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The Normans were the violent parvenu opportunists of their day: Vikings who settled in Normandy and became French before conquering England and becoming English.

From obscure Scandinavian origins, the Normans relied on their military proficiency – and ruthlessness – to dominate the institutions and elites of Europe, and assimilated cultures, ideas and whole political systems in their pursuit of glory. Norman knights and generals occupied areas from the lowlands of Scotland to the deserts of the near east, thrusting themselves into the midst of conflicts and seizing chances whenever they appeared. They also left behind some of the most remarkable ecclesiastical and military architecture of the period, which speaks volumes about both their self-importance and their piety.

Where did the Normans come from?

The people who became Normans burst on to the historical scene in the violent and tempestuous late ninth century. At that time northern Europe was beset by a ‘Great Army’ of Danes whose various divisions came close to conquering all of England, and who wreaked havoc in northern France.

At about the same time a group of ‘Northmen’ started to settle around the mouth of the river Seine. Quite where they came from is unclear. The sources for the period are poor, and later medieval historians had different views – some thought that Rollo (also known as Hrólf), their leader, had been Danish, others that he had been Norwegian. He is surrounded by various legends, including the spectacular statement found in later Icelandic sagas that he was known as ‘Hrólf the Walker’ (Ganger-Hrólf) because he was so large that no horse could carry him.

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At around 911, King Charles III (‘the Simple’) of West Francia (an early forerunner of France) signed a treaty with Rollo: Charles recognised the Northmen’s right to stay in his kingdom, and they recognised his right to be king. It is likely that Charles did not have much choice, and that disturbances elsewhere in his kingdom meant he needed to buy himself a little peace. Yet what Charles managed to extract from the situation was the Normans’ acceptance that – however nominally – this was his turf, and that, if they wanted to live in peace, they would have to become Christians.

A century later, the Norman historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin wrote that when Rollo was asked to kiss King Charles’s foot in subjection, he had refused and instead told one of his men that they should do it for him. “The man immediately grasped the king’s foot and raised it to his mouth and planted a kiss on it while he remained standing, and laid the king flat on his back,” reported Dudo. This may well be an apocryphal tale – but, even if it is, it tells us something of how the Normans saw the treaty and their place within the French king’s realm. They were vassals only in name.

Yet in accepting the king’s terms and staying in France, the Normans allowed themselves to change. As the historian Simon Coupland has put it: “The Vikings became Normans, the pagans became Christians, and thereby, in the eyes of their contemporaries, the barbarians joined civilisation.” The Normans had arrived.

Why did the Normans invade England?

It is unlikely that Charles the Simple foresaw that the Normans would still be knocking around his kingdom’s northern reaches 150 years after he had bought them off.

He almost certainly saw his treaty as a chance to buy time while he put out fires elsewhere. How wrong he was. In 1066 Rollo’s great-great-great-grandson, Duke William (‘the Bastard’), would become one of the most famous men of medieval times – indeed, one of the most famous men in all history – when he launched a successful invasion of England.

The causes of the Norman conquest are not completely easy to unpick. William was related to King Edward the Confessor (whose death precipitated the invasion), though not in the most direct way. Edward’s mother, Emma, was the daughter of Duke Richard of Normandy (‘the Fearless’), who was William’s great-grandfather. King Æthelred the Unready of England had married Emma in an attempt to prevent Normandy being used as a base for Viking armies attacking England – but although their son, Edward, had Norman blood in his veins, no English blood could be said to course through William’s.

William would argue that Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne, and that Harold Godwinson (the English contender) had done likewise while in Normandy in 1064; indeed, a famous scene in the Bayeux Tapestry shows Harold swearing on holy relics that he will uphold William’s claim. Conversely, Harold would say that Edward, on his deathbed, had given his kingdom to the Englishman.

The problem with these stories is that the English crown was not something that the incumbent could simply bestow upon his favourite. The rights to England had, since the emergence of the united kingdom in the tenth century, passed to the immediate relatives of the deceased king – excepting only when it had been conquered by Danes. Edward may have been childless, but there was a legitimate heir: Edgar the Ætheling, grandson of King Edmund II, to whom the crown should have passed. However, Edgar’s youth – he was probably about 15 – is likely to have encouraged ambitious nobles to prowl.

Regardless of what promises had been made, William saw his opportunity to progress from being duke of a mere promontory in northern France to king of one of the wealthiest realms in northern Europe. Inspired, no doubt, by the success of King Cnut only 50 years before, he gathered a great army of nobles and mercenaries, and mounted an invasion that would ultimately have huge ramifications for world history.

What impact did the Normans have on the other parts of the British Isles?

The battle of Hastings is one of the most dramatic historical watersheds. The Anglo-Saxon regime was thoroughly defeated, a great number of its nobility killed, and its survivors displaced by the Conqueror’s machinations. Over the next century and more, the aftershocks of their victory spread far beyond England into Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Scotland was never conquered, but Norman influence was felt in profound ways. The younger sons of Anglo-Norman families found Scotland a place where their skills were appreciated. David I of Scotland (1124–53), who had spent his youth in England and had the title Earl of Huntingdon through marriage, took English experiences north with him when he became king. He created new lordships owing feudal services out of the royal demesne, which he then gave to Anglo-Normans keen to do his bidding. Their influence effected deep changes in the nature and character of Scottish politics and of government.

The Welsh and the English had endured a fractious relationship for over 600 years before the Conquest; though Wales retained its own princes and kings, they had often accepted the overlordship of English kings. In the fraught years that followed Hastings, William needed to secure his western flank and prevent the sort of incursions for which the Welsh were famous.

