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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
The coming of the Normans to Ireland from 1169 is a pivotal moment in the country's history. It is a period full of bloodthirsty battles, both between armies and individuals. With colourful personalities and sharp political twists and turns, Strongbow's story is a fascinating one. Combining the writing style of an award-winning novelist with expert scholarship, historian Conor Kostick has written a powerful and absorbing book about the Normans in Ireland, and the stormy affairs of an extraordinary era.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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DEDICATION
To my Aoife
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With thanks to Nathan Reynard and Katharine Simms for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this book.
Contents
Genealogical Table
List of Historical Figures
Aífe Mac Murchada, Leinster princess
Asculv Mac Turcaill, ruler of Dublin
Basilia, sister of Strongbow
Derbforgaill, wife of Tigernán Ua Ruairc
Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Leinster
Domnall Cáemánach Mac Murchada, Leinster prince
Domnall Mac Gilla Pátraic, king of Osraige
Gerald de Barri, cleric and historian
Henry II, king of England
Hervey de Montmorency, adventurer and Strongbow’s uncle
Hugh de Lacy, Norman lord
John the Wode, Viking hero
Lorcán Ua Tuathail, archbishop of Dublin
Maurice de Prendergast, leader of Flemish troops
Maurice fitz Gerald, Norman knight
Meilyr fitz Henry, Norman knight
Miles de Cogan, Norman commander
Miles fitz David, Norman knight
Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, high king of Ireland
Raymond Le Gros, Norman commander
Robert fitz Stephen, Norman commander
Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, high king of Ireland
Strongbow, Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare
Tigernán Ua Ruairc, lord of Bréifne and Conmaicne
Chronology
The fateful meeting of Diarmait and Strongbow. Diarmait returns to Ireland and rallies the Uí Chennselaig, but is immediately attacked by Ruaidrí and Tigernán. Diarmait is forced to pay honour price to Tigernán for taking Derbforgaill fifteen years earlier.
1169, 1 MAYThe arrival in Ireland, at Bannow, of Robert fitz Stephen, Miles fitz David, Meilyr fitz Henry, Maurice de Prendergast and Strongbow’s uncle, Hervey de Montmorency.1169, SUMMERMaurice de Prendergast attempts to leave Ireland and, when prevented from doing so by Diarmait, defects to the king of Osraige.1169, AUTUMNRuaidrí Ua Conchobair confronts Diarmait and Robert fitz Stephen, leaving Leinster with hostages and the promise that the Norman troops will be sent back across the Irish Sea. Maurice de Prendergast and his troops escape ambush to report back to Strongbow.1170, 1 MAYRaymond Le Gros, acting for Strongbow, arrives at Dún Domnaill near Waterford and wins a battle against the Hiberno-Norse and their local Irish allies.1170, 23 AUGUSTStrongbow sails for Ireland against King Henry II’s commands. Two days later, Waterford is stormed and Strongbow marries Aífe Mac Murchada in the aftermath of the slaughter.1170, 21 SEPTEMBERThe Hiberno-Norse of Dublin are taken by surprise, while negotiating with Strongbow and Diarmait, and the city is captured.1171, c1 MAYThe death of Diarmait Mac Murchada.1171, c16 MAYThe deposed ruler of Dublin, Asculv Mac Turcaill, along with John the Wode, bring a Viking army to regain the city, but are defeated by Miles de Cogan.1171, SUMMERSiege of Dublin by the high king and his allies, ended by a surprise attack on Ruaidrí’s camp and the rout of the Irish army.1171, LATE AUTUMNTigernán leads the third attack of this year on Dublin and once again Miles de Cogan defends the city, routing the Irish army.1171, 17 OCTOBERThe arrival of King Henry II of England in Ireland (near Waterford). From 11 November, Henry spends the winter in Dublin.1172, 17 APRILHenry II leaves Ireland, having taken oaths of submission from most Irish kings and also having created divisions among the Norman lords remaining in Ireland.1172Tigernán is betrayed and murdered while in negotiations with Hugh de Lacy, the new Norman lord of Meath. Tigernán’s head is placed over the gates of Dublin Castle.1173, AUGUSTStrongbow fights in Normandy for Henry II.1173, AUTUMNMutiny against Strongbow by his soldiers in Ireland who want further conquests. Raymond Le Gros returns to Waterford to lead these troops and is promised the hand of Strongbow’s sister, Basilia.1174At Cashel, Strongbow retreats from a punitive raid. A surge of Irish and Hiberno-Norse risings take place.1175The capture of Limerick by Raymond Le Gros.1176, 20 APRILStrongbow dies of an infection spreading from his foot.Ireland before the Normans.
