1066: A New History of the Norman Conquest

by Peter Rex

A radical retelling of the most important event in English history - the Norman invasion of 1066. The Norman Conquest is the single most important event in English history. On this invasion and 'regime change' pivoted the second millennium of English history. This is well recognised, what is not is how long and hard the English people fought to deny William 'the Bastard', Duke of Normandy his prize. Rather than being the smooth transition peddled by pro-Norman historians, the Norman Conquest was a brutal and violent takeover by an army of occupation. Unknown thousands of rebellious thegns resisted the Norman regime, the most famous being Hereward, but there were plenty of willing collaborators among England's clergy, who pushed for William to be crowned king. In return he let them retain their sees and abbacies, as well as the vast tracts of land. Peter Rex tells the whole story of the Conquest of England by the Normans from its genesis in the deathbed decision of King Edward the Confessor in January 1066 to recommend Harold Godwinson as his successor, to the crushing of the last flickers of English resistance in June 1076.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Anglo Saxon, British Literature, Historical

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 2009

About the author

Born in in 1930, Peter Rex attended St Brendan’s and Bristol University prior to earning an MA at Coventry. He taught at Huddersfield and Princethorpe College until his retirement in 1994.

Reviews

[Jeroen Nijs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up in a local bookshop while on holiday in Hastings, because I wanted to know more about the battle that had taken place there. I got a little more than I asked for. The book is, how shall I put it, thorough. It is quite easy to get lost in the barrage of names, places and dates.

As for William (whom the author seems to enjoy calling 'The Bastard'), well, you will probably not be surprised to learn that a man who invades a country with a large army on a flimsy pretext turns out to be not a very nice ruler.

[Peter Fox · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I was at Uni one of my lecturers advised me to avoid books that purported to tell a 'secret history' and in the same vein, to avoid anything that claimed to tell a new history of a well known event, as both would be written by someone with a bee in their bonnet. Invariably they would be long on supporting their particular bugbear, but short on actually substantiating it, with lots of evidence that didn't fit their views ignored along the way. They could well have had this book in mind when they told me all of this.

The first thing that strikes you about 1066 – A new history, is the dedication, which is to all the English men and women who died during the Norman Conquest. This suggests a lack of neutrality before you've even reached the first page. The second thing that strikes you is the tone. This is a book that sees 1066 very firmly through the lens of the 1940s. Collaborators, Quislings, occupation, fifth column, guerillas/maquis and show trials all get a mention and all are unhistorical and inappropriate, but we reach a nadir of taste when the final solution is invoked. Another thing that irked me was Rex constantly calling William the Conqueror 'The Bastard'. We all know he was a bastard, that's an agreed fact, but Rex uses 'the Bastard' to refer to William on more pages than not and rather than giving the book the feel of a work that should be taken seriously as history, it comes over as just being crass, even childish.

For anyone who is relatively up to date with the study of Anglo-Saxon history, this book will make you wince at times, as Rex makes sweeping statements without backing up what he is claiming. He makes a point a couple of times (this book has a lot of repetition) about ambushes being the Northumbrian mode of fighting without showing his evidence for this. He also trots out the old chestnut about Anglo-Saxons not fighting on horseback, which Guy Halsall (et al) showed to be far more nuanced in Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West. On a similar note the wider history of the period gets mangled. Rex comments about the peasantry being tied to the soil under the Normans, but that process had already begun before the conquest (Yorke, Fleming, etc). His notion of 'fighting monks' is pure bunkum and is a misunderstanding of the obligation that religious houses had to provide soldiers from their hidage (Yorke). Rex's comments about the Normans appropriating estates that had only been loaned to people by monasteries ignores the fact that arguments over land were nothing new in England. There were some almighty rows in Wessex about land titles for years prior to Hastings. The talk of William's hubris in having his Queen anointed skips the fact that Edgar the Peaceable did the same with his Queen. The Northern areas labelled as 'waste' in Domesday are taken at face value as having ben devastated in the fighting, but this shows a lack of the deeper understanding that has been developed by other historians over this term. The areas where nothing has been recorded there are assumed to be so because everyone had been killed by the Normans, which shows a lack of research into Domesday. When it comes to the resistance to the Normans we go deeper into the mire. What William of Malmesbury calls brigandage, Rex equates to guerilla warfare and proposes a later link with the Greenmen and Wildmen of folklore and pub carvings, before making a mention of the Maquis, because they also hid in the woods. This is poor history. Hereward the Wake appears to be something of a hero to Rex and he's extremely uncritical of his actions and of the sources pertaining to him.

