Like other large - than - life figures from world history , William the Conqueror was a man of paradoxes . While personally pious and deeply close to his church building and his wife , he was also a pitiless political assaulter open of bestial acts of violence to preserve his top executive .
Whether or not he was a " good " man , the French - born William left an indelible mark on the English - speaking world by spearhead the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 . William ’s victory at the Battle of Hastings ended six centuries of Anglo - Saxon rule inEnglandand imposed French and Latin words into Old English , creating the blended language we speak today . Every English monarch since William is considered a descendent of him .
But how exactly did this illegitimate son of a Gallic duke get up to become King of England and one of the most dire figures of the eleventh century ?
William the Bastard Silences His Critics
William was bornaround 1027 in the town of Falaise in the Normandy region of France . His parents were Duke Robert I of Normandy and a woman named Herleve ( or sometimes Arlette ) , the girl of a tanner .
Robert and Herleve were n’t get hitched with , but they were n’t on the nose illegitimate fan , either . According to David Bates , author of the Yale University Press life history " William the Conqueror , " Herleve was Robert ’s recollective - sentence " concubine " and collaborator , a relationship that was n’t rare in 11th - C France .
" What found a ' Christian marriage ' was n’t really made open in canon law until the other 13th century , " sound out Bates . " [ Robert and Herleve ’s kinship ] was a minute unusual , but not dramatically so . "
What ’s clear is that Robert , who did n’t have any other small fry , find out William as his lawful inheritor , an unusual footstep at the meter . And when Robert died during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem , 8 - year - old William became Duke of Normandy . The young Duke ’s enemies , who try unsuccessfully to steal his land and title , foully squall him " William the Bastard . "
By the time William was in his other twenty , he had void several internal rebellions and even catch neighboring territories . As Duke of Normandy , " he had a very secure repute as someone not to mess with , " say Hugh Thomas , history professor at the University of Miami and source of " The Norman Conquest : England After William the Conqueror . "
As proof of William ’s celebrity as a formidable paladin and political leader , he had no trouble recruiting K of adult male from Normandy and Northern France to sail with him on an unbelievably bad speculation — the 1066 intrusion of England to claim its throne for the Normans .
Who Were the Normans?
Norman entail " human being from the north " and that ’s exactly who they were — Vikinginvaders who settle in Northern France in the 900s C.E. Over metre , they convert to Christianity and begin speaking French , but they " continued to conceive of themselves as a distinct group , " suppose Thomas .
England , meanwhile , had been dominate by Anglo - Saxon top executive since the first Germanic tribes conquered the country bed today as England in the 5th and 6th 100 C.E. The Anglo - Saxons spoke Old English and hold up in " shires " ruled by blue-blooded lords loyal to the king .
According to William , he was mitt - picked to become the next king of England by Edward the Confessor , who go bad without an heir in 1066 . But William was n’t the only pretender to the throne .
" It would have made for a good grievous bodily harm opera house , " says Bates , listing the various distant relatives who claimed they were the rightful inheritor , including Harold Godwinson ( a appendage of a powerful kinfolk ) , who said that Edward had chosen him as successor on the belated big businessman ’s deathbed .
" Since Edward was childless , everyone knew some terrible crisis was going to descend , " tell Bates . " They had an tremendous foresighted time to fix without bang exactly what form it was going to take . "
Harold was top male monarch on Jan. 6 , 1066 , but his reign would last just nine months and end with his decease by a Norman sword .
The Battle of Hastings
The Norman invasion of England was n’t a rash fire . William took seven month to design his campaign , eventually transporting 7,000 piece and an calculate 3,000 horse across the English Channel on 600 Viking - stylus long boats .
William ’s timing , it turned out , was pure . His nemesis , now dubbed King Harold II , was disorder by a Norwegian invasion of Northern England , allowing the Normans to land unchallenged in Southern England . After Harold crusade off the Norwegians , he marched his engagement - aweary soldiers straight to Hastings , where William ’s veteran cavalry and Archer sat await .
