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.