Gone Medieval - William the Conqueror

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

When his cousin King Edward the Confessor died childless, Duke William of Normandy saw the throne of England as his birthright. But one man stood in his way, Harold Godwinson, whom Edward had named as king on his deathbed.In the third episode of our special series examining the build-up to the Battle of Hastings, Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Professor Judith A. Green to find out more about the man who would change the course of British and European history.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. The year is 1028. The place, Normandy. An illegitimate son is born to Duke Robert I and his mistress Herleva. His name is William, William the bastard. Seven years later, when the Duke unexpectedly passes away, rival factions in the Norman aristocracy vie for control,

doubting William's legitimacy as Robert's heir. But before he is 20 years old, William has fought tooth and nail to establish his authority over the duchy, earning a reputation for his unyielding spirit. With each and every victory, he solidifies his grip on Normandy. But his eyes are set on a greater prize. When his cousin, King Edward the Confessor, dies childless, William sees the throne of England as his birthright. One man stands in his way. Harold Godwinson, whom Edward has named as king on his deathbed. William builds a large fleet and sets sail for England.

The year is 1066. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga, and this is Gone Medieval from History Hit. In the third episode of our special series examining the buildup to the Battle of Hastings, I'm joined by Judith A. Green, the Emerita Professor of Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh. Her books include The Aristocracy of Norman England, Forging the Kingdom, power in English society, 973 to 1189, and most recently, the Normans, power, conquest, and culture in 11th century Europe.

So there's no one better to talk to about William the Conqueror, a man who defied his inauspicious beginnings and changed the course of English and European history. Dude, thank you so much for being here. I can't think of anyone better to pick the brain of about William the Conqueror. But I think that before we bring William out into the light, a lot of the big ways that people think about him is. So here's a man, he shows up, he conquers England.

But he comes from an incredibly complex court situation in Normandy. Is that correct? I was absolutely right. He was a survivor. He lost his father when he was seven, eight years old. He wasn't born of a legitimate marriage. People were killed in his presence as he was growing up, and he had to fight to survive, basically. So I suppose it's little wonder than coming out of a milieu when you're seeing murder in front of you. You know that you're in an incredibly complex situation or at the very, very least, nothing is ever promised to anyone who is illegitimate. So he's got a kind of necessarily violent path in front of him if he wants to be any kind of ruler.

Absolutely right. And the other complication was not only did his father not. marry his mother in a Christian marriage ceremony, but his father may have murdered his own brother to get to be Duke of Normandy. So already there was murder and violence going on in the background. Latest thinking is to downplay this rather a lot and say that it was all over quite quickly and so on, but I think it must have been a very traumatic childhood. Is this, you know, normal from a Norman court perspective? One hears about fratricide and these sort of things earlier in the medieval period, rather a lot. You know, as a Czech specialist, you get this kind of thing in the

ninth century, for example. But really, in the 11th century, is that common for Normans? I don't know. There has been a certain amount of discussion about this, because enemies of the victors seem to disappear at very convenient moments. So here is the thinking that some of the later chroniclers suggested poison, but the bottom line was Robert Selda brother, i.e. the uncle of William the Conqueror disappeared quite conveniently quickly. And although he left a son, the son was put into a monastery. So Robert the Devil has a clearer path. But obviously any of these contested successions involve claimants who are born of legitimate Christian marriages, fighting their corner. And that was the thing that William the Conqueror had to deal with as he was growing up, that there were other adult males around

who arguably had better claims to be Duke of Normandy than he did. Being Duke of Normandy is a rather big deal, isn't it, as well? I mean, I think that we tend to forget that now. And completely understandably, you know, ruling a kingdom has a different level of cachet than simply a duchy. But it's very influential. You know, it comes up a lot in French politics and continental politics more generally, but it's nothing to sneeze at, I suppose, is what I would say, yes?

