Lecture 7: the Norman Conquest

(Lecture by A. Mikoyan)

Lecture 7: THE NORMAN CONQUEST

When Edward left England during the reign of King Canute and came to live at the Duke of Normandy'scourt (c. 1017), William, the future conqueror of England, was not even born. He was born in 1028, and in 1035 already inherited his father's throne. By 1047 the nineteen-year-old Duke had gained full control over his land and over his rebellious vassals. In 1051 he visited Edward the Confessorin London, and, according to what he said later and what many (although not all) historians believe to be true, Edward, who was childless, promised to name him as his successor.

In his turn Harold Godwinson, during his visit to Normandyin 1064, is said to have made a promise to help Williamin his ascension to the English throne on Edward's death. Both promises, if they existed at all, were broken, but William nevertheless decided to claim what he considered his right[1] and invaded England.

His invasion was well-timed for success. The new King of England, Harold II, and his army were busy fighting the two contenders for the English throne: Harold's own brother Tostigand the King of Norway, Harold III Hardraada. A few days after a brilliant victory over them both in the battle at Stamford Bridge(near York) on 25 September 1066 (both Harold Hardraada and Tostig were killed in that battle), Harold received news of William of Normandy's landingat Pevenseyin Kent. He rushed with his exhausted army south to fight against the invaders.

The Normanshad landed on September 28, and the news reached Harold in the north three days later, on October 1. By the time Harold's army completed its forced march from Yorkshire to Kent, William's troops had rested and refreshed themselves after crossing the Channel at Hastings castle. They were beginning their march to London when the English army confronted them at Senlac Hill, near Hastings. On October 14, 1066, the great battle of Hastingswas fought between the English and the Norman armies. At first the success was on the English side, but eventually they were defeated and King Harold was killed.

After the victory at Hastings there was nothing to stop William of Normandy and his army on the way to London. However, when they arrived at the London gates, they found them shut against them. William's only way to make Londoners surrender was to isolate the city from the rest of the country, which he did, marching around it and burning and devastating all the suburbs and the countryside on the way. Finally, shortly before Christmas the city gates were opened, and William entered London, promising fair treatment to its citizens in exchange for submission. And so, a little over two months after the battle that had decided the history of England, on Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned at Westminster Abbeyas King William I (1066-1087). He remained in history as William the Conqueror.

William's coronation did not mean that his conquest of England was complete and that he had nothing to worry about. His new kingdom was still far from being secure. The northern lords were not yet willing to submit, and revolts against the Norman rule broke out several times around the country. William put them down

ruthlessly, burning down rebellious towns and villages and killing his opponents without hesitation. Many Englishmen were hiding in the woods and attacking the Normans in revenge whenever they could. To deal with that 'guerrilla war', the Normans introduced the so-called Law of Englishry, whereby every dead body was presumed to be that of a Norman (unless clearly proved to be that of an Englishman), and a large fine had to be paid by the village that was nearest to where it was found. That law remained in force until late 12^th century by which time it had become difficult to keep the two races apart.

The Conquestaccelerated the development of feudal relations in England. At their basis was the system of land tenure, when the King gave out portions of the lands to his followers (not only Normans, but also Bretons and Flemings) as estates to be held by them in return for their services. Thus a class of Norman landlords was created in England, and these landlords – earls and barons – were the King's vassals who had to swear loyalty to him and to come under his banners when necessary with their own knights and soldiers. Very often, the estates given to the Normans had been previously seized from the higher English nobles who had either openly resisted the Conquest or were suspected of being disloyal to the new King.

The Norman lords, like their English predecessors under Anglo-Saxon kings, had to attend the Grand Council(the equivalent of the Witan).

The large landlords could in their turn distribute as much of their land as they wished among 'sub-tenants', i.e. their knights. The knights then allocated plots of that land to peasants – either freeholders or serfs– who actually worked the fields. The freeholders could leave their land and settle elsewhere if they liked; the serfs were bound to their lord's land by law, and they could only leave it by paying for it (which they normally could not afford) or by running away, which was against the law.

