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Norman Conquest
Norman Conquest, the military conquest of
TABLE OF CONTENTS
England by William, duke of Normandy, primarily
effected by his decisive victory at the Battle of • Introduction
Hastings (October 14, 1066) and resulting
• Invasion of England
ultimately in profound political, administrative, and
• Consequences of the conquest
social changes in the British Isles.
Invasion of England
The conquest was the final act of a complicated drama that had begun years earlier, in the
reign of Edward the Confessor, last king of the Anglo-Saxon royal line. Edward, who had
almost certainly designated William as his successor in 1051, was involved in a childless
marriage and used his lack of an heir as a diplomatic tool, promising the throne to different
parties throughout his reign, including Harold Godwineson, later Harold II, the powerful
earl of Wessex. The exiled Tostig, who was Harold’s brother, and Harald III Hardraade,
king of Norway, also had designs on the throne and threatened invasion. Amid this welter
of conflicting claims, Edward from his deathbed named Harold his successor on January 5,
1066, and Harold was crowned king the following day. However, Harold’s position was
compromised, according to the Bayeux Tapestry and other Norman sources, because in
1064 he had sworn an oath, in William’s presence, to defend William’s right to the throne.
From almost the beginning of his reign, Harold faced challenges to his authority. Tostig
began raiding the southern and eastern coasts of England in May, eventually joining forces
with Harald III. Harold was able to keep his militia on guard throughout the summer but
dismissed it early in September, when he ran out of supplies and his peasant soldiers needed
to return to their fields for the harvest. This left the south without defenses, exposing it to
invasion by William. Before William arrived, however, Harald III and Tostig invaded in the
north; Harold hastened to Yorkshire, where at Stamford Bridge (September 25) he won a
smashing victory in which both Harald III and Tostig perished.
Meanwhile, on the Continent, William had secured support for his invasion from both the
Norman aristocracy and the papacy. By August 1066 he had assembled a force of
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4,000–7,000 knights and foot soldiers, but
unfavourable winds detained his transports for eight
weeks. Finally, on September 27, while Harold was
occupied in the north, the winds changed, and William
crossed the Channel immediately. Landing in
Bayeux Tapestry: Battle of Pevensey on September 28, he moved directly to
Hastings
Hastings. Harold, hurrying southward with about
7,000 men, approached Hastings on October 13.
Surprised by William at dawn on October 14, Harold drew up his army on a ridge 10 miles
(16 km) to the northwest.
Harold’s wall of highly trained infantry held firm in the face of William’s mounted assault;
failing to breach the English lines and panicked by the rumour of William’s death, the
Norman cavalry fled in disorder. But William, removing his helmet to show he was alive,
rallied his troops, who turned and killed many English soldiers. As the battle continued, the
English were gradually worn down; late in the afternoon, Harold was killed (by an arrow in
the eye, according to the Bayeux Tapestry), and by nightfall the remaining English had
scattered and fled. William then made a sweeping advance to isolate London, and at
Berkhamstead the major English leaders submitted to him. He was crowned in Westminster
Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. Sporadic indigenous revolts continued until 1071; the most
serious, in Northumbria (1069–70), was suppressed by William himself, who then
devastated vast tracts of the north. The subjection of the country was completed by the
rapid building of a great number of castles.
Consequences of the conquest
The extent and desirability of the changes brought about by the conquest have long been
disputed by historians. Certainly, in political terms, William’s victory destroyed England’s
links with Scandinavia, bringing the country instead into close contact with the Continent,
especially France. Inside England the most radical change was the introduction of land
tenure and military service. While tenure of land in return for services had existed in
England before the conquest, William revolutionized the upper ranks of English society by
dividing the country among about 180 Norman tenants-in-chief and innumerable mesne
(intermediate) tenants, all holding their fiefs by knight service. The result, the almost total
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replacement of the English aristocracy with a Norman one, was paralleled by similar
changes of personnel among the upper clergy and administrative officers.
Anglo-Saxon England had developed a highly organized central and local government and
an effective judicial system (see Anglo-Saxon law). All these were retained and utilized by
William, whose coronation oath showed his intention of continuing in the English royal
tradition. The old administrative divisions were not superseded by the new fiefs, nor did
feudal justice normally usurp the customary jurisdiction of shire and hundred courts. In
them and in the king’s court, the common law of England continued to be administered.
Innovations included the new but restricted body of “forest law” and the introduction in
criminal cases of the Norman trial by combat alongside the old Saxon ordeals. Increasing
use was made of the inquest procedure—the sworn testimony of neighbours, both for
administrative purposes and in judicial cases. A major change was William’s removal of
ecclesiastical cases from the secular courts, which allowed the subsequent introduction into
England of the then rapidly growing canon law.
William also transformed the structure and character of the church in England. He replaced
all the Anglo-Saxon bishops, except Wulfstan of Dorchester, with Norman bishops. Most
notably, he secured the deposition of Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury—who held his
see irregularly and had probably been excommunicated by Pope Leo IX—and appointed in
his place Lanfranc of Bec, a respected scholar and one of William’s close advisers. Seeking
to impose a more orderly structure on the English episcopacy, the king supported
Lanfranc’s claims for the primacy of Canterbury in the English church. William also
presided over a number of church councils, which were held far more frequently than under
his predecessors, and introduced legislation against simony (the selling of clerical offices)
and clerical marriage. A supporter of monastic reform while duke of Normandy, William
introduced the latest reforming trends to England by replacing Anglo-Saxon abbots with
Norman ones and by importing numerous monks. Although he founded only a small
number of monasteries, including Battle Abbey (in honour of his victory at Hastings),
William’s other measures contributed to the quickening of monastic life in England.
Probably the most regrettable effect of the conquest was the total eclipse of the English
vernacular as the language of literature, law, and administration. Superseded in official
documents and other records by Latin and then increasingly in all areas by Anglo-Norman,
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written English hardly reappeared until the 13th century.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
Citation Information
Article Title: Norman Conquest
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 16 February 2023
URL: https://www.britannica.comhttps://www.britannica.com/event/Norman-Conquest
Access Date: March 04, 2023
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