Orderic Vitalis
Orderic Vitalis: The jeers of the English outside Rochester reflect one attitude to the Conquest, expressed eloquently by Orderic Vitalis:
'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. Some sent to Swegn, King of Denmark, and urged him to lay claim to the kingdom of England which his ancestors Swegn and Cnut had won by the sword. Others fled into voluntary exile so that they might either find in banishment freedom from the Normans or secure foreign help and come back to fight a war of vengeance. Some of them who were still in the flower of youth travelled into remote lands and bravely offered their arms to Alexius, Emperor of Constantinople, a man of great wisdom and nobility.'
'...All that he says is true...'
Undoubtedly all that he says is true, but Orderic exaggerates. He himself was the result of a successful Anglo-Norman liaison: his father, a French clerk from Orleans in the service of Roger de Montgomery, married an English woman and Orderic was born and brought up in England. His own history illustrates just how 'English' the Norman conquerors could become, for despite being a second-generation 'Norman', he grew up thinking of himself as 'English', and when his father sent him off to the monastery of St Evroult in Normandy, he felt as if he was going to a foreign land:
'And so, a boy of ten, I crossed the English Channel and came into Normandy as an exile, unknown to all and knowing no-one. Like Joseph in Egypt, I heard a language which I did not understand... In place of my English name, which sounded harsh to the Normans, the name of Vitalis was given to me.'
Wigot of Wallingford
He was not the only example of assimilation: Wigot of Wallingford, the man who had surrendered the Thames ford to William, was canny enough to realise that he would not keep his lands in such a vitally strategic spot, so he promptly married his daughter off to its new Norman castellan, Robert d'Oilly. This enabled him to keep his old land in the hands of his family. In fact, his proven loyalty to the new régime seems to have benefitted all his family, as his son, Toki, is recorded as a personal squire to King William himself at the siege of Gerberoi in 1079. Sadly, Toki's loyalty stretched to the ultimate sacrifice. He was killed bringing a spare horse to William during a particularly vicious arrowstorm.
Published: 2001-05-01
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