The descendants of William reign over Normandy and England until , date of the attachment of the duchy to the royal domain of France. Their union is forbidden by the Pope because of consanguinity. Nevertheless t he wedding will be celebrated. Became the Conqueror after his coronation in England on December 25, , he was one of the most powerful monarchs of Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
Since the conquest of the Normans, the Anglo-Saxon language of the English elite has been replaced by the Norman, then the Anglo-Norman. On October 14, , the two armies met in the famous Battle of Hastings. King Harold and his two brothers were killed in the battle, and since no one of stature remained to raise a new army, William's path to the throne was clear. He was crowned king of England on Christmas Day. There were several revolts in the next five years, which William used as an excuse to confiscate English land and declare it his personal property.
He then distributed the land to his Norman followers, who imposed their unique feudal system. Eventually, Normans replaced the entire Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. William, however, retained most of England's institutions and was intensely interested in learning about his new property. He ordered a detailed census to be made of the population and property of England — which was compiled in The Domesday Book now an invaluable source of historical information and still in the Public Record Office in London.
Although he never spoke English and was illiterate, he had more influence on the evolution of the English language than anyone before or since — adding a slew of French and Latin words to the English dictionary. The introduction of skilled Norman administrators may be largely responsible for eventually making England the most powerful government in Europe. William the Conqueror had four sons and five daughters, and every monarch of England since has been his direct descendant.
In the autumn of , King Sweyn of Denmark sent an expedition to England. When the Danes arrived in Yorkshire the people of Yorkshire and rose in rebellion once again. William the Conqueror marched north and captured York.
The Danes withdrew from northern England. This time William adopted a scorched earth policy. William the Conqueror was determined there would not be any more rebellions in the north. In his men burned houses, crops, and tools between the Humber and Durham. They also slaughtered livestock. There followed years of famine in the north when many people starved to death. This terrible crime was called the harrying of the north and it took the north of England years to recover.
Meanwhile, the Danes sailed south. They plundered Peterborough and took the Isle of Ely as a base. Many Saxons joined the Danes. These Saxon rebels were led by a man called Hereward the Wake. The Saxons kept on fighting in the Fens but by they were forced to surrender. Hereward escaped. William was now in control of all of England. After the Norman Conquest, almost all Saxon nobles lost their land. William confiscated it and gave it to his own followers.
They held their land in return for providing soldiers for the king for so many days a year. William the Conqueror also changed the church in England. In those days the church was rich and powerful and the king needed its support. William the Conqueror replaced senior Saxon clergymen with men loyal to himself. With the agreement of the Pope.
Lanfranc then deposed Saxon bishops and abbots and replaced them with Normans. Among the lower ranks of society, there were also changes. In the late Saxon times, the peasants were losing their freedom. This process continued under the Normans. On the other hand, slavery declined.
It died out by the middle of the 12th century. The Saxon army, seeing that the battle was lost, began to flee the field. Harold's soldiers loyally and courageously defended their King's body at the last attack, but they eventually fell and Harold's body was mutilated by the Normans, a vindictive act that William the Conqueror punished.
The battle was lost and Anglo-Saxon England died with Harold on the battlefield that day. Harold's deeply distressed mistress, Edith Swan-neck came to William the Conqueror pleading for her lover's body by offering her gold weight in exchange, but William the Conqueror coldly refused her disoriented request.
He had buried Harold in a secret place. On the whole, the south of England was subjected to the Normans, while the north resisted more and more. William the Conqueror replied to the rebels by submitting the English to terror. Determined to punish and crush the rebellion during his reign and to strike with fear the hearts of the English, he robbed vast tracts of Yorkshire, which suffered a great famine for nine years. He rewarded his Norman and French supporters by distributing the confiscated lands to them.
In the brothers Edwin and Morcar, two counts, rose up. They had the support of Gospatric. William the Conqueror marched through the territory of Edwin and built a castle at Warwick.
Edwin and Morcar submitted, but William the Conqueror continued to York, building castles in York and Nottingham before returning to the south. On his journey to the south, William the Conqueror began to build other castles in Lincoln, Huntingdon and Cambridge and placed his supporters in charge of these new visible expressions of Norman power in England, among them William Peverel, considered his illegitimate son, in Nottingham and Henry De Beaumont in Warwick. Although William returned to York and built another castle there, Edgar remained free and, in the autumn of that year, he joined forces with King Sweyn of Denmark.
The Danish king brought a large fleet to England and attacked not only York, but Exeter and Shrewsbury. York was taken by the combined forces of Edgar and Sweyn. Edgar was duly proclaimed King of England by his Saxon partisans, but William the Conqueror replied with haste, ignoring a revolt in Maine. He symbolically wore his crown in the ruins of York on Christmas Day , then marched to the Tees River, ravaging the surrounding countryside as he headed north.
Waltheof, Count of Northumbria, who had joined the revolt, submitted to William, and with Gospatric were forgiven and allowed to retain their lands. But the revenge of William the Conqueror was not satiated, he then parade on the Pennines during the winter and defeated the remaining rebels at Shrewsbury before building two other castles in Chester and Stafford.
In , the heroic Hereward the Wake rose in a rebellion against the Norman domination centered on the island of Ely. William the Conqueror then led an army to Ely, where Hereward, joined by a small army led by Morcar, the former Saxon Count of Northumbria, took a desperate position. Morcar was captured and imprisoned, but Hereward managed to escape into the wild valley to continue his resistance. William the Conqueror had rules which in some respects were very modern but also cruel, but ultimately his methods produced the desired results and he extinguished the fires of the opposition as soon as they presented themselves.
Many castles and guards were built across the country to enforce his rule, originally wooden towers or clods of earth more than 80 castles were created during the reign, including the White Tower. The dominant shadow of the White Tower appeared threateningly on medieval London, a visible expression of Norman rule.
Anglo-Saxon England was radically modified following the Norman conquest, it changed the whole way of life established in the country for centuries.
His laws, the aristocracy and the church were modified and he introduced the French feudal system. The Anglo-Saxon language has been replaced by Norman French as a language of the upper classes, and modern English is the natural consequence of these two languages.
The feudal Norman system that William introduced into England was a complicated hierarchical structure at the top of which the king was. The lords held their lands of the king in exchange for the homage and the military assistance that were brought to them in case of need.
The conversion of New Woods into a royal hunting ground of William the Conqueror saw the introduction of severe forestry laws, which provoked great resentment among the Anglo-Saxons. William the Conqueror changed the laws of England and inflicted exemplary punishments on the delinquents. Murder became a formally punishable offense in England and slavery was abolished. The half-brother of the king, Odo, bishop of Bayeux, commissioned a tapestry to commemorate his brother's victory in It represents a series of scenes leading to the conquest of England.
In common with other embroidered hangings from the early medieval period, this piece is classically called "tapestry", although it is not a real tapestry in which the design is woven into the fabric; it is actually an embroidery. Titles are included in many scenes to indicate the names of people and places or to briefly explain the event represented. In December , William the Conqueror decided to investigate the extent of his domains to maximize taxation.
All the Norman lords and barons whom King William granted in England were ordered to collect information on their estates, which were to be sent to the councilors of William the Conqueror.
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