The Norman Conquest in English History Volume I: A Broken Chain?

by Garnett, George

• ISBN13: 9780198958833
• ISBN10: 0198958838
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-04-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Norman Conquest in English History, Volume 1: A Broken Chain? pursues a central theme in English historical thinking over seven centuries. Covering more than half a millennium, this volume explains how and why the experience of the Norman Conquest prompted both an unprecedented campaign in the early twelfth century to write (or create) the history of England, and to excavate (and fabricate) pre-Conquest English law. Garnett traces the treatment of the Conquest in English historiography, legal theory and practice, and political argument through the middle ages and early modern period, examining the dispersal of these materials from libraries after the dissolution of the monasteries, and the attempts made to rescue, edit, and print many of them in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Author Biography

George Garnett, Professor of Medieval History, St Hugh's College, University of Oxford

George Garnett is Fellow and Tutor in History, St Hugh's College, Oxford, and Professor of Medieval History in the University. He read History at Queens' College, Cambridge, was a Research Fellow at St John's College, Fellow and Director of Studies at Magdalene College, and Senior Proctor of Oxford University in 2015-16. He has published two earlier books on the Norman Conquest and also works on medieval and early modern thought.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. The Early Twelfth-Century Perspective in English Historical Writing2. The Audiences for English History in the Early Twelfth Century3. The Excavation, Reconstruction, and Fabrication of Old English Law in the Twelfth Century4. Edward the Confessor: From Critical Standard to Patron Saint5. The Conquest in Historical Writing from the Late Thirteenth Century6. The Conquest in Later Medieval English Law I: Jurisprudence and Forensic Practice in the Thirteenth Century7. The Conquest in Later Medieval English Law II: Edward II's Reign and After8. The Preservation of the Sources for English Medieval History in the Sixteenth Century9. Elizabethan Study of Old English Law and its Post-Conquest Endorsement10. The Printing of Twelfth-Century English Historiography, and the Integration of Law with History