Anglo-Norman Lords, Ladies, and Castles

with Dr Sam Newton

in The Old Court, Sutton Hoo (map)
on Saturday, July 9th 2011

We begin with a survey of fortified centres of authority in England before the Norman conquest. We shall then look the art of castle-building across the English landscape during the reign of William I (1066-87) and his successors, and examine some specific examples. For the troubled time of Stephen and Matilda (1135-54) we shall reassess the entry for the year 1137 from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Peterborough manuscript) that each powerful man … filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the poor men of the land with castle-work; [and] when the castles were made then they filled them with devils and evil men … t’was said openly that Christ and his saints slept.

Finally, we shall reconsider the rise of the legend of Camelot.

Sam Newton was awarded his Ph.D at UEA in 1991 and is the author of The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (1993) and The Reckoning of King Rædwald, (2003). He has lectured widely around the country and has contributed to many radio and television programmes, including Michael Wood on Beowulf and Digging for Britain with Dr Alice Roberts. Sam is also a Director of Wuffing Education, NADFAS lecturer, and Time Team historian.

Allen Brown, R., The Normans and the Norman Conquest (London 1969)
Allen Brown, R., Castles from the Air (Cambridge 1989)
Allen Brown, R., Castles, Conquest and Charters: Collected Papers (Woodbridge 1989).
Bevis, T.A., Hereward: The Siege of the Isle of Ely (Westrydale Press, March 1982).
Higham, N., The Death of Anglo-Saxon England (Stroud 1997)
Higham, R. & P. Barker, Timber Castles (London 1992; Exeter 2004)
Jones, G., A History of the Vikings (2nd Edition, Oxford 1984)
Liddiard, R. (ed.), Anglo-Norman Castles (Woodbridge 2003)
Liddiard, R., Castles in Context (Windgather 2005)
Musset, L., The Bayeux Tapestry, tr. R.Rex (Boydell 2005).
Poole, A.L., Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford 1955).
Swanton, M.(ed. & tr.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Dent 1996; Phoenix 2000)
Williams, A., The English and the Norman Conquest (Boydell 1995)
Wilson, D., The Bayeux Tapestry (Thames & Hudson 1985)

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