Leinster before the Normans (following FJ Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings).
Ireland, Wales, England and Normandy.
Preface
May 1169. Dispersed groups of armoured men are wielding long axes in a meadow on the southwest border of Leinster. They are sweating in the sunshine and would welcome the opportunity to rest in the shade of a nearby line of trees. It is not timber that these men are hacking but heads from the several hundred corpses that are lying in the tall grass. Blood has been sprayed over the yellow marigolds and buttercups and has collected in dark, scarlet pools. Longhaired, bearded or bald, the severed heads are picked up and brought to be counted and paid for at a distinct gathering of soldiers, whose banners are as colourful as the spring flowers. There, one man in particular dominates the scene.
Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Leinster, cannot contain his feelings of satisfaction as the pile of heads before him grows. His teeth are clenched and a bitter, vindictive joy is evidently coursing through him. From time to time the king leaps into the air, clasping his arms above his head in glee. Despite the gore, Diarmait recognises the features of men whom he hated passionately and revels in the fact that they will never defy him again. Their threats have proven empty. Their cruelties towards Diarmait have been answered. In the vicious life-and-death struggle that has over the years favoured one side and then the other, Diarmait has ultimately emerged victorious. It is finished with now and forever.
Beside the king are three knights clad entirely in chainmail: from the coif over their heads − currently thrown back so they can feel refreshed after their exertions − to their feet. Their names are Robert fitz Stephen, Maurice de Prendergast and Hervey de Montmorency and they are conscious of being foreigners in this land. If these knights think the behaviour of the king is unbecoming, they are wise enough not to display their disapproval. Instead they look on with apparent equanimity as the elderly man jumps around the grisly display, the satisfaction of vengeance fulfilled evidently providing him with boundless energy.
The king of Leinster is a tall man who at fifty-nine years of age still retains some of the muscular physique of his youth. But his bearded face also bears the lines of a man who has brooded in sorrow and anger for many years. And Diarmait’s voice, once capable of giving a roar as loud as a charging bull, is husky now, worn out from the din of battle. Of his many sorrows, one of the greatest was the blinding of his eldest son, Énna Mac Murchada. It was the men of Osraige, the kingdom on Leinster’s south-west border, who had made Énna their prisoner and, after holding their captive for two years, it was they who had put out his eyes and made him ineligible to ever inherit the kingship. It is the same warriors of Osraige who carried out this mutilation whose bodies are lying still under the blue sky and whose sightless eyes roll as their heads are tossed onto the bloody heap.
As he turns over the ruined faces to examine them, one in particular excites Diarmait more than all the others. He grabs it by the hair and holds it up for all in the field to see. Everyone pauses to watch. With a husky laugh of triumph, Diarmait suddenly lunges at the head and bites the nose and cheeks of his defeated foe. This action will reassure his superstitious warriors that the ghosts of the slain will not return to haunt them.
The king of Leinster had a lot of enemies; at one time nearly the whole of Ireland was united against him. But the fact that his neighbours from Osraige had joined in the coalition to oust him had been a particularly heavy blow and Diarmait had hardly dared dream that the day would come when he could make the traitors pay. Now they were dead and their corpses were his to abuse. Let the word spread throughout the land: Diarmait Mac Murchada was back. If you had been one of those traitors who had turned against him and driven him to seek the assistance of foreigners, then you would shiver at the news of the king of Leinster savaging the features of his old enemies. It could be your head in his hands before long.
Out of sight of the Irish king, the three Norman lords exchange glances with each other and look back to the far end of the field where a handful of knights and a much larger number of archers are gathered after the battle. Before that morning’s conflict began, Robert fitz Stephen had addressed the Norman army. The handsome, clean-shaven knight had emphasised the justice of Diarmait’s campaign; the treacherous nature of the men of Osraige, who had committed a crime when they had taken over half of Diarmait’s former lands; and the honourable nature of the king of Leinster. If that attempt to exalt their nominal overlord as a model of chivalry now appears rather false, there are nevertheless no shocked stares or insubordinate mutterings from among Robert’s followers.
