Everybody's Gone Serfin'

A few months ago, I wrote about the crisis (of sorts) that led up to the Battle of Hastings, with various people thinking that they were the rightful heir to the English throne after Edward the Confessor's death, which happened today, in 1066. I was going to give you 10 Interesting Facts About Edward the Confessor, seeing as it was him who died today, but I...um...couldn't find that many facts. And they weren't actually that interesting. So instead, I present to you 10 Interesting Facts About William the Conqueror, in the hope that you might find some of these more interesting.

1) "Harold, your Kingliness? Um, I know you've just fought that massive battle at Stamford Bridge and all - and well done for winning, especially as you were fighting your brother, it can't've been easy, but I think you ought to head back down to the south coast, because another fleet of invaders have just landed..."

"Bugger. Who are they?"

"Oh, just some Normans, led by William the Conqueror..."

"William the Conqueror?!"

"Don't worry, it's just a nickname..."

This wasn't how it happened at all. Mostly because William's nickname was bestowed upon him posthumously - during his lifetime he was known as Bill the Bastard (but not to his face), due to the fact that he had indeed been born out of wedlock - his father was the Duke of Normandy before him; his mother, a maid. And also possibly because he did things like nailing people's tongues to planks of wood when they disagreed with him...

2) When Wills arrived on the south coast, he immediately tripped and fell over onto the beach. In a time where people were obsessed with omens, this could have gone down very badly, but according to numerous (Norman) biographies, he turned smiling to his men, and declared "You see - I already have the soil of England within my grasp!". Which is a lovely story and everything, but it's also a quite well told one, too. When Julius Caesar landed in England in 54BC, he was supposed to have done the exact same thing.

Now, this implies that either the man writing William's biography (and it would have been a man  - only monks were taught how to write) was very old, and getting his invaders mixed up, or that he heard the story and thought it would sound very nice in his book, as well obviously showing just how much God was on the side of the Normans, so bunged it in anyway, illustrating beautifully how History is always written by the winners.

(Of course, it could be that William had heard the story, and tripped and fell anyway, but managed to 'recover' from it by remembering what Caesar had said and repeating it to his troops. That could indeed have happened...)


3) As any fool knows, when History is not being written by the winners, it's being stitched by the winners - the classic example of this being the Bayeux Tapestry. The Tapestry, which is over 70 metres long, was commissioned by William's half-brother, Bishop Odo, and an incredibly detailed account of the events in it can be found here. It is an incredibly detailed and incredibly biased account of the lead up to the battle and the battle itself, sewn a few years after it had taken place. Today, it is on display in a museum in Bayeux, but there is a replica copy in the Museum of Reading, made during the Victorian times. It is identical to the original, except for one small scene on the original, which contains a naked man (no one's quite sure why). When the Victorians were restitching the new copy, they gave him a pair of blue shorts.

4) William liked to build things. One of the first things he built was an abbey - or rather, he instructed an abbey to be built on the site where Harold had been killed, which wasn't at Hastings at all. Instead, it was at a place called Senlac, which is a yoghurt for women with bowel problems the Saxon name for a place the Norman's rechristened Battle (displaying stunning creativity). I guess we always call it the Battle of Hastings because the Battle of Battle sounds rather daft...

5) He also built lots of castles. LOTS of castles. The most famous one is probably the Tower of London, though this took a few years to complete. In contrast, the first, at Pevensey was completed within eight days of the Norman conquest - though William probably had a couple of mates helping him with this one. The Motte and Bailey castles served as far more imposing structures than the previous Saxon ones had been, and were the Medieval status symbols, reminding the serfs who their new overlords were.

6) Speaking of the Serfs, it is worth noting that William had a far greater effect on their lives than people initially think. So their lord changed - what was it to them? They still didn't get paid for their labour regardless of whether they were being ruled by a Frenchman or an Englishman, so how could the invasion have had any impact on them? 

