A magisterial survey of Normandy from its origins in the tenth
century to its conquest some two hundred years later. This book
provides a comprehensive revision and analysis of Normandy, its
rulers, and governance between the traditional date for the
foundation of the duchy, 911, and the completion of the conquest
led by Count Geoffrey V of theAngevins, 1144. It examines how the
Norman dukes were able to establish and then to maintain themselves
in their duchy, providing a new historical narrative in the
process. It also explores the various tools that they used to
promote and enforce their authority, from the recruitment of armies
to the use of symbolism and emotions at court. In particular, it
also seeks to come to terms with the practicalities of ducal power,
and reveals that it was framed and promoted from the bottom up as
much as from the top down. In around 911, the Viking adventurer
Rollo was granted the city of Rouen and its surrounding district by
the Frankish King Charles the Simple. Two further grants of
territory followed in 924 and 933. But while Frankish kings might
grant this land to Rollo and his son, William Longsword, these two
Norman dukes and their successors had to fight and negotiate with
rival lords, hostile neighbours,kings, and popes in order to
establish and maintain their authority over it. This book explores
the geographical and political development of what would become the
duchy of Normandy, and the relations between the dukes and these
rivals for their lands and their subjects' fidelity. It looks, too,
at the administrative machinery the dukes built to support their
regime, from their toll-collectors and vicomtes (an official
similar to the English sheriff) to the political theatre of their
courts and the buildings in which they were staged. At the heart of
this exercise are the narratives that purport to tell us about what
the dukes did, and the surviving body of the dukes'diplomas.
Neither can be taken at face value, and both tell us as much about
the concerns and criticisms of the dukes' subjects as they do about
the strength of the dukes' authority. The diplomas, in particular,
because most of them were not written by scribes attached to the
dukes' households but rather by their beneficiaries, can be used to
recover something of how the dukes' subjects saw their rulers, as
well as something of what they wanted or neededfrom them. Ducal
power was the result of a dialogue, and this volume enables both
sides to speak.
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