To do this, he established marcher lords in Chester, Shrewsbury and Hereford who acted almost as petty kings, with their own courts and chanceries, and their own license to make war on the Welsh. By degrees, Norman kings and their subordinates subdued Wales, building castles, allowing their own people to settle the southern lowlands, and bringing it under the rule of the kings of England. Yet the fact that this conquest took 200 years is testament to the resistance they faced.

Norman involvement in Ireland began with these same free-agent warmakers. In 1166 Dermot MacMurrough, king of Leinster, was deprived of his throne and sought the help of the Anglo-Norman King Henry II. Henry was too busy to lend a hand, but Dermot eventually found support from the Earl of Pembroke, known as ‘Strongbow’. Strongbow captured Wexford, Waterford and Dublin; when Dermot died in 1171, Strongbow tried to claim the kingship for himself. Henry II, concerned by the growth of Strongbow’s power, took a huge force to Ireland, obliging the Norman warlords to hand him their conquered territories. In doing so he became the first king of England to set foot on Irish soil, and so began the English kingdom’s claims to lands and lordship in Ireland.

How did the Normans come to be involved in the Mediterranean?

The Scandinavians of the early Middle Ages were nothing if not adventurous. Their seagoing ways took them to Iceland, Greenland and North America, and their quest for gold and excitement sent them down the great rivers of western Russia to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Even after becoming Frenchified, the Normans retained something of this spirit.

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In the early 11th century, Norman exiles became caught up in the knotty complexities of southern Italian politics. In the Mezzogiorno (roughly, everywhere south of Naples), the Lombards and Byzantines were doing hard battle with each other, while the Saracens, heavily divided among themselves, occupied Sicily. It was, in short, a land of bloody opportunity.

A family that did very well in this political climate was that of Tancred de Hauteville (980–1041), a minor Norman lord whose estates were too modest to support the needs of his 12 sons. Several of his progeny achieved success in the south, notably Robert Guiscard (‘the Wily’) who became Duke of Apulia, Calabria and finally, through conquest, of Sicily. The Byzantine princess and historian Anna Comnena remembered him as having “an overbearing character and a thoroughly villainous mind… He was a man of immense stature… ruddy complexion, fair hair, broad shoulders, eyes that all but shot out sparks of fire.”

On the podcast | Levi Roach explains how the Normans conquered and held regions of Africa during the 12th century:

Guiscard’s escapades, impressive though there were, paled next to those of the great endeavours of the First Crusade, in which the Normans were leading lights. Robert Curthose, William the Conqueror’s eldest son, is said to have been offered (but declined) the crown of Jerusalem after its capture. Arnulf de Chocques, a former chaplain to the Norman duke, found himself responsible for rebuilding the structures of the Christian church in the Holy Land. Chronicles repeatedly stress the importance of the Norman contribution; the First Crusade clearly had a Norman backbone.

Perhaps the greatest of all images of Norman ascendancy, however, came with the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionheart – king of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, Nantes and Brittany – occupied Sicily, conquered Cyprus and, as leader of the crusade, parleyed with Saladin. The scion of a petty duchy in northern France had become the negotiating equal of the great Sultan of Syria and Egypt.

What was the Normans’ legacy?

We still live with the legacy of the Conquest – most notably in how we speak. The merger of Old English and Norman French into Middle and Modern English is an ongoing reminder of how two cultures were, in the decades that followed the Conquest, married together. The distinction between the lordly language of the castle and the earthy language of the field can be heard in the difference between ‘pork’ and ‘pig’, ‘mutton’ and ‘sheep’, ‘beef’ and ‘cow’ – the former all derived from Old French, the latter Old English.

Yet perhaps the most obvious visual legacy the Normans left has been their architecture. Their particular brand of Romanesque, with its solid yet graceful semicircular arches and arcades, is found not only in Normandy but also throughout England – thanks to the Normans’ comprehensive post-Conquest programme of church rebuilding – and also in their territories in the Mediterranean.

Wherever they settled, the Normans gifted their architecture to posterity – and so it is that one can still see something of their achievements and ambitions in buildings as widely separated as the great cathedral of Durham, the abbey of Saint-Étienne in Caen, the basilica of Saint Nicholas in Bari, and Cefalù Cathedral in Sicily. “Look on my works, ye mighty,” they seem to say, “and despair”.

Alex Burghart is a historian specialising in the Anglo-Saxon period, and one of the authors of the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, a database of all known people from the period

This article was first published in BBC History Magazine’s ‘The Story of the Normans’ special edition in 2016

One day in the early 1070s, the Norman count Roger I of Sicily was hosting a meeting of his advisers when something they said irked him. “Roger lifted his thigh and made a great fart,” reported the Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athīr, “saying: ‘By my faith, here is far better counsel than you have given’.”

The Normans are best known for their conquests. So it may come as a surprise to learn that Roger’s flatulence signalled his contempt for advice that he should join a planned invasion – of Africa, the great continent across the Mediterranean to the south.

In the years preceding this incident, Roger’s influence along the seaboards of southern Europe and north Africa had been growing steadily. Indeed, the Normans represented a rising power on both sides of the Mediterranean and, by the second half of the 11th century, their neighbours were beginning to sit up and take notice.

