F961 A1: From Anglo-Saxon to Norman England, 1035-87

Introduction

Edward the Confessor was the eldest son of Aethelred the Unready, by his second marriage to Emma of Normandy, the sister of Duke Richard of Normandy.

Ethelred ruled England from 978 to 1016. Edward had spent much of his early life (twenty-five years) in exile in Normandy, along with his brother Alfred, after the invasion of Cnut and the rule of his sons.

He was, thus, in many ways, far more Norman than English.

The succession to the English throne in the first half of the eleventh century was very complex.

Aethelred had at least six sons by his first wife, Aelgifu, and two sons by Emma.

Almost all of the sons of the first marriage died young, but Edmund Ironside was king in 1016 before he died.

Edmund was succeeded by Cnut, with whom he had ruled jointly.

Cnut was married (?) to Aelgifu (a different one) and had two sons, Swegn and Harold Harefoot. He later married Emma, the widow of Aethelred and had a second son, Harthacnut.

When Cnut died in 1035, there were, therefore, a range of possible claimants to the throne.

1. His sons by Aelgifu: Svegn and Harold Harefoot2. His son by Emma: Harthacnut3. Emma’s sons by Aethelred: Edward and his brother Alfred4. Descendants of Aethelred’s first marriage: Edward and Edmund, the sons of

Edmund Ironside

The real choice was between Harold and Harthacnut, the sons of Cnut’s two marriages.

Harthacnut was in Denmark and although Emma tried to seize the treasury and was backed by Earl Godwin of Wessex, Harold was successful.

Edward and Alfred landed in England in 1036, but Edward was forced to flee and Alfred was arrested by Godwin.

Alfred was killed, either by Godwin, or after he had been handed over to Harold.

Emma and Edward fled to Bruges, apparently waiting for Harthacnut.

Harold died in 1040 and Harthacnut succeeded him. Edward returned to England in 1041 and was accepted by Harthacnut. They witnessed charters together. Edward was present when the king died in 1042.

A: How effectively did Edward the Confessor deal with his problems as king?

Although, Edward had been accepted by Harthacnut, there were other possible claimants to the throne. His accession would only be guaranteed if he was accepted by the earls and magnates.

His main support came from Earl Godwin of Wessex, Bishop Lyfing and the people of London.

Earls Leofric of Mercia and Siward of Northumbria seem to have accepted Edward. He was crowned king in April 1043.

The coronation appears to have been a splendid affair. The ambassadors of the Emperor of the Romans, the King of the Franks and the King of Denmark were all present. The King of Denmark recognised him as overlord.

Clearly, Edward had managed to establish himself securely on the throne. One of his most important qualities had been his ability to survive. He must have used this and his wits to gain the throne.

How did Edward the Confessor establish himself on the throne?

He established continuity with the previous reigns. Witnesses of charters in the 1040s were largely men who had been prominent in the reigns of Cnut and Harthacnut.

Grants of land were made to thegns of Cnut and to other magnates.

He was also prepared to act decisively. In November 1043, Emma, his mother was accused of treason and stripped of her lands.

Earls Leofric, Siward, and Godwin, supported Edward in his action.

The apparent reason was Emma’s appointment of Stigand as Bishop of East Anglia. Stigand was dismissed, but later restored to favour and became Bishop of Winchester in 1047.

Emma was also soon restored and witnessed charters in the later 1040s.

Edward also banished Gunnhildr, the niece of Cnut in 1044. He was clearly capable of decisive action when needed.

In 1044, he summoned a fleet to Sandwich and took command. Until the early 1050s, he is often described as commanding military and naval forces against possible invasions.

It is possible that the fleet and an army were mobilised every year and that Edward often took command.

In 1047, he refused a request for an alliance with Denmark against Norway. Earl Godwin wanted to support his cousin Svein, but Edward preferred non-intervention.

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Edward was prepared to act against possible invasion, but did not want foreign entanglements.

In 1048, he commanded a fleet against a Viking raid on Kent and Essex.

By 1049, his position was secure and the army and navy were capable of resisting foreign attacks.

Mediaeval kings needed to control the Church and Edward was no different. In the 1040s, he made a series of appointments to bishoprics; usually, he promoted royal clerks.

There was no particular pattern in the appointments in terms of nationality. Edward was simply using patronage as a way of extending his influence.

How did Edward govern England?

English society was hierarchical. Tiers of people were bound together by duty and responsibility.

At the top was the royal family, followed by the senior earls. By the end of Edward’s reign, these two elements were closely interlinked.

Bishops and important churchmen were also included. In a description of the Witan, the king’s council, bishops, earls, generals and judges are mentioned.

Below the senior earls, there were junior earls who controlled divisions of the big earldoms. Often these were related to the major earls.

Below them came landowners, thegns, and below them freemen, serfs and slaves. The great majority of people lived in villages and. There were few large towns.

The bonds that held society together were of two kinds. Landowners owed service to their lord. This might be in the form of taxes or military service.

There were also bonds between groups of people. There were no police forces and very few royal troops, so law and order was in the hands of the people themselves.

The king or the earls would deal with major breakdowns of law and order, but everything else would be tackled by people themselves.

Government

The king governed with the advice of his Witan. There appeared to have been four main areas.

1. The making of war

The king kept a small number of soldiers, probably mercenaries, but could also call on earls, bishops and thegns for military support. Edward did this on a number of occasions during his reign, 1051, 1052 and 1065.

The total number of armed men at his disposal was about 14,000.3

2. The administration of justice

Law courts in the main were popular assemblies and law was tradition. It could vary from shire to shire.

Increasingly, kings had intervened in justice to create courts and standardise procedure. In practice, the king could intervene in any case.

Edward travelled and heard cases (although the farthest north he ever went was Gloucester) on a regular basis. He was asked by landowners to decide disputes over land and wills.

Edward does not appear to have passed many laws. The Law of England in 1066 was much as it had been in 1042.

3. The Church

Edward was the patron of the Church and could make all appointments within it. On one occasion, he took advantage of his power to make his clerk a bishop.

He had the power to appoint bishops and the Pope did not challenge that. Usually, Edward expected something in return for an appointment.

It was not unknown for appointees to make suitable gifts to Edward by way of thanks, but he did not expect this as a matter of course.

Edward’s saintly reputation and reasons for canonisation were almost certainly created after his death. There were few appointments of outstanding bishops.

4. Finance

Edward appears to have had a sound financial policy. There were many coins in England during Edward’s reign and they all came from the same source.

All dies were cut in London and then sent to local mints, of which there were about seventy. There were at least eight issues of different coins: the last being in 1065. This again suggests that Edward was in good health at the time.

Income came from two sources. Almost certainly, shire-reeves ‘farmed’ their areas and accounted twice a year, at Easter and Michaelmas. They rendered the amount due less their expenses. Collection points were probably London and Winchester.

The system was more sophisticated than in most other states because Edward’s kingdom was relatively large and wealthy.

The normal accounting unit was the ‘ora’ of 16 pennies. But when the silver penny was devalued by 20% in 1062, the ora increased to 20 pennies.

This suggests that the king and his administration were alert and also financially astute. They also had the power to enforce a decision which must have seemed strange to many people. So much for Edward being a weak king!

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The second source of income was the king’s estates. In theory, the whole kingdom was the king’s estate: in practice, his personal estates (home farms) were the royal demesne.

In fact, the powers that Edward enjoyed were very similar to those exercised by William the Conqueror. The Normans must have relished the organisation and wealth of England.

The economy

England was almost entirely agricultural in the mid-eleventh century. At that time, Europe was going through a warm, dry spell.

Edward’s reign fell at the beginning of this period and the first half seems to have been affected by bad weather. From 1054, the weather seems to have improved.

This would have encouraged economic development as production and profits rose. Cash was ploughed back into new buildings, such as mills.

Trade increased, which encouraged both the growth of towns and foreign contacts.

Was Edward a successful king?

