William the Conqueror and the Rule of the Normans

by F. M. Stenton

This intimate connection of church and state had, even before the accession of William, produced a powerful indirect result upon the ecclesiastical culture of Normandy. In Normandy, as in England, the Danish wars of the previous century had been fatal to the monastic life of the districts affected, and with monasticism perished such elements of literary culture as the Carolingian age could show. It was nearly a century after the treaty of Claire-sur-Epte before monasticism revived in Normandy, and this revival was due almost entirely to the importation of foreign monks into the duchy under the patronage of Richard II. and his successors. In connection with the newly founded monasteries there arose schools, some of which in a surprisingly short time rivalled the older institutions of Chartres and Tours, and participated to the full in the cosmopolitan culture which underlay the development of medieval scholasticism. Of these schools, the most famous was undoubtedly that of Bec, the rise of which well illustrates the character of the revival of learning in Normandy.[^[19]] The abbey of Bec itself was only a recent institution, having been founded in 1034 by an unlettered knight, named Herlwin, who was desirous of living a monastic life in association with a few chosen companions. Nothing in any way distinguished Bec from half a dozen other abbeys founded during the same decade, and the house owes its unique distinction to the circumstance that in 1042 an able young Italian jurist and grammarian, Lanfranc of Pavia, undertook the direction of its school. As a logical and speculative theologian Lanfranc is said to display small original ability, but no one was better fitted than he by nature to superintend the early development of an institution to which we may conveniently, if inaccurately, apply the designation of a university. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the reputation of the individual teacher was a matter of much greater importance than were the traditions of the school which he taught, and the school of Bec, under Lanfranc’s guidance, rapidly became the education centre of eastern Normandy. Its fame was vastly increased by the fact that its leader became involved in a theological controversy in which the whole of the Catholic Church was interested. A famous theologian, Berengar, a teacher in the school of Tours, had taken upon himself the task of controverting the received opinion as to the nature of the Eucharist, and Lanfranc stepped forward as the leading controversialist on the conservative side. In the dialectical struggle which followed, the honours of debate fell to Lanfranc; Berengar’s opinions were condemned both by a provincial synod under Archbishop Maurilius, of Rouen, and also by a general council held at Rome in 1056, and Lanfranc, to the men of his time, appeared to be the foremost theologian in Normandy. But wider duties than the charge of the school of Bec rapidly devolved upon him as the friend and intimate counsellor of the duke, and on his translation to the newly founded abbey of St. Stephen’s, at Caen, his place was taken by a man of greater subtlety of mind if no less administrative capacity. The career of Anselm of Aosta, who succeeded Lanfranc in the priorate of Bec, raises issues which lie beyond the life and reign of William the Conqueror, but reference should certainly be made to the educational work which Anselm performed in the days before his name was famous as the champion of Hildebrandine ideas in the ecclesiastical polity of England. As a teacher, it is probable that Anselm had no rival among the men of his time, and if his educational efforts were solely directed at the production of learned and zealous monks, this does not in the least detract from the greatness of the work to which the prime of his life was devoted. It is under Anselm, rather than under Lanfranc, that the influence of the school of Bec reaches its height, and the gentle character and deep philosophical insight of the monk from Aosta supply a pleasant contrast to the practical and at times unscrupulous activity of his predecessor at Bec and Canterbury.

III

It must be owned that we possess very little information as to the causes which towards the close of the tenth century led to a revival of the Scandinavian raids upon England. No consistent tradition upon this matter was preserved in the north, and the first descent of the Vikings upon England in 981 provokes no especial comment from the native chroniclers who have recorded it. Now, as in the previous century, the Danes had the command of the sea, and the settlements of the ninth-century Vikings in the east of England offered to their descendants an excellent base of operations in the heart of the realm. For the first ten or twelve years after 980 the Danish and Norse raiders contented themselves with plunder and tribute, and the definite conquest of England was not achieved before 1013, when Swegen Forkbeard, king of Denmark, expelled Ethelred from his kingdom and enjoyed a few months’ uncontested reign as the uncrowned king of the land. The English reaction under Edmund Ironside is a brief although brilliant episode in the war, but the superior numbers of the enemy told in the end, and from 1016 to 1042 England remained politically united to the Scandinavian world.