" It was a long and severely - struggle battle , and a skillfully fought triumph for William , " say Bates .
The English , who had the upper ground , formed a shield line and repelled infinite uphill attack by the Norman horse cavalry . William himself hadthree Equus caballus killed under him . When a rumor banquet that William was beat , he famously took off his helmet and rode through the rank to call up his troops , a scene captured in the historicBayeux arras .
In a brilliant move , the Normans assume retirement , which tricked some of the less - have English soldier to let out ranks and scupper holes in their defending team .
" It ’s not very bright , " says Thomas , " chase on foot people who are on hogback . "
The Normans circled back and broke through the English business , stamp out Harold and his two buddy . The king - less English scatter in a affright and the laborious , mean solar day - farsighted Battle of Hastings went to William , who was crowned King of England on Christmas Day , 1066 .
The ‘Harrying’ of the North
As expect , Harold ’s supporters did n’t vagabond over and take William the Conqueror as their business leader . During the first years of William ’s reign , his foeman go up numerous uprising and rebellion , but none as maintain as those in Northern England centered around the shire horse of York .
To put an close to the combat , William resorted to a scorch - earth tactic called " ravage " that was well - known in mediaeval times , but perhaps never fulfil with such hardness . To " plague " is to glow and demolish the land and its resource so totally that nothing is exit to sustain a rebellion . consort to one twelfth - C chronicler , as many as100,000 peasants diedfrom the shortage that followed William ’s decimation of the north .
" This sequence shows William being adequate to of extreme violence to achieve his ending , " says Bates . " It ’s his ruthlessness taken to extremes . "
When William lead the potty , he left much of the Anglo - Saxon government in position , since it already had a advanced bureaucracy that include neology and tax income . But he eventually took the spectacular pace of dispossessing most of the Anglo - Saxon Lord and give their lands over to loyal Norman elites .
Latin became the prescribed nomenclature of English politics , explains Thomas , because it was a language that both English and Norman bureaucrats could interpret . While the low-toned societal classes continued to utter Old English , the English elites and their hanger - on start up speaking French , and it remained the language of the upper course well into the 13th C , state Bates .
As a result of the Norman invasion , modern English contains roughly 10,000 Gallic tidings , and an estimated58 pct of English wordsare derived from French or Latin . Interestingly , Williamspoke no Englishand was illiterate , like many noblemen of the day .
William’s Gift to Historians
Once William set up truehearted Norman subjects as feudalistic Godhead , he wanted to find out exactly how many resources were under his control . So , he regulate a countrywide survey of every shire , farm , shop and household down to the number of sheep in the yard and bushel of grain in the store .
" It ’s this massive project by the standards of the time , " says Thomas . " The local people compared it to the Last Judgement , when every single sin and good deed would be counted . "
When this immense compendium of demographic and economic information was print , it was dubbed the Domesday Book , pronounced " doomsday . " To this day , historian covet the ream of 12th - century information catch by this wildly ambitious view .
" There ’s nothing else before or after that go like that , " says Thomas . " It ’s this unbelievable snapshot of England ’s economy . "
Death and Royal Legacy
Despite being King of England , William mostly rule from Normandy , where he was also besieged by revolt . In 1087 , a year after the completion of the Domesday Book , William fell from a horse while attack the French city of Mantes and died from his injuries .
He was inhume in the Abbey of St. Stephen in Caen , France , a construction that William construct in 1077as a favour of sortsto the Church . Pope Leo IX had opposed William ’s marriage to his close first cousin Matilda in 1050 , but William promise to ramp up a brace of abbeys in Caen if the Pope agreed to bless the union , which he did .
A simple Edward Durell Stone put in the abbey is etched with this epitaph : " Here lie the invincible William the Conqueror , Duke of Normandy and King of England . "
William and Matilda had 10 children , including William II , who succeeded his father as King of England . The current Royal Family of the United Kingdom is related to William by mode of acomplicated and twisting bloodline . There have beenfour English male monarch named Williamand will likely be a 5th if Prince William assumes the stool as expected .