During much of his reign, England was peaceful. The Anglo-Saxon system of law and order based on shires, hundreds and wapentakes was effective.

Taxation was collected efficiently and the coinage was sound.

Edward was wealthy by the standards of the day. He had an annual income of about £15,000, which was more than enough for his expenses.

He was able to commute taxes from time to time.

There were no serious wars; at the same time William of Normandy was fighting campaigns every year.

He was forced to dismiss some Norman appointees in 1052, but took part of Godwin’s earldom and gave it to his Norman nephew, Ralph.

After 1052, there are many references to foreigners still at court. Queen Edith had French servants and Earl Ralph married an Englishwoman, Gytha.

Edward appears to have been active until late in his life. He is recorded as going hunting in the autumn of 1065.

His main interest appears to have been the construction of Canterbury Cathedral.

However, he does not appear to have been particularly religious. His donations to religious institutions were not excessive and in some cases were smaller than those of Earl Harold.

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There is no evidence of friction between Edward and Harold in the late 1050s and 1060s. Harold accepted the removal of Tostig in 1065 and undertook the mission to Normandy in 1064 under whatever circumstances.

Edward was capable of acting hastily, as in his treatment of Emma, and at times suddenly changed his mind, for example by pardoning Swegn.

He survived such mishaps by being prepared to compromise. He seems to have adopted a pragmatic approach; being prepared to avoid clashes over principles.

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B: What part did the Godwin family play in the reign of Edward the Confessor?

Godwin, Earl of Wessex, had risen to prominence under Cnut. He was married to the sister of Cnut’s brother-in-law and was uncle to Svein Estrithson, the King of Denmark.

In 1035, he had supported Emma in her campaign to get her son Harthacnut to succeed Cnut, but had then accepted Harold and arrested Alfred, the brother of Edward when he landed in England.

Godwin may have killed Alfred, or handed him over to Harold. Either way, Alfred was executed along with his supporters.

After Harold’s death in 1040, Godwin lost favour with Harthacnut, because he had deserted him in 1035. Godwin was therefore in a precarious position for the next two years.

In 1042, Godwin decided to back Edward’s claim to the throne. This must have been an important and difficult decision. He had picked the wrong man in 1035: he could not afford to do so again.

According to the Vita Aedwardi Regis, Godwin gave Edward a gift of a fully equipped warship when he did homage.

This was a sign of potential weakness and need for favour. Godwin, although he was the richest and most powerful of the earls, was also the newest and hence the easiest to depose.

One the other hand, Godwin was a powerful figure. The value of his estates has been put at £4,000, three times greater than either of the other two earls and not far short of the king’s at £5,000.

While Godwin needed to ensure that Edward was secure, the king also needed to guarantee the continued support of the earl.

Edward made Godwin’s eldest son, Swegn, an earl in 1043 and Harold, the second eldest, almost immediately afterwards. Both earldoms were partly created out of Mercia.

In 1044, Edward granted land to Aelfwine, Bishop of Winchester. His bishopric was within Godwin’s earldom of Wessex.

The crowning achievement of Godwin came in 1045 when Edward married his daughter Edith.

There was nothing unusual in such a marriage and it appears to have attracted no adverse comment at the time.

Edward would have wanted to secure the succession and would probably have been under pressure from the earls to provide an heir.

Contemporary descriptions of Edith suggest that she would have been an ideal bride.

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There are no suggestions that of tension between Edward and Godwin in the years from 1045-50.

In 1045, Beorn, Godwin’s nephew was created an earl, which meant that the Godwin family now controlled four out of the six earldoms.

Godwin took command of royal forces on a number of occasions and serve under Edward in 1048.

In the following year, he led forces, with his son Tostig, against Viking raiders.

Why was Godwin forced into exile in 1051?

Although there is no evidence of tension between Edward and Godwin, there are possible reasons why the two may have fallen out.

Queen Edith is not mentioned as a witness to charters after 1046. This may suggest a rift with Edward.

Ralf of Mantes, Edward’s nephew, was created an earl in 1047 in Herefordshire: his role was to watch the Welsh borders.

He was French and his earldom was created out of the earldom of Swegn, Godwin’s son. Both were possible reasons for growing antipathy.

In 1046, Robert of Jumièges, Edward’s Norman confidant, was appointed Bishop of London.

In 1046, Swegn, Godwin’s eldest son, kidnapped the Abbess of Leominster and was forced to flee abroad.

Swegn returned in 1049 and asked his brother, Harold, and his cousin, Beorn, to help him recover his earldom. They refused but he tried a second time.

This time, Beorn agreed and joined Swegn in a raid on the south coast. But they fell out and Beorn was murdered. Swegn fled to Bruges. Edward declared him irreparably disgraced.

Significantly, none of the Godwin family supported Swegn. Harold found Beorn’s body and had it reburied at Winchester.

These events suggest that relations between Edward and Godwin were deteriorating. Edward may have felt that the Godwin family had too much power and had lost interest in his wife, Edith.

Edward was certainly capable of capricious behaviour, as his treatment of his mother in 1043 showed.

He may have sought to embarrass Godwin and taken advantage of the behaviour of Swegn.

Surprisingly, however, he agreed to pardon Swegn in 1050 and restored some of his estates. This must have taken place after requests from Godwin.

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This could suggest that Godwin could influence the king, or, more likely, it could be evidence of Edward’s confidence.

Why did matters come to a head in 1051?

In October 1050, the Archbishop of Canterbury died. In January 1051, the Archbishop of York did the same.

The monks of Canterbury wanted to appoint Aethelric, a relative of Godwin, and he supported them. But Edward appointed Robert of Jumièges.

Spearhavoc, the king’s goldsmith was appointed Bishop of London and a royal clerk, Cynsige, was sent to York. Leofric, another clerk went to Exeter.

Edward was acting as he had in the past: he was appointing close advisers to key positions.

He did not however just appoint Normans. He rejected Robert of Jumièges’s nominee for London and appointed English and Scandinavian clerics to key posts.

The key issue was the promotion of Robert. It seems that there had been a feud between him and Godwin for some time and this now came to a head.

Robert annoyed the English by refusing the consecrate the new Bishop of London and also accused Godwin of stealing land from Canterbury.

He also accused him of murdering Edward’s brother and even suggested that he was planning to murder the king.

William of Poitiers claimed that Edward nominated William of Normandy as his heir at this point.

There is no English corroboration of this claim. It is unlikely that Edward would have named the 23 year old William as his heir and the description of the event (written in 1073) is unconvincing.

William of Poitiers made several mistakes and also failed to make any mention of Harold Godwinson as being present. Given the advantage that tying Harold in would have offered, this is surprising.

Even if Edward did nominate William, it should be assumed that he intended to carry out the promise. It might have been a bargaining counter against Godwin.

William was twenty-three, a minor figure, and Edward was King of England. Despite Edward’s exile in Normandy, it is unlikely that he seriously considered William as his heir.

Edward was certainly contemplating an alliance with Normandy, possibly to try to prevent a Norman-Flanders alliance. It would also have helped to prevent naval raids on the south coast.

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The rumours of links with Normandy, however, would have been very unwelcome news to Godwin, who would still have expected his daughter to produce an heir to the throne.

By the summer 1051, Godwin was probably at the end of his tether.

At this point, Eustace of Boulogne, Edward’s brother-in-law, got involved in a brawl in Dover with his retinue on his way back to France. A number of French and local people were killed.

Eustace demanded punishment and Edward ordered Godwin to take action. He refused.

Instead, Godwin, and his sons, raised armies and marched on the king at Gloucester. Alarmed, Leofric and Siward backed the king.

As a compromise, it was agreed that Godwin and his sons would stand trial in London in September.

Many in Godwin’s army deserted and he was faced with the prospect of a hostile court. Edward may have threatened to accuse him of murdering his brother.

Godwin and his family decided to flee. Edith was sent to the nunnery of Wilton.

William of Normandy may have been invited to the English court and some more appointments were given to Normans.

William (another one) was appointed Bishop of London, when Spearhavoc ran off with the king’s gold.

