A powerful and evocative portrait of the Norman Conquest of Europe, revealing the permanent cultural and political legacy that resulted in their ascendency. The Norman’s conquering of the known world was a phenomenon unlike anything Europe had seen up to that point in history. They emerged early in the tenth century but had disappeared from world affairs by the mid-thirteenth century. Yet in that time they had conquered England, Ireland, much of Wales and parts of Scotland. They also founded a new Mediterranean kingdom in southern Italy and Sicily, as well as a Crusader state in the Holy Land and in North Africa. Moreover, they had an extraordinary ability to adapt as time and place dictated, taking on the role of Norse invaders to Frankish crusaders, from Byzantine overlords to feudal monarchs. Drawing on archaeological and historical evidence, Trevor Rowley offers a comprehensive picture of the Normans and argues that despite the short time span of Norman ascendancy, it is clear that they were responsible for a permanent cultural and political legacy.
Author
Trevor Rowley is Dean of Degrees and an Emeritus Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford, England. Trevor Rowley was educated at University College, London and Linacre College, Oxford. Although originally trained as a geographer, he moved his academic interests into landscape history and archaeology and promoted a flourishing programme of teaching, fieldwork, research and publication in these areas based in the Department for Continuing Education. He was for several years Honorary Secretary of the Council for British Archaeology and was a founding member of the Professional Institute of Field Archaeologists. He was closely involved with Rescue excavation, directing work along the line of the M40, in Dorchester on Thames and on Thames Valley gravel sites. For many years he directed a training excavation for continuing education students at Middleton Stoney in Oxfordshire. He was appointed Staff Tutor in Archaeology and Local Studies in the Department for Continuing Education (then the Delegacy for Extra-Mural Studies) in 1969, and until his retirement in September 2000 was the longest serving academic in Rewley House. In 1990 he was appointed Director of Public Programmes; he was twice Acting Director of the department. In addition to directing Public Programmes for over a decade he directed the Oxford-Florida Programme at Christ Church and established a national professional archaeology programme based at Rewley House. As Director of Public Programmes he was responsible for significant expansion of the Public Programme. He was a founding Fellow of Kellogg College and was Senior Tutor in 1993/4 and Vice President in 1994/5. He continues to teach regularly for OUDCE’s weekly class and certificate programme and summer schools as well as for Stanford in Oxford. He is the external examiner for the Historic Landscape Studies programme at the University of Wales Newport and is also a Vice-President of the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society. He has published extensively and his books include: The Shropshire Landscape( 1972); Landscape Archaeology (1974) with M. Aston; Villages in the Landscape (1978); The High Middle Ages (1984); The Landscape of the Welsh Marches (1986); Norman England (1997); The Normans (1999) and The 20th Century English Landscape (2006). He is currently working on A History of Oxford for Carnegie Publishing and a number of other major landscape history initiatives.