That's right. And the Normans were very... keen to emphasize that themselves and began to call themselves dukes rather than camps, which is what they had started out as. So this was a sign of their ambition. And that is one thing you can never fault William the conqueror for, his ambition, right, from the word go. And I suppose this is a really great opportunity almost falls in his lap, which is a succession

up in England. And now he has a very vague claim to the throne, right? It's not from the absolute whole cloth that he is. invents this claim? Is that, that's accurate, yes? That's right. King Ethelred, the unready, had married as his second wife, a Norman, and that's where William the conquerors claim from. But the bottom line was, it was the horse race in the 11th century. There were different runners and riders. There were a whole group of Scandinavian claimants because King Cunuch had come and taken over.

There were also representatives of what you might call the old royal line going back to King Alfred. There was a chap called Edgar. And even the Norman chronicers accepted that he had the best claim hereditarily in 1066 and said, you know, it was not surprising that the English would have preferred one of their own. So Harold Godwinson coming forward and taking the throne has basically no hereditary claim at all. And I guess William the Conqueror's thinking is that if this is going to be a contest between Norwegians, Danes, Anglo-Saxons, he was going to be in there and he was going to win it. Fair play to him, he managed to do that, right? I think that this is such an important point, you know,

because I think we have a tendency to relate to concepts of monarchy from this early modern standpoint of, you know, God-given right to rule, as though everything is preordained. And that's not necessarily a medieval way of looking at things. I mean, sure, there are hereditary claims that are made. They're not completely out of left field at all times. But sometimes it's just, well, who showed up first with the largest army. I mean, apologists for Harold Godwinson say he would have made a great king. He was promising to do all the things that kings promised to do at their coronation. And had he beaten William, he would have been an English king.

But the bottom line is he could not claim to be king by blood. And William the conqueror made jolly sure he was going to be crowned quickly in Westminster Abbey. And once he's crowned, then he has the support of the bishops, well, most of the bishops and appets. And that's very important in England. So I suppose backing up a little bit, we see William. He is from a situation where he's used to fighting to put his claims forward. Clearly, he has a fair amount of military support behind him. He sees that things are a little bit rocky in England.

But this doesn't necessarily translate to, oh, and now I'm going to go over there and do immediately. Just having the potential to do that isn't something that everyone necessarily would act upon. So there's something kind of in William. Yeah. And I think here, the visit to Normandy of Harold in 1064 was a turning point because there's all sorts of stories around why Harold ended up in Normandy and whether the story told on the biotapistries actually the way it was. but it was a public recognition by Harold in front of other people of some kind of acceptance of William's overlordship. And so when Harold took the throne, William was humiliated, basically.

His honour was involved. And so he was going to have to do something about it. And I suppose the other point is you were saying about resources. If you're the leader of a war band, you have to keep providing the goods. I mean, it's sort of like a mafia situation. You have to reward loyalty. And William had this card around him of people who'd fought alongside him for 20 years. And it was they who were the great, the initial stages of the conquest anyway.

This makes sense because it becomes almost a land grab once you get into it. The way that England is carved up, various suchies are kind of just handed out. And I suppose that it's worth almost just. rolling the dice, even if you don't have conceptions of honor built into it, which obviously we do at this point and honor being a great big deal for medieval people. But there is also, you know, when there are these many moving pieces, I would say, and this many people who are looking at it, you may as well just kind of throw in. That's on the line. I'm not saying that it is. And, you know, it's not completely frivolous. But if you have a lot of people to provide for, someone's got to pay for

this, yes? Absolutely right. And this, I'm sure, is a very strong motivating factor. The sense that he thought he'd had a deal with Harold, which probably ran on the lines that Harold would help him to become king, or at least Harold would marry a daughter of William and be his second in command in England. And this had been totally sideswiped by the fact that Harold took the throne within days of Edward the compass' death. So William, would have lost a terrific amount of face in that situation. And I'm sure in that sense, the Chronicle's right, he began planning for war straight away. So it's a provocation. And he'd done it in Maine. I mean, Maine two or three years earlier was almost like a dummy run for

England. It wasn't a kingdom. It wasn't nearly such a big proposition. But again, on the basis of some kind of hereditary claim, he was beating up his neighbours already. So England was a great prize. England was very wealthy. There's just endless land. You have a big wool-producing kingdom, which is nothing to sneeze at in the medieval period. I mean, it's the equivalent of taking over, I don't know, an oil nation now, you know, in terms of how important wool is. And I'm a big defender of the wool industry.

