The Normans

Three powerful claimants fought for the English throne: Harold, Earl of Wessex; William, Duke of Normandy; and Harold Hardrada, king of Norway.

Harold violates the oath by accepting the crown on Edward’s death. Astrologers tell Harold of a comet in the sky, an evil omen foreboding disaster for the oath- breaker

The remains of two conquests of Britain: the Norman tower and the Roman wall, Sussex

The Battle of Hastings was to be the opening chapter in the story of the death of Anglo-Saxon England. Soon the whole of the south-east surrendered to William. The Anglo- Saxon nobility capitulated and swore loyalty to William as their king. On Christmas Day William was anointed and crowned in Westminster Abbey.

The conquest of England was not achieved overnight. At first William declared his intent of being king within an existing system respecting the Anglo-Saxon people, their laws and customs. But within a few years that policy was abandoned in favour of reducing England to the status of a province of Normandy

The map showing some places associated with the Norman Conquest

Already by 1071, five years on from the invasion, William's ruthless and efficient military machine had made the Norman Conquest an irreversible fact.

THE IMPACT OF THE CONQUEST The Normans introduced castles with the classic plan of a 'motte and bailey': the motte was the mound upon which the fortifications stood and the bailey was a large walled area in front of the motte (an impressive motte still remains in York). At times the Conqueror used square central keeps as strong points and these may still be seen at the Tower of London

The Normans also had an impact upon the structure of English society. A social and military system known as 'feudalism' was established, whereby a person's rank was determined by the amount of land he held.

In theory the feudal system worked as a pyramid, with the king at the top owning virtually all the land. Below him were a group of barons who were granted substantial areas of land, and below them were the lesser nobles or tenants. Each person had a military commitment to the king,

Each Norman noble, on getting his estate, swore an oath of allegiance to the king and became the king's vassal

William the Conqueror made not only the great landown­ers, to whom, he granted land, but also their vassals swear allegiance to him directly. In England the rule "My vassal's vassal is not my vassal" was broken and it became the duty of all the landlords, great and small, to support the king against all his enemies,

Strengthening the power of the Normans and building castles precipitated a wave of new building in the handsome monumental style called Norman. This was an age of cathedral building with Durham, started towards the end of the reign, as its supreme masterpiece.

Bronze knocker dating from с 1180 from the sanctuary door of Durham Cathedral. By grasping it a wrongdoer sought the protection of the church, accepting whatever penalty was imposed.

A less obvious change was in relation to language: Norman French now became the language of the court and upper classes, whilst Anglo-Saxon survived amongst the peasantry. This often resulted in two words for the same object. For the first time a Germanic-based language of Northern Europe, Anglo-Saxon, and a Romance language from Southern Europe, Norman French, coexisted and slowly became combined to form a language of great flexibility and potential.

The Domesday Book –the greatest achievement of medieval world William '... sent his men all over England into every shire to ascertain how many hundreds of hides [a unit of land] there were in each shire and how much land and livestock the king himself owned in the country and what annual dues were lawfully his from each shire. He also had it recorded how much land his archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, his abbots and his earls... what and how much each man, who was a landowner here in England, had in land and livestock, and how much money it was worth.'

The chest in which the DomesdayBook was kept from the early 17 th century onwards. Lined and bound with iron it has the remains of three locks, the keys to which were held by three different officials, thus controlling access to it. Initially the DomesdayBook was kept at Winchester and later in the Palace of Westminster

The Bayeux Tapestry is a huge piece of embroidery: 230 feet (70 metres) long and 20 inches (50 cm) high. It vividly depicts the background to the Norman Conquest, the battle of Hastings and William's subsequent enthronement at Westminster. The 'Tapestry' was probably commissioned by Odo of Bayeux (William's half-brother) and the evidence suggests that it was designed by a single man and then sewn by a group of nuns at Canterbury. It is a remarkable achievement and makes a spectacular visual record of the time.

Edward the Confessor enthroned in his palace entrusts Harold, his brother-in-law, with a mission. Harold and his party then set sail and are driven ashore in France and handed over to Duke William of Normandy.

While in Normandy Harold swears, touching two reliquaries, fealty to William. In the oath Harold probably swore that he would not oppose William's claim to the English throne.

William lands at Pevensey, his ship bearing the banner bestowed by Pope Alexander II

Harold dies after being shot in the eye with the arrow

SONS OF THE CONQUEROR William I had three sons. He gave the eldest, Robert, the Normandy homelands, he granted to his second son, William Rufus, England. The third son, Henry, was landless but given 5,000 pounds of silver. As William the Conqueror lay dying in 1087, William Rufus left his father's bedside, sailed to England and was crowned within two weeks. He ruled from 1087 to 1100

William II died on 2 August 1100, at the peak of his power. His death has caused speculation ever since: during a hunting expedition in the New Forest he was shot dead by an arrow. Henry, his brother, acted with great speed. Without waiting to see William's body removed for burial he galloped to Winchester and seized the Treasury. Three days after William's death he was crowned king.

Henry I ( ) In 1106 invaded Normandy and captured Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai and became king of England and Normandy An accounting system was developed to calculate the dues owed to the king- that was the first department of the future government which became known as The Exchequer

King Stephen,

The Plantagenets: Henry II, Richard I ‘The Lionheart’, King John,

The murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 from a thirteenth century manuscript.

Pilgrim souvenirs of St. Thomas Becket. Visitors to the saint's shrine would have purchased one of these badges to wear. They were mass- produced from moulds.

The Magna Carta (1215) - a document that limited the power of king The two most important were: clause 39 stating that no one should be imprisoned without trial, and clause 40, stating that no-one could buy or deny justice. A "revolutionary” principle was established: even a monarch was subject to the law

The beginning of Parliament

The Normans