Normans

Examples of Normans in the following topics:

• Norman Architecture

  • Norman architecture is a style of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion during the 11th and 12th centuries.
  • The Normans introduced large numbers of castles and fortifications, including Norman keeps, monasteries, abbeys, churches, and cathedrals.
  • In England, Norman nobles and bishops had influence even before the Norman Conquest of 1066, and Norman influences affected late Anglo-Saxon architecture.
  • Following the Norman invasion of England, Normans rapidly constructed more motte-and-bailey castles, and in a burst of building activity, they built churches, abbeys, and more elaborate fortifications such as Norman stone keeps.
  • Pierre is a good example of Norman architecture.

• The Double Disasters

  • A number of wars between the Normans and the Byzantine Empire were fought from 1040 until 1185 when the last Norman invasion of Byzantine territory was defeated.
  • The Normans and their new land took the name of these "Northmen."
  • The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard allied with the pope to drive the remaining Byzantines from southern Italy and replace them with a Roman Catholic Norman kingdom.
  • Even more dangerous than the Normans was a new enemy from the steppe: the Turks.
  • While the Normans were pillaging Italy, the Turks invaded Asia Minor.

• Norman Painting

  • The Norman dynasty had a major political, cultural and military impact on medieval Europe.
  • Norman cultural and military influence spread from France south to Italy and north into England after the Norman invasion of England in 1066.
  • Another significant Norman art form is that of stained glass.
  • Norman Romanesque embroidery is best known from the Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidered cloth nearly 70 meters (230 feet) long which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England.
  • Albans Psalter, Norman English, 12th century.

• The Norman Invasion of 1066 CE

  • The Norman conquest of England was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, Breton, and French soldiers led by Duke William II of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror.
  • A few ships were blown off course and landed at Romney, where the Normans fought the local fyrd.
  • Norman cavalry then attacked and killed the pursuing troops.
  • Twice more the Normans made feigned withdrawals, tempting the English into pursuit, and allowing the Norman cavalry to attack them repeatedly.
  • The tapestry depicts the loss of the Anglo-Saxon troops to the Norman forces.

• Architecture

  • Due to the systematic destruction and replacement of English cathedrals and monasteries by the Normans, no major Anglo-Saxon churches survive; the largest extant example is at Brixworth
  • In the 11th century the Normans were Europe's leading exponents of Romanesque architecture, a style that had begun to influence English church building before 1066, but became the predominant mode in England with the huge wave of construction that followed the Norman Conquest.
  • The Normans destroyed a large proportion of England's churches and built Romanesque replacements, a process, which encompassed all of England's cathedrals.
  • Distinctively Norman features include decorative chevron patterns.

• Norman Stained Glass

  • A significant art form from the Norman empire, throughout both France and Norman-controlled England, was that of stained glass.
  • A significant art form from the Norman empire, throughout both France and Norman-controlled England, was that of stained glass.
  • Glass craftsmen were slower than architects to change their style, and much Norman stained glass from at least the first part of the 13th century can be considered as essentially Romanesque.
  • At Canterbury Cathedral in England, Norman stained glass images include a figure of Adam digging and another of his son Seth from a series of Ancestors of Christ.

• William the Conqueror's Rule

  • Other effects of the conquest included the introduction of Norman French as the language of the elites and changes in the composition of the upper classes, as William reclaimed territory to be held directly by the king and settled new Norman nobility on the land.
  • There was little alteration in the structure of government, as the new Norman administrators took over many of the forms of Anglo-Saxon government.
  • William took over an English government that was more complex than the Norman system.
  • After a great political convulsion like the Norman Conquest, and the wholesale confiscation of landed estates that followed, it was in William's interest to make sure that the rights of the crown, which he claimed to have inherited, had not suffered in the process.
  • In particular, his Norman followers were more likely to evade the liabilities of their English predecessors, and there was growing discontent at the Norman land-grab that had occurred in the years following the invasion.

• The Bayeux Tapestry

  • The tapestry is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 meters (230 feet) long and 50 centimeters (20 inches) tall, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England.
  • The tapestry can be seen as the final and best known work of Anglo-Saxon art, and though it was made after the Norman Conquest of England, historians now accept that it was created firmly in an Anglo-Saxon tradition.
  • The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth—not an actual tapestry—nearly 230 feet long, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England.

• The Romanesque Period

  • The invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066, saw the building of castles and churches that reinforced the Norman presence.
  • These include the Abbaye-Saint-Denis and Westminster Abbey (where little of the Norman church now remains).
  • Many were constructed as strongholds of the Normans; descendants of the Vikings who invaded northern France in 911.

• Analyzing every stage of production

  • (Nemes, Judith, ‘Dumpster Diving from Garbage to Gold', businessGreen.com) ‘Once you've seen your garbage up close its hard to ignore it,' says Shira Norman, a research consultant with YRG Sustainability.