A short history of the Norman Conquest of England

by Edward A. Freeman

INTRODUCTION.

I have here told, in the shape of a primer, the same tale which I have already told in five large volumes. I have only to say that, though the tale told is the same, yet the little book is not an abridgement of the large one, but strictly the same tale told afresh. I shall be well pleased if I am able some day to tell the same tale on a third and intermediate scale.

Somerleaze, Wells,
June 5, 1880.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.
Introduction.

1. Meaning of the Norman Conquest.—By the Norman Conquest of England we understand that series of events during the latter part of the eleventh century by which a Norman Duke was set on the throne of England, and was enabled to hand down the crown of England to his descendants. The Norman Conquest of England does in truth mean a great deal more than the mere transfer of the crown from one prince or one family to another, or even than the transfer of the crown from a prince born in the land to a prince who came from beyond sea. It means a great number of changes of all kinds which have made the history and state of our land ever since to be very different from what they would have been if the Norman Conquest had never happened. For the Norman Duke could not be set on the throne of England without making many changes of all kinds in the state of England. But the fact that a Norman Duke was set on the throne of England is the central point of the whole story of the Norman Conquest of England. That story must tell how William Duke of the Normans became William King of the English. It must also tell how it came about that the Norman Duke could be made King of the English; that is, it must tell something of the causes which led to the Norman Conquest. It must also tell of the changes which came of the way in which the Norman Duke was made King of the English. That is, it must tell something of the effects which followed on the Norman Conquest. And, in order to make the causes of the Conquest rightly understood, it must tell something of the state of things among both the Normans and the English before the Norman Conquest of England happened. And, in order to make the effects of the Conquest rightly understood, it must go on to tell something of the times for some while after the Conquest itself, that we may see the way in which the changes which followed on the Conquest were wrought, and how they have had an effect on English history ever since.

2. Meaning of the word Conquest.—We may now ask a little further what is the meaning of the word conquest, whether there can be more kinds of conquest than one, and whether the Norman Conquest of England has anything about it which is either like or unlike any other conquest. Now the word conquest strictly means the winning or getting of anything, whether rightly or not, or whether by force or not. It might mean, for instance, the winning of land, whether a kingdom or anything smaller, by strength of war, or it might mean winning it by sentence of law. And this first meaning of the word has something specially to do with the Norman Conquest of England. For when King William was called the Conqueror, it did not at first mean that he had won the crown of England by force; for he claimed it as his own by law. But though he claimed it as his own by law, he had in fact to win it by force; we can therefore rightly speak of the Conquest and the Conqueror in the sense which those words now commonly bear, that of winning a land and the rule over it by strength of war. For, though Duke William claimed the crown as his own by law, he could get it only by coming into our land with an army and overthrowing and killing our king in fight; and when he had got the crown and was called King, he had still to win the land bit by bit, often by hard fighting, before he had really got the whole kingdom into his hands. The Norman Conquest of England was therefore a conquest in the best known meaning of the word; it was the winning of the land by strength of war.

3. Different kinds of Conquests.—Now this fact that Duke William claimed the English crown as his own by law, and yet had to win it in battle at the head of a foreign army, had a great deal to do with the special character of the Norman Conquest of England, and with the effect which that Conquest has had on the history of England ever since. There have been at different times conquests of very different kinds. Sometimes a whole people has gone from one land to another; they have settled by force in a land where other men were dwelling, and have killed or driven out the men whom they found in the land, or have let them live on as bondmen in their own land. Here is mere force without any pretence of right, and a conquest like this can happen only among people who are quite uncivilized, as we English were when we first came to the island of Britain. The Norman Conquest was nothing at all like this; the English were neither killed nor driven out nor made slaves, but went on living in their own land as before. The Norman Conquest was, so to speak, less of a conquest than conquests of this kind. But it was much more of a conquest than some other conquests of another kind have been. In some conquests of later times all that has happened has been something of this kind. A king has won a kingdom by force, or he has added some new lands to the kingdom which he had before. The changes made by such a conquest may be only what we may call political changes, changes in the government and most likely to some extent in the law. Such a conquest may be made with very little change which directly touches private men; it may be made without turning anybody out of his house or land. Indeed many men may even keep on the public offices which they held before. Now the Norman Conquest of England, though not so much as the other kind of conquest, was much more than this. For though the English nation was not killed or driven out, yet very many Englishmen had their lands, houses, and offices taken from them and given to strangers. And this happened specially with the greatest estates and the highest offices. These passed almost wholly to strangers. It was not merely that a foreign king won the English crown, but that his foreign followers displaced Englishmen in nearly all the highest places in the English kingdom.

4. Nature of the Norman Conquest.—Now this special character of the Norman Conquest of England, as being more than one kind of conquest and less than another, came chiefly of the fact that a prince who claimed the English crown by law did in truth win it by force of arms. No one in England supported his claim; he had to make it good at the head of a foreign army. And when he had thus won the crown, he had at once to make himself safe in the strange land which he had conquered, and to reward those who had helped him to conquer it. He therefore very largely took away the lands and offices of the English who had fought against him, and gave them to the Normans and other strangers who had fought for him. But, as he claimed to be king reigning according to law, he gave them those lands and offices to be held of the English crown, according to English law. From this, and from many other causes, it came about that the descendants of the Normans who settled in England step by step become, as we may say, Englishmen, if not by blood yet by adoption. For several generations after the Conquest the high places of the land, the great estates and chief offices, were almost always held by men of Norman or other foreign blood. But in a very few generations these men learned to speak English and to have the feelings of Englishmen. The effect of the Norman Conquest of England was neither to make England subject to Normandy nor to make it a Norman land. It gave to England a much higher place in the world in general than it had held before. At home, Englishmen were neither driven out nor turned into Normans, but the Normans in England were turned into Englishmen. But in this work of turning themselves into Englishmen, they made, bit by bit, many changes in the laws of England, and in the language, manners, and thoughts of Englishmen.

5. Causes of the Norman Conquest.—We have thus seen what kind of a work the Norman Conquest of England was, as compared with other conquests of our own and of other lands. It is well thoroughly to understand this in a general way before we begin to tell our tale at all at length. And before we come to tell the tale of the Conquest itself, we must try clearly to understand what kind of people both Englishmen and Normans were at the time when the Normans crossed the sea to conquer England. We must see what were the real causes, and what were the immediate occasions, which led to an event which seems so strange as that a Norman Duke should give out that he had a right to the English crown, and that he should actually be able to win it by war. And to do this, we must run lightly over the history both of the English and of the Normans down to the time when they first began to have any dealings with one another.