The rule of Cnut, Swegen’s son, met with no opposition on the part of his English subjects. But although Cnut ruled England with such strictness and justice that on the eve of the Norman Conquest his reign was still regarded as a model of good government, his rule was nevertheless that of a Scandinavian king.[^[20]] All the surviving sons of Ethelred met with death or banishment at his hands, and his marriage with Ethelred’s widow was much more probably the result of passion than of policy. In the personnel of the local government of England his reign witnessed a complete change. His earldoms were given either to the companions of his early warfare, such as Eric of Northumbria[^[21]] and his son Hakon of Worcestershire, or to new men, such as Godwine of Wessex, whom he had raised from insignificance and could depose at pleasure. So far as we know only one native family of ancient rank received favour from the foreign king. The earldom of Mercia, which had been left vacant by the summary execution of Eadric Streona early in 1017, was given to Leofwine, a representative of a noble midland family and the father of the more famous Leofric, the wisest of the counsellors of Edward the Confessor. Such Englishmen as received secular promotion at Cnut’s hand received it for the most part in Scandinavia, where the honour which they enjoyed had apparently become a cause of discontent to the Danes before Cnut’s death. In general policy also Cnut’s attention was directed towards the north rather than towards the Romance lands, with which Ethelred’s marriage had brought England into contact. It is very probable that Cnut dreamed of an empire which should include England and the whole of Scandinavia, and it is certain that in 1028 he conquered Norway and claimed the submission of the king of Sweden. In all this Cnut was behaving as the heir of Harold Blue-tooth and Swegen Forkbeard, rather than as the successor of Edgar and Ethelred. His rule brought peace to England and Englishmen needed no more to induce them to submit to it.

In the machinery of the English government, it does not appear that Cnut’s reign marks any changes of importance. He governed England, as he governed Norway, through viceroys; and if his earls bear more the character of royal officials than did Ethelred’s ealdormen, this was due rather to Cnut’s superior power than to any fundamental change in the character of their positions. Under Edward the Confessor the provincial governments became again as autonomous as ever. It was a matter of great importance that Cnut ordered the compilation of a general code of the law current at this time, a work which may be held to earn for him the title of the greatest legislator of the eleventh century.[^[22]] When the battle of Hastings was fought, Cnut’s code was still the newest and most explicit statement of Old English custom, and the additions which the Conqueror made to it were few and for the most part of minor importance.

Cnut’s death was followed by the immediate disruption of his empire. Norway passed to Swegen, his eldest son; and on his death after a brief and troubled reign was rapidly conquered by Magnus, the son of Cnut’s Norwegian rival Olaf the Holy. Denmark was taken by Harthacnut, a son of Cnut and Emma of Normandy, and Harold, the third surviving brother, secured England and held it for five years. His short reign was marked by a dramatic event which is of importance as furnishing one of the ostensible motives assigned by the Conqueror’s apologists for his invasion of England. In 1036 the Etheling Alfred, son of Ethelred and Emma, left his secure exile in Normandy and came to England. His object, we are told, was to visit his mother, the lady Emma, and to take council with her how he might best endeavour to gain the kingdom for himself. He therefore landed with but few companions, and before he had seen his mother he was met by Godwine, the Earl of Wessex, who received him peaceably and entertained him with lavish hospitality at Guildford. Thereupon Godwine’s name vanishes from the story, but the same night the etheling and his party were surrounded by King Harold’s men and taken prisoners; Alfred was so horribly blinded that he soon died from his injuries, and his companions were mutilated, imprisoned, or sold as slaves according to the king’s fancy. The whole affair was clearly the result of foul treachery and it is impossible to doubt that the surprise at Guildford was Godwine’s work.[^[23]] The traitorous earl, indeed, skilfully evaded the penalty of his crime, but when William of Normandy was about to cross the sea, he was careful to appear as the avenger of the wrongs which his cousin had suffered thirty years before.

At some time between the death of Cnut in 1035 and the death of Harold I. in 1040, the latter’s brother Harthacnut, as king of Denmark, had made a treaty with Magnus of Norway which served as the pretext for twenty years of war between the two states, and as the foundation of the Norwegian claims on England which were asserted by Harold Hardrada in the campaign which ended at Stamfordbridge. The secession of Norway under Magnus from the Danish connection was not likely to pass uncontested, and the host of both nations prepared to try the matter in a great battle at the Elf in the winter following Magnus’s succession. On both sides, however, there was a strong party in favour of peace, and a compromise was arranged by which the kings swore brotherhood and promised that in the event of either dying without a son to succeed him his dominions should pass to the survivor or his heir.[^[24]] The succession of Harthacnut to England in 1040 took place without protest from Magnus, but on the former’s childless death in 1042 the treaty should have come into operation, and Magnus was careful to claim the crown of England from Edward the Confessor. Edward denied the Norwegian king’s right, and he was so strongly supported by the leading men of the land that Magnus deemed it best to let him reign in peace, but the claim was undoubtedly present to the mind of Magnus’s heir, Harold Hardrada, when he started on his memorable expedition in 1066,[^[25]] and it accounts for the alarm which noblemen of Scandinavian tendencies were able to arouse in England during the earliest years of Edward’s rule.

