Looking For A History Book Rec. - Norman Dynasty

[Malthus]

I'm looking for a recommendation for a readable non-fiction account of the Norman Dynasty of England.

The reason: I want to fill in a gap in my very basic grasp of the period. As in, 'William the Conquorer invaded in 1066 ... and then some stuff happened ... and then Henry the II's brood ... '.

I want to fill in that "and then some stuff happened".

[Le Ministre de l'au-delà]

I haven't finished listening to all the episodes of the podcast 'Norman Centuries', but you may find it interesting.

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by Le Ministre de l'au-delà

I haven't finished listening to all the episodes of the podcast 'Norman Centuries', but you may find it interesting.

Thanks! I'll definitely check it out when I get home.

I thought this thread would sink without a single reply ...

[Maeglin]

Originally Posted by Malthus

Thanks! I'll definitely check it out when I get home.

I thought this thread would sink without a single reply ...

The podcast may be entertaining, but Lars Brownworth is an extremely unreliable historian.

The classic treatment is by Charles Haskins, closely followed by that of Eleanor Searle. If you just interest in a history of the period, then do yourself a favor and read the histories of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. by Marjorie Chibnall.

This is more than enough to get you started.

[lionsaoi]

MT Clanchy is a very readable historian of the 12th & 13th centuries. He has a history of England that covers the Anglo-Saxon highlights, then runs through the Normans. His From Memory to Written Record is very good, although it focuses a lot on law. Personally, I'd start with him, then move on to Chibnall. She has some great work on Emperess Matilda.

Pauline Stafford's Emma and Edith is also very good, but might be a little too Anglo-Saxon for you. It is very much so a monograph, but she's fairly accessible.

[Tamerlane]

Frank Barlow's Edward the Confessor to set the stage.

David Douglas' William the Conqueror to get the ball rolling.

Frank Barlow's William Rufus to continue the tale.

Warren Hollister's Henry I to flesh out the story.

And Marjorie Chibnall's The Empress Matilda to bring it home.

I'd include Stephen to bookend Matilda, but it hasn't been published yet and therefore I haven't read it .

[OttoDaFe]

I found Thomas Costain's Pageant of England series very readable (Costain also wrote fiction). It comes in four volumes:

• The Conquerors (William the Conqueror through John)*
• The Magnificent Century (Henry III)
• The Three Edwards (self-explanatory)
• The Last Plantagenets (Richard II through Richard III)

*Also published as The Conquering Family, which starts with Henry II rather than William.

Except for the first, the individual volumes are available at Amazon. A decent-size library is also likely to have them.

A word of warning: Costain was not an academic historian, so he is not exactly shy about expressing his opinions (although he generally explains why he feels the way he does). He is especially passionate about Richard III; and while I happen to agree with his conclusions, I think he lays it on a bit thick.

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by Malthus

and then Henry the II's brood ... '.

Just a quick note to note ( heh ) that the Norman dynasty died out in the legitimate male line with Henry I and Matilda is the last member of the dynasty to contest the throne. Matilda's son Henry II was a member of the Angevin dynasty as the son of Geoffrey "Plante-Geneste" of Anjou.

Hence where I stopped. There were only two generations of genuine Norman kings ( three if you count Matilda's disputed succession ) - William I and his sons William II and Henry I.

[Captain Amazing]

Originally Posted by Le Ministre de l'au-delà

I haven't finished listening to all the episodes of the podcast 'Norman Centuries', but you may find it interesting.

Doesn't look at England at all, except for an episode on Hastings. The first few are a look at the Normans before William the Bastard, and then it goes on the Normans in Sicily.

[Tamerlane]

Okay, perused the bookshelves and here's a single volume - Robert Bartlett's England Under The Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225.

As the title suggests a bit wider in dynastic scope and England-focused ( as opposed to the very important continental possessions ). Also it cuts off the conquest period and it limits the political survey to about 100 pages out of ~800. But still a nice complement to the biographies above as it spends the bulk of its time on sociocultural history in this period.

[Malthus]

Woah, that's a good load of recommendations. Thanks everyone!

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

Just a quick note to note ( heh ) that the Norman dynasty died out in the legitimate male line with Henry I and Matilda is the last member of the dynasty to contest the throne. Matilda's son Henry II was a member of the Angevin dynasty as the son of Geoffrey "Plante-Geneste" of Anjou.

Hence where I stopped. There were only two generations of genuine Norman kings ( three if you count Matilda's disputed succession ) - William I and his sons William II and Henry I.

Yup. I wanted the stuff inbetween the conquest and the Angevins ... because my grasp of the period sorta jumps from the conquest (hell, everyone knows at least something about that, if only the date!) to Henry's devil-brood of family squabbling (which is likewise pretty well known - at least, John Lackland, Richard the Lion Heart, etc.).

I know stuff happened between those two points, but couldn't offhand say what.

[Le Ministre de l'au-delà]

Originally Posted by Captain Amazing

Doesn't look at England at all, except for an episode on Hastings. The first few are a look at the Normans before William the Bastard, and then it goes on the Normans in Sicily.

Ah, well, I'm only up to the third episode; don't spoil it!

I find his style extremely enjoyable and I also love it that he deals with neglected periods of history. What specific things lead you to say he's an extremely unreliable historian, Maeglin?

[Maeglin]

Originally Posted by Le Ministre de l'au-delà

Ah, well, I'm only up to the third episode; don't spoil it!

I find his style extremely enjoyable and I also love it that he deals with neglected periods of history. What specific things lead you to say he's an extremely unreliable historian, Maeglin?

I downloaded his 12 Byzantine Rulers podcast since I thought it would make for good bedtime listening. I'm training to be, among other things, a historian of the Late Roman Empire, so I figured it might be fun and would make good bedtime reading. I made it through perhaps three of the podcasts before I just had to delete them because they were making me too irritable to sleep. Brownworth has a few basic deficiencies.

1) He doesn't know any of the languages in which the sources are written. Unfortunately for Brownworth, many of the critical sources for these supposedly neglected periods of history have never been translated into English. He has no choice but to rely on often outdated translations of a small number of actual sources, entirely composed of narrative history.

2) He pretty much accepts ancient narrative history as given. This makes for entertaining stories, since many of the narrative sources themselves are entertaining. But they are often written hundreds of years after the events themselves by authors and epitomators with no connection to the subjects they are writing about. Brownworth is utterly uncritical of these sources, at least in the Byzantine material I've listened to, and makes no effort to distinguish what we know with any confidence versus what we really have no idea about. His narrative about the reigns of Constantine and Julian for example are especially prone to this. He tells good stories but does not distinguish the true from the false from the speculative. Where, say, the epigraphic record disagrees with he narrative, Brownworth follows the narrative because he has no access to any other sources.

3) The secondary sources he evidently relies on are badly out of date. What interpretations he does present were typically discredited decades ago. I don't expect Brownworth to be at the cutting edge of historical scholarship, but honestly, anyone with the time on his hands can do better than recycle unreliable primary sources and Gibbon.

If you are interested in the Normans in general, why waste your time? That time can be spend much more profitably with Chibnall.