The history of Anglo-Norman feudalism is simple enough - a strong king held the system together. To become strong, the king had to overcome the centrifugal tendencies created by the ambitions of his strongest vassals whether as individuals or in coalition. When Henry I died in Rouen in December 1135, his chosen heir, Empress Mathilda (she had been married first as a child bride to
the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V whom she had outlived but who had given
her the right to call herself Empress) was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, with a two-year old son who would later become Henry II. The Angevins were not popular with their peers and were challenged by the barons' preference, the initially popular Stephen, Count of Blois, grandson of William the Conqueror. Stephen quickly crossed the Channel and was crowned within three weeks. Noting Stephen's first mover advantage, we should note that both candidates were based in Northern France and that England was still just a prize asset to be added to family businesses with a first allegiance to lands on the other side of the English Channel. England still had the characteristics of occupied territory.
The eventual rise of the Plantagenets would confirm that the dynastic focus would be on straddling the seaways as if they were a mere inconvenience. We will be able later to speak of an Angevin Empire stretching from the Scots borders southwards to cover the bulk of Western and Northern France. The 'Anarchy' of the second quarter of the twelfth century in England was little more than a struggle to see which branch of the trans-channel ruling elite (of which the Frankish kings were just another component) would get the English asset - the line of Blois-Boulogne or the line of Anjou. In the first half of the twelfth century holdings in Normandy and France would always be of more consequence to the status and wealth of major vassals than holdings in England.
The expected result was civil war between two competing baronial coalitions as well as the Scots invasion that we noted in the last posting. The early years of Stephen's reign appeared successful enough but the Welsh rebellion was not brought under control, the Normanised Scots retained excessive influence in the North, the monarchy had serious financial problems and many barons were beginning to feel insufficiently rewarded for their loyalty. The plots started in earnest in 1137 with Richard of Gloucester, Henry I's illegitimate son, whose activities were in the interest of his half-sister Matilda. Matilda landed in England two years later, now openly supported by the Earl of Gloucester, triggering full-on civil war. In 1141, Stephen was captured at the Battle of Lincoln but gained his freedom in return for that of Richard of Gloucester and the war started up again almost immediately. Gloucester died in 1147, the campaign faltered and a disheartened Matilda left England for the Continent the following year, leaving behind her son Henry to carry on the struggle.
Matilda's husband Geoffrey of Anjou died in 1151 and was succeeded as Count of Anjou by Henry. The death of his father pulled Henry back from England to deal with his estate. In the next year, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe who had only recently obtained an annulment of her marriage to Louis VI, King of France. Stephen's son Eustace (inclined to pursue his own claim to the throne) died in the same year, opening the way for Henry to invade England again in 1153, with fresh resources, to claim his rights. He gets them in the Treaties of Wallingford, Winchester and Westminster under which he is promised the English succession. This would not necessarily have ended the civil war if Stephen had lived longer but Stephen died the following October. Henry was back in England by December 8th and was crowned Henry II on the 19th.
There is one incident from this era that needs mention because it is often taken as one of the most significant instances of medieval anti-semitism - the murder in 1140 of a skinner's apprentice, the 11 year old William of Norwich, which was blamed locally on the Jews residing in the town. The murder was framed by locals as a ritual sacrifice and a wave of antisemitism followed. The issue is complicated by politics and later by Church greed (since the Church gained revenue from the cults of saints). William is canonised although there is no evidence of a specifically antisemitic aspect to this minor and localised cult.
What is probably more significant is that the attack on the Jews was linked to an attack on the King and his agents, noting that Norwich had recently been the centre of conflict between Stephen and the Duke of Norfolk (1136). Jews tended to speak French and to live close to the castle where they were under aristocratic protection. The accusers seemed to have been Anglo-Saxon origin families from 'married priestly' families. Something had boiled over. It may be that a genuine family tragedy rapidly got drawn into political struggles linked to English resentment of the Norman King and his corrupt agents. If so, the Church's cult may be seen less as an endorsement of antisemitism than as a potentially profitable placatory act designed to divert popular feeling into something more private and harmlessly ritualistic for a class of lower middle class clerics 'feeling the pinch'. The story may be less interesting as a precursor of the European anti-semitism narrative as it was to play out in the crimes of the twentieth century and more as an incident expressing the same sort of social tensions that we see in the Robin Hood legend.
Showing posts with label Anglo-Normans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anglo-Normans. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 May 2016
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
1093-1165: Scotland & the English Question
Back to Scotland. Malcolm III was succeeded by Donald Bane (1093-1097), his brother. Malcom's wife, later to be Saint Margaret (canonised 1250), died that same year. Donald Bane was deposed and replaced, after an intervention from William II of England, with Edgar (1097-1107), Malcolm III's son. This is interesting because this made the Scottish monarchy a half-English dynasty through Margaret, a Princess of Wessex. The Norman monarchy to the South seemed to have no difficulty in supporting the claims of a prince from the line of Wessex when it suited it.
As we will see, the ties between royal families were often close even as they were competing. There was more in common between the line of the House of Wessex, the Kings of Scotland and the Norman Kings of England than any of these had with their own populations. These were family businesses treating their subjects as units of taxation and labour in what we would recognise today as 'healthy business competition', albeit that people got killed in a way unacceptable today. An analogy with modern organised crime is probably closer.
Edgar is succeeded by his brother Alexander I (1107-1124). His reign is only noted here for the murder on Eglisay in Orkney of Magnus (later Saint Magnus), Earl of Orkney. The story is interesting because Magnus is presented as an exemplar of piety and gentleness which the Norwegians who dominated the far North West of Britain considered cowardice. He was actually murdered in a fit of frustration about his co-rule with his brother, Haakon. The full story is not relevant. The creation of a gentle Christian hero who fell foul of Viking mores is what is going to be important here because it shows us how Christianity and Kingship were constantly being merged at the frontiers of European society in order to create more stable societies based on the rule of dynastic and church law.
