How to use this Page

In July 1867 the British historian Edward Augustus Freeman was in the thick of writing his epic History of the Norman Conquest. Ever a stickler for detail, he wrote to the geologist William Boyd Dawkins asking for help establishing where exactly in Pevensey soon-to-be King Harold disembarked in 1052.

The post Time and tide (and mammoths) appeared first on OUPblog.

I used to climb trees when I was young (and I still, on occasion, do). As a boy in Iraq I had a favoured loquat tree, with branches that bore leathery, serrated leaves, shiny on the upper surface, and densely matted with fine hairs underneath. It seemed so big, though I now reflect it was probably rather small. I would haul myself up and over the lowest branch, making whatever use of the twists and folds of the trunk as provided purchase to my small feet.

The post For the love of trees appeared first on OUPblog.

Tweet

By George Garnett

The Norman Conquest of England, recently examined in Rob Bartlett’s television series, offers some striking parallels. The term is jargon, of a type beloved by politicians, because it attempts to foreclose on reflection and debate. The manner of the ‘change’ – by armed force – is veiled, and the agent unspecified, even though both are always obvious. Less obvious is why a particular ‘regime’ requires ‘change’ by foreign military intervention. In the case of Iraq, our own regime has tried and tried again to make the requirement obvious to us, and perhaps also to itself. One such attempt was so ‘sexed up’ that it will go down in history as the ‘dodgy dossier’.

Going back almost a millennium, we find evidence for a similarly sophisticated attempt on the part of a foreign power to justify the replacement of this country’s regime. There are, of course, many differences, in particular Duke William’s claim that he was dutifully suppressing Harold II’s brief, tyrannical usurpation, and, in his own person, restoring the true heir to Edward the Confessor.  As such, the official Norman line, embodied in Domesday Book, was that English legitimacy had been restored. Old England continued, and not even under new management. In this respect, the recent forceful change of regime in Iraq was quite different. There, a pretence has been made of imposing a novel and utterly foreign system of government, on the assumption that it is the sole, universally valid type. But in terms of the elaborate efforts made to justify Duke William’s actions, to provide legal cover for endorsement by the eleventh-century equivalent of the UN – the papal curia –, the parallels in tendentious legal scrupulosity are uncanny. We tend to think of medieval rulers, and the clerics who worked and wrote for them, as crude, simple types, unconcerned with diplomatic niceties. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our distance from 1066 makes it easier to evaluate the results of this particular regime change. The mantra of continuity with Old England, epitomised in a ubiquitous acronym for the status quo in the ‘time’ of King Edward, in turn provided cover for the systematic removal of the English aristocracy, and a transformation in the terms on which their French replacements held their new English lands. This was elite ethnic cleansing. By seizing control of England’s past, the Normans transformed its future, and reconstructed it in their own image – all the while proclaiming that nothing had changed. Harold II was soon airbrushed out of history. By the time Domesday Book was produced, at the end of the Conqueror’s reign, Harold II had never been king. Every major English church had been or was soon to be demolished and rebuilt in the new continental style. Fifty years after the Conquest, England had been rendered almost unrecognisable, and all in the name of a regime change founded on the premise that there had been no change of regime.

Justification and reality were revealingly juxtaposed in York on Christmas Day 1069, on the third anniversary of William’s coronation. In response to English rebellion in the North, he had laid the region waste. Finally, his troops had even torched York Minster. William then arranged for his regalia to be sent up to York, so that he could solemnly display his regality in the burnt out shell of the church. In Iraq thus far the conquest seems to have been much less successful, and therefore the antithesis between the theory and the brutal facts of regime change has not (yet) been as sharply delineated.

George Garnett is Tutorial Fellow in M

0 Comments on What can the Norman Conquest teach us about regime change? as of 1/1/1900

Add a Comment

I couldn’t help noticing this story, which states that many of the names still popular in English-speaking countries originate from the Normans, who won control of England in 1066. Meanwhile, names that were popular in England at the time – such as Aethelred, Eadric, and Leofric – have disappeared. With that in mind, I turned to Babies’ Names, by Patrick Hanks and Kate Hardcastle, to find out more about Norman names. Below are a selection, along with their meanings.

Adele This was borne by a 7th-century saint, a daughter if the Frankish King Dagobert II. It was also the name of William the Conqueror’s youngest daughter (c. 1062-1137), who became the wife of Stephen of Blois. The name went out of use in England in the later Middle Ages, and was revived in the 19th century. It is the stage name of English singer-songwriter Laurie Blue Atkins (b. 1988).

Alison From a very common medieval name, a Norman French diminutive of Alice. It virtually died out in England in the 15th century, but survived in Scotland, with the result that until its revival in England in the 20th century it had a strongly Scottish flavour. The usual spelling in North America is Allison.

Bernard Norman and Old French name of Germanic (Frankish) origin, meaning ‘bear-hardy’. This was borne by three famous medieval churchmen: St Bernard of Menthon (923-1008), founder of a hospice on each of the Alpine passes named after himl; the monastic reformer St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153); and the scholastic philosopher Bernard of Chartres.

Emma Old French name, of Germanic (Frankish) origin, originally a short form of compound names such as Ermintrude, containing the word erm(en), irm(en) ‘entire’. It was adopted by the Normans and introduced by them to Britain. Its popularity in medieval England was greatly enhanced by the fact that it had been borne by the mother of Edward the Confessor, herself a Norman.

Hugh From an Old French name, Hugues, of Germanic (Frankish) origin derived from hug ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ’spirit’. It was originally a short form of various compound names containing this element. This was borne by the aristocracy of medieval France, adopted by the Normans, and introduced by them to Britain.

Leonard From an Old French personal name of Germanic origin, derived from leon ‘lion’ + hard ‘hardy’, ‘brave’, ’strong’. This was the name of a 5th-century Frankish saint, the patron of peasants and horses. Although it was introduced into Britain by the Normans, Leonard was not a particularly common name during the Middle Ages. It was revived in the 19th century and became very popular. The spelling Lennard is also found.

Rosalind From an Old French personal name of Germanic (Frankish) origin, from hros ‘horse’ + lind ‘weak’, ‘tender’, ’soft’. It was adopted by the Normans and introduced by them to Britain. Its popularity as a given name owes much to its use by Edmund Spenser for the character of a shepherdess in his pastoral poetry, and by Shakespeare as the name of the heroine in As You Like It.

William Probably the most successful of all the Old French names of Germanic origin that were introduced to England by the Normans. It is derived from Germanic wil ‘will’, ‘desire’ + helm ‘helmet’, ‘protection’. The fact that it was borne by the Conqueror himself does not seem to have inhibited its favour with