William Prepares to Conquer

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 was promised to him.

Edward died in early January, and mounting an invasion in winter, specially if one has to cross the English Channel, was not advisable. Besides, invasions take time to assemble, even if you do not have to provision them because you expect to find food once you enter the new country. It was also important to William to gain moral support in the form of a papal blessing.  William of Poitiers claimed that Pope Alexander's consent came along with a papal banner that could be carried by the army; however, Alexander's consent seems to have come after the conquest was complete. William of Poitiers also claimed that the duke had support from Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV (not likely, since Henry was still only 15), and King Sweyn II of Denmark (also unlikely, since Denmark had problems with Norway and Harold of England was an ally of Denmark's in that regard).

William had months to bring together troops from Normandy, France, Brittany, and Flanders. They were all instructed to gather at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, a seaport on the River Somme estuary. (Joan of Arc was held there before being taken to Rouen to be burned.) The summer months also included a ship-building campaign.

His numbers of men and ships was likely exaggerated by contemporary chroniclers, but for the sake of argument, let's relate that he was said to have 726 ships (including one paid for and outfitted by his wife, Matilda). Those same writers also claim different numbers for soldiers, as high as 150,000; also, as low as 14,000.  Modern estimates reduce those numbers to maybe 7000-8000 men, of whom 1000 or more were cavalry. The others were archers and foot soldiers.

All his pieces were in place by August, but he delayed the crossing. The assumption is that Harold knew William was planning an invasion and hd troops all along the coast. There would be no surprise attack.

Help for William came from an unlikely source: Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. No, Harald was not an ally of William's or offering support. Harald wanted England for himself, so he attacked in the north, drawing King Harold Godwinson's troops away from the south.

For details on how that went, come back tomorrow.

Edward's Death Leads to Turmoil

When Edward the Confessor died on 5 January 1066, he supposedly made a deathbed statement committing his kingdom into the care of Harold Godwinson, his wife's brother. As the most powerful man in England after the king, he was a natural choice. Whether Edward actually made that statement or not, the witenagemot, the group of wise men who counseled the king, approved Harold as king. He was crowned on the same day Edward was buried. (Some say he crowned himself, as in the illustration.)

When word reached Duke William of Normandy across the English Channel, the response was understandably extreme: William claimed that Edward had named him his heir years earlier. If that happened, perhaps William visited Edward when Edward had exiled the Godwins (and would not have considered a Godwin as his heir), but if so it might not have been that serious an offer. Edward and William were first cousins—William's grandfather was Richard II of Normandy, brother of Emma of Normandy, Edward's mother—and so there was an argument for William being in the line of succession.

Supposedly Harold himself had sworn on a saint's relics two years earlier to recognize William as king of England after Edward, after William saved Harold from capture by Guy of Ponthieu.

William was incensed. The report that Harold had broken a vow made on holy relics was so significant that it enabled William to procure the pope's blessing to depose Harold and take the throne. (Of course, William might have had help: Pope Alexander II was a former student of Lanfranc, who had been first an enemy and then a supporter of William and was not above exercising his influence on his former pupils.) The fact that William's army marched under a papal banner and blessing would have had a demoralizing effect on Harold's forces.

Worse than the psychological effect, however, would have been physical exhaustion. The stories we hear in our grade-school history books about 1066 leave out a third party: Harald Hardrada.

Harald Hardrada, King of Denmark and Norway, also believed he had a claim to England, since Danes had ruled it in times past. Harald landed in the north of England in September of 1066 with 300 longships, 15,000 men, and King Harold's brother, Tostig. On September 20 he defeated the first English forces he encountered. King Harold, however, met Harald five days later at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Once Harold's forces managed to cross the bridge, he killed Harald and Tostig and defeated the army so soundly that only 24 ships survived to flee back to Denmark. This was not an easy battle, however, and the standoff at Stamford Bridge alone supposedly cost Harold about 20 of his best warriors and closest companions. See more here and here.

