History of Medicine

Oh dear, it has been a very long time since I last posted on my History Blog. I am sorry to say that I have rather neglected it while I was focusing on actually learning to teach and teaching practice itself. Now I need to do a bit of catching up, so hopefully you will see a welter of new posts over the next couple of weeks. What I will do is write about how my subject knowledge has expanded through reading/researching topics for the lessons I have taught, so this will largely be retrospective and may suffer from imperfect memory.

The first topic I started to read up on after starting the course was the History of Medicine when I discovered that I would be teaching this (subsequently I discovered I wasn't going to teach it). Ruth recommended "the Greatest Benefit to Mankind" by Porter, which is an excellent book to give a good background. I started by reading about the earliest humans and the really scary point is that the majority of human disease encountered today is a direct result of our development and efforts to domesticate animals. This close proximity with animals, not a feature of the earliest hunter gatherers, allowed bacteria and disease to spread from animals to humans, with cattle and sheep being particular culprits as well as dogs. Man's best friends it seems also introduced us to some particularly unpleasant friends of their own.

The main periods of medical development are the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Muslim world, the Renaissance, inoculation and vaccination and the scientific breakthroughs of the 19th and 20th centuries (assisted by the 2 world wars). The Egyptians and Greeks were the first real medical pioneers. The Egyptians, through mummification, began the journey of discovery of human anatomy, a journey frequently delayed and diverted because religious beliefs prohibited it. In reality, mummification was a perfectly logical solution to the problem of heat rotting dead bodies. The body, they believed was made up of channels which carried the air and blood and food around the body and illness ensued when these channels were blocked. The Greeks pushed medical "science" further and Greek ideas held sway for many hundreds of years.The medical symbol of the snake coiled around a staff is of Greek origin. The idea of the body containing four humours, black bile, blood, phlegm and yellow bile (which were linked to the four seasons and the old idea of four elements or fire, air, water and earth) if of Greek origin. Most treatments were based on the idea of keeping the humours in balance, for instance if you were deemed to have too much blood then you would be bled, too much yellow bile and you would be encouraged to vomit. These ideas and treatments held sway for many hundreds of years. Hippocrates was perhaps the greatest Greek doctor and it is from him we still have the Hippocratic oath. The importance of Hippocrates is that he encouraged doctors to look for natural causes and remedies for illness rather than to look to the gods for both cause and cure.

With the Romans the main focus was on public health and surgical procedures (largely as a result of the military requirements of the large Roman Army). Public Health systems such as water wells and fountains and aqueducts, with sewerage systems were hugely important and the fall of the Roman empire led to a great decline in medical standards largely because of the demise of public health systems. Personality wise, Galen is the Roman most remembered for medical science. He was a prolific writer and very good at PR, which gave him great influence. Usually unable to practice on human bodies he used animals to show that we had such things as nerves. In many of his ideas he followed the Greeks, he believed in the four humours, but it was in the field of anatomy that he really pushed the science forward, though his restriction to dissecting animals meant that he made mistakes not discovered for some 1500 years, such as claiming the human lower jaw was made of two bones rather than one. Although Galen advanced medical science and his ideas are hugely important, his very influence meant that his ideas remained unchallenged for some 1500 years even when they were wrong, and the result could be argued that he blocked further medical advancements as a result.

The importance of the Muslim world and scholars like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) lay not some much in their ideas rather in the fact they learned from the peoples and cultures they conquered. Muslim scholars translated many works into Arabic and later Latin so that works from ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt were saved when they might otherwise have been lost to the world in the chaos which reigned after the fall of Rome. But they also added knowledge from other cultures in Africa and India and their faith placed great store in care for the sick, as a result the Muslim world boasted many hospitals where the sick were genuinely cared for rather than just treated well or even turned away (as in medieval Europe).

