11th-century Europe: not just the Norman Conquest

Summary

History Extra Podcast: 11th-Century Europe—Not Just the Norman Conquest

Date: October 21, 2025
Host: David Martin Musgrove
Guest: Professor Charles West, University of Edinburgh
Main Theme: A panoramic view of 11th-century Europe, going beyond the Norman Conquest to highlight the era’s transformative changes in cultural networks, urbanization, authority, and the roles of women—all set against a diverse European backdrop.

Episode Overview

This episode challenges the traditional, Anglo-centric focus on 1066 and the Norman Conquest as the defining moment of 11th-century Europe. Professor Charles West, drawing on his book Europe in the 11th Century: Beyond Revolution and Reform, invites listeners to consider an array of significant developments across the continent—political, cultural, urban, and religious—that together shaped the era as a true “pivot point” in European history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cultural Networks vs. Political Borders

[03:04] Prof. Charles West:

• Medieval people conceived of Europe as a collection of overlapping “cultural networks” rather than fixed political borders.
• Circa 1000, these included the Byzantine Empire, the Latin West (using Latin for liturgy, religion, governance), the Islamic world in the south, and a northern arc from Scandinavia to the Black Sea.
• By 1100, the Latin West expanded through conversion, while Byzantium and the Islamic world contracted.
• “It’s not about political borders... the cultural networks within that space do change.”
• Medieval maps, like the multicolored St. Sever map, depicted Europe as a geographical part of the world but lacked political boundaries.

2. Is the 11th Century Special?

[06:10] Prof. Charles West:

• The 11th century marks a pivotal transition—a “threshold” or tipping point—between the early and late Middle Ages.
• Dismissing overstated talk of apocalyptic anxiety in the year 1000, West notes there was no universal sense of impending doom; different regions even followed different calendars.

3. Norman Conquest in Perspective

[08:17] Prof. Charles West:

• The Norman Conquest, though monumental for England, is not central to West’s narrative: “If we view the 11th century through the Norman lens, we’re being maybe a little bit blinkered.”
• Continental chroniclers, such as Lambert of Hersfeld, recorded 1066 as one event among many, often focusing more on local issues.
• The conquest impressed contemporaries, and English mercenaries even ended up in Byzantium, but the world kept turning—Europe was much bigger than 1066.

4. Wealth, Governance, & Urbanization

• Was England especially rich? [11:00]
  • England was comparatively wealthy and well-governed in northwest Europe, but not the richest:
    • “Muslim Spain is definitely more prosperous... so is Byzantium. Byzantium’s per capita GDP was twice that of England.”
    • Byzantine administration and tax records were far ahead (records of individual fields and their size for taxation).
• English Distinctiveness?
  • “Every area of Europe is different... England is not exceptionally exceptional.”
• Urbanization [13:40]
  • England was “quite urbanised”—many modest towns—but nowhere on the scale of Constantinople or major continental cities.
  • “If we took all those people out of their towns and sent them all to Constantinople, they would be less than half the population of that single city.”
  • Continental cities like Cologne, Ghent, Milan, Pisa, and Granada were much larger. Growth in urbanization is a broader northwest European trend (including Dublin and Waterford in Ireland).

5. European Cities & Urban Power

• Constaninople’s Dominance [17:15]
  • Western pilgrims and crusaders were awestruck by Constantinople, but Rome still loomed large in the Latin imagination.
  • Cities elsewhere (Kaifeng, Baghdad, Alexandria) could match or surpass Constantinople in size and vibrancy.
• Urban Movements: Pateria Revolt in Milan [18:23]
  • Urban revolts (1057–c.1067 in Milan) showed towns reaching sizes where crowds could affect political power—“It’s like an 11th-century Occupy.”
  • Some cities achieved early forms of collective self-governance, visible later in the Italian communes; even English towns had legal identities and distinctive customs.
• Town vs. Countryside Life [20:12]
  • Towns offered greater economic opportunities but were more dangerous due to disease.

6. Where Did Power Lie? [20:53]

• Power in Europe was distributed and multiscalar:
  • At the highest level, there was a struggle between the Emperor and the Pope (the Investiture Controversy).
  • Dynamic regional rulers (e.g., William the Conqueror), local lords, and priests each wielded distinct types of authority.
• “It’s a complex picture... it depends what scale of social life you’re looking at.”

7. Women and Cultural Networks [22:16]

• Powerful women were common, not exceptional. Examples:
  • Empresses Zoe and Theodora in Byzantium; Empress Agnes in the Holy Roman Empire; Matilda of Canossa in Italy.
• Queens as Cultural Bridges:
  • Royal women’s marriages created a web of connections across Europe, fostering cultural exchange—illustrated by Gertrude of Poland/Kyiv and her hybrid manuscript.
• Personal narratives reveal trauma and adaptation:
  • Queens often learned new languages, left families behind, and sometimes returned home if marriages failed.

8. The Significance of Oaths [26:08]

• Oaths were crucial “glue” in a world of weak administration, but often broken; elaborate rituals attempted to add solemnity, as with Harold’s disputed oath to William.
• “There’s lots of ways happening all over the place... all you can really do is enhance the solemnity of the event.”

