Norman Yoke
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The Norman yoke is a term denoting the oppressive aspects of
feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
in England, attributed to the impositions of
William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
, the first
Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...
king of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...
, his retainers and their descendants. The term was used in
English nationalist English nationalism is a nationalism that asserts that the English are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of English people. In a general sense, it comprises political and social movements and sentiment inspired by a love for English c ...
and democratic discourse from the mid-17th century.


History

The medieval chronicler
Orderic Vitalis Orderic Vitalis ( la, Ordericus Vitalis; 16 February 1075 – ) was an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. Modern historia ...
wrote in his ''Ecclesiastical History'' that the
Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Fran ...
had imposed a
yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, us ...
on the English: "And so the English groaned aloud for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable and unaccustomed." His later work, written in light of Henry I's reign and fifty years after the Conquest, took a more positive view of the situation of England, writing, "King Henry governed the realm ... prudently and well through prosperity and adversity.... He treated the magnates with honour and generosity. He helped his humbler subjects by giving just laws, and protecting them from unjust extortions and robbers." The culturally freighted term of a "Norman yoke" first appears in an apocryphal work published in 1642 during the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
, under the title ''
The Mirror of Justices ''The Mirror of Justices'', also known in Anglo-Norman as ''Le mireur a justices'' and in Latin as ''Speculum Justitiariorum'', is a law textbook of the early 14th century, written in Anglo-Norman French by Andrew Horn (or Horne). The original ...
''; the book was a translation of ''Mireur a justices'', a collection of 13th century political, legal, and moral fables, written in
Anglo-Norman French Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman French ( nrf, Anglo-Normaund) ( French: ), was a dialect of Old Norman French that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period. When ...
, thought to have been compiled and edited in the early 14th century by renowned legal scholar
Andrew Horn Andrew Horn (–1328) was a fishmonger of Bridge Street, London, lawyer and legal scholar. Biography He served as Chamberlain of the City of London from 1320 until his death in 1328. Sir William Blackstone's ''Commentaries on the Laws of Engla ...
. Even though the book was obviously a work of fiction—obvious to anyone living in the fourteenth century—at the time of its publication in 1642 it was presented, and accepted, as historical fact. Frequently, critics following the Norman yoke model would claim
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
or
Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...
as models of justice. In this context,
Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...
is seen as an attempt to restore pre-Conquest English rights, if only for the gentry. When Sir
Edward Coke Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...
reorganised the English legal system, he was keen to claim that the grounds of English
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
were beyond the memory or register of any beginning and preexisted the
Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
, although he did not use the phrase "Norman yoke". The idea of the Norman yoke characterized the nobility and gentry of England as the descendants of foreign usurpers who had destroyed an
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...
. Such a reading was extremely powerful for the poorer classes of England. Whereas Coke,
John Pym John Pym (20 May 1584 – 8 December 1643) was an English politician, who helped establish the foundations of Parliamentary democracy. One of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War, his use ...
,
Lucy Hutchinson Lucy Hutchinson (; 29 January 1620 – October 1681) was an English translator, poet, and biographer, and the first person to translate the complete text of Lucretius's ''De rerum natura'' (''On the Nature of Things'') into English verse, du ...
and Sir Henry Vane saw Magna Carta rights as being primarily those of the propertied classes, during the prolonged 17th-century constitutional crisis in England and
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, the arguments were also taken up in a more radical way by the likes of Francis Trigge, John Hare,
John Lilburne John Lilburne (c. 161429 August 1657), also known as Freeborn John, was an English people, English political Leveller before, during and after the English Civil Wars 1642–1650. He coined the term "''freeborn, freeborn rights''", defining them ...
, John Warr, and
Gerrard Winstanley Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the founde ...
of the radical
Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...
even calling for an end to
primogeniture Primogeniture ( ) is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relativ ...
and for the cultivation of the soil in common. "Seeing the common people of England by joynt consent of person and purse have caste out
Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...
our Norman oppressor, wee have by this victory recovered ourselves from under his Norman yoake." wrote Winstanley on behalf of the Diggers, in December 1649. In ''The True Levellers Standard Advanced'' Winstanley begins: :O what mighty Delusion, do you, who are the powers of England live in! That while you pretend to throw down that Norman yoke, and Babylonish power, and have promised to make the groaning people of England a Free People; yet you still lift up that Norman yoke, and slavish Tyranny, and holds the People as much in bondage, as the Bastard Conquerour himself, and his Councel of War.


