Daily Medieval

King Malcolm III of Scotland (c.1031 - 1093) was alternately supporting and attacking English royalty. The tradition that his father had sen...

Almost exactly a decade ago I posted " The Real Macbeth " about how he killed Duncan I of Scotland. Well, let's talk about Dun...

Edgar Ætheling had been through many ups and downs . For the trouble he had caused for William II of Normandy as an "alternate choice...

For Edgar Ætheling , landing in Scotland in 1068—whether by accident or design—was fortuitous. King Malcolm III took a liking to Edgar's...

After the death of King Harold Godwinson on 14 October 1066 at the Battle of Hastings , the witenagemot wasted no time: the very next day, ...

William II, Duke of Normandy, had his forces ready to deploy to invade England. He believed he had a legitimate claim to the throne that H...

After the Battle of Fulford , Harald Hardrada and Tostig took York with no trouble. Neither side wanted bloodshed or destruction of a town t...

The former earl Tostig , brother of King Harold Godwinson of England, wanted revenge for being deposed and exiled for his bad behavior. He f...

While William in Normandy was preparing to take over England after the death of Edward the Confessor and the coronation of Harold Godwinson...

With the change of reign in England in 1066, Duke William of Normandy saw his opportunity to become king of a country, believing that it wa...

When Edward the Confessor died on 5 January 1066, he supposedly made a deathbed statement committing his kingdom into the care of Harold God...

In 1051, when King Edward the Confessor was inviting more friendly Normans to join him in England, Duke William of Normandy visited. Accord...

William wanted to marry the daughter of Baldwin V of Flanders, Matilda, in 1049, but Pope Leo IX did not approve. William was illegitimate ...

Despite his youth when succeeding his father , despite the turmoil in Normandy, William worked hard to rule Normandy properly and make it a...

When Robert I of Normandy died in 1035, while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the rule of Normandy passed to his seven- or eight...

Robert I of Normandy's father, Richard II , had made an alliance with England by marrying his sister Emma to King Æthelred . When Cnut ...

How lucky is it that the duke whose duchy you want to appropriate defeats you, allows you to live if you pledge loyalty to him, then dies al...

Richard II of Normandy had several children, and used them as instruments of policy to make alliances by marrying them to important people. ...

Richard II, Duke of Normandy, was the eldest surviving son of Richard I and Gunnor . We don't know his birth date, but when his father d...

Richard I of Normandy's had several children with his second wife, Gunnor, and used them to great political advantage. By making several...

Richard I of Normandy was struggling to continue the dynasty begun by his father William and grandfather Rollo . His first wife, Emma of Pa...

William Longsword, Count of Rouen and chieftain of Normandy, had one son, Richard, with his Breton concubine Sprota. William was assassinate...

So the Duchy of Normandy was created when King Charles the Simple made a treaty in 911 with Rollo, a Viking who had established himself as C...

The Duchy of Normandy was created in 911 by the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, an agreement between King Charles III ("the Simple...

The Duchy of Normandy was an enormous section of the European continent that we consider part of France. The name for the duchy ultimately c...

William of Poitiers (c.1020 - 1090) was born into a family of knights, and trained as a knight himself until his late 20s when he decided to...

Orderic Vitalis was given the job of writing a history of the Church. Like most medieval authors, however, he did not start with a blank pag...