English Historical Review
© 1989 Longman Group UK Limited
0013-8266/89/1050/085 i/$o3-oo
The English Historical Review
No. CCCCXIII - October 1989
Normandy and England after 1066
T H E publication in 1976 of the late Professor John Le Patourel's The
Norman Empire was a major landmark in Anglo-Norman studies. In
the book, he argued that Normandy and England after 1066 should
be regarded as a political unit and made the incontrovertible point
that, from 1066 onwards, we can only understand the history of Normandy and England as the history of a cross-Channel unit or union,
governed by a common aristocracy, whose political fate and institutional development were affected by events and circumstances on the
two sides of the Channel. 1 Since 1976, aspects of Le Patourel's thesis
have been supported and developed by other scholars, with one of the
theories which he explored being stated in a more extreme form in an
important article by Professor C. Warren Hollister. 2 There has also
been a certain amount of dissent from sections of Le Patourel's and
Hollister's arguments, although no comprehensive critique has ever
been attempted. 3 It is this article's contention that The Norman Empire
is in several major ways unsatisfactory as a discussion of the relationship
1. J. Le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976). Versions of this paper have been given
in talks in the University of Wales at Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor, Lampeter and Aberystwyth; in
the University of California at Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara; in the University of Houston;
to the Department of External Studies of the University of Oxford; and to a conference on Romanesque
art in Lower Normandy held in Caen in 1986. I am grateful to all who have made comments,
and especially to Professor C. Warren Hollister for some very helpful criticisms, to Dr Judith Green
for making many useful suggestions while working independently towards conclusions very similar
to those in this paper, and latterly to Mr Patrick Wormald. Some of the work for this paper was
done while holding a Fellowship at the Henry E. Huntington Library in December 1984.
2. C. W. Hollister, 'Normandy, France and the Anglo-Norman regnum', Speculum, li (1976),
202-42. The literature relating to Anglo-Norman matters is vast, and much of it is cited in the
pages which follow. Particularly close to Le Patourel's theme are D. S. Spear, 'The Norman Empire
and the Secular Clergy', Journal of British St udies, xxi (1982), 1-10; L. Musset, 'Yeut-il une aristocratie d'affaires commune aux grandes villes de Normandie et d'Angleterre entre 1066 et 1204?', Etudes
Normandes, xxxv no. 3 (1986), 7—19; idem, 'Un empire a cheval sur la mer: les perils de mer dans
I'Etat anglo-normand d'apres les chartes, les chroniques et les miracles', in A. Lottin, J.-C. Hocquet
and S. Lebecq (eds.), Les Hommes de la Mer dans VEurope du Nord-Ouest de I'Antiquite a nos
jours. Revue du Nord, numero 1 special hors serie — collection Histoire (1986), 413-24.
3. D. Bates, 'The earliest Norman writs', ante, c (1985), 266-84; J- A. Green, 'Lords of the
Norman Vexin', in J. C. Holt and J. Gillingham (eds.), War and Government in the Middle Ages:
Essays in Honour of J. O. Prestwich (Woodbridge, 1984), pp. 47-61; idem, 'King Henry I and
the aristocracy of Normandy', inActesdu 11 te congres national des societes savantes (Poitiers, 1986),
i (Paris, 1988), 161-73. Note especially: idem, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986), pp. ix-x, for some very pertinent remarks. A radically different approach to the relationship of Normandy and England was taken by J. C. Holt, 'Politics and Property in Early Medieval
England', Past and Present, Ivii (1972), 3-52, with its emphasis on crisis and a measure of instability.
I have tackled only a small number of the major problems which this article raises.
8j2
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
of Normandy and England. In the first place, its model of colonization
for Norman expansion in Britain and northern France is an excessively
simplified and one-dimensional one. And secondly, the titles of 'Unity'
and 'Assimilation' which Le Patourel gave to his two main analytical
chapters, and which he used to describe the relationship of Normandy
and England, are questionable assessments of that relationship. But,
above all, it needs to be grasped at the outset that The Norman Empire
was in many ways no more than a piece of special pleading for the
idea that we should regard Normandy and England as an integrated
unit, and not an attempt to produce a complete analysis of the territories' relationship. Le Patourel himself wrote that his book was intended
as a basis for discussion.' This article is therefore written in the spirit
that The Norman Empire set out an agenda for others to explore and
argue about. It is intended to be part of an extended debate.
Le Patourel divided his book into two Parts: 'Chronology' and
'Analysis'. 'Chronology' comprised the first four chapters of The Norman Empire and consisted of an extended narrative which took Norman
history from the early tenth-century Norse settlement up to 1145, when
what Le Patourel called 'the Norman Empire' came to an end with
the conquest of Normandy by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou.
The linked ideas which run through these first four chapters are Norman
aggression, expansion and colonization. The account is under-pinned
by several unquestioned assumptions, of which the central ones are
the consistent aggressiveness of Norman society, the notion that it
was the succession problem after 113 5 which alone brought 'the Norman Empire' to its end, and the belief that we are dealing with a process
of colonization which was continuous and essentially unchanging. At
the end of Chapter One, which has taken the story up to 1066, we
are told that: 'from the beginning of the tenth century to 1066 and
beyond, though the mode of activity might change as circumstances
changed, the progress of Norman conquest, domination, and colonization was a continuous and consistent process'. 2 Chapter Two then
deals with the conquest and colonization of England, and Chapter
Three, entitled 'Further Expansion', is concerned with northern France
in Henry I's reign and Norman expansion into Wales and Scotland.
It concludes with the sentence: 'if Henry's plan for the succession had
gone smoothly there would have been no visible limit to what his
successors might achieve'. 3 In Chapter Four, 'The End', Le Patourel
once more announced that 'The union of England and Normandy . . .
broke on the problem of the succession'.4 As far as Le Patourel was
1. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, p. vi: ' . . . the formulation of a question or a hypothesis is a
necessary stage in understanding, and the best that could happen is that these first and second
thoughts should stir up others to refine and restate them.'
2. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, p. 27.
3. Ibid., p. 88.
4. Ibid., p. 90.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
853
concerned, it would seem that a continuous, single process was brought
to an abrupt end by an accident, Henry I's failure to be out-lived
by a legitimate male heir born of his own body.
Le Patourel's notion of the 'continuous and consistent progress' of
Norman colonization from the early tenth century to almost the middle
of the twelfth is in fact a highly questionable one. The idea is certainly
acceptable in terms of there being a Viking phase in Normandy's history, when the new settlers established domination over the Frankish
natives, a subsequent migration to southern Italy and elsewhere which
began in the late tenth century, and finally William the Conqueror's
successful invasion of England. But it is surely far more accurate, as
Le Patourel to a degree appreciated, to reformulate the notion of continuous and consistent progress in the terms of there being a drive among
the people living in Normandy into social mobility and aggressive colonization, which was itself a feature of a much larger movement
throughout much of northern French society.1 It is this ubiquitous
impulse which lies behind the massive conquests of the Counts of Anjou
in the first half of the eleventh century, the expansion of Flanders in
the same period, the wide-ranging social mobility of the Bretons, as
well as the large-scale northern French and Norman participation in
the conquests of southern Italy. 2 It explains the ruthless competition
between the northern French territorial principalities, and the process
of rise and fall in which one principality temporarily prospered, to
be succeeded by another; Anjou was thus dominant until the 1050s,
followed by Normandy until the 1140s. The fluctuation in the fortunes
of the principalities must, however, disprove once and for all any notion
that the history of the Norman duchy was characterized by a continuous
and consistent expansion. There was, for instance, no significant expansion of the duchy under Dukes Richard II (996-1026), Richard III
(1026-7) a n d Robert I (1027-35), o r under William II until the later
1050s; and under Robert I and the young William encroachments were
actually made across the Norman frontier by neighbouring powers. 3
Le Patourel's statement that the presence of men from all over northern
France in William the Conqueror's army in 1066 occurred because
'many must also have felt obligations to William in varying degree
as the result of the suzerainties that he and his predecessors had been
spreading over their neighbours in northern France' just does not fit
the known facts.4
The process of Norman colonization after 1066 was also a much
1. See especially his remarks in ibid., p. 14.
2. The literature is of course extensive. For the general theme and some references, D. Bates,
Normandy before 1066 (London/New York, 1982), pp. 135-6, 244.
3. Ibid., pp. 65-86. It is worth emphasizing that other scholars also reject the story that Duke
Robert I was granted lordship over the French Vexin. See, for example, M. Chibnall (ed.) The
Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, (6 vols., Oxford, 1969-80), iv. xxxii, 76.
4. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, p. 27.
854
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
more complex and subtle evolution than Le Patourel suggested. His
version of Norman conquest and colonization was fundamentally
nothing more than an account of the expansion of the power of the
Duke of Normandy and his aristocracy into Britain, and of the extension of Norman ducal power in northern France. This, he believed,
resulted in the creation of an aristocracy with landed, and therefore
political, interests on both sides of the English Channel, which was
'one homogeneous, aristocratic community'. He added that 'if there
were families whose effective interests, at any given moment, were restricted by one locality or region, as there certainly were, they would
have been connected in some way with others whose interests extended
very much further.'1 However, important recent work by Dr Judith
Green on the aristocracy of the Norman Vexin appears to cut across
Le Patourel's opinions in quite dramatic fashion, by isolating a regional
aristocracy and showing that it operated for the most part independently
of cross-Channel politics and of royal/ducal government. Her subsequent discussion of the aristocracy of Normany in Henry I's reign
again stresses interests which were Norman and not Anglo-Norman,
and that aspects of the Norman magnates' behaviour were regional
rather than Anglo-Norman.2
A full understanding of Norman colonization and the nature of the
post-1066 Anglo-Norman aristocracy can only be achieved when
enquiries like those begun by Dr Green are taken much further. But
it can at least be pointed out now that at the heart of the phenomenon
of which her studies have emphasized a number of crucial aspects is
the undoubted fact that, in the midst of the massive acquisition of
English lands and resources by men from northern France, there were
many Normans who did not go to England at all. Some regions of
Normandy produced many more settlers than others.3 The list of
important magnates who held little or no English property by the
time of Domesday Book is a surprisingly long one. It is headed by
Roger de Beaumont, one of the very greatest of Norman magnates
before and after 1066, who was one of Queen Mathilda's closest associates in the government of Normandy when William was in England.4
His absence was so striking that William of Malmesbury found it necessary to explain it on moral grounds.5 Also a near-absentee was William,
1. Ibid., p. 195. Hollister expresses similar opinions, referring to 'a single, homogeneous feudal
aristocracy', ubi supra, p. 209.
2. Green, 'Lords of the Norman Vexin' and 'King Henry I and the aristocracy of Normandy',
passim.