...and while Harold's army was recovering from their hard-won battle, the message arrived that William's fleet had arrived at Hastings, 300 miles away. The army (not recovered from their battle) had to march quickly south and meet William's fresh forces who had had plenty of time to prepare their defenses and pick the battle site. Who knows what would have happened if Harold's forces had been able to meet William's while at full strength? The years following the Battle of Hastings in 1066 are well-known, but history books too often leave out the crucial three weeks prior to the battle, when Harold and his English army performed herculean tasks to defend their shores.

If Edward died 5 January and Hastings took place in October, what was William doing for ten months? I'll tell you next time.

William on William

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 turn to the priesthood. He studied in Poitiers and returned home "more learned than all his friends and neighbors" according to Orderic Vitalis. Orderic also says that William was made archdeacon of Lisieux, but his name does not appear in any official documents related to Lisieux, so Orderic's source was likely faulty. Orderic also says that William became chaplain to Duke William of Normandy (aka William the Conqueror), and that is how William of Poitiers is usually described.

Sometime after 1066 (probably in the 1070s), William started writing an account of the deeds of his patron. It is called Gesta Guillelmi ducis Normannorum et regis Anglorum ("The Deeds of William, Duke of the Normans and King of the English"). It is the earliest biography of a decent length of any Norman duke, and gives details on the Battle of Hastings. As a chaplain attached to the duke's household and a trained knight, William was in a unique position to relate the events of the duke's preparations for and execution of the war to conquer England.

To be fair, there are several passages that disproportionately praise or favor the duke' actions. When Orderic used the Gesta Guillelmi as a source for his own history, he left out those sections. William also follows medieval literary tradition by describing Duke William as the perfect embodiment of knighthood, with exploits such as the duke and 50 knights besting 1000 of the enemy. He also compares the duke's conquest of Britain to another famous conquest of Britain, that of Julius Caesar.

There are comments made by William that are unique to his account of the times that modern historians feel are accurate statements. Some are the notion that Harold had abundant treasure, and that a Danish raiding party gained "great booty"; this all suggests why England was such a target for raids in the 10th through early 11th centuries.

William also provides an account of early pre-conquest Norman society, with several rebellions in Normandy, as contrasted with the relative stability of England, where William says the English all showed love of their country and a stronger national identity and unity.

The fractured nature of the Norman culture was explained by a Benedictine monk in the 11th century. Tomorrow we'll look at the origins of Normandy, and why this land south of England was named for "North Men."

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."

The Book of Life

In the previous post, I mentioned that a certain name showed up in the Liber Vitae, a title which literally means "Book of Life" but was actually a list of names associated with a monastery or convent. There are several of these, also known as confraternity books.

Confraternity books exist for the Abbey of St. Gall, for Reichenau Abbey, and for Durham Abbey, among others. The Durham book was recorded as early as 840, and continued into the later 11th century. A reorganization in the 12th century seems to have resulted in the loss of some pages. Recovered from the Cotton Library, it now resides in the British Library. Despite the incomplete nature of what we have, confraternity books still have value in helping us understand more about the past.

One of the values of the confraternity books is to linguists and historians, who can make surmises about culture and language from the names. The New Minster Liber Vitae is arranged in columns, with typical Anglo-Saxon names—Dunstan, Leofric, Ethelred, Wulfgar—in the center. To the left, however, are added names that were common after the Conquest in 1066: Baldwin, Simon, Richard, William. In it we see the cultural shift from the Germanic roots of the Anglo-Saxons to the new Norman French/Latin language shifts.

The picture here is from the New Minster Liber Vitae, produced in Winchester in 1031. It portrays King Cnut and Queen Emma, here called Ælfgifu. I'll tell you about her tomorrow.

Statutes of William the Conqueror

William, Duke of Normandy, who won the Battle of Hastings and conquered England, has been brought up many times in this blog. He ruled for 20 years (25 December 1066 - 9 September 1087). In that time, you would imagine that he made many laws. In the best estimate of historians, he probably made ... ten. That is really all the we can be certain of, and here they are:

1. Firstly that, above all things, he wishes one God to lie venerated throughout his whole kingdom, one faith of Christ always to be kept inviolate, peace and security to be observed between the English and the Normans.

2. We decree also that every free man shall affirm by compact and an oath that, within and without England, he desires to be faithful to king William, to preserve with him his lands and his honour with all fidelity, and first to defend him against his enemies.

