School of War - Ep 76: Levi Roach on the Normans

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Levi Roach, Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Exeter and author of Empires of the Normans: Conquerors of Europe, joins the show to talk about the rise, violent spread, and ultimate normalization of the group of Viking raiders know as the Normans.   ▪️ Times  • 01:25 Introduction  • 01:53 Who were the Normans?   • 06:40 Transformations • 11:41 Parallel outbursts • 14:35 “If a Frank is your neighbor, he’s not your friend” • 16:01 Towards 1066 • 22:20 Dukes and kings • 26:34 Hastings • 31:42 William’s victory • 36:13 Rule by castle • 39:26 Siege and counter-siege • 41:27 Normans in the Mediterranean • 47:24 “Noteworthy, not unique” Follow along on Instagram

If the military exploits of the Normans happen to come to mind, what you are probably thinking about is 1066, the Norman invasion of Britain. But the Norman legacy, a critical subset of the broader tale of Viking raiders and their explosive interventions into more settled European terrain, is itself much broader and a significant and bloody part of the military and political history of France, Sicily, and Europe as a whole. Let's get into it. It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Hawaii. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infinite. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalee. We continue to face a grave situation in Iran. We shall fight on the beaches.

We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. For maps, photos, and more School of War content, follow along on Instagram at School of War. Just tap the link in the show notes and subscribe. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I'm delighted to have with us today Levi Roach.

He is Associate Professor at the University of Exeter, and his most recent book is called Empires of the Normans Conquerors of Europe. Levi, thanks so much for joining the show. Thanks for having me on. So let's start with a general orientation because I'm very excited about our topic today, because when we get into Vikings and the Viking way of war, my family comes from the Isle of Lewis, where the Gallic they speak up there is still heavily inflected with Norse vocabulary. So I think a different branch of the Vikings and the ones we're about to discuss, but I've always found this fascinating.

But who were the Normans? So as you note there, the Normans are in a sense an offshoot of the Vikings that we see in Europe, in the 7th, in particular 8th, 9th and 10th centuries. And we see this embedded in their name, in fact, which originally comes from Northmen. So Normans are the Northmen. This is somewhat lost in modern English, but it's actually kept in modern French and German,

where the terms for Norman and for Northmen, i.e. for Vikings, the standard terms, are the same. So Norma in French can be both Norman or indeed Viking. So we're talking about a group of Vikings who were very active across Europe, and Northman was one of the most common terms used for them. Viking was not the standard German period for the most part. It tends to be that they were called Danes or Northman. And a group of them settle in northern France in the early 10th century.

And this is kind of part of an arrangement that we've seen things like this earlier in Europe and indeed in British Isles. And this is in certain situations where Viking attacks are often getting particularly intense. Rulers will give away part of their land to Viking groups. to settle, but also then to defend. So it's the kind of classic old trick of setting a thief to catch a thief. So who better to defend against the Vikings than Vikings themselves? And that's why when we see these kinds of arrangements, they tend to be placed along the coastline.

And that's precisely what's happening here. So this is a group that's been creating all sorts of problems up and down the Sen River, all the way up to Paris. Indeed, it's part of the group that probably besieged Paris. Well, certainly besieged Paris in the 880s, but there's probably a remnant of that group, or at least some of them are, remained based. basically stationed on the Sen River for a number of decades there, creating all sorts of problems. And so what the then monarch, Charles the Simple, decides to do is to offer an olive branch

to this one group that's creating particular problems to them. And the offer seems to have been, I will effectively seed you much of the territory you're occupying already, kind of in around Ruyn up to the coast, in exchange for you now defending this. And this creates then kind of, if you will, a bottleneck, preventing other groups then getting into the SEM, which then runs up to Paris, which is already one of the most important, probably the most important urban center in the burgeoning kingdom of France. So that's kind of how we get from Northman attacking France and also Britain in these years to then a group settled in what is to become Normandy. And they continue to be called Northman. And in our very early years,

they tend to be called the Northman of the SEM to distinguish them from another group on the Loire, another major river in France slightly to the south and west of there. So contemporary writers the early 10th century know of two groups of Northmen who are very active in France, and the Northman of the Sem are those who are settled in what was to become Normandy. And what really distinguishes these from any other group of Vikings is the fact that this settlement takes off and lasts the test of time. Earlier settlements have kind of lasted a generation or two. This one is almost snuffed out but survives crucially. And so the name Northman becomes attached to those people of the area and eventually,

people start speaking of Northlandee, i.e. the land of the Northman, i.e. what we now know as Normandy. So the entire region starts becoming called the land of the Northman because it's the land of the Northman settled. So one of the things I'd like to understand in our conversation today, in a way, this is what your book sort of documents and is getting at is this process of how, you know, as a marauding band of, you know, rapacious thugs become a staff. established political players in existing systems, you know, on the continent in England, down in the Mediterranean, and, you know, ultimately, decadent players in that system. I'm also, I have a healthy interest in my own ancestry, which is normal, but I'm also perhaps

unusually obsessed with the Lampedusa novel, The Leopard and the amazing Bert Lancaster movie that comes from it. Have you, are you familiar with these? No, no. Oh, I, well, this is my, this is my recommendation for you today. So this is about the end of the, you know, effectively Norman aristocracy in Sicily. during Italian reunification. And Bert Langaster delivers an amazing performance

in the fantastic 60s movie that the novel became of, essentially the end of the story that you are telling the beginning of in your book, the dying gasps of the old order in Sicily in the face of modernity and nationalism and everything else.