These soldiers from south Wales are hard men with a professional commitment to war and no illusions as to the character of the princes who lead them. And that morning there had been another point made by Robert in his rallying speech that had struck home and made them more loyal to Diarmait’s cause than any of the king’s own Irish followers. ‘Perhaps,’ Robert had said, ‘the outcome of this present action will be that the five divisions of the island will be reduced to one, and sovereignty over the whole kingdom will devolve upon us in future. If victory is won and Mac Murchada is restored with the aid of our arms, if by our present assaults the kingdom of Ireland is forever preserved for us and for our descendants then what renown we shall win!’
Renown, yes, and a comfortable living as the recipients of the wealth that made its way up from those who worked the land and cattle to those who lived in halls and castles. There was opportunity, here in Ireland, to supplant the local nobles. That was the real appeal of Robert’s speech. Let Diarmait behave as a pagan king of biblical times if he wished. It did not matter. What was important about this campaign was that after Diarmait was gone, it would be their turn to enjoy the fruits of victory.
CHAPTER 1
Normanitas
In the autumn of 911 the foundations of a duchy were laid, the warriors of which were to dominate Europe’s military affairs for over two hundred years. Despite their very modest origins, from Palestine to Ireland Norman knights would conquer kingdoms and make empires tremble. At the small town of Saint Clair on the river Epte – a tributary of the Seine – Charles, king of the Franks, whose unaffected manners earned him the nickname ‘the Simple’, came to agreement with a Viking troop that they should desist from their depredations upon the French and, instead, settle the land. For more than a generation the descendants of the great emperor Charlemagne had been humbled by raids of swift-moving Viking armies. The Norsemen were difficult to contain and even when cornered and forced into battle they proved to be ferocious warriors, clad as they were in sturdy chainmail hauberks and wielding iron weapons of the highest craftsmanship.
The leader of the Vikings who met with Charles was a warrior called Hrólfr (Latinised by those who subsequently came to write about him as ‘Rollo’). Hrólfr was a massive man, so bulky in fact that no horse could carry him far and thus he earned the nickname, ‘the walker’. The band of Vikings that Hrólfr led were more than a short-lived raiding party; their comradeship was a way of life and they had stood together for more than twenty years: sailing, raiding, fighting on either side of the English Channel and living off the tribute that the nobles of France and England offered up to appease their violence. The initial impulse that led Hrólfr to raise his banner – whose design was the left wing of a red bird − and for hundreds of warriors to rally to it was a desire to live freely.
Back in Norway, a king had for the first time fought his way to such power that the whole country was obliged to serve him. Harald Finehair, it was said, had been spurned as a teenager by the high-spirited Gyda, who had replied to his advances that she would only become his wife if he could rule Norway with as little opposition as the kings of Denmark and Sweden faced in their realms. On hearing this, Harald vowed that he would win Gyda and that he would not cut or comb his hair until he did so. When at last his goal was fulfilled, it was the revelation that, after cleaning and unknotting, Harald’s hair was actually a striking, bright blonde that earned the king his nickname.
Subduing one small Norse kingdom after another, Harald rallied a sizeable section of the defeated Viking élite to him by crushing the free farming class as he marched. The king imposed such taxes upon the bonder that those the king appointed jarl could live better under Harald than they had managed independently of him. But Vikings prided themselves as much on their freedom as on their consumption of food and drink, so the stronger Harald Finehair became, the more entire communities of warriors took ship, to settle the Faroe Islands and Iceland and to trouble northern Europe.
One summer Hrólfr returned from Russia and raided territory that had fallen under King Harald’s sway. In consequence, Hrólfr was banished and no amount of pleading from his high-born mother could reverse the decision. As a result she made a prediction:
Evil it is by such a wolf,
Noble prince, to be bitten;
He will not spare the flock
If he is driven to the woods.
