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10 Cards in this Set
- Front
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The Norman Conquest Main Points |
- Take over of high-status & centralised AS kingship. - Rapid & total replacement of Norman aristocracy. - Control of the land with castles & infeudation - Creation of a narrative of divinely-blessed, legitimate succession - Rebellions not widespread, cohesive, united enough to be threat - Very quickly they changed character to not be against conq. - Apart from in the north, but this was resistance to south [/normans] - Still unhappiness / lack of cohesion but this is v long-term process |
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Take over of high status & centralised AS kingship |
High Status AS Kingship: ceremonially powerful; legitimate through Ceremonially powerful - holy oil; Laudes Regiae; coronation oath; oaths in tithings; the power of crown itself, crown wearings [Christmas 1069]; Legitimate Through Continuity: rhetoric of WI as divinely ordained + legitimate heir, use of AS coronation rites. Crowning significant b/c Penitential Ordinance distinguishing three phases of conquest. Centralised Government: mechanisms of government - state, treasury, geld, shires, sheriffs, royal writing office, writs, coinage; localities tied to centre: shire, shire court, 32 counties, 600 hundreds, tithings, courts - county, hundred, itinerant, royal, ecclesiastical. Bishops & earls attend county court. Government Continuity: moneyers kept the same, family of Doerman as one of knights of Cantebrury; Regenbald employed in writing office of both Edward the Confessor & Will the Conqueror, WI granting "Regenbald, my priest, the land of 'Esi' and land at Latton', in AS & same-style as Edward's similar grant. |
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Rapid & total replacement of Norman aristocracy |
The Battle of Hastings: so many killed Replacement of the Aristocracy: corroborated by OV. 900 tenants-in-chief, 13 are English, only for major landholders in excess of 100 hides, largest Thurkill of Arden & Colswein of Lincoln. Church: Lanfranc replaces Stigand, c.1070 - church controls 26% of land, which is re-gifted to them; only 3 important Native prelates survive. Infeudation: WI dismisses his stipendiary knights, 1068. Total Norman landholders around 8000 after minor landholders enfeoffed - local society grip - half the personnel of Cambridgeshire hundreds are Norman. |
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Control of the land w/ castles & infeudation |
Splitting the Land: lands are split throughout the country, so Norman lords cannot fall back on them & rebel; only a very few have block lands, the most trusted; William fitzOsbern is given Herefordshire (c.1067), 1071 Hugh of Avranches Cheshire, Kent & Odo of Bayeux. WI's land all over Castle-building: 500 built by 1100. Architectural Re-construction: ASC "E" 1097 - destruction of 70 houses in Lincoln for castle; 1/7 wards in York. Use of distinctive Norman arches in monasteries / cathedrals [Ely], rebuilt in stone. Ragged Edges: western edge, attacks on the Welsh by Norman barons - bleeding edge; contested border of Scotland. Domesday as settling, not conquering: narrowly recorded - ASC "E", "very narrowly", priest, "if the king consents" to give 20 acres to church he had built. WI just sort of wondering where things were. ASC "E" Salisbury oaths - "no matter whose vassals they might be". |
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Creation of narrative of divinely ordained, legitimate succession |
Divine Justice & William of Poitiers: c. 1071, chaplain of Duke William and archdeacon of Lisieux. Emphasis of his place - "King Edward, made me heir of this kingdom... his choice was not made w/o the consent of his magnates since Ab Stigand, Earl Godwin, Earl Leo-fric and Earl Siward confirmed it...". Has Harold say "May the Lord decide this day between William and me, and may he pronounce which of us has the right". |
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Rebellions not cohesive, widespread, united enough to be a threat |
Before: 1051-2, 1065. After: Robert (1078-80), Odo (1083), 1095 Incoherent: Exeter, Kent, 1067; 1068-1070: Morcar, Waltheof, Gospatric, Aethling, King Malcolm; Hereward the Wake, 1070; Danished attacks 1069. Different motivations: OV reckons "the natives rebel against William the Conquerer b/c of anger at the loss of patrimonies, the death of kinsmen and countrymen" General King: ASC "D" very severe geld 1067, "insupportable" (1068, J of Winchester). Serious? William doesn't take them seriously, as he leaves 1067 to go to Normandy [goes w/ English nobles, though...?]. Easily put down. |
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Very quickly their character changed so not against conq. |
Distinctive change post 1071: when Morcar surrenders, Hereward the Wake & Ely falls, rebellions of a different character - no real native rebellion. Norman Rebellion, 1075 - Roger of Hereford, Ralph of Norfolk. + Waltheof, Danes who arrived late. 1080: murder of Bishop Walcher, last native resistance? [Planned] Danish Attacks, 1085: part of Danish sphere |
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Apart from in the north, but this was resistance to the south [/conquest] |
History of Northern Rebellion: different character of the North - Cumbria, dead area between England & Scotland - not tied to AS structures of centralised kingship, cf.1065 unrelated rebellion. Northern Rebellion to Conquest: WI initially tried to co-opt AS Elite, but it failed - rebellion of Gospatric, Morcar, Waltheof, 1068; then tried to use Norman noble, placed at Durham, massacre of garrison in 1069. Harrying of the North: response of WI very harsh - Simeon of Durham asserts that there were great faminies, the exodus of refugees, "land deprived of anyone to cultivate it, reduced for nine years to an extensive solitude", "no village inhabited between York & Durham", 16 years later, DB records 33% Yorkshire waste. Eventual Settling: religious culture stamped out by William St Calais, 1083 - previously, married clerks, etc... |
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Still unhappiness & lack of cohesion, but long term process & not a disqualifying factor for successful conquest |
Unhappiness: murder fine - fitz Nigel, late 12th, "English lay in ambush for the suspected & hated race of Normans"; cf. Will of Malmesbury, c.1125, England "made the home of foreigners and the domain of aliens". Cohesion: Ailred of Rievaulx places in Henry II, as descendant of English & Normans; Richard fitz Nigel late 12th asserts "nowadays" indistinguishable; intermarriage more over time. |
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Historians: |
Carpenter: 1071, when Morcar & Hereward surrender, that is the end of conquest; dispossession secured absolutely. Golding: tenuous til 1070, success complete by 1075, whole process not complete by 1086. Williams: everyone is English by 2nd generation at latest. Stability March 1067. |
