#Normans

[illustratus]

Alnwick Castle by Canaletto

[mapsontheweb]

The Norman conquest of England, 11th century.

by atlas_cartography

[english-history-trip]

Pages from a 13th century manuscript with depictions of the kings of England from Edward the Confessor to Edward I, accompanied by brief summaries of their reigns, along with some highlighted stories.

Edward the Confessor receiving a divine apocalyptic vision from God during an Easter banquet.

Harold II being slain by William I at the Battle of Hastings.

William II, Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II are shown in simple poses with the dates of their lives and reigns.

Richard I first in his imprisonment in Austria, then his assassination at the hands of a boy with a crossbow.

John being poisoned by a monk at Swineshead Abbey (other accounts state that he dies of dysentery).

Henry III at his coronation, symbolically holding a miniature Westminster Abbey, which was lavishly rebuilt under his reign.

Edward I, then the current king, presiding over his court; the accompanying description was either lost or never completed.

[galina]

Missing the weekend already 🍅☎️❤️

[misforgotten2]

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away?

[stairnaheireann]

Clonmacnoise Monastery – Cluain Mhic Nóis | 'Meadow of the Sons of Nós'

This monastery is situated on the banks of the Shannon, it was founded in 544 AD by St Ciarán on a fertile meadow, or cluain, surrounded by bog. It could be reached only by river or along esker ridge known as the pilgrim’s road. The monastery flourished for 600 years as a centre of learning and religious instruction. It also supplied much of Ireland’s finest Celtic art and illuminated manuscripts…

[swedebeast]

[richwall101]

Bristol City Centre (Castle Park)

This image shows Castle Park (Image dated 1988) Once an area of medieval buildings and streets in the centre of Bristol which were blitzed in the 1940's during WWII and totally destroyed. This site is also the land on which the original Bristol Castle was built.

Bristol Castle was a Norman castle built for the defence of Bristol. Remains can be seen today in Castle Park near the Broadmead Shopping Centre, including the sally port. Built during the reign of William the Conqueror, and later owned by Robert FitzHamon, it later became an important royal castle and happened to be the scene of several imprisonments and executions. Several fortifications and additions to the castle were made between the 12th–13th century under Robert of Gloucester and King Henry III. It was mostly neglected by the 16th century and torn down in 1656 under orders from Oliver Cromwell. It was one of the largest Norman Castles ever built.

Now, as can be seen from this image it has become a recreational area for the city, with parklands, walks, and rest areas, retaining it's strong links with a troubled and historic past....

[whencyclopedia]

Battle of Civitate

The Battle of Civitate was fought in southeastern Italy on 18 June 1053 between a papal army of Pope Leo IX (r. 1049-1054) and an outnumbered force of Norman knights seeking recognition of their conquests and titles. The Normans were victorious, and 37 years after their arrival, the Norman conquest of Southern Italy could begin in earnest.

Continue reading...

[princessofroses]

Royal History Unpopular Opinions

Anne Boleyn is overrated as fuck. I know I am incredibly biased against her because I love Catherine of Aragon (The only true Queen of Henry VIII), but that girl's a ratchet homewrecker who also abandoned her sister Mary Boleyn, after she was disowned by the Boleyn's for marrying that Stafford. Mary was also a courtesan (To Francis of France) but she at least respected Claude enough to not egg him to divorce her. I love Elizabeth, but Anne can respectfully fall down the stairs.

Eleanor of Aquitaine is also overrated. Don't get me wrong, I love her, but Margaret of France, Phillipa of Hainault, Emma of Normandy, Catherine of Aragon and Eleanor of Provence are way more badass. Plus Eleanor showed blatant favoritism towards Richard (who is overrated as fuck). No wonder Henry the Younger and John Lackland were so terrible.

Eleanor of Provence deserves all the respect in the world. She's the best Plantagenet. I won't tolerate any Eleanor bashing, so shut it.

Catherine de' Medici is a horrible bitch who allowed the genocide of French Huguenots, and she mothered many other hoes such as Charles IX of France and Francis II. Reign fans are gonna drag me, but Catherine and her sons can rot in hell. Elisabeth of Valois gets a pass though, I love her to death.

Stephen of Blois was a great King. I know everyone loves Empress Matilda nowadays, but she sucked at her military grift and relied on her husband to invade Normandy, and she was very poor with funds. Stephen was actually very much well liked by the English, a great ass husband and even when he lost the war, he adopted Matilda's son, paid for his safe passage back to Normandy and died peacefully. Empress Matilda might have had a better claim, but Stephen was a better ruler.

William the Conqueror is a piece of shit. Just look up how he got Matilda of Flanders to marry him.

Eleanor of Castile deserves to be underrated. For some reason a lot of people think she deserves more praise (especially in some medievalconfessions posts), but she and her dumbass husband (Longshanks) let their six year old son die in Guildford, England even though they only had to take a carriage ride to see her son one last time. Even Eleanor of Provence was there to comfort her grandson. To make matters worse, Eleanor had no interest in her badass daughter, Joan of England, sent her to live with her mother (Joan of Ponthieu) and got mad when Joan of Acre grow to resent both Eleanor and Edward, and married de Clare.

Margaret Beaufort was a huge bitch and I love her for it. Fight me in the back of a McDonalds parking lot.

Lucrezia Borgia, Caterina Sforza and Caterina Visconti will always be my favorite problematic Italian women even if they may as well be evil as heck.

[illustratus]

The Battle of Hastings by Pierre Joubert

1982 Au temps des Vikings - Les Normands de Guillaume le Bâtard (1982 Viking Age - William the Bastard's Normans)

[mapsontheweb]

The Norman Conquest of England 1066

[english-history-trip]

I think about this stuff a lot because I am a huge dork; fellow huge dorks, what do you think?

(I did a post some years ago going over some of the implications of each of these almost-kings reaching the throne.)

[racefortheironthrone]

Do you consider the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the death of Harald Hard-Ruler to be the end of the Viking age?

That's a tough question, because it really comes down to whether you view the Normans as being in historical continuity with their Vikinger ancestors (and for how long) - after all, the Normans were running around conquering southern Italy and Sicily and Malta and Cyprus and big chunks of North Africa and the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Land Levant for hundreds of years after Stamford Bridge.

But what I would say is that the death of Harold Hardrada at Stamford Bridge marked the end of an era in which England was part of a broader empire that stretched from Ireland to Sweden. As British history teachers have been boring their students to death for generations by saying, after 1066 England's orientation shifted from that Scandinavian world to its northeast to focusing on France and dreams of a continental empire of its own.

[ancientorigins]

How hard can it really be to build the perfect castle? Here are some of the biggest innovations in castle building anyone interested in finding out needs to know.

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1366 – The Statutes of Kilkenny are passed in an attempt to prevent Norman settlers becoming ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’.

The Anglo-Irish parliament met in Kilkenny and produced a body of royal decrees that became known as the Statutes of Kilkenny. The statutes aimed to prevent English colonists living in Ireland from adopting Irish culture and mandated that the Irish conform to English customs before they could obtain certain social, legal, and religious rights. In particular, the statutes prohibited marriage…