Isabella of Gloucester

When King Henry II of England was looking for a wife for his younger son John, he was not as interested in pleasing John as he was in making an advantageous political and financial connection. If during this time John looked like Henry's favorite, it was only because all his other sons—including his oldest and heir, Henry the Young King because of all the power he had been given—and his wife had rebelled (unsuccessfully) against Henry.

Henry arranged betrothal to Isabella of Gloucester, but only after disinheriting her sisters so that all Gloucester lands would be hers on her father's death. This was in 1176, when John was nine and Isabella was only three or four years old. Both were great-grandchildren of Henry I, meaning the marriage was forbidden due to the laws of consanguinity. The wedding did not take place until 29 August 1189, at which John became Earl of Gloucester.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, placed the Gloucester lands under interdict—meaning no one living there could partake in any Catholic services—due to the violation of consanguinity laws. An appeal to (antipope) Pope Clement III for a dispensation. This was granted, on the condition that the two abstained from sex. This explains why 10 years of marriage produced no children.

John pursued the consanguinity prohibition when it suited him—which it did after he became king. Wanting an heir, and not being interested in having them with Isabella, he annulled the marriage on the grounds of too-close blood ties. He put Isabella in "honorable confinement" at Winchester with an allowance for her comfort. John's lack of sensitivity to the feelings of others—and, after all, there is no sign that he cared for Isabella at all except for the political advantage—had a "task" for her. When John re-married, to a twelve-year-old Isabella of Angoulême, he lodged his new bride at Winchester in the care of his first wife, increasing her allowance from £50 to £80 pounds because she was hosting a queen. The second Isabella stayed with the first until a few weeks before she gave birth to the future King Henry III.

Eventually he found a new marriage for Isabella: in 1214, the Earl of Essex, Geoffrey de Mandeville paid to John 20,000 marks for the privilege to marry Isabella. He was a much younger man, but he died two years later. Unfortunately, because at the time of his death he had been rebelling against John, John confiscated all his lands, which included Isabella's Gloucester lands.

Now a poor widow, she married again a year later, to Hubert de Burgh who became the Chief Justiciar under John and John's son, Henry III. Sadly, she died only a month after marrying Hugh. She was interred in Canterbury Cathedral.

Now, about that second wife also called Isabella: let's learn more about her next.

John's Marriages

John, son of Henry II, having seized the throne of England after Richard the Lionheart's death, and subsequently having lost several possessions on the continent through war and treaties, decided to marry into a French noble family in order to regain some influence in France. His choice was Isabella of Angoulême in 1200. There were a couple issues about his decision that certainly raise modern eyebrows, and more than a few contemporary ones.

For one...well, we don't know enough about Isabella to know when she was born, but one estimate is 1188, making her 12 years of age. Still, she would be Countess of Angoulême in her own right when her father died (which he did, in 1202). Also, she was the niece through her mother of the current Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Peter II of Courtenay.

The other—well, one other—issue was that John already had a wife: Isabella, Countess of Gloucester. He managed to have that marriage annulled on the grounds that, as his cousin, he never should have married her in the first place, and in fact had failed to get the proper papal dispensation to do so, considering the current laws of consanguinity (they would change the same year that John would sign the Magna Carta, 1215). Fortunately for John, Isabella complied with there annulment, even though he kept the lands he had received through their marriage.

Back to the second Isabella: she had already been betrothed to Hugh IX le Brun, Count of Lusignan (and remember that Roman numeral; we will be coming back to it in the post after next). Her father decided that his daughter would be better off as a queen than as a Countess of Lusignan, so he agreed to the change in husbands for her. John might have made amends with the Lusignan's, but instead chose to treat them with contempt. This motivated an uprising by the Lusignan and their supporters which John had to suppress. Philip II of France also took the Lusignan snub as an excuse to confiscate the Angoulême lands.

So John's choice did not have all positive results, and rather than make inroads into France through marriage, he alienated a powerful family and lost more lands to Philip.

The second Isabella provided John with something the first one never could, however: heirs, including the next king, Henry III. Here's a good question, though: John was married to his first wife for 10 years. Why did they produce no heirs? The reason is simple: the couple was forbidden to have sexual intercourse. I'll explain that tomorrow.