In the Renaissance, the great ancient writers were finally challenged. Vesalius, Pare and Harvey all advanced medical science, knowledge and practice in anatomy, surgery and physiology respectively. Unfortunately this often brought conflict with the Papacy and Catholic church. Vesalius was repeatedly criticised by the Church, particularly when he proved that men and women both have the same number of ribs (so how could Adam have given a rib to God so he could create Eve?). Pare's use of silk thread instead of hot oil and cauterisation for surgery was revolutionary, but it would not be until the advent of sterilisation a couple of hundred years later that his revolution really paid off. Perhaps the greatest benefit of the Renaissance was that it showed that religious ideas and blind faith in ancient scholars were hindering medical development and the works of people like Vesalius, Pare and Harvey encouraged others. The Medieval Church, which for hundreds of years had hindered medical progress for fear of the contradictions such progress might have for religious teaching, was now finally being overcome.

Jenner is the last area I have read about so far. His curiosity and enquiring mind led to one of the greatest medical discoveries of all - the link between small pox and cow pox and the subsequent development of vaccination as a treatment has led to the virtual disappearance of Small Pox, once one of the most feared and virulent of diseases. Previously, preventative treatments for Small Pox, once they were discovered, consisted of inoculation. This meant injecting/infecting the subject with a small does of Small Pox itself. If this was successful then the subject would suffer a mild does of the disease, recover and then be immune to it on the future, much the same principle which is still employed today with Chicken Pox - as soon as you discover a child has it, all the other children in the neighbourhood come round for a Chicken Pox party so they can catch it too as the disease is much milder for children. This idea was discovered for the West in 1717 by Lady Mary Wortley Montague (her husband was the British Ambassador to Turkey) while she was living in Turkey, but it had been used in the East, particularly China for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, inoculation frequently resulted in the death of the subject. Vaccination, differs from inoculation because it involves injecting/infecting the subject with a similar, less deadly, disease which will give immunity to both diseases. Cow Pox is very similar to Small Pox but is not fatal. The word Vaccination even comes from the Latin Vaccinus meaning from a cow. Jenner discovered "vaccination" as a preventative cure for Small Pox in 1796 after a dairy maid, Sarah Nelmes was infected with Cow Pox. Jenner tested his idea out on James Phipps, a local boy, and it seemed to work so he conducted further tests. Vaccination took a long time to really take off, and it was not until the government made it compulsory in 1852 that it truly became widespread in Britain, but Napoleon Bonaparte had all his soldiers vaccinated. There was much opposition to vaccination in the UK primarily from the powerful lobby who preferred inoculation, and whom had made huge sums of money from it, whilst vaccination was offered free of charge.

In teaching Medicine, much emphasis is placed on sources and source analysis largely because this is a GCSE syllabus. Popular sources for use in teaching are Gillray's The Cow Pock cartoon on vaccination and The Triumph of Death painting on the Black Death.

Teaching Medicine through Time should focus on RIGSWICH - the 7 factors which influence any change through history:

Religion

Individuals (Galen, Jenner, Vesalius etc)

Governments (public health, Romans and Victorians etc)

Science & Technology (better methods of surgery and improved equipment through better use of materials in Roman times)

War (the advances in Surgery in Roman times, Pare in the Renaissance wars in Italy, the advances made during WWI and WWII)

Improved Communications (the huge libraries in Alexandria for example and the Muslim scholars translation of works, the printing press in 1450 coinciding with the medical renaissance)

Chance (luck - Jenner being in the right place at the right time).

In the teaching of Medicine through time it is important to look at factors with periods and across periods. So for example comparing Greek and Roman methods and comparing Medieval Europe to Roman times. But also looking at different factors within, say, Medieval Europe - the positive and negative influence of the church is an example - the fact that religious houses had the best "public" health and looked after people well, but most hospitals did not actually admit the sick and the Church restricted medical research. It is also important to compare supernatural and natural factors and treatments (the idea of the four humours has elements of both). The Black death is a good example - look at beliefs about what caused it and the treatments for it and compare those which centred on it being a punishment from god and the need to pray for deliverance (supernatural) against those treatments which recommended isolating suffers and cleaning up the towns and cities (natural).

OK, that's enough for now. Not sure what my next entry will be about, but it will hopefully be soon.