3. L. Musset, "Les Normands de 1'Orne dans l'expansion des Xle et XHe siecles', Bulletin de
la Societe Historique et Archeologique de I'Orne, ci (1982), 37-8, 44-7.
4. D. B. Crouch, The Beaumont Twins (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 117—19. For Roger's responsibilities in Normandy, D. Bates, 'The origins of the justiciarship', [Proceedings of the) Battle [Conference,
(1981)], iv, ed. R. A. Brown (Woodbridge, 1982), 6-7.
5. William of Malmesbury, De Cestis Regum Anglorum, ed. W. Stubbs (2 vols., Rolls Series
no. 90, London, 1887-9), u - 482-3.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
855
Count of Evreux, who had fought at Hastings, had contributed ships
to the invasion fleet, and was prominent as a commander in the Conqueror's military household in his wars in France; his estates in Domesday Book were worth only £4i-7S-od and show every sign of neglect,
since there are no tenants on the lands.1 Then there is Rannulf, vicomte
of the Bessin, Nigel, vicomte of the Cotentin, Fulk de Aunou, Richard
de Courcy, Hugh de Gournai and Ralph de Montpincon.2 While
members of some of these families did later obtain large estates in England, and while new cross-Channel estates were certainly formed in
Henry I's reign - the examples of Rannulf I, Earl of Chester, and
Robert, Earl of Leicester, are the obvious ones - there were other
developments which reinforced the existence of an aristocracy whose
interests remained entirely or principally Norman. Of major importance was the practice whereby in the first generation after the Conquest
the Norman lands often went to the first son and the English to the
second; as a result of this, for example, so notorious afigurein AngloNorman politics as Robert de Belleme only held lands in England
for a brief period from 1098 to 1102. Also, lords who forfeited English
lands often kept their property in Normandy: thus, Robert de Belleme
in 1102 (at a time admittedly when Henry I could not touch him in
Normandy), and also Robert I and II de Stuteville after Tinchebrai
and Robert de Lacy in c. 1114.3 It is therefore wrong to analyse Norman
colonization and Anglo-Norman politics exclusively in terms of one
single homogeneous cross-Channel aristocracy created by the expansion which took place after 1066: there was a significant group of families
whose territorial interests were primarily Norman and whose political
behaviour was likely to be conditioned by this fact.
1. For Count William's contribution of ships, E. M. C. van Houts, 'The Ship List of William
the Conqueror', Battle, x (1988), 186. For his military activities, Orderic, ii. 310; iv. 50, 154; J.
0 . Prestwich, 'The Military Household of the Norman Kings', ante, xcvi (1981), 13. For his estates,
A. Farley (ed.), Domesday Book; set* Liber Censualis Willelmi Primi Regis Angliae (2 vols., London,
1783), i. fos.6or, i57r.
2. Only Richard de Courcy and Hugh de Gournai appear in Domesday Book and both have
very small holdings, Domesday Book, i. fos. I54r, 159r; ii. fo. 89b. Only Fulk de Aunou appears
as a witness in an English charter: H. W. C. Davis (ed.), Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum,
1, 1066-1100 (Oxford, 1913), nos. 26, 28, both original charters dating from Easter 1069. Richard
de Courcy appears in four Durham forgeries which purport to be charters of William I's time,
but all are documents which were written in the second half of the twelfth century: G. V. Scammell,
Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 300-7; H. S. Offler (ed.), Durham
Episcopal Charters, 1071-1152 (Surtees Society, vol. clxxix, Gateshead, 1968), 6-63. Richard's first
appearance in an authentic Durham charter is Regesla, i. no. 349, which survives in an early twelfthcentury MS, Durham, Dean and Chapter Muniments, I, I, Reg. 17. Several witnesses to this document
appear to have been transferred to the forged charters. The importance of all six in Normandy
can be deduced through the index to Regesta, i, although this volume is neither accurate nor complete.
3. This appears to be the case from existing discussions. For the Stutevilles, C. T. Clay, Early
Yorkshire Charters, ix; W. Farrer and C. T. Clay (eds.), The Stuteville Fee (Wakefield, 1952).
Note the phrase postquam recuperavi hereditatem meam in Anglia, ibid., no. 4. For the Lacys,
W. E. Wightman, The Lacy Family in England and Normandy, 1066-1194 (Oxford, 1966), p. 66.
For other possible examples of families who lost only their English estates, Holt, 'Politics and Property', 31, n. 139.
856
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
A second point is that Norman colonization can be, and should be,
broken down into a number of distinct stages, rather than viewed as
a continuous and consistent process. It was, as is always recognized,
composed of a mixture of peoples from Normandy and other parts of
France. It was also in large part a military domination by a relatively
small group over a much larger English and British population. More
importantly, while there have so far not been any studies devoted specifically to the chronology of the Norman immigration into Britain, the
available evidence suggests that we are dealing with a movement which
changed dramatically in both size and character during the seventy years
after 1066, rather than one which was either continuous or consistent.
Existing studies of early enfeofments on individual lordships suggest
that a very high proportion of the enfeofment recorded in the cartae
of 1166 and other twelfth-century surveys had already taken place by
1086.' Sometimes, as in the case of the Mowbray fee in the Midlands,
enfeofment was later and can be dated to the late eleventh and early
twelfth centuries. 2 But, with the exception of the special case of Henry
I's importation of favoured followers from the Cotentin, many of whom
received lands in the far north, the opportunities to make a fortune
in England usually became confined in the first third of the twelfth
century to within the existing structures of power and lordship; royal
favour was generally the route to social advancement at this time, but
opportunity could operate equally at the magnate and baronial levels.3
After 1135 the evidence for migration from Normandy looks to be
very weak indeed; enfeofments on the lands even of such early twelfthcentury 'new men' as Nigel d'Aubigny or Richard Basset, who might
reasonably be expected still to be granting fiefs, were mostly of the
'old enfeofment', while Sidney Painter pointed out that, as a general
rule, the 'new enfeofments' (that is, those made after 1135) were on
most honours usually in favour of younger sons of established
1. See, for example, D. C. Douglas (ed.), The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church, Canterbury (London, 1944), p. 105, and the commentary by H. M. Colvin, 'A List of the Archbishop
of Canterbury's Tenants by Knight-Service in the reign of Henry II', in F. R. H. Du Boulay (ed.),
Kent Records: Documents illustrative of Medieval Kentish Society (Ashford, 1964), pp. 3-11; E.
King, 'The Peterborough Descriptio Militum (Henry I)', ante, Ixxxiv (1969), 96; Wightman, Lacy
Family, pp. 38-40, I 52-7.
2. D. E. Greenway (ed.), Charters of the Honour of Mowbray, uoy-1191 (London, 1972), pp.
xxxiii-xxxv.
3. This is of course a central theme in R. W. Southern, 'The Place of Henry I in English History',
Proceedings of the British Academy, xlviii (1962), 127-69. For a further example of large twelfthcentury acquisitions by a Norman in England, S. Edgington, "Pagan Peverel: an Anglo-Norman
Crusader', in P. W. Edbury (ed.), Crusade and Settlement (Cardiff, 198J), pp. 91—2. For developments
at the magnate and baronial level, B. A. English, The Lords of Holderness, 1086-1260 (Oxford,
•979)> PP- MJ-SS; D. B. Crouch, 'Geoffrey de Clinton and Roger, earl of Warwick: New Men
and Magnates in the Reign of Henry I', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Iv (1982),
118-19; idem, The Beaumont Twins, pp. 109-11. The suggestion that it became impossible to impose
an artificial quota on an honour by the early twelfth century appears to support this general line:
J. C. Holt, T h e Introduction of Knight Service in England', Battle, vi (1984), 96.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
857
families.' The same general picture emerges from studies of towns and
clergy. Especially pertinent is the nomenclature of the inhabitants of
the early twelfth-century 'new town' of Battle, which was predominantly English; one of the two later twelfth-century chronicles of Battle
Abbey states that recruitment was mainly local, with some settlers
coming from overseas.2 The new cathedral chapters of Norman England were of course at first stocked with Norman immigrants, but
the observed formation of dynasties within them suggests the development of recruitment from within England. 3 A final consideration is
that migration from Normandy into England, which was in any case
dwindling rapidly by 1086, merged in the twelfth century into a second
movement of colonization which was solidly based in England, and
which can reasonably be described as either Anglo-Norman or AngloFrench. Recent studies of the 'Norman' settlement in Wales and Scotland are showing that the mass of migrants came, in the former case
from western England, and in the latter from lands associated with
the King of Scots' earldom of Huntingdon or from families who took
the Angevin side in the civil wars of Stephen's reign. The presence
of Flemings and English was notable in both settlements.4
This more complex model of Norman expansion and colonization
has several consequences for our idea of the relationship of Normandy
and England. The idea that Norman colonization must be placed within
a broader northern French movement means that the mechanics of
Norman colonization, which Le Patourel expounded so effectively in
the second half of his book in Chapter Seven, have to be seen as replicating methods which were a common-place throughout northern France,
and of which the Counts of Anjou and their followers were past masters.
The widespread social ferment in northern France also means that the
Normans in Normandy were involved in a see-saw struggle with neighbouring territorial principalities, in which the Counts of Anjou were
the most successful protagonists in the first half of the eleventh century,
the Norman dukes in the second half of the eleventh century and the
early twelfth century, and the Angevins again from the mid-twelfth
1. E. King, 'Large and Small Landowners in Thirteenth Century England: the Case of Peterborough Abbey', Past and Present, xlvii (1970), 47; Charters of the Honour of Mowbray, no. 401;
S. Painter, "The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth Century England', in Feudalism and
Liberty (Baltimore, 1961), p. 209.
2. E. Searle (ed.), The Chronicle of Battle Abbey (Oxford, 1980), p. ;o. See further, C. Clark,
'Battle c. 1110: an anthroponymist looks at an Anglo-Norman new town', Battle, ii (1980), 27-33,
who writes of 'a substantial French minority', while arguing that the majority of inhabitants came
from east Sussex.
3. C. N. L. Brooke, 'The Composition of the Chapter of St Paul's, 1086-1163', Cambridge
Historical Journal, x (1951), 123-7; D. Blake, 'The Development of the Chapter of the Diocese
of Exeter, 1050-1161', Journal of Medieval History, viii (1982), 7-8. In general, M. Brett, The
English Church under Henry I(Oxford, 1975), p. 190.
4. I. W. Rowlands, 'The Making of the March: Aspects of the Norman Settlement in Dyfed',
Battle, iii (1981), 145-50; G. W. S. Barrow, The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History (Oxford,
1980), pp. 91-117, 172-98. For Wales see now the important general comments of R. R. Davies,
Conquest, Coexistence and Change: Wales 1063-141) (Oxford, 1987), pp. 85-7, 98-100.