Why was Godwin able to return in 1052?

Edward had allowed the royal fleet to stand down after the invasion threats of 1049. His forces were unable to deal with the landings of the Godwin family. Harold sailed from Ireland and Godwin sailed from Bruges.

There was clearly much support for Godwin in the south, especially in Kent and Sussex. When he sailed up the Thames, he was welcomed in London.

Edward was caught unprepared and played for time until his forces could gather. But, with the king and Godwin facing each other at London, Robert of Jumièges and other Normans fled and escaped abroad.

Edward, always ready to change, accepted defeat and at a council, Godwin and Harold were pardoned.

Swegn died at almost the same time returning from pilgrimage. Thus removing one potential difficulty

Robert was dismissed from the Archbishopric and replaced by Stigand. Most Normans were removed from office. But William, Bishop of London remained in office.

There were no executions and the whole affair appears to have been settled peacefully10

What were the relations like between Edward and the Godwin family after 1052?

Godwin died in 1053, but his eldest surviving son, Harold succeeded him in Wessex.

His brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine were both created earls of East Anglia and the area around London and in 1055, another brother, Tostig, became Earl of Northumbria.

However, the heir of Earl Siward, Waltheof, was very young and would not have been able to control the north, where there was such unrest.

In fact, Waltheof subsequently became Earl of Northumberland and survived the Conquest.

In 1063, Harold conquered Wales and in 1065, dealt with the Northern insurrection by agreeing to the deposition of his brother Tostig and his replacement with Morcar.

Although Edward appeared to have been surrounded by the family of Godwin, they were his brothers-in-law and he may well have regarded them as more trustworthy than other potential earls.

In 1055, Earl Aelfgar of East Anglia was accused of treason and dismissed, but then became Earl of Mercia; a much more powerful position.

If Edward had indeed been under the control of the Godwins, he would surely have given them that earldom.

There is no evidence that the earldoms became private kingdoms of the Godwins. They continued to hold their land of the king and charters usually bore the names of both the earl and Edward.

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C: What were the reasons for the succession crisis at the end of Edward the Confessor’s reign?

Why was there a succession crisis?

By the 1060s, it was obvious that Edward was not going to produce an heir.

The chaotic situation that had developed from 1035-42 was likely to be repeated. Edward needed to appoint an heir.

He had already tried in 1054. Bishop Ealdred of Worcester had been sent to Cologne to invite the Atheling, Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, back to England.

Edward ‘the Exile’ was living in Hungary and eventually returned in 1057, only to die soon afterwards.

His son Edgar was about five years old at the time and the last direct descendant of an English king and was proclaimed king on 14th October 1066 but later submitted to William of Normandy. He died in 1126.

The Norman connection

William of Poitiers, writing in the 1070s, claimed that Edward nominated William of Normandy as his heir in 1051.

There is no English corroboration of this claim. It is unlikely that Edward would have named the 23 year old William as his heir and the description of the event is unconvincing.

William of Poitiers made several mistakes and also failed to make any mention of Harold Godwinson as being present. Given the advantage that tying Harold in would have offered, this is surprising.

Even if Edward did nominate William, it should not be assumed that he intended to carry out the promise. It might have been a bargaining counter against Godwin.

William was twenty-three, a minor figure, and Edward was King of England. Despite Edward’s exile in Normandy, it is unlikely that he seriously considered William as his heir.

Edward was certainly contemplating an alliance with Normandy, possibly to try to prevent a Norman-Flanders alliance. It would also have helped to prevent naval raids on the south coast.

Norman sources also claim that in 1064-5, Harold was sent to Normandy to arrange the succession. There are no English sources that confirm this.

The Norman sources also disagree about the details of the visit.

William of Jumièges claims that Harold was sent to swear fealty but was captured on route by Guy of Ponthieu and released through William of Normandy’s good offices.

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He was forced to swear fealty to William in exchange for his freedom. He promised to support William’s claim to the English throne.

Subsequently, he decided to break his oaths (to William and to God) and seize the throne.

William of Poitiers gives a far more detailed version of the events. He claims that Harold was chosen by Edward because of his rank and because his brother and nephew had been given as hostages.

Harold promised to work for William in England and would make Dover and other towns available as bases for William’s troops.

Weaknesses in the Norman versions

Both appear to be propaganda written after the conquest. William of Jumièges appears to have followed the Bayeux Tapestry.

The description of the meeting with William is inconsistent with accounts of other such meetings.

If William was really trying to get the throne, he would have wanted more hostages and guarantees.

Why did he not visit England in the years 1051-65? There is no evidence of any contact between Edward and William after 1051.

William of Jumièges also claimed that it was Edward who was asking for William’s help.

Despite Edward’s Norman upbringing, it is unlikely that the King of England would have needed to seek the help of a minor French duke, even at this point.

Other possible explanations

An alternative version of events is that Harold was in France and that the oath was no more than a restatement of the long-standing relationship between England and Normandy.

Oath-taking was a very serious matter to the English and Harold would have been very well aware of the consequences of breaking his word.

Changing his mind and breaking his oath within two years would have been a very serious matter indeed

Another possible explanation is that Harold was touring the continent raising support for his own potential accession.

Edward was physically active in late 1065: there is no evidence that he was close to death or that he needed to arrange for the succession.

England was peaceful in the months after Harold’s likely return. Trouble only broke out in the autumn with the deposition of Tostig.

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The Scandinavian connection

A second claimant to the English throne was Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway.

He claimed that Harthacnut had agreed that the throne of England would pass to the King of Norway. There is no evidence of any such agreement.

Hardrada was an adventurer who had fought in Russia and the Byzantine Empire. He could easily have decided that the conquest of England was a risk worth taking.

He was a famous and successful warrior and may have believed that, with 15,000 men, he could unite Norway and England.

To most people, Harald must have appeared to be a more serious threat at the time.

He had much larger battle-hardened forces and could land in the North of England which was comparatively unprotected.

Harald was also supported by Tostig, who had defected after being replaced as Earl of Northumbria.

A second potential Scandinavian claimant was Svein of Denmark, who was descended from a relative of Cnut.

He was approached by Tostig when the latter was on his way into exile in 1065.

The Northumbrian revolt

In the spring of 1065, Harold led a punitive raid in South Wales after English traders had been attacked.

The Welsh may have been reacting to rough treatment from Tostig, Harold’s brother in North Wales.

This appears to be evidence of a rift between Harold and Tostig. However, Tostig is recorded as hunting with Edward in September/October 1066 in Wiltshire.

On 5 October, Northumbrian thegns attacked Tostig’s headquarters in York and killed most of his men.

Why was Tostig so unpopular?

He was a West Saxon and had introduced many West Saxon laws. Taxes had risen steeply.

He had murdered local magnates and seized property. Churches had been robbed.

The rebels had almost certainly been encouraged by Edwin and Morcar of Mercia and possibly by Harold.

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Edward, who was still in Wiltshire, summoned Harold and Tostig and there was a bitter argument at court.

Harold was sent to negotiate with the rebels and greed that the laws of Tostig would be cancelled.

Edward demanded that they lay down their arms, but they refused unless Tostig was dismissed and exiled.

Edward considered crushing the rebellion by force, but the combined strength of Mercia and Northumbria made this impossible.

He was forced to accept the rebels’ terms. The key factor was the behaviour of Harold and the Godwin family, who refused to support Tostig.

In any case, the rebellion had been against Tostig and not against Edward: it could be passed off as a regional issue.

Possible reasons for the actions of Harold

Loyalty to Edward: the rebellion was against Tostig and not Edward.

Desire to get rid of Tostig: he was believed to be responsible for his own plight.

Opportunity to further the ambitions of Harold: Tostig’s removal would make his accession to the throne much easier

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D: Why did William of Normandy win the Battle of Hastings?

William’s advantages

William of Normandy was helped by the fact that Harold Godwinsson faced a double invasion in 1066, from Normandy and Norway (Harald Hardrada).

