THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
=1. General Results of the Conquest.=--We must carefully distinguish
the immediate effects of the Norman Conquest, the changes which it made
at the moment, from its lasting results which have left their mark
on all the times which have come after. In many ways these two have
been opposite the one to the other. It might have seemed at the time
that the English people had altogether lost their national life, their
freedom, their laws, their language, and everything that was theirs.
But in truth the Norman Conquest, which at the time seemed to destroy
all these things, has actually kept to us all these things--except our
language--more perfectly than we could have kept them if the Norman
Conquest had never happened. We can see this by comparing the course of
our history with that of other kindred nations which never underwent
anything like the Conquest. In no other land have things gone on
from the beginning with so little real break as in England. From the
earliest times till now, England has never been without a national
assembly of some kind. Our national assemblies have changed their name
and their form; but they have never wholly stopped; we have never had
to begin them again as something altogether new. But in many other
lands the national assemblies stopped altogether, and they have had
to be set up again as something new in later times, very often after
the pattern of ours. And so it is with many other things, which might
have died out bit by bit, if there had never been any Conquest, and
which might have been suddenly cut short, if the Conquest had been of
another kind from what it was. It is the foreign conquest wrought under
the guise of law which is the key to everything in English history.
And we shall find that the Norman Conquest did not very greatly bring
in things which were quite new, but rather strengthened and hastened
tendencies which were already at work. We shall see many examples of
this as we go on.
=2. Intercourse with other lands.=--One very clear case of this rule
is the way in which England now began to have much more to do with
other lands than she had had before. But this was only strengthening
a tendency which was already at work. From the reign of Æthelred
onwards England was beginning to have more and more to do with the
mainland. Or rather, whereas England had before had to do, whether in
war or in peace, almost wholly with the kindred lands of Scandinavia,
Germany, and Flanders, she now began to have much to do with the
Latin-speaking people, first in Normandy, then in France itself. The
great beginning of this was, as we have already said, the marriage of
Æthelred and Emma. Then came the reign of their son Edward, with his
foreign ways and foreign favourites. All this in some sort made things
ready for the fuller introduction of foreigners and foreign ways at
the Conquest. When the same prince reigned over England and Normandy,
and when in after times the same prince reigned, not only over England
and Normandy, but over other large parts of Gaul, men went backwards
and forwards freely from one land to another. If strangers held high
offices in England, Englishmen often held high offices in other lands.
Our kings too, strangers by descent, went on, even after they had quite
become Englishmen, marrying foreign wives and giving their daughters
to foreign princes, far more commonly than had been done before.
Foreign trade too increased; England had a very old trade with Germany
and Flanders; this in no way ceased, while a great trade with Normandy
and other parts of Gaul grew up. And, besides the fighting men and
others who followed the kings, not a few merchants and other peaceful
men from other lands settled in England. In every way, in short,
Britain ceased to be a world of its own; England, and Scotland too,
became part of the general world of Western Europe.
=3. Effects of the Conquest on the Church.=--In nothing did this come
out more strongly than in the affairs of the Church. The English Church
was, more strictly than any other, the child of the Church of Rome,
and she had always kept a strong reverence for her parent. But the
Church of England had always held a greater independence than the other
churches of the West, and the kings and assemblies of the nation had
never given up their power in ecclesiastical matters. Church and State
were one. But from the time of the Conquest, the Popes got more and
more power, as was not wonderful when the Conqueror himself had asked
the Pope to judge between him and Harold. Gradually all the new notions
spread in England; the Popes encroached more and more, and laws after
laws had to be made to restrain them, till the time came when we threw
off the Pope’s authority altogether. The affairs of Church and State
got more and more distinct; the clergy began to claim to be free from
all secular jurisdiction and to be tried only in the ecclesiastical
courts; the marriage of the clergy too was more and more strictly
forbidden. All this was the direct result of the Norman Conquest. If
the Conquest had never happened, it might have come about in some other
way; but it was in fact through the Conquest that it did come about.
