Family ties with the English monarchs made it possible to declare their claims to the throne to other applicants: Edward Ætheling, grandson of Knut the Great, who lived in Hungary; King of Norway Harald the Severe (1046-1066); the Danish king Svein Estridsson, who was the great-nephew of Emma of Normandy, mother of Edward the Confessor; as well as Duke William of Normandy.
The King of Norway, Harald Hardrada, was the first to land in England in September 1066 (see paragraph 7.2 for details). His ships approached York. At this time, Harold's troops were in the south, where an invasion by William's Norman army was expected. The troops of the English king had to move north in a hasty march (Fig. 8.13).
Rice. 8.13.
Enemies met in the Stamford Bridge area on September 25, 1066. The Anglo-Saxons attacked a detachment of Norman warriors, who barely got ashore and did not have time to prepare for battle. Despite the fact that later the bulk of the army arrived to help them, the Normans were defeated in their last campaign against England. Harald Hardrada was killed. The Scandinavians loaded the wounded onto ships and set sail for their homeland, but three days later the troops of the Duke of Normandy William the Illegitimate landed in the south.
The circumstances of the preparation and events of Duke William's campaign in England are reflected in various written sources, the vast majority of which express the Norman point of view. They tell that Edward the Confessor bequeathed the crown to William, and Earl Harold violated the will of the king: he swore to transfer the throne to the duke, but he seized it himself (Fig. 8.14).
Rice. 8.14. Carpet from Bayeux. Fragment. The inscription above the plot: "Harold swears to Duke William." 1070s
reference
The most important and extremely informative source on knightly life and the history of the Norman Conquest is the so-called Carpet from Bayeux. This is a narrow (about 50 cm), but very long (more than 68 m) tapestry, on which the events of William the Conqueror's campaign against England are embroidered with dyed woolen threads. Presumably the tapestry was made in the 1070s. commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, Wilhelm's mother's brother (for a long time the carpet was known as the "Tapestry of Queen Matilda", Wilhelm's wife). Scenes depicting the events of the conquest are provided with inscriptions. The story line is intended not only to preserve the memory of William's heroic campaign, but also to justify the duke, who, according to the creators of the carpet, was forced to undertake a military expedition to punish the perjurer Harold. In the Middle Ages, the carpet was hung in the Norman church of Bayeux on the day of the Battle of Hastings.
The campaign, the purpose of which was proclaimed the punishment of the perjurer and the restoration of justice, was supported by Pope Alexander II, who was concerned that the Canterbury episcopal see, traditionally the most important in England, was handed over by King Harold to his protege without the approval of Rome. Although the custom did not allow the dukes of Normandy to demand service overseas from vassals, many Norman lords who hoped to seize wealth, land and peasants in England went on a completely voluntary campaign. Knights also arrived from other lands of Western Europe.
By the end of the summer, a huge army (approximately 7 thousand) gathered on the coast of the English Channel. It was based on heavily armed knightly cavalry (more than one and a half thousand), accompanied by archers and infantry. The duke collected a large number of ships and built new ones. The fleet went to sea on September 27 (Fig. 8.15).
Rice. 8.15.
When the Normans reached the coast of England, Harold's army was still in the north, so the conquerors were not rebuffed. Tired and depleted, the Anglo-Saxon troops were forced to rush back (the entire transition took about 10 days). The units of the northerners did not support Harold and remained at home. Harold's army included warriors armed with swords and great battle axes (huskerls and thegns), most of whom fought on foot. In an attempt to make up for losses and get at least some replacement for the troops of the north, Harold gathered a militia (fird). The weapons of these warriors were mainly clubs and pitchforks.
The armies of the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans met near the town of Hastings on November 14, 1066. Despite the fact that Harold's soldiers took an advantageous position on the top of the hill, fortified it with a palisade and closed their shields, the Normans managed, using the tactics of a false retreat, to break through the defenses of the Anglo-Saxons several times, and then lure them out and break them (Fig. 8.16).
Rice. 8.16. Carpet from Bayeux. Fragment. The inscription above the plot: "... the British and Franks are dying ..."
King Harold was killed, the retreat began, and then the flight of the Anglo-Saxons. After the victory, William went to London with an army, where on December 25 he was crowned as King of England. The conquest of the country continued until 1070, when the Normans reached the lands of Scotland, but the conquest of England took another 11 years.
The Anglo-Saxons raised uprisings more than once. However, these speeches were not successful due to the disunity and desire of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy to rely on external forces (Denmark, Scotland, Wales), who considered their expeditions as an excuse to plunder the country. To establish firm control over the Anglo-Saxons, from the very beginning of the invasion, the Normans erected numerous fortifications in the countryside, in cities and along important roads, locks(by 1087, about 70 of them were built), where the royal garrisons were located (Fig. 8.17).
Rice. 8.17.