A leader now had to be not only strong but 'good' and a strong king who was not 'good' (meaning accepting of Roman Catholic ideology) was implicitly worse than a weak leader who was 'good' in the rhetorical world of medieval culture. The reality, of course, was that strength had priority but a strong 'bad' king (as defined by the clerics) would be damaged in the eyes of posterity. That was no idle threat in a culture still mired in pagan notions of honour. The Church could dishonour you after your death if you did not play ball with the people who wrote the history and this is what the Church always did with the ending of bardic courtly literature. The power of the Church to dictate the perceptions of kings will become clearer in the Becket story. Eventually, Christian ideology and the culture of honour would merge in chivalric literature in which tamed aristocratic behaviour and 'goodness' became as one in an ideal that still lingers on in modern Western notions of appropriate sexuality.
Alexander was succeeded by David I (1124-1153) who was instrumental in introducing Anglo-Norman culture and feudalism into Scotland during the so-called 'Davidian Revolution'. This transformation strengthened Scotland as a potential military power. It is at this point that English and Scottish history become interwined so that it will be hard to speak of one without the other. The Normanisation of Scotland is one with the Orkney story told above - a process of creating a working ideology (a process happening all over Europe and cross-connected to the aggression of the Crusades) for a new class of aristocrats in transition from pure predation to a sense of their own worth as agents of the divine.
This ideologisation and justification of predation through its moderation by faith-based intellectuals who offer administrative benefits is pretty standard fare in the human story. The British Empire, primarily a trading and predatory operation at its start, went through the same process in the nineteenth century resulting in the pompous aristocratic Tory imperialism of Curzon which presaged the destruction of that which it claimed to preserve. The Divine Right of Kings would be a similar high point for feudalism leading to its destruction in turn in a slew of revolutions but this is half a millenium in the future. History tends to speed up with modernisation.
The Scots, now with the cultural technology to be effective organisers under a strong warlord and adopting a suitable ideology to be called 'civilised', start to become imperial predators exploiting any sign of English weakness. There was an attempted invasion in 1135 as soon as Henry I died and another in 1138 which led to the Scots' defeat at the Battle of the Standard. David's persistence paid off with the cession of Northumbria to Scotland in 1149. However, the Scots did not find it easy to stand up to a unified England under a strong King such as Henry II. Henry II recaptured Northumbria in 1157 during the reign of David's successor, Malcolm IV (1153-1165), only twenty-four when he died.
What is happening here is a political call-and response that will continue through the Middle Ages. All things being equal, England is always stronger than Scotland but, when England is weak, it is only a matter of time before the Scottish Kings try to exploit the situation. It is also only a matter of time before the English Kings are going to feel it necessary to use their superior strength to bring Scotland under English suzerainty. This pattern of threat and response (where the English are not necessarily strong enough actually to crush Scotland any more than Scotland is strong enough to do more than harry the north) continues throughout British history until the Union of 1707 and even after insofar as the Jacobite Rebellion can be seen as part of the same pattern.
It may not have ended yet since the basic truths remain in force even as Scotland moves to independence. England is stronger than Scotland but when England weakens, the Scots take advantage of that weakness - and yet the English can never truly control Scotland. It is like a dysfunctional marriage whose history can be traced even further back into the mists of Anglo-Saxon and Roman tension between the prosperous South and the barbarian North with the Borders and Northumbria the play thing of whoever happens to have the whip hand that year. Only the British Empire, in which the Scots found themselves with a lucrative minority stake, permitted a viable peace between the two major cultural centres of Great Britain. The third centre of power, weaker than both Scotland and England, that is, Ireland, will emerge as an issue for the English soon enough.
Perhaps Scotland will have something to fear (economically) from a resurgent England that chooses on June 23rd to remove its dying Empire from the state-planned integration into the ramshackle European Imperium. The interests of England may always be sacrificiable to the illusion of empire in the long run. Perhaps the ideology of dynastic feudalism and 'romanitas' lives on in the plan to make the country a prosperous province of something larger. We are probably and in practice being led by the belief of the British State that a safe transition from one imperial state to another may be the only way to hold the island (the 'family business') together through acquisition and merger though the business analogy would suggest that the acquired company won't exist for long afterwards. Another view, of course, might be to ensure that England remained strong in its own right and left Scotland (and Ireland) to pursue their own devices happy in their independence. So a great deal is at stake on June 23rd. The issue, as at the time of writing, remains uncertain.
As we will see, the ties between royal families were often close even as they were competing. There was more in common between the line of the House of Wessex, the Kings of Scotland and the Norman Kings of England than any of these had with their own populations. These were family businesses treating their subjects as units of taxation and labour in what we would recognise today as 'healthy business competition', albeit that people got killed in a way unacceptable today. An analogy with modern organised crime is probably closer.
Edgar is succeeded by his brother Alexander I (1107-1124). His reign is only noted here for the murder on Eglisay in Orkney of Magnus (later Saint Magnus), Earl of Orkney. The story is interesting because Magnus is presented as an exemplar of piety and gentleness which the Norwegians who dominated the far North West of Britain considered cowardice. He was actually murdered in a fit of frustration about his co-rule with his brother, Haakon. The full story is not relevant. The creation of a gentle Christian hero who fell foul of Viking mores is what is going to be important here because it shows us how Christianity and Kingship were constantly being merged at the frontiers of European society in order to create more stable societies based on the rule of dynastic and church law.