The Angevin Collapse

The Angevin Empire begun by King Henry II of England started to crumble after Henry's son and successor, Richard the Lionheart, died in 1199. The next heir should be the eldest son of Richard's brother, Geoffrey of Brittany. That would be Duke Arthur. Unfortunately, in the tradition of King Stephen I and King Henry I, someone else ignored the proper succession and raced to seize the throne and the treasury. That would be Richard's younger brother, John.

This should not have been a surprise. John had rebelled unsuccessfully against Richard's administration while Richard was on the Third Crusade. In the present case, the loss of Richard created an opportunity for Philip II of France to take some of England's possessions on the continent, Évreux and the Vexin. The nobles of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine supported Arthur. John did, however, have the support of Aquitaine and Poitou thanks to his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, as well as Normandy. After being declared Duke of Normandy, he sailed to England where he was crowned in Westminster on 27 May.

Although England was largely secure, possessions in France were constantly the target of Philip II. John was forced into treaties with Philip in order to stop the hostilities. The Treaty of Le Goulet in 1200 saw John paying Philip 20,000 marks, giving up lands in Auvergne and Berry, giving up on the areas of Normandy that had been seized by Philip, and giving up his alliance with the Holy Roman Empire, who occasionally was a rival of France. The illustration shows via shades of red the dwindling authority of the Angevins.

John then decided to make a politically advantageous marriage, but there were two problems with that: one is that he was already married, and the second that John's decisions were almost always the wrong ones. Stay tuned.

The Angevin Empire

When King Stephen I of England died in 1154, the terms of the Treaty of Wallingford meant his rival's son would inherit the throne. Henry of Anjou became King Henry II of England and started the Angevin Empire. So what made it an empire? How large was it?

Well, England, of course, in which Henry had his grandest title of king, and also parts of Ireland and Wales. Through Henry's father, Geoffrey of Anjou, he was also Count of Anjou. Also, since Geoffrey took over Normandy not long before, Henry was Duke of Normandy. Moreover, because Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152—who divorced the King of France to do so—he had Aquitaine.

The term "Angevin" was coined in 1887 by a British historian, based on "Anjou." Henry and his successors (sons Richard and John and John's son Henry III) would refer in documents to "our kingdom and everything subject to our rule whatever it may be" and never called it an empire or referred to themselves as Angevin. Technically, they were all Plantagenets.

Plantagenet was Geoffrey of Anjou's nickname. The plantagenet was the common broom, a flowering plant with bright yellow blossoms. Geoffrey was also known as Geoffrey the Handsome or the Fair. Perhaps his hair was lighter than typical, and the comparison to the golden flowers of the broom prompted the nickname. Even so, like the term "Angevin," it wasn't until Richard, 3rd Duke of York adopted Plantagenet as his family name during the Wars of the Roses that the term become attached to the whole hereditary line. It seems that Richard was linking himself to his ancestor Geoffrey in order to emphasize his proper place in the line of succession.

Extensive holdings on the continent (and perhaps spite, since Eleanor had abandoned being queen in France to become Queen Eleanor of England), made France a little hostile to the Angevin Empire. The problem created by Duke William of Normandy when he became King William of England in 1066 remained: how does a king of a country (England) react when he is likewise a lesser title (duke, count) in another country (France) and therefore subordinate to a king? That political oddity would define the English-French relationship for centuries.

It also calls into question the term "empire." To truly be an empire requires a centralized government and consistent laws and regulations throughout the territories. The varying laws and customs of the various Angevin territories were at odds with this definition.

Whether it was an empire like the Roman Empire or the medieval Holy Roman Empire, it didn't last more than a generation or two. Its demise will be the subject of the next post.

Empress Matilda

The previous post discussed how Stephen of Blois seized the throne of England in 1135 upon the death of King Henry I, despite having sworn an oath of loyalty to Henry's daughter, Matilda. Coincidentally, usurpation was how Henry gained the throne, too.

Matilda did not take well to Stephen's usurpation. She was not, after all, an idle daughter waiting for her moment to shine: by this time, she was Empress Matilda by virtue of marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Henry V (shown above in a 12th century chronicle). (And who would believe it? Henry V tried to usurp the throne from his father, Henry IV.)