Height reaches 30 m. Erected by order of William the Conqueror. The tops of the towers are later
The Normans responded to any attempt at disobedience with brutal punitive expeditions. By 1070, after the suppression of two uprisings that broke out in the North of England, these territories were completely devastated. Yorkshire was particularly affected, much of which was depopulated.
- The future William the Conqueror received such a nickname because his mother was the daughter of the tanner Gerlev, who was not married to the Duke of Normandy, Robert II.
- The earliest monuments are the Acts of the Dukes of Normandy by William of Jumièges (1070) and the Acts of William, Duke of the Normans and King of the Angles by Guillaume of Poitiers (1074).
The Norman conquest of England - the invasion of England in 1066 by the army of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and the subsequent subjugation of the country.
The conquest of England began with the victory of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, after which Duke William became King of England. The conquest finally ended with the subordination of the local feudal nobility to the new king by 1070-1075. As a result of the conquest, the classical forms of feudalism and the military system were transferred to England, and a centralized state with strong royal power was created. The country's orientation towards continental Europe and its involvement in European politics has sharply increased, while traditional ties with Scandinavia have weakened. The conquest also had a significant impact on the development of English culture and language. As a result of the adaptation of northern French state and social institutions to the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, the system of the Anglo-Norman monarchy was formed, which lasted until the middle of the 12th century, which formed the basis of the medieval English state.
At the end of the 10th century, England faced a massive wave of Scandinavian Viking raids on its territory. The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred II, wanting to secure support in the fight against the Vikings, in 1002 married Emma, the sister of the Duke of Normandy Richard II. However, Ethelred II did not receive help from the Normans, and in 1013 he was forced to flee with his family to Normandy.
By 1016, all of England was conquered by the Vikings, and Canute the Great became king, uniting England, Denmark and Norway under his rule. The sons of Ethelred II and Emma spent almost 30 years in exile, at the court of the Duke of Normandy. Only in 1042 did Edward the Confessor, the eldest son of Ethelred, manage to regain the throne of England. Brought up in Normandy, Edward throughout most of his reign tried to align himself with the Normans against the powerful Anglo-Danish nobility who dominated the country's state system. In 1051, taking advantage of Earl Godwin's exile, the childless Edward proclaimed the young Norman Duke William as his heir. However, in 1052 Godwin returned to England and reasserted his control over the country's system of government. The Norman nobility was expelled from the country, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert of Jumièges. His see was given to Godwin's supporter, Stigand[sn 1]. In the late 50s of the XI century, the Godwinson family owned the largest counties of England, which included a large territory of the kingdom. When Edward the Confessor died in early January 1066, the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot elected Godwin's son, Harold II, the leader of the national party, as king.
Harold's election was challenged by William of Normandy. Based on the will of King Edward, as well as on the oath of allegiance to Harold, probably taken during his trip to Normandy in 1064/1065, and appealing to the need to protect the English church from usurpation and tyranny, William put forward his claims to the crown of England and began preparation for an armed invasion. At the same time, Harald the Severe, King of Norway, claimed the English throne, whose predecessor in 1038 concluded an agreement with the son of Canute the Great on the mutual succession of kingdoms in the event of the childlessness of one of the monarchs. The Norwegian king, having entered into an alliance with the brother of Harold II, exiled from England, Tostig Godwinson, also began to prepare for the conquest of England.
In early 1066, William began preparations for an invasion of England. Although he received approval for this enterprise from the assembly of the barons of his duchy, however, the forces allocated by them were clearly not enough for such a large-scale and prolonged military operation outside Normandy. William's reputation ensured an influx of knights from Flanders, Aquitaine, Brittany, Maine, and the Norman principalities of southern Italy into his army. As a result, the Norman contingent proper amounted to less than half of the troops. William also won the support of the emperor and, more importantly, of Pope Alexander II, who hoped to strengthen the position of the papacy in England and remove the apostate archbishop Stigand. The pope not only supported the claims of the Duke of Normandy to the English throne, but also, having presented his consecrated banner, blessed the participants in the invasion. This allowed Wilhelm to give his event the character of a "holy war". Preparations were completed by August 1066, but the head north wind for a long time did not allow the crossing of the English Channel to begin. On September 12, Wilhelm moved his army from the mouth of the Dives River to the mouth of the Somme, to the town of Saint-Valery, where the width of the strait was much smaller. The total number of the Norman army, according to modern researchers, numbered 7-8 thousand people, for the transport of which a fleet of 600 ships was prepared.