858
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
October
century. The course of these struggles casts grave doubts on the relevance of Le Patourel's phrase 'Further Expansion' to describe the history of the Normans in Normandy after 1066: William the Conqueror
was forced backwards in northern France after his defeat at Dol in
1076 and the French king's seizure of the French Vexin in 1077; his
hold over his conquest of Maine was always insecure; and he was having
to deal with local insurrections throughout the 1060s, 1070s and 1080s.1
Robert Curthose's reign in Normandy (1087-1106), which Le
Patourel does not mention when he writes of 'Further Expansion',
was in fact a period of retreat, while after 1106, Henry I's achievement
was essentially to restore the position which had existed in his father's
days, to the extent that Professors Hollister and Keefe have argued
that his policies in France were defensive ones; and in the Norman
Vexin, as far as Dr Green is concerned, he was less powerful than
William the Conqueror had been. 2 Henry's supposed gains, such as
the treaties by which the Count of Flanders agreed to supply military
assistance, are better regarded as manifestations of power than as expansion. 3
A further point is that Normandy's vulnerability to invasion and
attack in the eleventh and twelfth centuries is also associated with the
presence of a Norman aristocracy within the Anglo-Norman one. The
consequence of this was that events happened within a context which
was uniquely Norman, and were determined by conditions which were
Norman, rather than Anglo-Norman. The politics of eleventh- and
twelfth-century Normandy were indeed often fought out according
to patterns established long before 1066. Thus, the break-down of order
in Normandy after the Conqueror's death in 1087 began, according
to Orderic Vitalis, as a reaction against William's purely Norman policy
of installing custodians in his magnates' castles.4 Similarly, local loyalties must have played their part in the revolt of 1119 at Alengon against
Henry I's imposition on the region of Stephen, Count of Mortain,
when the insurgents were continuing a struggle for control around
Alenc,on and Sees which went back at least to the early eleventh century. 5 On occasion, internal Norman tensions merged with the
ambitions of enemies beyond Normandy's frontiers. In 113 5, for example, William Talvas, the restored son and heir of Robert de Belleme,
1. D. C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (London, 1964), pp. 222-44; D. Bates, William the
Conqueror (London, 1989), pp. 85—7, 137-8, 171-2.
2. C. W. Hollister and T. K. Keefe, 'The Making of the Angevin Empire', Journal of British
Studies, xii, no. 2 (1973), 3, with the observation 'his reign was not a continuation of eleventh-century
Norman imperialism but a rejection of it'; Green, 'Lords of the Norman Vexin', 55-6, 61.
3. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 79-81.
4. Orderic, iv. 112-14.
5. Idem, vi. 204—8. For the eleventh-century background, K. Thompson, 'Family and Influence
to the south of Normandy in the Eleventh Century; the Lordship of Belleme', Journal of Medieval
History, xi (1985), 215-26.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
859
transferred his support to Mathilda and the Angevins against Stephen.1
It was also possible for Norman lords to contract marriage alliances
beyond the Norman frontier, which might threaten the duchy's stability: as a result of one of these, for example, Henry I in 1118 had
to face the disagreeable prospect of the powerful French magnate
Amauri de Montfort succeeding to the county of Evreux through the
female line.2 Above all, however, and very much as a consequence
of these conditions, there was large support inside and outside Normandy for William Clito, the exiled son of Duke Robert Curthose,
during the m o s and 1120s. Both Orderic, who lived through these
events in Normandy, and the 'Hyde chronicler', who wrote in the
1120s, commented on how massive and determined this support was. 3
Since no source from before 1120 suggests that Clito's ambitions
embraced England, his Norman followers must have been prepared
to accept the separation of Normandy and England in the event of
their being victorious. Even if Clito did not himself accept the treaty
of n o i , by which his father had accepted Henry I's rule in England,
and did therefore always think himself entitled to the kingdom of England, there was surely still going to be a period of separation if he
gained Normandy. 4
In general, it is essential to take account of centrifugal factors, as
well as the centripetal ones emphasized in The Norman Empire, when
analysing the relationship of Normandy and England after 1066. It
is also important to recognize that the relationship of Normandy and
England was less stable than Le Patourel apparently believed, and that
long-term weaknesses around the Norman frontier and in-built structural factors contributed to the collapse of the 1140s alongside the disputed succession of post-1135 which Le Patourel emphasized to the
exclusion of everything else. However, none of this contradicts one
of Le Patourel's most important points; namely, that the cross-Channel
aristocracy created after 1066 had a strong vested interest in maintaining
the union of Normandy and England, which ultimately overcame the
regional forces (at least up until 1135) to which Dr Green and I have
drawn attention. The balance between centralizing and disruptive forces
1. Orderic, vi. 454.
2. Ibid., vi. 188, 278.
3. Ibid., vi. 188-94, 200-2; 'Chronicon monasierii de Hida juxta Wintoniam', in E. Edwards
(ed.), Liber monasteriide Hyda (Rolls Series, no. 45, London, 1866), pp. 307-8.
4. For William Clito and his claim to be Henry's heir in England in the 1120s, S. B. Hicks,
"The Impact of William Clito upon the Continental Policies of Henry I of England', Viator, x
(•979). 1-21 ;C. W. Hollister,'The Anglo-Norman Succession Debate of 1126: Prelude to Stephen's
Anarchy', Journal of Medieval History, i (1975), 24-5, 27-30. Note that in 1127 William Clito
seems to have considered that a peace settlement with Henry I would bring him Normandy, but
to have also thought that England could be included among his expectations: 5/ contigerit mihi
aliquo tempore preter terram Flandrie aliam conquirere, aut si concordia pads inter me et avunculum
meum H. regem Anglie facta fuerit, in conquisita terra ilia aut in tow regno Anglorum eos liberos
ab omni teloneo et ab omni consuetudine in concordia ilia recepi faciam: F. Vercauteren (ed.), Actes
des comtes de Flandre, 1071-1128 (Brussels, 1938), p. 296, no. 127.
860
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
October
is in fact superbly illustrated by the meetings which took place in
Normandy after Henry I's death in 1135 to choose his successor. The
crucial points about these gatherings are that independent meetings
took place in Normandy and England, that the Normans did take
a decision in favour of Theobald, Count of Blois and Chartres, but
then rescinded it when they heard that Theobald's brother Stephen
had established himself by a coup in England; Le Patourel's account
stressed the decision to maintain unity, and neglected the important
fact that independent meetings took place.1 The breaking-down of
Norman colonization into its constituent stages indicates not only that
there were potentially disruptive forces in Normandy, but that it is
probable that an aristocracy with predominantly British interests must
have emerged relatively quickly after 1066.2 The topic is so far relatively unexplored, but several individual studies have, for example, pinpointed the trend whereby Normans chose to be buried in England
rather than Normandy, whereby many Norman and French newcomers must have married Englishwomen, and whereby new patterns
of ecclesiastical patronage emerged in the new kingdom. 3 In Wales,
it was men with local interests and little land in Normandy or England
who represented the cutting-edge of the so-called Norman penetration. 4 It is also possible that the demographic analysis of Norman
expansion proposed here may have implications for what Professor
Lucien Musset has called 'the rise and fall of Normandy', since the
falling-away of migration out of Normandy into England from the
later eleventh century seemingly parallels an observed decline of emigration to southern Italy. 5 Could it be that the real force of colonizing
activity from within Normandy itself was as good as exhausted by
the early twelfth century? Should we in fact locate the apogee of Norman
power in the period from c. 1050 to the early twelfth century, or perhaps
even only in William the Conqueror's adult years? Certainly, we are
1. Orderic, vi. 454; 'The Chronicle of Robert of Torigni', in R. Howlett (ed.), Chronicles of
the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I (4 vols., Rolls Series, no. 82, London, 1884-9),
iv. 128-9.
2. On families whose main interests were in England, see above all the judicious remarks in
Green, Government, pp. 150-5.
3. B. Golding, 'Anglo-Norman Knightly Burials', in C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (eds.), The
Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 40-8; C. Clark, 'Women's
Names in Post-Conquest England: Observations and Speculations', Speculum, liii (1978), 223-51;
D. Bates, 'The Building of a Great Church; the Abbey of Saint Peter's, Gloucester, and its Early
Norman Benefactors', Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, cii
(1984), 129-32.
4. Davies, Wales, pp. 85-7, 98-100.
5. L. Musset, 'Quelques problemes poses par i'annexion de la Normandie au domaine royal francos', in R.-H. Bautier (ed.), La France de Philippe Auguste: Le Temps des Mutations (Paris, 1982),
pp. 291-4. A falling-away of Norman emigration to southern Italy from the early twelfth century
is noted by G. A. Loud, 'How "Norman" was the Norman conquest of southern Italy?', Nottingham
Medieval Studies, xxv (1981), 24, although I would not on present evidence accept Dr Loud's suggestion that it is explained by the opening-up of opportunities in England.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
861
far from dealing with a process which was anything like continuous
and consistent.
The second and larger part of The Norman Empire, Le Patourel's
analysis of the relationship of Normandy and England, was mostly
a discussion of politics, government, law, and institutions. His conclusions were expressed in Chapters Six, Seven and Nine under the headings of 'Unity', 'Assimilation' and 'Empire'. 'Unity' he believed to
be justified because a unity was created between Normandy and England by the government of a single ruler and by the attitudes and policies
of the ruling family and aristocracy; 'Assimilation' because there was
assimilation of laws and institutions between the two territories; and
'Empire' because the whole might therefore be described as an 'Empire'
according to a very specific use of the term. To me, all three of these
headings are to varying degrees exaggerated assessments of the extent
of integration which developed after 1066. 'Unity' is nearer the mark
than 'Assimilation'. But 'Empire' is an actual barrier to historical understanding, since Le Patourel's reasons for using it were dubious ones:
the book's tentatively expressed conclusions are converted by the title
into an emblazoned assertion - they surely justify only 'The Norman
Empire?'.1 In addition, the model of 'Unity', 'Assimilation' and
'Empire' is, like colonization, inadequate as a basis for further enquiry
into the relationship of Normandy and England after 1066, which must
include, for example, a discussion of economic and cultural relations,
as well as a positive acceptance of the potentialities offered by modern
theories of colonialism.2
Le Patourel's description of the relationship of Normandy and England in fact varied somewhat. He appeared usually to think in terms
of a 'single political entity', but he at times appeared to embrace the
more radical notion of an Anglo-Norman kingdom ('those who were
trying to establish a Normanno-English kingdom astride the English
Channel') as well as suggesting that the Anglo-Norman rulers are more
appropriately regarded as kings than as king/dukes. 3 In general, he
believed that the Anglo-Norman rulers had an authority which was
in all practical ways that of a king in Normandy, whilst usually drawing
back from asserting that Normandy and England were, or were becom1. Note: 'No doubt if it had lasted longer or developed further a name would have been found
for it in its own day; but as this did not happen the historian who recognizes its existence while
it did last must provide it with one, for convenience if nothing else', and the tentative conclusion,
'these sentiments go some way to justify the use of the term "Norman Empire" . . . ' : Norman
Empire, pp. 322,354.