William carefully supplied his troops throughout the summer and offered them great rewards.

Harold had to disband his army to gather the harvest. But in September and October, 1066, the Anglo-Saxon army had to fight three battles:

The battle of Gate Fulford

Hardrada found his way to York barred by the young earls of Mercia and Northumbria, Edwin and Morcar, brothers-in-law to the king.

The battle raged all day and ended in the total defeat of the northern Anglo-Saxon army.

The brothers had certainly shown their loyalty to the king, as had their army, but defeat inevitably ended in slaughter.

The king had still to defeat two rival claimants to his throne and had already lost thousands of troops.

The battle of Stamford Bridge

Harold Godwinsson stormed north in a brilliant forced march, covering 190 miles in four days and completely surprising Hardrada who was camped at Stamford Bridge on the river Derwent, on September 20th.

In another long and bloody battle, Harold Godwinsson won a total defeat over Hardrada’s Viking force.

The most feared warrior in Christendom was killed, along with Tostig and most of his army. Only 24 of the 300 ships were required for the remainder of the Viking army leave in.

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The battle of Hastings

Background to the battle

Whilst Harold was resting his exhausted and depleted army in the north, the wind changed direction and William crossed the Channel and landed unopposed at Pevensey on September 28th.

William was lucky. Norman sources show him praying and pleading for the wind to change.

The army of loyal followers, mercenaries and opportunists he had bribed, cajoled and persuaded to join him would not stay in one place indefinitely.

Next year was another year and circumstances could be very different. It was now or never.

So when the wind changed, he led his men across the Channel with great haste.

He knew the Saxon coast lay undefended and his spies had told him of Hardrada’s invasion. It was a great risk, but a calculated risk.

Because Harold Godwinsson had to disband his fleet and southern army on September 8th, William landed unopposed. Harold could no longer provision the troops and the harvest was long overdue.

This, historians argue, was the essential difference between the archaic Anglo-Saxon fyrd and the slick war-machine that William could call upon.

However, the length of time spent waiting was unprecedented, and William bribed his followers (many of whom were mercenaries) with the promise of land and booty. But the result was the same; the south coast of England was now totally undefended.

From Pevensey, William moved to Hastings, where he knew the port afforded shelter for a possible rearguard action.

Then he laid waste to the surrounding countryside, partly to preserve his own supplies, partly to draw Harold into battle.

A set-piece battle was the only way William could conclude the campaign. It was in Harold’s interest to delay, to starve William out and allow doubt and fear to sink into the thoughts of the few thousand Norman troops in a foreign land.

Why did Harold move quickly?

Perhaps he was hoping to emulate the blinding success of the Stamford Bridge campaign, perhaps stung by the attack on his own people in Wessex.

He may also have planned on bottling up William along the coast, preventing him from breaking out with his mounted troops and rampaging far and wide across Sussex.

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He reached London on October 6th and remained only until October 11th. Many of his foot-soldiers and archers were still moving south, from York; his stay in London was not long enough to gather the many thousands he had at his disposal.

He did not wait to remobilise the 30,000 or 40,000 from the shires of all England. Forcing the pace again, he arrived on the South Downs on the night of October 13th; his men were exhausted.

Why did William win the battle of Hastings?

The battle of Hastings is the one of the best known events in English history. Much ink has been spilt, though, on the precise reasons why William won. There are no single outstanding factors, rather a combination of events, including skill, luck and the hand of God:

Logistics and circumstances

Facing a double-invasion put an enormous strain on Harold’s reserves. This alone, it has been suggested, marks Old English society out as out of date, but such a situation was unprecedented.

Harold had to keep his armies and fleet mobilised from May through to September, itself a notable feat.

He managed to remobilise and defeat Hardada in a lightning strike, a brilliant campaign. He had an army of an equal size to William’s at Hastings.

Harold’s mistakes

Harold’s mistakes played into William’s hands. His men, severely weakened in number and in spirit by the two battles in the north, did not have a chance to rest before meeting William.

Edwin and Morcar were still marching south when Harold was at Hastings. Harold could have drawn upon thousands more troops. It was in his interest to delay, to starve William out.

He did not, hoping to surprise William’s men out foraging and to exact revenge for the damage done to his lands in Wessex. It was a personal matter between the two of them.

Generalship

Harold was, in the last analysis, out-generalled. His rapid return south and forced march from London to Hastings (58 miles in three days) exhausted his men further.

He perhaps planned on trapping William on the coast, but William had already moved up. Harold, not William, was taken by surprise.

The casualties amongst the Housecarls at Gate Fulford and Stamford told when the peasants broke the shield-wall and ran down onto the Norman cavalry.

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The archers left behind could not counter William’s bowmen. Harold was not courageous enough or imaginative enough to adapt to the feigned retreats.

He could neither seize the moment for a general charge nor command his troops to remain on the hill until nightfall when they could slip away and raise another army for another battle.

William’s luck

William was lucky. The wind had changed at the right moment for him. He faced an English army complacent with success but depleted by two battles.

But William worked hard for his luck. He had prepared an army which was supremely fit and well equipped. He shipped over horses and archers by the thousands in specially designed boats.

He drove his men on and organised it all down to the last arrowhead. On landing at Pevensey he built a wooden castle using ready-made timber and another at Hastings so that his retreat was covered.

His spies informed him of Harold’s approach. His tactics of wasting Harold’s private lands had paid off; he had his chance for the one big battle to decide the kingdom against his old adversary.

The Holy War

Finally, William had God on his side. The psychological advantage of the Papal banner must, in an age of deep-seated spiritualism, have been great.

In medieval battle, God granted the victory. Where William was merely unhorsed three times, Harold was struck, fittingly enough, in the eye. An eye for an eye, a kingdom for a kingdom. The perjurer and usurper was no more.

What problems did William face after Hastings?

William had won a decisive victory at Hastings but he had yet to win the kingdom. Edgar ‘Aethling’, Edward the Confessor’s great-nephew, was immediately put forward as the new king.

William’s brutal march through the Kent, Berkshire and Winchester isolated London until the remaining figures of Harold’s regime.

Edwin, Morcar, Edgar Aethling and his sister, Edith, all surrendered to William, who was duly crowned on Christmas Day, 1066 with all the full coronation rites of an Anglo-Saxon king.

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E: How did William deal with opposition to his rule?

Rebellions and frontier problems

William felt confident enough to return in triumph to Normandy early in 1067 with the leading Anglo-Saxons in his train, and much booty plundered from the churches and halls of England.

But from 1067 - 1071 he faced a series of revolts all across England, which posed a great threat to his fragile government.

He put down these revolts with great brutality; any pretence he had towards being the legitimate heir of Edward the Confessor was ended during this period.

To underpin his occupation he built many hundreds of castles across the kingdom, garrisoned by armed, mounted troops.

Only after 1075, after a rebellion by his own earls, was the first phase of the conquest complete and by this time England was under virtual military law.

The rebellions of 1067-1075

William left England under the care of two of his most trusted lords, his cousin William fitzOsbern and his half-brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux. The period of peace was short-lived. Rebellions broke out all across England

The Welsh border (1067)

Later in the year a character named Edric ‘the Wild’ raised a revolt in Herefordshire, along the Welsh Border, encouraging Welsh princes to join him.

They failed to take control of the border, and retired to Wales with much booty.

The south west (1068)

William returned to England late in 1067 to face more serious threats in the south-west.

In 1068, the city of Exeter refused to accept William’s rule but did so after an eighteen-day siege.

William installed his other half-brother, Robert of Mortain, as earl of Cornwall, and submitted Bristol and Gloucester to his rule and the way back.

During the summer of 1068 the sons of Harold Godwinsson landed on the Somerset coast but were repelled by the English troops.

William celebrated Easter at Winchester and his wife Matilda was crowned queen at Westminster, where the king held a great court.

