The Norman Conquest
William of Normandy defeats Harold II at Hastings and replaces almost the entire English ruling class with a French-speaking Norman elite.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
- The English and Their History — Robert Tombs, Allen Lane (2014)
On 14 October 1066 Duke William of Normandy defeated and killed King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, and was crowned King of England on Christmas Day. Within twenty years almost the entire English aristocracy and senior clergy had been replaced by Normans and other French-speakers.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
A year of three kings
When Edward the Confessor died childless in January 1066, the English magnates chose Harold Godwinson, the most powerful earl, as king. Two others claimed the throne. Harold defeated the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge near York in late September, then marched south to meet William, who had landed at Pevensey. At Hastings the English shield wall held for most of the day before breaking; Harold was killed, and the Bayeux Tapestry later told the Norman version of the story.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
Conquest
English resistance continued for years. William’s answer in the north, the “Harrying of the North” of 1069–70, laid waste to large areas of Yorkshire; the chronicler Orderic Vitalis claimed 100,000 people died, a figure historians treat as unverifiable but indicative of real devastation. Castles, first of earth and timber and then of stone, like the Tower of London, rose across the country. By the time of the great survey of land and wealth known as Domesday Book in 1086, only a handful of the major landholders were English.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
- The English and Their History — Robert Tombs, Allen Lane (2014)
Legacy
French became the language of the court, law and aristocracy for some three centuries, while English, spoken by the great majority, absorbed thousands of French words. That is why English has “cow” in the field and “beef” on the table. The Conquest bound England to the Continent: its kings ruled large parts of France for centuries, which led eventually to the Hundred Years’ War. Normans also pushed into Wales from the 1070s, beginning two centuries of conquest there.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
- The English and Their History — Robert Tombs, Allen Lane (2014)
- The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415 — R. R. Davies, Oxford University Press (1991)
The Conquest was a catastrophe for the English, who were dispossessed and ruled by foreign lords; from the seventeenth century radicals spoke of a "Norman Yoke" that had taken away ancient Anglo-Saxon liberties.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
- The Making of the English Working Class — E. P. Thompson, Victor Gollancz (1963)
Other historians stress that William took over and strengthened an already efficient English state, and that the Conquest tied England more closely into Europe, bringing new churches, castles and learning.
- The Norman Conquest — Marc Morris, Hutchinson (2012)
- The English and Their History — Robert Tombs, Allen Lane (2014)
Why it matters today
1066 is the one date every English schoolchild knows, and it is the last time England was successfully invaded. It explains why English is a hybrid of Germanic and French words, why the great castles and cathedrals look as they do, and why ideas of class in England were long tinged with the sense that the people at the top came from somewhere else.