William the Conqueror and the Birth of the Anglo-Norman World

During the 11th century, Normandy became a regional power capable of projecting itself beyond its borders. Its strength rested not only on a spirit of conquest, but on its ability to organise the territory, pacify the aristocracy, support monasticism, and build churches, abbeys, castles and networks of loyalty.

The political skill of the Norman princes was also expressed through major artistic and monumental commissions, which, a thousand years later, remain essential components of European heritage.

Val-ès-Dunes (1047): William asserts his authority over the Norman barons

Having secured the loyalty of the Norman barons, defeated at Val-ès-Dunes in 1047, William the Conqueror embarked on an ambitious project.

He transformed the town of Caen into a true city, raised to the rank of second capital of the duchy. In 1059, his wife Matilda founded the Abbaye aux Dames. In 1060, William began construction of his castle and the town's fortifications, and in 1063 he founded the Abbaye aux Hommes.

Pre-existing dynastic ties with England

From its very origins, the Norman world was a "cosmopolitan" one. Long before William the Conqueror's conquest of England in 1066, the Normans were already exporting French wine and Caen stone across the Channel. William Longsword himself was probably born on English soil. Norman elites were established in England during the reign of Edward the Confessor, who had himself been raised in Normandy following the Danish conquest of the island in 1016, before returning to England as king in 1042.

The conquest of England in 1066 was thus the result of dynastic, political and cultural ties that already existed between Normandy and England.

In 1002, Emma, sister of Duke Richard II of Normandy and great-aunt of William the Conqueror, was married to King Ethelred II of England.

Their son, Edward the Confessor, raised in Normandy following the Danish conquest of England (1016), became king in 1042. Having no direct heir, tradition holds that he designated his cousin William of Normandy as his successor.

1066: The Battle of Hastings and William's coronation

The year 1066 marked a turning point. The Battle of Hastings and William's coronation transformed England and created an Anglo-Norman space linking both shores of the Channel. The conquest brought violence, confiscations and a reorganisation of power, but also new political, ecclesiastical and cultural structures.

After conquering the throne of England, made possible thanks to the support William secured from the kingdom of France, Flanders and Brittany, the new king and his successors undertook the construction of numerous churches and fortresses, spreading a new architectural language: Romanesque art.

In order to administer a kingdom that had become increasingly complex, William ordered in 1086 the compilation of a vast survey, now known as the Domesday Book, a document with no equivalent in medieval Europe.

The Channel: a shared political and cultural space

The conquest of England opened a period of intense movement of people and skills between the two shores of the Channel. The Anglo-Norman world encouraged the circulation of people, artistic models, administrative practices, architectural forms and written culture between Normandy and England.

Caen stone across the Channel: the Tower of London, Battle Abbey, Winchester, Canterbury

Caen stone, widely exported across the Channel even before 1066, became one of the principal building materials for major English royal and ecclesiastical projects, including the Tower of London (begun in 1078), Battle Abbey, founded by William in 1070 on the very site of the Battle of Hastings, Winchester Cathedral, and Canterbury Cathedral (rebuilt from 1070 onwards). The forms of Romanesque architecture developed in Normandy were introduced into England by master builders and craftsmen from the duchy.

Lanfranc and Anselm of Bec, reformers of the English Church

Norman prelates and scholars, such as Lanfranc, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, and Anselm of Bec, who succeeded him in 1093, took part in the reform of the English Church and the spread of learning: monasteries maintained close ties, works, literary genres and exegetical traditions crossed the Channel, while Latin, Old French and Old English coexisted and interacted within ecclesiastical and aristocratic circles.

The Bayeux Tapestry, witness to Anglo-Norman exchange

The Bayeux Tapestry, made in the 1070s in England, probably at Canterbury, by English and Norman embroiderers, also bears witness to these exchanges. Illuminated manuscripts produced in the scriptoria of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury served as models for the tapestry's designers and embroiderers. The Latin text of the embroidered captions is influenced by both Anglo-Saxon and Old French.

The work was probably commissioned by Odo, half-brother of William the Conqueror, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, then one of the most influential figures in the kingdom, called upon to act as regent in the king's absence. Odo died in 1097 in Palermo, at the Norman court of Roger I of Sicily, awaiting passage to Palestine to take part in the First Crusade.