So you see the kind of plan go into action. You can see why there are provocations. There is a really, you know, a strong enough claim, as strong as anyone's, if what we're going to say is that it's hereditary. there's a need. What then do we see as kind of the tipping point? He says he's going to plan and then he gets involved. You know, it seems in a lot of ways he's very lucky in terms of what his timing is because the heralds are fighting each other. Is he aware of that? Now, I think he was aware. There was not much point in taking this hugely seriously before 1057 because the father of Edgar Athling had been brought back to England, Edward the exile, probably from Hungary. And it looks as if Edward the confessor was positioning him to be his successor, but he dies. And Edgar, his son, is quite young at this stage. He has two sisters, one of whom is St. Margaret. But the other things that happen around 1060s, things get a lot less

problematic for William on the continent. The King of France dies, the Count of Arjou dies, his enemies die, and he's much better positioned. So by the early 1060s, it's pretty obvious, Edward the confessor is not going to have a child of his own. Edgar the Athling is still quite young. He's 11, 12, maybe. And the throne is going to be up for grabs. And if it's not Harold, it might be his brother Tostig, who indeed allies with the Norwegian Harold Hardrata. It could be Tostig in alliance with the Count of Flanders, whose daughter he'd married. You know, so, yes, spies were big in this period. We don't hear a lot about them because are successful, but intelligence is casting backwards and forwards. People knew what's going on. It paid

to know anyway. That's a really interesting point. I think that we tend to think of state craft and spies and information as, again, being a modern phenomenon. And actually, when you have a rather a lot of wealthy people who wish to maintain that status and a limited number of ways to do it, the spies actually become massively, massively important. Then I suppose the stars align. We have, a man with a large army limited problems at home. And there is the crisis slash opportunity that is happening in England itself. So what is the straw that breaks the camels back to get William onto a boat? Well, I think it's there right from the start. The tapestry shows with the coronation of Harold that there are ghost ships in the bottom border of the tapestries.

The omens are there. Hallis Comet. You know, people knew something was going to happen. And it took William time. That's why it's about six months before he's got his forces together, and then he's waiting for the winds to be right to cross the channel. So he's later than he thinks. And of course, from his point of view, that's quite lucky because Harold dismisses his ships. And although the autumn is not a great time to be setting sail and launching a campaign, Harold's in disarray, plus Harold Hardroeder and Tostig are finally fetched up in the north of England.

So Harold has decided to go and deal with them. So the South is waiting. So that explains the timing. Roughly six months to get your act together. Big religious ceremonies. You put one of your children into a religious house, you know, give her to God. And then you're maneuvering your ships and your men into position at Savarri, Cuson.

But actually, again, the tapestry, we tend to think there's loads and loads of horses and ships and so on and not enough of the action. But that reflects the sheer scale as contemporary saw it at the enterprise. They didn't have these ships to hand. You had to build them a lot of them. So that took time as well. I mean, I suppose also just the feat of getting that many horses onto a boat. We take this really for granted, I think, in a world of modern transport.

Horses are huge animals. You need them in order to mount a campaign like this. And it's dangerous and it's difficult. just getting on a boat at all whatsoever. And people die in the channel quite a lot. It's a rough crossing. So it makes sense why you would need to linger a little bit in order to make sure that everything works.

This is a really good point because I think it's often overlooked how odd an autumn campaign is. Because in many ways, showing up in the autumn, you're almost setting a timer saying, okay, this needs to happen within a few months because the campaign season is then very, very short. Yes, and William's tactic was to ravage Harold's lands in Sussex, which were his family lands, and to try and draw him south to give battle, whereas Harold would have been much better holding off from a pitch battle.