The English king was also preparing to repel the Norman invasion. He convened a national militia from the south-eastern regions of England and deployed troops along the south coast. A new fleet was formed at a rapid pace, headed by the king. In May, Harold managed to repel the raid of his rebellious brother Tostig on the eastern regions of the country. However, in September the Anglo-Saxon system of naval defense collapsed: food shortages forced the king to disband the militia and navy. In mid-September, the army of the Norwegian king Harald the Severe landed in northeast England. Joining with Tostig's supporters, the Norwegians defeated the militia of the northern counties at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September and subjugated Yorkshire. The king of England was forced to leave his position on the south coast and move rapidly north. Having united his army with the remnants of the militia, on September 25, in the battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold utterly defeated the Vikings, Harald the Severe and Tostig were killed, and the remnants of the Norwegian army sailed to Scandinavia. However, the significant losses suffered by the British at the battles of Fulford and Stamford Bridge, especially among the royal housecarls, undermined the combat effectiveness of Harold's army.
Two days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, the direction of the winds in the English Channel changed. The loading of the Norman army onto ships immediately began, and late in the evening of September 27, William's fleet sailed from Saint-Valery. The crossing took all night, and there was a moment when the duke's ship, strongly separated from the main forces, was left alone, but there were no English ships in the strait, and the transportation of the army was successfully completed on the morning of September 28 in the bay near the city of Pevensey. The Norman army did not remain in Pevensey, surrounded by marshes, but moved to Hastings, a more convenient port from a strategic point of view. Here William built a castle and began to wait for the approach of the English troops, sending small detachments deep into Wessex to conduct reconnaissance and obtain food and fodder.
Having learned in York about the landing of the Normans, Harold II sent orders around the country to call up new militias and, without waiting for reinforcements, quickly marched south. The speed of his advance was so great that it prevented additional contingents recruited from the counties from joining the royal army. Moreover, part of the army, mainly light infantry and archers, lagged behind the main forces. In ten days Harold covered the distance from York to London, and without wasting time set out to meet the Norman army. The king's advisers, including his brother Girt, suggested waiting for the full collection of troops and only then attacking the enemy. Historians consider this his main strategic mistake: since Wilhelm was in hostile territory, cut off from his bases by the English Channel, time played into the hands of the British. Apparently, Harold sought to avoid the ruin of his personal possessions. The Anglo-Saxon troops numbered about 7,000 people, mostly participants in the Battle of Stamford Bridge and a militia from the outskirts of London. Despite the speed of the movement of the British, the effect of surprise was missed. Upon learning of Harold's approach, on October 14, 1066, the Norman troops attacked the Anglo-Saxon army.
At the battle of Hastings, despite heroic resistance, the English troops were defeated. The battle lasted a very long time - more than ten hours, which was quite rare for the Middle Ages. The victory of the Normans was due to the better combat capability of the soldiers, as well as the massive use of archers and heavy cavalry. King Harold and his two brothers were killed, and several thousand selected English warriors were left lying on the battlefield. There was no leader left in the country capable of organizing resistance to the Normans. The Battle of Hastings was a turning point in English history.
After the battle of Hastings, England was open to the conquerors. During October - November 1066 Kent and Sussex were captured by the Norman army. Queen Edith, the widow of Edward the Confessor and sister of Harold II, recognized William's claims, giving him control of the ancient capital of the Anglo-Saxon rulers - Winchester. London remained the main center of resistance, where Edgar Ætheling, the last representative of the ancient Wessex dynasty, was proclaimed the new king. But William's troops surrounded London, devastating its environs. The leaders of the national party - Archbishop Stigand, Earls Edwin and Morcar, young Edgar Ætheling himself - were forced to submit. At Wallingford and Berkhamsted they took an oath of allegiance to William and recognized him as King of England. Moreover, they insisted on the immediate coronation of the duke. Soon Norman troops entered London. On December 25, 1066, William was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
Although the coronation of William I took place in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which was supposed to convince the population of the legitimacy of the rights of the new king to the English throne, the power of the Normans relied at first exclusively on military force. Already in 1067, the construction of the Tower of London began, and then Norman castles grew throughout southern and central England. The lands of the Anglo-Saxons who participated in the Battle of Hastings were confiscated and distributed to the soldiers of the invading army. By the end of March 1067, the position of William the Conqueror had somewhat strengthened, and he was able to make a long trip to Normandy. He was accompanied by the leaders of the Anglo-Saxon party - Prince Edgar, Archbishop Stigand, Earls Morcar, Edwin and Waltheof, as well as hostages from other noble families. During the absence of the king, the government of England was carried out by his closest associates: the Earl of Hereford, William Fitz-Osbern, and William's half-brother, Bishop Odo.
The situation in England was quite tense. The Norman administration controlled only the southeastern regions of the country. The rest of the kingdom was ruled only thanks to the great Anglo-Saxon magnates who expressed their loyalty to William. Immediately after his departure, a wave of riots swept, especially large - in southwestern England. The sons of Harold Godwinson, having found shelter in Ireland, began to gather their supporters. Opponents of the new government sought support at the courts of the rulers of Scandinavia, Scotland and Flanders. The situation demanded the speedy return of William to England. At the end of 1067, after spending the summer and autumn in Normandy, he returned to the conquered kingdom. The southwest of England was pacified, then an attempt by the sons of Harold to land at Bristol was repulsed. In the summer of 1068, William's wife Matilda was crowned Queen of England.