A leader now had to be not only strong but 'good' and a strong king who was not 'good' (meaning accepting of Roman Catholic ideology) was implicitly worse than a weak leader who was 'good' in the rhetorical world of medieval culture. The reality, of course, was that strength had priority but a strong 'bad' king (as defined by the clerics) would be damaged in the eyes of posterity. That was no idle threat in a culture still mired in pagan notions of honour. The Church could dishonour you after your death if you did not play ball with the people who wrote the history and this is what the Church always did with the ending of bardic courtly literature. The power of the Church to dictate the perceptions of kings will become clearer in the Becket story. Eventually, Christian ideology and the culture of honour would merge in chivalric literature in which tamed aristocratic behaviour and 'goodness' became as one in an ideal that still lingers on in modern Western notions of appropriate sexuality.
Alexander was succeeded by David I (1124-1153) who was instrumental in introducing Anglo-Norman culture and feudalism into Scotland during the so-called 'Davidian Revolution'. This transformation strengthened Scotland as a potential military power. It is at this point that English and Scottish history become interwined so that it will be hard to speak of one without the other. The Normanisation of Scotland is one with the Orkney story told above - a process of creating a working ideology (a process happening all over Europe and cross-connected to the aggression of the Crusades) for a new class of aristocrats in transition from pure predation to a sense of their own worth as agents of the divine.
This ideologisation and justification of predation through its moderation by faith-based intellectuals who offer administrative benefits is pretty standard fare in the human story. The British Empire, primarily a trading and predatory operation at its start, went through the same process in the nineteenth century resulting in the pompous aristocratic Tory imperialism of Curzon which presaged the destruction of that which it claimed to preserve. The Divine Right of Kings would be a similar high point for feudalism leading to its destruction in turn in a slew of revolutions but this is half a millenium in the future. History tends to speed up with modernisation.
The Scots, now with the cultural technology to be effective organisers under a strong warlord and adopting a suitable ideology to be called 'civilised', start to become imperial predators exploiting any sign of English weakness. There was an attempted invasion in 1135 as soon as Henry I died and another in 1138 which led to the Scots' defeat at the Battle of the Standard. David's persistence paid off with the cession of Northumbria to Scotland in 1149. However, the Scots did not find it easy to stand up to a unified England under a strong King such as Henry II. Henry II recaptured Northumbria in 1157 during the reign of David's successor, Malcolm IV (1153-1165), only twenty-four when he died.
What is happening here is a political call-and response that will continue through the Middle Ages. All things being equal, England is always stronger than Scotland but, when England is weak, it is only a matter of time before the Scottish Kings try to exploit the situation. It is also only a matter of time before the English Kings are going to feel it necessary to use their superior strength to bring Scotland under English suzerainty. This pattern of threat and response (where the English are not necessarily strong enough actually to crush Scotland any more than Scotland is strong enough to do more than harry the north) continues throughout British history until the Union of 1707 and even after insofar as the Jacobite Rebellion can be seen as part of the same pattern.
It may not have ended yet since the basic truths remain in force even as Scotland moves to independence. England is stronger than Scotland but when England weakens, the Scots take advantage of that weakness - and yet the English can never truly control Scotland. It is like a dysfunctional marriage whose history can be traced even further back into the mists of Anglo-Saxon and Roman tension between the prosperous South and the barbarian North with the Borders and Northumbria the play thing of whoever happens to have the whip hand that year. Only the British Empire, in which the Scots found themselves with a lucrative minority stake, permitted a viable peace between the two major cultural centres of Great Britain. The third centre of power, weaker than both Scotland and England, that is, Ireland, will emerge as an issue for the English soon enough.
Perhaps Scotland will have something to fear (economically) from a resurgent England that chooses on June 23rd to remove its dying Empire from the state-planned integration into the ramshackle European Imperium. The interests of England may always be sacrificiable to the illusion of empire in the long run. Perhaps the ideology of dynastic feudalism and 'romanitas' lives on in the plan to make the country a prosperous province of something larger. We are probably and in practice being led by the belief of the British State that a safe transition from one imperial state to another may be the only way to hold the island (the 'family business') together through acquisition and merger though the business analogy would suggest that the acquired company won't exist for long afterwards. Another view, of course, might be to ensure that England remained strong in its own right and left Scotland (and Ireland) to pursue their own devices happy in their independence. So a great deal is at stake on June 23rd. The issue, as at the time of writing, remains uncertain.
Monday, 2 May 2016
1100-1154: Cathedral Building and Abbey Foundations
Archbishop Anselm died in 1109. His see remained vacant until Ralph, Bishop of Rochester, was appointed to it in 1114.We will not otherwise list the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and will only refer to those who are the most prominent or interesting from a political point of view. The accession of Henry II in 1154 will eventually bring out the
inherent tension between Crown and Church. This would be expressed in the tense and ultimately violent relationship with Thomas A Becket and the King which we will review in
a later posting. Until then, the symbiotic relationship between national Church and the miltary Norman aristocracy continued regardless of civil strife. Indeed, it is the return of a strong Kingship that precipitates a crisis - and we should remember that the Church was largely staffed at the highest levels from the literate members of the same international class whose Anglo-Norman branch ran England.
As we have noted in our posting on Henry I, cathedral and church building began again after a long gap following the start of construction of Durham Cathedral in 1093: Southwark Priory (1106 - the basis of the later Southwark Cathedral), Southwell Minster (1108), Exeter (1112), Peterborough (1117) and with Llandaff and Bangor asserting Church authority in Normanised Wales (1120). Building work then shifted to Abbey foundations within a couple of decades: Hexham (1113), Tintern (1131), Quarr (1131), Buildwas (1135) and Jervaulx (1145), all but the first Cistercian in origin.