Kenilworth Castle

I finally got to Kenilworth Castle at the weekend. I have been many times before but not since the Elizabethan garden and Leicester's gatehouse have been rebuilt and reopened. Whilst I did not specifically learn anything new, I did find the whole experience very good for refreshing my knowledge and it did give me a fresh perspective on the relationship between Dudley and Elizabeth.

I went with family including my brother and his German girlfriend. She is interested in history but her knowledge comes almost exclusively from TV and Film, which is interesting given the content of some of our discussions today. I had to debate with her the likelihood of Elizabeth and Dudley having an very active sexual relationship. She thinks it must have been, partly because they were human like the rest of us and could not have been in love without consummated their relationship, but primarily because she has seen the two Elizabeth films courtesy of Hollywood. Personally I do not know if they ever consummated their love, I think it would have been very difficult for them to do so without being found out and I am not aware of any evidence that suggests they did. It would also have been very awkward for Elizabeth to court foreign marriage proposals if she was not the virgin she claimed to be.

The garden was a revelation. I had not seen it on previous visits. The range of plants, the layout, the sensual "riot" and the allegorical figures were all very powerful even if I struggled to understand it all. Of course the very end of summer is not the best time to see the garden but it was still impressive nonetheless.

All in all, I felt that the trip really helped to solidify the sense of how important the relationship was between Elizabeth and Dudley. It gave a good sense of what certain aspects of court life would have been like and gave a sneak view of Dudley's character. Certainly worth a visit for anyone studying Elizabeth.

Rufus and Beauclerc

William the Conqueror had 3 sons, Robert "Curthose", William "Rufus" and Henry "Beauclerc". Before the Conqueror's death he had fallen out with Robert and had even fought against him with Robert being supported by the French King. They remained estranged when William died in 1087. William's will gave Robert, his eldest son the Duchy of Normandy, England went to William Rufus and Henry was granted a large sum of money. This proved to be a recipe for trouble.

I am not going to relate the events of the next two reigns in this post, I am going to give the top line events and explore a couple of ideas. The reason I am covering it is because the three reigns show marked contrasts in the monarchy of England and the way the country was governed and I want to highlight this.

William I, "the Conqueror", ruled England through the force of his will coupled with his astute political sense and his military talent. He ruled the country with the support of his most powerful magnates who served as his advisers. He was a deeply religious man who led a relatively austere life.

William II, Rufus, was in many ways much like his father, he was an astute politician and had great military talent. Rufus, however, was not austere, in fact he revelled in luxury. He was also not religious. Indeed during his reign he did much that antagonised the Church and his reign was marked by a prolonged quarrel with Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In fact he so lacked respect for the Church that he appointed one of his chief advisers, Flambard, as Bishop of Durham partly to facilitate the crown appropriating even more money from the Church and country, partly to pay for his extravagant lifestyle.

Another significant difference from the reign of his father was the fact that the Anglo Norman realm was not united under one ruler. This was to cause Rufus numerous problems. The two brothers, Robert and William Rufus were not generally on good terms. This had started before their father died. The fact that Robert, the elder, did not receive the royal title must have irked him. The fact that many Anglo Norman magnates had estates on both sides of the Channel made life for them difficult when the two territories were ruled by different people, and people who were at each others throats. The result was trouble for Rufus in the form of insurrection, disloyalty and rebellion from his nobility. Rufus was able to deal with it ultimately but in doing so he demonstrated another difference from his father. Where William I was ruthless but clement and generous, William II was petty and vindictive. This showed in his dealings with his defeated enemies.

In 1100 William II was killed whilst out hunting. Whether it was an accident or murder we will perhaps never know. The result however, was that William I's youngest son became King Henry I of England, and Robert missed out again.

Henry I faced the same Anglo Norman split as William II had, and it too caused him problems. But Henry was an altogether more pragmatic man. He was also rather more religious than his elder brother had been and so was able to mend the rift with the Church and Anslem. Ultimately he was also able to unite the two parts of the Anglo Norman realm by deposing his brother Robert as Duke and in so doing removed one of the main sources of trouble for his reign. Henry was also the first of the Norman line to embrace English (Anglo Saxon) culture. He married the last remaining link to the old royal house of Wessex, Mathilda, and their son William was given the old Anglo Saxon title of Aetheling. He received loyal support from English nobility and this proved invaluable when he faced rebellions from Anglo Norman nobility early in his reign.

