Expos about :

THE IMPACT AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST

By :

Zeribi Sara Ben Jeddou Inas Khouldia Sarra

Introduction :
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 over King Harold II of England. Harold's army was badly depleted in the English victory at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Northern England on 25 September 1066 over the army of King Harald III of Norway. By early 1071, William had secured control of most of England, although rebellions and resistance continued to approximately 1088. The Norman conquest was a pivotal event in English history. It largely removed the native ruling class, replacing it with a foreign, French-speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. This, in turn, brought about a transformation of the English language and the culture of England in a new era often referred to as Norman England. By bringing England under the control of rulers originating in France, the Norman conquest linked the country more closely with continental Europe, lessened Scandinavian influence, and also set the stage for a rivalry with France that would continue intermittently for many centuries. It also had important consequences for the rest of the British Isles, paving the way for further Norman conquests in Wales and Ireland, and the extensive penetration of the aristocracy of Scotland by Norman and other Frenchspeaking families, with the accompanying spread of continental institutions and cultural influences.

The Consequences of the Norman Conquest

Anglo-Saxon elites, the largest landholders in England, were replaced by Franco-Normans. Those Anglo-Saxons nobles who had survived the battles of 1066 had the chance to serve William and retain power and land, but many rebelled over contentious issues, and soon William had turned away from compromise to importing loyal men from the continent. By Williams death, the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was all but replaced. In the Domesday book of 1086, there are only four large English landowners. However, there may only have been around 25,000 Franco-Normans out of a population of two million when William died. Much of the upper reaches of church government was replaced. By 1087, eleven of fifteen bishops were Norman, and only one of the other four was English. The church had power over people and land, and now William had power over them. Castles: Anglo-Saxons did not, in general, build castles, and the Normans started a huge building programme in order to help secure their power. The most common early type was wooden, but stone followed. The importance of receiving land from a lord in return for loyalty and service grew enormously under the Normans, who created a system of land tenure unmatched in Europe. Quite how homogenous this system was (probably not very), and whether it can be called feudal (probably not) are still being discussed. Before the conquest, Anglo-Saxons owed an amount of service based on regularised units of land holding; afterwards, they owed service based entirely on the settlement they had achieved with their overlord, or the king.

The idea that a person held two types of land his patrimony / family land which he had inherited, and his extended lands which he had conquered and the idea that these lands could go to different heirs, came into England with the Normans. Familial relationships, of heirs to parents, changed as a result. The links between Scandinavia and England were deeply severed. Instead, England was bought closer to events in France and this region of the continent, leading to the Angevin Empire and then the Hundred Years War. Increased use of writing in government. While the Anglo-Saxons had written some things down, Anglo-Norman government vastly increased it. After 1070, Latin replaced English as the language of government. The power of the earls was reduced after Anglo-Saxon rebellions. Earls now held less land, with correspondingly reduced wealth and influence. Royal forests, with their own laws, were created. Higher taxes: most monarchs are criticised for heavy taxes, and William I was no exception. But he had to raise funds for the occupation and pacification of England. A new court, known as the Lords, honourial or seigniorial, was created. They were held, as the name suggests, by lords for their tenants, and have been called a key part of the feudal system. Murdrum fines: if a Norman was killed, and the killer not identified, the entire English community could be fined. That this law was needed perhaps reflects on the problems faced by the Norman raiders. Trial by battle was introduced. There was a large decline in the numbers of free peasants, who were lower class workers who could quit their land in search of new landlords. Far more English land was given to continental monasteries, to hold as alien priories, then before the Norman Conquest. Indeed, more monasteries were founded in England. Continental architecture was imported en mass. Every major AngloSaxon cathedral or abbey, apart from Westminster, was rebuilt bigger and more fashionably. Parish churches were also widely rebuild in stone. The major change on society was the elimination of slavery in England, which had disappeared by the middle of the 12th century.

Women had some rights before the Norman Conquest that they had lost by about 1100. They may have lost the right to consent to marriage, for example, and widows the right to remarry.