The wolf crossed the North Sea to the Hebrides, gathered more ships and, on 17 November 876, planted his giant frame firmly on the heavy soil of northern France. For the Christian church a nightmare had arrived; not only did the Viking army plunder directly from the churches and monasteries but the royal authorities drew on church wealth to buy off attacks on towns. The church had accumulated a great deal of wealth in the form of precious ornaments and delicate works of art, but this was now all taken from them. If there was one positive effect to derive from the pagan Vikings’ lack of appreciation of such cultural artefacts, it was that the Norsemen released into circulation once more the church’s gold and silver; melting it down to make ingots for trade. The commodity that the Vikings were most interested in was iron. The Vikings cared more for iron than any other metal, because iron made their ships sturdy, their armour strong, and their swords the finest weapons in Europe. Those settlements in the former Carolingian province of Neustria (the northern part of present-day France) that were now under Viking control began to prosper, with a lively trade and flourishing of craftsmanship.
Accepting that the Norsemen were here to stay, Charles the Simple decided to try to end the pattern of raids and tribute-giving for once and for all. A treaty made at Saint Clair gave all the land from the river Epte to the sea to the Norsemen and as a result this land became known as Normandy. In return for this grant, Hrólfr was to be baptised a Christian, take Charles’s daughter Gisela as his wife and accept the French king as his overlord. A twelfth-century verse history of this moment, however, reports a striking incident that is said to have taken place when Hrólfr came to make his submission, an incident that testified to the continued determination of the Viking host to assert their freedom.
Surrounded by his nobles and the senior figures of the French church, Charles met Hrólfr to ratify their agreement. But for Charles the meeting got off on the wrong foot, literally. The French king attempted to impose his authority from the beginning by having his heralds explain that before discussions could begin, the Vikings should show due deference to the monarch by kissing his foot. After some murmuring on the Viking side, one of their warriors strode forward and bent down. Then, clasping Charles firmly by the ankle, he stood up again and raised the royal foot, causing the king to dangle in a most undignified manner. The Viking warrior then fulfilled his obligation of kissing the king’s foot, before letting go of Charles who collapsed back towards the cries of consternation and outrage coming from the royal entourage. But scandalised as they were, the French nobility could not retaliate, not while they needed the good will of the leaders of the Viking army.
Despite their very different attitude towards authority, the Vikings and the French came to an agreement. The Vikings did not exactly turn their swords into ploughshares; they still needed to be able to mobilise an army to face their neighbours or the possibility of attack by rival Viking fleets, but they did take up farming in a land that was far more fertile than the rocky mountains of Norway. Whereas yields of grain crops were rarely more than three to one in Scandinavia at the time, the fields of Normandy returned up to fourteen times the grain sown. And the Vikings knew all about the use of a heavy iron-tipped plough to break through the thick clods of northern soil and get the most from the land.
Swords and Ploughshares
Elsewhere in France, a great deal of aristocratic disdain existed towards those who performed manual labour. But the early records from Normandy show a keen interest by owners in their tools; they made extensive lists of their iron-tipped mattocks, spades, hoes and other equipment. Hrólfr announced decrees to ensure that farmers need not fear the loss of their ploughs or tools from theft.
According to one medieval historian, a farmer’s wife thought to take advantage of this ruling, and when her husband left ploughshare, coulter and tools behind in the field as he went to rest, she moved them all to a secret location and the farmer, naturally, thought that they had been stolen. Facing ruin, the farmer went to Hrólfr, who gave him the considerable sum of five solidi. But the duke did not leave the matter there and had the incident investigated further; suspicion fell upon the wife and she was forced to take the ordeal of hot iron to prove her innocence. When she failed that, she was whipped until she confessed her crime. The duke then asked the farmer, ‘Did you know your wife was the thief?’ and the farmer answered, ‘Yes, I did.’ At this Hrólfr said, ‘You wicked man, your mouth condemns you,’ and he ordered both to be hanged. The severity of punishment for theft in Normandy in Hrólfr’s time was such that a story grew up claiming that when he left golden bracelets hanging from an oak tree after removing them for a meal, the gold remained safe and untouched for three years.
One of the most significant revolutions in the Norman way of life compared to that of their neighbours was the effective abolition of slavery. Slavery did exist in Normandy up until the mid-eleventh century, but in the form of a few slaves serving in the homes of the rich, rather than large numbers of slaves working in gangs on the fields, or, as in the Irish case, working with herds of cattle. Not that the Norman élite had a benign attitude to their workforce, it was just that they found the system of serfdom a more efficient one than that of slavery. When a gang of slaves goes out to work the land, they do not care whether tools get broken or not, or whether the field can be expanded through new drainage systems, or whether it is worth doing the backbreaking work of cutting bushes and shifting rocks to bring more land into use by the plough. A slave resents every task. A serf or a crop-paying farmer on the other hand, one whose land was granted to their children and grandchildren (albeit on making a payment to the lord), is motivated to improve the yields of their seed and livestock. Not quite slaves, the serf did at least have a stake in the crop, taking a share for themselves.