Where this book truly fails as a worthwhile work of history is in Rex's attempt to create a revisionist book aimed at correcting what he sees as years of the Norman 'side' of the Conquest being taken as the true state of affairs by historians (he's very late to this party, aspects of this have been questioned for years). In this the onus is on him to not only argue his points, but to challenge those made by others that disagree with his. He doesn't do this. Every responsible historian has to cite his sources, especially those engaged in making a 'new' history, but Rex persistently fails to do so. He has quotes in, but doesn't bother to show where they are from. His treatment of original sources and the historicity is cavalier at best and beyond biased at worst. He attacks any original sources favourable to William and accepts uncritically anything remotely hostile to him. With modern works, his bibliography makes for depressing reading. A lot of the books there are pre 1950 and post 1950 hardly any historians of note or scholarly works, publications or peer reviewed periodicals are listed. Books that are pretty much cutting edge to Hastings studies, such as Morillo (Ed) (Battle of Hastings sources and interpretations) have not been used. Rex ignores any historicity that doesn't support his views. This is a book where you come away with the overwhelming impression that the author had made his mind up before he wrote the book, rather than looked at the scholarship, thought about it and then wrote the book.

If you feel a deep personal connection to the events of almost a thousand years ago and are just looking for something that is as simplistic as Anglo-Saxons good, Normans bad, then this will reinforce your pre-existing viewpoint. If you are looking for objective history, then this book is not for you.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been fascinated by British history, especially pre-thirteenth century and before the advent of the Hundred Years' War. This book captured my eye as a snapshot of those formative and desperate years surrounding William's brutal conquest of Britain. I was not disappointed with this book at all. Although a short book, it's well researched and easily divides itself into heavily detailed chapters - beginning with William on his ship heading to Britain and Harold waging war against Harald (yes you read that correctly). Peter Rex jumps head first into the action, and then gives us a whirlwind tour of the politics of 1064/65 to key us in as to why war is the name of the game. William was a dick, but he was ruthless, cunning, and left no room for interpretation. William got the job done. He wanted the crown and by God (literally if you were an 11th c Englishman) he took it. Rex creates a very good argument that William won by luck and a series of events during the Battle of Hastings that just happened to line up that day to enable him to proclaim himself King of the English. If they hadn't of lined up, we'd be singing a very different tune to British history. The book overall was very informative and focused on the very action-packed, high stakes, insane period of 1066-1076, with the epilogue throwing in some good-to-know events from 1076 to 1086, and William's eventual death. Although Rex does not offer any new views of the events surrounding the Conquest, he merely makes some well researched observations and sprinkles in his own opinion here and there. Some passages could have been a bit more succinct, and many of the earlier chapters suffer from a degree of repetitiveness. I particularly found his epilogue of interest when he notes the historical theory HWC Davis: that well governed countries aren't usually conquered but when they are they pave the way for success. William won by luck AND as luck would have it he had a well oiled, healthy and wealthy country to start off with. Within the first nine months of his rule, William was able to impose a tax and collect it!
My favorite section of this book though did not have much to do with William, and more to do with Hereward the Outlaw and Defender of Ely. Be still my heart - this man was a badass of all badasses, invited the Danes over for a visit, when they didn't work out, took control over the Ely Cathedral which was on an island in the Fenlands, and the managed to wreak havoc for months! When William finally decided to rid himself of this man of gallantry, he burned down the Cathedral but did NOT manage to kill our boy, our one true hero, Hereward. Also what a name. Hereward disappeared, quite literally, into legend.

[Jacm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, that was a slog to get through.

At first I thought I was finding it difficult due to this being a period of history I'm less familiar with but then realised that it's just badly written. Even the action of the invasion and famous Battle of Hastings was convoluted and hard to follow.

The whole book is littered with way too many tenuously related tangents about minor players made it feel like reading the transcript of a town gossip updating a family member (E.g. 'Mary is in hospital... you know Mary, she married a teacher from the city... and of he thought he better than everyone but his brother was an alcoholic and gambled all his money away... but then Mary left the husband and moved away for a while... that young couple bought her house and renovated it... you know the ones, they had 5 kids... She fell over and sprained her ankle so she's in hospital... No MARY is in hospital, who else would I mean?'.)

By persevering to the end I got the general sense of discord following the Norman invasion before finally discovered an appendix which summaries the whole content far more succinctly!

[Christie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry any history book that start with the claim that it has been “well over a thousand years” since the Conquest in 1066, has not only lost my interest but owes me money.

[Hboyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a work of outstanding scolarship and brings to light many interesting and fascinating details about the way Normans and Anglo-Saxons lived and fought. William's character comes to life, as does the desperate and ultimately sad uprising against him.
Only drawback, if you are not a scolar of the times, you will find much of the later chapters dry and superfluous, lacking the glamour and excitement of the battles of Hastings and Stamford Bridge, and focussing on the Earls who fell in and out of favour, as well as confiscations of land etc.

