Transcript Monarchs of England 1066-1215

Monarchs of
England
1066-1215
House of
Wessex
Monarchs
of
England
1066-1215
Edward the Harold
Edgar
Confessor Godwinson the Atheling
1042-66
1066
(disputed)
House of
1066
Normandy
William I
William II
Empress
Henry I Stephen of
‘The
‘Rufus’
Matilda
‘Beauclerc’
Blois
Conqueror’
1087-1100
(disputed)
1100-1135 1135-1141
1066-87
1141
1141-54
House of
Plantagenet
Richard I
Henry II
John ‘Lackland’
‘Curtmantle’ ‘Coeur de Lion’
1199-1216
1189-99
1154-89
William of
Normandy
‘The Conqueror’
‘The Bastard’
Duke of Normandy
1035-87
King of England by
conquest
1066-87
Background
• Illegitimate second cousin to
Edward the Confessor, had the
flimsiest connection by blood to
the English throne in 1066.
• His illegitimate status almost cost
him the Dukedom of Normandy
itself, he faced repeated baronial
revolts when he inherited the
duchy aged just 8 and only
survived with the support of the
French monarch.
• A Viking by descent, semiindependent vassal of Henry I of
France, had beaten both Henry
and his neighbours Anjou, Maine
and Brittany in war as a result
Normandy was a ‘state within a
state’, a highly militarised and
well run province under the care
of his Queen Matilda of Flanders.
Character
Charachter
• An exceptionally capable administrator
and general with over twenty years
experience ruling Normandy.
• Very pious by nature.
• Personally brave and a risk taker.
• Not very educated but a patron of the
Church.
• Very ruthless, could be hideously cruel
even by the standards of the 11th
century.
• His illegitimacy seems to have given him
a violent obsession with his rights – he
genuinely believed he should be King of
England.
“Mild to those good men who loved God, but
severe beyond measure to those who
withstood his will”.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
After Hastings
• William won Hastings by a combination
of opportunism, good tactics and his
opponents’ misfortune.
• The adult English elite was largely dead
but William’s victory was by no means
secure, surviving members of the Witan
proclaimed the teenage Edgar the
Aethling King.
• William circled London, securing his links
with the continent by seizing Dover and
Canterbury, followed by a chevachee
through Hampshire and Berkshire.
• The witan dithered in the face of his
speed and ruthlessness and capitulated.
At Berkhamsted Edgar, the surviving
Earls Edwin and Morcar plus Archbishops
Stigand and Aldred offered him the
crown.
William’s style of government
• William’s administrative system was centred on a simple household structure to
which he simply grafted ecclesiastical and Anglo-Saxon systems of local
government. Norman systems of government were largely less sophisticated
than their English equivalents.
• William was the archetypal delegator, his government depended on the powers
he invested in approximately thirty spiritual and temporal lords.
• Clergy included his own half brother Odo the warriro bishop of Bayeux, the
Italians Lanfranc and Anselm who he made Archbishops of Canterbury and his
former chaplain Thomas of Bayeux who he made Archbishop of York. They
formed the core of William’s central government.
• ‘The companions of the Conqueror’
systematically replaced the native political
elite of England and effectively ran the
regions both of England and of
Normandy.
• Very little money was involved in this
system, rather it was bound together by
oaths of fealty.
Social revolution
• William’s administrative system was centred on a simple household
structure to which he simply grafted ecclesiastical and Anglo-Saxon
systems of local government.
• His control of England was based on social rather than political
revolution therefore – the imposition of the Feudal System.
• England was divided into 170 scattered ‘honours’ subdivided into
‘manors’. Within the them the entire population was slotted into a
hierarchy based on obligation owed to their superior, provision of
soldiers in the higher echelons, money and labour in the lower. Held
together by legally binding oaths of fealty.
• This system maximised the efficiency of government and taxation
but also placed a barrier to free movement of the English
population – the majority essentially became the property of the
land they farmed and could not leave it without their lord’s
permission.
• Vast tracts of England were also converted into hunting ‘forests’
which the English were forbidden to enter, again dividing them from
each other.
The Feudal
System
THE KING:
Owns all the
land, keeps 20%
and gives the rest to:
TENANTS-IN-CHIEF CHURCH
(APPROX. 60) Hold 20% of
Hold 60% of the land in return the land in
for soldiers, keeps 20% of this return for prayer
and gives the rest to: and administration
KNIGHTS(APPROX. 4,000)
Hold about 50% of all the land in return
for military service. They keep
about 20% and allow the rest
to be farmed by:
FREEMEN
(APPROX.
200,000)
Manage land,
provide soldiers,
run trade.
BONDSMEN
(APPROX. 2,000,000)
Work the lords’ lands in
return for some of
their own. They belong
to the land and cannot
leave it.
Bound
together by
oaths
known as
FEALTY
Power projection 1: Castles
• Norman castles were offensive, not defensive in their purpose.
They served as Forward Operating Bases, a secure, provisioned
location in a new territory from which raids and patrols could be
launched without fear of ambush.
• They also served a psychological purpose – a visible symbol of the
Norman's power. Thus although initially built from wood for
expediency most were rebuilt in stone as soon as practicable.
Chepstow Castle, Monmouthshire – a border fortress
Power projection 2: The army
• The Norman success lay in their
use of an ‘all arms’ force
combining cavalry (knights),
infantry, artillery (archers and
siege machines) and even
engineers.