So far there is little to choose between the first three Norman kings of England, with the exception of character and the fact that Henry embraced, and was actively supported by the English. The real difference was in the fact that Henry I was a noted scholar. His nickname "Beauclerc" means well learned. Whilst this in itself may not sound remarkable it is worth noting that success criteria for Medieval monarchs concentrated on their ability to make war and defend their realms and they rose or fell largely according to their abilities in this area. Some may well have been well educated but very few could be described as scholars. And yet Henry had the same political astuteness and military abilities possessed by both his father and Rufus. What mattered was that Henry put his education to very good use in the running of his kingdom. It is under Henry that written records of government really start to appear. He reformed many aspects of the government especially around finances and it was during his reign that the office of Exchequer came in to being. This naturally attracted the top scholars from around the Anglo Norman lands and these "administrators" were employed by Henry to help run the country. He still relied upon powerful nobles for support and as advisers, but Henry I's reign is the first when we really start to see the rise of the administrator. This is a theme which is evident in Elizabeth I's reign.

My reason for posting on this topic is that I believe this to be an important, yet often forgotten, milestone in the development of the monarchy and power in England and therefore it is important to the overall theme Britain from 1066 to 1485.

Teaching The Norman Conquest

The whole subject of the Norman Conquest is vast and therefore teaching it will cover numerous lessons. In this post I will try to outline the approach I would take in teaching the subject over several lessons and will reference some impressive resources I have found. As my recent blog posts have shown, this is a complex subject and is one which does not conveniently begin in 1066. For that reason I would introduce the subject of the Norman Conquest by exploring a little of William the Conqueror's background.

• I see this element as being a mixture of some good story telling (I am inclined to run with Ruth's suggestion of adapting some of my blog posts into stories to read with the students) and watching snippets of the first episode of the BBC series on the Normans. The purpose will be to give students an understanding of who William was and a little of what drove him to England.
  
• I would want to balance this by exploring a little of what Anglo-Saxon England was like prior to the Norman Conquest. This will help to cover why England was such a desirable and tempting target for invasion. Here I would concentrate on things like England's wealth, the royal burghs and their revenue potential, England's strong Christianity.
  
• As an activity I would consider getting the class to work in groups with a spider diagram. Put England in the middle as a target and around it list all the reasons why England was a prime target for invaders in 1066.
  
• Next I would want to explore the succession problem of 1066. This would entail looking at each candidate and exploring their claims to the throne. I would divide the class into groups again and give each group a different claimant to investigate. I would ask them to consider what the basis of their claim was and what were the strengths and weaknesses of each claim. I would then hold a discussion to explore who had the strongest claim and to discuss why Harold was crowned.
  
• Next I would want to explore the sequence of events in 1066. I have a couple of ideas about this. The first would be to tell a really engaging narrative (again adapting some of my blog posts). I would want to make it a really good tale whilst still keeping to the facts. The other idea I have had for this involves a resource I have found on the superb Thinking History website: http://www.thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/Eventsof1066.html
  The website suggests using this activity before really explaining anything about the events. The activity allocates roles to the class based on key people in 1066, rather like the activity I designed for Elizabethan England looking at the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots in England. It is designed to push people into making choices and will help to embed a good sense of the complexity and shifting loyalties of 1066.
  
• Then I would move onto Hastings itself. Again, Thinking History website has a really good re-enactment activity: http://www.thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/BattleofHastings.html
  I love the sound of this activity where you get the class to re-enact the battle in a staged walk through led by the teach, complete with a dodgy "'Allo, 'allo" style French accent. The activity would require some good degree of class control but it would be excellent fun. This could be backed up by another narrative account and by studying the Bayeux Tapestry battle scenes.
  
• As a follow up activity, depending on the class and whether this was year 7 or A-level, I would consider getting the class to assess the different military methods of the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. Both were hugely successful but they were the complete opposite of each other.
  