It was in this context that messengers from Genoa and Pisa had arrived at Roger’s court, inviting him to join them in a military expedition against Mahdia, the capital of the Zirid rulers of north Africa (now on Tunisia’s east coast). The two Italian city-states were looking to muscle in on the lucrative trade between the western and eastern Mediterranean, much of which passed along the north African coast, and they rated their chances of success far higher with the Normans at their side.

Roger’s advisers were keen to join the expedition but, as we know from Ibn al-Athīr, the count was sceptical. As Roger noted, if the expedition against Mahdia were to succeed, then the profits would go mostly to Pisa and Genoa. But if it failed, it was the Normans who would face the consequences. Roger had recently concluded a peace with Tamīm ibn al-Mu‘izz, the Zirid ruler. He did not want to risk this truce for a speculative venture.

So the count watched from the sidelines as the attack on Mahdia went ahead in 1074 – but the Normans would not sit on their hands for long. The following century, they did go on the offensive in north Africa and – thanks to their own skill and a divided enemy – established a kingdom there.

That Norman outpost in the heart of Muslim north Africa – the region then known as Ifrīqya – is among the least studied yet most fascinating episodes of their many conquests throughout the Middle Ages. It’s a tale far less famous than those of their campaigns across southern Italy and, of course, England. Yet it’s a story that richly deserves to be told.

Conquest and settlement

Norman mercenaries had been plying their trade in southern Italy since the early years of the 11th century. And, starting in the 1040s– two decades before that other celebrated Norman conqueror, William of Normandy, faced Harold II at the battle of Hastings – they began a systematic process of conquest and settlement. The first places to fall were the provinces of Calabria and Apulia (Puglia) on the mainland. But by the time of the Mahdia campaign in 1074, much of Sicily (including the capital, Palermo) was in Norman hands.

Once the Normans had secured southern Italy, they began looking farther afield. In the 1080s, Robert Guiscard – Roger’s elder brother (and nominal superior) – led a set of daring attacks on the Byzantine-ruled Balkans and Greece. And in 1091, Roger himself secured the strategically significant island of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean. The island was soon lost, but that would prove a temporary setback.

In 1105, Roger’s son, successor and namesake, Roger II, became Count of Sicily. Under his stewardship, Norman power around the Mediterranean surged to new heights. He retook Malta in 1127 and, that same year, secured control of Calabria and Apulia, succeeding his relative Duke William II. Until that point, Roger had held Sicily under William’s oversight; now he ruled in his own right. Three years later, Roger declared himself king of Sicily.

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The result of these changes was that political power and authority within the new Norman domains in Italy shifted decisively south-west from Apulia and Calabria to Sicily. Now the royal court lay just a short boat ride away from the north African coast. Roger was clearly looking to expand in that region. His position there had already been strengthened by the dependence of north Africa on grain supplies from Sicily, caused in part by the increasingly severe droughts suffered by the region. Roger had already locked horns with the Zirids in the early 1120s – and in 1135, internal divisions within Ifrīqya provided the ideal pretext for intervention. The local emir, al-Hassan, appealed for Roger’s help against the Hammadid rulers of Bougie (now Béjaïa, Algeria) to his west. Roger acceded to the request – but his fleet did more than just assist al-Hassan: it also seized the strategic island of Djerba, just off the coast south of Mahdia.

This was a statement of intent. At an assembly in Merseburg, north-eastern Germany, Byzantine and Venetian emissaries reported – with some exaggeration – that Roger had now “seized Africa, which is acknowledged to be the third part of the world”.

Coastal attacks

Over the next few years, divisions continued to dog the Zirids. In 1141/42, Roger leveraged these to secure the Zirids’ formal submission, and over the following months the Normans attacked coastal towns across the region. These actions ostensibly aimed to shore up al-Hassan’s regime, but Roger soon shifted from supporting his Zirid allies to replacing them. In 1143, Djidjelli (now Jijel, Algeria) on the north coast was sacked. The following year, Bresk in the west was taken, and the island of Kerkenna, off the coast south of Mahdia, was seized.

When Roger’s troops took Tripoli (now in Libya) in 1146, the foundations were laid for a new Norman kingdom. So far, his expeditions had been little more than acts of banditry. Now he began the transition from raiding to conquest. Roger’s men were careful to work with the local Islamic population. Though Muslims were forced to pay an additional tax, they were allowed to continue worshipping much as they had before. This took the sting out of Christian rule.

On the podcast | The Normans famously conquered England, but did you know they also had a short-lived kingdom in North Africa in the 12th century? Professor Levi Roach explains to David Musgrove how the Normans established a presence in southern Italy and Sicily and expanded south towards Africa:

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For the Zirids, the final blow landed in 1148, when a large Norman-Sicilian fleet appeared off Mahdia. Realising that the game was up, al-Hassan fled inland. Fearing Norman rule, many of the inhabitants followed suit but, when they heard of Roger’s even-handed treatment of the local population, most returned.

Momentum was now with Roger and his men, and they soon secured Sūsa (Sousse) and Sfax, strategic port cities lying north and south of Mahdia, respectively. Elsewhere, Tunis was reduced to tributary status and Gabès, south of Sfax, also acknowledged Roger’s lordship. Impressed by this progress, Pope Eugenius III consecrated a new “arch- bishop of Africa” (ie Ifrīqya) to oversee the region. The domains of the radical Almohads – who, in contrast with most Islamic powers, did not tolerate Christian minorities – had recently been expanding in north-western Africa. Roger’s realm promised to act as a welcome bulwark against them.