9. The Papacy’s Rising Power [28:46]

• The papacy, formerly tied to Roman aristocratic families, was “internationalized” by outside intervention (notably the German emperor Henry III).
  • German popes excommunicated local elites and traveled widely to assert authority.
  • Gregory VII infamously excommunicated the emperor, precipitating a major political crisis and Italian civil war.
  • The papacy’s ambitions and interventions (e.g., in the Norman Conquest) signaled a new direction for religious and political authority.

10. Other Pivotal Events (Beyond 1066): [31:13]

• Battle of Manzikert (1071):
  • Byzantine defeat by Seljuks led to internal crisis, reorganization under Alexios Komnenos, and set the stage for the First Crusade.
  • “After 1071, [Byzantium] goes into a new phase of its history... with massive implications for Europe.”
• Breakup of Caliphate of Cordoba (1031):
  • Led to political fragmentation in Muslim Spain (the Taifa kingdoms).
• Common Patterns:
  • Across Europe, the century saw “a crisis of public order”—local aristocrats consolidated power; the church asserted new hegemony.

11. Violence and 'Civilization'

• While ransom for noble captives became more common (i.e., less mutilation/blinding), violence against lower-class prisoners remained unchecked.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the importance of shifting perspective:
  • “If we view the 11th century through the Norman lens, we’re being maybe a little bit blinkered.” — Prof. Charles West [08:17]
• On cultural transformation:
  • “The 11th century was indeed a period of very significant change... its nature as a kind of pivot point... between the early Middle Ages and the late Middle Ages.” — Prof. Charles West [06:10]
• On England’s wealth:
  • “England’s rich, sure. Byzantium’s richer.” — Prof. Charles West [12:23]
• On Constantinople:
  • “If we took all those people out of their towns and sent them all to Constantinople, they would be less than half the population of that single city.” — Prof. Charles West [14:11]
• On the interconnectedness of European elites:
  • “It gives you a sense of the entangled nature, I guess, of these ties as these queens move around Europe when they marry.” — Prof. Charles West [24:02]
• On wider upheavals:
  • “The biggest picture, I think, is that we can think of what’s going on in broad terms as a kind of crisis of the public order...” — Prof. Charles West [34:53]

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Important Timestamps

• [03:04] Understanding cultural networks over political borders in 11th-century Europe
• [06:10] Was the 11th century really a time of unique change?
• [08:17] Why the Norman Conquest isn’t the whole story
• [11:00] England’s real economic standing in Europe
• [13:40] Urbanization: Comparing London and continental cities
• [17:15] Western perceptions of Constantinople and other great cities
• [18:23] Urban revolt and its implications in Milan
• [20:53] Where did power actually lie in 11th-century Europe?
• [22:16] The prominent political and cultural role of women
• [26:08] The meaning and limitations of oaths
• [28:46] The transformation of the papacy and its emerging authority
• [31:13] The wider European significance of the Battle of Manzikert
• [34:10] Concluding reflections: The Norman Conquest in European context

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Concluding Thoughts

• The Norman Conquest was pivotal for England but only one transformative event among many across Europe.
• The 11th century was marked by religious, social, political, and urban upheaval—cultural and institutional interconnections thickened across the continent.
• Wider crises—decline of central public authority, rising aristocratic and ecclesiastical power, and shifting boundaries—reshaped the European landscape far beyond England’s shores.
• To truly appreciate the 11th century, shift focus from national stories to continental networks and unravel the layered, entangled histories that bound Europe together.

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Guest’s Book Mentioned:
Europe in the 11th Century: Beyond Revolution and Reform — Professor Charles West (Oxford History of Medieval Europe series)

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This summary focuses exclusively on the historical discussion and insights, excluding all advertisements and non-content segments.

Transcript

[Professor Charles West]

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[Professor Charles West]

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[Professor Charles West]

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. When we think of Europe in the 11th century, one date stands out. 1066. However, as Professor Charles west explores in his new book, Europe in the 11th beyond revolution and Reform, this was a century of great change and great events across across all of Europe. In conversation with David Musgrove, Charles explains why the 11th century is a story of cities and popes as much as it is of conquest and the Normans.

[David Martin Musgrove]

There's a couple of great maps in the start of your book that I really like, and they map the changing cultural networks that you can see across Europe. Which sounds a bit academic, but it's very interesting when you look at them and there's two of them. There's one from the year 1001 from the year 1100. So charting how things have changed over the course of the century. So can you give me a rough sense of what we're talking about here? What are those cultural networks at the start and in the year 1100?