The main principle of organizing the control system of conquered England was the desire of King William to look like the legitimate successor to Edward the Confessor. The constitutional basis of the Anglo-Saxon state was completely preserved: the Witenagemot was transformed into the Great Royal Council, the prerogatives of the Anglo-Saxon kings were transferred in full to the Anglo-Norman monarchs (including the right to tax and single-handedly issue laws), the system of counties headed by royal sheriffs was preserved. The scope of landowners' rights was determined as of the time of King Edward. The very concept of the monarchy was of an Anglo-Saxon nature and contrasted sharply with the state of royal power in modern France, where the sovereign fought desperately for his recognition by the largest barons of the state. The principle of succession to the Anglo-Saxon period was especially clearly manifested in the first years after the conquest (until the uprising in Northern England in 1069), when a significant part of the Anglo-Saxon magnates retained their positions at the court and influence in the regions.
However, despite the appearance of a return to the "good times" of King Edward (after the usurpation of Harold), the power of the Normans in England relied mainly on military force. Already in December 1066, the redistribution of land began in favor of the Norman knights, which, after the "Devastation of the North" 1069-1070. has become universal. By the 1080s, the Anglo-Saxon nobility was completely destroyed as a social stratum (with a few exceptions) and replaced by northern French chivalry. A small group of the most noble Norman families - William's closest associates - received more than half of all land allotments, and the king himself took possession of about a fifth of the lands of England. The nature of land holdings has completely changed, which has acquired classical feudal features: land was now granted to barons under the condition of setting up a certain number of knights, if necessary, to the king. The whole country was covered with a network of royal or baronial castles, which became military bases providing control over the district, and the residences of barons or officials of the king. A number of areas of England (Herefordshire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Kent, Sussex) were organized as militarized territories responsible for the defense of the borders. Of particular importance in this regard were the Cheshire and Shropshire stamps created by Hugues d'Avranches and Roger de Montgomery on the border with Wales.
In social terms, the Norman Conquest led to the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon military service nobility (then) and the formation of a new dominant layer of feudal chivalry, built on the principles of vassal-feudal relations and having judicial and administrative power over the peasant population. The semi-independent earls of the Anglo-Saxon era were replaced by the Norman barons, highly dependent on the king and obliged to him for their possessions by knighthood (by posting a certain number of armed knights). The higher clergy were also included in the feudal system. The process of enslavement of the peasantry, which began back in the Anglo-Saxon period, accelerated sharply and led to the dominance of feudal-dependent categories of the peasantry in medieval England, which led to even greater enslavement. At the same time, it should be noted the almost complete disappearance of slavery in England.
The most important consequence of the Norman conquest in the social sphere was the introduction in England of classical feudal relations and a system of vassalage following the French model. The genesis of feudalism in England began in the 9th-10th centuries, however, the emergence of a social system based on land holding, which is determined by the holder's performance of strictly defined military duties, whose volume depended not on the size of the plot, but on an agreement with the overlord, is an unconditional innovation of the Norman conquest . The pronounced military character of the landed holdings was also one of the main consequences of the Norman Conquest. In general, the social structure of society has become more strict, rigid and hierarchical.
In organizational terms, the Norman Conquest led to a sharp strengthening of royal power and the formation of one of the most stable and centralized monarchies in Europe during the High Middle Ages. The power of royal power is clearly evidenced by the conduct of a general census of land holdings, the results of which were included in the Book of the Last Judgment, an enterprise unprecedented and absolutely impossible in other modern European states. The new state system, although based on the Anglo-Saxon traditions of government, quickly acquired a high degree of specialization and the formation of functional government bodies, such as the Chamber of the Chessboard, the Treasury, the Chancellery and others.
Culturally, the Norman Conquest introduced a feudal culture of chivalry into England based on its French patterns. Old English was ousted from the sphere of government, and the Norman dialect of French became the language of administration and communication of the dominant social strata. For about three hundred years, the Anglo-Norman dialect dominated the country and had a great influence on the formation of modern English.
Politically, the self-isolation of the country, which was in the Anglo-Saxon era, was over. England turned out to be closely included in the system of international relations of Western Europe and began to play one of the most important roles on the European political scene. Moreover, William the Conqueror, who linked the Kingdom of England with the Duchy of Normandy by personal union, became a powerful ruler of Northwestern Europe, completely changing the balance of power in this region. At the same time, the fact that Normandy was a vassal of the King of France, and many of the new English barons and knights owned lands across the English Channel, dramatically complicated Anglo-French relations. As dukes of Normandy, the Anglo-Norman monarchs recognized the suzerainty of the king of France, and as kings of England they had an equal social status with him. In the XII century, with the creation of the Angevin Empire of the Plantagenets, the English king owned almost half of the territory of France, while remaining legally a vassal of the French monarch. This duality became one of the reasons for the long Anglo-French confrontation, which was one of the central moments of the European politics of the Middle Ages and culminated in the course of the Hundred Years War.
