Table Of ContentBritish History in Perspective
General Editor: Jeremy Black
PUBLISHED TITLES
Rodney Barker Politics, Peoples and Government
C. J. Bartlett British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century
Jeremy Black Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics
in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain
Anne Curry The Hundred Years War
John W. Derry British Politics in the Age ofF ox, Pitt and Liverpool
William Gibson Religion and Society, 1760-1850
Brian Golding Conquest and Colonisation:
The Normans in Britain, 1066-11 00
Ann Hughes The Causes of the English Civil War
Ronald Hutton The British Republic, 1649-1660
Kevin Jefferys The Labour Party since 1945
D. M. Loades The Mid-Tudo1· Crisis, 1545-1565
Diarmaid MacCulloch The LatnReformation in England, 1547-1603
Keith Perry British Politics and the American Revolution
A. J. Pollard The Wars of the Roses
David Powell British Politics and the Labour Question, 1868-1990
Michael Prestwich English Politics in the Thirteenth Century
Richard Rex Henry VIII and the English Reformation
G. R. Searle The Libnal Party: Triumph and Disintegmtion, 1886-1929
Paul Seaward The Restoration, 1660-1668
Robert Stewart Party and Politics, 1830-1852
John W. Young Britain and European Unity, 1945-92
History of Ireland
D. G. Boyce The Irish Question and British Politics, 1868-1986
History of Scotland
Keith M. Brown Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union,
1603-1715
History of Wales
J. Gwyn for Jones Early Modern Wales, c.1525-1640
Please see ovnleaff or forthcoming titles
FORTHCOMING TITLES
Peter Catterall The Labour Party, 1918-1940
Pauline Croft James I
Eveline Cruickshanks The Glorious Revolution
John Davis British Politics, 1885-1931
David Dean Parliament and Politics in Elizabethan and
Jacobean England, 1558-1614
Susan Doran English Foreign Policy in the Sixteenth Century
David Eastwood England, 1750-1850: Government and Community
in the Provinces
Colin Eldridge The Victorians Overseas
Steven Gunn Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558
Richard Harding The Navy, 1504-1815
Angus Hawkins British Party Politics, 1852-1886
H. S. Jones Political Thought in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Anthony Milton Church and Religion in England, 1603-1642
R. C. Nash English Foreign Trade and the World Economy, 1600-1800
W. M. Ormrod Political Life in England, 1300-1450
Richard Ovendale Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth CentU1y
David Powell The Edwardian Crisis: Britain, 1901-1914
Brian Quintrell Government and Politics in Early Stuart England
Alan Sykes The Radical Right in Britain
Ann Williams Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England
John W. Young Britain and Western European Unity since 1945
Michael Young Charles I
History of Ireland
Sean Duffy Ireland in the Middle Ages
Hiram Morgan Ireland in the Early Modern Periphery, 1534-1690
Toby Barnard The Kingdom of Ireland, 1641-1740
Alan Heesom The Anglo-Irish Union, 1800-1922
History of Scotland
Bruce Webster Scotland in the Middle Ages
Roger Mason Kingship and Tyranny? Scotland 1513-1603
John Shaw The Political History ofE ighteenth-Century Scotland
John McCaffrey Scotland in the Nineteenth Century
I. G. C. Hutchinson Scottish Politics in the Twentieth Century
History of Wales
A. D. Carr Medieval Wales
Gareth Jones Wales, 1700-1980: Crisis ofI dentity
CONQUEST AND
COLONISATION
THE NORMANS IN BRITAIN, 1066-1100
BRIAN GoLDING
Seniur Lecturer in Histary
University of Southampton
M
St. Martin's Press
© Brian Golding 1994
Softcover reprint of the hardcover lst edition 1994 978-0-333-42917-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
First published in Great Britain 1994 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-42918-1 ISBN 978-1-349-23648-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23648-0
First published in the United States of America 1994 by
Scholarly and Reference Division,
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-12127-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Golding, Brian.
Conquest and colonisation: the Normans in Britain, 1066-1100 I
Brian Golding.
p. em.-(British history in perspective)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-12127-3
1. Great Britain-History-William I, 1066-1087. 2. Great
Britain-History-William II, Rufus, 1087-1100. 3. Normans-Great
Britain. I. Title. II. Series.
