The Normans and the Danish Invasion

The Danish Invasion

The Danes
The Danes were a North Germanic tribe inhibiting southern Scandinavia, including the area now
comprising Denmark and the Scanian provinces of modern southern Sweden. And in this picture, we can
see the extent of the Danish Realm before the expansion of the Viking Age.

The origin of the Danes is unsettled, but several ancient historical documents and texts refer to them and
archaeology has revealed and continues to reveal insights into their culture, beliefs, organization and
way of life.

The Danes spoke Proto-Norse which gradually evolved into the Old Norse language by the end of the
Viking Age. They used runes for writing, but they did not write much. as they have left no literary legacy
except for occasional rune stones and carvings in wood and various items like weapons, utensils and
jewelry.

The Vikings
Vikings were the seafaring Norse people from southern Scandinavia who from the late 8th to late 11th
centuries pirated, raided and traded and explored westward. They were expert sailors and navigators
and they are known for their longships.

And the most important thing, Vikings never wore helmets with horns, that’s a misconception and a
quite common one.

The first Viking raid in England was on 8 June 793 when Norsemen destroyed the abbey on the island of
Lindisfarne. In 842 London itself was raided.

In 865 the Vikings invaded Britain once it was clear to them, that the quarrelling Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
could not keep them out. This time they came to conquer and to settle. They quickly accepted
Christianity and did not disturb the local population. By 875 only King Alfred in the west of Wessex held
out against the Vikings, who had already taken most of England.

King Alfred
Alfred the Great was king of Wessex from 871 to c. 886 and king of Anglo-Saxons from c. 886 to 899. He
was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. After some serious defeats Alfred won a decisive
battle in 878, and eight years later he captured London. He was strong enough to make a treaty with the
Vikings. In his time, he built walled settlements to keep the Danes out, they burghs. They became
prosperous market towns, and the word is now spelt borough.

Danelaw
From the treaty with the Vikings came Danelaw. The Danelaw is a historical name given to the part of
England in which the laws of the Danes dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. Which basically means the
land of the Viking rule.

By 950 England seemed rich and peaceful again after the troubles of the Viking invasion. But soon
afterwards the Danish Vikings started raiding westwards again. The Saxon king Ethelred decided to pay
them to stay away, to get the money needed he set a tax on all his people called Danegeld, which when
you translate it means danish money.

When Ethelred died Cnut, the leader of the Danish Vikings, who controlled much of England, became
king, because rule by a Danish king was better than chaos. Cnut died in 1035, and his son shortly after, in
1040. After this the royal council chose Edward, one of Saxon Ethelred’s sons to be king.

Edward the Confessor

His nickname reflects his reputation as a saint who did not suffer martyrdom. He was more interested in
church than in kingship, he encouraged church building and by the time Edward died there was a church
in almost every village. Edward started a new church fit for a king at Westminster, which was a Norman
building, because he spent most of his life in Normandy and his mother was a daughter of the Duke on
Normandy. He died in 1066.

The Normans
The Normans were people from the north, they were the children and grandchildren of Vikings, who had
captured and settled in, northern France. They had soon become French in their language and Christian
in their religion. But they were still well known for their fighting skills.

The Norman conquest

Edward died without an obvious heir. And in his time, he had brought many Normans to his English court
from France. These Normans were not liked by the powerful Saxon nobles, particularly by the
Godwinson. It was a Godwinson, Harold whom the royal council chose to be the next king of England.
Harold’s right to the English throne was challenged by Duke William of Normandy. William had two
claims, the first one was, that the throne was promised to him and the second one was that Harold had
promised that he would not try to take the throne for himself. Harold did not deny the second claim, but
he said he had been forced to make the promise; therefore, he does not feel tied by it.

Harold was faced by two dangers; the Danish Vikings had not given up their claim to the English throne.
In 1066 Harold had to march north into Yorkshire to defeat the Danes lead by king Harald Hardrada in
the Battle of Stamford Bridge, soon after he learnt that William had landed in England with his army.
Harold could have waited for his whole army to gather, but he thought he could beat them with the men
who had done so well against the Danes. But the Norman soldiers were better armed, better organized
and were mounted on horses. Because of these reasons Harold was defeated and killed during the battle
of Hasting.

William marched on London, where he was crowned the king of England.

William the Conqueror

William’s coronation in the newly built Westminster Abbey did not go as planned. When people shouted:
“God save the King” the nervous Norman guards at Westminster Abbey thought they were going to
attack William. In their fear they set fire to nearby houses and the coronation ended.

Although William was now crowned king, his fight has just begun. There was an Anglo-Saxon rebellion
every year until 1070. The small Norman army marched from village to village, destroying places it could
not control, and building forts to guard others. The Norman army had no mercy, when the Saxons fought
back, the Normans burnt, destroyed and killed.
William gave the Saxon lands to his Norman nobles and he replaced over 4000 Saxon landlords with
Norman ones. He was careful in the way he gave out his land, he gave parts of it as rewards to his
captains which meant that they held separate pieces of land in different parts of the country so that no
noble could easily or quickly gather his fighting men to rebel.

Feudalism
William organized his English kingdom according to the feudal system which had already begun to
develop before his arrival. The word feudalism refers to land held in return for duty or service to a lord.
The central idea was that the land was owned by the king, but it was held by others called vassals, in
return for goods and services. The king gave large estate to his main nobles in return for a promise to
serve him in war for up to forty days. These nobles gave parts of their land to lesser nobles, knight and
other freemen. Some freemen paid by doing military service, while others paid rent. The noble kept serfs
to work on their land. Basically, if the king did not give the nobles land, they would not fight for him.

The Domesday Book

Because William gave out land all over England, he wanted to know exactly who owned which piece of
land and how much it was worth. So, he sent a team of people to go all through England to complete a
full economic survey. The survey was not popular with the people, so they called it the Domesday Book.

Kingship
When William died, in 1087, he left the Duchy of Normandy to his elder son, Robert and he gave England
to his second son, William Rufus. When Robert went on a crusade, he left William II in charge of
Normandy. William Rufus died in a hunting accident and he had no son to take the crown. Their younger
brother Henry saw it as an opportunity. He took charge of the king’s treasury.

He then rode to Westminster, where he was crowned three days later. Robert was furious and he
wanted to invade but it took him a year to organize his army.

That meant that the nobles in England had to choose between Henry and Robert. This was not easy
because most of them held land in Normandy too. In the end they chose Henry in London, with the
crown already on his head. Robert’s invasion was a failure and he accepted payment to return to
Normandy. But Henry wanted Normandy for himself, so he in 1106 invaded Normandy and captured
Robert.

It was important to Henry to have a successor but in 1120 Henry’s only son was drowned at sea. He
accepted that his daughter Matilda, would follow him. Henry married her to another great noble in
France, Geoffrey Plantagenet. At the time Henry had two possible heirs. One was Matilda with her
husband and the other one was Henry’s nephew, Stephen of Blois.

Stephen raced to England to claim its’ crown. And as before the nobles had to choose between Stephen,
who was in England and Matilda. Most chose Stephen. Matilda invaded England four years later. Their
fight led to a terrible civil war. And because neither side could win, they agreed that Stephen could keep
the throne only if Matilda’s son, Henry could succeed him. Stephen died in the following year and the
lands of England and France were united under a king accepted by everyone, Henry II.

Language
When the new French nobility was introduced it meant that the nobles spoke French while the
commoners spoke Anglo-Saxon. And that’s the reason …