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Norman England.

1. The Battle of Hastings 1066


The Saxons in battle (reconstruction) Harold Godwinsson, Earl of Wessex, was crowned King Harold II of England in January 1066.
The throne was also claimed by Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, and by William, Duke of Normandy. In May, King Harold
mustered his knights and a peasant militia to repel a Norman invasion. Throughout the summer the winds were against William; in
September the militia was stood down.
Days later Harold Hardrada landed in the north. After a seven-day forced march, on 25 September King Harold's forces surprised
and defeated the invaders at Stamford Bridge, seven miles east of York. The winds had now changed; on 28 September William
landed at Pevensey, near present-day Eastbourne. King Harold hurried south, raising new forces which faced William outside
Hastings on 14 October. The battle continued all day, ending only with King Harold's death.
The English earls initially gave the throne to Prince Edgar, the 13-year-old heir to the Anglo-Saxon dynasty; weeks later, both they
and he capitulated to William. He was crowned on Christmas Day. It took another four years for William to subdue the whole of
England, completing the Norman Conquest.

2. The Normans and the English 1066 - 1135


The Norman Conquest was not a mass invasion: about 10,000 Normans conquered a country of around a million inhabitants. This
imbalance, together with the persistence of English resistance after 1066, would shape the structure of Anglo-Norman society.
Starting from his base in the south-east of England, William I imposed Norman rule on the south-west, the Midlands and Yorkshire in
1068, meeting little resistance and ordering castles built wherever he went. In 1069 multiple revolts culminated in an invasion by
King Sven II of Denmark. William defeated the rebels and laid waste to the country between Nottingham and York, causing
widespread famine in 1070. The last English rebel, Hereward the Wake, held out in the Lincolnshire fens until 1072.
In pacifying England, William transformed its social structure: about 4,000 English earls were dispossessed and replaced by about
200 barons, the King's 'tenants-in-chief'. Barons received allegiance from the lower ranks of society, including knights, 'free men'
who paid rent or rendered occasional services, land-owning 'villeins' and landless 'cottars'. As the law developed, these gradations
gave way to a simple division into free men and serfs.

3. England, Wales and Scotland 1066 - 1216


Under the Norman kings, England's border with Scotland was fluid; in 1139, during the disputed reign of King Stephen, King David I
of Scotland set the border as far south as the Tees. The conquest was reversed by Henry II, who defeated King William of Scotland,
David's grandson, in 1174. However, English and Norman cultural influences had now taken root in Scotland; even King David was
related to the Anglo-Saxon Prince Edgar and married to the heiress of an English earldom.
England's frontier with the multiple kingdoms of Wales was defined by the territorial ambitions of the barons William I established in
the Marches, from Chester to Monmouth. By the reign of Henry II North Wales was dominated by the one remaining Welsh kingdom
of Gwynedd. The south and east were divided three ways between the 'marcher lords', Welsh lords who were now loyal to the
England and the English throne, benefiting from Henry I's dispossession of Robert of Shrewsbury. Although Henry II made two
attempts to break the power of the Welsh, the question of who ruled Wales would not be finally settled until the 14th century.

4. England, Normandy and France 1066 - 1216


England was conquered in 1066 by a Norman Duke; the English throne would hold French as well as English territory for almost
500 years. The English claims on France were not continuous, however. William I left England to one son and Normandy to another;
the realm was only reunited by a third son, Henry I. After the anarchy of Stephen's reign, the English and Norman lands were
reunited again by Henry II. Heir to Normandy by his mother and Anjou by his father, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine and
conquered Brittany in his own right: for 30 years England was the northern extension of a realm stretching from the Channel to the
Pyrenees.
King John's accession in 1199 caused dissension: some barons rallied to Eleanor of Aquitaine and others to Arthur of Brittany, the
posthumous son of John's elder brother Geoffrey. John's harshness and ineptitude, exploited by King Philip II of France, resulted in
the loss of all England's French domains except Gascony in the south of Aquitaine. By the end of the Norman period, almost the
whole of France had become a foreign country.

5. England, Normandy and France 1066 - 1216


England was conquered in 1066 by a Norman Duke; the English throne would hold French as well as English territory for almost
500 years. The English claims on France were not continuous, however. William I left England to one son and Normandy to another;
the realm was only reunited by a third son, Henry I. After the anarchy of Stephen's reign, the English and Norman lands were
reunited again by Henry II. Heir to Normandy by his mother and Anjou by his father, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine and
conquered Brittany in his own right: for 30 years England was the northern extension of a realm stretching from the Channel to the
Pyrenees.
King John's accession in 1199 caused dissension: some barons rallied to Eleanor of Aquitaine and others to Arthur of Brittany, the
posthumous son of John's elder brother Geoffrey. John's harshness and ineptitude, exploited by King Philip II of France, resulted in
the loss of all England's French domains except Gascony in the south of Aquitaine. By the end of the Norman period, almost the
whole of France had become a foreign country.

6. The Domesday Book 1086 - 88


In 1085 England was briefly threatened by invasion by King Knut IV of Denmark, son of Sven II. The expense of preparing to defend
England prompted William to order a survey of the wealth of the country. England was divided into seven 'circuits', each combed by
two successive teams of investigators. Combining the evidence of 'sworn inquests' with existing records, the survey identified all the
property in the kingdom, recording its ownership and value then and in the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042 - 66).
A first draft of the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, enabling William to tax his wealthier subjects heavily. That August he
summoned his tenants-in-chief and their more powerful knights to Salisbury, where he required them to swear an oath of allegiance
to him. Both the Domesday survey and the Oath of Salisbury can be seen as preparations for a new military campaign in Normandy,
where William was under threat from his eldest son Robert and King Philip I of France. William died on campaign in 1087; the
Domesday Book was completed in 1089, in the reign of his younger son William Rufus.

7. Matilda and Stephen: the Years of Anarchy 1135 - 54


8. King Richard the Lionheart 1189 - 99
9. King John and the Barons 1199 - 1216
Born in 1167, Prince John was Henry II's youngest son. Nicknamed 'Lackland', John tried repeatedly to expand his domains through
shifting alliances with his brothers and their mother.
John's elder brother Richard the Lionheart became King in 1189, then left on crusade. In his absence John allied himself with King
Philip II of France and fomented rebellion in England. On his return in 1194 Richard pardoned and humiliated John, calling him a
child who had got into bad company.
John became King in 1199. Within five years he had lost Normandy to Philip - earning the new nickname of 'Soft-sword' - and
imposed heavy taxes. A dispute with the Pope led to John's excommunication in 1209; four years later John declared his kingdom a
papal fief, gaining Rome's unswerving support. A rebellion by northern barons led in 1215 to the signing of the Magna Carta, which
codified existing law and barred the King from overriding it. Unsatisfied, the rebels sought John's removal and turned to Philip's son
Louis, who invaded in 1216. Only John's death that year averted a full-scale civil war.

Ms informacin:
Essential Norman Conquest - A Real Time Experience
The Normans, a European People

http://www.britainexpress.com/History/
www.britannia.com/history

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