[Professor Charles West]

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's helpful just to begin with, to think in terms of cultural networks rather than political borders. Right. Because we generally think when we see the world, we often today see it through political borders. People in the 11th century generally didn't. Maps of that time almost universally never show political boundaries. Right. So it's not about political borders. And so that's why I think cultural network is an interesting way to go. And I think in the year of thousands, we can think of Europe as the space of Europe as kind of shared by four or five cultural networks. So there's the Byzantine Empire and its clients. There's the Latin West. There's the Islamicate or the Islamic world in the south, and there's a kind of northern arc as well, from Scandinavia down across to the Black Sea. These are cultural networks. By that, I mean they're networks based on a shared cultural heritage text, a kind of shared material culture, sometimes even diaspora. So, for example, when I say the network of the Latin West, I mean this is the kind of space, the area or the network within which Latin is the kind of key language. Right. Not necessarily for speaking, mind you, but for the language of liturgy, of religion, but actually also of government. And these networks obviously overlap a bit. Like they're not completely exclusive. They overlap, but I think they are nonetheless quite distinctive. And by the year 1100, those networks have changed shape. Right. And I mean, the big kind of the standout thing here is, I guess the Latin west one has got a lot bigger. It's got bigger to the north and it's got bigger to the east, really, thanks to kind of conversion, actually, like conversion activities, conversion to Christianity. And the others have shrunk. Right. So Byzantium is smaller than it was at the beginning of the century, as is the Islamic network as well. So we can see here some changes. But I guess a key point, Dave, is that this isn't a shape change in the shape of Europe. Right. These are changes in cultural networks in that space of Europe, but it's not a change in Europe itself. People in the 11th century had a sense of Europe. It was a geographical area. It's a geographical space. It's one of the three parts of the world Right. So there's Europe, there's Asia and Africa, and that's how they thought of the world. That's how they talked about it. So they wrote about Europe, and that's also how they drew it. Because we've got some magnificent maps from this time, as I mentioned. They don't show boundaries, they don't show political boundaries, but they do show parts of the world. Right. So one of the most beautiful and best known is a map made in Saint Sever, which is in southern France. It's glorious. It's multicoloured. It's glorious. And it shows Europe as a kind of part of the world. So that doesn't really change that kind of concept, the shape of Europe. Actually, it's quite similar to what we think of Europe today. But, yeah, the cultural networks within that space do change.

[David Martin Musgrove]

And there's one cultural network that I don't think you mentioned, the one in the Atlantic West. So there's a far one sort of island and I suppose the Atlantic coast of Britain.

[Professor Charles West]

Right, yeah, that's right, too. And that's one where obviously we can see changes, too, because, I mean, this is part of that growth, I guess, of that Latin kind of culture network is growing to the west as well. Right. It's kind of integrating areas which had been a little bit more distant, and they're being more strongly integrated into that network.

[David Martin Musgrove]

In the introduction to your book, you tackle the question of whether the 11th century was a time of substantive change across Europe or not. And I guess, you know, every century is a time of substantive change in some way or other. Is the 11th century a time of really big change, or is it just the same as any other century?

[Professor Charles West]

I mean, you're going to be amazed to hear, Dave, that I think the 11th century was indeed a period of very significant change. But I think the particular claim I think it's got, which I'd make for it, is its nature as a kind of pivot point. Right. Because it's halfway through that millennium, which historians often call the Middle Ages. Right around about 1500, it's kind of halfway through. And I think things are always changing. But we can see in the 11th century it's got that sense of liminality. Right. To use that kind of. It's on the threshold. Right. We can see a tipping point here between the early Middle Ages and the late Middle Ages. That's me speaking with hindsight, but I think, yeah, if we look at it that way, we can see it's this kind of point of balance between these Two halves of the Middle Ages.

[David Martin Musgrove]

How far was that led in any way by people thinking certainly, you know, the year 1000 as a year of moment. Did people kind of approach that with doom laden thoughts?

[Professor Charles West]

Not really. To be honest, I don't see very much that people in the Latin west are always slightly worried about the impending apocalypse. It's a kind of low level anxiety. There have been big debates, some listeners may remember debates around the year 2000s, some time ago now, when there were also debates about, you know, the kind of end of the world things going on there that led to a lot of interest in the year a thousand. There's also a moment of apocalyptic anxiety, I think 25 years on that's less visible.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Right.

[Professor Charles West]

I mean, people were sometimes worried about the end of the world. But I don't think there was a particular concentration for various reasons. I mean, one of which is year 1000 is one date. The year 1033 is millennium since Christ's crucifixion. So it's another one. But also we should also remember, and this is something I also stress, people are on slightly different time zones, right. In Byzantium, this is not the 11th century. Right. They have a different calendrical reckoning. And the same also applies for Muslim Spain. Right. They're not living 11th century. So this is our, in particular, my way of thinking about time. It wasn't the 11th century for everyone in this period, so to speak.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Now look, I want to drill into this year that is familiar to most of our listeners, the Norman Conquest of England, 1066, when Duke William Normandy invaded England and beats King Harold II with the famous arrow in the eye, which may or may not have occurred. Now that's by definition a European event because it involves two separate policies. The Channel is bringing in two places. But it's not something you really go big on in the book, is it? I mean, the index, for instance, is probably a case in point.

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah, fair point. I'm guilty as charged, Dave, when making the index. I did indeed realise, I don't think I put the Battle of Hastings in right, so it doesn't actually feature in the book at all. Now, don't get me wrong, I know you're a big fan of the Normans and the Norman Conquest. It's not that the Normans aren't interesting. They are interesting. They absolutely are interesting. And you know, there's lots of fantastic research on them as well. It's perfectly natural that they loom very large in England and actually also of course France and you know, they do also pop up elsewhere. Right. The Normans do have that habit of turning up in all kinds of different areas, as you know. And 2027 is going to be the year of the Normans, isn't it, In Europe, I'm sure it's going to be fantastic. But there is a lot more going on in Europe at this time that doesn't involve the Normans or in which they're just bits players. They're not necessarily leading the show. And I think that deserves their time too. And I guess that's something I've tried to do in this book, really. I mean, there's the risk, I guess, if we view the 11th century through the Norman lens, we're being maybe a little bit blinkered. Right. We're not seeing other kinds of things. So I don't talk about the Hastings, I do talk about the Normans a bit. But, yeah, they're not the main story.