[Lothario · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough analysis from Peter Rex explaining the invasion and consolidation of England which took several decades to complete. The Norman invasion changed the social, political and economic structure beyond any recognition of what it's previously was. William the conqueror calculated gamble paid off. The lack of a unifying heir for the native English meant any rebellion was quickly and brutally put down. Harold's sons in the southwest, Edwin and Morcar, in the North, Hereward in East Anglia and the Aetheling could not drum up national support to form a strong resistance. The Normans treatment of their subjugated people was quite horrific particularly the Harrying of the North which killed an estimated 100,000 people and altered the demographic position of Northumbria. I would read more of Peter's book on this period.

[Casey Rough · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dude gives out new information like it's his last possession

[Scott Shepard · Rating 1 out of 5]

For such an interesting topic, Peter Rex does his best to write about it in the driest manner possible.

I picked this up hoping to learn something new about the Norman Conquest. I didn’t know anything beyond it happened in 1066, there was a battle at Hastings, and the dude’s name was William. I thought, “this book is short, it should be a quick overview.” Wrong!

This book is not for the casual reader who is simply curious about the people and events of the Norman Conquest. It is apparently for a dedicated mediaval historian who is already well versed with the people, places, geography, and general timeline. Rex takes as much time explaining his sources and his line of thinking as the conclusions that he drew.

The main thesis of the book is that the Norman Conquest did not end in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, but had only begun. It wasn’t until 10 years later in 1076 did the conquest really come to a close. For 10 years William the Conqueror “pacified” the local population and put down a half dozen rebellions that sprang up on the island. He pacified northern England in the the manner of the Romans, “make a desert and call it peace.” He sent two raids by the Danes back into the sea. He dealt with King Malcolm III of Scotland by marching on Edinburgh. He executed treasonous Earls. And he built dozens of castles along the way (initially wooden castles that often later were rebuilt in stone).

Rex has a bone to pick with pro-Norman historians and used every opportunity to flaunt how wrong they are and how much smarter he is. I think he has a very high opinion of himself, and he really doesn’t like King William.

For anyone who already knows a lot about the Norman Conquest of England, this book might be a good read. For anyone looking to learn a little bit about a period of history you are not familiar with, stay away.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

While well written and easy to read, Rex's history of the Norman Conquest is at times a bit dry, especially when he recites the names of endless Norman barons and the lands they appropriated. He can be a bit repetitive, but the book is well researched and I certainly learned a few things I didn't know before.

Rex chronicles the run up to the invasion and the ten year period afterwards when William ruthlessly Normanised Britain. The old ways were swept away and William's supporters were rewarded with Earldoms. The populace was subdued with a combination of Military occupation, heavy taxation and ravaging of the land, which left it barren and uninhabitable for years. Suffice to say that William lived up to his name of The Bastard.

Rex paints William as a usurper with no legitimate claim to the throne of England, a war criminal who used force to gain and hold on to his kingdom. He also tells of the English resistance which fought in vain to throw off the Norman Yoke. There were several revolts during those first ten years but in each case they came to nothing, William either buying off the participants or putting them down with superior military might.

There are useful appendices on the English Succession, The Bayeux Tapestry and an English folk hero called Hereward who led a resistance on the Isle of Ely.

So, a decent history book, well researched and written, but perhaps not as engaging as it could be.

[Marcus Pailing · Rating 2 out of 5]

No, not really.

The author's knowledge of the history is excellent, but he really needed an editor, as well as someone to tell him how to write an engaging book. There are much better books out there about this period in history.

A shame - I had my eye on all this author's books, and now I won't be bothering with any of them.

[Regan Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done history of the year of the Conquest. Have used it in my research.

[Joe Donohue · Rating 5 out of 5]

How the Conquest was a conquest, and how the conquered were conquered.

[Albert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring!

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Often repetitive, Rex makes it clear that he really, really, really does not like William.

[Joe Donohue · Rating 4 out of 5]

How the Conquest was a conquest, and how the conquered were conquered.

[Peter]

The edition in the possession of this reviewer has 286 pages.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The list of English kings begins with William the Conqueror, but such a list is really a thing of propaganda; although England's patchwork of ancient kingdoms were slow to be united against threats like the Vikings, there was a line of English kings, and an England, that existed before the Normans. In 1066, Saxon historian Peter Rex labors to illustrate how long it took the Normans to truly effect their conquest. After a history of the battle itself, Rex then chronicles the many rebellions which erupted against the 'bastard Duke's' rule. The battles of 1066 (there were three) and the rebellions had the effect of wiping out the English nobility, and allowing for their total replacement by the Normans. Rex notes that the English state's efficient structure allowed William to quickly effect his will even at the shire level. After ten years of intermittent rebellions, England was finally quietened, but the English would have the last laugh: the Normans would, quickly enough, lose first Normandy, and then their French.

Casual readers should note that this is a short but dense book, with more names than the Domesday telephone book. I'd give it a 3.5, rounded up to 4 because Rex's consistent reference to William as "the Bastard", which is both amusing and more sincere than William's grandiose title of conqueror or king.