More Impacts :
English emigration Following the conquest large numbers of Anglo-Saxons, including groups of nobles, fled the [Link] went to Scotland, Ireland, or Scandinavia. Members of King Harold Godwinson's family sought refuge in Ireland and used their bases in that country for unsuccessful invasions of [Link] largest single exodus occurred in the 1070s, when a group of Anglo-Saxons in a fleet of 235 ships sailed for the Byzantine Empire. The empire became a popular destination for many English nobles and soldiers, as it would have been known that the Byzantines were in need of mercenaries. The English became the predominant element in the elite Varangian Guard, hitherto a largely Scandinavian unit, from which the emperor's bodyguard was drawn. Some of the English migrants were settled in Byzantine frontier regions on the Black Sea coast, and established towns with names such as New London and New York. Immigration and intermarriage An estimated 8000 Normans and other continental persons settled in England as a result of the Conquest, although exact figures cannot be established. Some of these new residents intermarried with the native English, but the extent of this practice in the years immediately after Hastings is unclear. A number of marriages are attested between Norman men and English women during the years before 1100, but such marriages were uncommon. Most Normans continued to contract marriages with other Normans or other continental families rather than with the English. Within a century of the invasion, intermarriage between the native English and the Norman immigrants had become common. By the early 1160s, Ailred of Rievaulx was writing that intermarriage was common among all levels of society.

Legacy Debate over the conquest started almost as soon as the event itself. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, when discussing the death of William the Conqueror, denounced him and the conquest in verse form, but the king's obituary notice from William of Poitiers, a Frenchman, was laudatory and full of praise. Historians since then have argued over the facts of the matter and how to interpret them, with little agreement. Modern historians in the 20th and 21st centuries have focused less on the rightness or wrongness of the conquest itself, instead concentrating on the actual effects of the invasion. Some, such as Richard Southern, have seen the conquest as a critical turning point in history. Southern stated that "no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian kingdoms and the 20th century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time as England experienced after 1066." Other historians, such as H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, consider that the transformation was less radical. The debate over the impact of the conquest depends on what metrics are used to measure change after 1066. If Anglo-Saxon England was already evolving before the invasion, with the introduction of feudalism, castles or other changes in society, then the conquest, while important, did not represent radical reform. However the change was dramatic if measured by the elimination of the English nobility or the loss of Old English as a literary language. Nationalistic arguments have been made on both sides of the debate, with the Normans cast as either the persecutors of the English or the rescuers of the country from a decadent Anglo-Saxon nobility. In more general terms, one writer has called the conquest "the last echo of the national migrations that characterized the early Middle Ages".

Governmental systems Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon governmental systems were more sophisticated than their counterparts in Normandy. All of England was divided into administrative units called shires with subdivisions, the royal court was the centre of government and royal courts existed to secure the rights of free men. Shires were run by officials known as "shire reeve" or "sheriff". Most medieval governments were always on the move, holding court wherever the weather and food or other matters were best at the moment. England,

however, had a permanent treasury at Winchester before William's conquest. One major reason for the strength of the English monarchy was the wealth of the kingdom, built on the English system of taxation that included a land tax, or the geld. English coinage was also superior to most of the other currency in use in northwestern Europe, and the ability to mint coins was a royal monopoly. The English kings had also developed the system of issuing writs to their officials, in addition to the normal medieval practice of issuing charters. Writs were either instructions to an official or group of officials, or notifications of royal actions such as appointments to office or of a grant of some sort. This sophisticated medieval form of government was handed over to the Normans and was the foundation of further developments. They kept the framework of government but made changes in the personnel, although at first the new king attempted to keep some natives in office. By the end of William's reign however, most of the officials of government and the royal household were Normans, not English. The language of official documents also changed, from Old English to Latin. One innovation was the introduction of the forest laws and the setting aside of large sections of England as royal forest subject to the newly introduced forest law. The Domesday survey was an administrative survey of the landholdings of the kingdom, and was unique to medieval Europe. This document was divided into sections based on the shires, and listed all the landholdings of each tenant-in-chief of the king as well as who had held the land before the conquest.

Conclusion :
1066 is probably the most remembered date in English history, recognized by people who know virtually nothing else about Britain or history. But some have questioned whether it should be regarded as such significant and revolutionary event or it was the greatest defeat in the Anglo-Saxons history. It is true that some evidence suggests that feudal relations were already developing in England before; however it was only after the conquest, and in particular during 12th century, that the full system of feudal obligations developed.