These buildings are not to be assumed to be under direct royal patronage by any means (for example, the Cistercians were introduced to England by Walter Fitz Richard, of the powerful Clare family who funded Tintern Abbey) but there is always a political aspect to the foundations if only in terms of aristocratic status. It is not accidental that the last two of the new cathedral foundations were in the borderlands with Wales which were in the process of being 'tamed'. The slowing down of cathedral foundation after 1120 was both a sign of internal civil strife but also of the natural expansion of Norman power to its English and Welsh limits at that time. Internal strife (as we will see in the next posting) was as much a sign of the collapse of any form of English alternative to Norman rule as of the potential for anarchy arising from a warlord Norman aristocracy during periods of central weakness. Similarly the abbey foundations represent the exploitation of the conquest by aristocrats and churchmen alike.
An example of the growing militarisation (albeit defensive) of religion and its close marriage of interest to the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and their English subjects comes from the Battle of the Standard in 1138 where it is Archbishop Thurston of York who organises an army to counter a Scottish invasion. The Archbishop himself carried into battle the banner of St. John of Beverley alongside those of St. Cuthbert, St. Peter of York and St. Wilfred, all hung from a large pole 'like the mast of a ship' on a four wheeled cart on which the Archbishop stood. The Battle was a resounding victory for the English.
This is also the period of the Second Crusade (1147-1149) which offers us yet another example of the militarisation of religion as if the civilising influence of the Church on barbarian use of unbridled force had been bought at the cost of the Catholic Church itself becoming an agent for the redirection of that violence onto the 'other', in this case the Muslims and often the Eastern Orthodox Church. The period is also notable for having the first and only English Pope in Nicholas Breakspear, elected in December 1154 as Adrian IV, although this only tells us what we knew already - that the Catholic Church was a Universal Church (at least in Western Europe). What is more interesting perhaps is that there was no English Pope after the middle of the Twelfth Century.
Cathedrals and Minsters under Henry I
[Please note, once again that, the Norman element in these buildings, unless specified, is usually well hidden under later accretions. Many Cathedrals, such as Exeter, were fundamentally rebuilt later in the Middle Ages.]
Abbey Building in the First Half of the Twelfth Century
As we have noted in our posting on Henry I, cathedral and church building began again after a long gap following the start of construction of Durham Cathedral in 1093: Southwark Priory (1106 - the basis of the later Southwark Cathedral), Southwell Minster (1108), Exeter (1112), Peterborough (1117) and with Llandaff and Bangor asserting Church authority in Normanised Wales (1120). Building work then shifted to Abbey foundations within a couple of decades: Hexham (1113), Tintern (1131), Quarr (1131), Buildwas (1135) and Jervaulx (1145), all but the first Cistercian in origin.
These buildings are not to be assumed to be under direct royal patronage by any means (for example, the Cistercians were introduced to England by Walter Fitz Richard, of the powerful Clare family who funded Tintern Abbey) but there is always a political aspect to the foundations if only in terms of aristocratic status. It is not accidental that the last two of the new cathedral foundations were in the borderlands with Wales which were in the process of being 'tamed'. The slowing down of cathedral foundation after 1120 was both a sign of internal civil strife but also of the natural expansion of Norman power to its English and Welsh limits at that time. Internal strife (as we will see in the next posting) was as much a sign of the collapse of any form of English alternative to Norman rule as of the potential for anarchy arising from a warlord Norman aristocracy during periods of central weakness. Similarly the abbey foundations represent the exploitation of the conquest by aristocrats and churchmen alike.
An example of the growing militarisation (albeit defensive) of religion and its close marriage of interest to the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and their English subjects comes from the Battle of the Standard in 1138 where it is Archbishop Thurston of York who organises an army to counter a Scottish invasion. The Archbishop himself carried into battle the banner of St. John of Beverley alongside those of St. Cuthbert, St. Peter of York and St. Wilfred, all hung from a large pole 'like the mast of a ship' on a four wheeled cart on which the Archbishop stood. The Battle was a resounding victory for the English.
This is also the period of the Second Crusade (1147-1149) which offers us yet another example of the militarisation of religion as if the civilising influence of the Church on barbarian use of unbridled force had been bought at the cost of the Catholic Church itself becoming an agent for the redirection of that violence onto the 'other', in this case the Muslims and often the Eastern Orthodox Church. The period is also notable for having the first and only English Pope in Nicholas Breakspear, elected in December 1154 as Adrian IV, although this only tells us what we knew already - that the Catholic Church was a Universal Church (at least in Western Europe). What is more interesting perhaps is that there was no English Pope after the middle of the Twelfth Century.
Cathedrals and Minsters under Henry I
[Please note, once again that, the Norman element in these buildings, unless specified, is usually well hidden under later accretions. Many Cathedrals, such as Exeter, were fundamentally rebuilt later in the Middle Ages.]
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| Norman Nave of Peterborough Cathedral started after 1117 |
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| The Nave of Southwell Minster started in 1108 |
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| Norman Arch in Llandaff Cathedral started after 1120 |
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| Norman Nave of Durham Cathedral started in 1133 |
Abbey Building in the First Half of the Twelfth Century
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| Hexham Abbey rebuilt as an Augustinian Priory in 1117 |
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| Tintern Abbey founded in 1131 |
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| Ruins of Quarr Abbey founded in 1131 |
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| The Norman Holcroft of Fountains Abbey started in 1132 |
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| Rievaulx Abbey founded in 1133 |
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| Buildwas Abbey founded in 1135 |
Friday, 8 April 2016
1066-1087: The Conquest of England
The year 1066 marked a revolutionary watershed. It was to be more than a dynastic shift, albeit not immediately. Initially it was just another foreign kingship for the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. This had changed within a few years into the effective dispossession of an elite which persisted in challenging the claims of the incomers. There would eventually be no more compromises between ethnic elites, Dane and Anglo-Saxon, but rather the imposition of a Norman elite and the introduction of a new feudal culture imported from the Continent. This took place through an exceptional ruthlessness in the exercise of centralised power based on superior military technology and administrative skills. William the Conqueror was just very good at what he did - the exercise of power.