But back to, you know, ninth, 10th centuries and thereabouts, how does it work? You know, how does the Norman way of war change from when they arrive in the Sen Valley to when they, you know, sort of establish control in some official way of part of what ultimately becomes France. You know, how does, how does their war making evolve, how do their politics evolve, like kind of describe the processes here? Okay. Yeah. Well, I think there's kind of two important elements here to bear in

mind. On the one hand, there is this element of change and transformation, which you're latching onto quite rightly there, which is the fact that these Normans do quite rapidly become, if you will, a kind of Frenchman, that the Normans of the 11th and 12th centuries are not Vikings, although they're aware of that heritage. They are French speakers. They are culturally French and otherwise. And this is a process that sets in pretty early because in Normandy, these Viking groups are settling existing land with existing peoples on them and are probably not a majority other than in really small pockets. So there is some evidence that some farmers are coming over and things like that. So this wasn't purely an elite takeover, but it was still largely an elite group.

And the overall population is still predominantly those who were there all along, which is why, for example, the language spoken in the long term becomes French. And they have a reason for buying into this because they want their colony to survive. And one of the reasons why they've been attacking France, as they have been England, as they have been parts of the low countries, is that they, in fact, want in on it. These are wealthy areas. They're rich pickings for plunder, but also one of the reasons for setting up to shop there more permanently is, in fact, better than once in a blue moon showing up and saying, give us some money, is, of course, to become the local lords and get some of that money on an annual basis.

So in a sense, for a long time, they've been wanting to tap into this potential. And it's therefore in their interest to a culture to a certain extent, to accommodate themselves to these systems. And that's kind of part of the deal when they're settled as well with Charles the symbol, is that a condition of settlement is that they become Christians, that they swear loyalty to him. and he then essentially cedes them autonomy. So do what you like there.

But answer to me when I need your help and take on our religion. And so that kind of sets the tone thereafter for what does seem to a bit of process of quite quick acculturation. So our second Duke of Normandy is called William, a good French name. And thereafter the names we associate with the rulers of Normandy, things like Robert and William and things like that. Those are all French names. They're not traditional Scandinavian names.

They're not things like Ivar or something like that. So I think there's quite an interest from quite early on for them to buy. It doesn't mean, though, it's a completely smooth process. There's in the 940s, for example, there is something of a backlash against this. There is quite a bit about apostasy that is giving up the Christian religion going back to paganism and some new groups arrived from Scandinavia. There does seem to be some tension around these things. And the sense is that the Ducal Court is actually driving integration, if you will.

But of course, not everyone is ever going to be on board with these sorts of things. So there is that kind of tension. I think alongside that element of change, the other thing we want to bear in mind is, though, that the Vikings for all their efficacy when it comes to fighting in battle and their weaponry and otherwise are not very different from the French and spirit. So in fact, their way of war is not changing dramatically except for the crucial fact that they're now stationary. They're no longer seaborn.

So one of the main thing that gives them their advantage over their opponents through most of that period isn't that man on man or in a pitch battle. They're much more effective. it's that in fact they can strike you when you're least expecting it and disappear if you show up. And more often than not, they avoid major battles unless they know they're going to win, because why fight if I can just go somewhere else where you are not and attack you again? So that's traditionally those strategic advantages. They're coming from Scandinavia where you can't easily strike back at them.

They're striking at you, disappearing swiftly. But obviously, once you've decided you are going to set up short, you want to buy into those political structures for those kinds of benefits I've already mentioned, you to a certain extent, see that. So although they do continue to have boats in contact with Scandinavia, the sense is that fairly rapidly they become a primarily land base, no longer primarily naval power. So there isn't much evidence of Normandy and Norman forces in the 950s, 960s, operating in a kind of maritime naval kind of amphibious manner because there isn't much benefit to them,

their main opponents or to their south, to their west, and to their east along the land routes. So that's probably the crucial difference if you're kind of getting. of that, but it's an adaptation to circumstances rather than the really learning new tricks. They're continuing to fight the way they always would have. It's just now they're based in France, not based in Denmark, Norway, sweet. Yeah, as you speak, I'm struck, and I'm curious to know if you think this is totally fanciful and off base or if there's anything to it, but I'm struck by the parallels with, you know, just a few centuries prior, the Arab explosion out of the Arab peninsula and, you know, the transition of Arab society from essentially,

you know, itinerant nomadic raiders to establish members of an existing system, indeed rulers of an existing system in an increasingly expansive way. The obvious difference, right, is that their explosion out of the peninsula happens at the same time and in some ways driven by this, you know, religious transformation that is happening within the Arab community. And there doesn't seem to be something like that in the Norman or the Viking story. What do you think about all that? Yeah. So as you say, the crucial difference that would be the religious, and that here the religious changes of anything in the reverse direction.

But I think you're right, structurally speaking, we're dealing with groups that are attacking wealthier opponents with established systems of rule that are actually quite effective. And the interest for them is, in fact, in buying into those and operating them. They just want to control the levers. They don't want to destroy the system, if you will, because it's the system that's generating the wealth. It's a system that is the thing that's in fact attracted them in the first place.

And so in that sense, just like the Arabs come into a place like Egypt and take over. in fact, there's not much religious change, even in the short term, in terms of that. And they want to keep an existing wealthy system running well. In that sense, it is very similar that the early Norman dukes want to continue running things the way they were, because that's what's attracted to them there in the first place. And when we look to the later 10th century, for example, the dukes of Normandy don't look appreciably different from, say, the counts of Anjou to take their neighbors to the southwest, with whom they're often in conflict, or the Counts of Flanders and other the major powers kind of in northern France.