The Normans bought in new rules about the ownership of serfs. Whilst it was made illegal for them to be bought and sold at a market, the Anglo-Saxon system of a serf wandering around the country until he found a place he could work was abolished and they were legally tied to the land they worked on, which proved a bit of a bugger if a disaster struck there - sudden flooding for example - as they were forced to remain there and basically starve. 

New rules were also put in place, however, which allowed the serf to complain about any grievances he might have to the local lord. But as the grievances were almost always about the local lord, I can't imagine that this happened too often.

7) Something else which William brought with him as a special gift for the serfs was the class system - well, sort of. The peasants who worked the field spoke Anglo-Saxon English; the Norman knights and barons and churchmen (at least, the higher up ones) spoke French. Obviously these days we all speak English, but a lot of our class system is still influenced by the French language.

For example, pig, cow and deer are all English words, but pork, beef and venison are derived from French - whilst the animal is still rolling around in its own muck, it's English, but as soon as it's served as a meal, it's French. It may not surprise you to learn that our swear words all have Anglo-Saxon derivatives, rather than French...

8) William did a lot of things at Christmas. On Christmas Day 1066, he was crowned King in Westminster Abbey and on Christmas Day 1085, he came up with the really wild and exciting and Christmassy idea of performing a giant tax assessment on the country. 

9) This tax assessment deserves an entry of it's own, as it was of course the Domesday Book. A scribe in each village wrote down every single thing that was in the village and his list was sent down to Winchester for one monk to copy into one enormous book. Whilst the monk did manage omit his own village, he did stick the whole thing online so it's swings and roundabouts, really. The books are actually two separate books - or they were originally - Greater Domesday and Little Domesday. Little Domesday was (obviously...) the bigger of the two, and contained only the information they had collated about East Anglia. Once they saw how much detail they had gone into for this one area of England, the scribes realised there was no way they could finish in time for the deadline unless they cut a few corners through the rest of the country, which is why the other entries go something like: "Cornwall - tin. And fudge." or "Lake District - lake. Lake. Small pond. Bit bigger pond. Lake"...

10) Perhaps the best has been saved until last, though. William died in the summer of 1087 - as was his wont, he had been burning down a town in Normandy when his horse trod on a hot ember, recoiled and threw him off. William died of internal injuries soon after. Whilst he was being buried, a man burst in, demanding monetary compensation for the land that William had supposedly stolen off his father. As there were a number of rather angry looking locals supporting this man, Henry, William's son, hurriedly paid him off and the final acts of the service got underway.

This involved lowering William into his custom built sarcophagus. He was too fat. His body burst open, internal organs spilling everywhere, and the stench of rotting flesh filled the church.

On that note, I bid you farewell. 

Somewhat Unexpected

So, on 13 November 1002, Ethelred the Unready (King of England) ordered the killing of all the Danes in the land. This has become known as the St. Brice's Day Massacre, and really isn't a very cheerful thing at all, therefore makes an excellent topic for a gloomy Saturday night, no?

One of the main problems with History is that people don't really remember the good times (unless something really, really good happened). For example, the reign of Henry VII was a fairly happy and prosperous one - the nation had plenty of money, there was not a lot of disease or famine (well, no more than people at the time were used to) and he didn't partake in any major battles or wars (not including the Battle of Bosworth Field, where he stole the crown from Richard III...). Anyway, things were all really rather cheerful, if not ecstatically wonderful, until Henry VIII took the throne. 

Initially, he was well loved - he was reportedly very tall and handsome, and inherited a peaceable country in very good economic shape, so people had no cause to complain, really - and then things went downhill a bit. The Reformation caused massive disturbances throughout the land (though admittedly, not as much as they would later cause in the reigns of his three children) and throughout the Court - especially concerning his many marriages. He was not a spendthrift, like his father had been and threw money away on lavish feats, Court entertainments and castles, and the country soon became very poor - something even the sacking of the monasteries (a move which proved very unpopular in some circles) couldn't reverse. There were a few wars and rebellions, and by the time he died, in 1547, the country was in a much worse shape than when he had ascended the throne, in 1509.

And it is his reign, rather than his father's, that we remember the most about.

