William+the+Bastard,+Conqueror+of+England




 * Born: || Falaise, 1027 or 1028. ||
 * Parents: || Robert, Duke of Normandy and Herleva, a tanner's daughter. ||
 * Ascended to the Throne of England: || 25th of December 1066. ||
 * Authority: || King of England and Duke of Normandy. ||
 * Married: || Matilda, daughter of the Count of Flanders. ||
 * Died: || 9th of September 1087. ||

King William I was perhaps the most significant ruler of England, earning for himself a place as one of the most influential of all the leaders that have governed in Europe. His influence would last long after his own reign, and even that of his royal house, reaching, in many ways, into the present day. The Norman conquest of England that William led, would not only be the last great invasion of England from an outside source, but also among the last of the great stepping stones in the formation of the English language, alongside many other things, including a change in the judicial system, changes to the Church, a large scale programme of fortification and a considerable alteration to the social structure of England.



Becoming the 'Conqueror'

Despite his illegitimate birth, William became Duke of Normandy on the death of his father in 1035, when William was only seven years old. His illegitimacy became the subject of some controversy amongst contesters to the Dukedom, assassination attempts occurred and several of William’s guardians were replaced after their disloyalty to him was proven [1]. Nevertheless, William’s right to his title was supported by King Henry I of France, lending assistance to William in his struggle against rogue barons in Normandy. This was completed at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes in 1047, when William secured his control over the region. The defeat of the rebellion has been held as a great personal triumph for William, whose individual actions played a key part in the victory.

The Conquest

The death of Edward the Confessor in January of 1066 left three claimants to the English throne: William; Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex; and King Harold III of Norway. William claimed that he had had both Edward’s word and the Earl of Wessex’s that the throne was to be left to him. After Harold Godwinson took the throne, William invaded. Godwinson’s (or Harold II) army was greatly weakened by his Norwegian rival’s fruitless attacks in York, and by the time they were in Sussex to fight, the Normans were quite worn down[3]. The September 28th arrival at Pevensey consisted of a navy numbering 696 ships, suggesting an estimated 20,000 men. By October 19th 1066, at the Battle of Hastings, William’s army defeated King Harold’s, ending in the death of the last Anglo-Saxon king. This was followed by the march to London and William’s coronation on the 25th of December 1066. The conquest in the North was completed by 1070.



His Legacy

One of the most prominent alterations England experienced under King William I was the Norman style feudalism that was introduced to suppress the Anglo-Saxon barons. This considerably altered the social system that England had been operating under, pressing freemen into serfdom in many cases[1]. The substitution of English noblemen with French replacements, along with the introduction of French as the language of court ascertained the place of Normans in society that can still be noted in aristocratic names today[2]. The Church, under Archbishop Lancfranc (the Archbishop of Canterbury under William), became a more centralised entity, conforming to its continental counterpart[3]. The church, like the aristocracy, replaced all English senior officials with Norman ones. Relations with France started to be more hostile, the rivalry that is more familiar to later times taking shape at this time. Laws introduced by William’s decree did not last as long, though altered the existing circumstances drastically[4]. Many of William’s new laws regarded the relationship between Frenchmen and Englishmen[5]. One of the longest lasting legacies that was left by William’s invasion was the influence to the English language, which faced its second great challenge in existence since its formation out of Germanic languages, the first having been the Viking invasions of the eighth and ninth centuries that had threatened the continuation of the language, and may have left it in a manner not unlike that of the language of the earliest of the English residents: the Celts. The immersion of Old Norse into the Anglo-Saxon language did not ensure the safety of English under Norman conquest, but instead did result in a language comprised of that mixture; the Old French of the invaders lending a great vocabulary of words, a collection of grammatical rules, punctuation and even letters that had not been immersed into the vernacular at that point. William’s statistical records of his new conquests, recorded in //The Domesday Book//, not only led the way for all other attempts at surveying, but also left for historians an accurate picture of the period in which it was taken, and has been described by historians as “invaluable”[6].

[1] Haskins, Charles H. [2] Nicholas, T. “The Influence of the Norman Conquest on the Ethnology of Britain.” //The Journal of Ethnological Society of London// 09/70: 384-400. Journal.

[3] Taylor, John A. //British Monarchy, Church Establishment and Civil Liberty//. London: Greenwood Press, 1996. Book.

[4] Ogg, F.A. //A Source Book of European History//. New York: Johnston, 1907. Book.

[5] Ogg, F.A. [6] Davies, Wendy. //From the Vikings to the Normans//. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Book.

[1] Haskins, Charles H. “Normandy Under William the Conqueror.” //American History Review// 04/09: 453-476. Journal.

[2] // Riley, Brent A. “William: From Bastard to Conqueror.” A Military History 04-03: 50-57. Journal. //

[3] Hilliam, David. //Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards//. London: The History Press Ltd, 2004. Book.