So, we’ve all heard of the Vikings: the great heathen warriors from Scandinavia
who sailed far and wide in search of new places to loot and pillage.
But when they weren’t burning down monasteries or raiding villages, the Norse were also traders,
craftsmen, farmers and explorers and even the fiercest Vikings were willing to settle
down given the right price. For example, the Viking Rollo terrorized West Francia,
modern day France, from 885 to 911 AD. But after he was eventually defeated in
a failed attack on the city of Chartres, the French King, Charles III, took the opportunity
both to bring Rollo to heel and to protect his kingdom from anymore devastating Viking raids.
The treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, signed in 911, gave Rollo and his men all of the land
between the river Epte and the sea on the condition that he swear fealty to Charles
III and protect West Francia from future Viking attacks. The land given to them would become known
as Normandy and the descendants of Rollo and his men, the Normans, literally meaning “Northmen.”
For the most part, the Normans assimilated into western European,
feudal society. They cultivated their new land, intermarried with the local populace,
abandoned the old Norse language in favour of Norman French, and adopted Christianity.
But they retained their Viking drive to explore and to conquer new territories across the sea.
The most famous example of this was the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Led
by Duke William of Normandy, later William I of England, a descendant of Rollo and the
illegitimate son of the previous duke. This combined with the fact that his father died
when he was only seven led to a wide variety of Norman nobles attempting to gain power
and influence the young Duke. William didn’t gain full control of the Duchy
until the late 1050s when he was helped out by his father-in-law, the Duke of Flanders.
As for England, ever since the fall of Rome the British Isles had been split into small
kingdoms ruled by the native Britons and Gaels as well as Angles and Saxons from
Northern Germany and Danish and Norwegian Vikings. But in 886 Alfred of Wessex,
a Saxon, united the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and became the first King of England,
though most of the north was still controlled by Danes. Alfred’s descendants eventually forced them
out and established, mostly, England’s modern borders. They ruled, with a few interruptions
from Denmark’s royal house, until 1066 when the last Anglo-Saxon King from the House of Wessex,
Edward the Confessor, died and was replaced by the powerful Earl Harold Godwinson.
But William of Normandy claimed that Edward had promised him the throne in
1051 and that Harold had pledged to support that claim, and his failure to do so made
him a usurper. To make matters just a bit worse, King Harald Hardrada of Norway also
claimed England’s throne because he was descended from one of the Danes who had
ruled England briefly before Edward the Confessor took power, Canute the Great.
So, Hardrada, aided by Harold Godwinson's’ treacherous brother Tostig, set sail for
England with over 200 ships and 8,000 men. They were defeated and killed by
Harold Godwinson’s Anglo-Saxon army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge,
in Northern England on September 25th, 1066. Three days later William’s 10,000-strong
Norman army landed at Pevensey in the South of England. To face them,
Harold Godwinson marched his battle-weary army down from the north, recruiting as he went, and
met William’s Normans with 7,000 of his own troops at the battle of Hastings on the 14th of October.
Harold and William took near completely different approaches to warfare. The
Anglo-Saxon army was composed almost entirely of infantry supported by a handful of archers
while William’s was only about half infantry. The other half was made up
of cavalry and archers. His army also didn’t include just his own people, and Bretons,
Frenchmen, and men of Flanders were plentiful throughout his ranks.
As he marched south at speed Harold planned to take the Norman army by
surprise but William’s scouts discovered the Anglo-Saxon army’s location, so,
William's army marched out to take them by surprise, but realizing they had been caught,
Harold's forces took a defensive position on a hill outside of Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon
infantry formed a half-mile long shield-wall and held off William’s army for most of the day;
his infantry were outnumbered by Harold’s and had to fight uphill while his lightly-armoured
cavalry were ineffective against the entrenched Anglo-Saxon positions and his archers had trouble
piercing the shield-wall. So the Norman infantry feigned a retreat, or possibly
actually did retreat we don’t know for certain, but regardless believing that their victory was
near the Anglo-Saxons broke formation to pursue the Normans. With their powerful shield-wall no
longer a threat and with his infantry serving as a distraction, William’s cavalry smashed through
the disjointed Anglo-Saxon ranks. His infantry turned around and joined the slaughter. By the
end of the battle around 2,000 Normans and 4,000 Anglo-Saxons, including Harold Godwinson who took
an arrow through the eye, were dead and William’s path to London and the English throne were secure.
He was crowned King William I of England on Christmas Day 1066 in Westminster Abbey. The
completed Norman Conquest kick-started over 900 years of rivalry between England, later Britain,
and France. First over whether the King of England in his capacity as Duke of Normandy
owed loyalty to the French King and later over colonial influence across the globe.
But even as they warred with them, the Normans certainly still saw themselves
as French. After becoming King, William, now known as “the Conqueror” didn’t actually spend
much of his life in England, instead staying in Normandy where he eventually died in 1087.
He was succeeded by his son Henry I, securing the house of Normandy’s control over England.
But William wasn’t disinterested in the Kingdom’s affairs. He replaced
the Anglo-Saxon nobility with French-speaking Normans who owed him their personal loyalty.
Most of them were soldiers who fought at Hastings or other supporters from the
continent. The Anglo-Saxon people remained in place and continued to speak their language,
while French became the language of the upper class, but over time the two cultures merged
into Anglo-Norman and eventually modern English. Which, by the way, is why we can
mostly read Shakespeare, written after the conquest, but Beowulf looks like nonsense.
That’s not to say William’s new Anglo-Saxon subjects were overly happy about their Norman
overlords though, and they rose up in rebellion on more than one occasion during William’s reign,
usually with disastrous results. In response, the Normans built the most
impressive fortifications seen in England since Rome’s abandonment of Britain 700 years earlier,
several of which, including Windsor Castle and the Tower of London, still stand today.
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as always, I’ve been James, and thank you for watching Look Back History.