In fact, structurally speaking, the Duchy runs very similarly to places like Anjou because it's based on the same kinds of systems. And the Normans have very little interest in changing those. They change some of the personnel at the top level, but they're not interested in a decisive break there. And indeed, they fairly swiftly start marrying in. So, again, someone like the Second Count William, his sister is married to the Count of Anjou. So they're starting to marry local noble women, marry off their sisters and daughters to these kinds of leading players. Yeah.

It's all well and good to sort of knock off 7-Elevens. And if you're a really successful crook, you could rob banks. But it's even better to own the bank, right? And this is sort of what the process that's occurring in some ways. Exactly. It's wanting to own the bank. It's, you know, if one was being deeply cynical, it's viewing government as another means of exploitation, as perhaps the ultimate means of doing. so why show up onto the Blue Moon and ask the local rulers to give us a bit of money?

Why not set ourselves up as rulers and get an even bigger chunk of it? Yeah. Well, this is something that when I was a student, the great scholar, Patricia Crona, made this point in a book that has stuck with me, is that it's a peculiarly modern prejudice, the notion that government exists for us, for the ruled. And the pre-modern conception of government right is that, you know, of course the shepherd will protect his flock. He's going to protect it so that he can be the only one who fleeces it, right? And that seems, in that respect, I take your point that the existing dukeal structure and structures of rule and what becomes France and what the Vikings are up to are not all that different. Just the established powers make more

money and have better systems. Indeed, none of these systems are especially benign. And there's a quite famous quote from Einhard, the great biographer of Charlemagne, the great Frankish ruler of the slightly earlier period in the late 8th, early night centuries. And he quotes what was apparently then a saying, which is if a Frank is your neighbor, he is not your friend. And as follow Timothy Reuters famously used this to make the remark that for most of Europe, it was the Franks, who were the Vikings, that were dealing with aggressive, exploited systems that exploit their neighbors when they can. Continental rulers do this exactly the same way the Vikings do, and the Vikings then enjoy for a period of time certain strategic advantages by virtue of being seabor. But when they

want to set up shop there, it's because they see these as systems that are not benign or nice, but in fact are roots to wealth and power and influence. So I think it would be malpractice to record this episode and not discuss 1066, which is how I think most people will know, you know, certainly growing up, that's what I knew of the Normans that they invaded and took over England in 1066. So I'd like to talk a bit about that and how that fits into the broader patterns that we're discussing. But I will say, you know, I'm not at all very knowledgeable about the period. And one of the things that I learned from your book, which was quite interesting, where the, in the sort of couple generations leading up to 1066, I was sort of unfamiliar with

Norman, I'm not even sure how to finish this. Norman's Anglo-Saxon interchange, the story of sort of Emma and Knut and things that I probably would know if I had had a better historical education in school. So maybe walk us through that. How are the Normans and the Brits as it were getting along in the lead up to 1066? And then we'll talk about 1066 itself. Yeah, absolutely. So as you say, one of the really crucial things to appreciate is that Norman influence on

England doesn't start in 1066. It kind of accelerates an existing process. And this process, in fact, goes all the way back to that story of initial foundation from Scandinavia and the links between Normandy and Scandinavia, which remained very much alive until at least late 10th, early 11th centuries. There are signs that Old Norse, the Scandinavian language of the period, is still being spoken, at least in pockets to that point. And crucially, when we start seeing Viking attacks intensifying in England again, so there

have been an initial wave of these in the ninth century, what's often called the first Viking wave, that kind of culminated in the reign of Alfred the Great, and what's known as the the Great Army, when it was a skeon of that, then it goes to France and then ends up kind of becoming Normandy. There have been this intense pressure in the late 9th century, and then it kind of lets off for a while in the early to mid 10th century. Late 10th century, we see it suddenly ramping up again, starting particularly in the 990s with a series of ever-intensifying events, raids during the reign of King Ethelred the Unready, so named after his reign, should be emphasized, not during.

Great names. Charles is the simple, Ethelred the Unready. Great names. Yes, history's not been kind to those who have to deal with Vikings generally. But crucially, one of the things they're able to do in these attacks, of course, is to leverage contacts they have elsewhere, and crucially, Normandy is one of those. And so these groups that are attacking England in the early 11th century are sometimes staying in Normandy. And it's for this reason, therefore, that the English court seems to reach out and want to make contact with the Norman Dukes to shut off those ports to them, crucially to deny further support to Viking attacks. And so this seems to be what the English king at the red house in mind in 1002 when he marries

Emma, who is the daughter of the Duke of Normandy. And so this is an attempt on his part after many years of escalating raids to gain additional support. Not so much it seems with the idea that the Norman dukes have a major, as it were, Navy to support them as simply to say stop offering safe passage and open harbors to Norman forces when they're attacking our kingdom. And in exchange, you now marry into a royal family. And this is a big coup for them. So they've been marrying into local comital and ducal families in northern France, very elevated circles, but one short of royal. And so this is their launch up into royalty. So there's

things to be gained on both sides. And it's actually quite a novel move for England. An English king has not married a foreign-born princess in over 100 years at this point. So that's what the deal is kind of meant to do. And there's some signs that it actually works. And certainly it means that in later years, for example, when Ethelred's briefly exiled, where does he go? He goes to Normandy. And so on. So it does seem to have some effect, though it doesn't save Ethelred's kingship. But the crucial point is it now means that the English monarchs and Ethelred's sons with Emma are related to the Norman Ducal family. And so when Ethelred's reign ends badly with Danish conquest, so the Vikings eventually get the upper hand there and King Canoeu comes in, crucially,

He has two sons with Emma who are very young in the period, and they go off into exile at the Norman court. Emma herself goes on to, in fact, Mary King, whether by choice or force, we don't know so much. But it now means we have, in Normandy, at the Ducal Court, two young princes who are of the English royal line on their father's side, but also of the Norman Ducal line on their mother's side. And so it means they are, as it were, kings in exile. And eventually one of these comes back to the English throne when the upper is, when they're not. and he presents itself, and that's Edward the Confessor in 10-42, and he comes back to England, is able to establish himself on the English throne. And crucially, for later history, the other crucial bit to this is he goes on to have no children.

