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The Norman Conquest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2009

R. Allen Brown
Affiliation:
King's College, London.

Extract

Though with the passing of October 14 the major junketings are perhaps over, the year is still 1966, the nine-hundredth anniversary of the Norman Conquest of England, and such an occasion, I trust, is a sufficient excuse for reading a paper to you on the subject. There are many more qualified than I to undertake the task, but at least I can claim to have been working—though scarcely alone—on a book about the Conquest over the last few years, and the vastly enjoyable experience has prompted certain thoughts which become increasingly strongly held as I progress. Some of those thoughts I should like now to put together into what I hope may be a coherent pattern.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1967

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References

page 109 note 1 The substance of this paper is drawn from a forthcoming book on the Norman Conquest to be published by Constable, especially from Chapter IV.

page 109 note 2 Douglas, D. C., The Norman Conquest and British Historians (The David Murray Lecture for 1946, Glasgow, 1946).Google Scholar

page 109 note 3 The History of the Norman Conquest of England (Oxford, 5 vols., 1867-1879).Google Scholar

page 110 note 1 Stenton, F. M., William the Conqueror and the Rule of the Normans (London, 1908).Google Scholar

page 110 note 2 Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1943).Google Scholar

page 110 note 3 Ibid., p.546.

page 110 note 4 Ibid., p.678.

page 110 note 5 Ibid.

page 110 note 6 Ibid., p.677.

page 111 note 1 Eric, John, Land Tenure in Early England (Leicester, 1960), ch. VIII and, e.g., p. 160.Google Scholar

page 111 note 2 Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O., The Governance of Medieval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 27.Google Scholar

page 111 note 3 Thomas, Carlyle, Frederick the Great (London, 1900), i. 263.Google Scholar

page 111 note 4 Cf. Stenton, , writing in 1908 that late Anglo-Saxon England had ‘no administration worthy of the name’ (op. cit., p. 22).Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 Galbraith, V. H., Studies in the Public Records (London, 1948),Google Scholar ch. II. Cf. Darlington, R. R., ‘The Last Phase of Anglo-Saxon History’, History, 22 (1937-1938),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and his Norman Conquest (Creighton Lecture 1962, London, 1963).Google Scholar

page 112 note 2 Galbraith, , op. cit., p. 36.Google Scholar

page 112 note 3 For what follows see especially Barraclough, G., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Writ’, History, 39 (1954),Google Scholar and Barlow, F., The English Church, 1000-1066 (London, 1963), pp. 120 ff.Google Scholar

page 112 note 4 Cf. Barlow, , op. cit., p. 123, n. 3.Google Scholar

page 113 note 1 For the sealed writ, see Harmer, F. E., Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952);Google ScholarBishop, T. A. M. and Chaplais, P., Facsimiles of English Royal Writs to A.D.1100 (Oxford, 1957).Google ScholarFor the diploma, see Stenton, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955).Google Scholar

page 113 note 2 But cf. Galbraith, who expresses doubt on the assumption (op. cit., p. 32).Google Scholar

page 113 note 3 Ibid., p. 35; Harmer, , op. cit., pp. 38-41;Google ScholarBarraclough, , op. cit., p. 212.Google Scholar

page 113 note 4 Galbraith, , op. cit., p. 35.Google Scholar

page 113 note 5 Bishop, and Chaplais, , op. cit., pp. xii—xiii (two examples, temp. Edward the Confessor);Google ScholarHarmer, , op. cit., p. 20 (a possible further example, temp. Edward the Confessor);Google ScholarChaplais, P., ‘Une charte originale de Guillaume le Conquérant’, in Ľabbaye bénédictine de Fécamp (2 vols., Fecamp, 1959-1960),Google Scholar i, 96 (one example, temp. William Rufus). For some objections to some of these examples, see Darlington, , Norman Conquest, p. 4, n. 1.Google Scholar

page 113 note 6 Cf. Barlow, , op. cit., p. 128.Google Scholar

page 113 note 7 Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, E. O. (Camden, 3rd Series, xcii, 1962), pp. 146–47 (No. 78), and cf. p. 153 (No. 85).Google Scholar

page 114 note 1 ‘Donee Anglia sub Normannorum iugo misere depressa ex omni pristino spoliatur honore.’