The year started with the death of Edward the Confessor which triggered the expectations of William, Duke of Normandy. As far as the English Witengemot is concerned, his claim was of no consequence. Harold Godwinson was immediately chosen as Edward's successor. He was the natural national choice. He had the backing of his people or rather of the aristocracy that dictated terms to the people. That Autumn, the events unfolded that would cost Harold his throne. It started with the invasion of Northumbria in September by Harold's alienated brother Tostig, backed by a Norwegian army led by Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. King Harold defeated the invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge but, within days, William of Normandy had landed in Pevensey Bay on the English South Coast to enforce his claim to the throne.
Harold undertook a forced march south and met William near Hastings where his men lost the battle, partly from exhaustion and partly because of tactical errors on the field. Harold was killed and the Witengemot quickly chose Edgar Atheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, to succeed him. William equally quickly moved around London and approached it from the North long before the Anglo-Saxons could raise a fresh army. Edgar Atheling and representatives of the Witengemot met William at Berkhamsted in October, accepted the reality of their situation in military terms (and, no doubt, fearful of the impending sack of London) and offered him the Crown. William was crowned King in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. The coup had succeeded within barely three months.
William was secure enough in his position by February to leave England for the rest of 1067 although he took care to commission the massive fortress (the White Tower) that would become the basis for the Tower of London complex that still dominates the eastern river side of the merchant City of
London. He also commissioned Battle Abbey to commemorate his victory and
to seal his side of a pact with the Church.
The only rebellion at this stage was in Kent led by Eustace II, Count of Boulogne. Eustace was not an Anglo-Saxon but a disgruntled leading ally of William, probably the provider of the ships that brought William over the year before and now dissatisfied with his share of the loot. He was able to mobilise the Kentish, with whom he no doubt had trading relationships, against the new regime. His rebellion failed. He forfeited his land grants. Some were later restored in what looks more like the settlement of a business dispute than anything recognisably political.
Up to this point, William had come to a modus vivendi with the local aristocracy but more serious rebellions started to break out in Mercia and Northumbria in 1069 leading to the notorious and genocidal 'harrying' of the North over the winter of 1069-1070. The Danish element in the rebellion was bought off but the Anglo-Saxons, now under Edgar Atheling, decided to fight on. William's response was to starve them out through a brutal scorched earth policy directed at the civilian population. The estimates of the deaths caused are disputed. Some historians believe that the numbers have been accidentally exaggerated but there is no doubt that William used famine tactics deliberately (part of the contemporary armory of warfare). Otherwise sympathetic chroniclers such as Orderic Vitalis considered it as a stain on his reputation. It is also noted as the only occasion when he used such brutal tactics, indicating a degree of desperation in dealing with a major threat to the basis of his power in England.
His relatively tolerant attitude changed in other respects as we will see in our account of his handling of the Church. We can summarise the tale we will tell there by saying that, in the wake of Anglo-Saxon revolt, William effectively cut a deal with Rome, purged the English Church of recalcitrant 'Anglicans' and started a massive programme of patronage in the form of cathedral building. The Conquest of England by the Normans became nothing more nor less than its co-reconquest by Rome from 1070 even if Pope Gregory VII started to push his luck by 1080. Roman interest in the fate of the English North seems to have been minimal even if the chroniclers were to shed their crocodile tears after the event. 1070 is thus a moment when we see a radical Europeanisation of England by means of the sword, enforced famine and terror and the deliberate purge of anyone able to speak for the people through the Church, the latter all with the knowing connivance of Rome.
There is one last significant English revolt - that of Hereward the Wake, presumed to be an Anglo-Saxon noble in the English Fens, based on Ely in 1071/2 which had linked up to another abortive invasion by the Danes who had sought to exploit Northern discontent. William secured his position quite quickly. He then did what every strong southern ruler eventually did: he mounted an attack on Scotland where he defeated Malcolm and achieved his main aim which was the expulsion of Edgar Atheling from the Scottish court and so from a base of operations within the British Isles.
From this point on, William is to have more problems with his own ambitious Norman aristocracy than with the defeated Anglo-Danes. His own son Robert of Normandy rebelled in 1079 in order to force his father to cede the Duchy to him before the latter's death. This family quarrel is patched up after a defeat for the son by his father in the field. This was also the period of the Domesday Book, the 'Great Survey' of the King's assets in England and Wales undertaken in 1085/6. We can take this as a sign that the King was a remarkably forward-thinking political businessman, perhaps giving us the point when we can say that entrepreneurial feudalism was being replaced by managerial feudalism.
The King died in Rouen in September 1087 following a horse-riding accident and was immediately succeeded by his third son William Rufus. In 21 years, the Normans had collectively tamed a very troublesome province of the informal Roman Christian system. They had centralised power to an extent never seen before around an administratively capable and ruthless leader, albeit reliant on an oligarchy of militarised nobility. The Anglo-Norman settlement, based on an imported feudalism, was to prove extremely resilient, sufficient to make England a power that invades rather than is invaded.
