Duchy of Normandy

A territory granted to Vikings to stop them raiding, whose descendants then conquered England, Sicily and Antioch. Charles the Simple ceded land around Rouen to the Norse leader Rollo in 911 in exchange for his conversion and his defence of the Seine - a bargain that worked, and the settlers adopted French, Christianity and Frankish law within two generations while keeping an appetite for expansion. The duchy became the best-organised principality in France, with a chancery, a coinage and a ducal authority stronger than the king's own. William took England in 1066 and the two realms were joined under one ruler for a century and a half, which is why English has a Romance vocabulary layer and why the English crown held continental land it spent four hundred years fighting over. Other Norman adventurers took southern Italy and Sicily on their own account and founded a kingdom there. Philip Augustus seized the duchy in 1204, and the Channel Islands are the fragment that stayed with the English crown. Norman is still spoken there. The Bayeux Tapestry records the conquest from the winners' side. The duchy covered roughly the modern French region of Normandy. Rouen was the capital and Caen the ducal seat under William. The Domesday survey of 1086 has no equivalent anywhere in Europe for two centuries. Norman architecture is what the English call Romanesque. The name Normandy means land of the Northmen. Philip Augustus of France seized the continental duchy in 1204, splitting it from England for good after 138 years of union.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history