The Normans seemed unstoppable. Ibn al-Athīr, whose account conveys sentiments within Zirid circles, notes that Roger would have conquered “all of the lands of Ifrīqya” had he not been distracted by “many battles” with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Roger’s men had been making quick work of the province, so the Second Crusade (1147–49) – during which Roger set his sights on the Byzantine empire, taking Corfu and plundering Greek cities – must have come as welcome relief to many in north Africa.

Roger’s own pride in these conquests is clear. He had coinage issued in north Africa and experimented with the title “king of Africa/Ifrīqya”, particularly in Arabic documents in his name. (In Roger’s trilingual realm, documents were issued in Latin, Greek and Arabic.)

Yet Roger’s new north African kingdom was dangerously exposed. To the west were the Almohads, who wouldn’t tolerate a Christian neighbour for long. To the east were the Fatimids, the nominal overlords of the Zirids. They had given their tacit approval to Roger’s establishment of a north African enclave but, as his domains grew, cracks started to appear in that relationship. The weak Zirids had been of little use to the Fatimids, but the rapidly expanding Normans presented an altogether different problem.

In spring 1153, a large coalition backed by Roger was defeated by the Almohads at Sétif, in what’s now Algeria. In response, Roger sent a fleet to take the port of Bône (now Annaba), 200 miles to the north-east, aiming to create a buffer zone. However, the long-term prospects for his African kingdom were starting to look bleak. His death in early 1154 sealed its fate.

A decisive threat

The ensuing years were marked by political instability. Roger’s son and heir, William I, rushed to secure his Sicilian and Italian dominions; only once that had been achieved could he turn to affairs in north Africa – but by then it was too late. During the mid- to late 1150s a set of revolts were launched against Norman control, as native rulers sought to re-establish independence, their cause strengthened by the continuing Almohad threat. In the end, it was this factor that proved decisive.

In 1159, a strong Almohad force moved against the coastal cities that had been the linchpins of Norman authority in the region. Tunis soon surrendered, followed by Tripoli, Sfax and Gafsa (in central Tunisia). The Normans offered greater resistance at Mahdia, where the garrison held out for more than six months, but that only delayed the inevitable. Soon, Roger’s kingdom of Africa had been swallowed up by the rapidly expanding Almohad caliphate.

Some at the Sicilian court felt that William had done too little, too late – and there may be an element of truth in this. The chronicle attributed to Hugo Falcandus reports that William was easily manipulated by his chief minister, Maio, who often contravened his commands. “Many think that this is why he [William] allowed Africa to be taken,” Hugo wrote. But with Almohad pressure mounting, it simply wasn’t worth the time, money and manpower necessary to maintain the precarious Norman toehold in north Africa. Roger’s original conquests of the 1140s had been opportunistic affairs, assisted by Zirid weakness and Fatimid acquiescence. There was little sense in maintaining them in the face of sustained resistance.

Still, the eclipse of Norman rule was not inevitable. Had Roger lived longer, or the Fatimids proven more amenable, there’s no way of knowing how much longer the Norman kingdom might have survived. Had it lasted, Norman influence would have taken an altogether different form.

Consider the fate of Sicily. Here, early Norman rulers – including Roger II – were keen to conciliate the local Muslim population. However, this was pragmatic toleration, not self-conscious multiculturalism. Chris- tians – where possible, Latin (ie Catholic) Christians – were still preferred for senior administrative roles. The result was a slow but steady population shift away from Islam (and also, to a degree, the Greek Orthodox rite). Christian Lombard settlers from the mainland were encouraged, as was conversion. By the 1160s, toleration started giving way to coercion, and such efforts were stepped up the following century, when massacres, forced conversion and expulsions became common.

In 1148, this potentially lay in store for the inhabitants of Ifrīqya. Thankfully for them, it was not to be. Roger II’s conquests in the southern Mediterranean constitute a remarkable chapter in medieval history, but also a fleeting one. The Norman kindgom of north Africa was gone – and soon forgotten.

Levi Roach is associate professor of history at the University of Exeter. His new book, Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of Asia, is published by John Murray and is out now

The Normans famously conquered England, but did you know they also had a short-lived kingdom in North Africa in the 12th century? Professor Levi Roach explains to David Musgrove how the Normans established a presence in southern Italy and Sicily and expanded south towards Africa.

Levi Roach is the author of Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of Asia (John Murray Press, 2022)

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In the spring of 1141, as England suffered in the midst of a bitter civil war, Queen Matilda of Boulogne was in Kent, busily raising an army. Galvanised by the news that her husband, King Stephen, had been imprisoned by his vengeful rival and cousin, the Empress Maud (also known as Empress Matilda), the queen was utterly determined to march on London and ensure that the empress would never wear the crown she so fiercely coveted.

It was rare in the 12th century for a woman to bear arms. Although the Norman queens of England had wielded considerable power as sharers in the royal dominion, it was now being eroded thanks to the centralisation of government administration at Westminster, over which queens often had less influence. Had it not been for the war, Matilda might have had a very different role.

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The only child of Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, and Mary of Scotland, Matilda was born c1103. She was one of the most desirable princesses in Europe, on account of having royal Saxon and Scottish blood, and the great inheritance that would come to her on her father’s death: the county of Boulogne and its lands – its ‘honour’ – in England.

When Matilda was two, her uncle, Henry I of England, betrothed her to her cousin, Stephen of Blois, the grandson of William the Conqueror. In 1125 her father became a monk and ceded Boulogne and his English estates to Matilda. He died soon afterwards, whereupon Henry I arranged for her marriage to take place. It made Stephen the richest magnate in England. With Boulogne, he gained control of the shortest Channel crossing to England and, with it, merchant shipping. The marriage was happy, and there is much evidence for the couple’s affection for one another.