Henry V had died 10 years prior to the current crisis, but Matilda retained the title Empress. Her father recalled her to Normandy and arranged marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou to protect his southern border. (Blois was also on the southern border of Normandy; perhaps if he had arranged a different marriage...?) From here she could make plans to assume the English throne, kicking off a period called The Anarchy.

Stephen's reign was not without trouble. Not everyone approved of him personally, or of his seizing of the throne after pledging loyalty to Henry's daughter. In 1139 she left Geoffrey to conquer Normandy while she crossed the English Channel to take the throne from Stephen. She and her half-brother Robert of Gloucester visited her step-mother Adeliza, which caused Stephen to react. Afterward, she and Robert, with support from her uncle, King David I of Scotland, raised an army and captured Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141.

The next step was to be crowned at Westminster, but the people of London were against her and prevented it. She was never considered a Queen, not even for a moment. Her title in royal listings is Domina Anglorum, "Lady of the English." Stephen's supporters captured Robert, and Matilda agreed to exchange him for Stephen.

Although she had control over much of south-west England, Matilda returned to Normandy in 1148 (now under her husband's control), leaving her eldest son to continue the war. Other factors were at play: she was living in a castle that she took from the bishop of Salisbury; Pope Eugene III threatened her with excommunication if she did not return it.

The war became a stalemate, and the stalemate become the 1153 Treaty of Wallingford (or Westminster, or Winchester: all three are used), formally ending The Anarchy and agreeing that Matilda's son would become king upon Stephen's death, which obligingly happened a year later. Henry became King Henry II of England, starting the Angevin Empire.

I'd like to talk about the impact of the Angevin Empire next, but if you want more detail on The Anarchy you can check out posts from 10 years ago: Parts One, Two, and Three, along with this.)

Stephen of Blois

Stephen of Blois (c.1096 - 25 October 1154) was a nephew of King Henry I of England. His mother was (Saint) Adela, a daughter of William the Conqueror, who sent him to be raised at Henry's court (Stephen's father, Stephen-Henry of Blois, had died in 1102 while fighting in Jerusalem).

In 1125 Henry arranged a marriage with Matilda, Countess of Boulogne. Through her he became Count of Boulogne and inherited from her father estates in England, including Kent. The two were one of the wealthiest couples in England.

Stephen was in Barfleur  in Normandy with King Henry, Henry's son and heir William Adelin, and many other nobles. They had spent many months dealing with rebellions among Henry's Normandy possessions. To return to England, Thomas FitzStephen offered his newly re-fitted White Ship to take the king back to England. Henry had made other arrangements, and left on a different ship. His son, William, decided to go on the White Ship, but before they set sail, he allowed the crew and passengers ample wine to celebrate the end of their military campaigning.

The ship delayed its departure until it was late and quite dark, but thought it would be able to overtake the king's ship easily. They started out with 300 people on board and soon hit a rock one mile northeast of Barfleur. According to Order Vitalis, a single survivor, a butcher from Rouen, clung to the rock until rescued. Henry's heir and numerous other noblemen and noblewomen drowned.

For whatever reason—perhaps he was wary of a drunken crew setting sail in the dark—Stephen remained behind. William's own wife, Matilda, traveled a different ship. (Henry allowed his daughter-in-law to stay at court for as long as she wished. Eventually she returned to her family in Anjou, then took the veil at Fontevrault.)

Henry, without an heir (and recently without a wife), re-married in order to get an heir, declaring his daughter Matilda his heir-presumptive until he should have a better one. Stephen was among the nobles who pledged loyalty to his choice of Matilda. When Henry died in 1135 on the first of December without a male heir, however, Stephen lost no time in rushing to England to take the throne, ignoring Matilda's claim and his pledge, claiming that his fitness to rule outweighed the earlier oath. He was crowned on 22 December.

You may imagine that this decision did not sit well with Matilda, or with several nobles who felt her claim was to be honored. As for her next move, stay tuned.

Imprison Your Daughter

Hang on, this can get complicated. Here's the backstory: Henry I of England had two legitimate children by his first wife, William and Matilda. William died in the White Ship disaster. Henry wanted a legitimate male heir (as opposed to the numerous illegitimate children he had sired), and married Adeliza of Louvain, who was about the same age as Matilda. The two women showed every sign of getting along, and Henry named Matilda as his heir presumptive if he did not get a son to succeed him, and got everyone subordinate to him to pledge their loyalty to her in that case. Henry died before that could happen. So Matilda ascended the throne and became the first solo queen of England.