3. I will, moreover, that all the men whom I have brought with me, or who have come after me, shall be in my peace and quiet. And if one of them shall be slain, the lord of his murderer shall seize him within five days, if he can; but if not, he shall begin to pay to me forty six marks of silver as long as his possessions shall hold out. But when the possessions of the lord of that man are at an end the whole hundred in which the slaying took place shall pay in common what remains.

4. And every Frenchman who, in the time of my relative king Edward, was a sharer in England of the customs of the English, shall pay according to the law of the English what they themselves call onhlote and ascot.[*] This decree has been confirmed in the city of Gloucester.

5. We forbid also that any live cattle be sold or bought for money except within the cities, and this before three faithful witnesses; nor even anything old without a surety and warrant. But if he do otherwise he shall pay, and shall afterwards pay a fine.

6. It was also decreed there that if a Frenchman summon an Englishman for perjury or murder, theft, homicide, or " ran"-as the English call evident rape which can not be denied-the Englishman shall defend himself as he prefers, either through the ordeal of iron, or through wager of battle. But if the Englishman be infirm he shall find another who will do it for him. If one of them shall be vanquished he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the king. If an Englishman summon a Frenchman, and be unwilling to prove his charge by judgment or by wager of battle, I will, nevertheless, that the Frenchman purge himself by an informal oath.

7. This also I command and will, that all shall hold and keep the law of Edward the king with regard to their lands, and with regard to all their possessions, those provisions being added which I have made for the utility of the English people.

8. Every man who wishes to be considered a freeman shall have a surety, that his surety may hold him and hand him over to justice if he offend in any way. And if any such one escape, his sureties shall see to it that, without making difficulties, they pay what is charged against him, and that they clear themselves of having known of any fraud in the matter of his escape. The hundred and county shall be made to answer as our predecessors decreed. And those that ought of right to come, and are unwilling to appear, shall be summoned once; and if a second time they are unwilling to appear, one ox shall be taken from them and they shall be summoned a third time. And if they do not come the third time, another ox shall be taken: but if they do not come the fourth time there shall be forfeited from the goods of that man who was unwilling to come, the extent of the charge against him—ceapgeld [**]as it is called—and besides this a fine to the king.

9. I forbid any one to sell a man beyond the limits of the country, under penalty of a fine in full to me.

10. I forbid that any one be killed or hung for any fault but his eyes shall be torn out or his testicles cut off. And this command shall not be violated under penalty of a fine in full to me. [source]

[*]The taxes and fees that allow participation in the community
[**]The forfeit of a beast

Thorkill of Arden

When Leofric, Earl of Mercia, died in 1057, his estate of Kingsbury passed to his widow, the Countess Godgifu, better known to later generations by the Latin version of her name, Godiva. The Domesday Book, compiled on King William's orders in 1086, lists her as a landowner as of the Conquest in 1066, but no longer. So where did her property go?

Prior to William of Normandy's attack in 1066, Edward the Confessor had been inviting Normans over the Channel as councilors; several of them had already been given lands. After 1066, Normans were put into all positions of power, and Saxon nobles were demoted to lesser landholders. Two Saxons, however, had chosen to support William in 1066. One of these was Thorkill of Arden (also called Turchill).

Early Heraldry for Arden

Thorkill's father, Æthelwine, was a nephew of Leofric and the Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1066. Perhaps Thorkill saw supporting William as a way to enhance his own standing. Perhaps he truly believed that William was the rightful ruler; reasons why he might were discussed here. Perhaps he just didn't like Harold. In any case, he was confirmed as Sheriff after his father's death.

At some point—the simplest explanation is the death of the Countess Godiva, whose date we do not know—King William gave Kingsbury and its 700 acres to Thorkill. This made Thorkill the sole member of the pre-1066 Saxon nobility to hold an estate of any significance at the time of Domesday.*

Thorkill held Kingsbury for several years; he is listed as the landowner in Domesday. King William's third son was crowned William II on 26 September, 1087 by Bishop Lanfranc. William II was in many ways a successful king, although not universally popular; perhaps confiscating people's lands had a role. William took Kingsbury away from Thorkill. That was not the end of the Arden family's prosperity, however: they remained prominent in Warwickshire politics. A descendant, Mary Arden, was the mother of Shakespeare.

