Normans

Norman conquests in red.

The Normans (adapted from the name "Northmen" or "Norsemen") were a people who colonized Normandy, conquered England, and played a major political, military and cultural role in the northern and Mediterranean parts of medieval Europe for centuries. Their most famous achievement was the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

Originally they derived from the indigenous population of Neustria and Vikings originating in present day Denmark and Norway. They began to occupy the northern area of France now known as Normandy in the latter half of the 9th century. In 911, Charles the Simple, king of France, granted the invaders the small lower Seine area, which expanded over time to become the Duchy of Normandy. The invaders were under the leadership of Hrolf, who later became known under his latinized name Rollo who swore allegiance to Charles the Simple.

The Norman people adopted Christianity and the Gallo-Romance language and created a new cultural identity separate from that of their Scandinavian forebears and French neighbours. Norman culture, like that of many other migrant communities, was particularly enterprising and adaptable. For a time, it led them to occupy widely dispersed territories throughout Europe.

Norman characteristics

Normans should not be confused with other Viking groups, such as the Vikings known as Danes in England and the Vikings known as Rus in Russia.

Geoffrey Malaterra characterized the Normans as "specially marked by cunning, despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imitation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavishness and greediness, that is, perhaps uniting, as they certainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the very boys were orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war."

That quick adaptability Geoffrey mentions expressed itself in the shrewd Norman willingness to take on local men of talent, to marry the high-born local women; confidently illiterate Norman masters used the literate clerks of the church for their own purpose. Their success at assimilating was so thorough, few modern traces remain, whether in Palermo or Kiev.

Normans and Normandy

Geographically, Normandy was approximately the same region as the old church province of Rouen or Neustria. It had no natural frontiers and was previously merely an administrative unit. Its population was mostly Gallo-Roman with a small Frankish/Germanic people admixture, plus Viking settlers, who had begun arriving in the 880s, and who were divided between a small colony in Upper (or eastern) Normandy and a larger one in Lower (or western) Normandy.

In the course of the 10th century the initial destructive incursions of Norse war bands into the rivers of Gaul evolved into more permanent encampments that included women and chattel. The pagan culture was driven underground by the Christian faith and Gallo-Romance language of the local people. The small group of Vikings that settled in assimilated to the Gallo-Romance majority. After a generation or two, the Normans were generally indistinguishable from their French neighbours. With the zeal of new converts they set forth in the 11th century from their solid base in Normandy. Characteristically it was younger sons like William the Bastard, largely dispossessed at home, who headed the adventurous raiding parties.

In Normandy they adopted the growing feudal doctrines of France, and worked them, both in Normandy and in England, into a logical system.

The Norman warrior class was new and different from the old French aristocracy, many of whom could trace their families back to Carolingian times, while the Normans could seldom cite ancestors before the beginning of the 11th century. Most knights remained poor and land-hungry; by 1066, Normandy had been exporting fighting horsemen for more than a generation. Knighthood before the time of the Crusades held little social status, and simply indicated that a man was a professional warrior and wealthy enough to own a war horse. Many Normans of France and Britain would eventually serve as avid Crusaders.

The Norman language forged by the adoption of the indigenous oÃ¯l language by a Norse-speaking ruling class developed into the regional language which survives today.

Normans in England

Siege of a motte-and-bailey castle from the Bayeux Tapestry.

The Normans were in contact with England from an early date. Not only were their pagan Viking brethren still ravaging the English coasts, but they occupied most of the important ports opposite England across the Channel. This relationship eventually produced closer ties of blood through the marriage of Emma, daughter of Duke Richard II of Normandy, and King Ethelred II of England. Because of this, Ethelred fled to Normandy in 1013, when he was forced from his kingdom by Sweyn Forkbeard. His stay in Normandy (until 1016) influenced him and his sons by Emma, who stayed in Normandy after Canute the Great's conquest of the isle. When finally Edward the Confessor returned from his father's refuge in 1041, at the invitation of his half-brother Hardecanute, he brought with him a very Norman-educated mind. He also brought many Norman counsellors and fighters. He even hired a small number of Normans to train and establish an English cavalry force. This concept never really took root, but it is a typical example of the attitudes of Edward. He appointed Robert of JumiÃ¨ges archbishop of Canterbury and made Ralph the Timid earl of Hereford. He invited his brother-in-law Eustace II of Boulogne to his court in 1051, an event which resulted in the greatest of early conflicts between Saxon and Norman and ultimately resulted in the exile of Earl Godwin of Wessex.

In 1066, the most famous Norman leader, Duke William II of Normandy, conquered England. The invading Normans and their descendants replaced the Anglo-Saxons as the ruling class of England. After an initial period of resentment and rebellion, the two populations largely intermarried and merged, combining languages and traditions. Normans began to identify themselves as Anglo-Norman; indeed, the Anglo-Norman language was considerably distinct from the "Parisian French", which was the subject of some humour by Geoffrey Chaucer. Eventually, even this distinction largely disappeared in the course of the Hundred Years war, with the Anglo-Norman aristocracy increasingly identifying themselves as English, and the Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon languages merging to form Middle English.