page 114 note 2 Cf. Barlow, , op. cit., p. 126.Google Scholar

page 114 note 3 Marie, Fauroux, Recueil des Actes des Dues de Normandie (911-1066) (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, Tome xxxvi, Caen, 1961), p. 42. It may be added that Miss Harmer duly noted a ‘family resemblance’ among Anglo-Saxon writs in favour of the same house (op. cit., p. 57).Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 Darlington, , History, 22 (19371938), p. 9;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPoole, R. L., Chronicles and Annals (Oxford, 1926), p. 26.Google Scholar

page 115 note 2 For the Frankish mandate, sometimes sealed (though en placard, see Harmer, , op. cit., pp. 30-34.Google Scholar For the fundamental distinction between sealing to close and sealing open in the manner of the writ, see Barraclough, , op. cit., p. 207.Google Scholar

page 115 note 3 Ibid., pp.194-95.

page 115 note 4 Cf. Barraclough, , op. cit., pp. 199 ff.;Google ScholarBarlow, , op. cit., p. 128.Google Scholar

page 115 note 5 Amongst writs whose text has survived, it is possible to speak of some dealing with geld as ‘administrative’ writs, but in fact they deal with assessment and so really fall into the category of grants or privileges, for which reason they were kept by the grantee (see Harmer, , op. cit., pp. 19, 32, and Nos. 15, 29, 66, 107).Google Scholar A reference as late as 1051 to the king's gewrite and insegle for the election of a bishop may be acceptable as a reference to a sealed writ, but even so such a writ would be more a kind of title-deed to office— on the analogy of thirteenth-century letters patent—than an administrative writ in the sense of a mandate to an official to do something (see Harmer, , op. cit., Appendix IV, No. 6, pp. 542-43). Cf. the insistence of Bishop and Chaplais on the primary function of the sealed writ as a title deed (op. cit., p. xi).Google Scholar

page 116 note 1 E.g. by Cnut in a charter of 1020 (Stubbs, , Select Charters, Oxford, 1913, p. 91).Google ScholarCf. Wulfstan's, reference to the bishop as ‘Christ's sheriff’ in his Institutes of PolityGoogle Scholar (pp. 144-45, cited by Barlow, , op. cit., p. 97).Google Scholar

page 116 note 2 Morns, W. A., The Medieval English Sheriff (Manchester, 1927), pp. 3739.Google Scholar

page 116 note 3 William the Conqueror, p. 9.Google Scholar

page 116 note 4 Stenton, F. M., ‘The Danes in England’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 8 (1927);Google ScholarThe Scandinavian Colonies in England and Normandy’, ante, 4th Series, 27 (1945).Google ScholarCf. Sawyer, P. H., ‘The Density of the Danish Settlement in England’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 6 (1957).Google Scholar

page 117 note 1 Stenton, , Proceedings of the British Academy, 8, pp. 4446;Google ScholarAnglo-Saxon England, p. 366.Google Scholar

page 117 note 2 Proceedings of the British Academy, 8, p. 13.Google Scholar

page 117 note 3 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 495-96, 498.Google Scholar

page 117 note 4 Ibid., p. 498.

page 117 note 5 Ibid., p.543; Proceedings of the British Academy, 8, pp. 4344.Google Scholar

page 117 note 6 Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 379-80, 580, 597.Google Scholar

page 117 note 7 Ibid., p. 573 and n.i.

page 117 note 8 Ibid., pp. 570-71. It is possible that among other offences Tostig had sought to alter the law of Northumbria and thus breach the autonomy granted by Edgar to the Danelaw. Florence of Worcester says the Northumbrians outlawed him ‘and all who had prompted him to enact the oppressive law’ (ed. B. Thorpe, London, 2 vols., 1848, i, 223). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (C) speaks of his ‘lawless deeds’, and says (D, E) that Harold in making peace with the Northumbrians ‘renewed…. the law of King Cnut’ (ed. Whitelock, Douglas and Tucker, London, 1961, p. 138).

page 118 note 1 See especially Wilkinson, B., ‘Northumbrian separatism in 1065 and 1066’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 18 (1939).Google Scholar

page 118 note 2 Hugh the Chantor, The History of the Church of York, 1066-1127, ed. Johnson, C. (London, 1961), p. 3.Google Scholar

page 118 note 3 Not even that of Edward the Confessor in 1042 if we accept the story that Emma, his mother, supported the claim of Magnus of Norway. See Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, p. 420;Google ScholarEncomium Emmae Reginae, ed. Campbell, A. (Camden, 3rd Series, lxxii, London, 1949), pp. xxii, xlix and n.4.Google Scholar

page 118 note 4 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, p. 368.Google Scholar

page 118 note 5 Ibid., pp. 376, 377, 378-79, 380; 382-83, 383-84, 387, 391, 392.

page 118 note 6 Ibid., pp. 380-81.

page 118 note 7 Ibid., pp. 381-82, 384.

page 119 note 1 Ibid., p. 387 and n.2.