But Harold came marching, well, if he came marching south, there's a theory that, in fact, he got south from the Battle of Stamford Bridge so quickly because he came by sea. But either way, he got south very, very fast, and he was a theory. He marched south and confronted William's forces at what is now the village of battle, crossing the London Road, so that William would have to go through his forces to get to London. And this is October the 14th. It's very late in the day. I'm always quite interested in this decision, I suppose, on Harold's part, because I think that in many ways it might have benefited him. Of course, you know, this is very hindsight. I don't have a horse in the race. But, you know, just in many ways I think, well,

if he'd just waited, then perhaps William would have withdrawn. But I think that at the same time, this is a real way of us to see William's brilliance here. You know, he manages to do things which provoke a confrontation as opposed to just hoping that Harold is going to say, oh, well, there's rather a lot of Normans down there, I suppose I should go take care of that. Because I think the safe money would have been to ignore them almost. and stay in London. And until William had the city, he wasn't going to get anywhere very fast. London is the big prize. And Harold goes to London and said to have sent out Ritz for local forces. But a lot of his troops would have been dead in Yorkshire. And he just didn't have time to get a big army together. He should have done a King Alfred really and sort of waged a guerrilla war. And then William would have had to keep his troops provisioned. A lot of them would have sailed back over the channel to their own lands. Harold had time on his side, but he obviously didn't think so.

And of course, he's buoyed up by this huge victory. He kills not only his brother, but he kills Harold Ardra, one of the greatest warriors in the West. I mean, I do have to say that I'm still surprised that happened. It's one of the more surprising aspects of the entire 1066 saga. So I think that it is one of these things where you have to kind of hand it to William for having rather a clever modus operandi in this particular battle, because I guess I'm risk-averse. I would have stayed in London, but again, it's not my familial lance.

I have no concept of such a thing. It's saying, I am aware of where your power comes from, where your money comes from, what your standing is at the court. Because, of course, Harold is a consummate courtier. He's very well connected, but part of that connection is the wealth that comes out of of his home lands, no. He's hugely wealthy, and the whole family is wealthy. And of course, the other extraordinary thing about Hastings was two of his brothers were killed there as well,

and a third brother had been killed at Stamford Bridge. So it helps to explain why that battle, as it were, was the end of the House of Godwin, because they were wiped out, essentially. Only the younger ones were left. It just sometimes is so shocking when you think about it. I suppose I'm used to seeing the names and death dates on paper, When you think about it as being every one of your siblings, all of the men are just gone suddenly.

And to go from such a wealthy and respected and well-connected family to absolutely nothing is quite incredible. But this is, again, testament to how well William, I think, plays things. And I think as well with this, it shows, as you were mentioning earlier, William, you know, this is not his first rodeo, as we would say in America. He understands how to go to opponents. He has a really clear idea of what one does with enemies because he's surrounded by them in the French lands. To then say, well, you know, you may as well give it a go. In England, he's not coming from nowhere, I suppose. And this is rather a Norman speciality.

They are quite good at starting fights in clever ways and getting everyone onto a boat and bringing an army over. And I think he's no exception to this rule. He's no exception. He was a quite extraordinary warrior, and he was a brutal warrior. But he was exceptional. And of course, you know, the stories gathered around him at Hastings, that three horses had been shot under him like a cowboy. And at one point, people thought he'd been killed and he raises his helmet.

That's another famous scene from the tapestry saying, it's okay, lads, I'm still here. He was at the front of his troops. But Harold was no slouch. Harold was a great warrior himself and he'd won a great victory against the Welsh and Stamford Bridge. So, you know, they are titanic figures. And then you get to people like Harold Hardrada, who'd been a famous Viking in his day and it fought all over the Mediterranean and the Byzantine Empire. So we tend to lose sight of heroes and villains for the bigger causes of history.

