Born into a world of treachery, violence and death, William of Normandy defied all expectations, forging a legacy that lasts to this day. Born out of wedlock and dismissed as an upstart, he was originally known as William the Bastard. Inheriting the Duchy of Normandy at just eight years old, William was faced with betrayal, bloodshed, and anarchy. From the restless Normans, who expanded across Europe as mercenaries and horsemen, to the growing threat of Anjou, the early years of his reign were blighted by power struggles. Following the brutal murder of his guardians, and with Normandy on the brink of collapse, William was forced to survive in a world without loyalty, where ambition was the ultimate currency. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the English throne was in turmoil, as the sons of Æthelred the Unready fought for survival and power… Join Tom and Dominic as they trace William’s rise from a vulnerable child to a formidable young duke, setting the stage for the ultimate confrontation: his claim to the English crown. _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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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.
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