The Norman conquest of England is the process of establishing a Norman state on the territory of England and the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which began with the invasion of the Norman Duke William in 1066 and ended in 1072 with the complete subjugation of England.
Background of the Norman invasion of England
It is known that England suffered greatly from the constant invasions of the Vikings. The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred was looking for someone who would help him fight against the Vikings, he saw such an ally in the Normans, and in order to conclude an alliance with them, he married the sister of the Duke of Normandy, Emma. But he did not receive the promised help, which is why he left the country and took refuge in Normandy in 1013.Three years later, all of England was conquered by the Vikings, and Canute the Great became their king. He united under his rule all of England, Norway and Denmark. Meanwhile, the sons of Æthelred were thirty years in exile at the court of the Normans.
In 1042, one of Ethelred's sons, Edward, regained the English throne. Edward himself was childless and there was no direct heir to the throne, then he proclaimed the Norman Duke William as his heir. In 1052, power returned to the hands of the Anglo-Saxons. In 1066, Edward dies, which means that William should become his heir, but the Anglo-Saxons, for their part, appoint Harold II as king.
Duke William, of course, challenged this election and presented his claims to the throne of England. This was the beginning of the Norman conquest of England.
Side forces
Anglo-SaxonsTheir army was quite large, perhaps the largest army in all of Western Europe, but its problem was that it was poorly organized. Harold didn't even have a fleet at his disposal.
The core of Harold's army were the elite warriors of the Huscarls, their number grew to three thousand. In addition to them, there were a huge number of thegns (serving to know) and even more number of firds (militia).
The big problem of the Anglo-Saxons was the almost complete absence of archers and cavalry, which later played, perhaps, a key role in their defeat.
Normandy
The backbone of Wilhelm's army was heavily armed and well-trained mounted knights. Also in the army there was a considerable number of archers. More than half of William's army are mercenaries, there were not so many Normans themselves.
In addition, it should be noted that Wilhelm himself was a brilliant tactician and had great knowledge in the art of war, and was also famous in the ranks of his army as a brave knight.
The total number of soldiers, according to historians, did not exceed 7-8 thousand. Harold's army was much larger, at least 20 thousand soldiers.
Norman invasion
The official start of the Norman invasion of England is the Battle of Hastings, which was also a key moment in this campaign.
On October 14, 1066, the two armies clashed at Hastings. Harold had a larger army at his disposal than William. But a brilliant tactical talent, Harold's mistakes, the attacks of the Norman cavalry and the death of Harold himself in battle enabled William to win a brilliant victory.
After the battle, it became clear that there was no person left in the country who was to lead the country in the fight against Wilhelm, since everyone who could do this remained lying on the battlefield of Hastings.
In the same year, we will catch a few Anglo-Saxon resistance, which means that on December 25, William was the first to be proclaimed king of England, the coronation took place in Westminster Abbey. At first, the power of the Normans in England was strengthened only by military force, the people did not yet recognize the new king. In 1067, his position in the country became stronger, which allowed him to make a short trip to his native Normandy.
Until now, only the southeastern lands of the country were under the complete control of William, the rest of the lands rebelled when he left for Normandy. A particularly large performance occurred in the southwestern lands. In 1068, another uprising began - in the north of the country. Wilhelm had to act quickly and decisively, which he did. By quickly taking York and building a number of castles in the north of England, he managed to stop the rebellion.
In 1069, another uprising began, this time the nobles were supported by the villagers. The rebels recaptured York, but William and his army brutally cracked down on the rebels and recaptured York.
In the autumn of the same year, the Danish army landed on the coast of England and declared their claims to the throne. At the same time, uprisings of the last major Anglo-Saxon nobles broke out throughout northern and central England. This uprising was supported by France. Thus, Wilhelm found himself in a difficult situation, surrounded by three enemies. But Wilhelm had a very powerful cavalry army and already at the end of the same year he again returned Northern England under his control, and the Danish army returned to the ships.
In order not to repeat the possibility of uprisings, William ravaged the north of England. His troops burned villages, crops and the inhabitants were forced to leave Northern England. After that, all the nobility submitted to him.
After William bought the Danes in 1070, the resistance of the Anglo-Saxons was under great threat. Wilhelm destroyed the last forces of the rebels on the island of Ili. He surrounded them and starved them out.