But this is an era when individuals make exceptional contributions and really change events. What an individual, William is. I've been kind of railing against using modern ways of thinking to apply to this, but he almost lives up to, you know, our kind of sensibilities as individualists in the 21st century. You know, here is a man who really, really carved out a path for himself that no one would have seen coming. Really, I mean, this is not what you expect off of an illegitimate son, you know, it would be so easy to be just kind of subsumed into a court milieu. If you are an incredibly good warrior, sure, you might be able to get some lands of your own and have a spot, I suppose, in a more legitimate leader's army, this sort of thing.

But to make yourself into this battle-hardened leader that is really seen as a potential Duke is absolutely, it's such a feat, I suppose. You do get very interested in career. when you're reading about these people, whether it's William the Conqueror or Robert Giescar in Italy or Beaumont on the First Crusade. And okay, you have to allow for the fact that they commissioned the history being written about them. But even so, they clearly were able to attract people to their following. It was said of William the Conqueror in 1066 that people came from all over to answer the call to arms, that they had trust in him as a commander, basically. And I suppose that's borne out at the battle itself, because here we see two battle-hardened groups of individuals.

Granted, I suppose they have an advantage the Normans in that they've not just marched down from Stanford Bridge or taken a boat. But they are kind of fresh onto the beach, more or less, getting their land legs back again, trying to figure out what is going on. And William really pulls it out of the bag, I think. Yeah. Of course, we mustn't forget that there were plenty of folk traveling backwards and forth. forwards and there were Norman monks in England who knew the lie of the land. And it's pretty clear the conqueror was aiming for the Roman fort at Pevency. And that was going to be his bridgehead. But even so, it is pretty astonishing. But you know, you read about the others like Beaumont on the First Crusade. They are larger than life figures. They're just waiting for

film director to come along. Would you say that when we have the battle at what is now battle, is that what he was aiming for? Or did you say that he wanted to establish Peven's as a location where he could bring over more troops? Did he kind of expect to be in battle that quickly? I mean, I know he's provoking it. I know that he certainly wants Harold down there. But was this a little bit of a surprise, would you say? I don't think we know.

I think he was gambling that this would happen, whether he would have gone back if Harold hadn't shown up. I just don't know. The interesting thing is he did go back to Normandy quite quickly. I mean, was it March 1067? He was crowned on Christmas Day 1066. So within a couple of months or so, he's back on the boat. So he didn't want to leave Normandy for too long.

So I think he was gambling. But what would have happened if Harold hadn't given battle? I guess he would have established bridgeheads and then come back the following year, bit like the Romans, I suppose. This kind of return to Normandy also is something that quite interests me because it does become rather a feature of the Norman rulers. They do spend a lot of time down there, don't they? Of course, everybody wants to be the King of England.

And of course everybody wants the money and the prestige that comes along with that. But not everyone is actually particularly interested in being English, as it were. Yes, that's absolutely right. William Rufus and Henry I both want to get hold of Normandy. And they eventually sideline and imprison. Well, Henry I first imprisons his brother for the rest of his life and takes over Normandy. And I think it's because, again, you feel this sense of, inheritance. This is your legacy. Okay, you may be king of England, but you are Duke of Normandy,

and that is your lineage. So they are determined to hang on to it, even though, as the 12th century wears on, that becomes harder and harder. It isn't an easy proposition. Any document that you see after the Normans take over England, everything always says Rex Anglorum at Dux Normanorum. So, you know, the King of England and the Duke of Normandy. And of course, being king comes first, because that's all the kudos, right? That's all of the cachet that comes along with that. But these are people who see themselves as being Norman. These are people who see themselves as being stewards of a particularized culture.