The life of a serf was better than that of a slave, but barely. To be a serf was to surrender yourself to the lord who owned the land and from the point that you ceremonially attended him with a rope around your neck you no longer had any freedom to leave the land or even marry without the lord’s consent. And the lords were brutal in maintaining their grip on the lower classes. When the Norman peasantry tried to resist new exploitative burdens, such as taxes on the use of traditional paths and river ways, their overlords could be very severe. In 996, Rodolf, count of Ivry, and his nephew Duke Richard II of Normandy, caught peasant delegates in the act of assembling to discuss methods of rebellion against such new impositions. The lords had the hands and feet of the peasants cut off. The point of this particular form of harsh punishment was that these impudent serfs would live on, a burden to their communities and a warning to anyone who dared to resist the knightly class.
From Vikings to Normans
With generous revenues and a military force capable of seeing off those who might rob them, the former Vikings slowly, over the next four or five generations, inter-married and prospered and in the process they reinvented themselves. By the middle of the eleventh century the consistent development of their farms and their efficiency at squeezing the lower classes had provided the Norman knight with the wealth for developing the finest arms and armour west of Constantinople and for breeding the stoutest warhorses on the continent.
The Normans took a direct interest in the development of their farms and especially in the purchase and breeding of horses. The destrier, so-called because it was led by the right hand (dextra) of a squire, was a powerful beast, capable of carrying an armoured warrior into battle. Costing some thirty times more than a palfrey – a light horse suitable for couriers – muscular destriers in the fields and stables of the knights were one of the most visible forms of the growing wealth of Normandy. The Vikings had long known of the use of the stirrup and treated stirrups as precious items, to judge by the fact that their riding equipment, made from bronze or iron, often accompanied their owner in burial. It was on the grassy fields of Normandy, however, rather than the mountainsides of Norway that the art of fighting from horseback was perfected. Within a few generations, from Spain to Byzantium, the Normans were praised as masters of horsemanship, riding horses that had been trained to be surefooted in the tumult of battle and to turn at the touch of a hand.
Knights and Clergy
Culturally the Norman élite had changed over the years. They still remembered their Viking origins and Norse was used as a language among them for several generations. Viking zoomorphic art, the swirling-tailed animals that decorated metal goods and cloth, remained popular in Norman crafts. But by the eleventh century it was clear there had been great changes since Hrólfr’s day.
Socially, the former warriors had copied developments among their continental neighbours and, where they could achieve it, the richer amongst them had become a distinct nobility, concentrating on improving their knightly skills by riding to the hunt almost every day that they were not actually riding to war. Not all the descendants of Hrólfr’s Viking army had become lords of the labour of others, many were still free farmers of varying degrees of wealth, but, on the whole, the aristocracy of Normandy by the end of the first millennium could trace their origins back to Viking ancestors.
In their religion, there was an enormous contrast between the pagan values of the original invaders and their descendants. As part of his agreement with King Charles the Simple, Hrólfr had been baptised. As a result, the practice of beheading captured Christians in honour of the old gods came to an immediate halt. Indeed, at the end of his life Hrólfr distributed a hundred pounds of gold through the churches in honour of the Christian God. Was he genuinely converted? It would appear so, judging by these donations. Hrólfr’s conversion in order to sign the key treaty was clearly a political decision, but the distribution of great wealth back to the church – albeit in the face of death – he once plundered shows a great deal of respect for the religion.
Understandably, though, it took the church some time to regain its confidence and function once more in Normandy. For much of the ninth and tenth centuries, bishops, such as those of Avranches, Bayeux, Lisieux and Sées, were not appointed or, if they were, lived in exile. But when the Christian religion was consolidated among the Norman nobility, the new lords began to compete with each other in their efforts to endow monasteries and churches. Evidence for just how skilled the masons and carpenters of Normandy were at this time remains in the landscape even today, especially in the form of the restored church buildings of the eleventh century. Huge stone buildings, employing the latest techniques in construction, sprang up over the duchy as each magnate established his own religious foundation.