The Church, which had a well-defined hierarchy of its own, was also part of the feudal system. At the bottom of that hierarchy was the parish priest, then came the monk, the friar, the abbot and the bishop, all of them being 'vassals' to the Pope. The higher clergy enjoyed considerable privileges: immunity from any

(Lecture by A. Mikoyan)

but the Church's laws, possession of lands, riches and serfs, the right to sit in Parliament (that is, when Parliamentappeared in the 13^th century), admission to the King's court and so on.

The Normans, as the name suggests, were Northmen, i.e., Vikingswho had settled on the south side of the Channelin the late 9^th century. By the time of the Conquestthey had largely assimilated with the French. They gradually began using the French languageand following French customs, and eventually abandoned their own. So it was the French language and the French way of life that they brought with them to England.

Those English lords (usually the less important ones) who gave up their resistance to the invaders in time or never attempted it at all, managed to keep their estates and survive as tenants and vassals of the new Norman magnates. The same applied to the clerics – while many bishops were deprived of their posts and their property, quite a few abbots, ordinary monks and parish priests were left in peace and kept their positions. And the lowest ranks of the society were little affected – it did not make much difference to a villein or serf what lord to work for: an English one or a French.

In order to know how much land he owned, how many tenants of all levels he had and what kind of tax money he and his treasury could expect to receive, William ordered the compilation of the so-called Domesday Book (1086)[2]. It was a comprehensive survey of all property that William claimed to own in England, and it received its name in the 12^th century by association with the Day of Judgement in the Bible(commonly known as 'Doomsday'). The idea was that, as on the Day of Judgement, there could be no appeal to change the verdict of Domesday Book. The survey was an unprecedented enterprise that remained throughout the Middle Ages the most detailed and comprehensive record of its kind in Europe.

To conduct that survey, teams of royal clerks, or commissioners, were sent to each of England's shires with instructions to ask representatives of every village a number of questions about the size and use of the land, the number (and names) of the landholders, the number and status (freeholders vs serfs) of those who worked the land and its value. An equal number of English and Norman jurors had to confirm the truth of the answers. The information thus collected was then 'processed', and presented according to a certain pattern in two volumes. London, Winchesterand the four northernmost counties were not included in the survey. Both volumes of Domesday Book are now in the Public Record Office in London.

(Lecture by A. Mikoyan)

The Norman nobleswho accompanied William in his expedition or joined his court later had their followers of all kinds: vassals, knights, servants, clerks and priests, many bringing their families as well. As follows from Domesday Book, about 1,500 foreigners were given land in England after the Conquest. The total number of newcomers therefore could have been between five and ten thousand men and women, or about half percent of the population of one or two million people.

Once the open hostility towards the Normans had died down, the newcomers became models for imitation to many Saxon lords and barons. There were many intermarriages among members of the nobility from the beginning, just as among commoners.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

A very important consequence of the Conquest concerned the language. The newcomers spoke French, but the second generation was mostly bilingual. Those Anglo-Saxons who came into regular contact with the Normans learned to speak French. All this prepared the ground for the extraordinary enrichment of the English language.

However, the assimilation of French words by the English vocabulary was a slow process: for at least 150 years after the Conquest the ruling class in England was still largely a foreign ruling class or a class with a double nationality (through mixed marriages). Therefore, until the late 13^th century or later, French remained its normal language. It was also the language of law, of the army and, alongside Latin, it was the language of writing and learning. The bulk of the population still spoke English in its local dialectal varieties, and only those parts of the population that were in constant contact with each other were bilingual (or at least used both languages).

So for quite a long time the two languages co-existed almost without mixing. Then they gradually began to interpenetrate. The 'competition' between them was won English, but it came out of that struggle greatly affected by its rival.

Before the 13^th century only about a thousand French words joined the English vocabulary. By the end of the 14^th century English had assimilated up to ten thousand words (nearly 75 % of them are still in common use). The semantic spheres of the French loan words in Middle English(11^th-15^th centuries) reflected the structure of the society and the way of life of the upper classes – the Norman nobility and their vassals, both Norman and English.