*That is, of the nobility; Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester was, technically, the most powerful Englishman in 1086.

Domesday Book

In 1085, Duke William of Normandy had been ruling England as King William for twenty years (it all started here). He decided it was finally time to take inventory of his property. He sent his agents (3-4 commissioners for each of 7 areas the country was divided into) to make a survey of everything south of the border with Scotland.* They met with groups of representatives (barons and villagers) and asked a series of standard questions. By the end of summer in 1086, the reports (in Latin) were all being compiled back at Winchester, along with data on the value of the land and its assets immediately pre- and post-Conquest. The entire work is in the same very neat handwriting, so a single scribe was given the job of compiling/collating everything. The official name of the result was "The Book of Winchester."

So why is it usually called "Domesday Book" now? That nickname was given to it about 100 years later, and just like it looks, it means "Doomsday." The idea behind the nickname is that the book was such a complete listing of everything in England that it was equivalent to the "Book of Life" used by God at the end of time to judge your deeds. It was that complete.

Except, of course, it wasn't.

For one thing, work ceased by the time King William died in September 1087. The section on East Anglia hadn't been compiled into the total work. There is, therefore, a "Little Domesday Book" with the East Anglia data. Also, important cities such as London and Winchester were not included, probably because William figured he knew them well enough and didn't need an accurate accounting of their property assets, such as he would want for the countryside.

Also, attempts to judge population using Domesday fall short of expectations. Although farms and buildings were counted, only heads of households were included in the population count. In castles, the number of men were counted, but the population in monasteries and convents was not. Best guesses, extrapolating from what data are included, is a population of 1.25-2 million, a far cry from the estimated 4 million during the Roman occupation.

Still, the Book contains a lot of fascinating information in its 413 pages, which I will draw on in the future.


*N.B.: The border with Scotland was much farther south than it is now.

1066: What Really Happened

When Edward the Confessor died, he supposedly made a deathbed statement committing his kingdom into the care of Harold Godwinson. As the most powerful man in England after the king, he was a natural choice. Whether Edward actually made that statement or not, the witenagemot, the group of wise men who counseled the king, approved Harold as king. He was crowned on the same day Edward was buried.

When word reached Duke William of Normandy across the English Channel, the response was understandably extreme: William not only claimed that Edward had named him his heir years earlier, but supposedly Harold himself had sworn on a saint's relics two years earlier to recognize William as king of England after Edward. (More detail can be found in yesterday's post.)

William was incensed. The report that Harold had broken a vow made on holy relics was so significant that it enabled William to procure the pope's blessing to depose Harold and take the throne. (Of course, William might have had help: Pope Alexander II was a former student of Lanfranc, who had been first an enemy and then a supporter of William and was not above exercising his influence on his former pupils.) The fact that William's army marched under a papal banner and blessing would have had a demoralizing effect on Harold's forces.

Worse than the psychological effect, however, would have been physical exhaustion. The stories we hear in our grade-school history books about 1066 leave out a third party: Harald Hardrada.

Harald Hardrada, King of Denmark and Norway, also believed he had a claim to England, since Danes had ruled it in times past. Harald landed in the north of England in September of 1066 with 300 longships, 15,000 men, and King Harold's brother, Tostig. On September 20 he defeated the first English forces he encountered. King Harold, however, met Harald five days later at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Once Harold's forces managed to cross the bridge, he killed Harald and Tostig and defeated the army so soundly that only 24 ships survived to flee back to Denmark. This was not an easy battle, however, and the standoff at Stamford Bridge alone supposedly cost Harold about 20 of his best warriors and closest companions.

...and while Harold's army was recovering from their hard-won battle, the message arrived that William's fleet had arrived at Hastings, 300 miles away. The army (not recovered from their battle) had to march quickly south and meet William's fresh forces who had had plenty of time to prepare their defenses and pick the battle site. Who knows what would have happened if Harold's forces had been able to meet William's while at full strength? The years following the Battle of Hastings in 1066 are well-known, but history books too often leave out the crucial three weeks prior to the battle, when Harold and his English army performed herculean tasks to defend their shores.