• The next topic is then the consolidation of Norman power. There are several ways to run this, again I would be inclined to use a narrative to begin with in order to tell the story of the key events (see my previous blog entry). Then some analysis would be required. The key here being to explore how William strengthened and maintained his hold over England.
  The key points I would want to cover here are:
  - the introduction of William's version of the Feudal system
  - Governing England - both through the Status Quo and through change
  - Castles
  - the Domesday Book (though this deserves a larger activity of its own).
  For each point I would want to explore how it helped William gain control.
  
• Castles are a relatively easy topic in my view and certainly one that can be great fun. I found a good resource about Motte and Bailey castles here: http://www.tes.co.uk/Download.aspx?storycode=6043949&type=X&id=6053236
  This could be a good starter before getting the class to work either in groups or individually to design their own castles including deciding where to put them. I would give them a map with different locations so they could choose. As for the castle design, this could either be free flow or I could prepare some resources cut out and laminated so they had a whole range of different features they could decide upon using.
  I would want to finish with castles by exploring why and how they helped William gain control as well as exploring the pros and cons of small wooden Motte and Bailey castles. Then explore the dangers to William and his descendants of having lots of bigger and stronger stone castles in the hands of his nobles - rebellion.
  
• Finally I would want to spend some time on the Domesday Book. I would ask why it was so important. Then I would get the class to discuss what kind of information it contained. As an extension of this I would get the class to think about what they would need to include in a modern Domesday Book. Finally I might get them to start to create their own version, perhaps based on their classmates' information.

The biggest problem with teaching the Norman Conquest is deciding on which resources to use for which areas of the subject. there seems to be so many resources available that choosing will be quite tough.

Analysis of Post-Conquest England - rebellion and control in William's reign

So why did serious resistance to William's rule breakout in 1069?

This question is all the more poignant when we consider how smoothly William had apparently assumed power in 1066 and 67. William had secured the acquiescence of London and the South. The majority of the English, with only a few exceptions, accepted his kingship. The majority of the Earls and all but a few Bishops and Abbots were English. William perpetuated a structure and form of government that was similar to that which he had inherited. I have already mentioned in the previous post that he retained Ealdred and Stigand as Archbishops of York and Canterbury respectively and that he retained Edward the Confessor's chancellor. In many ways the status quo remained and this cannot have been anything but a welcome relief to the English. So what went wrong?

Well part of the problem seems to have been that before long, especially in the south in Sussex and Kent, the lands in the care of fitz Osbern and Odo, a policy of dispossession, deprivation and demotion seems to have begun by which the surviving English aristocracy and their families were removed from their lands and subordinated wholesale to incoming Norman nobles given the lands as rewards and to promote security. This was done in William's name, whether or not he sanctioned the policy. This had the effect of belying William's words of continuity and inheritance with actions of high-handed superiority and dispossession. Many of the dispossessed families left and escaped to Scotland.

This policy meant that to many it looked not so much as if they were accepting William as King but that they were accepting the Normans as overlords. This very fact was compounded, and the policy itself may well have been driven by, the prevalent euphoric sense of Norman achievement and self consequence which had emerged during the 1050's. This was revealed in the works of contemporary writers such as William de Poitiers, who were increasingly arrogant and dismissive of non-Normans. It ultimately comprised de-humanising, uncivilising and putting beyond the Christian Pale all those who opposed them. In their turn the English, Welsh, Irish and Scots were to be subjected to this. Already in 1067, the English were being described as perfidious by William de Poitiers. Even other Norman writers such as Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury indulged in 1075.

This all amounted to a huge and growing arrogance on the part of the Normans which must have helped fuel the policy of dispossession and the growing unequal treatment of the English in their own land. When William moved north, to accept the submission of those parts of the country most remote from his power, this can only have increased the fear amongst the remaining English nobility that they were to be next on the dispossession list.

It is perhaps this arrogance and the dispossession's which gave the lie to William's promises of continuity and status quo which made the difference, because England had been ruled by foreign monarchs in the not too distant past, indeed there would still have been many who remembered the reign of Cnut. The comparisons were easy to draw for those who remembered; Cnut left the native English in place and simply ruled over the existing politic. The new Anglo-Norman regime was not, it would seem, Anglo enough.