It was the fall of the last Anglo-Saxon nobles that brought the Norman conquest of England to an end. After that, the Anglo-Saxons no longer had a single aristocrat who could lead them to fight.
Consequences
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were destroyed, and power passed to the Normans. Wilhelm founded a powerful country with a strong centralized power of the king - England. Very soon, his newly created state will become the strongest in Europe for a long time, with the military strength of which, it was foolish to ignore. And the whole world knew that the English cavalry was now the decisive force on the battlefield.Sister of the Duke of Normandy Richard II. However, Ethelred II did not receive help from the Normans, and in the city he was forced to flee with his family to Normandy.
The main striking force of the Norman army was the knightly cavalry. A well-developed military system and a feudal hierarchy provided the duke with a fairly significant, well-trained and armed military force. In Normandy there was a huge mass of petty knights, over whom the dukes had no effective control before William, and whose militancy found an outlet in campaigns in Italy, where the Norman county of Aversa and the duchy of Apulia had already formed. Wilhelm was able to gather and recruit these knights into his service. Unlike Harold, Wilhelm was well acquainted with all aspects of modern military art. He enjoyed an excellent reputation as a knight and military leader, which attracted the manpower from all of northern France to his army.
The Normans had extensive experience in military operations with small detachments of cavalry from fortress castles, which were quickly erected in the occupied territory. Wars with the kings of France and the counts of Anjou allowed the Normans to improve their tactics against large enemy formations. William's army consisted of a feudal militia of Norman barons and knights, cavalry and infantry contingents from Brittany, Picardy and other northern French regions, as well as mercenary troops. The duke managed to maintain strict discipline in his army, which made it possible to combine heterogeneous military units into a single combat organism. If before the city of William was busy with internal problems and defending the borders from the French and Angevin threats, then after 1060, thanks to the infancy of the new king of France and civil strife in Anjou, the security of Normandy was ensured for some time, which opened up opportunities for external expansion.
Preparing for an invasion
Norwegian invasion of England in 1066
The dotted line indicates the boundaries of the possessions of the house of Godwin
Early in 1066, William began preparations for an invasion of England. He received approval for this undertaking from the assembly of the barons of his duchy. William's reputation ensured an influx of knights from Flanders, Aquitaine, Brittany, Maine and the Norman principalities of Southern Italy into his army. William also won the support of the emperor and, more importantly, of Pope Alexander II, who hoped to strengthen the position of the papacy in England and remove Archbishop Stigand. The total strength of the Norman army grew to 7,000 men, for whom a fleet of 600 ships was prepared. Preparations were completed by August 1066, however, a head north wind for a long time did not allow the crossing of the English Channel to begin. On September 12, Wilhelm relocated his army from the mouth of the Dives River to the mouth of the Somme, to the town of Saint-Valery, where the width of the strait was significantly less.
Preparations to repel the Norman invasion were also led by King Harold. He called together a national militia from all parts of England and deployed troops along the south coast. A new fleet was formed at a rapid pace, headed by the king. In May, Harold managed to repulse Tostig's attack on the eastern regions of the country. However, in September the Anglo-Saxon system of naval defense collapsed: food shortages forced the king to disband the fleet. In mid-September, a huge army of the Norwegian king Harald the Severe landed in northeast England. After defeating the militia of the northern counties at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September, the Norwegians subjugated Yorkshire. King Harold was forced to abandon his position on the south coast and move rapidly north. On September 25, in the battle of Stamford Bridge, the English troops utterly defeated the Norwegian Vikings, Harald the Severe was killed, and the remnants of his army sailed to Scandinavia.
conquest
Battle of Hastings
William the Conqueror and Harold during the Battle of Hastings
Two days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, the direction of the winds in the English Channel changed. The loading of the Norman army onto ships immediately began, and late in the evening of September 27, William's fleet sailed from Saint-Valery. The crossing took all night and there was a moment when the duke's ship, having strongly separated from the main forces, was left alone, but there were no English ships in the strait and the army was transported safely on the morning of September 28 in the bay near the city of Pevensey. The Norman army did not stay in Pevensey, surrounded by marshes, but moved to Hastings, a more convenient port from a strategic point of view. Here William built a castle and began to wait for the approach of the English troops.
Subjugation of Northern England
Norman conquest of England in 1066
and the Anglo-Saxon uprisings of 1067-1070.
Land ownership and social structure
Model of an Anglo-Norman castle
The specifics of the distribution of land holdings in England after the conquest was that almost all new barons received land in separate plots scattered throughout the country, which, with rare exceptions, did not form compact territories. Although it is probably impossible to argue that the fragmentation of land holdings granted to the feud was a deliberate policy of King William, this feature of the organization of land ownership in Norman England did not allow the emergence of feudal principalities like French or German ones, which played a huge role in the subsequent history of the country and ensured the preponderance of the king. over the barons.