page 119 note 2 For Emma's career see especially Campbell's, A. Introduction to the Encomium Emmae Reginae, ut supra.Google Scholar

page 119 note 3 For what little is known of Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut, see Campbell, A., op. cit.,Google Scholar and Stenton, , op. cit., pp. 413-17.Google Scholar

page 119 note 4 Ed. Whitelock, Douglas and Tucker, p. 134.

page 120 note 1 Darlington, R. R., The Norman Conquest (Creighton Lecture, London, 1963).Google Scholar For the established view, i.e. that feudalism is a Norman importation into England, see especially Stenton, F. M., The First Century of English Feudalism (Oxford, 1932),Google Scholar ch. 4, and Round, J. H., ‘The Introduction of Knight Service into England’, reprinted in his Feudal England (London, 1909).Google Scholar For pre-Conquest feudalism, see especially Eric, John, Land Tenure in Early England (Leicester, 1960),Google Scholar ch. 8, and Marjory, Hollings, ‘The Survival of the Five Hide Unit in the Western Midlands’, English Historical Review, 58 (1948).Google Scholar The former draws upon the latter, and both upon Maitland, F. W., Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897).Google Scholar

page 121 note 1 Cf. Prestwich, J. O., ‘Anglo-Norman Feudalism and the Problem of Continuity’, Past and Present, No. 26 (1963), p. 44.Google Scholar

page 121 note 2 W. de Birch, G., Cartularium Saxonicum (3 vols., London, 1885-1993), No. 1136; Hemingi Chartularium Ecclesiae Wigornensis, ed. Hearne, T. (2 vols., Oxford, 1723), i, 292;Google Scholarcf. Hollings, , op. cit., p. 470.Google Scholar

page 121 note 3 3 Oswald's leases are only part of a series extending from the ninth to the eleventh centuries; see Ker, N. R., ‘Heming's Cartulary: a description of the two Worcester cartularies in Cotton Tiberius A. xiii’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to F. M. Powicke (Oxford, 1948), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 122 note 1 Thus in the lease for three lives granted by bishop Ealdred (1044-62) to Wulfgeat (Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J., Cambridge, 1939, No. cxi;Google Scholar cited by John, , op. cit., p. 147,Google Scholar and by Hollings, , op. cit., p. 467),Google Scholar it is ‘at the king's summons’ that ‘the holder shall discharge the obligations on these 11/2 hides at the rate of one [hide]'—such obligations presumably including fyrd service, though this is not specifically mentioned (cf. ibid., No. cxii, where the obligations are the trimoda necessitas plus church dues). Similarly the military service by land and sea (expeditio terra marique) which the Danish thegn, Simond, was to perform for the church of Worcester in return for the land which his lord, earl Leofric, compelled prior Aethelwine (c. 1040-c. 1055) to grant him for life, was clearly fyrd service (Hemingi Chartularium, i, 264-65).Google Scholar The Domesday commissioners of 1086 stated that the bishop had within Oswaldslow both royal service and his own—et regis servitium et suum (Ibid., i, 287). For the miscellaneous, non-military services owed by his tenants to the bishop personally as landlord, see Stenton, , First Century, pp. 122 ff.Google Scholar

page 122 note 2 The Constitutional History of Medieval England (London, 1937), p. 78.Google Scholar

page 122 note 3 Hemingi Chartularium, i, 287;Google Scholar translated and cited by John, , op. cit., p. 143.Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 For Oswaldslow as a ‘shipful’, see John, , op. cit., pp. 119 ff.;Google Scholar for the ship fyrd, see Hollister, C. Warren, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions (Oxford, 1962), pp. 104–05.Google Scholar

page 123 note 2 Lot, F., Ľart militaire et les armées au moyen âge en Europe et dans le proche Orient (2 vols., Paris, 1946), ii, 82 ff.;Google ScholarGuilhiermoz, P., Essai sur ľorigine de la noblesse en France au moyen âge (Paris, 1902), pp. 450 ff.;Google ScholarLynn, White, 1, Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962) ch. I;Google ScholarRoss, D. J. A., ‘Ľoriginalité de “Turoldus”: le maniement de lance’, Canters de Civilisation Médiévale, 6 (1963).Google Scholar

page 123 note 3 Richard Glover's entertaining argument that the pre-Conquest English army could use cavalry when it wished, and that it was at least as good as, or, rather, no worse than, the Norman army, will not stand up to detailed examination (English Warfare in 1066’, English Historical Review, 67, 1952).Google Scholar A recent, though somewhat indecisive, discussion of the whole question of pre-Conquest English cavalry will be found in Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions, pp. 134 ff. Both writers see the housecarles as the most likely candidates.Google Scholar

page 124 note 1 Clapham, J. H., ‘The Horsing of the Danes’, English Historical Review, 25 (1910).Google Scholar

page 124 note 2 Glover, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 124 note 3 ‘The Song of Maldon’, printed in translation in English Historical Documents, i, ed. Whitelock, D. (London, 1955), p. 293.Google Scholar

page 124 note 4 Ed. A. Campbell, pp. 13, 21, 27.

