October 14, 1066, at the Battle of Hastings. William’s
coronation as William I, king of England, on Decem-
ber 25, 1066, fi rmly established the Norman dynasty
as the new royal family of England. The sociocultural
conquest of the English people would continue over
the next century.
One of William’s fi rst goals was to change the social
structure of English society. He rewarded faithful fol-
lowers at the expense of English nobles, reassigning
lands and titles. His earliest efforts to realize this ambi-
tion involved the disruption of traditional Anglo-Saxon
rulership by election and the foundation of a strong
centralized monarchy based on patriarchal lines of
inheritance, including primogeniture (oldest son as
heir). The new Norman nobility assisted with this
agenda. Other sociocultural changes followed.
One of the most drastic shifts in English culture was
the subversion of the English language. Members of
William’s court spoke Norman French. Despite the fact
that individuals who spoke English were viewed as
inferior and commonplace, the majority of the individ-
uals who were not part of the royal court refused to
adopt a new language. As a result, a dual linguistic sys-
tem emerged where many members of the nobility
spoke Norman French while the language of the com-
mon people remained English. In 1086, a massive sur-
vey of the English countryside and its population
entitled The Domesday Book was completed at William’s
insistence. The Domesday Book contained detailed cen-
sus information about every shire and its tenants in
England. This survey helped William to implement in
England the continental Norman practice of feudalism.
Traditionally defi ned as a military arrangement made
between lords and their vassals (see FEUDAL OATHS), feu-
dalism did not exist in Anglo-Saxon England. The mili-
tary relationship between the Anglo-Saxon kings and
their nobles was similar to that portrayed in the OLD
ENGLISH poem BEOWULF. William bolstered the spread
of feudalism in England by embarking on a massive
castle-building project. The TOWER OF LONDON is one of
the most famous castles built during his reign.
The English people initially resisted William’s efforts.
They resented the dominance of the new Norman aris-
tocracy, the ascendancy of the Norman-French lan-
guage, and the heavy taxation they were forced to pay
in order to fi nance the king’s Continental military expe-
ditions. However, the Norman dynasty ruled England
until the reign of Henry II, William the Conqueror’s
great-grandson, in 1154. Henry II was a product of the
hybrid ANGLO-NORMAN society that developed as the
Norman Conquest of England came to a close during
the 12th century. He established a new royal dynasty
known as the Norman-Angevins, or Plantagenets. Trou-
badours (singer-poets) from southern France who
accompanied Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry’s queen,
introduced the ideas of CHIVALRY and COURTLY LOVE to
the English populace. These motifs were two of the big-
gest infl uences on medieval English poetry. By the time
GEOFFREY CHAUCER wrote the The CANTERBURY TALES in
the 14th century, the effects of the Norman Conquest
had long been absorbed.
FURTHER READING
Barlow, Frank. “The Effects of the Norman Conquest.” In
The Norman Conquest: Its Setting and Impact, edited by
Dorothy Whitelock et al., 125–161. London: Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1966.
Brown, R. Allen. The Normans and the Norman Conquest.
New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968.
Deborah L. Bauer“NOW GOTH SONNE UNDER WOD”
(“SUNSET ON CALVARY”) ANONYMOUS (ca.
1240) The earliest version of this meditative poem
exists in the ANGLO-NORMAN version of the Speculum
ecclesiae of St. Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of
Canterbury. With serene yet powerful imagery, the
poet paints a picture of Christ’s crucifi xion. The
speaker seems to describe the sun sinking beneath a
line of trees on the horizon, then perhaps the cross,
fi nally focusing on the sorrow and pity evoked by the
face of Mary.
Like a BALLAD, the lyric is a QUATRAIN, or set of four
lines; some speculate that it may be the REFRAIN of a
longer composition. It borrows other techniques from
the ballad, including incremental repetition and end-
rhyme (though aabb rather than abab). Also, it reverses
the traditional ballad meter (trimeter line followed by a
tetrameter line rather than the other way around). Eas-
ily memorized, the poem circulated widely, surviving
in many manuscripts. Probably recited by clerics at the290 “NOW GOTH SONNE UNDER WOD”