2. For the suggestion that post-1066 England should be analysed as a colonial society, J. C.
Holt, 'The Origins of the Constitutional Tradition in England', in idem, Magna Carta and Medieval
Government (London/Ronceverte, 1985), pp. 21-2; idem, 'Feudal Society and the Family in Early
Medieval England. I. The Revolution of 1066', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th.
series, xxxii (1982), 205-8.
3. For the quotation, Norman Empire, p. 172. Le Patourel discussed and developed this idea
further in 'Norman Kings or Norman "King-Dukes"?', in Droit prive et institutions regionales:
etudes historiques offertes a jean Yver (Paris, 1976), pp. 469-79.
862
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
October
ing, a kingdom.' Professor Hollister was similarly judicious, regarding the idea of an Anglo-Norman regnum as no more than a possibility,
but also suggesting that it was an aspiration, albeit one never officially
acknowledged, of Henry I's court. 2 As a preliminary to a critique
of this view, it is crucial to stress that throughout the period up to
the 1140s, Normannia and Anglia were always employed as distinct
geographical terms, and that there was no variation from this pattern.
When, for instance, writs came into regular use in Normandy after
1106, they were directed as required to 'all my men of Normandy'
or 'all officials of Normandy and England'. 3 The one apparent exception to this consistent pattern are the phrases such as rex Normananglorum or regnum Normananglorum and other variants of them in
the so-called 'Hyde Chronicle', written in the 1120s, which Professor
Hollister has argued have 'the weight of calculated political theory'
and that as a result 'the people of the two lands, ruled by one monarch
and his homogeneous feudal aristocracy, were viewed by the Hyde
writer as comprising a single, indivisible regnum'.4 The proof that
the chronicle's use of these almost unique phrases was not an inspired
terminology invented to describe a cross-Channel realm, but rather
an adaptation of a phrase widely used in Anglo-Saxon sources is a
complex and technical one which is set out in an Appendix to this
article.
Any notion of an evolution, either conscious or unconscious,
towards a cross-Channel kingdom is unconvincing, not only because
Normandy and England were regarded by Anglo-Norman and French
contemporaries as territorially distinct, but because they were also
thought of as being politically and conceptually separate. The one was
a county or principality within the regnum Francorum, the other an
autonomous kingdom. The point is most clearly made by reference
to the Laudes, which were sung before the Anglo-Norman rulers at
the great religious festivals, and which therefore represent a statement
of political theory which would have been regularly made in the presence of the rulers themselves. Dr H. E. J. Cowdrey's analysis has
shown that the Laudes developed along entirely different lines in Normandy and England after 1066, and - crucially - that in spite of the
'unparalleled blazoning of ducal power' in the Norman laudes, the
kings/dukes were to all appearances never acclaimed as a rex in the
regnum Francorum; the existing versions called for Christ's support
for the Pope, the King of the Franks and the Duke of the Normans
1. See, for example, Norman Empire, pp. 236-43.
2. For the full discussion, Hollister, 'Anglo-Norman regnum', pp. 202-35,
aspiration of Henry I's Court at p. 235.
3. Bates, 'Earliest Norman Writs', pp. 272-8.
4. Hollister, 'Anglo-Norman regnum', p. 232.
w tn lne
'
suggested
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
863
1
in that order. This interpretation of the Laudes as demonstrating
the sustained distinctiveness of Normandy and England is reinforced
by the fact that neither Le Patourel nor Hollister could show conclusively that the titles used by the Anglo-Norman rulers were indicative
of them thinking of themselves as exercising a single royal authority
throughout Normandy and England together.2 The variety of titles
accorded to William the Conqueror in his Norman charters, for example, demonstrates that he was still considered to have been a duke
or count in Normandy, and the well-known fact that Henry I used
the title dux Normannorum on the equestrian side of his fourth (recte
third) seal, and Stephen likewise on his, shows that this recognition
of Normandy's distinctiveness continued in the twelfth century. 3
Usage suggests that the lesser title (dux or comes) was frequently subsumed into the greater title (rex), in the way in which contemporary
literary sources suggested it might be when they described the battle
of Hastings as changing William the Conqueror from a duke into a
king. 4 A poem, for example, which was written after William the
Conqueror's death, said 'a count in Maine, duke in Normandy, he
changed himself from duke into king', and Professor Frank Barlow
has rightly concluded that ' . . . in Anglo-Norman circles, it was considered otiose for a king to use his inferior titles'. 5 Thus, and in consequence, the references to William I and Henry I exercising 'royal'
authority in Normandy are likely to refer to authority exercised by
someone who was personally a king. 6 Certainly, and contrary to
what Le Patourel and Hollister appear to argue, there is no mileage
in the fact that Normandy is on occasion styled a regnum, for, as
Professor Werner has shown, the term was used to describe a territorial
1. H. E. J. Cowdrey, 'The Anglo-Norman Laudes Regiae', Viator, xii (1981), 37-78, and especially
48-53, 65-7.
2. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 232-8; Hollister, 'Anglo-Norman regnum', pp. 215-20.
3. The considerable variety of the titles given to William the Conqueror will be made clear by
the edition of his charters for the period from 1066 to 1087, which I am currently preparing, and
which will be published by Oxford University Press. For the present, note Willelmus successor
eorum
dux Nomannoum
Normannorum et per Dei misericordiam Angtorum rex effectus, M. Prou and A. Vidier
eor
idier
d ) Recueildes
R i l d
Ch
d I'Abbaye
Ibb
d
i
B
i
i 1908-12), i.
i no. 58; Willelmus
Willl
(eds.),
Chartes
de
deSaint-Benoit-sur-Loire
(Paris,
Normannie dominus iure hereditario Anglorumpatrie effectus sum basileus, J.-J. Vernier (ed.) Chartes
d
-•-Wcomie (Valogne., ___,,. r
most common form is of course rex Anglorum el dux (or princeps) Normannorum. The seals were
discussed by Le Patourel and Hollister, supra, p. 863, n. 2.
4. Note, for example, Et ducts abiecto nomine, rex fieri, C. Morton and H. Muntz (ed. and
trans.), The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio (Oxford, 1972), p. 48; Vertetur ... fortitudo comitatus
mei in regnum, William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum, ii. 302.
5. J. A. Giles, Scriptores rerum Gestarum WillelmiConquestoris(London, 1845), p. 73; F. Barlow,
William Rufus (London, 1983), p. 52.
6. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 239—43; Hollister, 'Anglo-Norman regnum', pp. 219—20.
864
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
October
principality in which the ruler had taken over most of the powers
once exercised by the rex Francorum.1 It should be noted finally
that an unpublished original charter of William the Conqueror for the
abbey of Marmoutier refers consistently to him as a rex, but then goes
on to add that any future infringement of the grant would be punished
by the payment of a fine to the count of the time. 2 Normandy's
status as a county or principality was regularly stressed in twelfthcentury documents. 3
Hollister's contribution to the argument for the formation of a single
Anglo-Norman regnum also included the suggestion that there was
a movement towards securing Normandy's permanent independence
from the regnum Francorum. He wrote of 'a Norman drift from feodum
into regnum' and 'a climactic struggle over the status of Normandy'
which ended in c. 1115 when Henry I changed his policy because of
the pressure which resulted from Louis VI's support for William Clito
and allowed his son William Adelin to do homage for Normandy. 4
Le Patourel did not share this view, admitting that the suzerainty of
the French king 'introduces an important qualification into the notion
of a progressive unification of the Norman lands and lordships'. 5
Although Hollister's argument is an ingenious one, there is just no
direct contemporary testimony either for a 'drift' or a 'struggle' before
c.1115. Of his evidence, Henry's denial of homage to the newly
crowned Louis VI in 1108, reported only by a chronicler writing at
Sens, can be seen, as the chronicler's text implies, as part of a widespread
refusal of homage by a number of Frankish territorial princes, including
the Dukes of Aquitaine and Burgundy. 6 Suger's Life of Louis VI
says that the cause of the war between Henry and Louis which began
in 1109 was Henry's seizure of the castle of Gisors; he appears to
assume that Henry was already Louis' vassal.7 The 'Hyde Chronicle',
which is confused in its chronology, does mention in its account of
these years a demand by Louis that Henry do homage, but it relates
it to Henry's support for Count Theobald IV of Blois which began
in 1111 and follows it with a story that Henry proferred the homage
1. K. F. Werner, 'Kingdom and Principality in Twelfth-Century France', in T. Reuter (ed.),
The Medieval Nobility (Amsterdam/New York/Oxford, 1979), pp. 247-9.
2. .. . et comitiquipro temporefuerit auri coailibras decent coactus exsolval, Archives Departementales de I'Orne, H. 2007.
3. Thus, for example, . . . in auxilium videlicet Hainrici regis Anglorum, avunculi sui, qui eo
tempore Normannie etiam principatum, licet iniuste obtinebat, E. Mabille (ed.), Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunoii (Chateaudun, 1874), no. 94; or Regnante Philippo rege, Hainricus rex Anglorum, Jilius illius magni Guillelmi, qui Normannorum comes, Anglic regnum vi militari adquisierat,
Robertum fratrem suum de Hierosolimis regressum, bello cepil, et eo in vinculis tradito, comitatum
illius regno suo sodavit, L. Mirot (ed.), La Chronique de Morigny (io9<-ut2) (Paris, 1909), p.
21.
4. Hollister, 'Anglo-Norman regnum', pp. 222-31.
j . Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 219-21.
6. R.-H. Bautier and M. Gilles (ed. and trans.), Chronique de Sainl-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, dite
de Clarius (Paris, 1979), pp. 148-9. On this text, see, J.-F. Lemarignier, Le gouvemement royal
auxpremiers temps capetiens (Paris, 1965), pp. 173-5.
7. Suger, Vie de Louis Vile Gros, ed. and trans. L. Waquet (Paris, 1929), pp. 102-6.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
865
of his son William on terms which Louis was persuaded not to accept.'
Where Anglo-Norman writers discuss political theory, as do the Brevis
Relatio, written either shortly after 1106 with interpolations in the
1120s, or entirely in the 1120s, and Henry of Huntingdon, writing
between 1125 and 1129, they seek to belittle the significance of the
Duke of Normandy's vassalage, not to deny that it should exist.2
Other Anglo-Norman writers of the period up until 113 5 without
exception thought the vassalage relationship normal, and a Flemish
writer indeed saw the homage which William Adelin eventually rendered as being part of a continuity which went back to Rollo. 3 Finally,
as Hollister himself pointed out, there is also a reference to the military
service owed by the dukes of Normandy to the French king in the
Bayeux Inquest of 1133, which originated at the latest in William the
Conqueror's reign.4 Although subtleties were introduced into the
relationship between the kings of France and the Norman dukes when
each of the eldest sons of William the Conqueror, Henry I and Stephen
in turn swore fealty to the French kings, and in one case to his son,
we can in general be certain that the traditional patterns were maintained
through the period after 1066.
