Re: Norman & Saxon

["Sinclair" <labehotierre@wanadoo.fr>]

Wanda Sinclair wrote "How long after the War of 1066, did it take for the
Normans & Saxon to fully merge as Englishman?"

John wrote "in the time of Richard II of England and Robert II of Scotland"

I date Englishness (Is that a word?) to Magna Carta.

What a question!


There was a Saxon knight who swore,
 To slay his Norman foe,
 There was a Norman knight who swore,
 The Saxon he would show,
 What hatred he did have at mind -
 The Saxon harboured hate in kind.
 And thus from crib to manhood did,
 Their bloodfeud spring and grow.

..............
"They learned to take intolerance,
And set that taint aside,
 That all that parts two peoples is,
Their prejudice and pride.
 And though they valiant, lost dear life,
 They're free of pointless, putrid strife,
 I see they sit and smile and sing,
 And do so side by side
Fragment of poem by A. Austin

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles speak of the problems as late as 1189 AD

>From 1066 to 1154 four kings ruled. The Domesday Book the forests were
extended, the Exchequer was founded and a start was made on the Tower of
London. The Norman aristocracy came to prominence.
This was the case when William the Conqueror died. His eldest son, Robert,
became Duke of Normandy, while the next youngest, William Rufus, became king
of England. his younger brother Henry  became king on William II's death.
Henry captured and imprisoned  The Duke of Normandy, Henry's son died, he
nominated  Matilda as his heir. She was denied the throne by her cousin,
Henry's nephew, Stephen. The result  civil war. Matilda married Geoffrey
Plantagenet of Anjou, who took control of Normandy. The duchy and England
were estranged.  A compromise was eventually reached whereby the son of
Matilda and Geoffrey would be heir to the English crown, while Stephen's son
would inherit his baronial lands. All this meant that in 1154 Henry II
became king. He was  the first undisputed King in over 100 years

Thomas of London or better know to us as Thomas a Becket. Studied both in
London and Paris. He was  appointed chancellor of England by Henry II, He
was famed for the luxury and magnificence of his life-style. Henry nominated
him Archbishop of Canterbury. He was ordained a priest the day before his
consecration.. He disagreed with the King over clerical and Church rights,
really money and power. Thomas was the son of a Norman knight and a Saxon
woman.

Richard I Coeur de Lion (the Lionhearted) at the time of the third Crusade
was very much a Norman.. He died in France during a minor siege against a
rebellious baron. By the time of his death, Richard had recovered all his
lands. His success was short-lived. In 1199 his brother John became king and
Philippe successfully invaded Normandy. By 1203, John had retreated to
England, losing his French lands of Normandy and Anjou by 1205. He is buried
in Rouen.  He seldom saw England

Richard and his brother John were Angivins they were  really Normans.

In it really with the historically vilified John Lackland who died in 1216
that England contained Englishmen. John was an able administrator interested
in law Crushing taxes,  excommunication by the Pope in 1209 and unsuccessful
in his attempts to recover his French possessions made him unpopular. Many
of his barons rebelled and in June 1215 they forced the King to sign a peace
treaty (Magna Carta) accepting their reforms.

As a peace treaty Magna Carta was a failure and the rebels invited Louis of
France to become their king. When John died in 1216 England was in the grip
of civil war. But The English Nation had been welded together.

Much better answers can be obtained by writting to;
Rachel Koopmans Medieval Institute
715 Hesburgh Library
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame IN  46556 koopmans.1@nd.edu

G.A. Loud School of History, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, U.K.
Tel. 0113-2333601 (direct line)
FAX 0113-2342759 g.a.loud@leeds.ac.uk

Sinclair



----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org>
To: <sinclair@quarterman.org>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 6:01 AM
Subject: Re: Norman & Saxon


> >How long after the War of 1066, did it take for the Normans & Saxon to
> >fully merge as Englishman?
>
> One could argue that that didn't happen until after the Black Plague
> of 1348, when English became the language of the law courts.

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]

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