[David Martin Musgrove]

And that's fair enough. And I think you're right, of course, you know, people from assassination are going to be blinkered in what they think about. But I wonder, in wider terms, though, sort of putting on what you've just said, how bothered were people in Europe in the 1060s about what happened in England about 1066? How much is it talked about? Do people care?

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah, they do care. They know about it, actually. They write about it. They're generally quite impressed by William's achievements. You know, he's kind of. He's becomes a great figure, he's well known. They note also the slaughter and the loss of lives. So there's the great battles and the number of casualties and deaths. There are other ways we can see it, too. Byzantium. So the Eastern Roman Empire, as it's sometimes called, hires mercenaries from England. Does so actually before the conquest too, but it does so almost certainly more afterwards. Right. As all these dispossessed English aristocrats kind of seek careers in a new sector. And we see Italian bishops kind of writing to William, because he's famous, asking him for help. So they do know about it, they clock it. Obviously, 1066 isn't just about England. It's got a kind of Scandinavian dimension too. And so you can see how it kind of draws in different European threads. But the world keeps turning, right. I mean, one way of shown this is there's a German chronicler called Lambert of Hirsfeld. It's a monastery which is north of Frankfurt today. And he writes a set of annals. He mentions Hastings. He gets the details a bit wrong, mind You. But he says, you know, three battles actually, and many people die. It's just one line, though, right? Most of his chronicle is talking about the various squabbles between the German bishops and the emperor at the time. And there's a marriage alliance and there's rebellion in Trier. I guess it's just a question of, you know, keeping our sense of perspective.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Now, look, one of the reasons often given for the Norman Conquest was that England was a rich place, a prize worth having. You know, something that Will of Normandy wanted to get his hands on. Is that right? Was England notably rich and prosperous in comparison to the rest of Europe?

[Professor Charles West]

I mean, yes and no. England was relatively rich in North Western Europe. I think that's fair enough. It's also well governed, which helps. I mean, it's quite small, it's quite a compact kingdom and it's quite a well governed kingdom. So basically it means if you become a king, money will flow your way, right? So you do become rich from the lands, but also other kinds of ways of getting income. But again, I think a sense of perspective is helpful here. England is not the richest part of the Latin Western, right? I mean, the Po Valley, the Rhineland, these are richer areas of that part of Europe. More broadly, again, if we kind of zoom out of it, Muslim Spain is definitely more prosperous. It's politically very unstable, actually, but it's more prosperous. And so is Byzantium, as a historian called Cecile Morrison, who has estimated, she's done a per capita GDP analysis and she reckons that the per capita GDP of Byzantium was twice that of England. And of course, Byzantium was also even better taxed. Now, I don't want to cast shade on Domesday Book. Doomsday Book is amazing, actually. I think it's one of the most remarkable things about England is in this time is Doomsday Book, actually. It's just such an incredible record. And there's a fantastic new book being published on that as well by Stephen Baxter, Julia Crick and Chris Lewis, really exploring some new hypotheses, actually, about how it was written. And that shows the level of government in England is pretty sophisticated. Byzantium, though, is next level stuff, right? It is the next level doomsday book. It keeps tabs on who owns which estates, Byzantine tax records keep tabs on who owns which fields. So it's literally the next level to it, ok? To individual fields whose sizes are maps and taxes are based on the record of that. And we've actually got fragments of some of these records. There's Some, for example, preserved in monasteries in Mount Athos. A photo of one of those in the book, actually, which. This is going to sound quite nerdy, but it is amazing. You look at this. Wow. That is kind of incredibly sophisticated work. So, yeah, England's rich, sure. Byzantium's richer.

[David Martin Musgrove]

I love your line there. I don't want to cast shade on Domesday Book. And then you obviously immediately do, and quite rightly so. Was there anything else? I mean, you've talked about governance there. Was there anything else that made it England in any way different to the rest of Europe? Was there anything unique about it?

[Professor Charles West]

I mean, every area of Europe is different, I guess. I mean, it depends where you want to compare it to. I mean, it's, for example, much more strongly governed than France is, but, you know, less urbanised, for example, than Italy is. I mean, it's just. Yeah, it's a question of where you want to compare. Every part's different, I guess. I would say. No, I don't think there's anything exceptionally exceptional, so to speak, about England.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Well, let's talk about urbanization again, because you just mentioned that. So England had London as a reasonably sizable city, but, as your book quite rightly points out, like nothing in comparison to other cities across Europe. And I think it was kind of reasonably urbanised in the sense that there were lots of fairly small centres, so you were never that far away from some sort of urban centre, but they were fairly modest in size. So talk me through sort of the urban situation across the rest of Europe.