William the Conqueror, like many other great rulers, set up a system
which he himself could work, but which smaller men could not work. In
after times the kings and popes often played into one another’s hands
to get their own ends, not uncommonly at the expense of both clergy and
people. More than once the whole nation of England, nobles, clergy, and
commons, had to rise up against Pope and King together.
=4. Foreign Wars.=--It was also owing to the Norman Conquest that
England began to be largely entangled in continental wars. Here again,
this might very likely have come about in some other way; but this was
the way in which it did come about. As long as Normandy was a separate
state lying between England and France, England and France could hardly
have any grounds of quarrel. But when England and Normandy had one
prince, England got entangled in the quarrels between Normandy and
France. England and France became rival powers, and the rivalry went
on for ages after Normandy had been conquered by France. Then too both
England and Normandy passed to princes who had other great possessions
in Gaul, and the chief of these, the duchy of Aquitaine, was kept by
the English kings long after the loss of Normandy. Thus, through the
Norman Conquest, England became a continental power, mixed up with
continental wars and politics, and above all, engaged in a long rivalry
with France.
=5. Effects on the Kingly Power.=--One chief result of the Norman
Conquest was greatly to strengthen the power of the kings. The Norman
kings kept all the powers, rights, and revenues which the English
kings had had, and they added some new ones. A king may be looked on
in two ways. He may either be looked on as the head of the state, of
which other men are members, or else as the chief lord, with the chief
men of the land for his men, holding their lands of him. Both these
notions of kingship were known in Europe; both were known in England;
but William the Conqueror knew how to use both to the strengthening
of the kingly power. Where the king is merely the lord of the chief
men, the kingdom is likely to split up into separate principalities,
as happened both in Germany and in Gaul. William took care that this
should not happen in England by making his great law which made every
man the man of the king. But when this point was once secured, it added
greatly to the king’s power that he should be personal lord as well as
chief of the state, and that all men should hold their lands of him.
The Norman kings were thus able to levy the old taxes as heads of the
state, and also to raise money in various ways off the lands which were
held of them. They could, like the old kings, call the whole nation
to war, and they could further call on the men who held lands of them
either to do military service in their own persons or to pay money to
be let off. Thus the king could have at pleasure either a national
army, or a _feudal_ army, that is an army of men who did military
service for their _fiefs_, or lastly an army of hired mercenaries. And
the kings made use of all three as suited them. Another thing also
happened. In the older notion, kingship was an office, the highest
office, an office bestowed by the nation, though commonly bestowed on
the descendants of former kings. But now kingship came to be looked
on more and more as a possession, and it was deemed that it ought to
pass, like any other possession, according to the strict rules of
inheritance. Thus the crown became more and more hereditary and less
and less elective. For several reigns after the Norman Conquest, things
so turned out that strict hereditary succession could not be observed.
Still, from the time of the Conquest, the tendency was in favour of
strict hereditary succession, and it became the rule in the long run.