Now, you could argue that that is because his reign was longer (38 years, in comparison to his father's 12) so there was simply more time for more events to happen in - or that he simply did more things - marrying six times instead of once and breaking from the Roman Church, for example, and you would have a point. But ultimately, very little "of interest" happened in Henry VII's reign because it was all so...normal. There were no cataclysmic, drastic events, just boringly everyday ones - and they don't make History.

This is a very long-winded way of saying "No one would really remember Ethelred the Unready if it wasn't for the St. Brice's Day Massacre because most other events in his reign were a bit normal and boring and fairly average for the time, but then this happened and it was kind of a big deal so people like to write about it and it's become important". (Which in itself is rather long-winded...)

Anyway, Ethelred the Unready (who's name, surprisingly, is accepted by the American English spell checker I can't work out how to change to English) was born in 968 and ascended the throne at the age of 10. Clearly, because of his age, he had members of the Witan (I suppose you could call this a forerunner to Parliament, but it wasn't really - it was more a bunch of super rich nobels, all male of course, vying to see who could have the most influence over the King) to advise him...only they weren't very good at doing that. 

The Vikings (aka the Danes) had been conducting a campaign of destruction for many many years, and each King had to come up with a way of dealing with them. One of Ethelred's grandfathers, Alfred the Great (yes, the one who becomes King Arthur in the legends) managed to unite the English kingdoms and expel them by fighting with them until they surrendered, but for young Ethelred, this wasn't really an option. Instead, he was advised to pay off the Vikings.

For a few years this worked - though the taxes on his subjects were crippling, they managed to raise enough to pay the Danegeld ('Dane Gold...which was actually paid in silver)...until the Vikings demanded even greater payments, and invaded the country when they were not supplied with them. Obviously, this didn't go down to well with the English, which sent Ethelred (and his advisers) into a panic, so he did the only thing he could think of. On 13 November, 1002, he ordered the massacre of all Danes living in England.

The commands weren't exactly widely obeyed, and whilst it would have obviously been horrible for those Danes who had been living in the country for decades and become, in their minds, English to watch their family members be murdered, or be killed themselves, the event wasn't quite the massacre it is often made out to be. There are no figures available for the numbers killed, though we can see evidence of pockets of destruction still - earlier this year, in fact, the remains of between 34 and 38 men were found at St. John's College in Oxford, who are believed to have been killed in the massacre. However, the killings were mostly concentrated around the Southern parts of the country, particularly main towns Oxford and London, but fewer people were killed in the North, which is interesting because that is where most of the Vikings' attacks were centered.

Going back to my original point, this is clearly a Big Bad Event, and it is still well remembered today - in fact, it's the thing that Ethelred is most famous for. Not even his losing the crown to Swein Forkbeard (no, really...) and having to escape to France for a few years in exile come as high up on his list of 'achievements'.

And that is a shame, because Ethelred, for all his poor decisions (which may not have been his own fault - the meaning of 'unready' has changed since it was first bestowed upon him, and, back in his day, meant 'ill advised' rather than 'unprepared'. It was meant to be a pun, as Ethelred translates to 'good advise'...but I'm not sure I get Anglo-Saxon humour...) did actually do some pretty good things. Even with the large amounts of tax which were imposed on the country as a result of the Danegeld, his reign brought with it relatively good economic prosperity, and his judicial reforms, brought about by Archbishop Wulfstan, were the origin of the American grand jury, some say.

But "there was quite a bit of money floating about and we were starting to have a bit of a court system" doesn't sell books or films as well as "murder! Fighting! Great doom and gloom!" does. Which is probably why Eastenders is so popular...

London Calling

17 October seems to be a somewhat deadly day for Londoners, so, if you are one, I implore you to be extra careful today. I hope this didn't make you panic, as I may have exaggerated slightly there - the number of people killed on this day is pretty low. It's more that the circumstances of their deaths are unusual to say the least...