• The core of the army were the
feudal levies of mounted
knights provided by tenants in
chief in return for their
‘honours’. The rest could be
provided either by levying the
Anglo-Saxon militia, the fyrd, or
the purchase of mercenaries
paid for using a land tax known
as geld.
Power projection 3: Terror
• William was responsible for arguably the greatest atrocity in English
history – the harrying of the North.
• William faced a joint challenge to his rule in 1069 – a Danish
invasion, and a general uprising in Yorkshire led by Edgar the
Aethling. Norman garrisons at York and Durham were massacred.
• William initially pursued a ‘scorched earth’ policy to deny the Danes
supply.
• This was extended into a deliberate campaign of terror in the north
and midlands involving the burning of villages, destruction of crops
and slaughter of livestock leading to an artificial famine – parallels
with Stalin’s actions in the Ukraine in the 1930s.
• The worst affected area, the 60 square miles between Durham and
York was essentially denuded of human life, 20 years later the
Doomsday Book described it as wasteas est – ‘a wasteland’
• The level of destruction is debatable, but contemporary historian
Odericus Vitalis suggested 100,000 deaths as a result – 5% of the
entire population and perhaps 75% of that in the affected area.
“ I have often praised
William in this book, but I
can say nothing good about
this brutal slaughter. God will
punish him”
Norman historian Odericus
Vitalis writing in the 1300s
Consolidation: The Domesday Book
• The only census carried out before the 19th century, the
Domesday survey of 1085-1086, a unique beaurocratic
achievement listing every individual and every item of value
in England.
• Its main purpose was for William to establish the value of his
new Kingdom for tax purposes.
• Its secondary function was to reaffirm the social revolution
William had created and his place within it – the process
culminated in the Oath of Salisbury in August 1086 when all
his tenants in chief renewed their vows of fealty.
• It was a quasi-totalitarian gesture for the English – a reminder
of the universality of Norman power.
Entry for Wedmore
“ The Bishop of Wells holds Wedmore. He held it himself
before 1066. It paid tax for 10 hides, however here are 11
hides there. Land for 36 ploughs, of which 5 hides, less 1
virgate*, are in lordship; 4 ploughs there, 4 slaves; 13
villagers and 14 smallholders with 9 ploughs and 5 hides
and 1 virgate. 18 cottages. Meadow 70 acres. 2 Fisheries
which pay 10 shillings; woodland 50 acres, pasture, 1
league both length and width. Moors which pay nothing.
6 unbroken mares; 17 cattle; 3 pigs. The value was £20,
now £17.”
*A subdivison of a hide, about 30 acres
The Conqueror and the Church
•
•
•
•
•
The Church as an international organisation was the one institution in England that William
could not entirely subordinate to his will.
William’s personal piety and generosity to the Church in Normandy helped his relations with
the papacy, as did his appointment of the scholar and talented administrator Lanfranc to the
see of Canterbury in 1070.
Lanfranc systematically replaced English bishops and abbots with Normans helping to
consolidate William’s power. In return for their land they provided knights like secular lords.
William’s working relationship with Lanfranc was so successful that he was prepared to
detach canon law cases from royally administered hundred courts thereby creating a
politically dangerous precedent for the separation of Church and State which troubled his
successors.
William’s greatest gain from the church were the skilled, literate administrators who using
the lingua franca of Latin were able to run both domestic government and foreign policy on
William's behalf
.
Relations with the Papacy
• William jealously guarded his right
to appoint senior clergy and
censored letters from the Pope to
his subjects.
• Nonetheless as a devout Catholic he
considered himself and his kingdom
morally bound to papal judgements,
and he was in the debt of Pope
Alexander II who gave legitimacy to
his claim to the English throne.
• He did face challenges from an
expansionist papacy, Gregory VII for
instance demanded fealty off him
for his kingdom, but in general
schisms within the papacy
prevented challenges becoming
threats.
William’s family and succession
• His wife was Matilda of Flanders with
whom he had four sons and five
daughters. Little is record of her although
she is known to have governed
Normandy in William’s absence.
• His eldest Robert Curthose by the
Norman laws of primogeniture should
have inherited all his realms. He had been
granted succession as Duke of Normandy
when a child, but had since rebelled
against his father. Thus William
nominated his next eldest surviving son
William Rufus as heir to the English
throne. Thus his legacy was
unintentionally partitioned, although
Rufus and later William’s youngest son
Henry Beauclerc were able to re-unify it.
Foreign relations
• William’s excellent relationship with the Church was
counterbalanced by the threat he faced from Scotland,
Flanders and France, all of whom acknowledged Edgar the
Aethling as King of England between the 1070s and the
1080s at various points.
• William’s Maine campaign of 1072 is extraordinary in that
the king felt confident enough to transport the English fyrd
to France to fight alongside his Normans. They proved
both loyal and effective.
• His eldest son Robert Curthose sporadically conspired
against his father with their overlord Phillip I of France to
seize the Norman lands. Although repeatedly beaten, this
patricidal behaviour inspired ongoing attacks on
Normandy by the French.
• It was whilst on campaign ravaging the French garrisoned
city of Mantes in 1087 that William fell ill and died,
ostensibly of a rupture .
“I tremble on the grievous
sins which burden my
conscience, and now about
to be summoned before the
awful tribunal of God I know
not what I should do. I was
bred to arms from my
childhood, and am stained
with the rivers of blood I
have shed”.
Odericus Vitalis’ record of
William’s deathbed
confession.