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William ended the year 1068 with a series of lightning rides through Warwick, Nottingham, York, Lincoln, Huntingdon and Cambridge

The North (1069-70)

Despite these brilliant efforts, the remaining Anglo-Saxon leaders, earls Edwin and Morcar, and Edgar Aethling defected from William’s court and fled north during 1068.

In January 1069, the Norman earl Robert of Commines was burnt to death in the bishop’s house in Durham.

Insurrection spread to York, where the Norman garrison came under attack. Willliam stormed north and relieved the garrison.

However, in the summer occurred the last Viking invasion of England that was to imperil William’s fledgling kingship.

A fleet of 240 ships led by the sons of Swegn Estrithsson landed at the Humber marched on York. Swegn was the nephew of Canute and Earl Godwin, and had been king of Denmark since 1047.

After their landing, Swegn’s sons found much support amongst the native Anglo-Scandinavians in the east of England, as well as the English, including Edgar Aethling.

They seized York and their success encouraged revolts in Dorset, Somerset, Staffordshire and Cheshire.

The king of Scotland, Malcolm Canmore, allied himself to Edgar Aethling by marrying his sister, Margaret.

William now faced the possibility of a Scandinavian kingdom in northern England or a separate kingdom created for Edgar, the last prince of the royal House of Wessex.

The ‘Harrying of the North’

William reacted with all the characteristic vigour, skill and utter brutality that had made him rise from bastard boy-duke to crowned King of England.

He marched north with seasoned troops from Nottingham to York, devastating the countryside as he went and slaughtering all the adult males.

He burnt York and, after Christmas, set about a systematic destruction of Yorkshire.

What his troops inflicted on the people was so terrible that it was remembered by chroniclers over fifty years later.

Corpses rotted on the roads, refugees fled in terror, disease and famine inevitably ensued.

Domesday Book, the unique record of taxation and landownership made in 1086, simply records ‘waste’ (that is, uncultivated and depopulated lands and villages) for so much of the land William devastated.

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Over 80% of the wasteland recorded in Domesday Book was in Yorkshire. Swathes of land were depopulated, villages left deserted, farms empty, and this was fifteen years later. Yorkshire must have been a desert in 1070.

From Yorkshire, William pushed his troops across the Tees in the teeth of the winter and on, into Cheshire, across the Pennines.

He took the town, subdued Stafford and was back in Winchester before Easter, 1070. The Vikings, seeing their English allies defeated, accepted a bribe and left the Humber.

East Anglia (1070-1)

If William had broken English resistance, he had not quite dealt with the Vikings. In the summer, king Swegn of Denmark himself appeared and entered East Anglia, occupying the Isle of Ely.

He was joined by a Lincolnshire thegn named Hereward (the ‘Wake’), and the earls Edwin and Morcar. Together, they looted and burnt Peterborough Abbey.

William reacted with political skill, buying off the Danes who departed the coast with much booty, leaving the English rebels to fend for themselves.

When William advanced on Ely, Morcar surrendered, Edwin fled north and was murdered by his own followers, and Hereward disappeared.

Scotland (1072)

William’s devastation of the north had created a vacuum of political authority into which Malcolm of Scotland rode, devastating Durham and Cleveland.

William spent the summer of 1072 carefully preparing another army that in the autumn he took through Durham all the way to Perth, into the heart of Malcolm’s kingdom.

His fleet sailed into the Tay estuary and met the army. This was a hazardous expedition and left the Norman troops fearfully exposed.

But it worked. Malcolm met William at Abernethy and recognised him as king of England. To show good faith, Malcolm expelled Edgar Aethling from his court.

The revolt of the Norman earls (1075)

A great threat to William emerged in 1075, from his own Norman lords including the son of his most trusted earls.

This rebellion was led by Ralph de Gael, a Breton whose father had held a position at the court of Edward the Confessor and gone on to assist William in his conquest of England.

Ralph recruited Roger de Bretuil, earl of Hereford, son of the famous William fitzOsbern who had been killed in battle in 1071.

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The plot seems to have been conceived at the wedding feast of Ralph to Roger’s sister in Norfolk.

Ralph, as a Breton, was encouraged by Bretons and Philip of France, always eager to bring down his arch-rival, the king of England and duke of Normandy. For good measure, Ralph appealed to Denmark for help.

The revolt was stifled from the outset. Lanfranc, now Archbishop of Canterbury, was acting as William’s regent during his absence in Normandy and urged the king to remain in the duchy.

Earl Roger was bottled up in Herefordshire and Odo of Bayeux and others forced Ralph to retreat to Norwich, where he left his wife in command whilst he fled to Brittany.

Another great Danish fleet arrived, led by Cnut, son of Swegn Estrithsson, but it was too late. In time-honoured fashion, the Vikings sailed up the east coast looting and pillaging before departing for home.

William returned to England at Christmas, 1075. The Breton rebels were blinded and murdered and Roger de Breteuil banished from Herefordshire and imprisoned.

Why were Castles so important?

In addition to having to reorganise the Anglo-Saxon earldoms before, and as a result of, the rebellions, William consolidated his hold on his newly conquered kingdom by building castles.

These were erected at the very beginning of his campaign even before the battle of Hastings, and were virtually unheard of in England.

William built hundreds, probably thousands all across England. Castles were an integral part of his conquest of England and also formed part of the fabric of the structure of Anglo-Norman society.

Castles were a new phenomenon and altered the geo-political landscape of Britain forever.

Motte and Bailey castles

These early castles were not the great stone castles of the later medieval era, complete with gatehouses, towers and damsels in distress but instead they looked rather like small wooden stockades.

The timber tower was placed on top of a large earth mound, the motte, and adjacent to the motte was the bailey, or outer compound, again with a timber fence.

The bailey accommodated stables, a chapel, a forge and living space; the small garrison of mounted soldiers could retire to the tower on the motte in any times of danger.

The genius of the motte and bailey fortress was that they could be erected quickly and simply; William brought with him ‘kit castle’ which his carpenters put together after the landing at Pevensey, within the walls of the old Roman fortress.

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William began a comprehensive program of castle-building in England before the rebellions began and built more following the rebellions.

His right-hand man, William fitz-Osbern, earl of Hereford and lord of the Isle of Wight, built a stone keep at Chepstow, dominating the River Wye and the Severn estuary.

William himself began the mighty stone keep at the tower of London (the White Tower).

After William’s brutal suppression of the West Country and the North during the rebellions of 1068-70 he built castles in Exeter, Warwick, Nottingham, York, Lincoln, Huntingdon and Cambridge.

These castles were deliberately sited in English towns, often in the place of English housing.

Castles were, at this stage, a device of war, a means of containing the surrounding area, deploying troops quickly and a visible and psychological symbol of conquest.

The only castles seen in England before 1066 were the motte and baileys thrown up in Herefordshire by Edward the Confessor’s Norman nephew, Ralph of Mantes.

Castles were a new, private, means of fortification very different to the English public walled towns established by Alfred the Great to combat the Vikings, or the Roman towns even earlier.

Outside the towns, castles were situated to control the surrounding countryside, either on river crossings, or on the hills.

On the Welsh borders, very much bandit country, a chain of castles was built to watch over the mountain passes.

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F: How far did William I change the government and administration of England?

William I always maintained that he was the rightful heir to Edward the Confessor but the reality of his kingship was based upon military conquest.

He and his son were always careful to preserve Anglo-Saxon laws (chiefly because the Normans had none of their own) and to utilise the wealth of England (to raise armies to extend their power over England) and to exploit the sophistication of Anglo-Saxon government (to govern the conquered people more effectively).

Whilst this pragmatic government ensured the security of the realm and whilst William I initially kept English earls and leading churchmen in power, by the time Domesday Book was completed, virtually all the ruling class of pre-Conquest England had been replaced.

The reorganisation of the earldoms

The widespread rebellions against William and the brutality with which he dealt with them had a great impact on the nature of his kingship and conquest of England.

Although the nature of William’s invasion meant that he was never going to be a mere figurehead amongst an Anglo-Saxon ruling class, he clearly made efforts to be conciliatory in the very early years of his reign.