Firstly, we shall take a trip to 17 October 1091 - though I'd advise you to bring your wellies and possibly a change of clothes, as we're about to experience one of Britain's largest storms - so large, in fact, that it was actually a tornado. It was the earliest recorded tornado on mainland Britain and still holds the record for being the severest. Winds exceeded 200mph and caused London Bridge to fall down, as well as around 600 houses and the church of St. Mary-le-Bow. Astonishingly, records claim that only two people were killed as a result of the storm (reckoned to be a T8 category tornado, for those to whom that may mean something). 

Of course, this being medieval England, everything happened for a reason because God was displeased, and boy, did God have his reasons for being displeased. The King  at the time, William Rufus, the second son of William I (a.k.a the Conqueror), was a bit of a dodgy chap and there were many of his actions which may have resulted in God being pissed enough to send a tornado London's way. He allowed his soldiers to do as they pleased in Britain and lead by example - stealing from churches to fund his extravagant lifestyle of hunting and feasting. He also removed the Archbishop of Canterbury and other religious leaders who disagreed with him and mocked those who decided to go on Crusade, saying that they were engaging in a pointless waste of time and money. It is easy to see why people believed he wouldn't exactly be in God's best books...  

Fast forward a few hundred years, and we're still in London, even though now it's 1814. You could still do with having your wellies and waterproofs with you though, in case you get covered in beer. I am ashamed to say that I initially laughed at this story, but actually it's pretty horrible because it involves eight people dying, three of whom were children. But it should still be filed under 'what a way to go', I think...

The eight were killed on this day in 1814 when several vats of beer in a brewery on Tottenham Court Road ruptured, spilling more than 323,000 imperial gallons  into the street and causing the basements of the houses on the road to fill up with beer. The brewery was taken to court over the accident, but in the end did not have to pay the damages as the event was ruled an Act of God. I shall try not to draw any conclusions about God from this...

Many people rushed out onto the streets (the accident happened in one of the slums of London, so there were a lot of people around) with pots, pans and any other receptacles they could find to prevent the beer from going to waste, whilst others simply lapped it up where they were standing (or lying, after a while...). The final casualty came a few days later, in the form of a man who died from alcohol poisoning, who had clearly tried very hard to stem the flow. A hero, of sorts... 
   

1066 And All That

Everyone knows that on 14th October, 1066 William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings by slaying Harold Godwinson whilst he rode his horse shooting an arrow in Harold's eye defeating the English troops, and most people know how it happened (if in doubt, just witter on about hills and 'the advantage' and superiority . . . actually, this will make you seem knowledgeable about almost all battles that have ever occurred). But fewer people know the ins and outs of why it actually happened, preferring to see William as the evil Frenchman who came in and stole the crown from the rightful heir. As usual, if only it were that simple . . .

There is an old English king who's name you have to be very careful how you spell - Cnut (no, really). You might have heard of him as the King who tried to stop the tides and he's generally portrayed as a bit of a div, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Cnut was Danish, a Viking who took control of England as well as the Scandinavian countries and he was very clever. The tide story has been manipulated over the years - he was actually trying to prove that no one, not even the King, could control the weather - and he pretty much let the British get on with ruling the country themselves, accepting that the laws already in place were good ones, and he wasn't going to be the one to rock the boat. "Letting Britain get on with ruling itself" meant that the top lords were in charge, controlling everything, sometimes acting fairly, sometimes not but deferring to Cnut where he required it. One of these Lords was Earl Godwine, who was a bit of a suck-up - he married a Danish aristocrat and gave his children Viking names - Harold and Tostig.

Anyway, Cnut snuffed it in 1035 and his two sons Harold and Harthacnut had to battle it out as to who became King. But Harthacnut (I love writing that . . .) wasn't really that interested in England, preferring to rule Scandinavia so Harold got the throne - only not for long. He died a very gorey death, almost certainly on Earl Godwine's orders. You see, Mr. Godwine senior had a plan - a descendant of the House of Wessex (the line of English kings who had been in charge before the Vikings came over), called Edward, had been sent over to Normandy to be raised in safety over there. Edward was now an adult - and in full position to be crowned King of England. Godwine reckoned that he could sponsor Edward, help him to regain the throne and support him, and in return Edward could marry his daughter, Edith and the Godwines would therefore have a direct line to the throne when Edward died (which, knowing the Earl's ways, might have happened sooner than expected).

