What Did the Normans Do for Us?

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• 1. National identity
• 2. Castles, cathedrals, monasteries
• 3. Wealth, lordship and political control
• 4. Find out more
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Castles, cathedrals, monasteries

Together with epics such as The Song of Roland, churches and castles have been essential in forming our vision of the Middle Ages. They are the built images of the first two of the three orders into which writers in the Middle Ages often divided their society: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work. The Normans had an enormous influence on the development of both castles and churches in England. There had been large scale fortified settlements, known as burghs, and also fortified houses in Anglo-Saxon England, but the castle was a Norman importation. Numbers are uncertain, but it seems plausible that about 1,000 had been built by the reign of Henry I (1100-1135). They took many forms. Some were towers on mounds, surrounded by larger enclosures - often referred to as motte and bailey castles. Others were immense, most notably the huge palace-castles which William I built at Colchester and at London; the White Tower at London remains the typical child's image of a mediaeval fortification. These were the largest secular buildings in stone since the time of the Romans, over six centuries before. They were a celebration of William's triumph, but also a sign of his need to overawe the conquered.

'...churches and castles have been essential in forming our vision of the Middle Ages.'

Churches too were built in great numbers, and in great variety although sharing the Romanesque style with its characteristic round-topped arches. The vast cathedrals of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, vast in scale by European standards, emphasised the power of the Normans as well as their reform of the church in the conquered realm. Buildings such as Durham cathedral suggest the strength and vibrancy of the builders' culture in rather the same way as the early sky-scrapers of New York. The Normans also continued the great building of parish churches which had begun in England in the late Anglo-Saxon period. Such churches appeared too in the rest of the British Isles and can still be seen, for example at Leuchars in Fife. A lord might display his wealth, power and devotion through a combination of castle and church in close proximity, again as still spectacularly visible at Durham.

Particularly striking is the close proximity of many great churches, a characteristic too of eleventh-century Normandy. One of the most telling examples is the group of border abbeys in southern Scotland - King David I's foundation of Jedburgh, still-impressive and crowning its hill; the Premonstratensian house of Dryburgh, providing a fittingly romantic resting place for Sir Walter Scott; the Cistercian house at Melrose; and most spectacular of all in the splendour which even the limited remains indicate, another royal foundation at Kelso. And behind such buildings must lie considerable wealth.

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Published: 2001-07-01