Table Of ContentFirst published in Great Britain in 1964 by Eyre Methuen Ltd First published in paperback in 1969 by
Methuen London Ltd This edition first published by Yale University Press in 1999
Copyright © 1964 David C. Douglas
New edition © 1999 The Estate of David C. Douglas New Foreword © 1999 Frank Barlow
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying
permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the
publishers.
Printed in Great Britain by Good News Digital Books
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-61176
ISBN 978-0-300-07884-8 (pbk.)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
TO
Evelyn Douglas
CONTENTS
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
FOREWORD TO THE YALE EDITION (by Frank Barlow)
PREFACE
ABBREVIATIONS
PROLOGUE
Part I · THE YOUNG DUKE
1 Birth and Inheritance
2 Accession and Minority (1035–1047)
3 The War for Survival (1047–1060)
Part II · THE DUKE IN HIS DUCHY
4 The Duke and the New Aristocracy
5 The Ecclesiastical Revival
6 The Rule of Duke William
Part III · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGDOM
7 Normandy and England (1035–1065)
8 The Conquest of England (January 1066–March 1067)
9 The Defence of the Anglo-Norman Kingdom (March 1067–November 1085)
Part IV · THE KING IN HIS KINGDOM
10 Willelmus Rex
11 The Feudal Polity
12 The Royal Administration
13 The King in the Church
14 The End of the Reign (Christmas 1085–9 September 1087)
Epilogue
APPENDICES
A The birth of William the Conqueror and the connexions of Herleve
B The chronology of Duke William's campaigns between 1047 and 1054
C The marriage of William and Matilda
D The sequence of events in 1066
E The chronology of King William's campaigns between 1073 and 1081
F On poisoning as a method of political action in eleventh-century Normandy
SELECT CHART PEDIGREES
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
SCHEDULE OF SELECTED DATES
INDEX
MAPS
I Normandy in the time of William the Conqueror
II England and Normandy in the time of William the Conqueror
FOREWORD TO THE YALE EDITION
by Frank Barlow
Full of honours, David Douglas died in 1982, eighteen years after this book was
first published. Although interest in the Norman conquest of England has
increased rather than abated since he wrote, Douglas's William the Conqueror
has not been superseded. The conquest has always been regarded as the great
turning-point in English history. It was the moment when the kingdom, which
had evolved out of the settlement of Germanic peoples in Britain in the fifth
century, and when already shaken by the Scandinavian conquest at the beginning
of the eleventh century, was given a completely new and lasting direction. In
popular history it is a key event; for scholars it is a stopping place, convenient
for considering several constitutional, economic and social matters. It has
attracted many distinguished historians since the mid-Victorian age. E. A.
Freeman published his The History of the Norman Conquest of England in six
volumes between 1867 and 1879, while concurrently expanding and revising it.
The conquest was investigated by William Stubbs in the first volume of his The
Constitutional History of England (1873), and by Sir Frederick Pollock and F.
W. Maitland in their History of English Law before Edward I (2 vols., 1895).
And in the last years of the century J. H. Round, by attacking the views of
Freeman and his disciples in articles and reviews, made the subject highly
controversial.
No one has doubted that the Norman conquest was the sole responsibility of
William, duke of Normandy: that without his ambition, drive and military talents
it would not have taken place. He is, therefore, one of the greats of history. But
for a variety of reasons he has not usually been found very attractive. Ordericus
Vitalis, the Anglo-Norman monk and historian at Saint-Evroult, who, as a
patriotic Englishman, did not care overmuch for the Conqueror, in his
Ecclesiastical History referred those of his readers who wished to learn more
about him to the judicious account of William of Poitiers, archdeacon of Lisieux,
and, more hesitatingly, to the epic of Guy, bishop of Amiens. He could have
added William of Jumièges's contribution to The Deeds of the Dukes of the
Normans and recommended a look at the Bayeux Tapestry. All these sources are
interrelated, with the epic most probably the earliest in date. They did, indeed,
provide an account of some parts of William's life and deeds (vita et gesta), but
shed little light on his private behaviour (conversatio). There is scarcely an
anecdote in the whole corpus. Perhaps revealingly, the most vivid – and horrible
– episode is William's death and burial. And it was left to L. J. Engels to point
out in 1973 that the hitherto influential character sketch in De Obitu Willelmi
Ducis Normannorum Regisque Anglorum was copied almost verbatim from
Einhard's Life of Charlemagne and the ‘Astronomer's’ Life of Louis the Pious. In
Bishop Guy's epic William is just a bloodthirsty warrior, of amazing strength
and courage and without pity or remorse, in no way ‘chivalrous’. The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle in its obituary notice followed the king's love and patronage of
monks and his dignity as king with a strong denunciation of his tyranny and
injustice, although allowing that he had kept good order in the kingdom. In
contrast, William's two elder sons, Robert, duke of Normandy, and William
Rufus, king of England, but not the youngest, King Henry I, inspired much
gossip and many good stories. Biographers of the Conqueror are therefore forced
to concentrate their attention on the events and their effects on the kingdom, the
duchy and their neighbours.
David (Charles) Douglas (1898–1982), a Scot and keen golfer, studied at
Oxford under a number of most distinguished medievalists, J. E. A. Jolliffe, E.
A. Lowe, Reginald Lane Poole and the legendary Vinogradoff – a pupil of
Mommsen and a sometime professor in Moscow University. And, after a foray
into the East-Anglian social scene, inspired by Vinogradoff, he settled down
almost exclusively to a study of the Normans. His interests were two-fold. He
explored the historiography of the Norman conquest of England, attending
especially to the English antiquarians of the late-Stuart period. And by adding to
Freeman's comprehensive knowledge of the chronicles a profound study of
charters and other documentary evidence, both English and, mostly, Norman, he
equipped himself well to commemorate the Norman achievement. He also
developed an excellent literary style. He believed that history is a branch of
literature and that the historian should aim at being intelligible and attractive to
the general reader. He wrote well, displaying tactfully the fruits of wide reading.
He is always lucid and had the gift of making apt references and producing