Breaking faith

Henry I’s sole heir was his daughter, Maud; next in line came his nephews of Blois. Henry had constrained his barons, including Stephen, to swear oaths acknowledging Maud as his successor to the throne, but when Henry died in 1135 Stephen broke faith, seized the throne, and was crowned king on 22 December.

Matilda arrived in England in January 1136. Her coronation was lavishly performed at Westminster Abbey on Easter Sunday. She proved a strong and resourceful queen – feisty, energetic and indefatigable in her support of her ineffective husband, whom she far exceeded in capabilities. Described as “a woman of subtlety with a man’s resolution”, she demonstrated sound judgment. She won praise not only for her unwavering loyalty to Stephen, but also for her courage, her honour, her diplomacy, and for having “a manly heart in a woman’s body”, as a contemporary chronicler observed.

Matilda wielded great power. Her honour of Boulogne was centred largely upon London and Colchester, which gave her a strong territorial advantage. She was closely involved in government, for Stephen trusted her political judgment and relied on her support.

Shared religious interests strengthened the bond between her and Stephen. They gave their daughter Marie to God as a nun, and founded abbeys at Furness and Faversham. Matilda established the Royal Hospital of St Katharine’s by the Tower. She was a benefactress to many religious houses and helped establish the Knights Templar in England.

On the podcast | Catherine Hanley tells the story of Empress Matilda, whose battle for the English throne became known as ‘the Anarchy’:

Meanwhile, the empress was battling to gain control of Normandy as a springboard for invading England and wresting the crown from Stephen. Her support-base broadened when her illegitimate half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, espoused her cause. In 1138, he sent his vassal, Walchelin Maminot, across from Normandy with an invading army, intending to land it at Dover, which he held.

With his presence desperately needed to quell rebellion in the west, and with every confidence in his wife’s ability, Stephen deputed Matilda to regain Dover. She faced a huge challenge because Dover Castle, on its massive cliff commanding the sea, was a formidable stronghold, but she had considerable resources at her command.

She besieged Dover with a large army on the landward side, and ordered her men of Boulogne to blockade it by sea. With a great fleet of ships, they closed the narrow strait to prevent the garrison receiving any supplies.

Thanks to the strategy Matilda deployed, in concert with her kinsman Pharamus of Boulogne, Dover was surrounded, with Matilda herself commanding the men who laid siege to the castle. Maminot was forced to surrender to the queen.

In 1139, Maud invaded England and civil war between her and Stephen broke out. Neither had superior strength, a situation that many unscrupulous barons took full advantage of, unleashing a period of oppression and lawlessness that became known as the Anarchy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded this as a time during which “Christ and His saints slept”.

Queen Matilda proved a redoubtable opponent to Maud. She was as brave and determined as her rival, but never as arrogant or dictatorial, despite operating effectively as a female warlord. As a result, she avoided alienating those who disapproved of women breaking through the boundaries imposed on them by a male-dominated society.

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A crisis came in February 1141, when Stephen was captured at Lincoln and imprisoned in chains on Maud’s orders. Galvanised to Herculean efforts to free him, Matilda surged through Kent, raising troops with the loyal William of Ypres, to oppose the empress. In the king’s absence, she took upon herself the royal authority.

The Empress Maud was now carrying all before her, though. She secured the support of the church, through the good offices of Stephen’s treacherous brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester, and was acknowledged as ‘Lady of the English’ by most of England bar Kent, where the queen was entrenched.

London strongly supported Stephen, and Matilda worked to secure its loyalty, promising its citizens riches once her husband was freed. However, Maud also needed to win over London to her cause, so that she could be crowned. Finally, its gates opened to her, but the mood was hostile.

Stephen had granted the citizens privileges and liberties, and he and Matilda were well liked. Maud was not, and her arrogance and punitive demands for money angered the citizens.

Matilda set about exploiting the unrest, never letting anyone forget that their anointed king languished in chains. She sent representatives to the empress, begging her to release her husband from his filthy dungeon. She offered herself as hostage in exchange, as well as castles and great riches. She even promised that, once Stephen was freed, she would ensure that he relinquished his claim to the throne.

Several romantic paintings portray Maud haughtily turning down the supplicant queen, yet it is clear that they did not meet personally at this time, but instead communicated through envoys.

London plundered

Matilda now resolved to take up arms to achieve what her words had failed to. She marched on London at the head of an impressive army and, although she did not take part in the fighting, she ordered her forces to “rage most furiously around the city with plunder and arson, violence and the sword”, as described in a chronicle of the time. Londoners watched in impotent terror as the outlying suburbs were ravaged, bitterly regretting abandoning a bountiful ruler for the tyrannical empress. When Matilda’s troops laid siege to the Tower, the citizens sent messengers to reason with her – and then drove Maud from the city.

As Stephen’s supporters congratulated each other joyfully, Matilda was warmly welcomed into London. A contemporary chronicler wrote: “Forgetting the weakness of her sex and a woman’s softness, she bore herself with the valour of a man. Everywhere, by prayer or price, she won over invincible allies. She urged the king’s lieges to demand their lord back to her.”

Bishop Henry now abandoned Maud and, in retaliation, her forces besieged Winchester. Meanwhile, the queen had met with Henry, and was so persuasive that he vowed to forsake Maud’s cause and help liberate King Stephen.

