of cathedrals, castles and the administration of the new realm arguably diverted energy and concentration away from the need to defend Normandy, alienating the local nobility and weakening Norman control over the borders of the territory, while simultaneously the power of the kings of France grew.

The eventual loss of control of continental Normandy divided landed families as members chose loyalty over land or vice-versa.

A direct consequence of the invasion was the near total elimination of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, and the loss of English control over the Church in England. As William subdued rebels, he confiscated their lands and gave them to his Norman supporters. By the time of the Domesday Book, only two English landowners of any note had survived the displacement. By 1096 no church See or Bishopric was held by any native Englishman; all were held by Normans. No other medieval European conquest of Christians by Christians had such devastating consequences for the defeated ruling class. Meanwhile, William's prestige among his followers increased tremendously as he was able to award them vast tracts of land at little cost to himself. His awards also had a basis in consolidating his own control; with each gift of land and titles, the newly created feudal lord would have to build a castle and subdue the natives. Thus was the conquest self-perpetuating.

Emigration to the Byzantine Empire

Thousands of Anglo-Saxon nobles and soldiers ultimately found Norman domination unbearable, and emigrated to Byzantium, placing themselves at the service of the Byzantine Emperor. Anglo-Saxon emigres came to dominate an elite unit called the Varangian Guard, which served as the Byzantine Emperor's own bodyguard and continued in existence until at least 1204.

Legacy

As early as the twelfth century the Dialogue concerning the Exchequer attests to considerable intermarriage between native English and Norman immigrants. Over the centuries, particularly after 1348 when the Black Death pandemic carried off a significant number of the English nobility, the two groups largely intermarried and became barely distinguishable.

The Norman conquest was the last successful conquest of England, although some historians identify the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as the most recent successful invasion from the continent. Major invasion attempts were launched by the Spanish in 1588 and the French in 1744 and 1759, but in each case the combined impact of the weather and the attacks of the Royal Navy on their escort fleets thwarted the enterprise without the invading army even putting to sea. Invasions were also prepared by the French in 1805 and by the Germans in 1940, but these were abandoned after preliminary operations failed to overcome Britain's naval and, in the latter case, air defences. Various brief raids on British coasts were successful within their limited scope, such as those launched by the French during the Hundred Years War and the Barbary pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Spanish landing in Cornwall in 1595 and the Dutch raid on the Medway shipyards in 1667.

For the importance of the concept in mass culture, note the spoof history book 1066 and All That as well as the iconic status of the Bayeux Tapestry.

Similar conquests include the Norman conquests of Apulia and Sicily, the Principality of Antioch, and Ireland.

External links

• 11th century
• Companions of William the Conqueror
• Why the Pope supported William's invasion of England A study of the papal politics of the time.
• Essential Norman Conquest, multimedia resources by Osprey Publishing.
• The Effect of 1066 on the English Language
• Normans - a background to the Conquest BBC British History site
• The Norman Conquest Accounts in the words of contemporary sources.
• The Invasion of England, 1066 Focuses on the build up to the Battle of Hastings.
• Secrets of the Norman Invasion Access to information from contemporary sources.
• Norman conquest of southern Italy
• Norman invasion of Ireland

References

• Campbell, J. The Anglo-Saxons, (1982)
• Carpenter, David. The Struggle for Mastery. The Penguin history of Britain 1066-1284
• Hyland, Ann (1994). The Medieval Warhorse: From Byzantium to the Crusades. Grange Books. ISBN 1-85627-990-1.

Further reading

• Chibnall, Marjorie (1999). Debate on the Norman Conquest. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Douglas, David (1964). William the Conqueror: The Norman impact upon England. University of California Press.
• Humble, Richard (1992). The Fall of Saxon England. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-88029-987-8.
• Howarth, David (1981). 1066 The Year of the Conquest. Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-14-005850-8.

• Rex, Peter (2004). The English Resistance: The Underground War Against the Normans. Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-2827-6.
• Savage, Anne (1997). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. CLB. ISBN 1-85833-478-0.

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