Norman

Origins and formation

Britannica presents the Norman Conquest as William, duke of Normandy’s military conquest of England, effected above all by the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 and followed by profound political, administrative, and social change. The drama had begun under Edward the Confessor. He had no child and had promised the throne to more than one party, including the man who became Harold II. On his deathbed, 5 January 1066, Edward named Harold his successor, and Harold was crowned the next day. The Bayeux Tapestry and other Norman sources say that in 1064 Harold had sworn, in William’s presence, to defend William’s right. The official guide tells of a people who sailed from a stony shore, paused in France, absorbed much of its language and culture, and set out again in 1066. Britannica tells a disputed succession. It is not a single voyage from Scandinavia to London.^{[1] [3] [4]}

Harold’s summer was not only a watch on the Channel. His brother Tostig raided the coasts from May and later joined Harald III of Norway. Harold kept his militia through the summer and dismissed it early in September for lack of supplies and for the harvest, leaving the south open. Harald and Tostig landed in the north first. On 25 September Harold defeated them at Stamford Bridge, and both were killed. William had assembled about 4,000 to 7,000 men by August, but contrary winds held his ships for eight weeks. The wind changed on 27 September. He landed at Pevensey on the 28th and moved to Hastings. Harold came south with about 7,000 men, approached on 13 October, and was surprised at dawn on the 14th. The northern victory came first. The southern landing came after. A bonus for standing beside the coast does not sort those weeks.^[1]

The battle was not one charge. Harold’s infantry held against William’s cavalry. A rumor that William was dead sent the Norman horsemen into flight. William lifted his helmet to show that he was alive, rallied them, and killed many of the English. Late in the afternoon Harold was killed, by an arrow in the eye according to the Tapestry, and by nightfall the rest had fled. William isolated London, and the chief English leaders submitted at Berkhamstead. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. Sporadic revolts continued until 1071. The rising in Northumbria in 1069–70 was put down by William himself, who devastated large tracts of the north. The subjection also included the rapid building of many castles. The guide ends with a Norman ruling class that eventually blended into the population. Britannica stresses the near replacement of the English aristocracy. If blending came, it was not the work of coronation day.^{[1] [3] [4]}

Defining periods

The conquest changed whom England faced. Britannica says William’s victory cut England’s links with Scandinavia and brought the kingdom into closer contact with the Continent, especially France. Inside England the sharpest change was land tenure and military service. William divided the country among about 180 Norman tenants-in-chief and innumerable intermediate tenants, holding by knight service. The English aristocracy was almost wholly replaced, and the upper clergy and administrative officers changed in a similar way. That is a reconstruction of the top of society. It is not a knight produced by every coastal tile.^[1]

The older government was not thrown out as a set. Anglo-Saxon England already had central and local administration and an effective judicial system. William’s coronation oath showed an intention to continue the English royal tradition. The old districts were not replaced by the new fiefs, and feudal justice did not normally take the customary work of shire and hundred courts. The common law continued there and in the king’s court. New elements included a restricted forest law, trial by combat beside the older ordeals, and greater use of the sworn inquest of neighbors. Ecclesiastical cases were removed from secular courts. All the Anglo-Saxon bishops except Wulfstan of Dorchester were replaced. Stigand of Canterbury was deposed in favor of Lanfranc of Bec. Written English almost disappeared as the language of literature, law, and administration, succeeded by Latin and then by Anglo-Norman, and hardly returned until the 13th century. The guide’s remark about absorbing French can sit beside that paragraph. It describes a written language after the conquest, not an assimilation finished before the landing.^[1]

The White Tower is the castle most easily lifted out on its own. Britannica says that immediately after the Christmas coronation of 1066 William began fortifications on the north bank of the Thames, to dominate the merchants and to control access to the Upper Pool. The central keep, the White Tower, was begun about 1078, of limestone from Caen in Normandy, just inside the old Roman city wall. In the 12th and 13th centuries the defenses were extended beyond that wall, and the White Tower became the nucleus of concentric wards. The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. An 11th-century keep, and later uses as prison, mint, menagerie, and place of execution, are stacked in one complex. A wonder does not separate those centuries.^[2]

Legacy and interpretation

Historians have long disputed how large the changes were and whether they were desirable. What Britannica holds clearly is the turn in political connections, the redistribution of land at the top, and the break in written English. It also holds that the old courts went on. Normannitas cannot be reduced to a story in which a foreign system simply covers a local one. Replacement and continuity are both there. A knight unit should be read beside 180 tenants-in-chief and beside shire courts that still sat.^[1]

The Bayeux Tapestry gives the conquest a visible narrative and also shows the edge of that narrative. It is wool embroidery in ten colors on linen that was already woven, 224 feet long and about 20 inches wide, with more than 70 scenes and Latin inscriptions. It is not a woven tapestry. The story begins in 1064, when Edward sends Harold to Normandy, and ends with the flight of the English from Hastings in October 1066. The end of the strip is lost. It may once have continued to the Christmas coronation. It is first recorded in an inventory of Bayeux Cathedral in 1476. It was once attributed to Matilda, William’s wife. The more usual judgment is that Odo, bishop of Bayeux and William’s half-brother, may have commissioned it, no later than about 1092, and that the embroiderers may have been nuns of Barking Abbey in Canterbury. It is important evidence, especially for Harold’s relation to William before 1066. It is not a neutral transcript of the whole year, and a game tradition cannot replace the missing end.^[3]

A closer look

The guide treats the Motte and the Bailey as fortifications, and the Donjon grants a free Chevaler when completed. Britannica describes the many castles built quickly after the conquest, and the White Tower as a keep begun about 1078, with concentric walls added in the 12th and 13th centuries. In the guide the motte, the bailey, and the keep are three things that can be built apart. In the Tower’s history the keep comes first and the concentric wards come later. Placing all three game buildings in October 1066 flattens the order in which a fortress was made.^{[1] [2] [4]}

The Sokeman is the guide’s settler, and a new town receives a wall in its center. The conquest history used here describes tenants-in-chief, knight service, and castles. It does not make that legal status the founder of towns. The White Tower must be built beside a city hall and grants happiness for unique traditions slotted in the government. In Britannica the keep stands near the Roman wall and is built of Caen stone. It became a prison and an armory later. Happiness and tradition slots are rules. They do not explain where the stone was quarried.^{[1] [2] [4]}

In Civilization VII

The official guide names the ability Normannitas. It presents Donjon as the quarter, Motte and Bailey as the buildings, Sokeman as the settler, Chevaler as the cavalry unit, and the White Tower as the associated wonder. The simplified Chinese guide names the same slots in its own words. The Chevaler gains strength against units with less movement. That is not the sequence in which Harold’s infantry held and William’s cavalry fled and then rallied.^[4]

The ability gives land units and fortified districts more strength beside the coast, and more health to fortified districts. Hastings was near the coast, but Harold fought first at Stamford Bridge, and William was held by the wind for eight weeks. A coastal bonus does not sort that calendar. The accessed guide does not identify an edition. The codex publishes the essay with that gap visible. No published essay on England is available to continue the story. The succession dispute, 14 October, the Christmas coronation, and the White Tower of about 1078 belong apart.^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}