(Lecture by A. Mikoyan)

Thus, there were French borrowingsthat referred to

a) government and administration [3]:
assembly, authority, chancellor, council, court, crown, govern, nation, office, parliament, etc.;

b) the feudal hierarchy and titles:
baron, count, duke, duchess, feudal, manor, noble, nobility, peer, prince, etc.;

c) warfare
accoutrement, aid, armour, arms, army, battle, captain, force, regiment, soldier, etc.;

d) law and jurisdiction:
accuse, acquit, case, cause, court, condemn, crime, false, damage, guilt, heir, injury, interest, judge, jury, jurisdiction, marry, marriage, poverty, prove, rent, etc.;

e) houselife, furniture, architecture:
arch, castle, carpet, cellar, column, curtain, porch, lamp, luxury, palace, pantry, table, wardrobe, etc.;

f) everyday life (clothes, ornaments, food, transportation, etc.):
apparel, agate, alley, amulet, apricot, apron, beef, bottle, brooch, butler, cabbage, carrot, car, carriage, costume, diamond, dress, garment, gown, jewel, robe, etc.;

g) arts and entertainment:
art, beauty, cards, chase, colour, dance, design, figure, image, leisure, ornament, paint, partner, pleasure, sport, tournament, etc.

Architecture. In art history the period from the early 11^th to the later half of the 12^th century is known as the Romanesque (or Norman) period. The dominant art of the early Middle Ages was architecture, and 'Romanesque', like 'Gothic', is primarily an architectural term which, by extension, is sometimes applied to other arts of the period. The term 'Norman' is often used about English architecture as a synonym of 'Romanesque', because the Romanesque stylewas brought to England by the Normans. (Although the first Norman building in England – Westminster Abbey– was built before the Norman Conquest).

(Lecture by A. Mikoyan)

No secular buildings from before the late 11^th century survive (excellent examples of Romanesquesecular buildings are the White Towerin the Tower of Londonand the keep of Colchester Castle). So, from the modern point of view, Anglo-Saxon and early Norman architecturein Britain is mainly a story of churches, cathedrals and abbeys.

Anglo-Saxon architectureis now represented by a single wooden church at Greensted, Essex, and very few stone churches (e.g. at Brixworth, Northamptonshire, at Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, at Great Paxton in Cambridgeshire, at Deerhurst in Gloucestershire, etc.).

It was the coming of the Normansthat gave a powerful impetus to the development of architecture, sculpture and other arts. King William Iand his successors on the throne of England built formidable castles and fortresses; their example was followed by their vassals of different ranks. As a result, many new castles were appearing all over England every year. About 500 castles were built within the first several decades of the Conquest, and the building never stopped.

The first castleswere mostly built of wood, and their design was simple. They were usually built on an earthly mound (artificial hill) and surrounded by a wall on a rampart (an artificial earth bank) and a moat (a ditch filled with water). As time went on, the castles were becoming more elaborate in their design and more habitable: from mere fortresses and military garrisons they were turning into dwellings of the nobility. Although the defensive purposes were still very prominent, more emphasis than before was given to making these dwellings comfortable. Sleeping chambers were introduced, as well as dining halls (e.g. the great hall), chapels, kitchens, pantries, wardrobes (separate rooms for keeping clothes), storerooms for valuable household articles, and so on.

The Church, in its turn, was preoccupied with strengthening its position and authority and increasing its wealth. Abbeys, monasteriesand magnificent cathedralswere built all over the country, and their impressive silhouettes competed with the castles of the nobility for the dominance of the landscape.

The Romanesque stylein building was characterised by great scale, perfect proportions and simple, but inventive design. Although less ornate than Gothic buildings,Romanesque cathedrals and abbeyswere not without decoration. Their exterior could be decorated with stone carvings and sculpture, and the interiors – with frescoes, stained-glass windows, beautifully carved furnishings and icons.

Only three large Norman cathedralsremain today almost the same as they originally were: Durham Cathedral (with its famous ribbed vault – the Normans' greatest contribution to medieval architecture), Norwich Cathedraland Peterborough Cathedral. At the same time quite a few smaller Romanesque churches have survived almost intact.

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Sculpture. Sculptureis traditionally divided into architectural and free-standing. The former term implies sculptured reliefs and carvings used to decorate the exteriors and interiors of buildings. Free-standing sculpture is mostly figural and is represented by independent three-dimensional statues and statuettes.