Edward, the Confessor has children, contact to Normandy continue, but in a very, very different guise. But it means that the Norman Duke has a relative who he's in fact partially grown up with, who is now King of England without any sons. And so this creates a very powerful constellation, which William, who's now the new Duke of Normandy, the later conqueror, is able to start exploiting. But in terms of the kind of wider drift, the thing that's important there is that Edward the confessor has lived when he becomes King of England over half his life in Normandy. He has a Norman mother, and he brings Normans with him back to England. So he very much seized the Normans as his friends. They're the ones who helped him when he was in exile when the English political elite turned their back on him and were willing to,

bend the need to the Danish conquerors. It was the Normans who stood by him. And so throughout his reign, we in fact see tensions between the established powers that be in England, who were largely put into position under Canoogne and his sons, under the Danish conquerors, and Edward and his group of friends and associates who are primarily Normans or Frenchmen. And so whenever possible, he seems to be trying to place Normans into positions of power and authority. He creates Normans as earls of England. So we have English earls, or rather, perhaps better said, earls in England who are in fact Normans before the conquest, who are building castles on the French model before the conquest, who are speaking French. We have lower level elites also coming in.

And what this suggests is if Edward has children, we get no Norman conquest, but in fact we get continuing and probably intensifying Norman influence, because those are the people he saw as his friends and associates. And so in the longer, long-term drift of history, we arguably get to a Norman cultural conquest, regardless of whether or not we have a Norman. Mormon military conquest. But in terms of later history, crucial there is the fact that Edward the confessor has no children. And it's quite clear within about a decade of the start of his reign that he won't have any.

And then the big question starts becoming, and this is kind of in the 1050s, well, what will we do? Because this is what happens whenever we have monarchs without children is the vultures start to circle and people want to know what will be next. Can I, before we get to the climax of the story here, can I just ask kind of a, kind of a dumb question. What is the difference in the, in the period between a powerful Lord, a Duke, say, and a king? You know, you speak of the appeal to the Normans of like now we're, now we're sort of being major social promotion. We're now royal, whereas before we were simply

powerful rulers of a particular place of land, just talk a bit about the system. I mean, it's easy enough to sit here in the 21st century as cynical moderns and say, well, not much difference, really, you know, just maybe a bit more power by scale. But I don't think that's, how they would have looked at it, right? And just help us understand what the appeal is here. Yeah, as you know, I think the real appeal is largely an ideological one, at least if you're based in northern France. So crucially, kingship means many different things in different places in Europe and Spain. In England, kingship is quite centralized. Kings are much more powerful than their earls for the most part, and certainly than their neighbors and things like

that. And so there's a real sense of the king being one step above anyone else in the kingdom. That's also to a certain extent in Germany. In France, we've seen a period of real decline in royal power. And indeed, Charles de Sibble being willing to see Normandy is kind of a sign of the direction of travel there, that he's ceding authority away to other people, including his counts and dukes. And so we come to a point in the late 10th, early 11th centuries, when the French king is only really a direct ruler of a tiny piece, bit of land kind of around the Eil de France, around modern Paris, but is in practical terms no more powerful than the Duke of Normandy, the count. of the long as you, people like that, sometimes in fact is even weaker.

But he is king. He is technically monarch over all of them. And there is this ideological foundation to it. He is consecrated into office also religiously. There's a stronger religious justification for this role as well. So there are these things that set him aside, which mean that for Dukes of Normadies, there's a strong appeal to a royal title, independent of any power. In the case of England, that they are then starting to eye up, it's almost a bonus.

It's both that ideological appeal, but actually the fact that they think, the English kingdom is much more centralized than France. So, in fact, it is a kingdom you can take over and in which you can be much more powerful than anyone else as well. So that's kind of an additional bonus to someone like William, and it's partly how and why you can conquer it. So 10th, early 11th century France, you couldn't have conquered overnight in a single battle like England.

You'd have had to have defeated the Count of Flanders. Okay, great. Well, that's all right, but then you'd have to have defeated the Duke of Normandy, then the Count of Anjou, then the Counts of Blochart, and so on. and it would have been piecemeal, bloody, and slow. Whereas in a very centralized kingdom, like 10th, 11th century England, you take out the head, you defeat them in a major battle, and you can kind of take over overnight, which is what we see in England.

There are revolts, of course, not everyone likes it, but it's that kind of kingdom that can be conquered from the outside, and it's already been showing this, in fact, for William, when he's sitting there in Normandy in the 1050s, imagine, could I take the English crown? Well, he's seen the Danes do it. That's why his relatives had to come to his country. court. That's why his cousins were there waiting for their chance is because England has been

conquered in living memory. So yeah, he absolutely can. It's that kind of system that you can go over, take over, and continue to run the way it was previously, whereas France, by this period, is too decentralized in terms of where real power lies, although there's still this ideological idea that it's all part of a same kingdom in practical terms. It's autonomous. So tell us about Hastings in 1066 then, sort of the 1944 in reverse. What happens? So the crucial thing is that Edward the commissor dies to have children. That's no surprise. Various people have been jockeying for power and trying to line themselves up for the succession.

