The Normans conquer England &

the CrusadesThe Battle of Hastings, 1066, and what followed

it.

Catholic attempts to seize the Holy Land, 1095 to 1291

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Timeline

Norman Conquest, Crusades

The Normans take England

The Battle of Hastings, 1066, and what followed it.

• With the collapse of the Roman hold on Britain, many nations wanted to move in on the leftovers.

• Most of these people came from Scandinavia.

Who were the Normans?

• The word Norman is simply a derivation of the word Northman. In other words, those who came from the north of Europe.

• These were people whose ancestors were Vikings and drove south along the coast of Europe from about 800. In 911, the Normans were granted French coastal lands.

• The Normans tried to become part of European culture and religion.

• They intermarried with the European Catholics.

Who were the Normans?

• The French coastal lands given to them were called Normandy.

Where were the Normans?

Troubles in England

• In the mid 11th Century, the king of England was in trouble.

• His name was Harold and he didn’t have a great hold on the throne. In fact, it wasn’t going all that well.

• The former king, Edward, had a cousin across the sea in Normandy who thought he should be king.

• His name was William, or the French pronunciation, Guillaume.

Guillaume

Troubles in England

• William claimed that he was the rightful King of England.

• Harold had plenty of trouble with his own country. He was defending it against Viking warriors in the north and a whole host of internal squabbles.

• William also claimed that the former King, Edward, who was his distant cousin, had promised him the throne and that Harold had promised to follow up on that promise.

• That made Harold a usurper – or throne stealing scoundrel.

Troubles in England

• Oh, and William had the support of the Pope. That was a really big deal. In fact, it was the biggest deal of all.

• So, William decided to invade England in the fall of 1066.

Troubles in England

• Harold had been off north defending against a bunch of Viking raiders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

• He turned his troops south and headed against William’s troops in southern England. They had to march about 200 miles in a little less than three weeks.

• Harold’s troops were very strong and well seasoned, but William had something they did not – cavalry. He had brought horses and well-trained horse soldiers from Normandy.

Troubles in England

• The details of the Battle of Hastings are recounted in a famous weaving known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Its precise accuracy may be a little off, but the general story line is pretty good.

The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman Conquest of England. It covers the rise of William the Conqueror to power and his growing conflict with Harold of England.

Here the Normans are shown taking their horses from the boats when they arrive in England.

And of course, when you proclaim the arrival of the new king, you throw a party..

At the party you have a mock battle, food, dancing and, of course you set a house on fire thereby forcing a woman and child to run in fear.

After the party, the Normans mounted their horses, one of them blue, which is weird, and headed off to battle.

Then the battle starts. Notice the bits and pieces of soldiers scattered across the field. The Normans were on horseback while the English formed a shield wall.

The battle continued. Harold’s brothers were killed.

Legend has it that Harold was shot through the eye with an arrow and then his body was hacked to bits.

OK, that’s gross – but, hey, that’s European history.

Oh, notice they are stripping everything from the dead soldiers.

Results of the Norman Conquest

• New government officials – all the way down to local leaders.

• Change in the language. Old English became the language of the common people, French was the language of the ruling class. Consider some common words like pig and pork – what’s the difference?

• A new system of government

• A new ruling dynasty

• The introduction of castles to England

Results of the Norman Conquest

• Eventually, the Norman kings created a government system that actually allowed for some of the peasantry to improve their conditions by learning to read and become educated. Of course, they had to join the army to do it.

• One of the Norman kings, John, as in Robin Hood, was such a hideous, creepy king that the nobles entered into a civil war against. This was despite the fact that the Pope had said anyone who revolted against John would be condemned for eternity.

Results of the Norman Conquest

• John lost the Battle of Runnymede and was forced to sign the Magna Carta, or Great Charter. This was the basis for legal rights in the western world and the foundation of the ideas in our United States Constitution.

Long lasting effects of the Norman Conquest

• The Norman Conquest of England is one of those events that shaped the world forever.

The Crusades1095 to 1291

What were the Crusades?

• The Crusades were an attempt by the Pope to take control of the Holy Land.

• The Holy Land had been in the control of the Muslim conquerors since 637 A.D.

• Generally, the Muslims allowed Jews and Christians to live in the Holy Land in moderate peace. That changed during the 11th Century.

• The new Turkish rulers forbade the practice of Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

What were the Crusades?

• Pilgrimages to the Holy Land were important to many of the Christians in Europe and the idea of cutting them off was an affront to European and Byzantine Christians.

What were the Crusades?

• When the Turks then threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I made a special appeal to Urban for help.

• This was not the first time, but it came at an important time for Urban. He wanted to reinforce the power of the papacy.

• Urban seized the opportunity to unite Christian Europe under him as he fought to take back the Holy Land from the Turks.

What were the Crusades?

• Urban denigrated the Muslims, exaggerating stories of their anti-Christian acts, and promised absolution and remission of sins for all who died in the service of Christ.

• Urban’s war cry caught fire, mobilizing clerics to drum up support throughout Europe for the crusade against the Muslims. All told, between 60,000 and 100,000 people responded to Urban’s call to march on Jerusalem.

These are the tombs of Crusaders in England. Note the statuary shows the legs crossed. This was typical of statuary dedicated to a Crusader.

What were the Crusades?

• Urban denigrated the Muslims, exaggerating stories of their anti-Christian acts, and promised absolution and remission of sins for all who died in the service of Christ.

• Urban’s war cry caught fire, mobilizing clerics to drum up support throughout Europe for the crusade against the Muslims. All told, between 60,000 and 100,000 people responded to Urban’s call to march on Jerusalem.

What were the Crusades?

• European nobles were tempted by the prospect of increased land holdings and riches to be gained from the conquest. These nobles were responsible for the death of a great many innocents both on the way to and in the Holy Land, absorbing the riches and estates of those they conveniently deemed opponents to their cause.

What were the Crusades?

• Urban died in 1099, two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem but before news of the Christian victory made it back to Europe.

• His was the first of seven major military campaigns fought over the next two centuries known as the Crusades.

What were the impacts of the Crusades?

• The Catholic Church gained – and lost – enormous power as a result of the Crusades.

• Inhabitants of the Middle East developed a deep distrust of Christians that still persists.

• Europeans brought back a great deal of culture and learning from the people of the Middle East. The study of subjects like literature, architecture, mechanics, astronomy, and medicine that were essentially frozen in Europe during the Middle Ages were being prospering in the Mid East.

What were the Crusades?

• The Crusades continued on for approximately 200 years.

• During that time, thousands of peasants and children suffered under the attempts by the Europeans to conquer the Holy Land.

• Surprisingly, there were many times when the Crusaders attacked fellow Christians and Jews.

• During the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Crusaders attacked Constantinople itself.

What were the Crusades?

• By the end of the last Crusade in 1291, European Christians from widely varying countries had been drawn together to ‘Take up the Cross’ as Crusading was called. Control of the Middle East moved back and forth between Christians and Muslims, but the long-term power structure of the Middle East remained much as it had been two hundred years before.

• But no one knew about the catastrophic calamities about to befall Christian Europe.