=6. Effects on the Constitution and Administration.=--We have already
seen that both William the Conqueror and the Norman kings after him
made very few direct changes in the law. Nor did they make many formal
changes in government and administration. They destroyed no old
institutions or offices, but they set up some new ones by the side of
the old. And of these sometimes the old lived on till later times,
and sometimes the new. And sometimes old things got new names, which
might make us think that more change happened than really did. And in
this case again sometimes the old names lived on and sometimes the
new. Thus the Normans called the _shire_ the _county_, and the king’s
chief officer in it, the _sheriff_, they called the _viscount_. Now we
use the word _county_ oftener than the word _shire_; but the sheriff
is never called _viscount_, a word which has got another meaning. So,
in the greatest case of all, the King is still called _King_ by his
Old-English name, but the assembly of the nation, the _Witenagemót_
or Meeting of the Wise Men, is called a _Parliament_. But this is
simply because the wise men spoke or _parleyed_ with the king, as we
read before that King William had “very deep speech with his Wise
Men” before he ordered the great survey. What is much more important
than the change of name is that the assembly has quite changed its
constitution. And yet it is truly the same assembly going on; there has
been no sudden break; changes have been made bit by bit; but we have
never been without a national assembly of some kind, and there never
was any time when one kind of assembly was abolished and another kind
put in its stead. The greatest change that ever happened in a short
time was that, in the twenty-one years of the Conqueror’s reign, an
assembly which was almost wholly an assembly of Englishmen changed
into one which was almost wholly an assembly of Normans. But even this
change was not made all at once. There was no time when Englishmen as
a body were turned out, and Normans as a body put in. Only, as the
Englishmen who held great offices died or lost them one by one, Normans
and other strangers were put in their places one by one. Thus there
came a great change in the spirit and working of the assembly; but
there was little or no immediate change in its form. And so it was in
every thing else. Without any sudden change, without ever abolishing
old things and setting up new ones, new ideas came in and practically
made great changes in things which were hardly at all changed in form.
It is a mistake to think that our Old-English institutions were ever
abolished and new Norman institutions set up in their stead. But it is
quite true that our Old-English institutions were greatly changed, bit
by bit, by new ways of thinking and doing brought over from Normandy.
=7. Effects of the Conqueror’s Personal Character.=--Besides all other
more general causes, there can be no doubt that the personal character
of William himself had a great effect on the whole later course of
English history. As William had no love for oppression for its own
sake, so neither had he any love for change for its own sake. He saw
that, without making any violent changes in English law, he could get
to himself as much power as he could wish for. Both he and the kings
for some time after him were practically despots, kings, that is, who
did according to their own will. But they did according to their own
will, because they kept on all the old forms of freedom; so, in after
times, as the kings grew weaker and the nation grew stronger, life
could be put again into the forms, and the old freedom could be won
back again. A smaller man than William, one less strong and wise,
would most likely have changed a great deal more. And by so doing he
would have raised far more opposition, and would have done far more
mischief in the long run. William’s whole position was that he was
lawful King of the English, reigning according to English law. But a
smaller man than William would hardly have been able at once outwardly
to keep that position, and at the same time really to do in all things
as he thought fit. It is largely owing to William’s wisdom that there
was no violent change, no sudden break, but that the general system of
things went on as before, allowing this and that to be changed bit by
bit in after times, as change was found to be needed.
=8. Relations of Normans and Englishmen.=--It followed almost
necessarily from the peculiar nature of William’s conquest that in no
conquest did the conquerors and the conquered sooner join together
into one people. No doubt the fact that Normans and English were after
all kindred nations had something to do with this; but the union could
hardly have been made so speedily and so thoroughly, if it had not
been for the peculiar character of the conquest made under the form
of law. William took a great deal of land from Englishmen and gave it
to Normans; but every Norman to whom he gave land had in some sort to
become an Englishman in order to hold it. He held it from the King of
the English according to the law of England; he stepped exactly into
the place of the Englishman who had held the land before him; he took
his rights, his powers, his burthens, whatever they might be, neither
more nor less. He had to obey and to administer English law, to hold
English offices, to adapt himself in endless ways to the customs of
the land in which he found himself. And, except in the case of the
very greatest nobles, there were men of Old-English birth by his
side, holding their lands as he held his, holding offices, attending
in assemblies, acting with him in every way as members of the same
political body. The son of the Norman settler, born in the land, often
the son of an English mother, soon came to feel himself more English
than Norman. So the two nations were soon mingled together, so soon
that a writer a hundred years after the Conquest could say that, among
freemen, it was impossible to say who was English and who was Norman by
descent. Of course in thus mixing together, the two nations influenced
one another; each learned and borrowed something from the other. The
English did not become Normans; the Normans did become Englishmen; but
the Normans, in becoming Englishmen, greatly influenced the English
nation, and brought in many ways of thinking and doing which had not
been known in England before.