It's likely that his favorite solution wasn't William as his heir. There are some sources, particularly later Norman sources, all claim that he did, but they're all written after the fact and clearly protesting too much. These are post-factum justifications for Williams' conquest. And so they need to be treated with real caution. It is quite possible that he at some point considered lining William up. William was a relative of his. He had good relations with the Norman court,

and particularly in the 1050s in 10-5-2 when he has a real problem with the family of Godwin, Earl Godwin and his sons. He may well have appealed to the Norman court as a kind of a counterweight against the established powers that be in England. But it's clear that the Godwins won't tolerate a Norman succession. It's clear that William, at the same time, is very keen on this.

and it seems that Edward tries to line up distant relatives who's been in exile. So Edward the exile, as he's known, because it's two Edwards very confusingly. They weren't very original namers in terms of these royal dynasties. So he brings over this member of his family, who is the, I'm now trying to remember, the precise relationship here. It would be the son of his half-brother, who had also left the kingdom at the same time he had when the Danish conquest took place, but he was somewhat younger. And so he brings him back from exile, but unfortunately he arrives in England and dies before they even meet. So that would

have kind of solved all problems. Okay, I don't have any relatives, but I've got a member of the royal line lined up. However, hopefully for him, Edward the exile, has his own son, Edgar. And there's some good indications that Edward's hoping Edgar will succeed him. The problem with this plan is he's still quite young. And so Edward, the confessor, is now playing for time. and he dies when Edgar is still a team. And that's almost certainly too early because Edgar's not been brought up in England. He doesn't have an existing support base.

So this makes it quite clear that he's not going to succeed and the local magnates then need to decide which way to move. And most of them lump for Harold Godwinson, the son of Earl Godwin who'd been creating such problems for Edward earlier on in his reign, who's clearly been eyeing up these prospects himself and wants the throne if he gets a chance. So he moves very swiftly.

he's the person on the spot and seems to rush through his own coronation. It happens on the same day, possibly even in the same ceremony as the burial of the confessor. And this is not normal. Normally, coronations in England consecrations have happened many months afterwards. It's a bit like we're seeing right now, if you will, in England now that you don't rush these things through. You want everyone to be there. You want it to be a big celebration. This suggests a kudema. He knows that he's not actually the preferred successor. He knows that other people know this, and so he wants to create a fait accompli.

And he gets some real momentum going there. The English magnates seem to largely go the way behind him, whether they like it or not. That seems to be the way the wind is blowing. But at the same time, people elsewhere are now starting to sort of size up their chances. So we have Harold Hardrada, famously from Norway, who's claiming this as a successor to Canoebden, a kind of North Sea Viking Empire.

And then you have William and Normandy, whose claim is that I'm his closest willing relative that he had in fact entrusted this to me and William seems to be building up the fact that there may have been a kind of a vague promise of the throne or a possibility of this. He and his court then build this up as a big propaganda piece.

We know I was his chosen successor and anyone else is therefore a usurper so I have a divine right to this and he's using this, not least as a major propaganda tool in the early months of this because he's got to raise a massive army to take over to England. So he's a very experienced

commander, he's defeated the King of France, the Counts of Valjeu. William is forced to be reckoned with already, and the Norman duchy is very powerful. But he needs more men than he normally has available. And he needs men who are willing to go over to England and risk everything. And this is a big ask. So that's one of the reasons why we seem to be getting this intense propaganda, possible attempts to get people support as well at an early stage, certainly getting the Norman church behind him. So everything saying loud and clear, I'm the rightful heir, God is on my side, justices on my side. So that's what we sort of then start seeing with William ramping up his claims. And he raises a large army in the early summer months, helped by family members and other leading

magnates. But crucially, the wins are against him, and rather faithfully so. And so this means that he has to delay his invasion. Probably his greatest achievement in 1066 is not winning at Hastings. It's keeping together an army thousands of men strong, perhaps as many as 10,000 men, on the northern coast of Normandy and France for months on end. That logistically would have been a nightmare in this period, not having major outbreaks of disease and otherwise. So he manages to keep cohesion,

keep spirits up, despite the fact that they are unable to sail over and it's quite possible that they actually attempted it once or twice. There's some sources report small groups failing to get across or a few boats getting across, but in the end he ends up having to wait till autumn, till very, very late in the season. meanwhile though this is actually meant that they played into their hands so what at the time in july and august williams probably shading said thinking oh god this is all going terribly wrong it actually means though that the english have not been able to keep their army together they've raised their army herald's aware of what william's doing he has a large army in the southern coast but the normans don't come and they don't come and eventually he has to disband his army and then harold hard rada arrives from normandy and attacks him in the north and he has to famously ride up north fight a very intense battle against

The Vikings there win a close fought battle at Stamford Bridge. And it's then that moment that he hears just after winning a stunning victory that William has now arrived in England, that the winds have changed and William has arrived now in September. And Harold has to head immediately so to face this new Norman threat. And so you portray Harold and the defenders sort of caught between various dilemmas here. How much is actually left to chance at Hastings? that is to say, to what extent could it have gone either way? Or does William come into the day with very significant advantages? Hastings is a hugely risky affair.