These clerical and monastic communities fulfilled an important service for the new Norman nobility, in addition to that of spiritual welfare. A religious endowment provided a setting for the retirement and final resting place of a knight and his descendants. The clergy were also essential in estate management, being literate where the knight, typically, was not. In marked contrast to the Irish lay nobility, which included poets with extraordinary technical prowess, the Norman knight generally did not trouble to learn to read.
One knight who might have come to an early appreciation of the practical value of written records was William the Bastard, later ‘Conqueror’. As a young lad of seven, William, along with several other boys, was summoned to a meeting at which his father, Duke Robert the Magnificent, had just reached agreement with Humphrey de Vieilles over the foundation of a monastery at Saint-Pierre at Préaux. Duke Robert smacked his son hard in the face. Humphrey did the same to young Richard of Lillebonne, who was carrying the Duke’s greaves (leg armour). When Richard asked Humphrey why this strong blow had been struck, Humphrey answered, ‘Because you are younger than me and perhaps you will live a long time and you will be a witness of this business whenever there is need.’ For good measure, the adults then gave a solid crack to Hugh, son of Count Waleran of Meulan. Hitting youths was not a very efficient method of record keeping but perhaps William was to learn from this hard lesson: in later life he was to commission the greatest documentary survey of people and property of the medieval era: the Domesday Book.
Over time the dukes of Normandy found in the clergy useful and effective allies in the suppression of the near-constant warfare that threatened the stability of the political structures of the region. At large assemblies of knights, clergy and free farmers in the time of William the Conqueror, decrees were passed announcing general ‘truce’ and ‘peace’ legislation: the former outlawing warfare on all days but Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the later banning attacks on the unarmed and their property. The penalty for ignoring these decrees was excommunication and a heavy fine, payable to the church.
Castles
One striking symbol of the restless efforts by lords to promote themselves at the expense of their rivals was the rapid proliferation of castle-building. The Norman knights led the world in the development of the castle, largely because they had the resources to invest in the considerable labour and craftsmanship required. But Normandy, too, had social conditions that impelled the art of castle construction forward. Although tactically the castle is a defensive building, strategically, the castle is used offensively. By locating a castle in disputed land and on river crossing points, a lord fashions a base from which his knights can range far and wide into enemy territory and from which they can demand revenues from the local peasantry. In a word, a castle means domination. At least forty castles were erected in Normandy before 1066 and there would have been many more, but for William the Conqueror’s intervention, halting castle construction except at his discretion. William decreed that:
‘No one in Normandy might dig a fosse in the open country of more than one shovel’s throw in depth nor set more than one line of palisade, and that without battlements or alures [wooden walkways]. And no one might make a fortification on rock or island and no one might raise a castle in Normandy and no one in Normandy might withhold the possession of his castle from the lord of Normandy if he wishes to take it into his hand.’
In Ireland, in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, there did not exist the same drive to build castles. Clearly, those lords who founded such impressive constructions as the monasteries of Mellifont or Baltinglass had the resources and the access to skilled artisans necessary to build castles. But why would they, when the source of wealth in Ireland was mobile? Build a castle near enemy territory and the enemy would simply move their herds of cattle away from it. Nor were there administrative structures in Ireland which were centralised in the same way as, for example, the English financial centre at Winchester or governmental centre at London. When the Normans conquered England, they immediately built castles in both cities to ensure control of them. But the retinues and functionaries of Irish kings, like the kings themselves, were itinerant. They had favoured residences, of course, but like their wealth, they were constantly mobile.
In a mistaken belief that Irish society before the coming of the Normans was sufficiently like that of northern Europe to warrant an expectation that the Irish aristocracy used castles as their primary residences, some historians and archaeologists have looked for evidence of pre-Norman castles. They have searched in vain and they will continue to do so. The only possible exceptions were the various Uí Chonchobair fortresses described with the loan words caistél or caislén, located beside rivers, where control of such key crossing points might have repaid the investment of the king. But even if – as they certainly could have – the Uí Chonchobair rulers had hired experts in castle construction and built something similar to a Norman ringwork or motte, it would still have served a rather different function to the castle as it was developed in Normandy. There is no suggestion by the Irish sources of these forts being residences for lords or centres of administration. For a Norman knight, by contrast, establishing jurisdiction over a ‘fief’, allotted to him by his lord, meant creating a fortified residence to control the revenues of those ploughing the land and to threaten the revenues of those within riding distance. And if the fief were on conquered territory in England, Wales, Italy, Palestine, or Ireland, there was no question but that the residence would be a castle. The generation living at the time of the conquest of England would see over a hundred castles appear on the landscape, and by the time the Normans came to Ireland a century later, there were over a thousand castles in England.
