Chibnall, Marjorie. Anglo-Norman
England: 1066-1166. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986)
Introduction
"For some centuries the history of the Norman conquest and its
aftermath has bee rewrittne in every generation...In the seventeenth
century Henry Spelman and Robert Cotton traced the feudal customs that
had become legal abuses in their day back to the Norman conquest. They
and their fellow antiquaries helped foster the myth of the 'Norman
yoke' imposed by an alien king and landlords on free and equal
Englishmen: a myth elaborated by reformers and revolutionaries in their
day, cherished by romantic nineteenth-century writers like Charles
Kingsley and George Barrow, and strong enough to colour the work of
some academic historians...
"There is [now] a far keener appreciation of the relevance of European
social developments to changes taking place in England and Normandy
both before and after the conquest. There is also a clearer
understanding of the nature of the gradual assimilation of Norman and
English institutions over several decades. Fewer serious historians
continue to... align themselves with the English or the Normans, and
claim all the political, constitutional or artistic achievements for
one side, even if some of the old illusions persist in works of
popularization."
"So much has been written on 'feudalism' that some historians now shy
away from the word altogether...The basic territorial units, howev er,
were not the fiefs of fees (feuda)
, the units of knightly tender owing more or less standardized services
from which later theorists derived the name. They were the extensive
estates of honours of the great barons, centred on a principal
residence (caput) which was often a castle, with their nerve center in
the honour court. These courst were places for military training,
social life, and the transaction of business. In them the military
dependants of the great tenants-in-chief bound themselves to their lord
in the ceremony og homage and becomae his vassals, undertaking whatever
military or other service was customary at the time. There too some
received rewards in land and were granted tenure (technically seised)
of it in a visible ceremony of enfeoffment; and there they were
punished if they failed in their duty to their lord. Courts were
frequented too by many household knights, particularly younger sons,
who were paid wages and held no land, but served in hope."
Chapter 1: The First Phase of Conquest
Chapter 2: The Moving Frontiers
Chapter 9: Normans and English
Some bits about Rhuddlan, Robert, and
Chester:
"Edwin's forfeiture left a vacumn on the Welsh border, and the
Conquere's first earl of Chester, Gherbod the Fleming, did not remain
long in that most perilous post. By 1071 he had returned to Flanders,
and William replaced him with Hugh, vicompte of the Avranchin, a man
who throve on warfare and went about, in the words of Orderic Vitalis,
with an army rather than a household." (p. 22)
"Castles were an essential element in the control of the Welsh
lands. Even in Edward the Confessor's reign a few Norman settlers had
occupied the borders of Herefordshire, and built their mottes in the
region of Richard's Castle...Robert established his base at Rhuddlan."
(p. 27)
"In 1056, according to the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, Gruffyd was forced to swear that he would be a loyal
and faithful underking to Edward. When peace broke down again in 1063,
an army led by Harold found support among the disaffected Welsh
princes, and Gruffyd was killed by some of his own men. Harold took
oaths of vassalage from Gruffyd's two half-brothers in the north, and
the separate southern principalities re-emerged. English pressure along
the frontier was renewed. This was the situation inherited by King
William, who firmly believed in his right of dominion over Wales. After
some of the dispossesed rebels had sought refuge and support among the
the Welsh princes, his determination to assert effective authority
hardened into a resolve to replace disloyal Welsh leaders by Norman
lords wherever possible.
The lordships established along the Welsh frontiers
in the early years of his reign were military authorities, effectively
defensive, and poised for further conquest...In the north the
initiative was left, after the departure of Gherbod, to Hugh of
Avranches, earl of Chester, and his ruthless and agressive nephew,
Robert of Rhuddlan. They struck into North Wales across the Dee, and
penetrated as far as Conway. According to an entry in Domesday Book, by
1086 Robert of Rhuddlan had obtained from the king a grant of the whole
of 'North Wales' (whose exact extent is uncertain) for an annual
patment of £40. . . The advance continued into the next reign;
Robert established castles at Rhuddlan and Deganway on the river
Conway. Hugh probably built those at Bangor, Carnavon and Anglesey
before the violence and brutality of the Normans provoked a rising.
Robert was killed by a raiding party, probably in 1093, and the advance
was halted." (45-46)
On language:
"There is little direct evidence of the languages spoken at different
levels of society in the early years of Norman rule. After a year or
two Latin gradually replaced Old English as the language of royal
writs. . .Bilingualism spread wherever it was needed for everyday
business, or for the advancement of the able and ambitious. In the
baronial class most men, women and children picked up enough colloquial
English to run their households and supervise their estates. . .Some of
those who presided in the local courts where English was spoken may
have mastered the language thoroughly; other relied on interpreters."
"Many of the lower clergy spoke only English. One of
the miracles recored in the life of Wulfric of Haselby describes how he
cured a deaf and dumb boy, who immediately began to speak in French and
English. The parish priest who witnessed the miracle complained
bitterly that a stranger from far away, who would have been grateful
for the gift of speech in a single language, had been granted the use
of two, whereas he himself, who had served Wulfric devotedly for many
years, had never been given the knowledge of French, and had to stand
silent whenever he went to the bishop or archdeacon."