This probably surprises you, because "Bloody" Mary is considered the first queen of England to rule in her own right. Well, you'd be right. Matilda never got a chance to be crowned. Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror, rushed across the English Channel and seized the throne, claiming that his ability to rule should take precedence over his earlier oath of loyalty to Matilda. (That's Stephen getting crowned on 22 December 1135.)

Matilda and several supporters were not going to stand for this, and a period of civil war called "The Anarchy" ravaged England from 1138 to 1153. (If you use the term "The Anarchy" in the search field on this blog, you'll find several consecutive posts going into detail.) But back to Adeliza.

Adeliza remarried and lived with her husband, William d'Aubigny, at her castle Arundel. William was a supporter of Stephen, and therefore would not acknowledge Matilda's claim to the throne. Adeliza, however, welcomed Matilda to Arundel, along with Matilda's half-brother (one of Henry's many bastard children), Robert, the 1st Earl of Gloucester (a king's illegitimate children were still royal, and could be granted titles and lands). Robert was opposed to Stephen as well, and some histories say he was a strong candidate for the throne but for his illegitimacy.

When Stephen learned that Matilda and Robert were at Arundel, he besieged the castle. Adeliza then took the two captive and handed them to Stephen. The assumption by the chronicler John of Worcester is that she feared losing all the properties left to her by her late husband. According to him, "She swore on oath that his enemies had not come to England on her account but that she had simply given them hospitality as persons of high dignity once close to her."

Despite handing them over to show her loyalty to the man who held the throne, she persuaded Stephen that Matilda was no longer a threat. Stephen relented and allowed them to go to Robert's castle at Bristol.

What happened to Adeliza after that? We have very little information, except that she left her second husband and entered a monastery in Flanders, whose records mention her death in 1151.

Now about this Stephen of Blois...

Adeliza of Louvain

After the death of his first wife, Matilda of Scotland, King Henry I of England needed a second wife. Well, mostly he needed an heir, because the sinking of the White Ship killed his only male heir, William of Adelin. He had plenty of surviving children, but he had not been married to their mother(s), so that presented a legitimacy problem. He found what he needed in Adeliza of Louvain. 

Adeliza (c.1103 - 1151) was 17 or 18 when she wed Henry in 1121, who was about 35 years older than she. She was even younger when negotiations started; Henry had already been looking for a second wife, but the process accelerated after the White Ship. Sometimes called "the fair maid of Brabant," she was known for her beauty. The historian Henry of Huntingdon (once mentioned here) raved that her beauty was completely natural, needing no adornment.

One of her attractive features (aside from her physical features) was her ancestry: as a descendant of Charlemagne, marriage to her would link their children to an age still looked upon as glorious and foundational to contemporary Europe. The two were wed in Windsor Castle on 24 January 1121. They were married for 15 years, during which time she seemed to have always been near him as he traveled his kingdom. She took little interest in administrative duties, however, unlike many queens.

She did, however, turn out to be a patron of the arts, sponsoring French poets. An Anglo-Norman poet, Philippe de Thaon, dedicated a Bestiary in Latin to:

 ...an outstandingly beautiful woman.

And she is courtly and wise, Of good customs and generous:
She is called 'Aaliz', Queen is she crowned,
She is the queen of England; May her soul never know trouble!

She also commissioned a biography of her husband, which no longer exists.

After Henry died on 1 December 1135, she first retired to Wilton Abbey, a Benedictine convent, and shortly after founded a leper hospital. She had several properties that Henry had given her, and when she re-married in 1138, she and William d'Aubigny lived at her castle of Arundel.

Adeliza's relationship to her step-daughter, Matilda, was cordial. They were approximately the same age, and Henry had named Matilda his heir-presumptive until he had an heir with Adeliza. Unfortunately, he and Adeliza did not produce an heir, so technically, Matilda would inherit the throne and country.

...and that's when the trouble started. Tomorrow we re-visit The Anarchy.

Henry I of England

The first royal wedding too take place at Windsor Castle was that of King Henry I and Adeliza of Louvain.  Henry (c.1068 - 1135) was a younger son of William the Conqueror who was initially cut out of inheriting anything substantial. Upon William's death, William Rufus became king of England (brother Robert Curthose got Normandy), and Henry got nothing.