The fact that the battle takes so long indicates that in terms of military technology and otherwise, there's very little to distinguish these forces. So the Normans fight on horseback a bit more than the English in this period, sometimes in older history books you all have heard of this crucial advantage of knighthood and otherwise, but actually well-trained infantry in this period on the top of a hill, which is where the English are, will not be. defeated blank cavalry, and they are not, in fact, in the early stages of the battle. So the battle was a high risk affair that could easily have gone either way. It was really a throw-of-the-dice

of, you know, heads-tails kind of affair, if you will. The reason why William is willing to risk it is, of course, that the entire conquest is risky and he needs a decisive victory, and he doubly needs it because it's so late in the season. He doesn't have any options left to do something perhaps more strategic of ravaging these places, out-maneuvering or otherwise. It's now mid-October. If it gets to November, December, the weather is going to get worse. Food supplies are going to get harder to find. Eventually, William's army is going to start starving. That's the simple nature of this.

The real mystery in all of this is why Harold is willing to take the risk. So William, you can see why. He's playing big. And even if he's defeated, it could go badly wrong if he could get killed. But also, he's in the other kingdom. They're not in Normandy. He's not in risk of losing his ducal title anytime, provided he emerges a lie. Whereas for Harold, he loses and he loses his life and kingdom, as indeed happens.

And so the question he's joined about for a long long period is why he does this at all. It's possible that he was goaded into this, that William has landed in Kent around the traditional Godwin family lands. So perhaps that was a factor in this. Another factor probably was his recent success. He's just won a stunning victory. He's buoyed with success. And he won that victory partly by marching up north and immediately engaging a battle, attacking Harald-Rodder, before he was ready. This seems to have been what he was counting on with Williams.

I'm going to arrive faster than he expects. I'm going to offer battle. He's not going to expect it. Our forces have just won a major victory. Morales high were going to win. So that seems to have been the kind of thinking. But it's easy, certainly in hindsight, to see the risks of that and to wonder why he didn't just say, no, we'll wait here.

We've got our army now raised. Let's see what they can do next. And what is the decisive action on the day to the extent that we know from the sources? So what seems to change the fate of the battles In the early stages, the English have the upper hand. They're on the top of a hill lined up and doing very, very well at repulsing successive Norman cavalry charges.

But what seems to have happened is when one of those is repulsed, the English chase after the Normans. And that means they have to break ranks somewhere. And now suddenly what had been a kind of battle that was to the advantage of heavily armed infantry becomes their disadvantage, because now once they've broken their lines, they are vulnerable to the Norman horsemen.

And so the Normans then turn around, as it were, their forces are rallied, and they go back and they defeat this group that have kind of chased them down the hill, who are probably hoping to now win the kind of decisive victory. And it's very hard to all lines when you're seeing your opponent retreating in that kind of manner in disarray.

And that seems to have then planted the idea of attacking, falling back, and then doing this as a fate. And so at least some of our accounts then claim that William does this two more times consciously, but at least once it happens, in the first case, probably by accident, but it's quite possible that William and his generals then realize this is the way forward, actually, let's go up, engage them a bit, fall back, pretend to be defeated,

get them to break their lines, do anything we can. And once they've done that enough times, then the English are now really decisively in the disinational, they're no longer able to hold the entire hill. And once they also start being broken up, they're much more vulnerable to archery as well. And so that's where we start seeing archers being depicted very prominently in the biotapestry at this stage and later on in the battle playing an important rule. And famously, Herald may well meet his death by an arrow in the eye at this kind. And that's at this point of the battle when the lines are no longer as tight where there's no longer as good defense against cavalry or against archery. So in the aftermath of the battle, obviously, Norman rule is established in a robust way.

And then we have this system of fortifications across the country, which are, you know, a major legacy of the period today. Talk a bit about that, about the castles, about what their purpose was. You know, was it, was it strategic, strictly speaking? Was it more political? Because, of course, you can drive around the UK today and visit these places. Yeah. So what we start seeing is castles probably up all over. Previously, there were only been a small number of these in areas where we've had northern urals and things like that, but suddenly we get this wave of them. And it is a reflection of this new elite. So one of the things that happens with William is because he's claiming that the English powers that be our usurper, the heralds a usurper,

this is a justification for a complete regime change. And William also needs to reward his own followers. So pretty rapidly, he starts stripping English magnates of their rights and giving them over to Normans and to other Northern Frenchmen who've been supporting him in his endeavors. Now, it probably isn't his plan from the start to get rid of the complete elite, but he is going to be seeing some replacement. And we see some early moves to this, particularly amongst the Urals, fairly early on. As the English seek to resist, resist his authority, and there are a series of major revolts, William gets more and more frustrated and seem to eventually then settled on a complete tabula rasa. These people will not acknowledge

my rightful rule, therefore they have no rights of property. And that's what's encapsulated in Doomsday book, this famous account he has produced of landholding across England. And we can see in that there's this stark change that barring the church, the change is almost 100%, that we have a completely new elite. It's the most complete replacement of Britain's ruling elite the island has ever seen, certainly of England, that anywhere in Britain is probably ever seen. So we have no survivors within two generations of the previous English ruling elite, many of whom had been there for generations prior to this. So in that sense, we've got these new Normans running the show, according to systems that very much remained in place as they were under the English,

but they need to secure their authority and the castle is the perfect tool for that. It's something that's already being used widely in France and crucially what distinguishes it from earlier fortifications in England because England's had plenty of fortifications before this, what are called burs. Sometimes that's the old English Germans

cognate with the German berg. But these are kind of bigish forts. These are designed for refuge for large numbers of people against Vikings. What a castle is, is a castle is designed for a very small number of people really and can be held by a very small number. of people for a very long period comparatively. So you're dealing with a much smaller kind of

fortification, often on a more raised position. So the so-called Martin Bailey castles where you kind of create your own mound if you need to. And so what this is is expressing a kind of new elite who are not necessarily very secure in their position, who need bold tools to be able to control the countryside, but these also then become a symbol of their authority in the countryside. So I don't think there you can really separate, if you will, the political, the ideological and the the practical military. They're all part of the same package because this is an elite of conquest that have come in. And this is the kind of projection of their power and authority, if you will. Is this, I'm thinking about this for the first time, but is the proliferation of castles with the