So, Edward was crowned King in 1041 with help from Godwine, and married Edith. But he wasn't actually that keen on the Earl and didn't trust him, so instead spent his time trying to build up and utilise his cross-channel connections with his friends back in Normandy. Through this, he must have started to hear of "William the Bastard" - the Duke of Normandy's illegitimate son by one of the palace maids - who was starting to build up a brutal reputation (the Normans' decendancy from a Viking tribe may have had something to do with this).

The final straw for Edward regarding the Godwines, though, came when the Earl attacked some Norman knights whom Edward had invited over, upon their arrival. Edward removed them of their property and sent the Earl and his sons packing. He and two of his sons went to join a third son, Tostig, in Flanders, and his fourth son, Harold escaped to Ireland. Edith was shut up in a convent. Now, Edward chose not to remarry and it was becoming increasingly clear that he was to produce no heirs. Some people believe that this is because he was gay but I personally don't believe that to be true. There have definitely been gay monarchs in the past - Edward II is the classic example - and there is much evidence to show who their lovers were. But with Edward (who was later to become known as 'the Confessor'), there's no evidence to suggest he had any lovers - male or female - so I think that he was possibly just asexual.

Anyway, there were no kids, so he had to look elsewhere for a heir - and here comes the bit that all the Norman accounts swear are definitive proof that William was the chosen one. In 1051, Edward chose a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and sent him to Rome to have the appointment approved by the Pope. But before he got there, the Archbishop was instructed to stop off in Normandy and inform William that Edward had chosen him as his successor. William's claim to the throne was tenuous at best - they were barely related, mere second cousins once removed - but Edward did not want to see the crown fall back into the hands of the Vikings, or worse, the Godwines. 

However, Edward had underestimated both the Godwines' popularity and the Normans' unpopularity. On hearing of his plans to make William his successor, Edward came under a lot of pressure from the other chief lords and earls who were friends of the Godwines and in 1052 had to perform an embarrassing climbdown, reinstating the Earl and apologising to him. This would have been mortifying for Edward - Earl Godwine was now in charge in all but name - Edward had authority but very little power. 

Then, in 1053, the Earl died. His son Harold rose up to fill his shoes - and then some. Everyone loved him - he was tall, handsome, and, when he defeated a Welsh army and took control of a large part of the country, nobles and commoners across the land (though presumably not in Wales) believed he could do no wrong. He was indispensable, keeping the ruffians off the borders of England, the King's right hand man. It seemed inevitable that he would have dreams of becoming king. Then, for some reason no one's quite sure about, Harold ended up in William's court in 1064. This is where the Bayeux Tapestry begins. At first, the two acted like comrades - William looking after Harold; the two of them offering up sisters for marriage here there and everywhere - but it soon became clear that they were not equal comrades. William made Harold one of his knights, and Harold swore an Oath.

In medieval Europe, Oaths were taken incredibly seriously. Unless you wanted the wrath of all that was holy coming down upon your head, you did not take one in vain. Anyway, as usual, there is contention as to exactly what the Oath said - Harold's supporters say he just promised to be William's man in England, but not to help defend his right to the throne; William's that he promised to help him become crowned king. He returned to England, to await Edward's death. The King obliged in 1066 - without having officially named a successor.

This didn't actually matter too much - the witan (council of lords who were in charge, a very non-democratic forerunner to Parliament) had to approve the previous King's choice before he could be crowned, or name a successor if the previous King hadn't. To nobody's surprise, Harold Godwineson was chosen and he quickly became King Harold.

Of course, this quickly led to other troubles - a Viking claim to the throne led by Harald Hardrada with aid from t'other Harold's estranged brother Tostig and of course William himself invading and conquering, but I'll stop here. I hope you enjoyed this monster of a post :)