Revival of interest

Interest in the idea of the Norman yoke revived in the eighteenth century; it appeared in such texts as the ''Historical Essay on the English Constitution'' (1771) and in John Cartwright's ''Take Your Choice'' (1777), and featured in the debate between
Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
and
Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_ NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style"> ...
.
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
also championed the myth. By the 19th century the Norman yoke lost whatever historical significance it may have had and was no longer a "red flag" in political debate, but it still carried its popular-history usefulness, conjuring up an imagined Anglo-Saxon golden-age England - Sir
Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
in his novel ''
Ivanhoe ''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' () by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting st ...
'' (1819) puts a "Saxon proverb" into the mouth of Wamba (Ch. xxvii):
Norman saw on English oak.
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon to English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blithe world in England never will be more,
Till England's rid of all the four.
Victorian Protestants sometimes linked the idea of the "Norman Yoke" with
anti-Catholicism Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
, with claims that the English
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
Church was freer of Papal influence than the Norman one.Paz, Dennis G. ''Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England'', Stanford,
Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
, 1992. (pgs. 2,3,64).
They cited events such as Pope Alexander II supporting
William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
and the homages of various
Plantagenet The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in batt ...
kings to the
Papacy The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
as proof of this idea. This linking of "Anglo-Saxon"
English nationalism English nationalism is a nationalism that asserts that the English are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of English people. In a general sense, it comprises political and social movements and sentiment inspired by a love for English c ...
and anti-Catholicism influenced
Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the working ...
's novel ''Hereward the Wake'' (1866), which, like ''Ivanhoe'', helped popularize the image of a romantic Anglo-Saxon England destroyed by the Normans. On the other hand,
Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
rejected the idea of the "Norman Yoke"; in his ''
History of Friedrich II of Prussia ''History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great'' is a biography of Friedrich II of Prussia by Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. It was first published in six volumes from 1858 to 1865. Composition ...
'' (1858) Carlyle portrayed the Norman conquest as beneficial because it had helped unify England. According to historian
Marjorie Chibnall Marjorie McCallum Chibnall (27 September 1915 – 23 June 2012) was an English historian, medievalist and Latin translator. She edited the ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' by Orderic Vitalis, with whom she shared the same birthplace of Atcham in Shr ...
,
Every age has found in he Norman Conquestsomething relevant to the constitutional, social and cultural issues of its own day, ranging from the political and parliamentary struggles of the seventeenth century through the romantic and scientific interpretations of history in the nineteenth to the debates on colonialism, races, and women's history in the twentieth.
In the twenty-first century, Michael Wood touched upon the Norman Yoke concept in the context of highly mythologised so-called "comic-book history" for the BBC History series ''In Search of England''. Michael Woo
"The Norman Yoke: Symbol or Reality?"
Comic-book history, website of the BBC, 2014 = "Later generations saw the Normans as usurpers who had put the English under a 'Norman Yoke'. Was this symbolic of a general sense of oppression, or representative of the harsh crushing of a whole society ... or both?"


See also

*
Harrying of the North The Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate northern England, where the presence of the last House of Wessex, Wessex claimant, Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged An ...
*
Levellers The Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populis ...


Notes


References

* Christopher Hill, ''Puritanism and Revolution,'' 1958 *
Marjorie Chibnall Marjorie McCallum Chibnall (27 September 1915 – 23 June 2012) was an English historian, medievalist and Latin translator. She edited the ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' by Orderic Vitalis, with whom she shared the same birthplace of Atcham in Shr ...
, ''The Debate on the Norman Conquest'' (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999) {{ISBN, 0-7190-4913-X The "Norman yoke" in the context of the broader historiography of the Conquest. * HN Brailsford, 'The Levellers and the English Revolution' 'Edited and prepared for publication' by Christopher Hill (Cresset Books, 1961; Spokesman Books, 2nd Edition, 1983). *Michael Wood
BBC History Norman Yoke website.
' Comic-book history, website of the BBC
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time - Episode on the Norman Yoke
Feudalism in England English nationalism