page 124 note 5 Snorre Sturlason, The Heimskringla or the Saga of the Norse Kings, ed. Anderson, R. B., iv (London, 1889), pp. 41 ff.Google Scholar

page 124 note 6 Ibid., p. 44.

page 125 note 1 A point noticed by both Freeman (Norman Conquest, 3, 720),Google Scholar and Oman, (Art of War in the Middle Ages, London, 1924, i, pp., 150–51).Google Scholar

page 125 note 2 The Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Stenton, F. M. and others (2nd edn, London, 1965). For round shields borne by English soldiers who are evidently among the élite, see Plates 64—65 and 71, cf. 70, 72. For battle-axes wielded by the English, see Plates 62—63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71—72 .Glover's implication that the Normans also used the battle-axe (op. cit., p. 4) is unwarranted; the only ‘Norman’ axe on the Tapestry is borne ceremoniously by count Guy of Ponthieu, who is in any case scarcely a Norman (Plate 12).Google Scholar

page 125 note 3 Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, W., ii (Rolls Series, 1889), p. 293.Google Scholar

page 125 note 4 The Bayeux Tapestry, Plate27. In Normandy at this date the conferment of arms upon a young man (tiro) seems to have constituted the ceremony of knighting.Google Scholar

page 125 note 5 See Hollister, C. Warren, The Military Organisation of Norman England (Oxford, 1965), pp. 115—16;Google ScholarHollyman, K. J., Le Développement du Vocabulaire féodal en France pendant le haut moyen âge (Paris, 1957), pp. 129–34;Google ScholarLynn, White, Medieval Technology and Social Change, p. 30 and n. 5.Google Scholar

page 126 note 1 Anglos contra morem in equis pugnare jussit (ed. Thorpe, i, p. 213). Cf. the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, C, s.a. 1055, ‘before any spear had been thrown the English army fled because they were on horses’.Google Scholar

page 126 note 2 Glover, , op. cit., pp. 7-8.Google Scholar

page 126 note 3 For homage rendered in eighteenth-century France ‘à cause de la motte’. and for the motte of the early castle as ‘le symbole de la seigneurie’, see Siguret, P. in Château-Gaillard, Etudes de Castellologie européenne, I (Caen, 1964), p. 135, n. 4.Google ScholarCf. Ritter, R., Châteaux, Donjons et Places Fortes (Paris, 1953), P. 25.Google Scholar

page 126 note 4 Armitage, E. S., The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles (London, 1912).Google Scholar

page 126 note 5 The case of Dover, which probably received its castle within the preexisting Iron Age earthworks at duke William's hands in 1066, is too detailed to be discussed here, and will be dealt with in a forthcoming paper.

page 127 note 1 Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Le, Prevost (5 vols., Paris, 1838-1955), ii, 184.Google Scholar

page 127 note 2 Barlow, F., The English Church, 1000-1066, p. 27.Google Scholar

page 127 note 3 Ibid., p. 39.

page 127 note 4 Ibid., p. 52; Knowles, D., The Monastic Order in England (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1963), pp. 58, 73, 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 127 note 5 Below, p. 129.

page 128 note 1 Knowles, , op. cit., p. 69.Google Scholar

page 128 note 2 Barlow, , op. cit., pp. 55 ff., 95.Google Scholar

page 128 note 3 Ibid.., p. 94.

page 128 note 4 For Wulfstan and Stigand, see Barlow, , op. cit., pp. 77-81, 90-93.Google Scholar

page 128 note 5 Ibid.., pp. 137 ff., 237, 245-46.

page 128 note 6 Ibid.., pp. 255 ff.

page 128 note 7 Ibid.,, pp. 285-86.

page 128 note 8 Ibid.., pp. 219-20, 239-42.

page 128 note 9 Ibid.., pp. 247-49.

page 128 note 10 Ibid.., p. 245.

page 129 note 1 Cf. Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm and his Biographer (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 244–45;Google ScholarKnowles, , op. cit., p. 94.Google Scholar

page 129 note 2 Southern, , op. cit., p. 244.Google Scholar

page 129 note 3 Knowles, , op. cit., p. 94.Google Scholar

page 129 note 4 Southern, R. W., ‘The Place of England in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance’, History, 65 (1960), pp. 202–03.Google Scholar

page 129 note 5 By Professor Zarnecki, , in a forthcoming paper in the Proceedings of the British Academy.Google Scholar