And that has huge ramifications for the English when William takes over as a result. Yes. And again, Chronicles wrote about the Normans settled down and the English began to adopt their methods of clothing and you sort of think burrows, onions. And it's all hunky dory. But it wasn't like that at all. The antipathy, I think, between the English and the French must have been much greater than the sources will allow you to believe. I suppose the only qualification I make to what you're saying is that Henry I actually was born in England. So he can look to

that. Rufus was born in Normandy. One of the things that I'm always quite interested in, in terms of what William does, is not just his military prowess and his ability to actually fight these battles and take over. But it's the cultural signify. he then imports as well, an entire new vernacular of architecture. Really, if he goes back to Normandy, certainly that's true. But there are rather a lot of Normans suddenly in Essex and Sussex and ruling quite in micromanaging ways, being on the ground. And he understands these things. You know, he's a great statesman from the standpoint of that he knows what it's going to take in order to say, this is done.

This is now a Norman stronghold. Yes, and I think one of the most extraordinary things that William the Conqueror is this decision in Christmas 1085 to order the doomsday inquest because nothing has been done like it since. And when it was tried in 1966, it just didn't happen. And this staggering amount of detail. And that was William the Conqueror. Okay, you can look for precedence in the kind of documentation that preexisted. But even so, it's a terrific achievement. quite an old man by now. But the ability to, as you say, see the bigger picture. I mean,

when he goes for long periods to Normandy, he has to rely on people. He can't micromanage. He has to trust his brothers and his friends to get on with the job and all sorts of things happen that he didn't like. But at the same time, the vision to say, okay, now let's find out what we've actually done because I want to tax you even more and get more out of you. And you order the doomsday inquest. I often am very thankful that he did because what a document. I don't think there's a single medieval historian that hasn't used it at some point just when we want to get an idea of what any country might look like in the hinterlands, you know, saying, okay, well, this is an average village, what would that mean? We can apply that sort of across the continent,

and it's such an incredibly forceful document. I often wonder how a list of how many horses people have can be as interesting as it is, but it gives such granular detail and such a wonderful way for us to truly understand what's happening on the ground for average people. And also, I always have a giggle when I think about these clerks going round, and they're having to write things down in Latin and they probably speak French, but the folk who show up are speaking English and saying, well, there's five horses and three peasants and yes, there's a bill, and so on and so forth. And so you get these efforts you can see in Dune's Day book where they're actually trying to get their heads around the vocabulary that they're being told.

Rather a crash course, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. And the latest thinking is that it's all done in a matter of months, so it's absolutely staggering. I still can't believe it. You know, as you say, we are so incapable of doing something like this now and to think about having the wherewithal in the 11th century. To have a real full bureaucratic rollout of this level is absolutely overwhelming almost. So this is the interesting thing about William. The force of character and charisma to get that many horses on that many boats, get that many people across the channel.

And then to say, and now we need some people to do the most boring, nitpicky, slow count of every single thing in a country where you don't speak the language and everyone is slightly hostile to you. This is evidence of a man who commands great respect and foresight in a way that we don't often see from individuals in this period. I think that's right. I think also his mind was concentrated wonderfully in the 1080s by the very real fear that the Danes were going to launch a big invasion and something needed to be done. So it wasn't just his future that was in the balance. It was all of the Normans as well,

because if the Danes had successfully invaded, then the Norman conquer has sort of been overturned. I do think that we as well take that all for granted now. And of course we do. You know, we live in a society in the UK that is heavily Normanized. Our very understandings of kingship are really influenced by this in huge ways. But that doesn't mean that it was ever a done deal. And really, it's down to this planning that William is capable of. this ability to kind of see threats from other people. And, you know, I would say that one of the reasons why he's very good at ascertaining that things need to be in place and seeing that the Danes are a threat is because he'd already done it. Of course, you know, that opens you up to attacks from the outside. So his ability really to make England a Norman state in the face of so much uncertainty is a real, real feat.

One of the best striking images of William the Conqueror is the harrowing at the North. and going through the northern counties in the winter, destroying the livelihood of the peasants who are said to have had to resort to cannibalism because there was no food. But William celebrates a crown wearing in the ruins, the smoking ruins of York Minster, and where's his crown and state?

