The Norman Conquest of England: The Alternative Histories
We take a look at two alternative histories of the Norman Conquest – Waces’s Roman de Rou and the Vita Haroldi
Quiz: The Norman Conquest
How well do you know the Norman Conquest of England? Here are ten questions about the Battle of Hastings and other events of 1066.
The Bayeux Tapestry: The Case of the Phantom Fleet
There is a large bibliography of secondary works concerning the Bayeux Tapestry, but when one reads much of the published material it is clear that a high proportion of this comment, as one would expect, copies and builds on previous authors.
Aelfgyva: The Mysterious Lady of the Bayeux Tapestry
One of the most intriguing of these puzzles centers upon a scene in that initial segment of the Tapestry treating with Earl Harold Godwinson’s famed and controversial visit to the court of the Norman duke
Ten Things You May Not Have Noticed in the Bayeux Tapestry
The designer of the Bayeux Tapestry also included little details that the casual viewer might miss. Here are ten images to take a second look at.
Book Review: The Rhyme of King Harold
The Rhyme of King Harold is an entertaining way to learn more about the flip side of the Bayeux Tapestry and getting in touch with your Saxon roots.
The 1066 Norwegian Invasion of England in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The goal of this paper is to understand how the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle portrays the Norwegian Invasion of 1066 and how they characterize the Norwegians, particularly the figure of Haraldr Harðráði.
Unpleasant Affairs That Please Us: Admonition and Rebuke in the Letter Collections of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 11th and 12th Centuries
From the Norman Conquest in 1066 up to the famous “murder in the cathedral”2 in 1170, six archbishops of Canterbury ruled over the English church…
Harold Godwinson’s Posthumous Reputation, 1066-c.1160
This text will show in which ways Harold’s posthumous reputation was constructed to cement the Norman claim to legitimacy and how this legacy lasted well beyond William the Conqueror’s death.
Writing conquest: traditions of Anglo-Saxon invasion and resistance in the twelfth century
Writing Conquest examines the ways in which Latin, Old English, and Middle English twelfth-century historical and pseudo-historical texts remembered and reconstructed three formative moments of Anglo-Saxon invasion and resistance…
Great Medieval Fiction 2013!
For those of you who enjoy some fantasy or a historical novel – this list is for you!
1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
As the most pivotal and traumatic event in English history, the Norman Conquest continues to generate controversy and debate, especially among those who know little about it or enjoy passing judgement on the past.
The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England
The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England By Marc Morris Pegasus Books, 2013 ISBN: 978-1-60598-451-3 Publisher’s Description: An…
A stitch in time
Who commissioned the tapestry? Who made it, where and when? Where was the Tapestry first displayed? Was the message of the Tapestry outright Norman propaganda or a more evenhanded attempt at Anglo-Norman reconciliation?
King Harald Sigurdsson of Norway in History and Legend
Yet behind the legend we find that Harald is a much more complex figure than Adam of Bremen would have you believe. The most extraordinary episodes in Harald’s life were in fact historical, and can be discerned from the tales that have come down to us if only we are willing to tease out the facts from the corpus of myth surrounding him.
Theft, Homicide and Crime in Late Anglo-Saxon Law
In order to understand these issues properly we must first consider our own ideas about ‘crime’, a deeply problematic term for the period before the late twelfth century.
William the Conqueror and the Channel Crossing of 1066
William the Conqueror waited several weeks before making his maritime crossing of the English Channel in 1066 – was he hampered by weathered or did the Norman Duke intentionally remain in Normandy, hoping that events in Anglo-Saxon England would turn to his favour?
Conquest, Contact, and Convention: Simulating the Norman Invasion’s Impact on Linguistic Usage
How do conventions arise? Lewis adressed this in his work Convention via signaling games, a mathematical model of communication where a sender sends a message to a receiver who then interprets it. When we say conventions, we mean by that a system of coor- dinated behavior pairing information states with actions
England: One Country, Two Courts
The tension created by the two-court system is an integral part of England’s administrative and constitutional history. Exactly how integral has generated a considerable amount of scholarly work, from explanations of the sources of the conflict, to how the disagreement over jurisdiction was addressed throughout the Middle Ages, to what impact the issue had in shaping England’s overall political development.
Conquest or Colonisation: The Scandinavians in Ryedale from the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries
The study of settlement history has developed within the fields of history, archaeology and geography. As a result much of the work carried out in settlement studies has borrowed the research and conclusions of scholars from other disciplines.
“The English Exodus to Ionia”: The Identity of the Anglo-Saxon Varangians in the Service of Alexios Comnenos I (1081-1118)
Most historians who focus on this period have examined the effects of the Norman invasion and its aftermath on the island itself, but few have studied the journeys of those who left England in search for new opportunities in foreign lands.
Who was the mysterious Ælfgyva in the Bayeux Tapestry?
Joanna Laynesmith, a medieval historian from the University of Reading offers two possibilities in a new article that appears in the October issue of History Today.
Medieval Book History Week Lecture: “Practical Latin and Formal English in the 14th-15th Centuries”
This lecture is part of Medieval Book History Week. Renown Professor Jeremy Catto spoke about literacy and language in England during the later Middle Ages at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto.
Author looking to crowdfund novel set in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of 1066
A British author is using the innovative crowdfunding publisher Unbound to raise fund to create a new novel set in eleventh-century England.
A Historiography of Chastity in the Marriage of Edith of Wessex and Edward the Confessor
While records of Edith’s life and her marriage to Edward are poor, the historiography of those who narrated her life after her death is rich. In some ways, the historiography of her life was directly related to that of her husband’s.