The year started with the death of Edward the Confessor which triggered the expectations of William, Duke of Normandy. As far as the English Witengemot is concerned, his claim was of no consequence. Harold Godwinson was immediately chosen as Edward's successor. He was the natural national choice. He had the backing of his people or rather of the aristocracy that dictated terms to the people. That Autumn, the events unfolded that would cost Harold his throne. It started with the invasion of Northumbria in September by Harold's alienated brother Tostig, backed by a Norwegian army led by Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. King Harold defeated the invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge but, within days, William of Normandy had landed in Pevensey Bay on the English South Coast to enforce his claim to the throne.
Harold undertook a forced march south and met William near Hastings where his men lost the battle, partly from exhaustion and partly because of tactical errors on the field. Harold was killed and the Witengemot quickly chose Edgar Atheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, to succeed him. William equally quickly moved around London and approached it from the North long before the Anglo-Saxons could raise a fresh army. Edgar Atheling and representatives of the Witengemot met William at Berkhamsted in October, accepted the reality of their situation in military terms (and, no doubt, fearful of the impending sack of London) and offered him the Crown. William was crowned King in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. The coup had succeeded within barely three months.
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| The White Tower begun in 1067 as it looks today |
The only rebellion at this stage was in Kent led by Eustace II, Count of Boulogne. Eustace was not an Anglo-Saxon but a disgruntled leading ally of William, probably the provider of the ships that brought William over the year before and now dissatisfied with his share of the loot. He was able to mobilise the Kentish, with whom he no doubt had trading relationships, against the new regime. His rebellion failed. He forfeited his land grants. Some were later restored in what looks more like the settlement of a business dispute than anything recognisably political.
Up to this point, William had come to a modus vivendi with the local aristocracy but more serious rebellions started to break out in Mercia and Northumbria in 1069 leading to the notorious and genocidal 'harrying' of the North over the winter of 1069-1070. The Danish element in the rebellion was bought off but the Anglo-Saxons, now under Edgar Atheling, decided to fight on. William's response was to starve them out through a brutal scorched earth policy directed at the civilian population. The estimates of the deaths caused are disputed. Some historians believe that the numbers have been accidentally exaggerated but there is no doubt that William used famine tactics deliberately (part of the contemporary armory of warfare). Otherwise sympathetic chroniclers such as Orderic Vitalis considered it as a stain on his reputation. It is also noted as the only occasion when he used such brutal tactics, indicating a degree of desperation in dealing with a major threat to the basis of his power in England.
His relatively tolerant attitude changed in other respects as we will see in our account of his handling of the Church. We can summarise the tale we will tell there by saying that, in the wake of Anglo-Saxon revolt, William effectively cut a deal with Rome, purged the English Church of recalcitrant 'Anglicans' and started a massive programme of patronage in the form of cathedral building. The Conquest of England by the Normans became nothing more nor less than its co-reconquest by Rome from 1070 even if Pope Gregory VII started to push his luck by 1080. Roman interest in the fate of the English North seems to have been minimal even if the chroniclers were to shed their crocodile tears after the event. 1070 is thus a moment when we see a radical Europeanisation of England by means of the sword, enforced famine and terror and the deliberate purge of anyone able to speak for the people through the Church, the latter all with the knowing connivance of Rome.
There is one last significant English revolt - that of Hereward the Wake, presumed to be an Anglo-Saxon noble in the English Fens, based on Ely in 1071/2 which had linked up to another abortive invasion by the Danes who had sought to exploit Northern discontent. William secured his position quite quickly. He then did what every strong southern ruler eventually did: he mounted an attack on Scotland where he defeated Malcolm and achieved his main aim which was the expulsion of Edgar Atheling from the Scottish court and so from a base of operations within the British Isles.
From this point on, William is to have more problems with his own ambitious Norman aristocracy than with the defeated Anglo-Danes. His own son Robert of Normandy rebelled in 1079 in order to force his father to cede the Duchy to him before the latter's death. This family quarrel is patched up after a defeat for the son by his father in the field. This was also the period of the Domesday Book, the 'Great Survey' of the King's assets in England and Wales undertaken in 1085/6. We can take this as a sign that the King was a remarkably forward-thinking political businessman, perhaps giving us the point when we can say that entrepreneurial feudalism was being replaced by managerial feudalism.
The King died in Rouen in September 1087 following a horse-riding accident and was immediately succeeded by his third son William Rufus. In 21 years, the Normans had collectively tamed a very troublesome province of the informal Roman Christian system. They had centralised power to an extent never seen before around an administratively capable and ruthless leader, albeit reliant on an oligarchy of militarised nobility. The Anglo-Norman settlement, based on an imported feudalism, was to prove extremely resilient, sufficient to make England a power that invades rather than is invaded.
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
980-1093: A Note on the British Margins
Regular readers will have noted that we have hardly referred to the areas outside England. There is good reason for this.The prosperity of the British Isles is concentrated in Southern Britain. England has reached a higher level of state formation at each stage in our story than its margins and it became much more linked to continental civilisation as Rome restored its moral authority. It is not a matter of disrespect but simply a recognition that the warlords and small kingdoms of the rest of Britain are still lagging developmentally behind even the rough and ready English polity and that descriptions of their infighting until the eleventh century would be about as instructive as that of African kingdoms only minimally connected to the global system in the Middle Ages.
However, Scotland has by this time become a much more developed Kingdom under Malcolm II (1005-34) and Duncan I (1034-1040) than hitherto but even Malcolm is forced to acknowledge the overlordship of Cnut of England, Norway and Denmark in 1031 without a fight. King of Scotland gives us the wrong image because what is now Scotland was carved up between multiple small kingdoms (not only Scotland but Strathclyde, Moray and the Norse-Gael 'kingdoms' of the North West as well as English eorldoms). This was not a very different situation from Ireland under Brian Boruma or Wales before the brief flowering of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.