There he is at the capital of the north, wearing his crown and state. He had a terrific nerve. Again, think of his original coronation in Westminster Abbey, where there was a security scare and the houses outside were set alight by the soldiers who thought that people were going to kill William. But he goes through the coronation and is crowned. He doesn't falter. It's phenomenal to me because that could really have gone two ways. I mean, it's an incredibly strong signal to wear one's crowns in the smoking ruins of the largest

church in the area. But it could be a provocation if people had been able to kind of bring things together. I mean, surely, yes, obviously it's making a huge statement, but, ooh, again, I'm risk-averse. I could never be found wearing a crown and trying to provoke the people I was attempting to rule in such a way. But William does these things and it works out. I'm still boggled sometimes when I think about every single thing that he does and yet the chips kind of fall in his favor. Yes. And again, to move the goalposts again, that in the 1080s, The fears of an English king about what the Welsh are up to resurface because Welsh politics are terribly complicated, but there is a decisive shift. So what does William do? He goes all the way

to St David's via Cardiff and probably establishes a castle at Cardiff. Certainly there's a mint there, but he goes as far as the shrine of St. David. So already he's thinking big, Wales next. Rufus his son was said to have thought Ireland next on the list, as it were. You know, they have terrific ambition. Not only do they have this incredible ambition, but they have this real foresight and this understanding of cultural institutions and practices, you know, going to St. David's is a huge statement of intent, in fact. And it means that you understand the importance of things to Welsh people. In 1072, he'd marched, well, it was partly a naval expedition and partly a land expedition, but he'd gone up to Abernethy, of all places, of the biscuits in Scotland, to enforce. and over kingship over the King of Scots, Malcolm the Third, because Malcolm was causing problems.

Marius St Margaret, who we've seen as one of the legitimate heirs of the old royal line and sister of Edgar and so on. So he's not going to mess around with the King of Scots. The King of Scots wants to raid down to Durham and take slaves back, which is what the Scots were doing, then he's going to be taught a lesson. So William goes all the way into Scots territory to make sure that he confronts Malcolm. So no stone left unturned. It's just incredible. I'm exhausted just thinking about all of the things that William's able to do.

And I do think that sometimes when we're thinking about 1066, you know, and we think about all of these huge characters, both of the heralds, everyone who's in the mix, it seems to us almost that William is, I guess, the unfun one. And it's easy to say that because things turned out how they did. We're very aware of him. he's quite brutal in all of these things, but one doesn't have to ever like any king, I think, in the medieval period. That's something that I always say. But good Lord, is he impressive? He's impressive, but maybe we haven't said too much about the brutal side, because there's been

a certain amount of debate about whether he was exceptionally brutal in a brutal age. And this is a very hard one to call. I think he probably was. He's certainly a very unpleasant man and people feared him. But from the days when he cut off the hands and feet of the garrison Alon Saint in Normandy, because they taunted him about his mother, he showed what he could do. And again, the idea that you harried the north and you prevented, as it were, ordinary people from surviving the winter months and causing famine, that is not on as far as monks are concerned. This is a bad thing. He was also completely failed. in his relationship with his eldest son Robert.

And he called him Bobby Sox, short legs, prawn legs, because he clearly had little legs compared to the size of his body. And he had this sort of brutal approach, even to family life. On the plus side, he was rare in that he's never set to have had any sexual relations outside marriage. Because most of these high-bawen people did, they may have chosen a legitimate wife and then to promote. the children of that marriage, but usually they had children outside marriage. Henry I 1st had more illegitimate children than any other English king, for example. But William the

conqueror, no. Whether that was to do with the circumstances of his own birth, he was faithful to Matilda, his wife, but fairly brutal otherwise, not the kind of dad you would want. No, it's the pettiness that's quite interesting there. And I suppose it makes sense when one considers his own upbringing and the violence surrounding him. I suppose the lesson that he took away is that court life is violent and those who deal out the most of it are the ones that win. And I can't say he's wrong. He certainly showed us all. Well, again, if you look at the three sons, the ones who survived, Robert becomes the hero of the First Crusade and is a great warrior, but is damned in the Chronicles because he loses Normandy and ends up as his brother's prisoner.

