A Vicious Conquest

Here’s the story of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, a bloody battle that Harold and his Saxons won decisively. Harold Godwinson was then obliged to rally his weary army and head south to meet William, Duke of Normandy, otherwise known as William the Bastard, at Hastings. In hindsight, perhaps he would have been better to take more time and let William and his men extend themselves…(You may have to watch this at home, sadly.)

Public domain image from www.historymedren.about.com

William the Conqueror from historymedren

Due to his defeat of the Saxon army at the Battle of Hastings, William was ultimately dubbed the Conqueror, but there was still work to be done in order to overcome the rest of the population. By all accounts William was ruthless in doing so. His main methods were:

Medieval face from http retrokat.com medievalBuilding castles at high points and in strategic parts of the country and giving his Norman nobles parts of the country to control, with these castles as their strongholds;

Medieval face from http retrokat.com medievalViciously killing any members of the native population who rebelled or tried to resist him;

Medieval face from http retrokat.com medievalEventually sending around investigators to write down who lived where, what they owned and what they should pay in tax. You see, William used the pen as well as the sword to subjugate the people he had conquered.

800px-Clough_castle_motte_and_bailey_County_Down  pd wikimedia commons

Kindly provided by a photographer who uploaded this picture to Wikimedia Commons, this is a ruin of a motte and bailey castle from Norman times, with a stone keep added later. “Motte” is a word from Old French meaning mound; originally a wooden keep was built on the mound while a bailey, a fenced area for animals, was built nearby. Other simple sheds and huts would also be built within the bailey. This kind of castle was quick to build but also much more easily breached than later stone castles and keeps.

Create a Word file titled: Castles and Crackdowns

1. Read the account of Norman castle building at the Britannia site below. You will need to scroll down to the heading: “The Norman Conquest and the First Castles”.

http://www.britannia.com/history/david1.html

(a) Explain what each part of these early castles was, ie. the motte, the bailey, the wooden tower or keep, etc.

(b) What was the advantage of this type of castle?

2. Find a picture of a motte and bailey castle and place it in your document. Label the keep, the motte and the bailey, using autoshapes for arrows. Here are a couple to look at:

http://www.teachnet.ie/mmorrin/norman/homes.htm

http://www.castlewales.com/motte.html

Stone castles were of course much harder to attack and sieges were more likely to fail than to succeed. These pictures will show you why.

Bunratty-castle pd Castle photo Photo courtesy PDPhoto.orgPhoto courtesy of PDPhoto.org

Bunratty Castle on the far left – photo in the public domain

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3. What was the “Harrying of the North” and what does it show about the character of William the Conqueror?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6563298

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