In spite of Le Patourel's acknowledgement that the Normans plundered England during William the Conqueror's reign and his references
to the way in which English taxation and soldiers were used to finance
and fight wars in Normandy, the relationship between Normandy and
England after 1066 was certainly a much less equal one than he appears
to have believed.5 The Anglo-Norman Orderic Vitalis, writing in
Normandy mostly during Henry I's reign, wrote consistently in his
Ecclesiastical History of a Norman world throughout which men
whose origins were in Normandy were active, but of which Normandy
was the centre. A theme which appears several times in his voluminous
writings is that of the Normans lording it over neighbouring peoples. 6
The fact that Normandy and England had not fused into a true unity
1. 'Chronicon de Hyda', p. 309.
2. 'Anonymi Auctoris Brevis Relatio de origine Willelmi Conquestoris', in J. A. Giles (ed.),
Scriptores Rerum Gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris (London, 1845), p. 19; Henry of Huntingdon,
Historia Anglorum, ed. T. Arnold (Rolls Series, no. 74, London, 1879), p. 201.
3. 'Ex anonymi Blandiensis appendicula ad Sigebertum', in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules
el de la France, xiv. 16. William of Malmesbury thought that Henry I did not do homage to Louis
VI himself because of his great power, but significantly said that the homage of William Adelin
was an act of prudence which enabled him to hold Normandy by legitimate right: De Gestis Regum,
ii. 482, 496. The 'Hyde chronicler' thought that homage was rightly owed: 'Chronicon de Hyda',
pp. 309, 318—19. Given that the ' Hyde chronicler' was writing somewhere within the Anglo-Norman
realm, it is difficult to see the basis of Hollister's view that he 'presents the case for the other side':
'Anglo-Norman regnum', p. 223 n. 121.
4. H. Navel, 'L'enquete de 1133 sur les fiefs de Peveche de Bayeux', Bulletin de la Societe des
Antiquaires de Normandie, xlii (1935), 14— 15.
5. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 325-34.
6. See, for example, Orderic, iii. 100, 106; v. 24; vi. 256. On this topic in general, M. Chibnall,
The World of Orderic Vitalis (Oxford, 1984), pp. 213-14. Orderic's attitudes are placed securely
within the literature of the gens Normannorum by G. A. Loud, 'The gens Normannorum - Myth
or Reality?', Battle, ^(1982), 104-16.
866
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
October
as far as he was concerned is shown by the way in which he still considered the Norman Conquest of England to be a moral problem.
In Book IV of the Ecclesiastical History, written in c. 1125, for example,
he made Guitmund of La Croix-Saint-Leuffroy condemn the Conquest
as an act of pillage, apparently in order to set out his own anxieties.
Some ten years later, he wrote more resignedly of the Conquest as
a working-out of God's will, in words which bear some resemblance
to modern ideas on the civilizing mission of the colonial power: 'King
William brought the country under his laws for its advantage'.' Alongside Orderic, his contemporaries who wrote history in England continued to bewail the defeat of 1066. For William of Malmesbury, Hastings
was 'the mournful end of the sweet country', while Henry of Huntingdon thought that the Normans were God's instrument chosen to
destroy the English.2 An important reflection on the general situation
is that it has long been recognized that the catastrophe on the field
of Hastings was a great stimulus to English historical writing in order
to preserve a record of things English.3 Another is the fact that Orderic
was writing within an historiographical context which celebrated the
military prowess of the Norman people and which continued to produce histories of the Norman dukes well on into the 1170s.4
The unequal nature of the relationship of Normandy and England
expressed itself most obviously in the transfer of England's wealth across
the Channel to Normandy. This is clearly apparent in royal taxation
tofinancewars in Normandy and in the general exploitation of English
treasure and wealth for Normandy's benefit. With so little direct financial information from William the Conqueror's reign, it is difficult to
be precise about the use to which taxation was being put. But the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says quite clearly of William's departure from
his kingdom in the autumn of 1086 that 'all the same he first acted
according to his custom, that is to say he obtained a very great amount
of money from his men where he had any pretext for it either justly
or otherwise. He afterwards went into Normandy'.5 And at the start
of the reign, the distribution of gifts to churches throughout Normandy
and France, which William of Poitiers described as such a praiseworthy
act, can only have been based on organized tribute-taking throughout
the parts of England which William had subdued.6 The evidence is
much clearer for Henry I's time. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle supplies
1. Orderic, iv. 272; vi. 150.
2. William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum, ii. 304; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 208.
3. R. W. Southern, 'Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 4. the Sense of
the Past', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th. ser., xxiii (1973), 246-56; A. Gransden,
Historical Writingin Englandc.s)o-c.ijoy
(London, 1974), pp. 105-35.
4. Supra, p. 865, n. 6, for references. See also, E. M. C. van Houts, 'The Gesta Normannorum
Ducum': a History without an End', Battle, iii (1981), 112-15.
5. D. Whitelock, with D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker (eds.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a
revised translation (London, 1961), 'E', 1086.
6. R. Foreville (ed.), Guillaume de Poitiers: Histoire de Guillaume le Conquerant (Paris, 1952),
pp. 222-8.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
867
a series of references to taxation to finance wars in Normandy, which
is also on occasion described as novel and uncustomary. 1 William
of Malmesbury, who wrote in the 1120s, appears to have believed
that by that time Normandy's very survival was dependent on English
wealth. His story, which he says was well-known in his day, was
of Siamese twins who had lived on the borders of Normandy and Brittany. The two bodies were joined above the navel, and, thus, although
both mouths ate, the excrement was discharged through one passage.
One twin dying, the other continued to live for three years until overborn by the weight and stench of the corpse to which it was joined.
Malmesbury opined - and he said that others agreed with him - that
the twins represented Normandy and England, joined under one ruler
despite being geographically separate. Normandy was the carcass, supported by England, still vigorous at the time that Malmesbury was
writing. 2 The relative absence of financial records prevents any rigorous check on this opinion: the solitary English Pipe Roll of 1129-30
provides evidence of the transfer of only 620 marks (£413 6s 8d) from
England into the Norman treasury, but this is not a particularly useful
piece of information because 1129-30 was a year of relative calm on
the Norman frontier and because it was the Pipe Roll's function to
record the discharge of debts of the Exchequer, not the full range of
royal expenditure. 3 But the comments of other contemporaries support the general thrust of Malmesbury's statements. Suger, Abbot of
St-Denis and the chief minister of the French Kings Louis VI and Louis
VII, writing'in the 1140s, thought that the costs of war bore more
heavily on Henry I than on Louis VI because Henry had to defend
the whole length of the Norman frontier, whereas Louis could rely
on existing fortifications and the unpaid help of men from Flanders,
Ponthieu and the Vexin. He noted that Henry built new castles to
defend Normandy, of which twelve are actually named by Robert of
Torigny. 4 Robert also suggested that Henry's mercenary troops complained about the poor quality of the English coins with which they
were paid; this devaluation of a previously excellent coinage may well
reflect the results of high war expenditure. 5
An unusual aspect of this draining of England's wealth occurred
between 1087 and 1106, when English resources were used by William
Rufus and Henry I to reconquer Normandy from their brother Robert
Curthose. Whatever view one takes of the sums of money which the
1. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 'E', i n 6 , 1117, 1118, 1124.
2. William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum, i. 259-60.
3. J. Hunter (ed.), The Pipe Roll of 31 Henry
I (London, 1833), pp. $4, 63. See further, J.
A. Green, 'Praeclarum et magnificum antiquitatis monumentum: the earliest surviving Pipe Roll',
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Iv (1982), 2, 13; and on this topic in general, idem.
Government, pp. 17-18.
4. Suger, pp. 110-12;'Chronicle of Robert ofTorigni', iv. 126.
5. Robert of Torigny, interpolations inj. Marx (ed.), Guillaume dejumieges, Gesta Normannorum
Ducum (Rouen/Paris, 1914), p. 297.
868
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
West Saxon and Danish kings are supposed to have taken from England
in the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, it seems obvious that
the Conquest gave the Normans access to sources of revenue which
they just had not had in Normandy, and which they exploited ruthlessly.1 In this context, Robert Curthose's problems in Normandy
merit fresh, serious study. Conventional wisdom, in the main dependent on the opinions of Orderic Vitalis, blames his failures on deficiencies of character, while a recent analysis of charter witness-lists has
pointed to his lack of a permanent, loyal, power-base. 2 It is tempting
to wonder, however, whether the fundamental problem was not that
Robert was severely out-weighed financially. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers on several occasions to the unjust and unaccustomed gelds
which were taken in England, and both it and Eadmer accuse Henry
I of rapacity in prosecuting the war in Normandy. 3 In contrast, there
is no record of financial extortion or attempted extortion during
Robert's reign in Normandy. 4 Orderic's charge that 'he daily diminished his inheritance by his foolish prodigality' could be an indication
of someone desperately trying to buy support in an unequal struggle.
He also thought Robert so poor that he could neither afford bread
nor clothes to go to church, and, most significantly, he once connected
his poverty with the need to recruit warriors. 5 It is noticeable that
offers of money could determine the side he took in the feuds within
the Norman aristocracy.6 England's role as the 'milch cow' which
supported the defence of the Norman frontier in the persistent warfare
between the Norman dukes and neighbouring territorial princes, a subject which has been intensively explored for the late twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries, would appear to go back almost to the Norman
Conquest. 7 The events of 1087—1106 represent exploitation of a different kind: the exploitation of a conquered kingdom by a ruling class
fighting its civil wars.
1. On this taxation, M. K. Lawson, 'The Collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Reigns
of Aethelred II and Cnut', ante, xcix (1984), 721-38; S. P. J. Harvey, 'Taxation and the Economy',
in J. C. Holt (ed.), Domesday Studies (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 249-64; John Gillingham, '"The
Most Precious Jewel in the English Crown": levels of Danegeld and heregeld in the early eleventh
century', ante, civ (1989), 373-84; M. K. Lawson, '"These Stories Look True": levels of taxation
in the reigns of Aethelred II and Cnut', ante, civ (1989), 385—406.
2. Orderic, iv. 114, 146-8, for his opinion of Robert's character. As far as I am aware, no modern
commentator has ever dissented from this judgement. For the witness-lists, S. L. Mooers, '"Backers"
and "Stabbers": Problems of Loyalty in Robert Curthose's Entourage', Journal of British Studies,
xxi, no. 1 (1981), 1—17.
3. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 'E1, 1090, 1096, 1098, 1100; Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia,
ed. M. Rule (Rolls Series, no. 81, London, 1884), pp. 43, 52, 74-5, 171-2. See also, William of
Malmesbury, De Cestis Pontijicum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (Rolls Series, no. 52, London, 1870), pp. 432—3.
4. C. H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), p. 64.
5. Orderic, iv. n 8 ; v . 308.
6. Ibid., iv. 198, 286, 288.
7. The best discussion of this topic is J. C. Holt, 'The Loss of Normandy and Royal Finances',
in Holt and Gillingham (eds.), War and Government in the Middle Ages, pp. 92-105.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
869
Other forms of wealth, such as art treasures, also crossed the Channel
in significant quantities. 1 In addition, even though references to an
utterly blatant exploitation of England's wealth largely disappear in
the period after 1106, Orderic's anecdote about Richard Basset constructing a stone castle on 'the little fief he had inherited from his
parents' at Montreuil-en-Houlme (Orne) very clearly demonstrates that
newly enriched Normans were still transferring English wealth across
the Channel during Henry I's reign.2 Norman monasteries were continuing to receive English property in some quantities even by 1135,
and, as Le Patourel appreciated, examples of English men or religious
houses acquiring grants in Normandy are rare. 3 My own research
into this subject has uncovered only two certain cases: Bernard the
king's scribe obtaining land at Mathieu (Calvados) shortly before 1135
and the abbey of Bury St Edmunds receiving a house in Rouen in
1135.4 Henry, Count of Eu (1101-40), and his successor Count John
gave permission to their men to make grants to Battle Abbey from
their Norman property, but there is no evidence that any gifts were
ever made. 5 Other possible instances of the grant of a church to the
Abbey of St Mary's, York, and of a mill to Battle Abbey, appear never
to have taken effect.6 It is noticeable too that the drafting of Henry
I's Norman writs seems to imply that Norman churches would expect
to receive goods from England, something which is not paralleled in
the drafting of the equivalent English writs. 7
At least one Norman industry appears to have benefited enormously
from the Conquest: namely, the quarrying and export of Caen stone.
This limestone occurs not only in many English churches and castles,
but in domestic buildings in, for instance, Southampton, Winchester
and New Shoreham. It was transported as far north as Norfolk and
1. C. R. Dodwett, Anglo-Saxon Art: a New Perspective (Manchester, 1982), pp. 216-23.
2. Orderic, vi. 468.
3. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, p. 334.
4. J. H. Round, 'Bernard the King's Scribe', ante xiv (1899), 425-6; C. Johnson and H. A.
Cronnefeds.), Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, ii, 1100-j J (Oxford, 1956), no. 1913.
5. . . . concedo ... quicquid mei homines et in Anglia et in Normannia dederunt vel dabunt ...,
San Marino (California), Henry E. Huntington Library, Battle Abbey Charters, BA 42/1526; printed,
G. R. Sitwell, 'Gerard de Normanville', The Genealogist, new series, xiii (1897), 12. For Count
John's charter, London University Library, Fuller Collection, I/28/1.
6. A. C. Lawrie(ed.), Early Scottish Charters Prior to A. D. iijj (Glasgow, 1905), p. 47, no. 52,
with the identification suggested by G. W. S. Barrow, The Kingdom of Scots: Government, Church
and Society from the eleventh to the fourteenth century (London, 1973), pp. 322—3; The Chronicle
of Battle Abbey, p. 122.
7. The address clause . . . omnibus vicecomitibus et ministris suis totius Anglie et Normannie et
portuum maris... occurs in three of Henry I's Norman writs granting freedom of toll to the bishopric
of Evreux and the abbeys of St-Ouen of Rouen and St-Andre-en-Gouffern: Regesta, ii. nos. 155s,
l
i7}' '94 1 - English writs granting freedom from toll never refer to Norman officials: Regesta, ii.
nos. 523, 592, 717, 820, 846, 867, 869, 938, 1057a, 1075, 1175, 1258, 1386, 1403, 1519, 1612, 1646-7,
1727, 1750, 1806, 1859, 1885, 1981. English writs which include the address clause . . . ministris
et prepositis totius Anglie et portuum maris ... show that the same formula was used in English
writs, but without any direct reference to Normandy: Regesta, ii. nos. 1175, 1647, 1859. Note
that a late Henry I Norman writ of this type, which survives as an original, refers only to Normandy:
Regesta, ii. no. 1919.
870
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
October
Suffolk.' It is also clear that wine from the Paris basin was exported
to England through Rouen, and was apparently more popular there
than Bordeaux wines until the thirteenth century. 2 The support which
some citizens of Rouen gave to William Rufus against Robert Curthose
in 1090 may suggest that they were already at that date profiting considerably from trade to England,3 while the development of commercial
enterprises with bases on both sides of the Channel is a sign of increasing
economic integration between Normandy and England from relatively
soon after 1066.4 The economic relationship between the two territories is in fact a subject which requires a full exploration. The general
impression, however, is that, while England was exploited for the benefit of Normans and Normandy, and while commercial contacts which
benefited Norman enterprise developed in the wake of the Conquest,
the bulk of England's trading connections were with Flanders and the
Rhineland. This was a continuation of the conditions which had existed
before 1066.5 We are dealing, in other words, with economic and
commercial connections which may have been valued only by a comparatively small sector of the Anglo-Norman trading and financial classes.
Some aspects of Le Patourel's arguments for unity and assimilation
in government, law and politics were tentative, and some inevitably
stand up better than others. There can be no doubt at all about the
unifying force of government centred on a single unitary household.
J. O. Prestwich's work has indeed increased our appreciation of this,
by showing how the household's administrative and military tentacles
extended throughout the Anglo-Norman dominions. 6 The household
was so much a focus of patronage and power that it must have gone
some way to counteracting the disruptive effect of the regionalized
aristocracies discussed above. The valuable appendices to Dr Judith
1. For some general remarks, A. Clifton-Taylor, The Pattern of English Building (London, 1972),
pp. 23, 61, 65, 199. See also, C. Platt, Medieval Southampton. The Port and the Trading Community,
A.D. 1000-1600 (London and Boston, 1973), pp. 21-2. Note also that the Conquest stimulated
a widespread use of Caen stone which continued long after Normandy and England had been separated: L. F. Salzman, Building in England down to IS40 (Oxford, 1952), pp. 135-7. I am grateful
to Dr Clive Knowles for help with this topic.
2. E. M. Carus-Wilson, 'The Effects of the Acquisition and of the Loss of Gascony on the English
Wine Trade', in Medieval Merchant Venturers (London, 1954), pp. 266-7. Th e general impression
from the south-western French evidence is of great growth of the cultivation of wine in the thirteenth
century: C. Higounet, Histoire de Bordeaux, ii, Bordeaux pendant le Haut Moyen Age (Bordeaux,
1963), pp. 252—9; idem, 'Pour une geographie du vignoble aquitain medieval', in B. Bligny (ed.),
Le vin au Moyen Age: production et producteurs. Actes du le congres des medievistes, Grenoble
4-6/uin 797/ (1978), 103-17. Cf. the reservations expressed in C. N. L. Brooke and G. Keir, London
800-1216: TheShapingoja Cuy(London, 197s), p. 266, n. 1.
3. This is the motive usually thought to be implied in the account by Orderic, iv. 220-6. Note,
however, that the citizens had to be bribed.
4. Musset, 'Y eut-il une aristocratie d'affaires commune', passim.
5. Brooke and Keir, pp. 268-70; R.-H. Bautier, '"Empire Plantagenet" ou "Espace Plantagenet".
Y eu-t-il une civilisation du monde Plantagenet?', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale, xxix (1986),
140. It is worth noting that Professor Musset suggests that Norman merchants in the twelfth century
lacked the enterprise of their Flemish competitors: 'Y eut-il une aristocratie d'affaires commune',
p. 17.
6. Prestwich, 'Military Household', pp. 16-26; Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 132-41.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
871
Green's book demonstrate how this process operated: Rualon d'Avranches, for example, one of the foremost commanders in Henry Fs
military household, acquired property in England, while such lynchpins of Henry's English government as Bishop Roger of Salisbury,
Geoffrey de Clinton and Nigel d'Aubigny may well have used their
influence in the household to gain lands and profitable marriages in
Normandy. 1 A second point to which Le Patourel himself drew attention is the steady development and increasing complexity of the distinct
administrations which existed in Normandy and England for the purpose of carrying out routine administration; these had their origins
before 1066, and by Henry I's reign there were two separate bodies
of royal and ducal justices and two separate English and Norman Exchequers. 2 This is certainly an important qualification of the notion of
unity, since it meant that many governmental officials were based on
one side of the Channel or the other. Yet paradoxically, in the light
of this article's general theme, I would regard their development as
less of an obstacle to unity than Le Patourel appeared to think it was.
Regular contact existed between the two Exchequers. They and the
justices were not yet bureaucracies with an existence separate from
the household, but rather branches of it; the one significant qualification
is that the personnel of Henry I's household was somewhat different
dependent on whether he was in Normandy or England.3
When it comes to politics, there is again no doubt that Le Patourel
was substantially correct in emphasizing that the Anglo-Norman aristocracy could exert itself at times of political crisis to try to reunite
Normandy and England, and that the ruling family's behaviour was
often directed to this end. 4 There are, however, a number of points
where this thesis weakens. The first, and most significant, is in connection with William the Conqueror's attitude to the succession. Le
Patourel argued strongly that William had always intended a unitary
succession to Normandy and England and that the division which he
eventually made on his death-bed between Robert Curthose and William Rufus was forced on him against his wishes.5 This view has
not been universally accepted, and no consensus has ever emerged.6
A crucial point is that the evidence for William's having ever intended
Robert to have England is weak to the point of not existing at all.
1. Green, Government, pp. 152, 271-2.
2. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 145-59.
3. C. W. Hollister and J. W. Baldwin, 'The Rise of Administrative Kingship: Henry I and Philip
Augustus', American Historical Review, lxxxiii (1978), 867-905, with the differences of personnel
discussed at 871-}; Green, Government, pp. 19, 38-50.
4. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 190-201.
5. See 'The Norman Succession, 996-1135', ante, Ixxxvi (1971), 230-4; The Norman Empire,
pp. 180-4.
6. See especially, Holt, 'Politics and Property', pp. 45-8; Barlow, William Rufus, pp. 40-50.
Note that Barlow, pp. 43-4, interprets Orderic, ii. 356 as evidence that William had made Robert
his heir general. I am not convinced. In its context, the passage is concerned only with Normandy
and William is described in it as iprinceps.
872
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
William's general attitude appears to have been the traditional Frankish
one that the succession was entirely his to dispose of as he saw fit,
and that provision should generally be made for more than one son.