William Rufus, completely different. Big question marks over his sexuality. Nobody really knows one way or the other what or if. And Henry I, cruel, but very, very effective as a king. Another king who was prepared to use cruelty to subdue his opponents. He slit the nose of one of his daughters. Well, it removes them from the marriage market. You can punish people really severely like that. So it's a different world. For the historian, it's very hard. to know whether these are exceptionally brutal people or just par for the course, as it were. It's so difficult, you know, because one does spend a rather a lot of time as medieval historian trying to convince everyone that it's not all blood, gore and violence, and these are complex cultures that are full of beauty. And then here comes someone slitting his daughter's nose and you're like, okay, we're back to square one. Well, it's thought that this is a period when you're moving away from the really brutal approach to killing people to a more sort of chivalric approach, the high-status people, you ransom, you put them in prison and then you

ransom them for money, but you don't go in for this sort of bodily mutilation. But you still find it with the Norman Kings. What a mixed bag. What an incredibly difficult man. There's the statecraft and the accomplishments, but just as an individual person, he's so incredibly complex, but I suppose that's what makes him fun to study. Yeah, I'm not sure how complex you had to be in this world, to be quite honest. And older historians used to like to think about the doomsday survey, as if William the Congress some kind of Henry the 7th with his account books and so on. But you have people to do this for you. And if you didn't like them, you got the next one in line and you gave them plump jobs in the church. So you didn't need to micromanage. You just got on

with stuff. I was thinking one of the interesting questions about these people is how you stop them killing themselves with eating too much. Because telling truth to power, who did it in this period? It was a dangerous prospect. And one of the things about William the Conqueror was he grew immensely fat. Most of them did because, you know, you couldn't say, really, King, don't you think you should be eating something low fat? Again, that's not necessarily the image that we all have of William. I mean, we have this dashing, gallivanting man fresh off the boat on a steed and not a guy who's mean to his son who's tucking into his third slice of lamprey pie. And I suppose that all of these things are available to a King, if you're successful enough. Yeah. But food is interesting. Clearly, one of the things the Normans did was they Jollywell loved exotic. You mentioned lamprey pie, but there are other sort of things, peacocks, exotic birds.

They loved hunting deer for the red meat and so on. And William famously establishes the new forest as a hunting ground and the forest laws. And this is the thing, right, about William, it's not just a battle, is it? There are all of these institutions. within England that we have as a direct result of his decisions to go to war. There are entire places that he physically changed the landscape. And so we're all touched by this. Every single person who lives in the UK, we are dealing still with the fallout and the

ramifications of what this individual was able to do. And it's a violent legacy, certainly, but one can't say that it isn't a legacy. Indeed. And you only start thinking about what would it have been like if Harold Hardroa and Tostick or Swayne Estrus strung the King of Denmark had succeeded because what William did was reorientate the British Isles towards northern France and the mainland of Europe and away from the Scandinavian world with apologies to the Hebrides and the Outer Isles which do remain part of the Scandinavia world. But you know what I mean? The cultural influences are coming from. from France. So it was a very important turning point in cultural terms. I think, you know, Judith, we're going to have to leave it there because otherwise I'm going to keep you for another hour. But it's so true, you know, this is the story of why when one talks about the United Kingdom or England at the very least, it's a part of Western Europe and not a part of Northern Europe. That's why we don't speak a Scandinavian dialect. It's such a huge thing to get

one's head around. And I think you can't say fairer than that when discussing William. Thanks so much to Professor Judith Green and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you like what you've heard, don't forget to rate, review, follow the podcast and tell your friends about it. My co-host Matt Lewis will claim back the Gone Medieval Throne on Friday and I'll be here again next Tuesday. Until next time.