The conquest created a new ruling class, the knights and barons of Norman origin. The new nobility owed their position to the king and performed a whole range of duties in relation to the monarch. The main of these duties was military service, participation three times a year in the Great Royal Council, as well as the replacement of various positions in the public administration system (primarily sheriffs). After the conquest and destruction of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of vast earls, the role of sheriffs increased dramatically: they turned into a key element of the royal administration on the ground, and in terms of their possessions and social status they were not inferior to the Anglo-Norman earls.
Central administration, fiscal and judicial systems
With regard to the organization of the central administration of the conquered country, King William, in general, followed the Anglo-Saxon traditions. Although at his court there were positions of steward, butler, chamberlain, borrowed from the French administration, they had mainly honorary functions. An important innovation was the establishment of the post of chancellor in the city, responsible for organizing the king's office work. The Grand Royal Council, in which all the barons of the country took part, was the successor to the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot. In the early Norman period, it began to meet regularly (three times a year), but lost much of its influence on the development of political decisions, giving way to the royal curia (lat. Curia regis). The last institute was a collection of barons and officials closest to the king, helping the monarch with advice on the current problems of the state. The Curia became the centerpiece of the royal administration, although its meetings were often informal.
The basic foundations of the fiscal system did not change after the Norman Conquest. The financing of the royal administration continued to be based on income from domain lands (William the Conqueror retained about a seventh of all land holdings in England, the annual income of which was more than 11 thousand pounds sterling), payments from cities and income from legal proceedings. These sources were joined by receipts of a feudal nature (relief, guardianship, formarage). The practice of imposing a general tax on the population (“Danish money”) was continued, and the consent of the population to levy this tax was not required. The principles of distribution of taxes by counties, hundreds and guides have also been preserved from Anglo-Saxon times. To bring the traditional taxation rates in line with the current state of the economy and the new system of land holdings in the city, a general land assessment was carried out, the results of which were presented in the Doomsday Book.
After the Norman Conquest, which was accompanied by massive abuses and illegal seizures of land, the importance of legal proceedings increased sharply, which became an instrument of royal power in streamlining land and social relations in the country. Separation of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction was carried out, a coherent system of judicial bodies was created, and baronial courts arose. An important innovation was the widespread use of trial by jury, whose origins can be traced to both Norman practice and the traditions of the Danelaw. In the reorganization of the judiciary, Geoffroy, Bishop of Coutances, and Archbishop Lanfranc played an important role.
Meaning
V socially The Norman Conquest led to the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon military service nobility (then) and the formation of a new dominant layer of feudal chivalry, built on the principles of vassal-fief relations and having judicial and administrative power over the peasant population. Replaced semi-independent
By the middle of the eleventh century, the Duchy of Normandy was in full bloom. contributed to the creation of excellent military detachments, which were supplied to the duke by his vassals, and the heavily armed knightly cavalry of Normandy gained unfading fame. In addition, the state had large incomes from all possessions. And the powerful central government, which controlled both the vassals and the church, was clearly stronger than the English one. The Norman conquest of England was thus a foregone conclusion.
Wilhelm vs Harold
Having declared Harold II, the brutally cruel English Dane king, a usurper and perjurer and with the support of Pope Alexander II, William got ready for a campaign: he recruited volunteers outside the duchy to help his far from weak army, built many transport ships, armed himself and stocked up on food. And soon everything was ready for the conquest of England by William of Normandy to take place.
The camp of the duchy was seething with an abundance of troops - the knights arrived from all adjacent areas: Brittany, Picardy, Flanders, Artois. Historians could not establish the exact number of William's troops, but he had at least seven hundred ships, which means that the troops that the country of England received on its southern shores turn out to be at least seven thousand. For the first time, so many people crossed the English Channel overnight.
Harold knew about the preparation. Ships and troops assembled in the south of England were fully armed for William's arrival. But Wilhelm was even more cunning than Harold suspected. In the north of England, William's allies from Norway and the disgraced English, opponents of Harold, suddenly landed. Harold managed to turn the troops and even defeat the attackers, but then, without a day's delay, the Norman conquest of England from the south began.
Harold's army
The landing of the enemy forced the weakened and tired army to turn back to Hasting, along the way there were attempts to gather militia units. However, everything happened so quickly that even in London, by the time Harold arrived, the militia had not yet gathered. Unlike Wilhelm, he did not have heavily armed cavalry, the bulk of his troops were on foot and heterogeneous. There were both huskerls and peasants armed in all sorts of ways: peasants with axes and clubs, earls with huskerls had swords, shields, and but had no horses, and Harold did not have time to get archers and cavalry.
Meeting the old with the new
The Norman conquest of England in 1066 took place on 14 October. Wilhelm brought a well-trained to fight straight from the saddle, battle-hardened knightly cavalry and squads of archers. The defeat of the Anglo-Saxons was simply a foregone conclusion. The defeat was swift and final - few escaped. Harold also died.