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah. So I think your point, though, is about England being quite urbanised is absolutely fair. It is. We don't know exactly the size of London because that wasn't recounted in Domesday Book, sadly. But Doomsday does have a lot of other towns, and so this gives us actually a really good view, in fact, of English urbanization. It's a better textual record for towns in England than anywhere else. So we can see this network of, as you say, modest towns, but there are lots of them. And I think there's a story called Derby HD Darby, who estimated that the urban population of England around the 1080s was probably about 100,000, maybe 120,000, which is, you know, a sizeable number of people living in towns, given the population at the time. And these are places like London, of course, Norwich, Oxford, Winchester, York, Lincoln, those kinds of places. But if we took all those people out of their towns and sent them all to Constantinople, all of them, they would be less than half the population of that single city. Right, so there is a sense again of proportion. Right. So it is urbanised, but, you know, it hasn't got anything to compare with the megacity on the Bosphorus. And not just that these towns are all also smaller than continental ones. I'm thinking here of places like the big ones, like Cologne and Ghent in the north, or Pisa and Milan in Italy, or of course, Granada in Spain. Right. So Granada in. It's bigger than London at this time. Right. Maybe up to twice the size. So again, I'm not casting shade and London, it's a proper town, as are all the other ones. They are distinctly urban and England is by that token urbanised. But yeah, it's part of a wider picture where there's a lot of other urban centres. And I think the key point here actually is that everywhere in the northwest of Europe, cities and towns are growing, especially in the areas like of the Rhinelands and northern Italy, we've got Pisa, Genoa and Venice, of course, but actually elsewhere too. Right. And England's part of that story. So is Ireland. Right, where we start to see Dublin and Waterford appearing in the archaeology from this time. So we know lots about English towns because of Doomsday. But, you know, I think we can also see it's not the center of European commercial activity.

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[David Martin Musgrove]

When people were thinking about cities, did they all think of Constantinople? Did they kind of gravitate to that as clearly the finest city in Europe?

[Professor Charles West]

They did different. I mean, certainly people who went to Constantinople, we know this because of crusader accounts and pilgrimage accounts were, when they came from the west, they were almost always completely blown away. Right. But they kind of see this mega city and think, you know, I've just never seen anything like it. But sometimes they reach back for other comparisons. Right. So in Cologne, there's an amazing. Someone writes, it's actually a work about the archbishop, but they talk about the history of the city and they put it in the context of urban histories going back to the ancient world as well. And there is also, of course, Rome. They always think about Rome, especially in the Latin west, which is smaller than it used to be. But again, it's still a big city.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Yeah. And I think in the book you do make the point that actually Constantinople, we focus on that and maybe that's a signal of our Eurocentrism, because there were actually some pretty big cities elsewhere in the world, Right?

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah. I mean, China in Kaifeng and Baghdad at this time is still bigger, but actually closer to home. Alexandria in the southern Mediterranean in Egypt is probably the same size as Constantinople actually, if not bigger. And yeah, in terms of trade, there's no question that it's the southern Mediterranean which is the most vibrant and active part of this part of the world.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Yeah, cool. Right. You mentioned Milan there, the great city in northern Italy. Tell me about the. I'm not sure how to pronounce this Pateria revolt.

[Professor Charles West]

I mean, yeah, that's fine. Pateria, I think, but it doesn't really matter. It's kind of a social movement, I think. I mean, we should think of this as like an 11th century occupy. Right, that's one way of thinking about it. And it kind of, from 1057 or so, it kind of gets going. And for about 10 years, the elites, the aristocrat elites who usually have run cities, are not in control of Milan. Right. It's out of their hand, it's gone rogue, so to speak. And I think it's interesting because it shows, I guess, how Western towns are beginning to get a kind of critical mass, right? That critical size, tens of thousands, basically, when mobs and groups of people can actually make. When crowds basically can make A difference politically and can throw their weight around. Again, this happens in Constantinople before, in Constantinople, riots have brought down emperors and that does happen. But it's quite new for Latin west because basically towns have been a bit small to pull that kind of stunt. I think what's really interesting is how, again, in this Latin Western network, some of these urban movements kind of morph into actual urban leadership. Initially. This really happens visibly only from the early 12th century, right. With the kind of Italian communes, but I think there are signs earlier than that. And there's a great case in Le Mans in France, where a popular revolt takes over the city and it starts organizing collective life. Right. I mean, it's not quite. It organizes collecting the rubbish in the bins. It's that kind of idea that Kant starts arranging justice and that sort of thing. And what we see is certainly by the end of this period, we've got a lot of towns who are actually quite autonomous in the Latin west, which is to a degree that's unusual comparatively. And that, by the way, applies in England too. I mean, English towns are all under the rule of the king, right. There's no question who's in charge, it's the king in England, but they all have their own special legal identity, Right. And actually Domesday Book records some of those kind of their special urban customs, right? So I don't know, Chester's got laws about starting fires and not working on Sundays and that kind of thing, right? So, yeah, these towns are all running themselves under their own steam.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Yeah. I realise I'm asking you a series of vague and impossible questions to answer, but was it better to be in a town than in the countryside for most people, do you think, if you had the choice, I mean, the standard.

[Professor Charles West]

Answer to that is that there's obviously much more prosperity in towns. There's a kind of the wealth accumulates there. They're generally pretty unsuberous places, right? So disease is generally more dangerous because there's concentration of people. So you're more likely to be carried off by something nasty, but you're also more likely to get rich.