Edwin and Morcar kept their earldoms until they fled William’s court in 1068; after the murder of the Norman earl Robert in Durham in 1069, William made Gospatric, a Saxon, earl of Northumbria, but Gospatric joined the general uprising in the summer of that year.

As a further concession to the north after the terrible devastation of the winter of 1070, William created Waltheof earl of Northumbria.

Waltheof was the son of the previous earl of Northumbria, Siward, who had been succeeded by Tostig Godwinsson in 1057, as Waltheof had been too young at the time.

Waltheof repaid William’s trust in him by joining, or at least having knowledge of, the 1075 revolt by Ralph de Gael and Roger de Bretuil. After a period of imprisonment’ Waltheof, the last Anglo-Saxon earl, was beheaded in 1076.

Anglo-Norman earldoms

The old Anglo-Saxon earldoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria were either divided up very soon after William’s coronation, or allowed to lapse, during, or as a result of, the rebellions.

Harold, king of England and earl of Wessex, was not replaced; instead, Odo, bishop of Bayeux and William’s half-brother, was made earl of Kent.

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William fitzOsbern, a cousin and life-long companion to the Conqueror, was made earl of Hereford and lord of the Isle of Wight, two crucial defensive points of the new kingdom, both carved out of Harold’s territories. (For fitzOsbern, see Case Study One, below).

These posts were granted very soon after Hastings, for it was Odo and William fitzOsbern who were governors of England on the king’s triumphant return to Normandy early in 1067.

The earldom of Mercia lapsed after the murder of Edwin in the wake of the 1071 rebellion.

After William’s concessionary policy of appointing first Gospatric and then Waltheof to Northumbria, that earldom also lapsed; following Ralph de Gael’s treachery in 1075, the earldom of East Anglia was not filled in the Conqueror’s reign.

Thus the great Anglo-Saxon earldoms passed out of existence well within a decade of the new Norman governance.

The rebellions also led to the creation of the smaller earldoms of Cheshire and Shropshire sometime before 1077, again as defensive measures.

Who owned England?

William I established very quickly after the Conquest the principle that ‘all land belongs to the king’. He had, after all, conquered the country. Of all the land surveyed in Domesday Book in 1086, the king directly owned a fifth.

The notion of freeholdings disappeared; all land was ‘held’ (not owned) either directly from the king (by a tenant-in-chief) or from a tenant-in-chief (by a tenant, from the Latin tenure, ‘to hold’). Each landholder formed a link in the chain that led ultimately to the king.

This resulted in a fundamentally different set of social values, which altered the very composition of English society.

Networks of kinship and allegiance reached out from the king at the centre to the most insignificant soldier on the Welsh border.

This social structure was held together by the taking of oaths and at its heart lay military service. It is known to historians as ‘feudalism’, (from the Latin feudo or fief, the plot of land granted out to a man for services).

It was not, however, introduced instantly and comprehensively, rather over a period of several generations, and it was not without precedent in some areas in Anglo-Saxon England.

The tenants-in-chief

About a quarter of England was held by the Church and nearly half by the close followers of the king.

These individuals, the tenants-in-chief, were very few in number (about 180) and most of them came from the Norman nobility which had emerged earlier in the eleventh century.

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The tenants-in-chief were generally the earls, archbishops, bishops, abbots and barons of Anglo-Norman England. They formed the aristocratic élite of the new society, the nobility.

The inner circle of the tenants-in-chief numbered only eleven; they were granted nearly a quarter of England. Most of these had played a part in the history of Normandy in the period 1040-1066.

The destruction of the Godwinsson brothers at the Battle of Hastings meant that the earldoms of Wessex (Harold), East Anglia (Gyrth) and Middlesex (Leofwine) were available for redistribution.

These eleven of the inner circle included the king’s two half-brothers, Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Mortain, and his cousin, William fitzOsbern.

They were granted vast swathes of land from Kent to Chester; Robert of Mortain received Cornwall, fitzOsbern the Isle of Wight, Roger of Montgomery, William of Warenne and William of Briouze received parts of Sussex.

When the great Marcher earldoms of Hereford, Shrewsbury and Chester emerged, fitzOsbern, Montgomery and Hugh d’Avranches got the titles.

These men were precisely the men who had supported William most in his duchy before the Conquest and now they received their reward.

Knight-service

William I had to ensure that the power of the crown was enhanced, and not diminished. The tenants-in-chief did not hold their lands in absolute ownership as spoils of conquest but on condition that they provide soldiers for the king.

This was a fixed number of troops, the quota known as the servitium debitum, and could in theory produce between four and five thousand troops.

William had conquered England by force of military arms, and the events of 1067-71 showed that he held it by force.

The ruling class of Anglo-Norman England was an aristocracy organised for war and it was this military feature which made post-Conquest feudalism a unique and unprecedented feature in English society.

Furthermore, it is clear that the king expected the archbishops, bishops and abbots to pay for their land in providing armed troops, and this probably marked a departure from pre-Conquest England.

The knights

Whilst the upper band of aristocracy, the tenants-in-chief, are easily defined by their holdings in Domesday Book, their connections with the king and their titles, the thousands of knights who formed the lower levels of the Norman aristocracy and who replaced the Anglo-Saxon thegns in the villages of England are less easily identified.

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These men, sometimes known simply in Latin as a miles, plural milites (the English word ‘knight’ derives from the Old English cniht, who was often a mounted retainer) are the Roberts, Ralphs and Williams who fill the pages of Domesday Book, having ousted the Ethelberts, Edrics and Wulfnoths of pre-Conquest England.

They were not a homogenous class in 1087, rather a miscellany; William of Poitiers made the distinction between the ‘noble knights’ and the ‘common knights’ when the duke was preparing to invade England.

How different were the Saxon thegns to the Norman knights?

Similarities:

Both did some form of military service

Both formed the landholding class in England

Differences:

The knights held their land in a chain linking them to the king, through the tenant-in-chief.

The estates of the knights eventually became hereditary, some before 1087.

Landless knights had positions in baronial or royal households.

The system of oaths, paying homage or fealty, and vassals was new to England.

Knight-service was more specifically military and centred around the castle (garrison duty) and the baronial or royal households.

A military state and a new social structure

What must also be emphasised is that the system of knight-service was created out of the necessity to occupy and reinforce the Norman Conquest.

The need for efficient troops led to a quota system; those troops garrisoned the new castles and put down the rebellions.

England before 1066 was a peace-loving state; when Godwin fell out with Edward the Confessor in 1051 no side went to war, and in 1065, when Tostig was expelled from Northumbria, Harold avoided war, choosing to expel his own brother.

English society before 1066 was not geared towards war.

Normandy before 1066, by contrast, had witnessed intermittent warfare from the moment the boy-duke William succeeded to the duchy in 1035.

The rise to power of the duke was the story of his triumph in battles, skirmishes, sieges and counter-sieges over a twenty-year period against rebels within the duchy and his enemies the count of Anjou and the king of France.

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Norman society developed military services and the oath-taking vassalic relationships that bound that society together.

After 1066, they exported these conventions to England and imposed them in order to make the Conquest successful.

The extent and importance of the changes in government, law and the church

The theoretical powers of the king of England were well established by 1066. The king was the chief lawmaker in the realm, the supreme military commander and the maker of foreign and domestic policy.

The king after his coronation was no mere mortal; he occupied a priest-like status, the spiritual leader of his people, his tribe.

William I made no great changes to this function of kingship; it was in his interest, as the legal heir to Edward the Confessor (so he claimed) to continue as before.

The coronation service

The anointing and the coronation were the means by which the new king legitimised his rule. This was especially important to William, who had seized power by victory in battle.

The coronations of Harold, William I and his son William II used the same coronation service.

The coronations were witnessed by many hundreds of people and accompanied by great feasting afterwards.

For William I, the aspect of continuity in the coronation service was vital, because it was part of the Norman policy that he was the true heir to Edward the Confessor, designated by him and crown only after a brief period of usurpation by Harold Godwinsson.