So now we have an insight into why the rebellions flared up, but how did William succeed in stamping them out and then in retaining and strengthening his authority?

This is a central question to the story of Britain from 1066 and must surely be the subject of a whole, or at least large part of, a lesson.

William overcame the rebellions through a combination of coolness, savagery, diplomacy and mercy. He employed all the many talents he had developed throughout his tough upbringing and his formative years as a young Duke in an unsettled Normandy. For this reason it was important to begin the whole subject by exploring William's early life and his ancestry. His reputation as a military commander of energy, ruthlessness, resource, intelligence and cunning, if not actual genius, and the flexibility of the Norman military system undoubtedly facilitated William's defeated of the rebels. His cunning bribe of the Danes to split his enemies and his diplomacy and mercy when Earl Waltheof, and later Morcar, submitted to him, served weaken his enemies resolve and to start the process of rebuilding a degree of native support and loyalty.

While what has been discussed above was vital in enabling William to defeat the rebellion's against him, two other factors were of paramount importance in helping him secure the long term survival of his reign. The first of these were castles. This military utility was new to England, where previously only fortified burghs had been needed, certainly for the past few generations. The castle as a device enabled the Normans to dominate an area and to remain safe and secure from all but the largest of rebellions. Without the means to dominate an area through castles the rebels could not hope to maintain a firm hold over large areas they way William could. After 1070, castles would become the symbol of Norman power and control. William used castles as the core of a series of strategic commanderies he created throughout the midlands and the north and it was these he used to control the country.

The second factor was William's wholesale dispossession and destruction of the pre-Norman power structures. By 1075 there were no native born English at the highest levels of English society and politics except those English "new men" William had raised up himself. Earl Waltheof can be considered the first of these. He remained in possession of East Midlands centred on Northampton and later took responsibility for Northumberland. By 1086 he had been joined by Thurkil of Warwick, Edward of Salisbury and Alfred of Marlborough. But these new Earls, and the Norman Earls who took over the vast majority of the country were not to be granted the same powers as the pre-conquest Earls. In 1070 William removed Archbishop Stigand from the See of Canterbury and the process of dispossession which occurred in the nobility was mirrored in the clergy.

In summary, William demolished and completely rebuilt the power structures and locales of England. Earls' powers were reduced and Earldoms themselves were shrunk to be replaced by many more smaller lordships, centred on castles and occupied almost exclusively by Normans.

In my next blog I want to explore how this might be taught. I intend to look at teach the subject from the start of 1066 through to how William consolidated his hold on England.

Consolidating the Norman Conquest

I have now read enough of Crouch's book to get past the immediate aftermath of the Conquest and the through to the mid 1070's. So now I want to write about how William consolidated his conquest. I have not yet watched the 2nd episode of the BBC series so may have more to add once I have done.

The popular view is that the Battle of Hastings represented a final act and that after it the Norman conquest was assured. It follows from this that William was crowned on Christmas Day 1066 and that there was little significant rebellion against his rule, with the exception of the well known Harrying of the North and the revolt of Hereward the Wake, centred on Ely and the Fens. This is a massive over simplification and fails to recognise the often tenuous hold on the crown William had and the seriousness of the revolts against him and the Normans.

The immediate aftermath of the bloody battle on Senlac Ridge saw William return to Hastings and spend several weeks in the Sussex and Kent. His troops looted and pillaged the area before William and his Army advanced on London. The went via Canterbury which submitted without resistance. Then skirted south of London, burning Southwark and looting and pillaging their way up the Thames valley before finally sweeping round through the Chilterns and down on London from the north. William reached Berkhamstead by mid December. At this point many of the English leaders were ready to submit to William's claims to the throne, and he duly received these submissions at Berkhamstead. The coronation was swiftly arranged and William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 25th December 1066.