He was granted the County of Cotentin—the peninsula that extends into the English Channel and contains Cherbourg and Bayeaux—for £3000 from Robert, slowly establishing power and some authority. Robert had hoped to be given England as well as Normandy, and wanted Henry on his side. Since Henry was otherwise landless—which at the time meant having no power whatsoever—he allied himself with Robert. Robert's intention to take England from William never turned to action, however.

In 1088, Bishop Odo of Bayeaux convinced Robert that Henry could not be trusted. Odo seized Henry, who was captive for the winter; Robert took back the Cotentin. In spring of 1089, nobles in Normandy persuaded Robert that Henry should be released.

In 1091, William invaded Normandy, defeating Robert and signing a treaty with him making each the other's heir and completely leaving Henry out of the negotiations. Henry decided to fight his brothers, but wound up being besieged in MontSaint-Michel for a time. Rumor has it that, when Henry ran out of fresh water, Robert allowed supplies to be taken in, upsetting William Rufus. The back-and-forth between siblings in that family would surprise no one who had seen a certain movie based on their descendants, The Lion in Winter.

Time passed, and once again William and Henry were on amiable terms. When William Rufus died on 2 August 1100, Henry "happened" to be present (click the link to understand the quotation marks). Henry wasted no time in getting himself crowned. Although rightly the throne should have gone to Robert, England accepted Henry with alacrity because of the Charter of Liberties, in which Henry made promises that undid some of William's unpopular practices. The nobility might have been fed up with the constant fighting between Robert and William and embraced Henry as a sort of "compromise candidate." After some debate over the rightful heir, Henry was crowned 5 August in Westminster Abbey.

Three months later, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, also known as Malcolm Canmore, in a shrewd political move. That Matilda might have been a nun did not deter the marriage. They had two children: Matilda and William Adelin, who died in the White Ship tragedy.

Marriage did not mean fidelity: kings were understood to exert their sexual prowess and desires in many directions. Henry had at least ten acknowledged extra-marital children who lived long enough to have titles and careers. Matilda of Scotland died in 1118, and when the White Ship sank in 1120 taking his legitimate son with it, Henry collapsed with grief. Now with no legitimate son, and seeing the prospect of numerous less-legitimate heirs and various nephews who could tear the country apart fighting for the throne, he decided to marry again.

So finally we come to the first royal wedding to take place in Windsor Castle, to Adeliza of Louvain. See you tomorrow.

Windsor Castle

"High above the river Thames and on the edge of a Saxon hunting ground" William of Normandy built a motte-and-bailey structure from 1070 to 1086. It was made of timber, and exists today, but William wouldn't recognize it. Today it is known as Windsor Castle. William's son Henry I was married there, after which he took up residence there; Every king and queen of England since then has used it as their royal residence.

The change began in the reign of King Henry II (1154 - 1189). Archaeological evidence shows the south timber wall was subsiding by as much as 6 feet. Henry replaced the timber with stone walls and decided to create apartments for himself and his royal family, transforming it from a purely defensive structure into a palace. (You can still see the original mound with the Round Tower re0built by Henry II in the illustration above.) King Edward III (1327 - 1377) decided it would be his most important palace, and spent an unheard-of £50,000 to expand and renovate it, starting its evolution to become the largest occupied castle in the world.

Windsor's importance to William was due to its position on the Thames. (Well, also its nearness to Windsor forest, a royal hunting preserve established by the Saxon kings.) The whole point of numerous motte-and-bailey castles was that they were within a day's march from others, making it easy to get reinforcements when needed.

The name "Windsor," which is used for the castle and the family name of the current English royals, is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and comes from Old English Windles-ore, or "winch by the riverside," suggesting that this was a place where goods were loaded to and from boats.

Because there is often great public interest in royal weddings, let's talk about the first royal wedding at Windsor, of Henry I to Adeliza, the "fair maiden of Brabant."

Motte-and-bailey in England

After William of Normandy took over England in 1066, one way to establish his authority and help maintain it was to build a series of fortifications. Eighty percent of these were in the motte-and-bailey style that the Normans had been using all over France and later over much of Northern Europe.

