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CONCLUSION
In this thesis, I looked at whether the process Robert Bartlett described as the
“Europeanization of Europe” can be legitimately taken to include England. In
particular, I looked at the period between 1066 and 1166, looking at this question
from a local perspective — eastern Suffolk.
There is clearly some truth in Bartlett’s ideas and their application to
England as a whole and to eastern Suffolk. From the eleventh to the thirteenth
century, the so-called process of “Europeanization of Europe” in some respects can
be applied to eastern Suffolk. By the end of the twelfth century, this region in some
respects more resembled other parts of western Europe than at the beginning of the
eleventh century. Europe was more homogenised.
Given the period I was looking at, two more questions became important.
How much was the Norman Conquest of 1066 part of the general process of
Europeanization, and what role did it play in it? The Norman Conquest, while it had
its own particular circumstances, was one of a series of conquests and migrations
that took place in different parts of the Continent and beyond in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. 1066 brought many people from the Continent, who carried some
ideas and ways of doing things with them from north western Francia.
Migration from Normandy and other parts of the Frankish heartland had
already started before 1066. There was, however, a basic difference between the
migrations of the tenth and the eleventh centuries. Unlike in the tenth and early
eleventh century, after 1066 we witness a migration of aristocrats and their followers
in relatively large numbers. People at the top of society are always more influential
than the ordinary people of the community and they hold the power of command in
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