The Aristocracy of Norman England (review)

In 1066, a French-speaking aristocracy took violent possession of a vast windfall, the entire kingdom of England, and swept away the Anglo-Saxon ruling elite. This substantial, learned book is both an ambitious synthesis and a research monograph about the century-long complex process of adaptation that followed the settlement of the foreign aristocracy in England.

Since the nineteenth century, historians of medieval England have been deeply interested in the Norman Conquest and its aftermath. The author succinctly summarizes historiographical disagreements about many topics and offers her own, often cautious, contributions to the debate. She also breaks new ground, probing from many perspectives the new ruling class’ adaptations to its changed and changing circumstances. She stresses the complexity of developments between the Conquest and the reign of the activist, effective king, Henry II (1154–1189). For several generations, much was in flux, and custom was malleable. Green revises long-accepted truisms about such topics as feudalism, women, and inheritance patterns.

The book’s cast of characters is drawn from about 200 important families. The lower reaches of the landed ruling class, the knights, are incidental players in the narrative, and the subjugated English appear almost not at all. Green first investigates the Conquest itself, including the origins of the companions of William the Conqueror and the initial distribution of wealth and, above all, land. Then she examines the measures by which the conquerors took effective possession of their new lands and exploited them. The building of castles, the expansion of feudal bonds within the aristocracy, and the reorganization of agricultural practices solidified the rulers’ control. Next she analyzes the evolving relations of the aristocracy during the reigns of five kings, who had varying degrees of effectiveness. Finally, she explores the internal workings of the aristocratic elite, which gradually lost its ties to Normandy and settled into social structures which, to some degree, it had created in England. She shows how aristocratic families preserved their patrimonies, arranged “good” marriages, supported the monastic movements of the century, and managed their often turbulent relationships with the Anglo-Norman monarchs and with one another. She stresses the importance of women (and the consequent need to control them) in the transmission of property, especially when an aristocratic family had no suitable male heir.

The author has little to say about methodology, although a central working feature of her analysis is prosopography. She has an impressive command of the details of the public and private lives of the aristocracy—their wealth, ties of kinship, marriages, political alliances, and religious patronage.

Green’s conclusions are revisionist. Much of the earlier historiography about the period from 1066 to 1166 has been monarch-centered; the historical narrative has often been dominated by the successes and setbacks of the kings in creating stable instruments of power. Green nicely balances that view (which has been a useful way to approach the period) with a detailed demonstration that the landed aristocracy wielded significant power that no king could afford to ignore. She also discovers a vigorous local political life built on the aristocracy’s ability to command men and control land. At that social level, the power of the king intruded only occasionally.

The book is rich in ideas, cautious in argument, and well-written, in spite of occasional repetitions.