The Norman Conquest

I didn't realize until after I had finished Marc Morris's The Norman Conquest that I had done so shortly after reading another book about a pivotal battle in the history of a nation, Allen Guelzo's new book on Gettysburg, The Last Invasion (see my review here). In that book, as in every account of Gettysburg, there are countless subjects for speculation -- what Robert E. Lee was really thinking; how many effective troops the two armies actually had at their disposal; who really should get the credit for the Union army's retention of Little Round Top (and if that really mattered). But whatever questions may arise about that or any other battle in the American Civil War, the documentary record is immense. We know, for example, what Abraham Lincoln was doing on any given day, often on an hourly basis. In the case of the Battle of Hastings, an epochal event in the making of England, the amount we don't know is vastly greater than what we do. History in such cases rests on the slimmest of written accounts, which often contradict each other. At one point in his narrative, Morris compares such accounts with the visual depiction in the famed Bayeux Tapestry, and then quotes himself on some of the terms he used in preceding sentences: "seems"; "looks very much like"; "appears"; "as if." Though the battle took place was a "mere" 947 years ago, he has less to work with than even some ancient historians. And yet Morris's professed uncertainty gives us confidence in him. He is as attuned to the historiography of his subject as he is the primary source record, which he deconstructs in some cases and affirms in others, often through a process of triangulation. Though clearly intended for a trade audience, and written by a non-academic (Morris is a magazine writer and broadcaster), The Norman Conquest is a tour de force piece of scholarship. It took me a while to figure this out. I got a little impatient in the early going, which reviews a good deal of English history before and during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, a period marked by political instability and foreign occupation in a country where power was relatively decentralized. It was not until about a third of the way through Morris's account that we finally get to hear about one of the more intriguing events that culminated in the Battle of Hastings: Earl Harold Godwinson's unexpected sojourn with William of Normandy -- which apparently happened when the earl's ship blew off course and he found himself a lavishly feted hostage -- that culminated in the Harold's pledge to support William's claim to the throne of England. But upon the death of Edward in January of 1066, Harold of course later took the crown for himself (he clearly regarded his promise, made under duress, not binding). Harold fought off another claimant, that of the invading Scandinavian Harold Sigurdson -- the dreaded Harold Hardrada -- at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September, and then managed to make it to the other end of England in less than a month to meet William at Hastings, a battle he came within a whisker of winning. Morris's account of these dramatic events is authoritative and fast-paced. It's also complete before the book is half over. One of the things that Morris explains in the remainder of the book -- which you can sort of infer but which he makes vividly clear -- is that however decisive it may have been, the Battle of Hastings was only the beginning of the Norman conquest. It was far from clear that William could actually subjugate the rest of the country, pockets of which resisted him for years. Once he did, he had to contend with outside incursions from Scotland, Wales, and Denmark, all of which he managed to fend off. Once he did that, he had to deal with challenges from within his own family. The sheer unlikelihood that he prevailed becomes increasingly remarkable. Before 1066, successfully invading England wasn't all that difficult. After 1066, it never happened again. The first half of Morris's subtitle is "the Battle of Hastings," which is the main reason why I (and, I suspect most other casual readers) picked it up. But it's the second half -- "the fall of Anglo-Saxon England" -- that's his real subject here. This is a book about a social revolution: a society whose law, language, religion, architecture and much else were transformed over the course of a generation. It wasn't a pretty process; indeed, William could be downright brutal, as in his notorious "Harrying of the North" in which he suppressed an uprising in Yorkshire by inducing a famine. Aristocrats and middling folk were stripped of their possessions, an expropriation codified in his legendary "Domesday Book," one of the most remarkable inventories ever created. But The Norman Conquest is not an account of unmitigated disaster; as Morris points out, the Normans ended slavery, reformed the churches, and took a less murderous stance toward defeated opponents than their predecessors did. In the long run, as he explains in a graceful final chapter, they laid the foundations for a hybrid state that proved remarkably durable and tensile. The Norman Conquest is a highly readable and substantial account of one of the most pivotal events in British history. It is a distinguished contribution to the annals of 1066 and deserves to have a long history of its own. - Jim Cullen: Review of Marc Morris's "The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England" (Pegasus, 2013)