[David Martin Musgrove]

That's a toss up, isn't it? So you so just sort of going back to Milan there, so you were just talking about sort of, you know, people power there, Perhaps an early example of people power, which leads me on to just wondering about power generally. Where did power lie in the 11th century? Who was in charge across the place?

[Professor Charles West]

So that is a very difficult question to answer because it kind of depends what you mean, I guess. So in the book What I've tried to do is my response to that, I guess, is to. I've organised the book actually slightly unusually, I think it's not arranged geographically, so the book doesn't kind of like take you through different eras or actually chronologically. It's arranged by scale. So I kind of start with the vill and move up from towns, actually, up to regions and kingdoms, then up to these big kind of cultural networks that we talked about at the start. Now, kind of at the high level, at the top level stuff, right? There is a big dispute about power in the 11th century in the Latin west, because it's this moment when there's this kind of face off between the emperor, the Western emperor, who's the heir of Charlemagne ultimately, and the Pope about who is actually really in charge. And this is sometimes called the investor struggle, because it's about who gets to invest bishops. But anyway. And that is important, right? And it's a crucial thing about this period, but it's just one version of thinking about where power lies, Right. You can equally think about dynamic regional rulers like William the Conqueror, she starts, of course, as Duke of Normandy, or we can go down the scale and think about the local lords who are throwing their weight around in the villages, or for that matter, actually the local priests who are doing the same thing, different kinds of authority, of course, and they're exercising authority in different ways. So sometimes, quite often, actually, at the local end, for example, that power is being exercised with the threat of violence. Right. And not just the threat, sometimes actually through actual violence too. So I guess it's a complex picture. It depends kind of what scale of social life you're looking at.

[David Martin Musgrove]

And then building on that, what about women? Because the 1066 story, going back to that, that includes some powerful and important women in the story, was that unusual? How prominent were women in position of powers across the 11th century, would you say?

[Professor Charles West]

I think we should differentiate here, I think. And the first thing, there were loads of powerful women, and I think lots of historians have been moving away from the idea of exceptionality recently, saying, or here's this woman, she's unusually powerful and moving towards thinking, actually, there are loads of very powerful, influential women around who are kind of, you know, pursuing their own objectives and all the rest of it. Byzantine politics revolves around two women from the middle of this century, right? There's empresses, the sisters Zoe and Theodora. Empress Agnes is the wife, Henry iii. When he dies, she basically rules the empire on her son's behalf for a few years. And then of course, very famously, there's Matilda of Canossa, who's the Duchess of Tuscany and who's basically, she issues hundreds of surviving documents. And her court is a center actually of opposition to imperial authority. So, yeah, absolutely, there are lots of powerful women. But something that came to more and more as I wrote this book is the impacts of all these women kind of added up together beyond just in terms of the exercise of power, but thinking also about their cultural impact. I think one of the key things we should remember about queens in particular, this actually applies to other kinds of elite women. But I've looked at queens is the way they almost always travel, right. Cause you usually, when a woman goes to Mary, she'll go to work, she'll go to the king, right, to become the queen of that place. So kings tend to stay put, queens tend to. To travel. And what this does, it creates a kind of cultural network. And there's a few examples to talk about that. But one really interesting one I think here is a woman called Gertrude, who listeners may or may not have heard of. So she moved from Poland to marry the ruler of kyiv, Rus, in 1043. Right. So kind of fairly typical journey. What's a bit more unusual is that we know more about her because she took with her a manuscript, right? So a manuscript book, which is an heirloom. In fact, it was already old by her time. It's this 10th century manuscript. And when she's in Kyiv, she has Byzantine image style, or Byzantine Rus style images written into it or drawn into, I should say, so basically kind of icon style images. So kind of making this manuscript into this kind of cultural hybrid. She also, by the way, writes a lot of personal prayers in, which gives us an amazing sense of what this particular individual woman was worried about, which was mostly, by the way, her errant son, because he wasn't listening to her enough. So there we go. So we get a sense anyway, this kind of cultural movement, I guess. I mean, she's described as Polish, I think I said she'd moved from Poland to Rus, but her father was the king of Poland, but her mother was a Rhineland princess. There are many more people like her. Gives you a sense of the entangled nature, I guess, of these ties as these queens move around Europe when they marry. So, yeah, kind of entangling and creating kinship ties across the whole area.

[David Martin Musgrove]

And you've got a really cool map showing the lines of where they went to. And it's a spider's web, just shows the distance that people go. And you have to Think that, that, that must have been quite a wrench. You know, the lucky old kings, they get to stay where they are, but the queens are shipped off often across Europe, you know, a long distance from looking at that map.

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah, no. And we know this could be traumatic and difficult. Sometimes these marriages don't work out. Right. That's also part of the deal. And often they go back home actually afterwards. They don't always. Sometimes they say something. They don't. It does depend on the individual. We know sometimes they stay in touch with their kind of natal family through letters and all the rest of it. But yeah, if you imagine they're kind of learning a new language, leaving your whole family behind. Right. To start a completely new life, often at a very young age. So kind of in your teens, really. It must have been traumatic for many.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Of them right back to 1066. One of the striking things about the Norman Conquest is the idea that England's King Harold makes some sort of oath to Duke William of Normandy, which is then used as justification for the Norman invasion. Harold, in some ways is supposed to have backslid on whatever oath that he is purported to have made. And you've got a good bit in the book about sort of oath making and oath breaking and the importance of oaths. So just introduce us to that idea a bit and then we can maybe get a sense about how important that oath in 1066 or 1065 might have been.

