30.04.2013 Views

I certify that I have read this thesis and have ... - Bilkent University

I certify that I have read this thesis and have ... - Bilkent University

I certify that I have read this thesis and have ... - Bilkent University

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

new art, a new architecture <strong>and</strong> a new language.” 44 Davis stresses <strong>that</strong> we cannot<br />

think of Normans as Sc<strong>and</strong>inavians. In the course of time, the Normans had adopted<br />

a different culture, largely a Frankish or French one. Initially, certainly, they were the<br />

Northmen, Sc<strong>and</strong>inavian pirates. But when they settled down in Norm<strong>and</strong>y, they<br />

were strongly affected by French culture. 45 They converted to Christianity <strong>and</strong> were<br />

assimilated:<br />

In 1066 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes two famous battles.<br />

In the first, which was the Battle of Stamford Bridge, it said <strong>that</strong><br />

the English king Harold defeated the Normen. In the second,<br />

which was at Hastings, it said <strong>that</strong> the same king Harold was<br />

defeated by the French (frecscan). 46<br />

Furthermore, in documents, Normans in Engl<strong>and</strong> only infrequently saw themselves<br />

as Normans, but most often as French. Kings in Engl<strong>and</strong> after 1066 preferred to call<br />

their public English <strong>and</strong> French, not English <strong>and</strong> Norman. Davis would argue <strong>that</strong> it<br />

was only after the Norman Conquest of Engl<strong>and</strong> <strong>that</strong> a ‘Norman’ identity (<strong>and</strong> even<br />

then more specific to Norm<strong>and</strong>y than Sc<strong>and</strong>inavian) was constructed by ‘Norman’<br />

historians living in Engl<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> Norm<strong>and</strong>y. 47<br />

Davis’s ‘Frenchness’ of the Norman invaders of Engl<strong>and</strong> brings us back<br />

nicely to Bartlett <strong>and</strong> his expansion, but it is R. R. Davies who has recently looked at<br />

the history of the British Isles through the lens of Bartlett’s ‘Europeanization’.<br />

Davies sees the progressive, though ultimately not completely successful<br />

Anglicization of the British Isles explicitly as an offshoot of Bartlett’s<br />

Europeanization. 48 If <strong>this</strong> Anglicization is a part of Bartlett’s Europeanization, it<br />

44<br />

Davis, Normans <strong>and</strong> their Myth, p. 103.<br />

45<br />

Davis, From Constantine to St Louis, p. 168.<br />

46<br />

Davis, Normans <strong>and</strong> their Myth, p. 12.<br />

47<br />

Ibid., pp. 27-8.<br />

48<br />

Davies, First English Empire, p. 170.<br />

15

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!