Matilda marched on Winchester, her army strengthened by a thousand angry Londoners. She arrived to find the bishop’s castle under siege by Maud’s forces, and herself blockaded the city, in effect the queen was besieging the besiegers.

The siege lasted for nearly two months, until disease and starvation impelled the empress to escape. Her forces were routed by the queen’s army, and Robert of Gloucester was captured, which cost Maud her advantage. Without her chief mainstay, she could do nothing.

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Matilda did not have Robert fettered. Instead, she ensured that he was treated honourably. After tough negotiations, it was agreed that the king should be restored and Robert should be released. On 1 November 1141, Stephen was freed and he and Matilda entered London in triumph.

In 1142, Maud occupied Oxford, and England was plunged back into the turmoil of civil war. Stephen besieged the city and Matilda raised reinforcements for him, but the empress made a daring escape, dressed in white, camouflaged against the snow. Her cause was lost, but still she would not give in. Only after Earl Robert died in 1147, and her other supporters lost heart, did she leave England. Her cause was taken up by her son Henry, who was determined to take the crown himself .

In April 1152, Matilda was visiting Hedingham Castle, Essex, when she fell sick with a fever. Stephen was summoned, and was with her when she died on 3 May. She did not live to see the end of the war. In 1153 it was agreed that, on Stephen’s death, Henry would succeed to the throne (as Henry II). Stephen died in 1154 and was buried beside Matilda at Faversham. Matilda’s epitaph read: “If ever woman deserved to be carried by the hands of angels to Heaven, it was this holy queen.”

This article first appeared in the October 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine

Tracy Borman’s Monarchy Masterclass series begins with the most famous date in English history: the Norman Conquest of 1066.  By the end of that year, the crown had belonged to three different men, ushering in not just a new ruling elite, but an entirely new era. This masterclass episode explores how the Normans fought to establish a strong monarchy, which would cement the unification of England and break down the divisions between Normans and Saxons. It also charts the rise of the Angevin dynasty, from the mighty Henry II to his disreputable youngest son John, who brought the monarchy to the brink of ruin.

Tracy Borman is a best-selling author and historian, specialising in the Tudor period. Dr Borman has presented a number of history programmes for Channel 5. She is a regular contributor to BBC History Magazine and gives talks on her books across the country and abroad. She works part-time as joint chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces and as chief executive of the Heritage Education Trust.

Dr Eleanor Parker, author of Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England, talks to David Musgrove about the young people whose lives were upended by the momentous change of circumstances brought about by the Norman Conquest of 1066. She reveals how exploring their stories can offer a fresh approach to studying the Normans.

Eleanor Parker is the author of Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England (Bloomsbury, 2022)

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We all know the story of the Norman Conquest, when Duke William of Normandy led his troops across the Channel and took the crown of England. However, as Professor Judith Green tells David Musgrove, there is a lot more to the history of the Normans than the events of 1066. 

Judith Green is the author of The Normans: Power, Conquest and Culture in the 11th Century Europe (Yale University Press, 2022)

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The turning point in this half century is 1066. In no other year in English history were four different men recognised as king by some part of the political community and this was the last occasion on which a foreign invasion without substantial insular support toppled an English regime. Three great battles caused critical losses to the land-holding classes, then those who survived the last fight at Hastings faced dispossession. William, Duke of Normandy, presided over a cultural and social revolution: within a decade the upper echelons of society, both clerical and lay, were almost entirely foreign born; Old English had been driven out as a language of elite intercourse by French and Latin, and a wave of building, particularly of castles, new churches and monasteries, had begun to alter the landscape beyond recognition.

In the 1060s, England had for a generation been a comparatively peaceful kingdom under Edward the Confessor (1042–66). A handful of great earldoms connected local with national society; by the 1060s these were dominated by the Godwinsons, Edward’s brothers-in-law (he was married to their sister, Edith), Harold, Tostig, Gyrth and Leofwine, leaving only Mercia held by Edwin, grandson to Earl Leofric. Edward was clearly failing in midwinter 1065. Westminster Abbey was hurriedly consecrated, then, “languishing from the sickness of soul”, the king died on 4 January and was buried there the next day.

The Bayeux Tapestry shows the old king, distinguished by his crown, shaggy hair and beard, as he extends his hand to his kneeling brother-in-law Harold. Edward’s Life, written soon after, suggests Edward commended “this woman [the queen] and all the kingdom to your protection”, and every version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle offers something similar. It seems likely, therefore, that Edward nominated Harold as his heir. In 1051/2, he had apparently promised the succession to his maternal cousin, William of Normandy, but Edward’s Norman friends had lost influence since then and William had virtually no support in England by the 1060s.

Harold had the backing of every significant political group and of the English Church, and moved rapidly, being crowned Harold II in Westminster Abbey on the same day Edward was entombed. But he was not secure. Aside from William of Normandy, one or more Scandinavian claimant could be expected, as a result of the Danish occupation of the English throne from 1016–42. Harald Hardrada of Norway had an awesome reputation and had already despatched a fleet to intervene in English politics in 1058, but his opponent, Swein of Denmark, had the better claim. Harold could also expect opposition from his brother Tostig, who in 1065 had, at Harold’s instigation, been exiled from his earldom of Northumbria after a rebellion by the Northumbrians, and replaced by Edwin of Mercia’s brother, Morcar. Harold’s marriage to Edwin and Morcar’s sister tied these two to his own candidacy at the price of excluding his brother.

