The 'Lands of the Normans' in England (1204-44)

This project examined the history of the Anglo-French aristocracy after the overthrow of the 'Anglo-Norman realm' in 1204. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 had brought England and Normandy under a single ruler; and, despite some disruption, the two countries remained politically united until 1204. In that year, the king of France annexed Normandy and drove out its duke, King John of England. This event had dramatic consequences for landowners on both sides of the Channel. Since 1066, many aristocratic families had held lands in both England and northern France, and these cross-Channel interests had had a determining effect upon the politics and society of both regions; the French king's annexation of Normandy in 1204 threatened to make such cross-Channel landownership impossible. However, there has never been a systematic study of the political consequences of the separation of England and Normandy, drawing upon the full range of the published and unpublished evidence. The project executed a pilot investigation into the fate of the families and estates affected by the political separation of the two countries.

The project sought to assess the impact of these events by focussing upon the estates and families listed in the so-called 'Roll of the Value of the Lands of the Normans'. Compiled in 1204 for King John of England, the roll was the first English royal document to record the effects of the end of the Anglo-Norman realm, for it detailed King John's confiscations of the English property of numerous families that had opted to remain in France. As well as a number of ecclesiastical estates, this text mentions 102 manors that the king's officers had confiscated from about sixty lay landowners, distributed across eighteen counties in central and southern England. For several decades after 1204, many of these families attempted to maintain their interests in both countries, while both monarchies used confiscated estates as rewards for their loyal subjects. The project aimed to trace the history of each family and estate on the roll until 1244, when the kings of England and France each prohibited their subjects outright from holding lands in both kingdoms. By reconstructing the history of each property recorded in the roll of 1204, the project aimed to provide an analysis of the fracturing of the Anglo-French political community into separate English and French communities, and to assess the role of the confiscated lands in royal patronage.

This research was executed through the creation of a web-based database. This sought to identify the various links between the members of the Anglo-French community, such as family ties, political affiliation, and landownership. An integral aspect of this database was the development of web-based tools such as digitised genealogies and maps to assist in the analysis of the collected data. The development of the database had an important experimental function, as the project team tested the possibilities of using such an electronic tool to identify the various social, cultural and political links between the different members of the Anglo-French landowning classes. Although the establishment of the database served as a discrete project, a primary aim of its development was as a feasibility study for a more comprehensive survey of the Anglo-French aristocracy between 1204 and the treaty of Paris (1259), when the king of England formally renounced all claim to Normandy. The database was also intended to contribute to the research for a monograph that will assess the impact of the confiscations of 1204-5 upon English and French politics, society and identity. More generally, the development of the database and its tools explored a range of new ways to use IT in humanities research.