Normans, and I assume there are other sort of patterns of proliferation at various times in European history. Is this also the period at which warfare becomes much more oriented around siege and counter siege? Like to what extent had siege and counter siege been significant before this proliferation of castles and does this sort of accelerated as the main pattern of warfare? It certainly does. Yeah. So we have some hints of it already. So crucially, a place like London, although it's a big city. Also is very well fortified. So London, the Vikings under Ethelred tried to take it time and again, no success. So there are some pretty well fortified places already and some hints of that. But you're quite right. This is moving to a world in which sieges are much more

important. Open battles like Hastings are the exception, not the rule. William does not fight any more major open battles in England after that. It's mostly a matter of sieges on either side with rebels and otherwise. So this is very much the pattern and the way of the future. It's the way the warfare has been developing in France. So crucially, this is also kicking into overdrive, a process that was starting to happen in England already. So I alluded to the fact that there were already some castles before the conquest. What happens because of 1066 and violent conquest is we get lots of these popping up in the course of a generation rather than a slow proliferation over the course of, you know, 100 years, which is the kind of development normandy itself speaking through, and it's

still going through in this period. So we get these developments kind of brought into England and brought in and put, you know, kicked on to overdrive, if you will. Yeah. Well, let's shift gears here then and talk about the Mediterranean and the Normans there and in Sicily, which is a fascinating part of the story that you also tell in your book. And that again, I'm kind of fascinated with because of this wonderful novel in which I would say one of the main characters by the way in the novel is named Tancredi who is a a borderline penniless aristocrat who enters Italian politics in the 19th century sort of a great character sort of a proto-fascist figure is like completely amoral and you know the kind of the kind of person you meet at the end of something rather the the end of a particular

kind of elite rather than the beginning I think amoral and proto-fascist would probably be a fair description of many morally, more Norman leaders in the Middle Ages, to be fair as well. Fair enough. Fair enough. Perhaps an appropriate one for his name, site. Well, so tell us. So, again, I think people are generally familiar. A lot of high school students would correctly answer the question. You know, they associate Normans with 1066. I think there's probably less general knowledge about their exploits in the Mediterranean. How do those come about and what are the major elements of it? Yeah. So crucially, well before 1066, Norman conquests are beginning in Europe, and they're beginning, in fact, not in England, not at Hastings, they're beginning in southern Italy.

And what this seems to have developed out of is initial contacts between Normandy, the new nascent duchy in northern France, and Italy and indeed onto the Holy Land. So early contacts seem to have been in the context of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which is becoming much more popular in the late 10th, early 11th centuries, partly because of better communications, safer travel, partly because of religious developments within Europe as well. that are emphasizing more strongly Jerusalem as this holy place. So we have evidence of Normans being very interested in going there. And crucially, to get to the Holy Land, one of the most natural ways to go is via Italy in this period. And there's good evidence that quite a few people are doing so via places like other cult centers. So going via, say, Rome as a hugely important center in this period,

as the center of the Western Latin Church, and nearby places of pilgrimage like Monte Gargano, which is the shrain of the Archangel Michael. The Archangel cult is very popular in Normandy. You may have heard of Malsau-Michelle. That's St. Michael's Mount, literally, in English. So there's a strong Norman affinity to the Archangel Michael, and there's a very important cult site of his inn,

southeastern Italy. So there's good reason to believe that quite a few Normans are kind of stopping off there to and on the way from the Holy Land. And our earliest accounts of Normans being really active there, say that they are asked by the local population of Salerno, in southwestern Italy, to help out that they're being attacked by Islamic forces that Sicily in this period is held as an Islamic Amarate

and as part of the Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt. So they're having problems with attacks by Muslim forces and they ask these pilgrims on the way back, these northern pilgrims, hey, could you help us out please? And they say, yeah, yeah, sure, but yeah, we're pilgrims. We're not got weapons. I say, no, no problems. You bring the men, we give you the weapons.

So they give them weapons and they, of course, defeat them. And the story is then the local Salernage and say, hey, that was great, you know, could you stay on a bit, you know, please, you know, help us out. We could really do with you here. And they say, no, no, sorry, we need to go back to Normandy. But tell you up, we'll tell some of our kinsmen and we'll send them your way. Now, the story is only told in this manner kind of 80, 90 years later. It's clearly dressed up a bit.

But it seems quite plausible that that kind of affair was how these things started. It was groups of pilgrims, stopping all, finding out about things, finding there was a need for mercenaries for people to fight there. And southern Italy is highly fractured politically inspired. We have so-called Lombard princes, where the descendants of the traditional powers that be there. We have the Byzantine Empire in the Southeast, and then we have the Islamic Amarit in Italy. So we've got lots of potential for mercenaries to play off different sides. And so that's how the Normans initially come into this world. As mercenaries first for the Lombards, but rapidly they enter the employ of the Byzantines too,

when the Byzantines pride to take Sicily. And a certain point, they decide, hey, why don't we just fight for ourselves once they get up to crucial mass in terms of this. They get a reputation of being very effective fighters very early on. More come, there's more money to be made, so more people are interested in doing so. And then crucially, in about this kind of 1040s, they start saying, hey, why are we fighting for other people? We could fight for ourselves and set up our own kind of political community here.

