Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Preface
- 1 England in the Eleventh Century
- 2 Normandy 911–1144
- 3 England, Normandy and Scandinavia
- 4 Angevin Normandy
- 5 The Normans in the Mediterranean
- 6 Historical Writing
- 7 Feudalism and Lordship
- 8 Administration and Government
- 9 The Anglo-Norman Church
- 10 Language and Literature
- 11 Ecclesiastical Architecture c. 1050 to c. 1200
- Further Reading
- Genealogies
- Time Lines
- Index
3 - England, Normandy and Scandinavia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Preface
- 1 England in the Eleventh Century
- 2 Normandy 911–1144
- 3 England, Normandy and Scandinavia
- 4 Angevin Normandy
- 5 The Normans in the Mediterranean
- 6 Historical Writing
- 7 Feudalism and Lordship
- 8 Administration and Government
- 9 The Anglo-Norman Church
- 10 Language and Literature
- 11 Ecclesiastical Architecture c. 1050 to c. 1200
- Further Reading
- Genealogies
- Time Lines
- Index
Summary
Normandy's origins lie in the context of Frankish politics of the ninth century, when competing Carolingian kings and princes struggled for power, and Viking armies preyed on centres of wealth in uncoordinated, irregular, but disabling attacks, from northern Britain to the Mediterranean. Hoping to employ poachers as gamekeepers, if only temporarily, embattled native rulers granted land and some kind of authority to Viking leaders in Frisia, Francia, and the British Isles, but only Rollo's early tenth-century settlement on the Seine survived; it was transformed by his descendants into the mighty political player which, from the second half of the eleventh century, drastically altered the balance of power and redrew the political map of western Europe. For years the issue of Normandy's origins has divided historians. Some have seen little of Scandinavian character in the political inheritance of the first settlers and have argued for continuity, supposing that Rollo was handed a Carolingian political and cultural package on his arrival in 911. Supporters of continuity have seen the later workings of ducal power as the visible end of a continuum which began in unfortunate obscurity as Rollo took over the exercise of public authority from his Carolingian predecessors. A contrary view has characterised the first stages of Viking control as insecure and makeshift; but, it is argued, when the Vikings proceeded to dig themselves in they fashioned a new social order drawing more fundamentally on their own native customs and institutions in law, social regulations, and agrarian and maritime practice. Some subscribers to this view would see Frankish institutions as only late grafted onto an enduringly Scandinavian stem. Crucial to the question is the issue of numbers: a large complement of immigrants (of all social levels) would presumably have been required to produce a society with a strong Scandinavian flavour, while a small aristocratic minority might have made less of an impression on native Frankish culture (though neither of these assumptions has gone unchallenged). The difficulty in deciding between these two options consists in reconciling the two faces of continuity – Scandinavian and Carolingian – presented by the Norman evidence.
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- A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World , pp. 43 - 62Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002
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