The ceremony was presided over by the Archbishop of York and was conducted in both English and French. Many English Earls and Thegns were in attendance to accept William as their new sovereign. But the coronation did not go smoothly. The shout of acclamation (where the assembled nobility and clergy proclaim their new king by shouting) was taken up by the large crowd outside the church, whereupon the Norman guards stationed outside panicked, thinking a riot was starting they laid into the crowds with their swords and in the ensuing melee 2 houses in the Abbey precinct were burnt down. William was visibly shaken by this but the ceremony continued nonetheless.

Despite the debacle of the coronation William felt secure enough to return to Normandy in March 1067. The celebrations welcoming him back were impressive and William now kept a splendid royal court in his residence of Fecamp, much to the envy of the French King.

In spite of the conquest there was to be no united Anglo-Norman realm. In many ways William did not even see England as the centre and heart of his dominions and he certainly did not view England as his home. He returned home to Normandy within a few months of his coronation happy that the English had accepted him as their new king and equally happy to accept, by and large, the status quo in England. For example he issued writs in both English and Latin, he retain Edward the Confessor's chancellor as well as Stigand as Archbishop of Canterbury, in spite of papal opposition.. His first appointments of Earls in 1067 duplicated the regional arrangements of Anglo-Saxon England; William fitz Osbern, his close friend, replaced Harold as Earl of Wessex, Ralph the Staller (a former court official of Edward) replaced Gyrth in East Anglia and Bishop Odo (William's half brother) replaced Leofwine in Kent and most of the home counties. The Earldoms of Mercia, East Midlands and Northumbria were left as they were found. But William did take back to Normandy with him a vast amount of money and treasure looted from England, many French soldiers and several prominent English as hostages for good behaviour: Stigand (Archbishop of Canterbury), Edgar Atheling (the last clear blood heir to the English throne) and Edwin, Morcar and Waltheof (Earls of Mercia, Northumbria and East Midlands respectively) so that "no revolt instigated by them might breakout" according to the commentator William de Poitiers.

William remained in Normandy until December 1067. This is significant because it shows that William was worried by the security of Normandy - he did not return to England until the summer campaigning season in France was over. He was concerned at what his powerful enemies in Northern France might do in his absence. Indeed Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had fought for William at Hastings, did try to cause trouble. Rather than invade Normandy while William was there he fitted out a fleet and sent a force of troops to attack Dover. It was repulsed easily. Clearly William felt his position in England was secure enough for him to concentrate on Norman continental affairs. When William did return to England in December 1067 he took more troops with him and he was greeted with elaborate civic festivities in London.

However, there were problems in England and William spent much of the winter dealing with them. There was fighting in Herefordshire by alienated Mercian landowners who were raiding from the north. Worse, in the South West Exeter refused to accept William as King. Gytha, the late King Harold's mother was there and likely encouraged the defiance. William raised an army which included English shire levies and forced Exeter to surrender.

At this point William felt secure enough to bring his wife Mathilda over from Normandy and have her crowned Queen on 11 May 1068. Once again Ealdred Archbishop of York presided and many English Earls and Thegns attended. However, This was to be the high point of William's reign, thereafter he was faced with crisis and rebellion.

Before I look at why the apparently smooth takeover of England by William suddenly boiled over, and explore how and why William held onto his crown I will narrate the tale of what happened.

In the Summer of 1068 William moved out of the south of England for the first time. He entered Mercia and the North. The brothers Edwin and Morcar resisted him briefly but submitted again at York. William moved north leaving detachments to build castles at Warwick and Nottingham. York submitted to William's approach. William even entertained envoys of Malcolm III of Scotland (the slayer of Macbeth) at York. William then returned south starting castles at Lincoln, Huntington and Cambridge. He left a French Knight, Robert Comin to secure Durham and Northumberland. William, meanwhile returned to Normandy with his Queen to celebrate Christmas. All seemed well, William appeared to be in complete control. But it was merely the calm before the storm, and it was to prove a terrible storm.

William's appearance at York seems to have galvanised the Northern magnates into resistance. On 28 January 1069, Robert Comin and his knights were massacred on their first night in Durham. The surprise was so complete that only 1 or 2 Normans escaped. The news brought William back from Normandy like a thunderbolt, but the rebellion continued to spread. The massacre of Normans was repeated near York and the castle was placed under siege. The rebels appear to have been led by Edgar Atheling and numerous other nobles who had fled Norman rule to Scotland.