Hallmarks of a quality presentation of history: the ability to create tension despite the reader already knowing the outcome, events and their impact told from ground level, avoidance of conjecture unless explicitly described as such, and encouraging the positing and examination of theories and how they might apply today. The author's writing style is confident, well-structured, and highly readable. He infuses his analysis with the all too human traits of his subjects, making millennium-past events come alive. Or, in simpler more amusing terms, he has me thinking "save the drama fo ya mama!" at the family dysfunction taken to extremes, from rebellion to assassination and the rest. For me, good history book storytellers present the options for our own interpretation. They give us the pros and cons, the various points of view, available facts, and then provide the conclusions they feel are most logical. This approach allows me to do the same. No spoon feeding here. Here's a thinker: did the English despise so much, did the vulnerability from the humiliation of being invaded and defeated run so deep that, for the next near millennium, they tried to defeat *that* by doing the same to any nation or group of people they were able in creating an ever expanding empire? Something fed the multi-generational mindset. Was the Conquest it? Morris does conclude that the long-term processes of invasion, conquest, rebellion, assimilation, and finally intermingling forever blur the cultural lines while birthing an entirely new one... which become our history. This has been and continues to be demonstrated time and again. Many of the historical actors in this play are direct ancestors of mine. Should be no surprise this adds a lot of fun in reading about everything from the mundane to the insane about them. :)

I’ve been on an English history binge lately and of the number of books that caught my eye, this is one. The Norman Conquest was an event I’ve heard of. William the Conqueror is someone I’ve heard of. However, I’ve never really known the full story of this event and what a time of change the 11th century was for England. This book did a fine job covering all of this. You get background on what lead to the Conquest. William’s rise. What happened in England that lead to this all culminating with the battle of Hastings. Then the endgame. Rebellion. William’s rule. Domesday. Etc… There is a lot of info in this book and you’ll surely come away learning a great deal about this pivotal event and major players who were involved. My only con is the second half of the book is good, but not as good as the first half. A lot of interesting stuff happens during William’s rule after Hastings, but it’s like when you have a TV show. Amazing first season and everything after is good, but not on the same level. However, the author still did a fine job tying everything up. One last thing to add is I do want to praise the author. I think he wrote a nice unbiased book on this event and didn’t veer off into much speculation as we don’t truly know how some things really went down like the death of King Harold. While we do have sources covering these events, some are biased. Some are more negative. Some down right propaganda. The author did fine work weaving all of this together. Letting us know where there might be a bias, who may be more correct on how an event unfolded, giving credit where credits due, etc… Plus I like that he cited his source as he went along. So shoutout to the author!

History is replete with decisive battles, not only of individual wars but also of long-range consequences that echo down the ages. Think of the battles of Salamis, Tours, Manzikert, Sekigahara, Midway and so on. The battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 may certainly be considered one of the more decisive in that, like the destruction of the Aztecs by Cortez in his return to Tenochtitlan, so the world of the English was similarly (if not so completely) ever the same. Marc Morris has masterfully limned the time leading up to Hastings and it's aftermath. The battle itself is given one brief chapter but one of the more fascinating aspects of the book is its cast of characters. Despite the paucity of period documents these people come to life, including not only William himself but also Edward the Confessor, Harold II, bishop Odo of Bayeux, bishop Lanfranc and many others. Incredible women living in a male-dominated world also come to life: Emma, who managed to marry both King Aethelred (the 'unready') and King Cnut, and the formidable Gytha, mother of Harold II, who refused to accept the decision of Hastings and became a major thorn in the Conqueror's side by fomenting rebellion at every turn (losing most of her remaining sons in the process). Morris manages to give a clear account of a confusing time: English politics prior to Hastings, William's success as ruler of Normandy, and a procession of Danish and Norwegian kings that threatened all of them throughout the period. The author judiciously considers the contemporary and post-Hastings chroniclers and while he displays a certain bias in favor of the Normans, the English are given fair treatment, and he is certainly sympathetic to them when he describes the horrific 'harrying of the north'. When possible, sources on either side of the conflict are presented , and other sources are cited to bolster or weaken the arguments of the partisans. I especially appreciated the author's consideration of the evidence contained in the famous Bayeux Tapestry. Morris manages a vast array of characters and also includes family trees that I found to be utterly indispensable. This is narrative history at its best. Some may find the chapter on the Domesday Book to be heavy going, but I found his telling of the how and why of the genesis of the book to be interesting and persuasive. It is hard to see how this book could be superseded any time soon, if ever. If you acquire this book, you will be in for a treat.

