The English and the Norman Conquest

Front Cover
Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1995 - History - 264 pages
Applies a critical and scholarly approach to a topic that has long commanded attention... Williams's book represents a remarkable scholarly achievement. THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Most books on the Norman conquest concentrate on the conquerors, the Norman settlers who became the ancestors of the medieval English baronage. This book is different, setting out to examine the experience of the lesser English lords and landowners, which has been largely ignored. Ann Williams shows how they survived the conquest and settlement, adapted to foreign customs, and in the process preserved native tradition and culture. Though the great earls and magnates fell with Harold, some of their dependents secured a place in the entourages of their supplanters, or were too useful to the royal administration (based largely on English procedure) to be completely displaced; in the Church, too, a reservoir of English sentiment survived. The testimony of the Anglo-Norman historians who chronicled the Conquest, together with other evidence, including the Domesday Book (based on the English system of local government), are an important source for our knowledge of how the lesser aristocracy and the free landholders felt about, and reacted to, their new masters.

Dr ANN WILLIAMS was until her retirement Senior Lecturer in medieval history at the Polytechnic of North London.

 

Contents

THE NORMAN SETTLEMENT
7
THE ENGLISH REVOLT 10681070
24
THE FALL OF THE EARLS
45
SURVIVORS
71
THE SERVICE OF THE KING
98
HOLY MEN AND WORLDLY GOODS
126
REMEMBERING THE PAST
155
LIVING IN THE PRESENT
187
WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED
221
INDEX
243
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information