=9. Effects of the Conquest on Language.=--Above all things, this took
place in the matter of language. In this we carry about us to this day
the most speaking signs of the Norman Conquest. If the Norman Conquest
had never happened, the English tongue would doubtless have greatly
changed in the course of eight hundred years, just as the other tongues
of Europe have greatly changed in that time. But it could not have
changed in the same way or the same degree. No other European tongue
has changed in exactly the same way, because no other tongue has had
the same causes of change brought to bear on it. Our own Old-English
tongue, as it was spoken when the Normans came, was a pure Teutonic
tongue, that is, it was as nearly pure as any tongue ever is; for there
is no tongue which has not borrowed some words from others. So we had,
since we came into Britain, picked up a few words from the Welsh, and
more from the Latin. But these were simply names of things which we
knew nothing about till we came hither, foreign things which we called
by foreign names. And we had kept our grammar, and what grammarians
call the _inflexions_, that is, the forms and endings of words, quite
untouched. The Normans, on the other hand, after their settlement
in Gaul, had quite forgotten their old Danish tongue, allied to the
English, and, when they came to England, they all spoke French. French
is the _Romance_ tongue of Northern Gaul, that is, the tongue which
grew up there as the Latin tongue lost its old form, and a good many
Teutonic words crept in. The effect of the Norman Conquest on our
tongue has been twofold. We have lost nearly all our inflexions; we
should very likely have lost most of them if there had been no Norman
Conquest, for the other Teutonic tongues have all lost some or all of
their inflexions; but the Norman Conquest made this work begin sooner
and go on quicker. Then we borrowed a vast number of French words,
many of them words which we did not want at all, names of things which
already had English names. But this happened very gradually. For some
while the two languages, French and English, were spoken side by side
without greatly affecting one another. French was the polite speech,
Latin the learned speech, English the speech of the people; but for
a hundred and fifty years after the Conquest, French was never used
in public documents. Before long the Normans in England learned to
speak English, and they seem to have done so commonly by the end of
the twelfth century, though of course they could speak French as well.
Then there came in a French, as distinguished from a Norman influence;
French came in as a fashion, and it was not till the fourteenth century
that English quite won the day; and when it came in, it had lost many
of its inflexions, and borrowed very many French words. And since this
we have gone on taking in new words from French, Latin, and other
tongues, because we have lost the habit of making new words in our own
tongue. All these later changes are not direct effects of the Norman
Conquest; still they are effects. The French fashion could never have
set in so strongly if the French tongue had not been already brought in
by the Normans.
=10. Effects of the Conquest on Learning and Literature.=--There can
be no doubt that in all matters of learning the Norman Conquest caused
a great immediate advance in England. There had in earlier times been
more than one learned period in England; but the Danish wars had
thrown things back, and it does not seem that Edward, with all his
love for strangers, did much to encourage foreign scholars. But with
the coming of William this changed at once. Lanfranc and Anselm for
instance, the first archbishops of Canterbury after the Conquest, were
the greatest scholars of their time. Men of learning and science of
all kinds came to England, and men in England, both of Norman and of
English blood, took to learning and science. We have therefore during
the twelfth century a large stock of good writers who were born or
who lived in England. But they wrote in Latin, as was usual then and
long after with learned men throughout western Europe; they therefore
did nothing for the encouragement of a native literature. Still men
did not leave off writing in English; the English Chronicle goes on
during the first half of the twelfth century, and small pieces, chiefly
religious, were still written. But the Norman Conquest had the effect
of thrusting down English literature into a lower place; even when
it was commonly spoken, it ceased to be either a learned or a polite
tongue. On the other hand, the newly-born French literature took great
root in England. It was about the time of the Conquest that men in
Northern Gaul found out that the French tongue which they talked had
become so different from the Latin which they wrote that it would be
possible to write in French as well as to speak it. The oldest French
books, like the oldest books of most languages, are in verse, and
this new French verse flourished greatly among the Normans, both in
Normandy and in England. Thus Wace wrote the story of the Norman dukes,
and specially of the Conquest of England. Others, who were settled in
England and began to love their new land, wrote books of English and
British history and legend. Thus, for a long time after the Conquest,
there was much writing going on in England in all three languages. Many
French writings were translated into English, and some English writings
into French. But all this, though it showed how men’s minds were at
work, kept down the real tongue and the real literature of the land for
several ages.