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah. So oaths are important, right. There's no question about that. They're important everywhere across the Latin west and actually beyond really. But they're particularly important in the Latin West, I think, because by and large, this was not a very well administered society. Okay. So if you want to get people to do something for you, if making them promise to do it is kind of a technique, maybe even the main technique to try and make that happen. So, yeah, there's lots of ways happening all over the place. They're lovely examples of all kinds. There's a famous text from a bit earlier called the Agreement of Hugh, which is from the 1030s in southern France, which basically takes you through how Hugh, who's an aristocrat and his lord, who's called William, they basically how their relationship develops. They're always making promises to each other. Right. And they're always breaking these promises. It's just this continual kind of cycle of which it seems almost impossible to stop. And all you can really do in these circumstances, you can try and enhance the solemnity of the event. Right. Like bring in the relics as William did. Right. The idea going to swear on relics or, I don't know, change the wording of the oath to make it clear this is a really, really important oath, not like all the other ones. So, yeah, people worry about how to make these oaths kind of cast iron, but ultimately, there's nothing you can really do about it. The only caveat here is oaths are really important. It's never just about oaths. I mean, there is a general sense, for example, that you ought to be doing what a king, or, for that matter, a pope, tells you to do, because they're the king or the pope.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Right.

[Professor Charles West]

There is a kind of authority vested in the office. It's never just transactional rights. And we can also see some signs of growing accountability, accountable governments, I guess we could say, in the Latin west, and it was using rulers, using writing to try and kind of improve accountability. That's kind of a given, actually, in Muslim Spain. So in Al Andalus, they do this all the time. And actually also Byzantium, but in the Latin west, too, we can see traces of this. And I particularly like. There's a tiny fragment from manuscripts from Flanders, which it just survives as a book binding. Right. It's a tiny fragment, but it appears to be a fragment from an account book made by the Count of Flanders. It's literally counting his chickens right before they hatch. Indeed. And not taking on trust. Right. So this idea of they're trying to kind of organize obedience and all the rest of it through writing, as well as just by, you know, promising me you're gonna do your job.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Right. Now, you've already mentioned the Pope and kind of the problems or the challenges that the Pope had with secular authority. There's this idea right back to 1066 that William appealed to the Pope for his support in the invasion. And I think that is disputed. You know, some historians now say that actually there may have been papal support, but it was sort of after the fact, and it's been sort of written back into the story. So tell me a bit more about the role of The Pope in 11th century Europe, what the Pope was all about, and how important the papacy was.

[Professor Charles West]

Yeah. So, I mean, I think the papacy is kind of central really to the history of 11th century Europe. And that's a big statement, but I think it's kind of true, really, because there's this major change in how it operates in the middle of the century. I mean, it's slightly complicated, but to kind of simplify, what happens is that the German emperor in this time, someone called Henry iii. He goes down to Rome and he tries to kind of take charge of the papacy and take it out the hands of the Roman families of the city of Rome, that is, who've been kind of dominating it and to kind of internationalize it, I guess. And he puts in charge a German bishop, a bishop of Bamberg called Swedger. He changed the name to Clement because that sounds more Roman. Right. So he becomes Clement I second, what's a reference to Clement I, a kind of late antique pope. Now, this kind of change in regime doesn't go down very well for the Romans. It's very likely, actually, that Clement is assassinated. Actually, he's probably poisoned with lead sugar, or did he just drink too much of it? Who knows? But it seems likely to me he was assassinated, but he's just replaced by another German appointment. So for this key period in the middle of the century, you've got outsiders being made popes and they take their role really seriously and they start throwing their weight around. So they start excommunicating bishops and aristocrats, and they travel lots outside of Rome, which hadn't really happened before. Right. So Leo ix, one of the successors of Clement, he's another German bishop by origin, but yeah, he travels all over France and Germany, crosses the Alps. You know, he gets around. Right, in order to make his presence felt. And then there's a kind of later successor, a pope called Gregory vii, who's actually Italian, but he's very much in the mould of these earlier German popes. And he goes the next level, right, and excommunicates the emperor, and that hasn't been done before. And this really throws everything into a crisis, frankly, because when the pope's excommunicated, the Empero, who do you obey? Where does authority actually lie? What is legitimate authority? And in Italy in particular, this leads to a civil war, actually, which is very disruptive in the 1080s. And the emperor, in fact, loses that war. He loses control of northern Italy, in part thanks to Matilda of Canossi, who I mentioned briefly, who is an ally of the papacy. So basically, I'd say the role of the papacy in the Norman Conquest is very much part of that story of the papacy kind of raising its ambitions and its horizons, I guess, and kind of seeking to steer the politics elsewhere in Europe. And whether that is indeed in 1066 or it's a kind of subsequent thing, it's part and parcel of that development.