What he produced was a family settlement conforming to existing traditions and customs. 1 In like fashion, Professor Frank Barlow has
suggested that in n o o William Rufus was not preparing to hang on
to Normandy after his brother's return from the First Crusade, an
argument which is again controversial, but, if correct, makes a large
hole in Le Patourel's ideas.2 There is in fact a lot to be said for the
emergence of an awareness among the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and
ruling family of the importance of keeping Normandy and England
united, as opposed to Le Patourel's notion of there being a unitary
Anglo-Norman dominion from 1066. This is suggested not only by
the contrast between William I's and Henry I's approaches to the succession, with the one leaving the whole question almost to the moment
of death and the other making a very precise provision in favour of
first his son William and secondly his daughter Mathilda, but also
by their attitude to their territories. After concluding his great campaigns in England in 1072, William spent very little time in his kingdom,
making only four visits which occupied around 40 months in comparison with 130 months spent in France. 3 Henry in contrast divided
his time much more equally between the two territories, and, unlike
his father, was much more careful to regulate affairs in Wales and Scotland.4 By 1135, as the negotiations referred to above around Stephen's
succession show, the maintenance of the union was regarded as an
overwhelming priority. 5
Since the appearance of The Norman Empire, a number of subsequent
studies have stressed the continuities in the way Normandy was governed from before 1066 to after 1066. Thus, the charters of the Norman
dukes after 1066 do not vary much from the pre-1066 Norman pattern
and reveal very little English influence. After 1106, when documents
written according to the formulae of English writs began to be used
regularly in Normandy, their operation was circumscribed by Norman
custom and their function and contents were much more limited than
1. See the discussion in Bates, William the Conqueror, pp. 118-20. On this topic 1 have benefited
considerably from discussions with Professor Emily Z. Tabuteau, from whom a paper is forthcoming.
2. Barlow, William Rufus, pp. 414-15; cf, C. W. HoIIister, 'The Strange Death of William Rufus',
Speculum, xlviii (1973), 44-5.
3. For details, Bates, William the Conqueror, pp. 109-111. A detailed analysis of the Conqueror's
itinerary will be derived from my edition of his charters to be published by Oxford University
Press.
4. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, p. 124. For Henry's relations with Wales and Scotland, see
now R. R. Davies, 'Henry I and Wales', in H. Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (eds.), Studies
in Medieval History presented to R. H. C. Davis (London/Ronceverte, 19S5), pp. 133-47; A. A.
M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 118—20, 135-7,216-19.
$. Supra, p. 860, n. 1.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
873
1
those of an English writ. Similarly, in contrast to the well-organized
English coinage, Norman money reflected a broad continuity from
before 1066; it was light in weight and of poor design, and little attempt
was made to recall old types. Again, in contrast with the organization
of their coinage in England, the Anglo-Norman rulers ceased to make
any effort to maintain the unique circulation of Rouen money within
the duchy. Le Mans money, a good coinage, circulated freely in the
southern marches of Normandy and in the mid-twelfth century Rouen
money was superseded throughout the duchy by Angevin money.
There was very definitely no attempt made to introduce either English
money or English methods into the duchy. 2 On both of these topics
Le Patourel made some serious mistakes.3 Further purely Norman
continuities are evident in the peace-keeping institutions of the duchy,
where the Truce of God, first introduced in 1047, w a s t n e subject
of further legislation by William I in 1080, and by Henry I and Stephen.4
Enduring differences in financial administration between Normandy and England are implied by an undeveloped statement about
significant differences in the procedures of the English and Norman
Exchequers, which appears in the English Dialogus de Scaccario of
the 1170s; these are normally explained in terms of the differing structure
of local government. 5 Distinctions between Normandy and England
at the level of seigneurial administration have been noticed by Dr David
Crouch. 6
These conclusions must be placed alongside the modern trend which
is emphasizing continuity in the organization of English government
over 1066. This is seen, for example, in the making of Domesday Book,
which was fundamentally dependent on existing institutions of local
government and treasury documents, in the production of charters,
and in the intense and continuing interest in Anglo-Saxon law in Henry
1. L. Musset, Les actes de Guillaume le Conquerant et de la reine Mathilde pour les abbayes
caennaises (Caen, 1967), pp. 25-41; Bates, 'Earliest Norman Writs', pp. 267-81. Fora recent discussion of the general theme of this and the next paragraph, E. Z. Tabuteau, Transfers of Property
in Eleventh-Century Norman Law (Chapel Hill/London, 1988), pp. 3-4.
2. F. Dumas, 'Les monnaies normandes (Xe-XIIe siecles) avec un repertoire des trouvailles',
Revue Numismalique, 6e serie, xxi (1979), 84-137; also, L. Musset, 'Reflexions sur les moyens
depaiemem en Normandie aux Xle et Xlle siecles', Annales de Normandie, xxxi (1981), 330-1.
3. For his inaccurate computation of the relative numbers of Norman "and English writs, Bates,
'Earliest Norman Writs', p. 267. On coinage he wrote, 'The control which the Norman dukes
had exercised over the mints of their duchy, for example, could easily be identified with the control
which the Kings of the English had over the coinage in their kingdom': Norman Empire, p. 261.
4. Orderic, iii. 26, 32; Regesta, ii. no. 1908; H. A. Cronne and R. H. C. Davis (eds.), Regesta
Regum Anglo-Normannorum, iii, iij$-nf4
(Oxford, 1968), no. 609, with an additional text, Bates,
'Earliest Norman Writs', p. 274, n. 1.
5. C. Johnson (ed. and trans.), Dialogus de Scaccario: The Course of the Exchequer by Richard
fin Nigel, with corrections by F. E. L. Carter and D. E. Greenway (Oxford, 1983), p. 14. On
these differences, see most recently, J. C. Holt, 'The End of the Anglo-Norman Realm', Proceedings
of the British Academy, Ixi (1975), p. 245, n. 4.
6. Crouch, Beaumont Twins, pp. 163-6, 194-5.
874
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
Ps reign.' Le Patourel did indeed discuss the possibility of assimilation
between Norman and English law, even though essential - and separate
- legal continuities are emphasized by the way in which the Norman
Kings of England claimed to rule according to the laws of Edward
the Confessor and the same men as Dukes of Normandy followed
the customs of Normandy. 2 A measure of similarity between the two
territories was obviously created when the Norman settlers in England
organized their personal and tenurial relationships around structures
of lordship and vassalage akin to those with which they were familiar
in Normandy. Itinerant justices, a permanent court in the Exchequer,
and sworn inquest procedures were all major developments common
to the two territories in the period after 1066. But 'parallel development', a phrase which Le Patourel himself used, looks to be a more
appropriate description of what happened in both administration and
law than 'assimilation'.3 There were after all differences on matters
as fundamental as seigneurial jurisdiction and customs of inheritance;
England, for example, adopted primogeniture and Normandy parage,
while the principle nemo tenetur respondere never appears in Norman
law, a fact which suggests that ducal authority never secured the place
in initiating legal proceedings that royal authority always possessed
in England. 4 Le Patourel's attempt to suggest that many of the differences were a result of Angevin influence after 1145 is unconvincing,
given the absence of legal content in the early Norman writs and the
obvious differences between the social structures of Normandy and
England which they imply. 5 In general, it is inevitable that there
was an exchange of influences between the two territories, and possible
that there was a transfer of institutions from one territory to another;
the monetagium, for whose early origins in Normandy the evidence
is entirely inferential, is a possible example.6 There is also a longstanding argument which suggests that William the Conqueror's acquisition of a kingdom increased his power in Normandy. 7 This appears
to be correct, although it needs to be emphasized that certain types
of evidence need careful interpretation; the references to geldum in
Norman charters, for example, may just be an altered terminology
1. O n Domesday Book, S. P. J. Harvey, 'Domesday Book and Its Predecessors', ante, Ixxxvi
(1971), 753-73; H. B. Clarke, 'The Domesday Satellites', in P. Sawyer (ed.), Domesday Book:
A Reassessment (London, 1985), pp. 50-70. For charters, S. Keynes, 'Regenbald the Chancellor
(sic)\ Battle, x (1988), pp. 185-220. For the interest in English law, Green, Government, pp. 6-7.
2. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 260-77.
3. Ibid., p. 169.
4. Ibid., pp. 271-2. See also, J. Yver, 'Lebref anglo-normand', Revued'Histoire du Droit: Tijdschrift voor Recbtsgescbiedenis, xxix (1961), 319-20; J. C. Holt, 'Feudal Society and the Family in
Early Medieval England. II. Notions of Patrimony', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society,
5th. series, xxxiii (1983), 213; Bates, "Earliest Norman Writs', pp. 281-2.
5. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 275-6; cf, Bates, 'Earliest Norman Writs', pp. 281-2.
6. T. N . Bisson, Conservation of Coinage: Monetary Exploitation and its Restraint in France,
Catalonia and Aragon (c.A.D.iooo-<.i22j) (Oxford, 1979), pp. 14-28.
7. Note especially, Douglas, William the Conqueror, p. 283.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
875
to indicate a monetary levy paid to a ruler who was a king rather
than an indication that geld was levied in Normandy after 1066.'
Overall, we appear to be dealing with a process of energetic - indeed
precocious - and similar administrative development on both sides of
the Channel, but with a process which built on, and scarcely modified,
the significantly different bases which had existed in the two territories
before 1066.
As was stressed at the outset, this article attempts to advance the
discussion of the relationship of Normandy and England through a
critique of The Norman Empire. A conclusion must begin therefore
by reiterating that there can be no serious dissent from Le Patourel's
basic thesis of the strength of the ties created after 1066 between Normandy and England, and by adding that there are many areas in which
much more research is essential. There are also many topics worthy
of serious consideration which have not been included here, such as
architecture and cultural relations in the broad and narrow senses of
the term. Two general points must, however, finally be emphasized.
One is that the model of Norman colonization proposed in the early
part of this article provides a much more plausible basis from which
to explain the break in the union of Normandy and England in the
1140s than Le Patourel's single explanation of the disputed succession
after Henry I's death. There were many areas of weakness and instability
within the relationship of Normandy and England, a point of which
contemporaries such as William of Malmesbury and the anonymous
authors of the 'Hyde Chronicle' and the Brevis Relatio were well
aware. 2 The suggestion that Norman colonization was a declining
force by the early twelfth century may also identify a decisive turningpoint in the process of 'the rise and fall of Normandy'. 3 A second
major point is that the attempts made by Le Patourel and Hollister
to identify significant distinctions between their respective 'Norman
Empire' and 'Anglo-Norman regnum' and 'the Angevin Empire' are
not fully convincing.4 Normandy and England after 1066 obviously
constituted the stronger of the two structures because of the many
landholders with estates on both sides of the Channel. But in terms
of the attitudes of the rulers to their various territories, in terms of
the distinctive evolutions of customary law, and in terms of the beginnings of separate administrative institutions, there are fewer differences
1. Musset, Actespour Us abbayes caennaises, p. 70, no. 6; P. Le Cacheux, 'Une chartedejumieges
concernant I'epreuve par le fer chaud (fin du Xle siecle)', Societe de I'Hisloire de Normandie, Melanges,
xi (1927), 215. The first reference occurs in a reading supplied from a nineteenth-century copy
of a lost thirteenth-century cartulary which has to be used to complete the damaged text of an
original charter. The second occurs in an original charter. See Tabuteau, Transfers of Property,
p. 271, n. 22.
