550. The Road to 1066: Rise of the Normans (Part 3)
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Who were the Normans and what drove their expansion?
Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. At the end of France, there is a plain filled with woods and fruit trees. In this narrow place, there lived a great number of very tough, strong people, the name of whom was Normans. Such were their numbers that in time, as the population grew, the fields and orchards of Normandy proved insufficient to keep them all fed. Therefore, the Normans scattered here and there throughout all the various parts of the world, making their way into numerous regions and countries, abandoning what little they had in order to obtain very much more. These people departed their homes, but they did not follow the custom of most people who go through the world, entering into the service of others. rather like warriors of old.
Their aim was to make everybody subject to them and under their lordship. And so they took up arms and broke the bond of peace. And whether as a mass of infantrymen or on horseback, they proved themselves great in deeds. So that was the terrifying opening to the history of the Normans, written, Tom, in the mid-11th century by a monk called Amartas. And as you have pointed out in your notes, this is very reminiscent of the way that... you know, when the Greeks wrote about the intrusion on the world scene of the Romans or the Chinese about the coming of the Mongols, they would say, oh my God, there's this extraordinary new people who are absolutely formidable, very frightening, very brutal. They kill everybody.
They, you know... Where they come from. Yeah, where they come from. And the Normans... are greeted by writers beyond Normandy's borders with the same kind of awe and terror, aren't they?
Yeah, kind of dread for reasons that Amartya spells out because he says that the Normans are physically hardy, very tough, very strong. So Amartya writes in Latin, but the version we have is translated into French. And he specifies that the Normans have a lust for seigneury, so lordship, and that they have a particular aptitude for chevalerie, so fighting on horseback, what will in due course come to be the attribute of a knight, chivalry. But basically, they're going around on horses, kind of nicking other people's land and property. And also, of course, he's very impressed by their wanderlust, this sense that they're spilling out across the world and that their goal is a kind of greatness, that they're not prepared to serve other people. And Amartya is speaking from experience. So he is a monk in Monte Cassino, the great abbey in central Italy, which we last heard of in the podcast because Wojtek The bear, the Polish bear.
Yes, the Polish bear was serving with the Polish army there in the Second World War. But it's a very venerable abbey reaching back to the beginnings of Christianity in Italy.
And the fact that he is observing this from Italy is a reminder to us in England, we tend to think of the Norman conquest as the Normans are going one way. he has seen a great stream of Norman freebooters, adventurers, rogues, you know, mercenaries, whatever, heading south into Italy and beyond. And actually, for me, one of the great fascinating stories of Normans is how they expand southwards and become a Mediterranean power.
Well, because southern Italy in particular, I mean, if you're going out and you're looking for opportunities to set up your lordship, then you want a place where there are going to be rich pickings. And southern Italy is perfect for the Normans' purpose because this is a place where all kinds of different empires are rubbing up against each other. So there's Latin Christendom. But there is also the Byzantine Empire. So the Byzantines have... territory there. There's Muslim powers in Sicily and constant ambitions to push up northwards through Italy. This is perfect for a bunch of hardy, horse-riding mercenaries looking essentially to be paid and then to use that money to turn on the people who are paying them.
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