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The House of Normandy 1066 to 1154
A chronology of English history at the time of the Normans
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Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
Prehistory
and Anglo Saxon Scandinavian history
William I (The Conqueror) 1066 to 1087
On 24 September 1066, Harold reached
Tadcaster and marched on York the following day, to defeat Hardrada and Tostig
(who were both killed) at Stamford
Bridge.
Harold then marched south to meet the
Norman invaders who had landed without opposition at Pevensey on 29 September
1066. Harold was defeated and killed at the Battle
of Hastings on 14 October 1066.
1067
William levied taxes to pay off his
mercenaries.
The north rose up again, led now by Merleswain, Edwn and Morcar. William led an army to York and the rebels flew
into Scotland. York submitted and the Normans built a castle.
He left 500 men at York under William Malet and Richard FitzRichard.
1069
Another rising led to the death of
Richard FitzRichard and the Yorkshire thegns besieged York castle.
William moved back north and cleared the
rebels before building a second castle at York.
The Harrying of the North
After the Conquest William suppressed northern
England in the Harrying of the
North and started a period of ruthless
domination.
1070
During the Harrying of the North, the
Normans destroyed the sources of power, destroying crops and livestock and
killing the peasantry. This led to famine.
A Norman force ravaged Northallerton.
The Bayeux Tapestry.
A
mission arrived from Evesham Abbey Mercia in York, were joined by Stephen of
York and established a Benedictine monastery in the old ruins at Whitby. Some of the monks went to Lastingham
and they partly build a large church there.
1086
William had redistributed the old
estates to his supporters. There was a new aristocracy of Norman, Breton and
Flemish landowners.
At this time:
·
King
William held a small number of estates, including Pickering and Malton, directly himself
·
High
son of Baldric held lands including Kirkbymoorside and the Coxwold area.
·
The
importance of Gilling was replaced by Richmond when a Norman castle was built
there.
Large swathes of land were emptied of
the villein classes, including Pickering Forest whereas some places, like
Pickering itself and Coxwold were heavily populated by villein folk.
There
were some 10 active villein farms at Kirkbymoorside in 1086 and 36 in the wider
area. There were some 16 villein farms around Huttons
Ambo under the Lordship of Tosny. (John Rushton, The History
of Ryedale, 2003, 40).
Norman authority was consolidated by
castles, knights and the Church.
William next invented a system according
to which everybody had to belong to someone else, and everybody else to the King.
This was called the Feutile System, and in order to
prove that it was true he wrote a book called the Domesday Book which contained
an inventory of all the Possessions of all his subjects; after reading the book
through carefully William agreed with it and signed it, indicating to everybody
that the Possessions mentioned in it were now his (1066 and all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
William II (“William
Rufus”), 1087 to 1100
1087
William
Rufus was William I’s second son. The eldest son was Robert Curtose who took
the dukedom of Normandy.
Another Scottish force under Malcolm
Canmore attacked the north of England again. Roger de Mowbray was made Earl of
Northumberland. He built New Castle as a defence against invasion.
The
monks led by Stephen of York built St Mary’s Abbey from 1088 to 1089.
1096
The First Crusade.
1100
He was killed in mysterious
circumstances in the New Forest in 1100.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on The
Davidian Revolution and the great changes in Scotland associated with David
I (c1084 to 1153), from the founding of trading towns such as Edinburgh to new
monasteries and new ways of governing.
Henry I, 1100 to 1135
Henry I was William I’s younger son.
To secure
support he agreed in his coronation charter that he would restore the laws of
Edward the Confessor and he
married Matilda in a sign of restoration of the more ancient line of kings.
The early part of Henry I’s reign was
dominated by struggle with his older brother Robert Curtose, which took him to
Normandy for much of his time, leaving Matilda and Roger, Bishop of Salisbury,
to administer the English Kingdom.
The succession issue was becoming
problematic with more claimants to the throne.
The start of the Guild system to protect
trade, set prices and offer apprenticeships.
Population reaches about 2 million.
Henry I defeated his elder brother and rival
Robert Curthose at the Battle
of Tinchebrai.
After his victory he visited York and Pickering. Henry I redistributed land from Robert
Curtose’s supporters, including Robert de
Stuteville to his new men, including Nigel d’Albini,
ancestor of the Mowbray family and Robert de Brus.
The new barons resettled the landscape
with freeholders, villeins and cottagers. The bondsmen were settled as unfree
men, sometimes referred to as serfs or villeins. The Norman, Fleming and Breton
landowners formed a new ruling class of manor lords.
Freemen
were sometimes created in return for service. Roger de Mowbray settled freeholds near Thirsk on his
butler, usher, cook, baker and musicians (John
Rushton, The History of Ryedale, 2003, 49).
1120
Then in 1120, Henry I’s only legitimate
son (the natural heir), William Adelin was killed in the White Ship incident.
First
Cistercian abbey at Waverley.
Henry I decreed that a huge area from York to the coast, including
Ryedale and Pickering, should be reserved as Royal Forest, where hart, hind, wild
boar and hawk were preserved solely for the King. Officers were appointed to
guard the royal forests and new administrators were appointed such as the fee
foresters and serjeantes. Some of these officers were
able to held their land rent free in return for the
service as a forester. When Henry I established the Forest of Pickering as a
deer preserve he gave Guy the Hunter half the Aislaby estate, in return for training a royal hound.
Legend claims that two brothers were given a falcon’s flight of land, for
repelling a Scots invasion. Perhaps the other brother was William of Aislaby, who had the other half.
1130
Financial records kept by the Exchequer
for the Crown, known as the Pipe Rolls, recording Exchequer payments and names
of tenants.
Surnames began to be used more widely to
assert rights to hereditary property.
1135
When Henry I died, the succession crisis
led to a period of civil war in England.
There
was sporadic conflict between a different Matilda (Henry I’s daughter and dowager
empress of Germany through marriage), and Stephen of Boulogne (or Stephen of
Blois) (William I’s grandson). This was a period of breakdown in Royal
authority, the period often being called ‘The Anarchy’.
The
moment Stephen came to the throne it was realised that he was a mistake and had
been christened wrong; thus everything was thrown into
confusion. Stephen himself felt quite uncalled for, and even his Aunt Matilda
was able to take him in when she began announcing that she was the real King
(1066 and all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman,
1930).
1138
The Scots took advantage of the Anarchy
but were defeated at the Battle of the Standard (named after a wagon with a
mast carrying a crucifix and silver pyx) in 1138. David of Scotland took up
arms to support Empress Matilda, the daughter of Henry I. Also known as the
Battle of Northallerton, the Battle
of the Standard was one of two major battles fought in the civil war
between the Stephen and Empress Matilda in the troubled times known as The
Anarchy.
The younger Brus
joined David, but the bulk of the Norman barony remained loyal to the new King
Stephen.
1144
The Second Crusade.
Eventually Matilda’s son, Henry was
recognised as Matilda’s future heir.
This saw the end of Norman rule, and the
start of a period of rule in England by the House of Anjou, generally referred
to as the Plantagenets.