There are literally hundreds of books about the Norman Conquest, and 1066 is a familiar date to those interested in British history. Most know that King Harold led a courageous stand at Hastings, but that he was ultimately defeated by a more disciplined and structured army under Duke William of Normandy. But these are simply facts for schoolboys to memorize, and it can take hours of slogging through such facts before one can begin to examine the effects of that invasion.

Perhaps it’s time to rectify that situation.

The Defenders

The common misconception is that, before the Normans arrived in England, the English were Nordic barbarians. This is simply not true. The English of the early eleventh century were a cultured people, particularly the nobility. Extravagant dress was the order of the day at the court of King Edward the Confessor (AD 1042-1066). The Normans are even on record as thinking the English fashion “effeminate.”

Many in the English upper classes could read and write, and literature was prized. As a society, the English were pious, although the English Church was not necessarily orthodox, as its isolation provided some freedom from canonical rigidity. Of all the “crimes” of which the Normans accused the English nation, only religious unorthodoxy, really “different-ness,” held any weight, and even this claim was largely a matter of semantics. At this time, the English language was very closely related to German, and is commonly called “Old English,” and most English people were of Germanic descent.

In the English army, cavalry was nonexistent, and the chief defensive tactic involved the construction of a shield wall. The entire army would form a massive line, about eight men deep, every soldier overlapping his shield with that of the man to his left. This tactic provided excellent protection from an advancing enemy, but at the cost of maneuverability.

Finally, the English government was quite unlike that of any other European nation. The real power in England rested in the hands of seven earls. The kingship did not necessarily pass from father to son, and neither was the king all-powerful. The successor-who had to be descended from Alfred the Great (9th century AD)-would be a man of standing in the nation, and had to be approved by the witan. The witan were essentially a “proto-parliament,” a council that advised the king. In theory, any freeman could serve on the council, though in practice such suffrage as it permitted was generally reserved for the nobility. There were, however, also various local assemblies where peasants served in greater numbers.

The Invaders

The invading Normans, as most historians describe them, were barbaric by comparison. The flamboyant clothing of the English nobility was shunned in favor of more practical dress that served for hunting and sports as well as for battle. By and large, the Norman court was illiterate-William the Conqueror never learned to read or write. Poetry and literature were scorned as “priestly” pastimes, and religion served a political purpose. William the Conqueror deliberately used the church to discredit King Harold. Although Catholic historians often mention the duke as having been a friend of the church, his aggressiveness suggests that he was far from a saint. Understandably, being strongly connected with the mainstream church, the Catholics of Normandy were extremely devout-in word if not in deed.

Two hundred years earlier, a group of Norsemen (Vikings) had conquered the territory of Normandy, giving their name to the land. By the time of William the Conqueror, these Norsemen had become Normans, but their language, although ostensibly a dialect of French, still contained much of the old Scandinavian speech, and the Normans were as warlike as their fathers had been. Before William conquered England, he had conquered several parts of France and even ravaged Sicily.

The Norman army had one of the more modern cavalry armies of Europe. Chivalry, the great knightly code, was still in its infancy at this time, but William’s most important troops were already his knights. Chivalry was merely another excuse to make war-which is essentially what it remained throughout the Middle Ages. At Hastings, only two thousand Norman cavalrymen destroyed an eight-thousand-man English shield wall.

Finally, Normandy was an utter autocracy. There were no advisory councils, and barons were expected to give their undying support to the duke, whether they agreed with him or not. This was a thoroughly feudalistic society-and a relatively brutal one.

The Results

Out of the joining of these two very different nations came the England and the English culture we know today. It is impossible to guess what England might have been had things gone differently, because the last nine hundred years of English history are the result of William’s victory.

We can, however, study what happened after his conquest. There can be little doubt that the initial effects of the Norman victory were catastrophic. Villages were razed, thousands of peasants were mercilessly slaughtered, and most common people were soon living in a kind of poverty heretofore unknown. No longer could a peasant take his complaint to a council, but must instead face a lord who didn’t speak that peasant’s language.

In fact, some the more lasting effects of the Norman invasion can be seen and heard every moment of the day. The conquest certainly brought England out of isolation and into contact with mainland Europe and its ideas, yet it also permanently stratified English society and political structure along class lines, and it “re-sanctified” the legitimacy of the hereditary nobility that endures in English custom even to this day. Moreover, the very fact that you are reading this article in a language called “English” is testament to the lasting impact of the conquest. Previously, Old English was a predominantly Germanic tongue. After the Normans arrived, Old English began to absorb words from Norman- and High French, as well as from Latin. The mish-mash that resulted is the language we now speak.