English craftsmen began to explore sculptured decor on a large scale towards the end of the 12^th century, and their work to a great extent depended upon the French models, for in France by that time Romanesque sculpture had reached some remarkable heights.

At the same time, some rare examples of sculpture from the Anglo-Saxonperiod are of very superior artistic quality and are unparalleled elsewhere in Western Europe (e.g. carved memorial crosses found in northern England, dating from the late 7^th and early 8^th cent.)

Manuscript illumination. When in 793-794 the Vikingsplundered the monasteries of Lindisfarneand Jarrow, the monastic life in the north of England was disrupted, and no more manuscriptscould be produced until, over a hundred years later, King Alfred the Greatunited a large part of the country under his rule. The art of manuscript illumination was then revived in the south of England, in Wessex.

The illuminations produced from the 9^th century onwards were in many ways different, though not inferior. The Celtic influence was not as apparent as before, and the new influences, those from the Continent, blended with the local Anglo-Saxon traditions. The new style that had developed on the Continent at that time is known as Carolingian – after the Frankish Emperor Charles the Great, or Charlemagne(Carolus Magnus). It was largely based on the antique Roman and Byzantine traditionsenriched by contemporary Italian artistic ideas. The English miniaturists, who were familiar with books produced on the Continent, evolved a combination of their locally developed traditions with Carolinian style. This combination received the name of Winchester style of miniature(for the centre of manuscript illumination at that time was Winchester), which has long been regarded as one of the greatest achievements in the entire history of English art.

In the British Museumthere is a magnificent manuscript illuminated in Winchester style. It is entitled Foundation Chapterof King Edgar to the New Minster at Winchester and goes back to 966.

The most important English contribution to Romanesque miniature paintingof the 12^th century was the development of the technique of pictorial narrative and of a complete cycle of illustrations to the Bible. Among the finest examples produced at the time is the manuscript known as the Winchester Bible (Winchester Cathedral). It was probably begun in 1160-70s and was a work of

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at least six master artists. Each book of the Biblebegins with an exquisitely painted ornate initialand contains several folios of full-page illustrations.

By the end of the Romanesque period, English manuscript illuminationhad won England the same kind of fame as France had for its sculpture.

Minor (decorative, or applied) arts. Among the minor arts metalwork by the English craftsmen was most famous. Until the Conquestit was mostly a monastic craft that catered mainly for the Church. Not only ordinary monks, but many clerics of high rank, for example bishops, were skilful goldsmiths and silversmiths. They produced fine silver bowls, crosses and chalices decorated with elaborate reliefs and various other kinds of ornamentation, e.g. filigree (скань), cloisonne enamels (перегородчатая эмаль), niello (чернь), granulation (зернь) and so on. After the Conquest metalwork was no longer confined to religious objects, and many fine ornaments and articles of jewellerywere produced by secular craftsmen.

Other crafts practised at the time were ivory, alabaster and wood carving, embroidery, glass paintingand some others. Among the examples of ivory carving are many religious objects, such as crucifixes (распятияÿ) and reliquaries (реликварии). Anglo-Saxon and later Romanesque English embroiderywas famous throughout Europe, where it was known as opus Anglicanum ('English work'). The only surviving example of Anglo-Saxon embroideryis the stole (епитрахиль) from St Cuthbert's coffin. The best known example of English Romanesque embroidery is the so-called Bayeux Tapestry – a long strip of linen embroidered with detailed scenes from the life of King Harold, the Battle of Hastingsand the Norman Conquest.

English ivory and alabaster carvings, embroideries and metalwork were so admired on the Continent that the best surviving examples are now found outside Britain. However, a fine collection of medieval English applied art can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and some other museums around the country (e.g. the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford).

[1]It should be remembered that William was rather closely related to Edward through Edward's mother Emma, who was a daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, and William's grandfather (therefore William was Emma's nephew and Edward's cousin). Since Edward had no sons, William was his nearest blood relation and his claim to the throne of England was rather strong.

[2]It is referred to in Russian historical literature as "Книга судного дня" or, descriptively, as "Земельная опись Англии".

[3]All words are given in their modern spelling.

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