Famously (thanks to Shakespeare), Mac Bethad mac Findlaich murdered Duncan in 1040 and made himself King but there is no romance in this - it is just the standard competitive thuggery of petty kings (much worse was happening in England as we shall see in the next posting). 'Macbeth' is interesting, however, for his introduction of feudalism to Scotland under the influence of Norman exiles and the introduction of feudalism may have had asignificant role in ensuring the resilience of the Scottish State. Mac Bethad found himself embroiled in the struggles for power in England and an English invasion in 1054 resulted indirectly in the Kingship of Malcolm III (1058-1093) since the English appear to have restored Malcolm, son of the murdered Duncan I, to the Kingship of Strathclyde in that year while Mac Bethad's stepson Lulach lasted barely a year as King of Scotland.
Understandably, the successful Norman invasion of England and the brutal conquest of the North of England by the Normans changed the balance of power in Britain considerably. Although Scotland remained an independent entity for the vast bulk of subsequent history (until the Union in 1707), it often had to fight for that independence. The outcome was never certain. Both Wales and Ireland, on the other hand, moved steadily from near-anarchy to Anglo-Norman domination over the centuries, largely missing out (except for very brief experiments by strong men) on the national state option. We might say that Scotland got into the state formation business in the nick of time even if, in the end (or is it the end?), it had to 'sell out' (literally) to the more material business of satisfying its trading interests as the deliberate choice of its own elite in a form of quasi-submission to the Crown.
This Scottish decision, freely made by those who purported to be the leaders of its nationhood, could be seen as a dry run for the current predicament of the United Kingdom in its relationship to the larger if ramshackle European Empire - after all, what invasion could not achieve, elite greed for gold might deliver. As for the Celtic fringe, its binding to England in a dynastically driven Union only started to unravel seriously within the last hundred years, a process that is still unfolding as we write. In the end, all that may be left will be England and its satellites, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, the Falklands and a few tiny Crown Colonies - oddities within the new Unholy Roman Empire over the Channel. As the English elite transfers its sovereignty to a larger empire, the 'Celtic fringe' becomes an important factor in shifting the democratic' balance against popular English desire for the same sort of sovereign independence that the 'Celts' have apparently made their 'raison d'etre'. For the Celtic elites, submitting to the European Empire is almost an act of defiance against past and present submission to the British Empire while the poor bloody English, ruled by foreign imperial masters since 1066, and only getting a quasi-democratic State through perpetual struggle over some 350 years, find themselves shunted willy-nilly into the next Empire that comes along. The English may yet end up being the last people on earth to be liberated from any Empire! To the Celts, this is poetic justice. To the English, perhaps the final injustice.
Meanwhile, William the Conqueror was able to turn his attention to Scotland in 1072. Malcolm made obeisance and gave his son Duncan up as a hostage. When the Conqueror's successor, William Rufus, was distracted by a civil war in Normandy, Malcolm tried his luck with an invasion of England in 1091. He was faced with an Anglo-Norman army that was so formidable that he came to his senses and recognised Rufus as overlord, thanks to the mediation of Edgar Atheling and Robert Curthose. However, Malcolm and Rufus quarrelled over property rights and war broke out again. Malcolm was killed in 1093 in an Anglo-Norman ambush. Nevertheless, although defeated, Malcolm can be reasonably said to be Rufus' equal or near-equal to all intents and purposes. Whatever the balance of power, it is true that, by the end of Malcolm's reign, Scotland was holding its own as a viable State. This was not quite the case in Wales and Ireland.
Wales was no different from Scotland a century or so earlier, or indeed England before and even after Offa, in being, normally, a quasi-anarchy of small principalities. Harold Godwinson waged a campaign against Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, King of Gwyneth and Powys since 1039, in 1056, one year after Gruffydd had become King of Wales, following the same trajectory as Brian Boruma and indeed Offa in England. In all these cases, a strong man made himself lord over a whole people but the whole enterprise then collapsed into its former state on his death (in this case, in 1063). The Danish Empire of Cnut (as we shall see) similarly fell apart on his death in 1035. In Gruffydd's case, the English clearly saw his emergence as a potential threat and mounted a further invasion in 1063 after an surprise attack on his court the year before. Gruffydd was forced to hide out in Snowdonia and was murdered by some of his own men in what appears to have been a vendetta. Wales seems to have presented no direct threat to the Anglo-Normans by the time of their arrival on the scene and was relatively easily contained.
In Ireland, the Danish presence around the city that they founded at Dublin (analogous to the trading centre of York or Jorvik in Northern England), alongside the unifying campaigns of King Brian Boruma, helped to kick start the process of state formation in the second island of the British Isles even if it was mostly to prove abortive. By the final quarter of the century, the Danish presence is fully Christianised and mostly committed to peaceful trading so what we have is not the struggle we saw in England between rival ethnic communities. Southern British Kings, both English and Danish, had access to more significant resources in their struggle to own a much more valuable asset than Ireland. Brian Boruma represented only the first stage in Ireland's potential for statehood through his steady, often bloody, slow but still only partial unification of the country as a proto-polity. It is a chaotic business - Boruma dies at the great battle of Clontarf (1014) that is supposed (wrongly) in legend to have defeated Danish raiders and 'saved' Ireland. Ireland is more conceptually united after than before his death but it cannot be called by any stretch of the imagination a coherent well administered state and the unification process stalls as the English equivalent once did after Offa.
