My nephew was reading this book at our family reunion. It looked interesting. It was. I know my English history, more or less, from the reign of Henry II forward. From the departure of the Romans to Henry I, my ignorance was vast. Morris's book is detailed, careful, and judicious--and readable.
I had an impression that the Norman conquest was good for England: it brought it into the then-modern world because Normandy was state-of-the-art for medieval Europe. The view Morris left me with was that some things were lost and some things were gained. England was not England-as-we-know-it before William the Conquerer's invasion in 1066. Culturally, it was more like Scandinavia. For that matter, Normandy was not "French" yet. But the Norsemen who invaded and settled in Normandy had become more "European"--more like the Holy Roman Empire--in the generations they had lived there. By medieval standards, they ran "an administrative state."
For example, England had slavery before the Conquest. Slavery had ceased to exist in Normandy much earlier. England's political and military culture was "barbarian" before the Conquest: assassination was not unusual and victors customarily killed the vanquished. Normandy already had the beginnings of chivalry: if an opponent yielded or an opposing army surrendered, their lives were spared. Feudalism (the idea of reciprocal obligations between lord and subject) was more advanced in Normandy. (We do not normally think of feudalism being "advanced," but it was a step forward from Scandinavia's more tribal, rape-and-pillage culture.)
William was a reformer. Before his arrival, the English Catholic Church had been comparatively relaxed. He teamed up with two Popes and several Bishops (appointed by him) to insist on celibacy for the clergy and to remove the last vestiges of paganism and vernacular worship. This coincided with a massive building program of (big) new cathedrals in the thoroughly modern Romanesque style, imported from Normandy. As an admirer of relaxed religion and classy architecture, I found myself of two minds about William's achievements in religion.
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| A plate in The Norman Conquest pictures the interior of Durham Cathedral (begun after 1093) to illustrate Morris's point that Norman Romanesque grandeur was (later) combined with more traditional English decoration. Actually, Durham doesn't look much different than this picture of Notre Dame La Grande in Poitiers, France (well south of Normandy). Notre Dame La Grande was built in the 900's and underwent major renovation in 1086. The Baroque treatment of the altar was doubtless added (much) later. |
What William and his Bishops did for churches, he and his Barons did for castles. Stone castles, previously unknown in England, went up all over England in the decades after 1066. They were for defense and dominance as well as residence. The Tower Of London, one of William's own special projects, was one of them. Its exterior looks much the same now as it did when it went up. This was military domination in spades. Although there were several rebellions against William after the Battle Of Hastings, the complete domination of England was not in doubt if he and his vassals could operate from stone castles with sufficient bodies of knights.
Changes in society were the most interesting to me. The Normans decapitated the English aristocracy. No significant nobles in the top ranks of the aristocracy were Brits. They were almost entirely disinherited from land ownership in favor of Normans. They became lesser gentry. The same "cram down" effect operated on England's former lesser gentry and freemen. The only Englishmen to benefit from the Conquest were slaves. Slaves disappeared from England entirely buy about 1100.
Latin replaced English as the official language and French as the language of the upper classes. Why did the English language survive? Wikipedia says because its Germanic grammar was simple. Both Wiki and Morris agree that the Normans added mostly (French) loan words. Morris makes two additional good points. 1) English was already a written language. It never entirely disappeared from the records and chronicles of lower order monasteries and secular life. 2) About 8000 Normans became permanent residents of England and intermarried. Morris says the language became a creole mix. That seems a bit strong. As the vernacular crept up into the resident upper classes again, it remained Germanic in grammar with loan words or derived words from French. This is the language known as Middle English today (roughly, 1100-1500).
Why did England survive? Partly because William and his successors (including Henry II and Richard I) were primarily interested in France. They spent 60% or more of their time there. And (the Conquest itself aside) more of their military efforts. England became the cash (and soldier) cow for continental wars. William and Henry II couldn't solve the problem of maintaining an empire that spanned the English Channel. The problem of Henry II's succession ("too many sons") was eerily foreshadowed by an identical problem upon William's death. Henry II's son John settled the problem for good by losing all of his French possessions and his absolute power in England too, with Magna Carta. His Barons became tired of being cash cows for his continental adventures. This gave England the time and space to sort out its own identity and culture.