Normans in Wales

Chepstow Castle in Wales, first built by William fitzOsbern in 1067.

Even before the Norman Conquest of England, the Normans had come into contact with Wales. Edward the Confessor had set up the aforementioned Ralph as earl of Hereford and charged him with defending the Marches and warring with the Welsh. In these original ventures, the Normans failed to make any headway into Wales.

Subsequent to the Conquest, however, the Marches came completely under the dominance of William's most trusted Norman barons, including Roger of Montgomery in Shropshire and Hugh Lupus in Cheshire. These Normans began a long period of slow conquest during which almost all of Wales was at some point subject to Norman interference. Norman words, such as baron (barwn), first entered Welsh at that time.

Normans in Scotland

One of the claimants of the English throne opposing William the Conqueror, Edgar Atheling, eventually fled to Scotland. King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland married Edgar's sister Margaret, and came into opposition to William who had already disputed Scotland's southern borders. William invaded Scotland in 1072, riding as far as the Firth of Tay where he met up with his fleet of ships. Malcolm submitted, paid homage to William, and surrendered his son Duncan as a hostage, beginning a series of arguments as to whether the Scottish Crown owed allegiance to the English King.

Normans came into Scotland, building castles and founding noble families who would provide some future kings such as Robert the Bruce as well as founding some of the Scottish clans in the Highlands. King David I of Scotland was instrumental in introducing Normans and Norman culture to Scotland, having spent time at the court of Henry I of England who was married to David's sister Maud of Scotland, the process was continued under David's successors. The Norman feudal system was applied to the Scottish Lowlands, but the influence on Lowland Scots language was limited.

Normans in Ireland

Norman keep in Trim, County Meath.

The Normans had a profound effect on Irish culture, history and ethnicity. While initially the Normans in the 12th century kept themselves as a distinct culture and ethnicity, they were quickly subsumed into Ireland, and it is often said that they became more Irish than the Irish themselves. The Normans settled mostly in an area in the east of Ireland, later known as the Pale, and also built many fine castles and settlements, including Trim Castle and Dublin Castle. Both cultures intermixed, borrowing from each other's language, culture and outlook.

Normans in the Mediterranean

Opportunistic bands of Normans successfully established a foothold far to the south of Normandy. Probably the result of returning pilgrims' stories, the Normans entered the Mezzogiorno as warriors in 1017 at the latest. In 999, according to Amatus of Montecassino, pilgrims returning from Jerusalem called in at the port of Salerno, when a Saracen attack occurred. The Normans fought so valiantly that Prince Guaimar IV begged them to stay, but they refused and instead offered to tell others back home of the prince's request. William of Apulia tells that, in 1016, pilgrims to the shrine of the Archangel Michael at Monte Gargano were met by Melus of Bari, a Lombard freedom-fighter, who persuaded them to return with more warriors to help throw off the Byzantine rule, and so they did.

The two most prominent families to arrive in the Mediterranean were the descendants of Tancred of Hauteville and the Drengots, of whom Rainulf Drengot received the county of Aversa, the first Norman toehold in the south, from Duke Sergius IV of Naples in 1030. The Hautevilles achieved princely status when they proclaimed Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno "Duke of Apulia and Calabria". He promptly awarded their elected leader, William Iron Arm, with the title of count with his capital of Melfi. Soon the Drengots had attained unto the principality of Capua and the Emperor Henry III had legally ennobled the Hauteville leader, Drogo, as dux et magister Italiae comesque Normannorum totius Apuliae et Calabriae in 1047.

Cathedral at CefalÃ¹, note the combined Arab and Norman influences.

From these bases, the Normans were eventually able to capture Sicily and Malta from the Saracens under the famous Robert Guiscard, a Hauteville, and his young brother Roger the Great Count. Roger's son, Roger II, was crowned king in 1130 (exactly one century after Rainulf was "crowned" count) by Pope Anacletus II. The kingdom of Sicily lasted until 1194, when it fell to the Hohenstaufens through marriage.

The Normans left their mark however in the many castles, such as the Iron Arm's fortress at Squillace, and cathedrals, such as Roger II's at CefalÃ¹, which dot the landscape and give a wholly distinct architectural flavour to accompany its unique history. Institutionally, the Normans combined the administrative machinery of the Byzantines, Arabs, and Lombards with their own conceptions of feudal law and order to forge a completely unique government. Under this state, there was great religious freedom, and alongside the Norman nobless existed a meritocratic bureacracy of Jews, Moslems, and Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox.

Normans: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents

Normans

Norman characteristics

Normans and Normandy

Normans in England

Normans in Wales

Normans in Scotland

Normans in Ireland

Normans in the Mediterranean

Architectural heritage

Rulers

Other famous Normans of the South

Normans in the East

Normans on Crusade

Bibliography

Primary Sources

External links