The Norman Conquest
The English Throne Dispute in 1066
1042 Edward ‘the Confessor’ one of Aethelred’ sons came to
the throne.
a very pious king credited for the making of some miracles
constructed Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
Edward…
• was the son of a Norman princess
• Had spent many years in Normandy in his youth
• Had appointed many Normans in powerful positions
• 1066 King Edward died childless in 1066 with no clear successor to
the throne.
He named Earl Harold Godwinson (his brother in law) as the next king
Three men disputed the throne:
• Tosting (King Edward’s brother) exiled from England a
year before
• Hardrada ‘the ruthless’ (King Harold of Norway)
• Duke William of Normandy
Harold goes south to face the Normans
• 3 days later Harold heard William had landed at Pevensey in Sussex
• Travelled south
• He expected to take the Normans by surprise but he failed
• The battle lasted most of the day
• Harold was mortally wounded
• His men fled and the battle was over
September
1066
Harold’s army:
about 7,000
men (?)
William’s army:
about 10,000
men (?)
14th
October
1066
Late
September
1066
The Battle of Hastings
The Norman Conquest
William’s ruling
• Christmas 1066 William was crowned as William I
• English chief men swore allegiance to him
• WI laid severe taxes on people
• WI seized the lands of Harold’s supporters and gave them to his
followers
• WI built castles (Tower of London)
The Tower of London
Rebellion
• WI punished rebel towns and villages
The Harrying of the North
• Campaigns waged by WI in the winter of 1069–70 to subjugate northen England
• last Wessex claimant, Edgar Atheling, had encouraged Anglo-Danish rebellions.
• William paid the Danes to go home, but the remaining rebels refused to meet
him in battle, and he decided to starve them out by ruining their lands
• WI got rid of Saxon aristocracy and installed Norman aristocrats throughout the
region.
• savage campaign,
• the huge scale destruction
• widespread famine caused by looting, burning and slaughtering.
• Records from the Domesday Book show that 75% of the population died or
never returned.
The Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry
• 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall
• depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest
• thought to date to the 11th century, (within a few years after the
battle)
• tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans
• is now agreed to have been made in England (probably in Canterbury
around 1070)
Falconer (detail), Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1070,
embroidered wool on linen, (Bayeux Museum)
The Bayeux Tapestry
• consists of seventy-five scenes with Latin inscriptions (tituli)
• the textile's end is now missing, but it most probably showed the
coronation of William as King of England
• not a true tapestry as the images are not woven into the cloth;
• imagery and inscriptions are embroidered using wool yarn sewed
onto linen cloth.
Normans with horses on boats, crossing to England, in
preparation for battle (detail), Bayeux Tapestry, (Bayeux
Museum)
The Bayeux Tapestry
• viewed as a type of chronicle
• inclusion of episodes that do not relate to the historic events of the
Norman Conquest complicate this categorization.
• Neverthelss…
• presents a rich representation of a particular historic moment as well
as providing an important visual source for eleventh-century textiles
that have not survived into the twenty-first century.
The inscription reads, “Here, Odo the Bishop, with a staff
(baculum) encourages the young warriors, (Bayeux Museum)
The Bayeux Tapestry
• art historians believe the patron was Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.
• Odo was the half-brother of William, Duke of Normandy.
• the tapestry favorably depicts the Normans in the events leading up
to the battle of Hastings,
• Odo appears in several scenes in the tapestry with the inscription
ODO EPISCOPUS (abbreviated "EPS" in the image below), although he
is only mentioned briefly in textual sources.
The death of King Harold at the Battle of
Hastings (detail), (Bayeux Museum)
The Bayeux Tapestry
• the identity of the artists who produced the tapestry is unknown
• high quality of the needlework suggests that Anglo-Saxon
embroiderers produced the tapestry
• at the time, Anglo-Saxon needlework was prized throughout Europe.
• many of the scenes are believed to have been adapted from images
in manuscripts illuminated at Canterbury.
Wounded soldiers and horses (detail),
(Bayeux Museum)
A monumental artifact
The Bayeux Tapestry provides an excellent example of Anglo-Norman
art. It serves as a medieval artifact that operates as art, chronicle,
political propaganda, and visual evidence of eleventh-century mundane
objects, all at a monumental scale.
Dr. Kristine Tanton
The Bayeux Tapestry BBC
Norman Architecture
• A version of the European Romanesque style of the early Middle Ages
• Introduced into England 1066
• Used extensively for ecclesiastical and military purposes until the rise of Gothic
during the early 13th cent.
• It is characterized by:
• heavy masonry construction,
• modest window apertures,
• deeply recessed doorways,
• massive columns or piers,
• and the use of the round
• Restricted ornaments (repetitive, geometric mouldings)
• In comparison to practice on the continent, sculpture was very sparingly used.
Durham Cathedral (began in 1099)
Interior Durham Cathedral
Colchester Castle (begun 1971)
Chichester Cathedral (begun 1114)
Hedingham
Castle (1140)
The Domesday Book
• It is Britain’s earliest public record.
• It contains the results of a huge survey of land and landholding
commissioned by William I in 1085.
• It is by the far the most complete record of pre-industrial society to
survive anywhere in the world (there is nothing like this until 19th
century England)
• It provides a unique window on the medieval world.
• The survey was a massive enterprise, and the record of that survey,
Domesday Book, was a remarkable achievement.
Why is it called ‘Domesday’?
• The word ‘Domesday’ does not appear in the book itself.
• A book written about the Exchequer in c.1176 (the Dialogus de
Sacarrio) states that the book was called ‘Domesday’ as a metaphor
for ‘The Day of Judgement’
• For many centuries Domesday was regarded as the authoritative
register of ancient landholding and was used mainly for that purpose.
• It was called Domesday by 1180.
• In the medieval period Domesday was also known as the Winchester
Roll or King’s Roll, and sometimes as the Book of the Treasury.
As an Anglo-Saxon chronicler wrote:
‘not one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was there left out and not
put down in his record'.
Succession to the throne
• 1087 William died
succeeded
by
William Rufus Robert
(1087-1100)
King William II England Normandy
• 1100 William Rufus killed by an arrow
• 1100-1135 Henry (younger brother) took the throne of England
• Robert came from the Crusades and quarreled with his brother
• 1106 Henry conquered Normandy
• 1106-1134 Robert is kept in prison
• 1120 Henry’s son William is drowned in the White Ship
• 1135- 1154 Henry died and Stephen (Henry’s Nephew) is crowned
Sources:
BBC One. The Bayeux Tapestry - Seven Ages of Britain <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OPQ_28mdo>
(Retrieved March 8th 2019)
Hibbert, Christopher. The Story of England. London:Phaidon Press Limited,1992.
Morgan, Kenneth. (ed) The Oxford Popular History of Britain. Oxford: OUP, 1993.
[n/a]’The Norman Conquest’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE0RAgHr06U. (Retrieved 9th May 2020)
National Archives. ‘Domesday: Britain's finest treasure’ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/
(Retrieved 18th April 2019)
Tanton, Kristine. The Bayeux Tapestry https://
www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/medieval-europe-islami
c-world/a/bayeux-tapestry