=11. Effects of the Conquest on Art.=--In those days there was not
much art in Western Europe, save the art of building. Books were
illuminated, and there was both painting and sculpture in churches, but
they were what would be now thought very rude work. Both in Germany
and in England the art of embroidery seems to have flourished; but
that is hardly art in any high sense. But in the art of building the
Norman Conquest of England marks a great stage. When we speak of
building, we have mainly to do with churches and castles; houses were
commonly of wood, as indeed churches and castles often were also. In
the eleventh century men still built throughout Christendom with round
arches, after the manner of the old Romans. And in Western Europe they
built everywhere very much after the same pattern, one which came from
Italy. But in the eleventh century men began to strike out new ways in
architecture, and, without wholly forsaking the old Roman models with
their round arches, they devised new local styles in different parts.
Thus one form of what is called _Romanesque_ architecture arose in
Italy, another in Southern Gaul, another in Northern Gaul, and so on.
The Normans of William’s day were great builders, and the Romanesque
style of Northern Gaul grew up chiefly in Normandy, and is commonly
called _Norman_. In Edward’s day this new style came into England among
other Norman fashions, and under William it took firmer root. The new
prelates despised the English churches as too small, and they rebuilt
them on a greater scale, and of course in the new style. For a while
the old style which England had in common with the rest of Western
Europe was still used in smaller buildings; but by the end of the
eleventh century the Norman style had taken full root in England, and
in the twelfth century it grew much richer and lighter. And as stone
building came more and more into use, the style spread to houses and
other buildings.
=12. Effects of the Conquest on Warfare.=--Military architecture, the
building of castles and other strong places, is in some sort a part of
the history of the building art, no less than the building of churches
and houses. Still it has a character and a history of its own. In this
matter, and in all matters which had to do with warfare, the Norman
Conquest made the greatest change of all. In England men could fence
in a town with walls, but they had no strong castles. Their strong
places were great mounds with a wooden defence on the top. But the
Normans brought in the fashion of building castles, as we have seen
in the history of Edward’s reign. They sometimes built lighter keeps
on the old mounds; sometimes they built massive strong towers; and
in either case they were fond of surrounding them with deep ditches.
These were the types which the Normans brought in, and they grew into
the elaborate castles of later times. Thus the land was filled with
castles, and warfare took mainly the form of attacking and besieging
them. After the Norman Conquest we hear for a long time much more of
sieges, and much less of battles in the open field, while in the Danish
wars we heard much more of battles than of sieges. The Normans also
brought their own way of fighting into England, and made great changes
in English armies. Before the Conquest we had no horsemen and very
few archers; from this time we have both, and the old array goes out
of use. Yet we sometimes read of the Norman knights getting down from
their horses and fighting with swords or axes in Old-English fashion.
And, as the archers came to be the strongest part of an English army,
and that which was thought specially English, it was in one way a going
back to the old state of things. The weapon was changed; but, in times
when horsemen were most thought of, a stout body of foot was still the
strength of an English army.
=13. Summary.=--Thus we see the special way in which the Norman
Conquest, owing to its own special nature and to the personal character
of William, acted upon England. It did not destroy or abolish our old
laws or institutions; but by influencing, it gradually changed, and
in the end preserved. And in this way the Conquest worked in the end
for good. We have really kept a more direct connexion with the oldest
times, without any sudden break or change, than those kindred nations
which have never in the same way been conquered by strangers. There
has been great change, but it has been all bit by bit, with no general
upsetting at any particular time. We will now, in our last chapter, see
a little more particularly how these causes worked in the later history
of England.