3. Contents
• The Beginning
• Harold’s army
• The soldiers
• Edward the Confessor
• The tactics
• William the Conqueror
• English emigration
• Influence
• Language
4. The Beginning
The Norman conquest of
England began on 28
September 1066 with the
invasion of England by
William, Duke of
Normandy, who became
known as William the
Conqueror after his victory
at the Battle of Hastings on
14 October 1066, defeating
the then king Harold II of
England.
5. Harold’s army
Harold's army was badly
depleted in the English
victory at the Battle of
Stamford Bridge in Northern
England on 25 September
1066 over the army of King
Harald III of Norway. By
early 1071, William had
secured control of most of
England, although
rebellions and resistance
continued to approximately
1088.
7. Edward the
Confessor
He was half-Norman by birth
and had spent most of his life in
Normandy; he appointed
Normans to important positions
in the state . England was already
half 'Normanized' before the
Norman Conquest of 1066.
Across the Channel in Normandy,
а loud protest was heard.
According to Duke William,
Edward the Confessor had made
the same promise to him; what
was more, Harold had already
accepted William's claim during а
visit to Normandy two years
before.
8. The tactics
William swept across the
Channel with his army and
landed near Hastings. Harold
was in the north, where he
had just defeated а Norse
invasion, but he hurried south
and, brave but foolish, offered
battle. His men were tired and
he would have done better to
have starved the Normans
out. Still, his position on а hill
was а strong one, until the
Normans, pretending to run
away, lured the English down
the hill.
9. William the
Conqueror
At first he moved gently, and tried
to disturb Anglo-Saxon institutions
as little as possible. England already
possessed better government
machinery than Normandy, so that
was only sensible. But rebellions
against the Normans provoked him
into harsher action. In the north, his
soldiers swept through the country
like fire. Between York and Durham
they left hardly а building standing.
William ruled Normandy as well
as England, and for the next 500
years English kings also held land in
France.
10. English emigration
Large numbers of English
people, especially from the dispossessed
former landowning class, ultimately found
Norman domination unbearable and
emigrated. Scotland and the Byzantine
Empire were particularly popular
destinations, while others settled in Ireland
(as did Godwine and Magnus, sons of Harold
Godwinson), Scandinavia and perhaps as far
afield as Russia and the coasts of the Black
Sea. Many English nobles and soldiers
migrated to Byzantium, where they became
the predominant element in the elite
Varangian Guard, hitherto a largely
Scandinavian unit, from which the
emperor's bodyguard was drawn. English
Varangians continued to serve the empire
until at least the mid-fourteenth century.
11. Influence
The Norman conquest
was a pivotal event in
English history. It largely
removed the native ruling
class, replacing it with a
foreign, French-speaking
monarchy, aristocracy, and
clerical hierarchy. This, in
turn, brought about a
transformation of the
English language and the
culture of England in a new
era often referred to as
Norman England.
12. Influence
The Conquest caused sweeping
changes among the leading land-
holding families. There were
Norman landlords before
1066, but most were Anglo-Saxon
or Danish. Within twenty years, all
William’s chief tenants were
Normans. As а sign of the
change, stone castles rose
threateningly at every
strongpoint, and work was started
on the great cathedrals in the
cities. In the early stages of
construction, the two types of
building looked alike - а sign of the
alliance in Norman England of the
powers of Church and State.
13. Influence
Normans quickly adapted to
the indigenous culture,
renouncing paganism and
converting to Christianity. They
adopted the langue d'oïl of
their new home and added
features from their own Norse
language, transforming it into
the Norman language. They
further blended into the culture
by intermarrying with the local
population.
14. Influence
By bringing England under the control
of rulers originating in France, the
Norman conquest linked the country
more closely with continental
Europe, lessened Scandinavian
influence, and set the stage for a rivalry
with France that would continue
intermittently for many centuries. It
also had important consequences for
the rest of the British Isles, paving the
way for further Norman conquests in
Wales and Ireland, and the extensive
penetration of the aristocracy of
Scotland by Norman and other French-
speaking families, with the
accompanying spread of continental
institutions and cultural influences.
15. Language
One of the most obvious changes was the
introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern
dialect of Old French, as the language of the
classes in England, displacing Old English. This
predominance was further reinforced and
complicated in the mid-twelfth century by an
influx of followers of the Angevin
dynasty, speaking a more mainstream dialect
of French.
17. Conclusion
The Norman Conquest was the last
successful invasion of England by a foreign
claimant. Others have tried – such as the
Spanish, the French, the Germans – and failed.
We can therefore look back on the Norman
Conquest as helping to shape the England of
the present. The importance of 1066 is seen in
the permanence of those changes.
