Excerpt from Gesta regum Anglorum Published in Readings in European History, 1904
"This was a fatal day to England, and melancholy havoc was wrought in our dear country during the change of its lords."
In 793, a terrifying force swept out of northern Europe: a group of invaders known as Vikings, Northmen, or Norsemen. Whatever their name, they spread death and destruction throughout the continent for the next two centuries. By the late 900s, however, Vikings had settled in various areas, including a region in the north of France. This area, settled in 911, came to be known as Normandy. Like their forefathers the Vikings, the Normans—their name was a version of "Northmen"—were a restless people, eager for conquest. Early in the eleventh century, a new opportunity appeared for them when Emma, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, married Ethelred the Unready (ruled 978-1016), king of England.
Ethelred was a descendant of invaders from Germany who in the 400s had taken Britain from the Celts, who had controlled the island for a thousand years. Unable to defend themselves after soldiers from the declining Roman Empire departed in 410, the Britons (as the British Celts were called) had actually invited the German tribes—known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—to help them defend their island. But the Germans conquered it instead, and as a result the land took their William of Malmesbury
Like many scholars of medieval Europe, William of Malmesbury was a monk in the Catholic Church. His name is taken from the town in southern England where he lived most of his life.
Malmesbury's first notable work of history was Cesta regum Anglorum (c. 1125), an account of England's kings modeled on the writings of the noted English historian Bede (BEED; c. 672-735). He followed this with Cesta pontificum Anglorum (c. 1126), and Histo-ria novella, which covered events in England up to 1142.
Name. The main part of Britain came to be known as England after the Angles, and to this day people of English descent are known as Anglo-Saxons.
By 1042, when Ethelred's and Emma's son Edward the Confessor became king, the stage was being set for another takeover, this time by the Normans. Edward, who died in 1066, placed a great deal of trust in Norman advisors; meanwhile, more and more settlers came from Normandy to England. After 1053, the most influential figure in Edward's court was his son Harold (c. 1022-1066), who assumed the throne after his father's death. Harold reigned for less than a year: on October 14, 1066, he died in a battle against an invading Norman force, led by a duke named William (c. 1028-1087)—better known as William the Conqueror. The two armies met on a beach near the town of Hastings, and the victory of the Normans would become one of the most important events in the history of the English-speaking world.
World History