[David Martin Musgrove]

The way you've talked about the 11th century and the way you've written your book suggests that you would probably agree with this, that there were other events of import around 1066 going on across Europe. So tell me about other stuff that was happening that might perhaps be more significant than the Norman Conquest.

[Professor Charles West]

All right. Oh, more significant than the Norman Conquest. Okay, fine. Okay, So I think I'm going to use this opportunity to talk about a different battle. Right. Let me bring in the battle of Manzikert, which many listeners will have heard of. I guess it's a battle where the Byzantine emperor, so a man called Romanos IV goes into battle with the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia and he loses, right. And he's captured by Sultan Alp Arslan and is made a prisoner of war. Right. So this is a kind of big battle. It's a big defeat for Byzantium. Now, Al Parslan actually lets Romanos go. I mean, they come to terms, he lets him go, but his defeat on the battlefield, it throws Byzantium into political chaos, actually, and is basically into a series of overlappings of the wars. And Romanos is let go of by Alparslan, but when he gets back home, home, he's blinded, actually, by his opponents, Right. And he dies a very gruesome, gruesome death afterwards. And these civil wars kind of spiral on and go on. And as a consequence, while that's happening, Byzantium loses its grip on Asia Minor, right? So Anatolia, and it loses its grip on the Eastern Mediterranean more generally, and it loses its grip on the Balkans as well. And basically central authority is only reconstituted by a new emperor. This is Alexios Komnenos, who rules in a new kind of way. So the point is here that Byzantium survives Mazaca, of course, but. But it looks different afterwards. After 1071, it goes into a kind of new phase of its history, I think we could say. And that's got massive implications for Europe as a whole, actually. I mean, apart from anything else, it's kind of Manziker that is the kind of first step which leads to the First Crusade, Right. Because it's that loss of Byzantine territory in the east, which is at the roots of what goes on a bit later. So Mansket is very well known, of course, in Byzantine history circles. It's very well known in Turkey, I should say. I mean, it's a foundational milestone in the natural history there. Right. A bit like battlefastings in England, but I think it ought to be better known outside as well, because it's such a Pivotal event.

[David Martin Musgrove]

One thing that occurs to me, though, you just talked about the blinding of the emperor there. One thing that is argued sometimes, I think that during the course of the 11th century, or perhaps after the Norman Conquest in England, that life becomes slightly more civilised and there's less blinding and mutilating of opponents and more sort of chivalric type approaches to dealing with your opponents. Is that true?

[Professor Charles West]

I think there's probably something in that. Alpazlan treats Roman IV very well, by the way. Like they release him dressed in Turkish clothing. Right. But they look after him and feed him well and treat him in a very civilised way. Yeah. So he's blinded. Otherwise Byzantium, ostensibly blinding someone is an alternative to killing them. Although. Rather depends how you do it, doesn't it? But sure, there is a move towards kind of sparing your enemies, your captive enemies on the battlefield and not taking their lives and instead holding them to ransom as long as they're the right kind of people. And I mean, there are plenty of examples where that courtesy is not extended, especially when it's people of the lower classes. Right. Who are not really available for ransom anyway. So they are often slaughtered quite without too much compunction.

[David Martin Musgrove]

Okay, let's wrap up and I'm going to ask you to give me some concluding thoughts on where 1066 sits in the wider story of 11th century Europe. And perhaps if we want to think of the Norman Conquest with more of a European lens, what should we do? How should we approach that?

[Professor Charles West]

Okay, so I think I'd say, obviously the Norman Conquest is very consequential for England and actually elsewhere, other parts of northwestern Europe too. Kind of give the consequences ripple through, don't they? And we can kind of see it as a kind of private equity takeover of a going concern. As the Normans come in an asset strip, they do much the same, of course, course, in Sicily it is though, as I guess I've emphasised already, just one of other important events. I mean, I've mentioned the Byzantine crisis just now in the late 11th century, Manska. There's also the breakup of the Caliphate of Cordoba in Al Andalus, which kind of in 1031, that's the usual date given for that, which leads to the political fragmentation of Muslim Spain into these little, much smaller entities known as Taifa, Taifa Emirates. So there's other stuff going on in the West. The biggest picture, I think, and this is the island argument, or one of the key arguments of the book really, is that we can think of what's going on in broad terms as a kind of crisis of the public order. What's happening is that aristocrats are strengthened with their local grip on the lands they control on the one hand, and the church is asserting its hegemonic authority and source of legitimate power on the other, and that those kind of go together. And I think I'd say if we look at the Norman Conquest in those terms, it kind of fits quite well, actually. It disrupts existing structures of power. It puts the English clerical structures, infrastructure into much closer and tighter connections with Rome. And I, I think I'd say ultimately it's a dramatic version of a common European story.

[Podcast Host]

That was Professor Charles west, professor of Medieval history at the University of Edinburgh. His new book, Europe in the 11th century Beyond Revolution and Reform, is published in the Oxford History of Medieval Europe series. In this episode, he was speaking to David Martin Musgrove.

[Professor Charles West]

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[David Martin Musgrove]

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[Professor Charles West]

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[David Martin Musgrove]

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[Professor Charles West]

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[David Martin Musgrove]

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[Professor Charles West]

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