On his accession Harold II was around 40, had a clutch of sons, had long been premier earl and was the only figure in England with a military reputation. He took control of the English administration, issuing coinage and sending out writs and charters. The combining of his own estates with those of the crown and Tostig’s made him far wealthier than his predecessor and there was no scope for opposition from England’s Celtic neighbours or his own aristocracy.

William makes his move Harold sent messengers to Normandy to inform William of Edward’s death. The Duke responded by claiming the throne and demanding that Harold honour his oath to support William’s succession, which according to Norman sources, Harold had made during a journey to the Continent c 1064. William then set about mobilising forces and building a fleet. Additionally he conducted a diplomatic offensive, gaining the support of the Pope and the Emperor.

By late spring Harold had gathered substantial forces and was poised to withstand invasion. Halley’s Comet appeared in late April 1066, perhaps being interpreted as indicative of great events to come. William was delayed by the sheer scale of his preparations, so it was Harold’s brother, Earl Tostig, who was the first outsider to appear. He had been at the court of Flanders and it was with a small Flemish fleet that he arrived off the Isle of Wight, recruiting men and raising supplies from his old estates, then ravaged eastwards as far as Sandwich. Harold’s departure from London with an army drove Tostig northwards, but he was again chased off by Edwin and Morcar. Tostig’s Flemish forces abandoned him and he fled northwards to Malcolm, king of the Scots and an old ally.

Harold Godwinson: a hero of the Bayeux Tapestry?

Michael Lewis asks why this exquisite account of the Normans’ triumph of 1066 is so sympathetic to the vanquished English

Harold’s forces remained ready throughout the summer but were stood down as the campaigning season waned, on 8 September. Harald Hardrada in Norway had, however, spent the summer raising a great host. His arrival was unexpected and he led a formidable force, estimated at 300 vessels. Hardrada received Tostig’s backing. His first objective was apparently York, England’s second city. Signs are that York closed its gates and awaited Mercian aid. Edwin and Morcar deployed their army outside the city but were defeated by the Norwegians on 20 September.
York then had to surrender to Hardrada; it gave hostages and recognised him as king, and he withdrew eastwards to Stamford Bridge, to await the arrival of further hostages. On Monday 25th Harold advanced through York, reaching Stamford Bridge before news could reach Hardrada. The English army attacked and achieved complete victory. Hardrada and Tostig fell and their army was slaughtered. Stamford Bridge was one of the most decisive battles of the age, providing Harold with the kudos of a great warrior-king.

Across the Channel, William had been completing his preparations. Harold’s departure from the south coast and then the arrival of suitable winds provided the Duke with the opportunity to set sail about 26 September. His ships reached Pevensey on the 28th. The next day he moved his forces to Hastings, where he built a castle, and set about ravaging the Sussex coastal plain.

Harold marched south at speed, at the head of a substantial army. He perhaps hoped to surprise William but his enemies learned of his proximity and marched a short way inland. On Saturday 14 October, Harold deployed his infantry along the crest of a low hill, since occupied by Battle Abbey, confronting Norman attacks up the slope. The battle was long fought and the English army was routed only late in the day, but the outcome was determined by the deaths of Harold and his brothers, leaving the English cause leaderless.

William responded to victory cautiously, marching first to Dover, which surrendered to him and was garrisoned. At London, the archbishops and surviving earls rallied behind the young Edgar the Ætheling (son of Edward the Confessor’s half-nephew Edward the Exile), the only figure with an incontestable claim by descent. Although he is not known to have been crowned, Edgar was certainly active as king. However, he failed to mobilise a field army and could not stop the Normans firing Southwark. When William crossed the Thames at Wallingford, ravaging in an arc round London, the resolve of the English leadership melted away.

With God on his side

Despite a distinct lack of enthusiasm among the English, William’s victory was viewed as so decisive an intervention by God that opposition could not be mobilised effectively. The Norman leader elected to be crowned at Westminster, where his relative, Edward the Confessor, lay buried, so reinforcing his claim. His acquisition of the crown marked a political revolution far more marked than Harold II’s. While neither could claim royal descent, Harold was the candidate accepted by pretty much the entire English political class. William was an outsider, whose victory came as leader of an army of foreign adventurers, whose lust for the rich estates of his new realm can only have alarmed the English. William must have found himself presiding over a mix of distrustful English magnates, whose language was incomprehensible to him, bishops who viewed him, however unwillingly, as God’s anointed, and his own supporters, whose claims on his patronage would fuel a transfer of lands and resources rarely equalled in English history.

Norman conquest was not limited to the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom but pushed outwards into both Wales and Scotland within a generation. Following the battle of Mynydd Carn in 1081 the earl of Chester overran much of North Wales while the Norman lords of Hereford and Gloucester pushed into central and southern Wales. Even Rhys ap Tewdwr of Deheubarth accepted the over-lordship of William and owed £40 per annum to the king at Domesday. In Scotland, Malcolm found himself similarly having to accept Norman over-lordship but it was not until his defeat and death that his sons oversaw the establishment of Norman barons in the Lowlands, including such famous names as Bruce and Balliol.

Key years: other important events in the second half of the 11th century

1051 – Godwine falls from favour. King Edward and Earl Godwine, his father-in-law (and Harold’s father), quarrelled over royal appointment of a Norman as archbishop of Canterbury and the earl’s refusal to punish the men of Dover for attacking Edward’s French brother-in-law. A meeting at Gloucester led to confrontation and a second meeting at London, on 24 September, led to the flight of the old earl and his family abroad, most of them seeking aid in Flanders while Harold left for Ireland. Edward sent his wife Edith, Godwine’s daughter, to a nunnery. Although it would be reversed the next year, the fall from power of Godwine’s family seemed complete and Edward attempted to appoint his own men to exercise power under his kingship.

