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The Normans of mainland France cast their beady eyes on the English island paradise so full of promise, an island base often envied and sullied by the Vikings. The islands to the north of England were devastated by the invading ripples of Danish and Norwegian Vikings who now held much of the land -- the Orkneys, Hebrides and the Isle of Man. Weak Saxon Kings found it more convenient to pay bounties and to demand hostages from the Viking marauders, buying short lived peace for the islands.
King Cnut had Denmark and Norway to look after, and the Swedes were pounding on his back door. He was smart and left government in England to the Saxon Witan -- the ruling body suitably seeded with Danish Earls from the north. He milked the Saxons with kindness, and left them and the Witan, to their own devices, but very poor. Not wanting a direct confrontation with Cnut, a fellow Viking, the Normans bided their time, and infiltrated with friendly implants. They set the table for the Norman invasion of England.
Unlike the previous Viking bounty hungry marauders who flitted around the oceans with fleets of up to one hundred ships, stinging here, ravaging there, wintering, gathering treasures which would help them gain power in their home domains, the Normans had achieved a new territory and converted the Vikings who had firmly planted their roots in northern France. They became skilled military commanders who did not confine themselves to naval warfare and allied strategies, although these basic skills never left them. They developed a hierarchical network of top down intermarriage, betrothals and cross-pollination that always seemed to work to their advantage.
When King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland finally declared himself to be Duke William the Conqueror's man in 1072 (after the Duke had ravaged as far north as the Forth) the Norman Empire would stretch from the Orkneys to the tip of Sicily and later to Greece and Jerusalem. By 1072 they'd also beaten up the Fresians, the Germans (Emperor Otto of Germany was a nephew of the Norman King John in 1215) and even their friends and kin the Flemings. 1172 saw the same Norman conquest and ownership of Ireland when Strongbow, the Earl of Pemroke engineered the occupation of Leinster for Henry II. The seeding of lowland Scotland followed the same pre-Conquest Norman pattern.
Robert Guiscard, the Norman who had conquered practically all of Italy, actively recruited Barons from the north with very generous offers of land to help him control southern Italy and individual family relationships were strong. Amongst others, Roger Bigod's brother went south with the Riddels to Apulia and fought alongside Guiscard. Another Norman, Ansold de Maule of the Vexin, the seignior of Maul outside Paris and a rich Parisian magnate, also fought with Guiscard in Greece in 1081, possibly along with his two brothers, Theobald and William. The close relationship continued when Prince Tarentum (Guiscard’s son, known as Mark Bohemond in the 1st Crusade) left his nephew Tancred in charge of Jerusalem, in 1100, under King Baldwin. Trancred, in turn, delegated command of Jerusalem to Bigod d'Ige, nephew of Roger Bigod, the great northern Earl who was at the Conquest and received grants of 123 lordships in Essex and whose descendants played such a prominent role in the later Magna Carta at Runnemede. Similarly, some of the knights at the Conquest undoubtedly moved up from Italy to seize the opportunity for the land grab in England during or after the Conquest at Hastings although it must be admitted that Guiscard was creating lots of opportunities to the south.
The relationship between the Normans to the north and the Normans to the south in Italy has never really been fully explored. We do know that Duke William made several visits to Rome. Whether he met Guiscard, this dynamic Lord of all southern Italy, whose status was almost equal to that of Duke William, is not known but all signs point to a very close and friendly liaison. The Pope, recently having been saved from almost extinction by Guiscard in Rome, heartily favoured a re-statement of the extension of the Holy Roman Empire northward and gave Duke William his blessing, and his papal ring. The Pope owed the Normans one.
Norman
History
