PublishedHistory Press, March 2020 |
ISBN9780750993883 |
FormatSoftcover |
Dimensions19.8cm × 12.9cm × 2cm |
The Normans were a relatively short-lived cultural and political phenomenon. They emerged early in the tenth century and had disappeared off the map by the mid-thirteenth century. Yet in that time they had conquered England, southern Italy and Sicily, and had established outposts in North Africa and in Levant.
Having traced the formation of the Duchy of Normandy, Trevor Rowley draws on the latest archaeological and historical evidence to examine how the Normans were able to conquer and dominate significant parts of Europe. In particular he looks at their achievements in England and Italy and their claim to a permanent legacy, as witnessed in feudalism, in castles, churches and settlement and in place-names. But equally from the political stage. The reality is that, even within this short time-span, the Normans changed as time and place dictated from Norse invaders to Frankish crusaders to Byzantine monarchs to Feudal overlords. In the end their contribution to medieval culture was largely as a catalyst for other, older traditions. AUTHOR: Trevor Rowley is Director of the Public Programmes in the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. He has combined his career in education with a lifelong love of landscape history and archaeology which began under the supervision of the father of landscape history W.G. Hoskins at Oxford. His publications include Villages in the Landscape, The High Middle Ages and Norman England. He has excavated in Britain and elsewhere in Europe and is an enthusiastic traveller. He is fascinated by the Norman enigma about which he continues to research.