However, Scotland has by this time become a much more developed Kingdom under Malcolm II (1005-34) and Duncan I (1034-1040) than hitherto but even Malcolm is forced to acknowledge the overlordship of Cnut of England, Norway and Denmark in 1031 without a fight. King of Scotland gives us the wrong image because what is now Scotland was carved up between multiple small kingdoms (not only Scotland but Strathclyde, Moray and the Norse-Gael 'kingdoms' of the North West as well as English eorldoms). This was not a very different situation from Ireland under Brian Boruma or Wales before the brief flowering of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.
Famously (thanks to Shakespeare), Mac Bethad mac Findlaich murdered Duncan in 1040 and made himself King but there is no romance in this - it is just the standard competitive thuggery of petty kings (much worse was happening in England as we shall see in the next posting). 'Macbeth' is interesting, however, for his introduction of feudalism to Scotland under the influence of Norman exiles and the introduction of feudalism may have had asignificant role in ensuring the resilience of the Scottish State. Mac Bethad found himself embroiled in the struggles for power in England and an English invasion in 1054 resulted indirectly in the Kingship of Malcolm III (1058-1093) since the English appear to have restored Malcolm, son of the murdered Duncan I, to the Kingship of Strathclyde in that year while Mac Bethad's stepson Lulach lasted barely a year as King of Scotland.
Understandably, the successful Norman invasion of England and the brutal conquest of the North of England by the Normans changed the balance of power in Britain considerably. Although Scotland remained an independent entity for the vast bulk of subsequent history (until the Union in 1707), it often had to fight for that independence. The outcome was never certain. Both Wales and Ireland, on the other hand, moved steadily from near-anarchy to Anglo-Norman domination over the centuries, largely missing out (except for very brief experiments by strong men) on the national state option. We might say that Scotland got into the state formation business in the nick of time even if, in the end (or is it the end?), it had to 'sell out' (literally) to the more material business of satisfying its trading interests as the deliberate choice of its own elite in a form of quasi-submission to the Crown.
This Scottish decision, freely made by those who purported to be the leaders of its nationhood, could be seen as a dry run for the current predicament of the United Kingdom in its relationship to the larger if ramshackle European Empire - after all, what invasion could not achieve, elite greed for gold might deliver. As for the Celtic fringe, its binding to England in a dynastically driven Union only started to unravel seriously within the last hundred years, a process that is still unfolding as we write. In the end, all that may be left will be England and its satellites, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, the Falklands and a few tiny Crown Colonies - oddities within the new Unholy Roman Empire over the Channel. As the English elite transfers its sovereignty to a larger empire, the 'Celtic fringe' becomes an important factor in shifting the democratic' balance against popular English desire for the same sort of sovereign independence that the 'Celts' have apparently made their 'raison d'etre'. For the Celtic elites, submitting to the European Empire is almost an act of defiance against past and present submission to the British Empire while the poor bloody English, ruled by foreign imperial masters since 1066, and only getting a quasi-democratic State through perpetual struggle over some 350 years, find themselves shunted willy-nilly into the next Empire that comes along. The English may yet end up being the last people on earth to be liberated from any Empire! To the Celts, this is poetic justice. To the English, perhaps the final injustice.
Meanwhile, William the Conqueror was able to turn his attention to Scotland in 1072. Malcolm made obeisance and gave his son Duncan up as a hostage. When the Conqueror's successor, William Rufus, was distracted by a civil war in Normandy, Malcolm tried his luck with an invasion of England in 1091. He was faced with an Anglo-Norman army that was so formidable that he came to his senses and recognised Rufus as overlord, thanks to the mediation of Edgar Atheling and Robert Curthose. However, Malcolm and Rufus quarrelled over property rights and war broke out again. Malcolm was killed in 1093 in an Anglo-Norman ambush. Nevertheless, although defeated, Malcolm can be reasonably said to be Rufus' equal or near-equal to all intents and purposes. Whatever the balance of power, it is true that, by the end of Malcolm's reign, Scotland was holding its own as a viable State. This was not quite the case in Wales and Ireland.
Wales was no different from Scotland a century or so earlier, or indeed England before and even after Offa, in being, normally, a quasi-anarchy of small principalities. Harold Godwinson waged a campaign against Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, King of Gwyneth and Powys since 1039, in 1056, one year after Gruffydd had become King of Wales, following the same trajectory as Brian Boruma and indeed Offa in England. In all these cases, a strong man made himself lord over a whole people but the whole enterprise then collapsed into its former state on his death (in this case, in 1063). The Danish Empire of Cnut (as we shall see) similarly fell apart on his death in 1035. In Gruffydd's case, the English clearly saw his emergence as a potential threat and mounted a further invasion in 1063 after an surprise attack on his court the year before. Gruffydd was forced to hide out in Snowdonia and was murdered by some of his own men in what appears to have been a vendetta. Wales seems to have presented no direct threat to the Anglo-Normans by the time of their arrival on the scene and was relatively easily contained.
In Ireland, the Danish presence around the city that they founded at Dublin (analogous to the trading centre of York or Jorvik in Northern England), alongside the unifying campaigns of King Brian Boruma, helped to kick start the process of state formation in the second island of the British Isles even if it was mostly to prove abortive. By the final quarter of the century, the Danish presence is fully Christianised and mostly committed to peaceful trading so what we have is not the struggle we saw in England between rival ethnic communities. Southern British Kings, both English and Danish, had access to more significant resources in their struggle to own a much more valuable asset than Ireland. Brian Boruma represented only the first stage in Ireland's potential for statehood through his steady, often bloody, slow but still only partial unification of the country as a proto-polity. It is a chaotic business - Boruma dies at the great battle of Clontarf (1014) that is supposed (wrongly) in legend to have defeated Danish raiders and 'saved' Ireland. Ireland is more conceptually united after than before his death but it cannot be called by any stretch of the imagination a coherent well administered state and the unification process stalls as the English equivalent once did after Offa.
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