The Normans in Europe: an Introduction

The power of the Norman kingdoms and empire from the late 11th to 12th century reflects a greater concentration of land ownership by the aristocracy and clergy.  The Normans were the descendants of the Norse invaders of the 9th century who were settled by agreement with the French monarchy to settle in Normandy in Northwest France.  Over the next few centuries they became French in language and in culture but retained great privilege as a military aristocracy that made increasing demands on land claims in the region.  By the 11th century they became aggressively expansive and launched invasions into Italy, Sicily, England.  In each locale they absorbed the local customs and language and intermarried as a means of consolidating power. By the end of the century they exerted great power on the Papacy and probably influenced Pope Urban II, who was French, to issue his call for the Crusades.

From the 11th century onward, the Normans as with other European aristocracies sought greater access to the Eastern European and Mediterranean based trade and commerce.  The Crusades against the Islamic states of the Near East and Spain, and against pagan regions of Northern Europe and Russia were products of an inferior trade position that relied upon an ideological religious crusade to mobilize a profit seeking military aristocracy in alliance with the clergy.  The accumulation of wealth among this aristocracy and clergy rested on their ability to disenfranchise and dislocate peasants from land based rights privileges during the late phases of the 10th century and during this period.  While peasants were not passive and would at various times rebel against this encroachment, the trend toward lordship and prominent clerical estates as major landowners in Europe became the major force of accrual of wealth and prestige in late Medieval and early modern Europe.  For recent surveys of this trend toward peasant dislocation and the rise of the aristocratic court, military orders and clergy, see Chris Wickham, The Formation of the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), and The Inheritance of Rome:  Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (Viking, 2009), and M. McCormick, The Origins of the European Economy (Oxford, 2001).

Fig. 1 Map of Norman Empire circa 1100 CE
It shows the additional lands conquered, including Italy and Sicily, England, the Crusade State of Antioch, and coastal regions in Tunisia.  By the 1150s Anglo-Normans will also invade Southern Ireland.