It would have taken longer and been less efficient to build from scratch, and so in many cases he chose to build on existing fortifications. After all, you don't build a castle just anywhere: you need it to have resources, such as fresh water. Towns were established the same way; no one built them in a desert or on an inaccessible peak (unless you built them for other reasons than comfortable living). So 

Since many towns already had defensive walls and the resources needed for living, many of the new structures were set up there. The castle would take up space, however, and the town was already being used. The solution was to demolish local houses and buildings.

Records of castle-building hint that, for instance, 166 houses in Lincoln were destroyed to build its castle. In Norwich, 113 families had to be displaced. Cambridge got lucky: only 27 houses were destroyed to make way for the new castle.

More motte-and-bailey defenses were set up in the west than the east, likely because the east was relatively settled, but in the west there were likely problems coming with Wales (and they would be coming for a long time). In all, at least 741 motte-and-bailey castles were built in England and Wales over the next few generations. When the Bayeaux Tapestry was made, it even included a fighting scene taking place at such a structure; in the photo above you can see a wooden palisade on a hill with soldiers fighting at the base.

I know that motte-and-bailey sounds like a primitive style of castle,—it is certainly no Neuschwanstein—but it was just the first stage for greater things. Next we'll look at a motte-and-bailey that everyone's heard of: Windsor Castle.

Motte-and-bailey

Norman cathedral design wasn't the only architectural style introduced into England after 1066. The fortification style called motte-and-bailey came along with the new ruling class.

The Normans were building these around Northern Europe at least a generation prior to 1066, and some archaeological evidence in Vincy, in northern France, suggests the first motte-and-bailey existed there as early as 979CE.

So what exactly is a motte and what is a bailey? The motte was a mound topped with a structure for defense. A bailey comes from the Norman-French baille and simply means a low yard. In Castles: Their Construction and History, Sidney Toy quotes a description by a Frenchman around 1130 on construction:

[they would make] a mound of earth as high as they can and dig a ditch about it as wide and deep as possible. The space on top of the mound is enclosed by a palisade of very strong hewn logs, strengthened at intervals by as many towers as their means can provide. Inside the enclosure is a citadel, or keep, which commands the whole circuit of the defences. The entrance to the fortress is by means of a bridge, which, rising from the outer side of the moat and supported on posts as it ascends, reaches to the top of the mound. [p.53]

There was tremendous variation in mottes. Anywhere from three to 30 meters high can be found—but 30 was far from the average. Two-thirds of those built in England and Wales were under 5 meters tall, and only 7% were more than 10 meters. Compared to the soaring heights of the cathedral-building program, the military structures put up by the Normans were significantly less visually impressive.

Making an aesthetic or religious impact was not the point, however. Showing "who's the boss" and preparing for possible uprisings and defensive needs were more important. Tomorrow I'll talk more specifically about how William's castle-building affected English towns and countryside.

Anglo-Norman Culture

We have looked at the influence on the language in England when it suffered an influx of Norman-French population and administration. This was inevitable, but was not what you would call deliberate. William of Normandy (more commonly known to modern readers as William the Conqueror) did not decree as the new king "Now we start changing the language!"

There were, however, more overt actions taken that demonstrated to the Anglo-Saxons how different things would be from now on. I am going to give you an example using two pictures.

St. John's Church in Escombe is one of four existing Anglo-Saxon churches in England. Built about 670CE with roughly dressed stones, the nave is 43 feet long and 14 feet wide. Contrast that with the New Romney Church tower of the Church of St. Nicholas. Built mid-12th century, it is a typical Norman church, and towers over any buildings nearby, including any Anglo-Saxon structures. Below you'll see a second photo that gives you a better idea of its size.

During William's reign (1066-1087), in a single generation, at least 15 cathedrals were begun, 13 of which stand today. Imagine the culture shock as the newcomers saw these mammoth structures going up and up, dwarfing their own architectural accomplishments.

Deliberate actions, as I said, but was the reason for the building fervor to intimidate the locals? There are other ways to say "We are in charge" than showing off fine Caen marble from your homeland and saying "We worship God better than you." Why giant cathedrals?

Turns out, William probably had a personal rather than a public reason to make attempts to please God. William was illegitimate (one of his epithets is William the Bastard). That's probably not why he built churches, but it was one reason given initially by Matilda of Flanders for refusing his offer of marriage.  She had a better reason for turning him down: their union would violate current laws of consanguinity.

