1074 in the Twelfth Century

Summary

Chronologically speaking, 1074 was in the eleventh century. But if a year matters to us as historians, it is usually because it was significant, or because it became significant at some other point in time. In terms of its significance to Anglo-Norman studies, I propose that 1074 be relocated to the twelfth century.

Years and dates are useful tools and markers for the modern historian. Several Anglo-Norman dates in particular have continued to serve as focal points and titles, most notably 1066 and 1086. By 1086 the English aristocracy was mostly replaced, and the Domesday survey was completed, a document which, if not in reality, at least textually resolved any lingering questions about the Conqueror’s absolute tenurial dominion over England. R. R. Davies identified 1093 as the pivotal year beyond England’s borders in the Norman conquest of Britain. These years are certainly significant, yet much of this focus reflects modern historians’ interest in specific dates, which would have been less important to a William of Malmesbury or a Henry of Huntingdon; John of Worcester’s dates were not even always accurate. Hence if we as historians are going to attach importance to a date as a turning point, we may do well to pay as much attention to perceived or created dates of resolution as to dates of rupture. From the perspective of historians writing in twelfth-century England, 1066 may have been the year of Conquest. But the moment of resolution of the Conquest was another year entirely.

Several twelfth-century writers in England sought to redeem the course of English history, and they did so ultimately without reference to a king’s, or a potential king’s, origin. They thereby averted the potential shame of conquest. If we thus choose to think of these narratives as narratives of resolution rather than as narratives of conquest, the events of 1066 move decidedly into the background. I argue that 1074 is really the crucial year of transition for these twelfth-century historians. It posed a problem of closure in a way that conquest alone did not, because the crucial event of 1074 – the ‘reconciliation’ between William and Edgar the ætheling – revealed that the Conquest was not complete and potentially not legitimate either. Indeed, the resolution which the modern word ‘reconciliation’ connotes is not present in the twelfth-century historians’ eleventh-century sources.