Anglo-Normans

Anglo-Normans
Examples of Anglo-Norman elite
Languages
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups

The Anglo-Normans (Norman: Anglo-Normaunds, Old English: Engel-Norðmandisca) were the medieval ruling class in the Kingdom of England following the Norman Conquest. They were primarily a combination of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, Frenchmen, indigenous Anglo-Saxons and Celtic Britons. A small number of Normans had earlier befriended future Anglo-Saxon king of England, Edward the Confessor, during his exile in his mother's homeland of Normandy in northern France. When he returned to England, some of them went with him; as such, there were Normans already settled in England before the conquest. Edward's successor, Harold Godwinson, was defeated by Duke William the Conqueror of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings, leading to William's accession to the English throne.

The victorious Normans formed a ruling class in England, distinct from (although intermarrying with) the native Anglo-Saxon and Celtic populations. Over time, their language evolved from the continental Old Norman to the distinct Anglo-Norman language. Anglo-Normans quickly established control over all of England, as well as parts of Wales (the Welsh-Normans). After 1130, parts of southern and eastern Scotland came under Anglo-Norman rule (the Scots-Normans), in return for their support of David I's conquest. The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland from 1169 saw Anglo-Normans and Cambro-Normans conquer swaths of Ireland, becoming the Irish-Normans.

The composite expression regno Norman-Anglorum for the Anglo-Norman kingdom that comprises Normandy and England appears contemporaneously only in the Hyde Chronicle.[2]

  1. ^ The English And The Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066 - c. 1220, Oxford University Press, U.S.A. (3 Oct. 2002) p. 146
  2. ^ C. Warren Hollister, Henry I (Yale English Monarchs) 2001:15.

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