From pirates to princes — the heroic transformation of the Normans

The Normans had an astonishingly good run. Not only did they take over England in 1066, of course, but they also triumphed over the Muslims, establishing themselves in southern Italy and founding a principality in the Near East. William the Conqueror’s is one of the most famous names from Europe’s Middle Ages, but the achievements of Robert Guiscard were nearly as astonishing: leaving Normandy with five knights and 30 infantrymen, he became Duke of Sicily, Apulia and Calabria. Meanwhile, his son Bohemond was one of several Norman heroes of the First Crusade, and rose to become Prince of Antioch.

These military successes did not surprise contemporaries. They knew the Normans to be first and foremost a warrior race, descended from the Vikings (Normani means ‘the men from the north’). They established their dukedom as a payoff from the French crown in 911. In return, they had to stop their ravaging, swear loyalty to France’s kings and provide them with fine troops to fight their other enemies. And, crucially, they had to become Christian. To the 11th-century mind the Normans were favoured by God — in a superstitious, religious age, how else to explain their stream of victories?

Judith A. Green, emeritus professor of medieval history at the University of Edinburgh, tackles the myth of the ‘stormin’ Normans’, as she calls them, to see what their true impact and legacy were, and how they managed to pull off their astonishing achievements.

She approaches her subject with intellectual rigour and thoroughness. Her 12 chapters are broken down into numerous subheadings, and her endnotes, maps, family trees, bibliography and index account for more than a third of this comprehensive book’s 351 pages. The general reader, I suspect, may allow some of the details to wash over them, while enjoying the overall experience of being in the hands of an expert guide.