1066 And All That. “That was a fatal day to England, a melancholy havoc of our dear country, through its change of masters. For it had long since adopted.

1066 And All That

“That was a fatal day to England, a melancholy havoc of our dear country, through its change of masters. For it had long

since adopted the manners of the Angles, which had been very various according to the times: for in the first years of their

arrival, they were barbarians in their look and manners, warlike in their usages, heathens in their rites; but after embracing the

faith of Christ, by degrees, and in process of time, from the peace they enjoyed, regarding arms only in a secondary light,

they gave their whole attention to religion.”

William of Malmesbury

Who were the Normans?

• The Normans got their name from ‘Norsemen’, they were in fact settled Vikings who had arrived in the north of France in the ninth century.

• They had settled and exchanged their boats for horses, becoming a formidable military might.

• They converted to Latin culture, while retaining the strong monarchy type of Scandinavia.

• So the Normans had qualities that the Anglo-Saxon/Viking rulers of England did not; the instincts for political unity and administrative consolidation

• They wiped out the Scandinavian influence in England and imposed French culture. This changed English society beyond all recognition (Language, manners, customs and warfare)

• England no longer looked North but South.

The Culture Of The Normans• Most highly organized continental state

of the day. • William had a lot of experience in warfare

(dealing with rebellious Norman knights)• Seen anarchy at its worst, had defeated it

and imposed order. An invaluable experience when he conquered England.

• Church was subservient to William, yet it had taught him much about organization.

• His brother was Odo, Bishop of Bayeux (see image 1). The Mace.

• Culturally relatively advanced (e.g. Becs abbey which attracted the great intellects of the day - image 2)

• The Normans had adopted Roman and Canon law and the latest in philosophy and theology.

• However, still barbarians at heart. Inhumane as Anglo-Saxons/Vikings. Amputations, eye gouging, massacres etc. were common.

An English Disaster• Over the next three years, William consolidated his rule. He confiscated all the lands of the

English nobles, put down rebellions by massacring all involved (and many who were not) and generally scared the English….a lot.

• He managed to do this with a force of just 10000 men, which is quite an achievement considering the population of England at this time was between 1 and 2 million.

• The Normans were powerful enough to impose a new royal family, a new ruling class with a new culture and language.

• The Domesday Book• The Anglo-Saxon aristocracy no longer existed, its place was taken by a Norman elite. • No other conquest in European history has had such disastrous consequences for the

defeated.

Remaking Of The English Language

• Anglo-Saxon was despised as a peasants language.• Anyone who wanted to be somebody had to speak French – the language of the

Victors• The French loan words in use in the English language today, demonstrate its

dominance in the 11th century.• From 1066 to the fourteenth century, 25% of the English language was French .• In matters relating to religion, politics, war, justice, hunting, cooking and art,

French words/roots abound – activities engaged in by the Norman elite.

Francesca Blake, 2005, Anglicization of French words, Munich, GRIN Publishing GmbH

The Death of English History

• No English history for centuries after the Norman invasion• Between 1066 the histories of England and Normandy and inextricably interwoven.

The Thomas Beckett tragedy, the Stephen-Matilda civil war, the wars of the Barons and the Magna Carta all involved the French speaking elite.

• The Conquest created a two-tier society 1. At the top of the social scale, the powerful families intermarried and 2. at the bottom intermarriage between English and Norman was very rare. No hope of advancement and no hope of French elite being diluted.

• This all changed, however, in the fourteenth century due to the Black Death.• Throughout this period to display French manners, speak French etc. a status

symbol.

Norman Social StructureThe Norman colonisation of England was built on three administrative legs:

1. The Church– The Normans believed God to be on their side.

– They saw themselves as reforming a decadent English Church

– They created parishes, tithes, built more churches and rural areas were actively evangelicised.

– Canon Law was tightened up e.g. on marriages

– There were no English born bishops

2. The Burough– Between 1066 and 1130 the Normans founded forty new towns in England and 18 in Wales

– Not autonomous towns. They were under the control of the lord of the manor.

– The lord owned all useful land and thus he became the central force in the economy

– All livelihoods depended on the (Norman) lord

3. The Castle– Martial (fighting) structure imposed

– Every male’s (but not serf (i.e. English) – over 90% of population) first duty was a military obligation to his lord. Trained for martial duty from an early age, often in a stranger’s house.

– Culmination of training was the ‘Dubbing’-being made a Knight. Loyalty was everything.

Norman society rested on these three pillars and this was how, for three centuries, a French speaking colonial elite could subjugate an entire people.

The Other Bits of the British Isles

• To use the term Norman for the whole of the period from the mid-eleventh to the mid-fourteenth century is to oversimplify.

• Throughout the British Isles, local cultures remained (esp. in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Scotland) but they did not, and could not, escape the influences of the Norman ascendancy.