The laws of consanguinity established by the church at that time forbade unions of people within seven generations of relatedness. William was Matilda's third cousin (once removed). We don't know what arguments he used to overcome her objections, but they did marry about 1051, and the flagship he sailed in to England, the Mora, was a gift from Matilda. Some scholars think his building campaign was motivated by appeasing God for all the death caused in the battle for England, for marrying someone to whom he was closely related, and because of a little guilt over taking the throne of England when there was a person who might have had a better claim.

Was everything the Normans built on such a large scale? No. Many defensive structures were not as grand as the churches. Tomorrow let's look at motte-and-bailey.

How the Normans Changed Our Language

Many of you already know about the Norman Invasion of 1066 when William the Conqueror became ruler of England and the Anglo-Saxons within. The intersection of two cultures will always cause linguistic borrowing, no matter how protective one of them may be (even the French say "hot-dog"). When major changes in society take place, we can expect major changes in language.

In truth, the injection of Norman French vocabulary probably amounted to fewer than 1000 words. They were not random words, however, but words whose presence "reflect[s] the ‘superiority’ of the French culture" to use the words of one scholar. Words like noble, dame, servant, minstrel come from French, as do estate, government, duke, madam, sir.

Even outside of the upper classes, the Norman French words introduced in England are still with us in all walks of life and careers.

Thanks to the Norman influence, we gave ecclesiastical terms clergy, friar, prayer, and the word religion itself! In the legal profession, court, crime, judge and justice are used daily. The military still uses general, sergeant, army, regiment, and siege. A pupil can go to an art lesson and sit in a chair to learn about color or ornament. 

True, some of the words came through French ultimately from Latin, but we cannot know that English would have ultimately gained them otherwise. Or would they? There were two major French dialects that influenced English at different times; there was a second influx of Central French vocabulary in the 13th century, further adding to—and maybe confusing?— the English language.

For instance, Latin caballus (horse), led to Norman French cavalier, but Central French chevalier, which is why in Modern English we have not only cavalier and chevalier, but also cavalry and chivalry. Latin canalis (channel) turned into Norman French canal and Central French chanel, so now we have both canal and channel.

Another telling set of Anglo-Saxon vs. Norman French terms comes when we look at livestock. Anglo-Saxon peasants (peasant is French, but from the 15th century) raised cattle and pigs, but when those animals become food and are served at a table, they are dined on by Norman masters as beef and pork.

But these were more subtle changes than some deliberate actions taken by the Normans to show superiority. I'll talk about Norman culture tomorrow, and what they did to "show off."

Modern Old English

There's an episode of The West Wing in which Bartlett asks a retired English teacher if she made her students "read Chaucer in the original Old English."

Sigh.

Paralleling the theme of yesterday's post, Chaucer's Middle English is practically "Early Modern English." Middle English on the page would be recognizable to many, although if they hear it pronounced it would probably be difficult to discern, and Chaucer gave us many familiar words.

Old English presents more difficulty, but our connection to it is very strong. Also known as Anglo-Saxon , it can be called Old English because it is recognizable, if you look carefully. In the opening lines of Beowulf, for instance, you can discern that:

Dena = Danes
dagum = days
cyning = king
threatum = threat
thas/that = that
him = him
gōd = good

The Lord's Prayer begins:

Fæder ūre þū þe eart on heofonum

Father our you who art in Heaven

Obviously there has been evolution, but there are many nouns that have changed little in 1000+ years:

God, mann, heaofon, eorðe, weorold, lif, lufu, word, weorc, dæg, hand, cynn
God, man, heaven, earth, world, life, love, word, work, day, hand, kin

There are also many everyday verbs that have changed little in 1000+ years:

sittan, secan, healdan, beran, giefan, cuman

sit, seek, hold/held, bear, give, come

Of the 1000 most commonly used words in day-to-day Modern English, 83% come to use from Old English. Much of the rest of our vocabulary is also from Old English. In the historical development of the English language, Old English is con sided to be used from about 500CE to about 1100, and Middle English from 1100 to about 1500. Instead of a slow evolution from Old to Middle, however, there was one linguistically catastrophic event that pushed Anglo-Saxon "over the edge" and forced it to change. That's a story for next time.