DA197.G65 1994
942.02'1-{).c20 93-47458
CIP
CONTENTS
Priface Vll
Acknowledgements
X
Maps
England and Normandy in the second half of the
eleventh century
Xl
2 The Church in post-Conquest England and Wales
Xll
3 The Normans in Wales, 1066-11 00
Xln
4 The castles of early-Norman England and Wales x1v
1 The Sources
2 Prelude to the Conquest 10
3 The Nonnan Conquest, 1066-1100 27
4 Setdem.ent and Colonisation 61
5 Governing the Conquered 86
6 Military Organisation 119
7 A Colonial Church? 146
8 Anglo-Nonnan England 177
Notes 194
Select Bibliograplry 215
Index 219
v
PREFACE
For over nine hundred years the Norman Conquest has been a
subject of discussion and debate. Of Sellars and Yeatman's two
memorable dates in history, l 066 remains the only one that still
readily comes to mind, and is still instandy recognisable. Regarded
by contemporaries as expressing the will of God, a divine judgement
on an errant king and nation, the Conquest has for the most part
continued to be interpreted in quasi-moral terms. So, for seven
teenth-century historical commentators, Stuart government was
defined within the context of the 'Norman yoke', an alien autocracy
that had long subverted pure Anglo-Saxon institutions of free
government: a reading which Freeman was to develop in the
nineteenth century when he implicidy compared Victorian par
liamentary democracy, typified by Gladstone, with the witenagemot
persuaded by the rhetoric of earl Godwine. Alternatively, the
Anglo-Saxon state has been regarded as administratively and milit
arily, if not morally, backward, a kingdom on the edge of a
Franco-centric 'Western civilisation' that needed the Norman dy
namic as a catalyst for its own internal development and external
expansion during the medieval period and beyond. Like most
colonisers, the Normans devalued the achievements of the culture
they conquered, and the justificatory, and circular, argument for
their success was that they 'won' because they were 'superior'. Later
historians have too often implicidy, and sometimes explicidy, col
luded in this analysis.
Yet the historiography of the Conquest does raise important issues
V11
Preface
of national identity on both sides of the Channel. How did the
mid-eleventh-century English perceive themselves? Was there a
clearly defined gens Normannorum? and how did the Normans, if they
were a distinct race, relate themselves to a wider Francophone
culture? Our answers to these questions are inevitably determined
by our own contexts and contemporary cultural conditions; each
generation inevitably constructs its own history of the Conquest.
Nevertheless, there does seem to be one historiographic constant.
However much historians might argue over whether or not the
Conquest was a 'Good Thing', or over the extent of 'cataclysmic'
change consequent upon 10 66, there has been, since the twelfth
century, general agreement that assimilation between Normans and
English was speedily achieved, and that the Conquest occasioned no
permanent, long-term disjunction. Chroniclers, often themselves of
mixed race, stressed continuity; the author of the Dialogue of the
Exchequer wrote that by his time (c.ll70) English and Normans were
indistinguishable. Thus the Conquest was subsumed into the tele
ological flow ofi English history: it became part of the national
heritage -and 'Heritage'. Thus it has come about that those most
potent symbols of alien dominion, the great stone castles of Anglo
Norman England, are now part of the central core of monuments
which not even the most philistine and market-led administrator has
yet suggested should be alienated.
This account of the Norman Conquest is intended as a synthesis of
recent scholarship within the context of an interpretation which argues
that the Norman penetration of England, and to a lesser extent of
Wales and Scotland also, before 1100 proceeded fitfully, and was by
no means assured of success until the 10 70s. The interaction of native
and colonising influences was highly intricate. It had begun years
before 10 66; it would only be fully realised during the reign of
Henry I. The first sections of this book examine the background to
the Norman invasion, and the course of military conquest that
began at Hastings. It then discusses the process of colonisation,
before analysing the impact of the Normans in three central areas
of English society: government, military organisation, and the
Church, before concluding with an attempt at an overview of the
assimilative process and the emergence of an Anglo-Norman England.
Vlll
Preface
Notes and bibliography have necessarily been kept to a minimum
and are intended to provide no more than pointers to further
discussion. Where essays in journals have recently been republished
in a collection, that reference has generally been given.
IX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In writing, I have contracted many debts, to historians living and
dead. Above all, my gratitude and thanks are due to my friends and
colleagues at the Battle Conferences on Anglo-Norman Studies.
Many will find their insights reflected here; I hope not too distor
tedly. The Conferences' founder, Professor Allen Brown, did more
than anyone this century to foster research on the Conquest:
controversial and inspirational, his influence remains profound. His
heir as conference organiser, Marjorie Chibnall, has encouraged
and supported me, as she has so many other colleagues. To others,
too, I owe much: to Professor Christopher Holdsworth and Mr John
Gillingham for their careful criticisms, and to Drs Janet Burton and
Tessa Webber, who have also read drafts, and to my Special Subject
students over more than a decade, who have stimulated, criticised,
and advised. I thank them all.
X
