The Normans 1066-1154

Who were They?

The Scandinavian Vikings -raiders from the sea – rejoicing in such wonderful names as Eystein the Noisy, Sweyn Forkbeard and Erik Bloodaxe, cut a huge swathe through Europe as far as Russia, and, in their state-of-the-art longships, even reached as far west as America. In England the ruling House of Wessex, Alfred the Great's family, was plagued the most by the Danish Vikings and had to reach a compromise and allow them to settle in the area to the north and east of a line between London and Chester, the route of the old Roman Watling Street, which became known as Danelaw.

Meanwhile, other Danes led by Rollo, a Norwegian Viking, were granted lands in northern France by King Charles the Simple, who wanted to avoid further confrontation with them. One story says that when called upon to kiss the king’s foot in homage, Rollo sent him flying as a reminder that he and his Vikings would always be a force to be reckoned with. Later Rollo converted to Christianity and changed his name to Robert.

Rollo’s great-granddaughter, Emma of Normandy, married Aethelred the Unready of England, a man not cast in the same wise mould as his ancestor Alfred the Great, and who attacked the Danes living peacefully in Danelaw, with the result that Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, whose sister had been killed, arrived on the scene and forced him to flee abroad. In 1016, Sweyn’s son Canute (Knut) became King of England – one of the most dedicated and competent the country has ever had. Aethelred died in exile and his widow packed off her children to her relations in Normandy and promptly married a much younger man – none other than King Canute himself!

When Canute died, a power struggle ensued between his sons, both of whom had very short reigns, and eventually Emma and Aethelred’s exiled son, known because of his extreme piety as Edward the Confessor, emerged as the reluctant ruler.

Emma of Normandy’s great nephew, Duke William of Normandy, expected his kinsman King Edward to name him as his heir and so claimed the throne when the Confessor died; he also claimed to have had the promise of support from the country’s leading nobleman, Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, and was more than a little put out when it was Harold and not himself who was chosen by the Witan, a council of wise men. William defeated and killed Harold at Hastings in October 1066 and was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.

William the Conqueror was the son of Duke Robert (the Devil) and Arlette, a tanner’s daughter – she later married one of the duke’s followers and became the mother of Odo, later Bishop of Bayeux, for whom the great Bayeux Tapestry was made.

The Conqueror’s bachelor son William II, called Rufus because of his red complexion or red hair, was a powerful but unpopular ruler ‘accidentally’ killed in the New Forest; it was widely believed his brother Henry was party to the murder.

Henry I was a strong ruler in whose reign much was done to unite the Normans and the vanquished Saxons. His heir was drowned in the Channel, a disaster leading eventually to a terrible civil war between the cousins Stephen and Matilda. Matilda was defeated, but the death of Stephen’s son meant the end of the Norman dynasty.