Marc Morris provides an extremely detailed and thorough account of the Norman Conquest. It is well researched and written, so by the end you really feel you have a handle on the events that led up to William the Conqueror invading England. If you are interested in this time period, I would for sure recommend this book. The reason for the lower rating was just that the last 100 pages or so really dragged for me. I felt the aftermath of the Conquest took a long time to get through. And by the end, it just felt like a listing of facts/events. I had a hard time really staying engaged through all the detail provided.

As a complete novice regarding English history (especially around the time of the Norman Conquest) I thought I would give The Norman Conquest a shot. I was not at all disappointed. Norris, like most good historians, does a great job getting the reader up to speed. He describes the pre-norman population structure of England of slaves, peasants, thegns, and earls. He charts a fairly thorough history of the early kings of England form Aethelred the Unready to Canute the Great to Edward the Confessor and ultimately William the Conqueror. What struck me (as someone completely new to English history) was just how incredibly unstable these Kingdoms were. Rulers would employ by necessity any and every means necessary to ensure that their reign was secure. But peasant uprisings, intrigue from jealous nobles or family, inconvenient raids from Norse warriors--made ruling during the time of the 1000s a most challenging affair. It was a cut-throat world of blinding and maiming your opponents and back stabbing your "friends". William the Conqueror was not immune to such savage tactics (quite the contrary), and ultimately he had to result to "the harrying" to quell the frequent uprisings of the conquered English several years after the battle of Hastings. Norris does well to get us acquainted with the times and figures of tumultuous turn of the millennium. What he does even better is he presents the often contradictory source material of the period and allows the reader to partake in his own internal evaluation of the accuracy of the accounts. He tells the reader why one chronicle may be more accurate in a particular instance and why another may be more accurate in another instance. In all of this however, Norris leaves room for a conversation--always allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions based on the evidence--which is great historical writing. There is nothing worse than a historian who props up his opinions and hunches as fact, and leaves it at that. All in all, this is an enjoyable book of a time I previously knew little about. I might have preferred more battle details--tactics, maneuvers, fighting styles--while Norris focuses by and large on the political aspect of the period. But still, good book. Good historian.

In the middle of reading. Love it, love the writing!

A very thorough and well researched bookI was especially drawn to the detail regarding the Domesday Book since I have ancestors mentioned in it. It is the most complete description of the Conquest I have read and I had to marvel at the genius of William in binding the loyalty of his Lords an barons by bequeathing land to them to own and defend in his name. I recommend this book without reservation. Byron Prater

A good read for any history buff. The nature of the subject and the source material does mean it jumps around at times rather than following a strictly linear chronology and at times is a bit dry. I read this after first reading the authors book on the Anglo Saxons which I found more interesting and easier to read. However, if you want to know about English history this book should definitely be included in your reading list. It is extremely well researched and referenced and takes an honest, “tell it like it is” approach without embellishment (which is why it is at times a bit dry).

This is the second book I have read by this historian. I did, in fact, buy this book because I so enjoyed the previous one, AngloSaxons. I felt The Norman Conquest was a logical follow up and am enjoying it greatly. I shall continue reading other books by this author...

So compelling and instructive, I have really enjoyed reading this book! Marc Norris describes brillantly the outcome of his research, it's an imersion in medieval times where the reader is led through the various events of the conquest. I didn't realize the magnitude of changes and the level of violence. After 20 years, the Norman invasion had devasted Northern England and Yorkshire. The english were totally gone from the top society, replaced by Normans; middle ranks were forced into servitude. The creation of royal forests which displaced thousands people from their home, etc... It was also an architectural revolution with new churches and the introduction of castles throughout the country. This was quite a revolution that changed the face of England with such violence.

I had fun reading this book. Never a dull moment. Enough information to satisfy my curiosity about this most important event in english history.

A very accessible history of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and beyond. Marc Morris has the gift of relating history with a great narrative flow, and creates excitement with cliff-hanger endings to his chapters. He points out the frailities and lack of detail in many of the contemporary sources but, after pointing out countervailing views and biases, is brave enough to come to his own conclusions. If you're interested in medieval history in general, and England in particular, I would recommend Marc Morris. His biography of Edward I ("A Great and Terrible King") is also riveting.