1. The Norman Invasion 1066
WILLIAM I
THE CONQUEROR
Duke of
NORMANDY

2. The castle of William, Château Guillaume-Le-Conquérant, in France.

4. Edward the Confessor Who was the king of England in 1042 ?
He had lived in Normandy because of the Danish domination

5. Churches and Cathedrals during the Middle Ages

6. Harold comes to Normandy to inform william he is the successor of king Edward.

8. Sailing to Hastings

9. The Succession
Edward the Confessor had no sons , so he promised his reign to William I, but later changed his mind and supported Harold of Wessex.
This caused troubles between both parties.
Both of them were waiting for Edward the Confessor’s death to take his place on the British throne.
However, when Edward died, Harold crowned himself as King of Britain.

10. Battle of the Hastings.
At the same time, Harold had to ward off a final Viking attack in the north on which he achieved victory. However, he had to hurry back to the south because he had to fight William of Normandy who was waiting for him with his army to claim his right to the throne.
This battle is called the Battle of the Hastings.

12. William the Conqueror
Harold was defeated in the Battle of the Hastings because his army was exhausted from the last Viking attack. He died in the battlefield leaving William to rule the British throne.

13. Harold’s death

14. How do we know about the date?
In a tapestry we see Halley’s comet which passed near the earth in 1066

15. Harold killed
Dover burnt

16. Hastings, 13 October 1066
The day England acquired a new royal dynasty, a new aristocracy, a new Church, a new language, a new …

17. Castles of the Conquest
The castle was introduced into England by the Normans, who built them:
‘far and wide throughout the country, and oppressed the wretched people’
(Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
It has been estimated that possibly 500 castles were built by the end of the eleventh century, an enormous capital investment; but fewer than 100 can be securely documented
Castles of the Conquest

18. His reign: Unification of Europe: united England and Europe.
He introduced the French language.
He introduced the feudal system.
He formed the Domesday Book which recorded in two volumes the wealth and properties of estate and land owners.

19. The Domesday Book:

20. Domesday Book
All this, and much more, is recorded in Domesday Book, the single most valuable source for early medieval history
…......
Domesday 1086
Domesday 2000

21. Castles of the Conquest
Domesday Book names the majority of those castles known to have existed by 1086

22. The Norman Invasion brought a new style of life:
The French language became the main language of the ruling aristocracy. Also, it became the base of our modern English language.
They brought with them a sense of elegance and sophistication.
They brought with them the idea of the “Knight” or the soldier who fought on horseback.

23. 4.They brought grandeur to the idea of Kingship.
-Palace
-Velvet
-Entourage
5. They brought a very organized army with them.

24. The most important thing they brought with them was:
The Feudal System(hierarchy)
A system in which :
The main power was in the hands of the king.
FEW RULED AND OWNED the rest of the country.
The majority was powerless.

25. Feudalism (political system)
The kings had lots of land; he gave land to lords in exchange for protection and $.
Lords gave their land to knights in exchange for protection, $.
Knights let serfs work the land and he would protect them.
Serfs got food and shelter.
Thus, each person had rights and responsibilities

26. 2. Norman religious system
Bishops and Abbots
Norman churches
Latin as the language of the church
Celibacy compulsory

27. Role of Church
They spent years transcribing the Bible since the printing press wasn’t used in Europe yet.

28. 3. COURT OF JUSTICE
Bishop’ s Court of Justice : spiritual affairs but also secular ones, as Marriage, will and Theft
King’s Court : temporal matters

29. SPIRITUAL Vs TEMPORAL POWER
William controlled the nomination of the bishops and abbotts
NOT TO LOSE HIS POWER
First step towards the struggle between Church and Crown

30. Feudal Warfare!!!!

31. Trebuchets were used to hurl all sorts of objects at the enemy.

32. Genocide in Yorkshire
The Conquest, the rebellions which followed the Conqueror's coronation, and the ferocity with which some were suppressed, laid waste large areas of England. The infamous ‘harrying of the north’ between 1069 and 1070 was an act of genocide which left much of northern England uninhabited for a generation. One chronicler, Ordericus Vitalis, wrote of this ‘harrying’:

33. Genocide in Yorkshire
‘He [the Conqueror] harried the land and burnt homes to ashes. Nowhere else had William shown such cruelty. In his anger he commanded that all crops and herds, chattels and food of every kind, should be brought together and burned to ashes with consuming fire, so that the whole region north of the Humber might be stripped of all means of sustenance. In consequence, so serious a scarcity was felt in England, and so terrible a famine fell upon the humble and defenceless populace, that more than 100,000 Christian folk of both sexes, young and old, perished of hunger’

34. Genocide in Yorkshire
The same writer says that this act haunted the Conqueror to his dying day. On his death-bed, he repented:
‘I ... caused the death of thousands by starvation and war,
especially in Yorkshire. In a mad fury,
I descended on the English of the north like a raging lion,
and ordered that all their homes and crops,
and all their equipment and furnishings,
should be burnt at once;
and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle
slaughtered everywhere.
So I chastised a great multitude of men and women
with the lash of starvation and, alas,
was the cruel murderer of many thousands’

35. Genocide in Yorkshire recorded waste in Domesday Book
On the basis of recorded waste in Domesday Book, it has been calculated that 15 years after the ‘harrying’ Yorkshire still had only 25% of the men and ploughs there had been on the day in 1066 ’when King Edward was alive and dead’
recorded waste in Domesday Book

36. Very few people lived in the north and west of England.
Everybody lived in the south.
Most of the South of England was covered in forest and people lived in villages.

37. Forest Law Forest law was another oppressive feature of Norman rule
Forest Law Forest law was another oppressive feature of Norman rule. One chronicler, half-Norman himself, described the death of two of the Conqueror's sons in hunting accidents in the New Forest as a just punishment for his excesses committed in the name of the royal sport of hunting:
‘Now, reader, let me explain why the forest ... is called 'new'. That part of the country had been populous in earlier days ... But after William I conquered the realm of England, so great was his love of woods that he laid waste more than 60 parishes, forced the peasants to move to other places, and replaced the men with beasts of the forest so that he might hunt to his heart's content. There he lost two sons, Richard and William Rufus, and his grandson Richard ... by which the Lord plainly showed his anger’ (Ordericus Vitalis).

38. Domesday Book shows many depopulated areas in what is now the New Forest, where the ploughs and peasants of King Edward's days had been replaced with royal forest by 1086
Forest Law
the New Forest in 1086

39. Rebels and outlaws
Edric the Wild - or Edric of the Woods – was, like Robin Hood after him, a disinherited nobleman who took to the forest to fight Norman tyranny
Edric the Wild features in many Domesday entries

40. Rebels and outlaws
The origins of the legend of Robin Hood are unknown; but the Norman Conquest would provide the perfect setting

41. Successors
William II
Henry I
Stephen

43. Crusades
The Crusades were a series of battles between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East.
Christian knights wanted to take the Holy Land and give it back to Christians