And this is being driven then when they start creating these political structures, the person, the people who became their early leaders are the family known as the Holtvils. So we have this family who are from relatively lower air. in Normandy, who established themselves then as the leaders of this settlement and of this movement, and they're able to create a duchy, and then in a length of time, eventually a kingdom of their own there. And so they slowly but steadily gobble up what had been, first of all, the Byzantine, parts of the southern Italy, then the Lombard principalities, and then the Sicilian Amaract.

Crucially, in terms of the contrast with England, this has been done in a very piecemeal manner. So the Normans hadn't come over here as a single force with a single leader. they came in as multiple different groups with different interests and in smaller numbers. So it's a process there that kind of takes 50, 60 years, all the way from the 1040s to the 1090s. But crucially, one of our accounts of Williams Conquer conquest of England, William of Moms, a crucial source from England in the 10, 1120s, says that one of the reasons why William and Conquer wanted to take England is because Robert Gieskart, who was the leader by this point in southern Italy, had one greater acclaim than him.

and it would be a shame if somebody of lower birth were to achieve more than him. And so this is, according to William and Mons, is one of the reasons why William goes to conquer England. Now, again, that's somewhat dressed up in a nice account. But William knows this. Normandy remains in close contact. People are continuing to go to southern Italy. And it's almost certainly on his mind.

When we're thinking, why does he think, hey, you know what, I can go and conquer England no problem? Well, it's partly that Canute the Danish ruler has just done it. But it's also that minor aristocrats from the Contantan Peninsula or busy doing it in southern Italy. And if they can do it, well, I bloody well can too. And there is the sense of competitive one-upmanship that's driving affairs in southern Italy itself, because there's multiple groups trying to compete with one another and the kind of the hotels come

on top eventually. But there's also then the sense of competition between William and Robert and so on. And this seems to be one of the kind of keys to Norman success is this sense of wanting to do one better than anybody else or one better than the previous generation. So could you ask you to say more about this? because this has been on my mind looking at your book and now talking to you is, you know, what, if anything, is sort of special about the Normans and their cultural patterns and their politics and their way of war that leads to their success, you know, for several hundred

years in these different kinds of environments, right? Or, you know, should we reject the premise of that question and say, well, actually, there's lots of success going on in different sorts of places so happens that the Normans were also successful? But is there something about, you know, One theory that I can fabricate here off the top of my head is something about their barbaric origins that they sort of preserve through like a period of becoming players in established patterns of politics that makes them dangerous and effective. Or what is going on here that leads to, I mean, eventually there's a Norman on the throne in Germany, right?

You know, what's driving? As you say, that is the kind of central question they raise, really, is how much of this is, essentially Norman, how much of it is a broader process. And as you know there, it's important when speaking of the Normans to note that their successes are quite noteworthy but are not unique. This is a period where we see the conquest of much of Iberia by Christian powers, back from Muslim power there, where we see the Crusades in which the Normans are very well represented, but by no means unique. So it is a period where we see the kind of cultural and political forms of Central Europe of Germany and France, if you will, expand quite rapidly. We're also seeing significant German settlement and conquest in eastern and central Europe in terms of elites. So there does seem to be a bit of an edge in technology otherwise in terms of castles, in terms of knights and so on, heavily armored men or horseback that is giving some of these groups a kind of competitive edge.

And the Normans are participating in that wider process. But I think you are right to note that they are actually amongst the most prominent. Per capita, they are still overrepresented. It's not just that all of the French are doing this and the Normans, therefore, are represented there too. they are amongst the first to be doing. Their conquest of England and southern Italy happens before the crusades, before conquest of Liberia has really gotten underway.

And I think in terms of that, one of the crucial things that they have, particularly at those early stages, is that they have this knowledge of their own background. So while they may no longer speak on Norse, while I don't think there's an inherited kind of barbarism, if you will, they're well aware that their ancestors came here and conquered this part of Northern France.

And they all buy into it in terms of the elite. This is somewhat ironic because some of those elite members almost certainly are descended from Frenchmen completely rather than from Vikings. But they all buy into this political vision that we are the descendants of that. And I think that does give them a willingness to risk everything because that's what our ancestors did. And it paid off. So of course we can go to southern Italy and carve out our own conquest. Of course we can go to England. It's also what explains the dead ends we see from it.

They tend normal groups attempt to set up a kingdom of their own in Asia. are minor against the Byzantines, it fails. The rulers of Sicily tried to take North Africa. It doesn't last. But I think that it is this sense of, yeah, we can do that, which means that they have some spectacular failures. But when they succeed, nothing succeeds quite like the Normans, because they are willing to risk life and limb in that kind of manner. And I think actually some of that then catches on. And that's then where we see other French groups getting more involved is because they've seen the Normans doing it. And actually in terms of technology and nuts and bolts, there's nothing much to distinguish them. So then they start doing similar kinds of things. But I think

there is no doubt that the Normans are at the forefront of this and in a sense setting the tone for others. Levi Roach, author of Empires of the Normans, Conquerors of Europe, the fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for making the time. Thank you for having me on. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.