The Perception of Anglo-Norman Modernity and the Conquest of Ireland

Two contemporary accounts of the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland provide insight into the mentalité of the conquerors. A close analysis of Gerald of Wales’s Expugnatio Hibernica and Morice Regan’s The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland illuminates an Anglo-Norman self-perception that reflects their sense of cultural superiority. The invading knights saw themselves as the vanguard of a political and cultural mainstream, one which originated on the continent and flowed through the cosmopolitan court of Henry II to the shores of Ireland. They believed their ideas on law, justice, and warfare were superior to those of the Irish, who were characterized by their social and political conservatism, penchant for mutual slaughter, and quotidian treachery. The argument is not that the Anglo-Normans were exceptional, but rather that they saw themselves as such in their role as both conquerors and agents of progressive change.