William, in the eyes of his followers at least, was king not only de facto (in fact) but de jure (in law).

This policy was supported by the insistence that William ruled by hereditary right, in that he was the cousin to Edward the Confessor. This phrase ‘by hereditary right’ appears in royal documents very early in William’s reign.

Furthermore, after the coronation, William was ruled with powers from God. God had helped him win the battle of Hastings over the perjurer and usurper Harold, an idea developed by William of Poiters but one that finds its way into royal documents very soon after 1066, when William is described as ‘king of the English by the grant of God’.

This idea that William I was king by the grace of God and by hereditary right was a new departure after 1066 but was firmly rooted in the ancient traditions of Anglo-Saxon kingship ceremonies. The Norman kings after 1066 was able to call appeal to both English customs and to the Norman sense of righteous conquest.

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Visual symbols

The visual symbols of kingship were important in an age of scarce written information and slow communication. The Norman kings showed off their power in a number of ways:

The coronation was a public event; if this was an ancient tradition which William continued, then crown-wearings were rather new.

William deliberately had crown-wearing sessions where the public could view him, at Winchester (Easter), Gloucester (Christmas) and Westminster (Whitsun).

William II continued this tradition, which was designed to reinforce the king’s majesty. The greatest event was in 1099, when William II held his court for the first time at the newly completed great hall at Westminster.

Edgar, king of the Scots, carried the sword before William II, symbolising his subordination to William, and the royal court feasted in the hall with great ceremony and lavish hospitality. Such an event was designed to show off the king’s power, wealth and generosity.

Other visual symbols of kingship were the royal seals and coins. The royal seal was attached to documents to authenticate government commands and decrees, and show the king on the throne with the royal regalia, as do the seals of Edward the Confessor and the coins.

The iconography of kingship, as well as the ideology of kingship, remained unchanged by the Norman Conquest.

The royal household and administration

The king’s household lay at the heart of Anglo-Norman kingship. This was his household, the inner core of the court, which included a wider circle of society invited to attend special events, such as crown-wearings.

The household was the integral part of the day-to-day business of kingship. It was both a private and a public body of people, composed of the king’s family, domestic servants, priests, secretaries and clerk and men of military experience who formed the king’s bodyguard.

It was also composed of a wider, more official body of men, the royal administrators, earls and bishops who sat on the royal council and deliberated matters of state.

As the king and his household moved around the country, they were joined by the local lords of the area, so that the household was constantly changing, according to where the king was and to who was dispatched on official business to some far corner of the realm.

In summary, the royal household had a triple function:- a judical, legal body (the curia)- a military nerve-centre of the crown (the familia) - a private, domestic function (the domus).

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The chancery and the chancellor

If the royal household in Anglo-Saxon and the Norman worlds were roughly similar in design and composition and changed only in the personnel in Anglo-Norman England, then the existence of a chancery and chancellor were quite new to the Normans.

It is known that under Edward the Confessor a body of royal clerks had developed traditions of administrative practice and formed a highly organised scriptorium (writing office, or chancery).

These were the men who wrote up the documents and appended the great royal seal. It is probable that one such clerk took responsibility for the seal and overall control of the office, and this man may have been Regenbald, who worked for both Edward and William, though was never actually styled ‘chancellor’.

No such office or clerks existed in Normandy before 1066, though there was a chancery in France during this time, during the reign of Philip I. king of France after 1060.

The first named Anglo-Norman chancellor was Herfast, in 1069, followed by Osmund, Maurice and Gerard, chancellor in 1087, the end of William I’s reign.

The first three all went on to become bishops but until they did so, remained officials of the royal household.

The Writs

These royal clerks were the men who wrote the writs of Edward the Confessor, which were issued with great frequency.

The writ was a short sealed document with a standard greeting, which communicated commands and grants from the king’s household to the localities of England.

It was essentially a letter, a terse statement intended for public notification of royal grants and privileges. Nothing like it existed in Normandy.

The existence of the writ presupposed the fact that such a command could be issued by a sophisticated government and that it would actually be obeyed by a peaceful, law-abiding society.

Both these factors were largely missing in Norman government and society before 1066. Naturally enough, William seized upon such a powerful tool of state and continued to use them.

The very early writs issued by William were in Anglo-Saxon before becoming Latin after 1070. The use of the writ represents continuity of the pre-1066 government and the Norman skill in adapting pre-existing functions of state.

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Shires, sheriffs and local government

A central government with a writing office issuing royal commands and grants was nothing if the royal will could not be transmitted to an officer in the locality.

The Normans found England already divided into shires and saw no reason to change this; indeed, the smaller Norman earldoms that grew out of the great Anglo-Saxon earldoms were based increasingly around the shire-town, beginning with Chester and Shrewsbury.

The royal official responsible for the king’s will in the shire remained the sheriff; again, the Normans saw no need to change this.

The functions of the sheriff after 1066 were threefold: to manage the royal estates in the shire, to collect the royal taxes and to supervise royal justice in the shire. These functions remained unchanged since Anglo-Saxon government.

The shire courts

The shire courts were the focal points of royal justice in the localities under the Normans just as they had been under Anglo-Saxon kings.

No such institution had existed in Normandy before 1066; the Norman kings of England found a useful tool of government and continued its use.

The shire court usually met twice a year, at Easter (March/April) and Michaelmas (October). The meetings were public events, attended by earls and bishops, the sheriff and freemen of the shire.

Legal cases were heard regarding land and family disputes, outlawry and crime; taxation and royal dues were discussed. It was in the interest of all the great landowners of the shire to be present.

The hundred courts

The meetings of the shire courts were special occasions. Much of routine business in the shires was conducted through the hundred court.

The division of Anglo-Saxon shires into hundreds remained the same after 1066 and the hundred had no Norman precedent in the duchy before 1066.

The court, technically under the jurisdiction of the sheriff but in reality presided over by his deputies, met more frequently than the shire court, and was the lowest public court in the land.

It dealt chiefly with local land disputes and policing issues regarding murder charges and local law and order.

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Laws and customs

The Normans in the first generations after the Conquest initiated no new law codes. Instead, it was the usual blend of Norman and Anglo-Saxon traditions.

William I was very keen to ensure that, as he was the legal heir to Edward the Confessor, traditional English laws and customs be preserved.

The method of trial by ordeal had long been used on both sides of the English Channel, as had inquiries by means of witnesses or by the production of charters as evidence.

Ordeal by fire and water was common in Anglo-Saxon England but judicial combat became the usual method of proof in both criminal and land cases.

In addition to this traditional method of ordeal, the use of the jury to give a collective verdict upon oath became increasingly frequent under William I.

The Anglo-Norman Church

The Church was drastically affected by the Conquest. Just as a new aristocracy replaced the English earls and thegns, so a new Norman-French aristocracy replaced the English bishops and abbots.

Furthermore, some of the English dioceses were altered and many new cathedrals, abbeys and monasteries were built in the period 1066-1100.

Reform of the church

When William I began to raise an army to conquer England he appealed to the pope to support his claim. This was not only because Harold was a perjurer and usurper in Norman eyes, but also because the church in England was seen as corrupt and in need of reform.

The church was corrupt because many of its officials lacked morals and education and were guilty of abusing their power. These abuses came in several forms:

- simony which was the selling of church posts- nepotism, the securing of posts for relatives and friends- pluralism which was the holding of more than one office at once.

The Bishops

In 1070, Stigand, pluralist bishop of Winchester and archbishop of Canterbury, was finally removed from his offices.

Others went with him, including his brother, Aethelmaer of Elmham, Aethelric of Selsey, closely associated with Stigand, and Leofwine of Lichfield, who was married. All three left office in 1070, the first two by removal (deposition) and Leofwine by resignation.

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When Ealdred of York died in September 1069, the way was open for the king to make a new appointment, Thomas of Bayeux.

