This work written in honour of Queen Emma, wife of Æthelred the Unready and then of king Cnut, and mother of king Edward the Confessor, contains much information about royal life and intrigue at the beginning of the eleventh century. Here an account of the murder of her younger son Alfred on his return to England is excerpted.

Introducing the volume’s fourth and final thematic strand (Cultural Perspectives), this chapter offers a study of warfare and violence in the age of William the Conqueror. Following a general introduction, it scrutinises the justifications of William’s wars and the history of hostilities and their limitations in Normandy. This is followed by a discussion of rebellion against ducal and royal rule contextualised within contemporary cultures of warfare and violence in northern France. The chapter concludes with studies of castles, conquests, and conduct in the Anglo-Norman world of the eleventh century.

This chapter opens the volume’s third thematic strand (Individuals and Institutions) with an investigation into family and kinship in the age of William the Conqueror. It starts with France and the Capetian dynasty, before shifting its focus to England and the Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark and Norway. Particular attention is paid to the period after the death of Cnut, the extended kin of Edith and Edward, and the various changes and continuities between notions of kinship in the pre-Conquest period and those in Anglo-Norman England post-1066.

The third chapter in the volume’s third thematic strand (Individuals and Institutions) is dedicated to kingship and consensus in the age of William the Conqueror. After exploring the scholarly status quo and the historical and Biblical foundations of medieval kingship models prevalent in the Anglo-Norman world of the eleventh century, the chapter turns to a discussion of the writings of William of Poitiers and his contemporaries, before scrutinising the application of these kingship models to the everyday realities of the Conqueror’s cross-Channel realm.

This chapter concludes the volume’s third thematic strand (Individuals and Institutions) with a study of law and justice in the age of William the Conqueror. It begins by discussing the law of persons, before moving on to the law of property and the law of wrongs. The chapter’s final section is dedicated to courts and procedure and gives a sense of the practical application of these laws in Anglo-Norman society. Throughout the entire chapter, notions of continuity are contextualised with moments of change, and important attention is drawn to the socio-political dimension of the law.

This chapter introduces the volume’s first thematic strand (Home and Away) with a study of Normandy and the Continent in the age of William the Conqueror. It commences with a consideration of terminology, followed by an analysis of Normandy’s developing boundaries and the Normans’ adjustment to Christianity. The chapter then takes a comparative view of Normandy’s neighbours (Brittany, Flanders, Maine, Blois, and France) before studying the duchy’s rise as a major player in eleventh-century north-western Europe. It concludes with discussions of knightly culture, Church reform, and the influence of popes and emperors.

This chapter concludes the volume’s fourth thematic strand (Cultural Perspectives) with a study of schools and education in the age of William the Conqueror. Utilising the perspective of the long eleventh century, it scrutinises different cultures of schooling in Normandy and England and the relationships that existed between them. This is followed by a discussion on the memory of pre-Conquest English learning in post-Conquest England and a concluding case study of King Harold’s Waltham.

The third chapter in the volume’s final thematic strand (Cultural Perspectives) concerns language and literacy in the age of William the Conqueror. Following an introduction explaining the languages and linguistic developments in the cross-Channel Anglo-Norman state, the chapter casts its view broadly across Britain and beyond, before offering some considerations of the important subjects of literacy, Latinity, and genre. Detailed attention is given to questions concerning the persistence of Old English and the advent of Anglo-Norman, as well as to book production.

This chapter concludes the volume’s second thematic strand (Space and Society) with an analysis of travel and trade in the age of William the Conqueror. Focusing on dynamics of commerce and communication, it traces the movement of goods and people across eleventh-century north-western Europe. The chapter begins with an introductory discussion of trade and commerce, before turning its attention to different kinds of landscapes and road networks. This is followed by a study of inland navigation and maritime travel that ranges broadly across the north-western European landscape.

Continuing the volume’s second thematic strand (Space and Society), this chapter addresses the topic of Church and society in the age of William the Conqueror. It commences with a discussion of the Church in Normandy, before considering the corresponding situation across the Channel in England. It then develops a comparative perspective that draws attention to some fundamental issues surrounding the Anglo-Norman Church and its legacy, including William the Conqueror’s relationship with the episcopate and the Anglo-Norman monastic landscape, the importance of stability and authority, and the use of violence by and against members of the clergy.

Continuing the volume’s third thematic strand (Individuals and Institutions), this chapter studies the nobility and aristocracy in the age of William the Conqueror. The discussion begins by pointing out the importance of hierarchy and status before drawing attention to the subjects of ancestry, culture, and education amongst the elites of the cross-Channel Anglo-Norman world and their neighbours on the Continent. Following investigations of aristocratic splendour and largesse, as well as of violence and competition, it closes by taking stock of the situation on the eve of William’s conquest of England.

Continuing the volume’s fourth thematic strand (Cultural Perspectives), this chapter studies the writing of history and memory in the age of William the Conqueror. After a discussion of Normandy’s first dynastic chronicle composed by Dudo of Saint-Quentin, it directs its focus onto monastic historical narratives produced in Normandy, England, and their neighbouring territories, before turning to a range of contemporary secular narratives. The chapter is rounded off with considerations of Anglo-Norman historical writing in the broader context of north-western Europe and its transmission in manuscripts.

Twenty-one new charter texts, or references to such texts now lost, add significantly to the corpus of materials that Marjorie Chibnall gathered for the biography of the Empress Matilda. In particular, this new evidence throws light upon the circumstances in which Matilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet brokered their alliance with Robert of Gloucester, for the first time properly identifying the role played here by Miles of Gloucester, subsequently promoted as earl of Hereford.

The relative scarcity of matrimonial proceedings in England (and perhaps Normandy) resulted from administrative arrangements. It does not highlight differences separating the area from the rest of the North. English diocesan officials did not exercise exclusive rights of first instance jurisdiction over matrimony. Diocesan officials operated in a distinct environment because they had to compete with countless tribunals for rights of adjudication. Commissaries and exempt judges went on rounds of supervision, setting up vetting stations, especially for allegations that did not attain legal levels of proof. Unilateral marriage claims were normally decided on the spot and before they could reach central locations. If records from visited and permanent seats of English church justice are read in conjunction, on the other hand, they yield quantities of marriage cases resembling those from Paris or Cambrai. The treatment of cases was again exceptional in that multiple proceedings on account of identical charges were often staged in the same diocese. The rules of canonical jurisprudence envisioned three tiers of appellate hierarchy at a maximum. In Anglo-Norman practice, the revision of prior rulings could pass many more times between commissaries, deans, and higher dignitaries.