The man who had played the leading part in the events which led to the acceptance of Edward as king of England, was undoubtedly Earl Godwine; and the chief interest of Edward’s reign lies in the varying fortunes of the family of which Godwine was the founder. With notable skill the earl used the influence which he possessed as King Edward’s protector to further the territorial interests of his family, and within three years of Edward’s accession Godwine and his sons were in possession of a belt of earldoms which extended without a break along the south coast of England, from the Wash to the Bristol Channel. By 1050 the whole of England was divided between Godwine and his two eldest sons, Swegen and Harold, Leofric of Mercia, Siward of Northumbria, and Ralf of Mantes, a nephew of King Edward, who had received from his uncle the earldom of Hereford, and was making of that distant shire an outpost of Norman influence already before the middle of the century.

In 1051 the power of the house of Godwine was suddenly overthrown for a time by an unexpected revolution. The immediate cause of the catastrophe was very trivial, but there can be little doubt that it was really due to the jealousy which the king felt at the inordinate power possessed by the Earl of Wessex. Godwine in 1042 had played the part of a king-maker; but, like other king-makers, he found that the sovereign whom he had created began to resent his influence. In the summer of 1051 Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had married King Edward’s sister, paid a visit to his brother-in-law, and on his return prepared to cross the Channel from Dover to the capital of his own country. Arrived at Dover, Eustace demanded from the citizens entertainment for himself and his suite; a demand which was seemingly quite in accordance with the custom by which the inhabitants of a town in the eleventh century were liable to find quarters for the retinue of a king, or for persons whom the king might send down to them.[^[26]] On the present occasion, however, the men of Dover showed signs of disallowing the custom, and a fight ensued in the streets of the town, in which each side lost some twenty men. Eustace immediately returned to the king’s court, and demanded the punishment of the citizens, which was granted to him, and its execution entrusted to Godwine, within whose earldom Dover lay. The earl flatly refused to carry out the king’s orders, whether through a magnanimous objection to the justice of the sentence or through fear of incurring local unpopularity by enforcing it. Thereupon, Edward for once asserted his royal independence, and events proved that for the moment at least he had reserves of strength upon which Godwine and his party cannot have counted. The king summoned a meeting of the Witanagemot to be held at Gloucester, at which, among other charges, Godwine was to be accused of complicity in the death of Alfred the Etheling, fifteen years before. Godwine refused to stand his trial, and proceeded to collect troops from all the family earldoms, a move which was discovered by a similar levy made on the king’s behalf by the earls of Hereford, Mercia, and Northumbria. Civil war was averted by the moderation of the chiefs of the king’s party, who arranged a postponement of the charges against Godwine until the next Michaelmas, when a gemot was to be held in London for their discussion. Godwine agreed to this; and, that he might not be taken unawares, he moved from the west country to Southwark, where he took up his abode supported by a great host drawn from his earldom. But the delay was fatal to his cause: his troops lost heart and deserted, and before long the king was able to decree summary banishment for the earl and all the family. The earl fled to Flanders, Harold to the Ostmen of Dublin,[^[27]] and for a year Edward remained the undisputed master of his own realm.

The royalist party which had achieved this memorable success was in the main recruited from two sources. The hostility of Mercia and Northumbria to the domination of a West Saxon earl brought over to the king’s side a vast number of supporters who were doubtless no more loyal in reality to the king than were Godwine and his men, but who welcomed so fair an opportunity of striking a blow at the rule of the southern family. On the other hand, it is clear that racial feeling entered into the quarrel, and that the Norman settlers whom Edward had invited to take land and lordship in England were the avowed enemies of Godwine and his party. It is only natural to infer that Edward, in addition to the predilection which he must have felt for men of the race among which he had found shelter in the days of his exile, should wish to find in them some counterpoise to the power of the Earl of Wessex and his associates. It is certain that there was a powerful Norman element at court, and in the country, which contributed very materially to the king’s success in 1051. The archbishopric of Canterbury and the sees of London and Dorchester were held by Norman priests, and in Herefordshire, under the jurisdiction of Earl Ralf, a flourishing Norman colony had been planted on the Welsh border. Under this Norman influence the art of castle-building was introduced into England, to the infinite disgust of the country folk in the neighbourhood of the new fortresses, and the Earl of Hereford tried very unsuccessfully to induce the local militia, of which he was the official leader, to serve on horseback in their campaigns against the Welsh. In another direction, the king’s “chancery,” which was gradually becoming an organised medium for the discharge of the king’s legal business, was largely staffed by Norman clerks, and the service of the royal chapel was in part, at least, conducted by priests from across the Channel. In the sphere of commerce the connection between England and Normandy, which can be traced already in the time of King Ethelred, was steadily becoming closer and more permanent; before 1066 at least five of the ports of Sussex were in Norman hands, and Norman merchants possessed a haven of their own in the estuary of the Thames. We can never hope to form an exact estimate of the extent of Norman influence in the last days of the Anglo-Saxon state, but there can be no doubt either of its general significance or of its importance in lessening the shock occasioned by the rapid Normanisation of England after 1066.