By 1080, Wulfstan of Worcester was the only English bishop left; all the others were either Norman or French. These new bishops were hard-working, intelligent and sometimes brutal men, utterly loyal to the Conqueror and his governance of England.

The Dioceses

Not only were English bishops replaced but some the cathedrals of the Anglo-Saxon dioceses were moved by the Norman bishops.

The new Norman pattern was to base the dioceses upon cities, rather like the new, smaller, earldoms.

Those dioceses affected included Lichfield, to Chester and then to Coventry; Sherborne to Old Sarum (Salisbury); Selsey to Chichester; Elmham to Thetford and then Norwich; Dorchester to Lincoln and Wells to Bath.

These dioceses were then divided into archdeaconries and the archdeaconries subdivided into rural deaneries. All these made for a more coherent, strictly hierarchical church.

Archdeacons

With the reorganisation of the dioceses came the new territorial responsibility of the archdeacon. This position had existed before 1066 but was not attached to the archdeaconry.

By the early 1070s archdeacons were found in several English dioceses; by 1089 they were almost universal. Within a century the archdeacon was the central figure of diocesan discipline and soon came to preside over the diocesan courts.

New cathedrals

As well as moving the diocesan centres to the towns, replacing English bishops with Norman bishops, the Norman bishops set about rebuilding or building from scratch massive cathedrals constructed in a very distinctive Romanesque style of architecture.

By the end of the eleventh century most of the larger English churches had been pulled down and were being rebuilt in this new style, including cathedrals at Winchester, Canterbury, Durham and Gloucester.

Parishes and priests

The Parish was the smallest unit of Church administration with its own church and clergy. Domesday Book records around 2000 churches. This figure represents only a small fraction of the churches that are known to have existed at this time.

The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed a massive surge in church building, but this had begun before the Conquest. Furthermore, the great majority of parish priests continued to be of English descent.

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They were only slightly affected by the Conquest because they were of low social status (about that of a villein) and of only rudimentary education; many of them remained married, despites attempts at reform.

The relationship between Archbishop Lanfranc and King William

At the head of the new foreign bishops and abbots was a new archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc, an Italian from Pavia.

Lanfranc was already famous as a lawyer and a teacher. He was a monk at Bec and was abbot of St. Stephen’s, Caen, at the time of his appointment to Canterbury.

He was one of the closest advisors of the Conqueror and often acted as regent for William in his absences in Normandy.

His role as a great statesman continued until his death in 1089, after he had helped to establish William II on the throne.

The Primacy

The first achievement of Lanfranc that marked him out as a great statesman and leading advisor to William I was to establish Canterbury as the prime ecclesiastical office in England, over and above the other archbishopric, York.

This, particularly in the light of the northern rebellions and the traditional independence of the north, was important to the king’s government. Thomas of Bayeux, the new archbishop of York however, was not at all pleased to submit to Lanfranc.

Lanfranc, encouraged by the monks of Canterbury and forged documents, pressed the traditional English case for the primacy of Canterbury.

The king initially supported Thomas but backed Lanfranc and at the Council of Winchester in 1070, Thomas formally recognised Lanfranc as primate of England and ceased his claims to power over the three dioceses of Lincoln, Lichfield and Worcester.

In 1072, in return for this, Thomas was in charge of the Scottish church. Lanfranc’s primacy was never recognised by the Pope because it gave him independence within England at a time when the popes were trying to limit the power of the archbishops and bishops in the Church.

Lanfranc, though, was seen as primate in England and he asserted his rights over Scotland and Ireland, as primate of all ‘Britain’.

The Councils

Lanfranc used great council meetings to enact these changes in the new, Anglo-Norman church. Stigand was deposed at the council of 1070. Councils were held in 1072 (Winchester), 1072 (Winchester and Windsor), 1075 (London), 1076 (Winchester) and at least three other councils in the period after that, to 1087.

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Legislations such as the banning of clergy marriages, compulsory celibacy for priests, the moving of cathedrals to the cities and the formal organisation of the parish served by a single priest dependent upon a single church were passed at these councils.

The Church and the Law courts

It was at Lanfranc’s third council at Winchester in 1076 that courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction were established in England. This had royal sanction.

Prior to the Conquest, spiritual pleas had been heard in the Hundred courts by bishops and archdeacons. Now, they would be heard in episcopal courts free from all lay interference. However, the shire courts did continue to hear such cases.

Episcopal courts (or synods) were not new in the English or Norman church. The synod and shire court - bishop and sheriff - worked alongside one another.

Synods were useful tools of reform and Lanfranc ordered regular synods to be held in each diocese.

The king may have sanctioned the creation of such synods but whenever William’s political authority was threatened he acted ruthlessly.

This was illustrated by the arrest of his half-brother, Odo Bishop of Bayeux. Odo proposed to withhold his knights from the king and to intervene in papal affairs but William arrested him, not as bishop but as earl of Kent.

William kept him imprisoned until he lay on his deathbed in 1087.

Domesday Book

The sophistication of Anglo-Saxon administrative, legal and financial systems coupled with the skill of William I adapting and continuing these systems in his new, Anglo-Norman government, is nowhere better illustrated than in the remarkable and unique survey of all England drawn up in 1086.

This was the Domesday Book, so-called because its verdicts were just as unanswerable as the Book of the Day of Judgement.

It was written in Latin, in Carolingian miniscule handwriting on parchment and includes 13,400 place names on 888 leaves.

Astonishingly, it was written up by one man, probably a native Englishman, or at least someone familiar with the place names.

No other country in the world has produced such a detailed historical record from so far back in time.

The Domesday Book is a record of a conquered kingdom but it is a testament to the survival of that kingdom in almost every aspect.

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Why was Domesday Book created?

Its purpose was three-fold purpose: financial, military and legal. The reasons for its production illustrate well the way William governed his kingdom during his final years.

Finance

Domesday Book provided the king with an exact record of the local contribution to the king’s geld, the Danegeld, which was the great general taxation levied on the entire population.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle comments upon very heavy taxes levied on the English people in the year 1086, following a general tax levied early in 1084 which brought the king 21,000 lbs in silver.

England was a rich and prosperous kingdom and it is clear that the Norman kings would milk the country dry if they needed to.

Military

A secondary purpose of the survey was military. The timing of the survey is significant for it was commissioned at a period of crisis in William’s government of England.

For the first time since 1072, he faced possible invasion from Scandinavia. In the winter of 1085 he raised a massive army to deal with the threat, and billeted the army on the people of England.

He needed to pay for this army and he needed to find out who his army commanders and soldiers actually were when he required them. Domesday Book, though arranged by Anglo-Saxon shires, focused upon the chief landholders in those shires.

These were the tenants-in-chief - the bishops, earls and barons in the new Anglo-Norman order, totally replacing the Anglo-Saxon ruling class in the twenty years since 1066.

To reinforce this information, William summoned all the major landholders to Salisbury in August, 1086, during the making of Domesday, and had them swear a special oath of allegiance to him. This was the Oath of Salisbury and bound his men to him by personal loyalty.

Legal

The third purpose of Domesday Book was legal. In the twenty years following the battle of Hastings, almost all of the Anglo-Saxon ruling class had been dispossessed.

The king needed to find out just who held the lands in his new kingdom and this needed to be confirmed and written down. Many areas had seen long-drawn out disputes and legal hearings still unresolved in 1086.

William, seeing himself as the legal heir to Edward the Confessor, wished to see these disputes settled and the violent upheaval resulting from his invasion and conquest legalised.

Domesday Book was, in this way, a great judicial inquiry.37

How was Domesday Book produced?

The means by which Domesday Book was produced reflects the sophistication of Anglo-Norman government at every level.

The Norman administration used Anglo-Saxon customs and procedures. The Domesday Book could not have been made without such established practices of local government.

William was well aware that his commissioners could use the many financial and legal documents housed in the great abbeys and churches of his kingdom and the geld lists already drawn up by his own government in recent years.

What the Anglo-Norman government brought was a sense of control, urgency and purpose.

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