William duly arrived at York in March 1069 whereupon he drove off the rebels, refortified the existing castle and built a second. He left William fitz Osbern in charge and returned south to celebrate Easter at Winchester. He wanted to keep an eye on the South West where Harold's sons had landed with a force of mercenaries from Ireland. Throughout the summer of 1069 the Northern rebel army continued to threaten York and it was at this point that the situation became really critical for William. King Swein of Denmark (nephew of King Cnut and with a theoretically better claim to the English throne than Harold had) sent an army and fleet to raid the coast of England from Kent north. The fleet sailed up the Humber and the army joined with the northern rebels at the beginning of September near York. Now all the surviving English Earls chose to defy William. Waltheof of East Midlands, Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria all joined the Anglo-Danish camp.

York fell on 19th September and in the ensuing massacre only women and children and one Norman man were spared. Fitz Osbern had already been recalled by William so he survived. William was now at the darkest point and it looked as if he would lose his tenuous grip on the English throne. But it was at precisely this point that he now put to use all the cunning and guile, the the ruthlessness and bravery he had. Fitz Osbern was sent to the South West where he defeated the rebels under Harold's sons outside Exeter. William himself went west where he destroyed a rebel army which had been pushing onto Stafford from the Welsh Marches. This ended the most serious threat to his fragile power base in the south and left him free to deal with the Anglo-Danish army in the north. In early December 1069, his way north barred by the larger rebel army at Pontefract, William used cunning and bribed the commander of the Danish fleet to leave the area and retreat to the mouth of the Humber. This worked and the Danes left the northern rebel army. The rebels, now seriously weakened scattered and William entered a ruined York in time to spend Christmas amongst the ashes. But now commenced the Harrying of the North. William sent his troops out far and wide across the Vale of York where they burned and pillaged, destroying houses and villages and crops and driving off livestock. The result was a massive famine in which many thousands are believed to have died and which impoverished the north for many generations. From York William moved North first to the Tees and then the Tyne valleys. In January Earl Waltheof submitted to him and was given clemency. William now moved south crossing the Pennines to Chester and then Salisbury.

William finally returned to Normandy in late 1070 ending the longest continuous period William spent in England and it is a measure of how serious the problems were and how wrapped up in them he was that he allowed the hard won Norman control over the county of Maine to slip. But he had retained his grip on the English crown and indeed had strengthened it. The very fact that he remained king in 1070 must have surprised many even among his own supporters.

The Issue of William's Illegitimacy

One point I neglected to discuss on my last post was the issue of William of Normandy's illegitimacy. William is sometimes referred to as William the Bastard. He was the product of a sexual relationship between Duke Robert and the daughter of a tanner (perhaps, certainly she was of relatively lowly birth). William's parents were not married, though Duke Robert was married (just not to William's mother).

The reality is that at the time this was not an barrier to William succeeding his father as Duke. Throughout the 10th and much of the 11th century, marriage was a dynastic and diplomatic arrangement (in many ways it continued to be so) but it was rarely expected to be an emotional attachment. Nobles, princes and Kings usually formed lasting emotional and sexual relationships with a mistress who would in every way fulfil the role of wife with the exception of actually being married. This was accepted practice. All of William's predecessors as Counts of Rouen and Dukes of Normandy were similarly illegitimate, born out of wedlock to their father's mistress, as were many other prominent nobles and princes. What mattered was not the marital status of their mothers but the fact they were the male progeny of their fathers, and more specifically the first born son of their father, irrespective of whom their mother was.

Interestingly, William himself broke this trend. His marriage was a dynastic and diplomatic one but it very soon became and emotional and loving one. His heirs were the product of his marriage and not of a union with a mistress.

It wasn't until later in the 11th century that illegitimacy became a stigma. This was driven in large part by the growing power of the church and its control over aspects of life such as marriage which led to the increasing legal and moral significance of the rite. This made it increasingly difficult for sons born out of wedlock to inherit.