The early Norman castle was a wood-and-earth affair. It came in two basic forms, either that of a ringwork, where the defensive system depended entirely on the ditch and palisade that surrounded the stables and residential buildings, or a motte-and-bailey, where the main defence was a high mound (the motte) on top of which perched a wooden tower for additional defensive height advantage. In the latter form of castle, the residences and other buildings were usually at the foot of the hill surrounded by a ditch and palisade (the bailey). By 1066, the Normans had become adept at throwing up a motte castle in a hurry. When they invaded England, for example, they built a castle at Hastings within fifteen days. Once their foothold on a territory was consolidated, the Normans then built more substantial structures.
The same pattern was even more evident in the partial conquest of Ireland a hundred years later, when about five hundred earth-and-timber castles were constructed within the space of a decade or two, covering the eastern half of the country. Having secured their presence in Ireland in this way, the Anglo-Normans then built more permanent and much more impressive stone castles, such as that at Trim, which was constructed on top of the early timber ringwork castle.
Conquests
If there was a golden rule of European high politics in the period from AD1000 to 1200, it was not to let the Normans become involved in your realm. For not only were they the finest warriors in Europe, but they were also intensely ambitious, restless, and devoted to the goal of achieving fame. Wherever a Norman force encountered weakness among an existing ruling élite, whether friend or foe, they ended up supplanting the old aristocracy and taking their land.
Despite intense rivalry between them, the Normans also knew when to band together to take advantage of an opportunity. They had no fear of the sea, having inherited from their Viking forbears the techniques of building seaworthy craft capable of transporting their cavalry, as well as a knowledge of weather, tide and coastal landscape. As a result, the Normans made some extraordinary conquests, including the amphibious invasions of England, Sicily and Ireland.
William the Conqueror
The most famous Norman leader both in his day and in modern times was William, who in later life was known as ‘the Conqueror’, but who from childhood was termed ‘the Bastard’. For William was born from a liaison between Duke Robert the Magnificent of Normandy and Herleva, the daughter of a lowly leather worker. The duke took responsibility for Herleva and later married her. This did not prevent William’s enemies from mocking him in regard to his grandfather’s profession. When, around the year 1050, he was besieging the town and castle of Alençon, a group of knights and footsoldiers cried down from a stockade at William’s troops, banging on the protective leather hides:
The skin, the skin of the tanner
That belongs to William’s trade!
Such taunting was rather reckless, since as soon as the town’s outer defences were overcome, William picked out those involved and had their hands and feet cut off. The feet were then catapulted into the castle to demoralise the defenders.
Partly because of his lowly origins on his mother’s side, but more due to the desire of all Norman lords to throw off any authority above them, William faced enormous challenges in becoming an effective ruler of the duchy. Duke Robert left on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035, when William was just eight years old. William’s father never came back, dying on the return journey at Nicaea. And although the Norman lords had all sworn loyalty to the boy in front of the archbishop of Rouen at Fécamp, they immediately set about fighting one another and building castles to protect their independence. At one point, in 1042, when William was fourteen or fifteen, a conspiracy to murder the young duke nearly caught him unawares. One evening after hunting in Valognes, he was woken by a jester called Goles beating on the walls of his room.
‘Open up,’ Goles cried, ‘open up! You will all be killed, get up, get up! Where are you lying, William? Why are you sleeping? If you are attacked here, you will soon be killed. Your enemies are arming themselves. If they can find you here, you will never get out of the Cotentin and not live till the morning.’
With just breeches and shirt and a cloak around his shoulders, William grabbed a horse and set off. In great fear and distress, the teenager could not risk going to any major town until he knew who remained loyal to him. With the pursuit close behind, William came to the castle at Reys, where he was relieved to find that Hubert of Reys was willing to aid him. Sending William on with his three sons as escort, Hubert met the rebel party and while pretending to share their goals, escorted them down the wrong path, allowing William the time he needed to reach safety.