1054 – Macbeth is defeated. Siward of Northumbria led an army into Scotland against Macbeth, defeating his forces and enthroning Malcolm III. Macbeth lived on for a few years but was eventually entirely overthrown. The death of Siward’s eldest son and his nephew meant that when he died in 1055 there was no adult of his lineage to succeed, enabling the Godwinesons to secure Northumbria for Tostig.

1063 – Invasion of Wales. Harold and Tostig took advantage of the youth of Mercia’s new earl, Edwin, to invade Wales and destroy the power of his ally, King Gruffudd of Gwynedd and Powys. Harold sacked Gruffudd’s halls at Rhuddlan, then in May led a fleet from Bristol against the Welsh coast, while Tostig invaded by land. The Welsh caved in and themselves killed Gruffudd in August, his ship’s figurehead and trappings were delivered as trophies to King Edward, and Wales was placed by Harold in the hands of Gruffudd’s half-brothers, who were forced to ally themselves with the victor, although they swiftly reverted to their family’s alliance with Edwin of Mercia.

1068 – William faces opposition. Opposition to King William’s regime, its taxes and his patronage of foreigners was growing and he found it necessary to besiege Exeter, where Harold’s mother was lodged. Edgar the Ætheling took refuge in Scotland, where his sister Margaret was forced into marriage by King Malcolm. William appointed Robert of Commines as earl of Northumbria but he was overwhelmed at Durham on 28 January 1069, leading to a general rising of the north.

1072 – Scotland acknowledges King William. Having suppressed the northern rising (1069–70) and a revolt in the Fens (1071), William led a large force into Scotland. Malcolm III had given support to William’s enemies and had allied himself with Edgar the Ætheling but could not withstand a full-blown Norman invasion. A meeting took place between the two kings, at which Malcolm was reported to have made his peace, given hostages, including his son Duncan, and acknowledged William’s superiority.

1086 – Scotland acknowledges King William. Having suppressed the northern rising (1069–70) and a revolt in the Fens (1071), William led a large force into Scotland. Malcolm III had given support to William’s enemies and had allied himself with Edgar the Ætheling but could not withstand a full-blown Norman invasion. A meeting took place between the two kings, at which Malcolm was reported to have made his peace, given hostages, including his son Duncan, and acknowledged William’s superiority.

1087 – William’s death. William was taken ill while on campaign in France and died at the priory of St Gervais near Rouen on 9 September. He nominated his eldest son Robert to the Duchy but it is unclear whether or not he named his second son, William Rufus, as king of England. However Rufus promptly left to secure this position and, aged about 27, he was crowned William II at Westminster later the same month.

1088 – Odo’s rebellion. Bishop Odo raised a rebellion against his nephew, William II, and was joined by major figures who favoured Robert as king. The rebellion centred on Odo’s castle of Rochester, which William besieged. The king rallied English support against his opponents and his brother’s efforts to reinforce the rebels failed. The affair ended with the departure overseas of Odo, leaving the new king in control.

1093 – The fall of Malcolm. William II set about disposing of Malcolm of Scotland, who he clearly viewed as over-mighty. Summoned to Gloucester, Malcolm was there refused admission to the king’s presence and the treaty he desired. He returned home in anger, raised an army and made a rash attack on Northumbria but was trapped and killed. Malcolm was succeeded by his brother, Donald. Eventually Malcolm’s daughter Matilda (or Maud) would marry Henry I, William I’s youngest son,in 1100, capturing the English throne for her lineage.

More turning points in British history

Read next: 1141: Stephen v Matilda

Go back: 1016: The Danish conquest of England

Nicholas Higham is professor of early medieval and landscape history at the University of Manchester. His books include King Arthur: Myth-making and History (Routledge, 2002), and A Frontier Landscape (Windgather, 2004)

This article was first published in the May 2006 issue of BBC History Magazine

At the bitter Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, overcame the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Harold Godwinson. He emerged as victor to claim the throne he had been promised by Edward the Confessor. After quashing those who supported his last viable rival – Edgar Ætheling, Edward’s great nephew – William made for London, to solidify his control of England.

He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066, although this wasn’t the joyous affair that coronations often are. The atmosphere was tense, with William’s Norman soldiers surrounded by Englishmen who were yet to warm to their new monarch. To symbolise William’s Norman heritage and promote unity, both Saxon and Norman rites were used during the ceremony, with the bishops speaking English as well as French.

• Read more | Everything you wanted to know about the 1066 Norman invasion and the battle of Hastings – but were afraid to ask

The crowd was inevitably asked if they accepted William as their new king. Cheers of affirmation rang out through the abbey, but William’s guards outside mistook the noise for an assassination attempt. They began setting fire to buildings around them and riots broke out. The terrified spectators rushed out of the church, leaving William and the clergy to complete the coronation alone.

To ensure he could defend himself against his enemies, William ordered a castle be built in London almost immediately. This structure, quickly erected and built of timber, was the beginnings of the Tower of London. In 1078, work began on a stone replacement, the modern-day White Tower. Castle building would be one of the legacies of William’s reign, with around 500 raised across England and Wales by his death in 1087.

This article was first published in the Christmas 2018 issue of BBC History Revealed