![[Flag of Normandy]](../images/f/fr-norm.gif)
by Arnaud Leroy &
António Martins
Last modified: 2004-07-03 by ivan sache
Keywords: normandy | normandie | lions: 2 (yellow) | leopards: 2 (yellow) |
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by Arnaud Leroy &
António Martins
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Normandy did not exist as an historical homogeneous land before 911 and the 'treaty' of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. From 911 to 1204, Normandy nominally depended of the kingdom of France but was de facto one of the best organized states in medieval Europe. Since 1204, continental Normandy is a French province. Of course, the name of Normandy did not exist before the Norsemen, but it will be used below in an anachronical manner for the sake of simplicity.
Normandy before Normandy
After the Roman conquest, all the Celtic tribes of Gaul were incorporated into the provincia lugdunensis (Lyonnaise, named after its capital city Lugdunum, now Lyon). In the Lower-Empire, the province of Second Lyonnaise was created, with Rotomagus (now Rouen) as its capital city. The borders of this province were more or less those of medieval and modern Normandy. This is not surprising since the later dukes maintained the early ecclesiastic administrative divisions, which were themselves based on the former Roman civil divisions. Christianism spread over the Lower-Empire through the axis Lyon-Rouen, so that the first bishop of Rouen was appointed in the beginning of the IVth century. Six other cities, which were the former capital cities of the Gaul tribes, became a bishopric: Evreux, Lisieux, Bayeux, Coutances Avranches and Sées.
From the IIIrd to the VIth century, the coast of Normandy was attacked by the Saxons, who established a few settlements in Bessin (now the coastal part of Calvados). Bretons expelled from England by the Saxons conquered the Channel islands. At the end of the Vth century, the whole Normandy was incorporated into the kingdom of the Franks. Most of the new inhabitants settled in the eastern part of Normandy, where the new lords allied with the Church. Powerful abbeys were founded, for instance Jumièges and Fontenelle, in the lower valley of Seine. After the successive shares of the kingdom of the Franks, Normandy was part of the kingdom of Neustria, whose kings were landlords absolutely not interested in maritime affairs.
Around 800, Charlemagne started to establish a defense system against the Norsemen. A first attack was repelled in 820. However, the Norsemen trashed Rouen in 841 and looted the abbeys. In 851, they overwintered on an island of the Seine, making the defense of the coasts impossible. King Charles le Chauve built a fortified bridge on the Seine near Pîtres (862) and commissioned the Bretons to protect the paeninsula of Cotentin and Avranches (867), to no avail.
The foundation of Normandy
In 911, a Danish army led by the Norwegian Rollon (Hrolfr) was defeated near Chartres. Rollon started negotiations with king of France Charles le Simple. By the 'treaty' (no act was ever signed) of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, France ceded to Rollon what is now known as the Upper-Normandy (departments of Eure and Seine-Maritime). Rollon's Vikings were christened and appointed defendors of Normandy against the other Vikings. Rollon's powers were those of a Frankish count and he took control of the remainings of the royal and ecclesiastic powers.
Other Norsemen settled in Normandy, for instance Danes from England near Bayeux and Norwegians from Ireland in the Cotentin. In 923 and 933, Rollon was allowed by the king of France to take control of these areas, which was a fairly difficult task. The borders of Normandy in the middle of the Xth century were more or less those of the former ecclesiastic province of Rouen. The only missing part was the eastern Vexin, which remained in the royal domain as the Vexin français, as opposed to the western part, incorporated to Normandy as the Vexin normand, the border being the river Epte. The only significant later modification of the territory of Normandy was the incorporation of the Passais, near the city of Domfront, around 1050. The stability of the borders of Normandy is a noticeable exception in the medieval word.
The early evolution of the duchy of Normandy
The Scandinavian influence in Normandy is mostly visible through place and family names, and was important mostly in the coastal areas. There are very few archeological remains of the Norsemen and not the least artistic influence. The only influence of the Norsemen on the institutions was on maritime and criminal laws. In the beginning of Normandy, the Frankish institutions were adopted by the Scandinavian lords, who often bore two names (Rollon was also called Robert) and married twice, according to the Christian and Danish (more Danico) rules.
The first dukes increased their powers through successive crises and abandoned the Vikings' traditional expeditions. Rollon (911-c. 932) followed the example of the Danish kings of York (England) and reestablished in Rouen the archbishop and the monks of the St. Ouen's abbey. He was succeded by his son Guillaume Longue-Epée (Long-Sword; c. 932- 942), who propagated Christianism and established a strong alliance with the kings of France. His successor Richard I (942-996) repelled an attempt of Frankish conquest and other attacks by his neighbours, helped by Viking mercenaries. Richard II (996-1026) rebuilt a powerful Church in Normandy. Abbeys were founded or rebuilt in Fécamp, Jumièges, Saint-Wandrille, Rouen (St. Ouen) and Mont-Saint-Michel. All bishoprics were reestablished. Richard II started to adapt to Normandy the feudal institutions and used them to increase his power and stabilize his state, whereas those institutions were the source of the desagregation of the kingdom of the Franks. New cities were built, including Caen (1025), which would later replace Bayeux as the second capital of the duchy. Richard II married his sister Emma to king of England Ethelred II. This marriage is the source of the later claims of the Norman dukes over the throne of England.