2. William of Malmesbury, De Cestis Regum, i. 259-60; 'Chronicon de Hyda', p. 308; 'Brevis
Relatio', p. 13.
3. Supra, p. 860.
4. Le Patourei, Norman Empire, pp. 113—17; Hollister, 'Anglo-Norman regnum', pp. 235—41.
876
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
than is usually thought. If this point is accepted, and the relationship
of Normandy and England after 1066 is thereby placed more securely
in an appropriate contemporary context, then it may well also follow
that the flaws which contributed to Normandy's collapse in the early
thirteenth century were being impregnated into the structure from 1066
onwards.
University of Wales College of Cardiff
DAVID BATES
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER I066
877
Appendix
The text known as the 'Chronicon monasterii de Hyda' survives in
a manuscript copy of the later thirteenth century. 1 The original
appears to have been written in the 1120s, although there is actually
no reason to associate it with Hyde Abbey, Winchester, beyond the
fact that it has come to be bound up with a later thirteenth-century
cartulary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, and a fragment of a chronicle
which may be from the same abbey. 2 It is a valuable contemporary
source for Henry I's reign and contains original information for the
post-Conquest period. The general questions of its reliability and provenance will have to be tackled in the new edition which is now in
preparation. One almost unique aspect of the chronicle, its use of
phrases such as rex Normananglorum or regnum Normananglorum,
has attracted special attention from Professor Hollister, who believed
that it had considerable significance as a statement of the relationship
of Normandy and England. 3 His opinions have received some subsequent acceptance.4
Some variant of the phraseology occurs twenty-three times in the
course of the chronicle's text. The most frequent occurrences are with
the title rex and with the collective noun principes, but there are also
references to regina Normananglorum, regnum Normananglorum and,
once, adventus Normananglorum in Angliam. The printed edition renders the contents of the manuscript extremely inaccurately, with the
crucial word generally given as Norman-anglorum and in the later stages
Norm-anglorum. There is no warrant for inserting a hyphen. The thirteenth-century scribe who produced the surviving manuscript appears
to have been puzzled by what he saw in his exemplar, but it is at
least clear that he thought he was dealing with a single word. Its first
appearance is as Norma=n = anglorum, which looks as if the scribe
was uncertain as to what he should write, but that he had come to
the conclusion that what was probably an abbreviated word in his
manuscript should be rendered as Normananglorum (fo.9r). Thereafter
his rendition is for a time erratic, since he writes Normanglorum twice
without any abbreviation mark on fo.9v, then Normanglorum twice
on fo. ior, Normaanglorum twice on fo. 1 ir as well as Norman anglorum
as two words with signs of an erasure between them. From there he
consistently gives Normanglorum as a single abbreviated word on thirteen occasions, although the abbreviation mark is once omitted (fo. 18v).
In the middle of the sequence he once writes Normananglorum (fo. 1 <>r).
1. British Library, MS Cotton, Domitian A. xiv, fos. 4r-2iv.
2. See for now, Edwards, Liber monasterii de Hyda, pp. Ixxxvit, xcvi-vii. Hollister, 'AngloNorman regnum', p. 23!, n. 160, suggests that it may have been written at St Pancras, Lewes.
3. Supra, p. 862.
4. J. Gillingham, The Angevin Empire (London, 1984), p. 2.
878
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
Given the consistency of his practice before and after this folio, it is
just possible that this rendition was in his exemplar. But the safest
conclusion from the whole sequence is that the lost earlier manuscript
had Norrhanglorum, and possibly twice Normaanglorum, and that it
may once have expanded the word as Normananglorum. The thirteenth-century scribe may have decided that the word should be
expanded as Normananglorum, perhaps with the original of fo. i5r to
guide him. But he generally played safe by reproducing the abbreviated
form Norrhanglorum.
The one other use of this type of phrase that I have been able to
trace is the reference to adventum Normanglorum in the late fourteenth
century Ledger Book of Stoneleigh Abbey. 1 The occurrence of the
word 'adventus' might suggest that the scribe of the Ledger Book had
seen the 'Hyde Chronicle', but no other verbal parallels exist to confirm
this. At least it shows that we should probably render Normananglorum
or Normanglorum as a single word. It may also indicate that the usage
was once more common than the surviving manuscripts indicate.
These phrases have much in common with titles such as rex AngolSaxonum, Angulsaxonum rex, Anglorum Saxonum rex etc., which occur
in Anglo-Saxon charters from Alfred the Great's time onwards and
which are used frequently in Asser's 'Life of Alfred'.2 Such phraseology occurs in charters of the Confessor's time, in, for example, a
charter for the Abbey of Abingdon, which has Ego Eadwardus basileus,
totius gentis Angulsaxonum ceterorumque populorum ... gubernator
et rector, and an original charter, probably written in the West Country,
which has Ego Eadweardus divina adridenti Angol saxonum et eque
totius Albionis rex.3 It is also used in a revision of the second English
Coronation Ordo, which survives in a late eleventh-century manuscript, and which may have been used for Edward the Confessor.4
It is likely therefore that whoever wrote the 'Hyde Chronicle' has
not devised a new phrase with 'conscious political purpose' (as Hollister
believed), but rather has simply lifted it from an Anglo-Saxon source
and adapted it to the new circumstances where Normans and English
were ruled by a single rex.
Le Patourel was more cautious than Hollister in his interpretation
1. Et sic duravit regnum Anglorum post expulsionem Britonum usque ad adventum Normanglorum
ccccccxliiior annis, Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, MS DR/31, fo. 41*; printed
in R. H. Hilton (ed.), The Stoneleigh Ledger Book (Dugdale Society Publications, Oxford, i960),
p. 5 .
2. W. H. Stevenson (ed.), Asser's Life of King Alfred (Oxford, 1904), pp. 148-52; Alfred the
Great: Asser's 'Life of King Alfred' and other contemporary sources, trans. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge
(London, 1983), p. 227, n. 1.
3. J. Stevenson (ed.), Chronicon monasterii de Abingdon (2 vols., Rolls Series, no. 2, London
1858), i. 466; Canterbury, Dean and Chapter, Chartae Antiquae, C. 1281 (P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon
Charters: an annotated list and bibliography (London, 1968), no. 1019). See further on the second
charter, P. Chaplais, 'The Authenticity of the Royal Anglo-Saxon Diplomas of Exeter', Bulletin
of the Institute of Historical Research, xxxix (1966), 24-5 (no. 24).
4. O n t h i s . J . L. Nelson, "The Rites of the Conqueror', Battle, ^(1982), 119-21.
1989
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
879
of the chronicler's phrases and he did take note of the borrowing from
Anglo-Saxon documents. But he still believed that the writer was 'consciously searching for a term to express the relationship between the
two countries'. 1 Even this, however, is probably going too far. The
chronicler is obviously adapting a phrase to new circumstances, but
he is most likely seeking to describe the coming together of two peoples,
rather than a territorial unit or a cross-Channel realm. This is clearest
when William Rufus is called rex Normananglorum as he is on four
occasions. The reference must be to a rex ruling the Normans and
English in England since William was never Duke of Normandy; it
is unlikely that the chronicler was in some way taking account of the
custodianship of 1096-1100, since one of the usages deals with the
revolt of 1088.2 A reference to slack conditions within the ecclesia
Normananglorum during William's reign can also only apply to the
Church of the Normans and the English in England. Likewise the
adventus vero Normananglorum in Angliam can only refer to the two
peoples in England, and the rebellion by the principes Normananglorum against William Rufus in 1095 can only be the Normans and
English in England. 3 On this basis the other six references to a rex
or a regina must refer to a ruler with personal authority over the Normans and the English.4 In the same way the eight other references
to the principes Normananglorum must refer to the ruling class of the
Normans and the English,5 even if on occasions the references
obviously stretch to include the Normans and the English in Normandy
and England. 6 The two references to the regnum Normananglorum
must again comprise the Normans and the English in Normandy and
England, 7 but it must be very doubtful whether regnum is being
used in a modern territorial sense; its meaning is either 'the lands over
which power was exercised' or 'the collection of rights and powers
exercised by a ruler'. It most certainly did not have to imply a kingdom. 8
Interestingly, where the 'Hyde Chronicler' had an obvious opportunity to use regnum Normananglorum in a territorial sense, he did
1. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, p. 231.
2. 'Chronicon de Hyda', pp. 298, 303-4.
3. Ibid., pp. 301—2, 311.
4. Ibid., pp. 296-7, 309, 315, 319.
j . Ibid., pp. 296-7, 300, 308, 311, 313, 319.
6. Thus, siquidem principes Normananglorum, qui regem Henricum in Normanniam spe tenus
rnagis quam corde tenus sequebantur, eo quod dum pacem haberet nunquam eos honore, ut decebat,
et reverentia habuisset...: ibid., p. 311.
7. Refering to Henry I and Mathilda, Cuius mentis constat regem Henricum regnasse et regnum
Normananglorum multipliciter excrevisse, and to Robert Curthose, Postquam enim conatus suos
ad obtinendum regnum Normananglorum vidit esse inanes,...: ibid., pp. 300, 30J.
8. For regnum, supra, pp. 863-4. A good example of regnum as a collection of powers and rights
is provided by the heading in Exon Domesday, Dominicatus Regis ad Regnum pertinens in Devenesara. Liber Censualis, vocati Domesday Book, additamenta ex. Co die. amiquiss. See Exon Domesday;
Inquisitio Eliensis; Liber Winton; Boldon Book (London, 1816), p. 7$.
880
NORMANDY AND ENGLAND AFTER 1066
October
not do so (for example, Dum itaque rex Henricus Angliam atque Normanniam viriliter subiugatam, ..., or .. . cum eodem fugiens, omnibus
abdicatis que in Anglia sive in Normannia possidebat, refering to Helias
de Saint-Saens).' In fact the only meaning which will fit all twentythree examples is one which draws attention to the coming together
of two peoples under a single ruler and/or ruling class and within
a single Church. The 'Hyde Chronicle' took an old term and used
it as it had first been used in the later ninth century to refer to the
combination of two groups. He was not seeking to express either the
unification or indivisibility of Normandy and England after 1066.