Wilhelm gave the army a rest in robberies and raids on the peasant environs, he had nowhere to hurry. Until the Dover, Cantbury and London elites understood and comprehended what had happened, reconciled themselves and accepted William the Conqueror as having come by right strong, several days passed. But the country of England did not soon come to its senses after the Norman conquest!
Five days later, William moved the army to Dover. It was a triumph! Not only the London townspeople cowardly huddled at home, fearing pogroms, but for the most part English lords, earls, sheriffs, bishops fell at the feet of William and sought to make friends with him. Southern England offered no resistance to William at all. After a very short time, the North also submitted.
Anointing for the kingdom
And it happened: on the Christmas holiday at the turn of 1066 and 1067, William the Conqueror arrived in Westminster for a solemn event. The situation was unpredictable. England after the Norman Conquest broke out with uprisings here and there. Received a betrayal, and Wilhelm's retinue reacted in a peculiar way.
All the houses around the cathedral, where the anointing to the kingdom took place, were set on fire, and the victims of the fire were beaten to death, without understanding the gender, age and religion. Everyone left the temple, except for the clergy, who continued the service, brought the sacrament to the end, and Wilhelm met the first minutes of triumph in splendid isolation. So strangely ended the Norman conquest of England at its first stage.
Reign
Despite William's promise to be the guarantor of the observance of the good laws of King Edward, the new Normans continued violence and robbery. The population was constantly revolting, it was brutally suppressed by fire and sword. For the greater obedience of the citizens of London, the construction of the famous royal fortress, the Tower, began.
The northern regions of England were so tired of William with their uprisings that in 1069 he used the scorched earth tactics against them (the Nazis in Khatyn were by no means the first). Wilhelm's punitive expedition did not leave a whole house or a living person in the entire expanse of the York Valley to Durham itself - not a single one. This desert stood until the twelfth century, when little by little it began to be inhabited. But these, of course, are not the main consequences of the Norman conquest of England.
Management organization
Considering all Anglo-Saxons as rebels, William the Conqueror continued to call himself the rightful heir of Edward the Confessor. Immediately after the accomplishment of the "English Khatyn" all the lands of England became the property of the king. Not only rebels were subjected to confiscation, but also those who were not sufficiently loyal to the new government.
Huge lands belonging to the crown brought enormous income: the rent from the surrender to the sheriffs, who then knocked it out from the common population. So, compared with the times of Edward the Confessor, it has become more than fifty percent higher. The country agreed to this. What was the Norman conquest of England for? In short, for profit. But not only.
Of course, Wilhelm did not keep everything for himself, although his share was truly the lion's share. The feuds that his associates received were ten times larger than those they had on the territory of Normandy. Wilhelm did not offend the church for a long time, he did not take away the land.
Castles were built all over England - both those that were simpler, on simple mounds with moats and palisades, and complex engineering structures that could withstand a long siege. Huge stone citadels multiplied, like the Tower, Rochester, Headingham. These castles were not baronial. All of them belonged to the king. The conquest of England by William of Normandy continued.
"Book of Doomsday"
This was the name of the land census of 1085, which was carried out by William in England. It was a very detailed book. The data was divided into three sections: before the conquest, the year 1066 and the year 1085. It was rewritten: the composition of the lands of each county and each hundred, the exact income, the composition and number of inhabitants, their condition. The respondents were all barons, sheriffs, elders, freemen and six serfs from each village. They all testified under oath. Thirty-four of the thirty-eight counties were thus rewritten.
Politics
It was a good move to see the main consequences of the Norman Conquest of England. Wilhelm, this census really gave information about possible income and suggested a way to systematize the withdrawal of "Danish money". The book turned out to be huge, detailed and reliable. William realized that it was quite possible to recoup the Norman conquest of England with extortions. Briefly describe this book does not make sense.
The estates that Wilhelm gave to any of the barons never coexisted with those allotments that the baron already owned. For example, Robert of Merton had about eight hundred manors, which were located in forty counties. Others have a little less, but the principle is the same.
It would seem absurd. But here is a clear calculation. No baron will be able to increase his influence in any particular county, which, of course, contributes to the strengthening of royal power. The only exceptions were the feudal border guards who guarded the approaches from the sea and land. They had great rights and even privileges. England after the Norman Conquest for the first time began to feel like a single state.
The king, as the supreme owner of all land in England, was the overlord of all the holders of land, from whom and under what circumstances they received it. William bound all landowners with an oath of service to the king (the Salisbury oath). A purely English feature of feudal arrangement is service to the king over the head of all his other vassals. The king gained additional support and authority. The country after the conquest strengthened as a state, despite many sorrows and sufferings. These are the main consequences of the Norman conquest of England.