The conquest of England
Duke Robert le Magnifique (1027-1035) was an impulsive person. He died in Nicée (Asia Minor) on his way back from Jerusalem. His illegitimate son Guillaume le Bâtard succeded him (1035-1087). Guillaume's early reign was difficult. The barons of the duchy revolted, but Guillaume subdued them with the help of the Church. The formation of autonomous domains within the duchy was prohibited, the army was reorganized, and those who contested Guillaume's power were forced to exile. The most famous of these rebels is Robert Guiscard (c. 1015-1085), who founded a Norman state in southern Italy. Robert was appointed count (1057-1059), then duke (1059-1085) of Puglia, Calabria and Sicily, by pope Nicholas II. He expelled the Byzantines from Italy in 1071 and later the Sarracens from Sicily. Other Norman lords became mercenaries in England, Spain and Byzance. They sent back money to Normandy to fund or rebuild churches, for instance the cathedrals of Coutances and Sées. Some of them eventually calmed down and came back home, where their wealth and military experience was very helpful to Guillaume.
After having stabilized his duchy, Guillaume expressed international ambitions. He incorporated Maine in 1063, on behalf of his son Robert. King of England Edward the Confessor, Guillame's cousin, proposed him to succede him. Edward had no children and was in big trouble with his court and his subjects. Edward died in January 1066. Guillaume landed in England on 28 September 1066. His English opponents were exhausted after having defeated the Norwegian pretender. The English pretender Harold was defeated and killed in Hastings on 14 October 1066 and Guillaume was crowned King of England in Westminster on 25 December 1066. Guillaume's success was mostly due to three military elements, his Scandinavian-like fleet; the association of cavalry and archers' troops; and a deep knowledge of fortification systems. Guillaume was also officially supported by the Church and attracted in his expeditions a lot of Breton, French and Flemish knights. The conquest of England is depicted on the famous Tapestry of Bayeux.
The Anglo-Norman kingdom
Normandy and England were associated in a single state for 138 years, from 1066 to 1204. Guillaume was much more powerful than his theoretical suzereign, the French Capetian king, locked in his small domain. Guillaume was wise enough to never challenge the Capetian authority. The Norman barons and prelates received huge domains in England, and sent back a lot of money to Normandy. The ports on the Channel developed, including Caen, where Guillaume and his wife, Mathilde de Flandre, funded two abbeys. The union of Normandy and Flanders scared the pope and the king of France, and the foundation of the abbeys was Guillaume's answer. A specific architecture style called art normand developed.
Guillaume's successors were not so brilliant but they were able to preserve the Anglo-Norman kingdom because of the strength of the institutions set up by Guillaume. Guillaume's elder son, Robert Courteheuse, was appointed duke of Normandy only (1087-1106). Therefore, he lacked the English wealth. Back from the First Crusade, he was overthrown by his brother Henri I Beauclerc, king of England since 1100. Henri modernized the institutions and started the building of a line of fortresses (Arques, Gisors, Châeau-sur-Epte, Domfront, Chambois, Falaise, Caen, Brionne...) on the border with the kingdom of France. The Echiquier (Chessboard) was established as a Supreme Court presided by the duke-king or his personal representative.
Henri I had only one daughter, married to Geoffroy, Count of Anjou. A succession crisis (1135-1153) nearly broke the unity of the Anglo-Norman kingdom. Geoffroy's son, Henri II Plantagenet (1150-1189), saved the unity of the duchy-kingdom. Henri II built a huge state, receiving Anjou and Touraine from his father and most western and south-western France from his marriage with duchess Aliénor d'Aquitaine. Normandy was the executive center of Henri's empire, which spread 'from Berwick to Bayonne'. During Henri's reign, the redaction of the Norman custom, which was considered until the French Revolution as the basis of the moral unity of the duchy and is still used, slightly modified, in the Channel Islands, was achieved.
Henri II's sons were not able to preserve their father's works. The elder son, Richard Lionheart (1189-1199) exhausted his state through his unsuccessful military campaigns. He ruined Normandy by building the huge fortress of Château-Gaillard. which was not able to repell the French assaults against Normandy. John Lackland (1199-1216) had to face the strong-minded king of France Philippe-Auguste, who incorporated in two years (1203-1204) Normandy and a part of the southern neighbouring areas. The Norman barons, who had not really supported John, were asked to chose between their Norman and English possessions. Most of them emigrated to England. John kept the Channel Islands in spite of the attempts of conquest by pirates supported by France.
