Britain and the Continent, 1000-1300: The Impact of the Norman Conquest

Abstract

THE collection ‘Britain and Europe’ is innovative in offering a systematic study both of the relations between the British Isles and of the domestic repercussions of this relationship. For the central middle ages, according to Donald Matthew, this dual approach is essential, in so far as the involvement of English kings in continental affairs probably contributed to the slowing down of the process of integration within the British Isles. This was not only a legacy of the Norman conquest: the Germanic people who settled in the islands in the early middle ages were already more concerned with maintaining and enhancing their links with the continent than with developing their relations with the Celtic populations. Yet, over the whole period, it was usually through the medium of England that the other British lands expanded their contacts with the continent. All aspects of relations between the British Isles and the continental regions are considered here, and they are carefully measured in order to assess their impact on the lands and peoples concerned. The uneven survival of the sources is reflected in a more detailed treatment of diplomatic relations and of religious matters, while commercial and artistic links are less covered. The text is dense and packed with often unfamiliar examples. The intimate knowledge the author has of continental sources, especially German, provides original insights and significant details, such as the observation, in the chronicle of Frutolf, that after the Norman conquest English women were forced to marry the newcomers. The systematic interpretation of events taking place in England with the continental context in mind often leads to a renewed presentation of well-known debates: for instance, Matthew demonstrates convincingly that Magna Carta would not have been conceded had not England then been at the centre of an international storm. And his study underlines that these centuries witnessed a significant shift of the European balance of power: in the opinion of the author, in the tenth century, only the German emperor could pretend to compete with the English king. Three centuries later, the French kingdom dominated an increasingly integrated diplomatic framework, while the kings of England systematically sought to counter-balance French influence.

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