The incorporation to France
The Capetian kings preserved the Norman institutions but placed them under their personal control. The Chessboard alternatively gathered in Rouen and Caen, but was always presided by a representative of the king. In 1258, the treaty of Paris officialized the separation of Normandy and England. Agriculture, trade and manufacturing industries developed in Normandy. In 1315, Pierre Dubois published in Coutances his charte aux Normands, which establisghed a definitive modus vivendi between Normandy and the kingdom of France.
The Hundred Years' War
In 1343, a few lords from the Cotentin supported a plot set up by Geoffroy de Harcourt, lord of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte. They attempted to reestablish the autonomy of Normandy under English suzereignty. King of England Edward III landed in Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue on 12 July 1346 and trashed Saint-Lô, Caen, Lisieux and Elbeuf on his way to Crécy, where he defeated king of France Philippe IV on 26 August. Black plague achieved to ruin Normandy in 1348. During the next thirty years, Normandy was trashed by armed gangs claiming to be the English party or the Navarre party, since king of Navarre Charles le Mauvais was lord of Cotentin and Evreux.
In 1364, constable Duguesclin defeated Navarre in Cocherel. In 1375, the English were expelled from Normandy and even from the Channel islands, for a short period. Henry V of Lancaster landed in Touques on 1 August 1417 and organized the occupation of Normandy, but without any promess of autonomy. The occupation was never complete since the Mont-Saint-Michel was never seized. Moreover, several pockets of resistance were organized by farmers led by local lords.
The French reconquest of Normandy began around 1440 and was achieved in 1449-1450. The victory of Formigny, near Bayeux, caused the fall of the last fortresses still kept by the English. From 1461 to 1468, the French occupied Jersey but were exepelled by the inhabitants helped by the English fleet.
The reconstruction of Normandy and the formal incorporation to France
In 1450, king of France Charles VII granted Normandy a general amnisty and confirmed the Norman rights. In 1469, Louis XI formally suppressed the duchy of Normandy (at least its French part) but respected the local rights. The reconstruction of Normandy was achieved with the foundation of the port of Le Havre by François I in 1517. In the XVIth century, the powers of the Chessboard were transfered to the Parliament of Rouen.
Source: L. Musset. Normandie. Encyclopaedia Universalis 16: 436-442.
Ivan Sache, 13 July 2003
The banner of arms of Normandy is (GASO):
De gueules aux deux léopards d'or, armés et lampassés d'azur, passant l'un sur l'autre
In English (Brian Timms):
Gules two lions passant gardant in pale or armed and langued azure
These arms are said to have been those of duke Guillaume le Bâtard, better known as Guillaume le Conquerant (GASO). However, the arms of Normandy appeared for the first time on the shield of Geoffroy Plantagenet (1135/1144-1150).
This banner of arms is extremely popular in Normandy. It flies over several historical buildings, including the fortresses built on the former border with France, the castle of Caen etc. 'Cheap' flags often portray the leopards without the blue tongue and claws. The leopards are widely used as the symbol of Normandy, for instance on the labels of Camembert cheese.
Ivan Sache & Pascal Vagnat, 13 July 2003
The legend is that duke William of Normandy had two lions for Normandy and Maine, and added a third for England when he conquered it in 1066. However as heraldry did not exist in the XIth century, this must be apocryphal. Presumably there was a deliberate resemblence between England's and Normandy's arms to recognise the dynastic connection between the two, though.
Roy Stilling, 5 February 1997
The theory saying that heraldry did not exist in the XIth century
is a long held, even cherished, theory that has been seriously
questioned. It is to a large extent based on the fact that no
continuity can be found between the devices on the shields in the
Bayeux Tapestry and those borne by lords of the same name in the
years of the Crusades.
In contrast to this there is a well developed theory presented in
The Oxford Guide to Heraldry by Thomas Woodcock, Somerset
Herald, and John Martin Robinson, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), which puts a different point
of view. The theory has since been confirmed by a number of different
researchers, and has it that armory was in use in
Flanders among a group of families
descended from Charlemagne for some two centuries before its use
became general. I use the term armory for two reasons: firstly
heralds had not become involved in it, and secondly it was initially
a system of flags, not shield devices. Only later, apparently, were
the devices transferred to shields.
The system spread from Flanders to areas where Flemings settled,
especially as castle-builders, and this included Normandy, although
in this early period it was in all likelihood restricted to the
Flemish families, and not taken up by their Norman neighbours. Quite
a number of Flemings were included in William of Normandy's army when
he invaded England, and their use of armory in Britain (primarily
England, but also areas of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, in all of
which they formed the new land-owning class) was emulated by other
"Normans" and then carried back to their relatives on the European
Continent. (I use the term Normans in quote marks because although
Normans made up the majority in the army, there were many others,
including Bretons [not French subjects at the time] and men from
other regions that were under the French king's authority.)
This laid the groundwork of a system that suddenly became a military
necessity in the time of the Crusades, when it became widespread.
However, it is highly probable that William of Normandy did not use armorial devices and it is probably correct to dismiss the theory concerning the one lion of Guyenne and the two of Normandy being combined to make the three of England.
Mike Oettle, 16 August 2002