A brilliant global history of the Normans, who—beyond the conquest of England—spread their empire to eventually dominate Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. 14th October 1066. As Harold II, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England, lay dying in Sussex, the Duke of Normandy was celebrating an unlikely victory. William "The Bastard" had emerged from interloper to successor of the Norman throne. He had survived the carnage of the Battle of Hastings and, two months later on Christmas day, he would be crowned king of England. No longer would Anglo-Saxons or Vikings rule England; this was now the age of the Normans. A momentous event in European history, the defeat of the Anglo-Saxons had the most dramatic effect of any defeat in the high Middle Ages. In a few short months, the leader of northern France became the dominant ruler of Britain. Over the coming decades, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom would be rebuilt around a new landowning class. During the next century, as the Norman kings laid the foundations of modern Britain, their power would spread irresistibly across Europe. From Scandinavia down to Sicily, Malta, and Seville, the Normans built magnificent castles and churches. They cerated a new Europe in the image of their own nobility, recording their power with unprecedented vision, including the Domesday Book. Empire of the Normans tells the extraordinary story of how the descendants of Viking marauders in northern France came to dominate European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern politics. It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce pirates, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. Across the generations, the Normans made their influence felt across Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa and even to the Holy Land, with a combination of military might, political savvy, deeply held religious beliefs, and a profound sense of their own destiny.

'In this fascinating, panoramic account, Levi Roach brings an expert eye and page-turning energy to the telling of their extraordinary story' Helen Castor, bestselling author of She Wolves 'A fresh retelling of the story of the Normans . . . written with enthusiasm and brio' Marc Morris, bestselling author of The Anglo-Saxons How did descendants of Viking marauders come to dominate Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East? It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce freebooters, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. The Normans made their influence felt across all of western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and Lisbon to the Holy Land. In Empires of the Normans we discover how they combined military might and political savvy with deeply held religious beliefs and a profound sense of their own destiny. For a century and a half, they remade Europe in their own image, and yet their heritage was quickly forgotten - until now.

The Normans were a relatively short-lived cultural and political phenomenon. The emerged early in the tenth century and had disappeared off the map by the mid-thirteenth century. Yet in that time they had conquered England, southern Italy and Sicily, and had established outposts in North Africa and in Levant. Having traced the formation of the Duchy of Normandy, Trevor Rowley draws on the latest archaeological and historical evidence to examine how the Normans were able to conquer and dominate significant parts of Europe. In particular he looks at their achievements in England and Italy and their claim to a permanent legacy, as witnessed in feudalism, in castles, churches and settlement and in place-names. But equally from the political stage. The reality is that, even within this short time-span, the Normans changed as time and place dictated from Norse invaders to Frankish crusaders to Byzantine monarchs to Feudal overlords. In the end their contribution to medieval culture was largely as a catalyst for other, older traditions.

In 2010, David Bates presented the Ford Lectures in British History at the University of Oxford, and The Normans and Empire is the book which was born from these lectures. It provides an interpretative analysis of the history of the cross-Channel empire created by William the Conqueror in 1066 to its end in 1204 when the duchy of Normandy was conquered by the French king, Philip Augustus, the so-called 'Loss of Normandy'. This volume emphasizes the cross-Channel and Continental dimensions of the subject, and uses modern approaches to suggest new interpretations. Bates proposes that historians of the Normans can learn from the methods of social scientists and historians of other periods of history - such as making use of such tools as life-stories and biographies - and he employs such methods to offer an interpretative history of the Normans, as well as a broader history of England, the British Isles, and Northern France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The Normans originally came to Italy and Sicily in the 11th and 12th centuries looking for adventure or a livelihood, but once there, found opportunity for fame and fortune. The story of the Norman conquest in Italy and Sicily is indeed one of knights and adventurers, great battles and lowly pillage, opportunism and statesmanship, and crusade and coexistence. This rich and often dramatic study focuses on the eight sons of Tancred of Hauteville, especially Robert Guiscard, who has been called "the most dazzling military ruler between Julius Caesar and Napoleon," and his youngest brother Roger, who conquered Sicily. It discusses how they expanded their lands throughout southern Italy, and then took Sicily from its Muslim rulers. The brothers, often in conflict with each other, challenged both the Papacy and the Byzantine Empire, became the main supporters of the reformed Papacy, and founded a rich, sophisticated kingdom that lasted until the nineteenth century.

"Lars Brownworth’s The Normans is like a gallop through the Middle Ages on a fast warhorse. It is rare to find an author who takes on a subject so broad and so complex, while delivering a book that is both fast-paced and readable." Bill Yenne, author of Julius Caesar: Lessons in Leadership from the Great Conqueror "An evocative journey through the colourful and dangerous world of early medieval Europe" Jonathan Harris, author of Byzantium and the Crusades There is much more to the Norman story than the Battle of Hastings. These descendants of the Vikings who settled in France, England, and Italy - but were not strictly French, English, or Italian - played a large role in creating the modern world. They were the success story of the Middle Ages; a footloose band of individual adventurers who transformed the face of medieval Europe. During the course of two centuries they launched a series of extraordinary conquests, carving out kingdoms from the North Sea to the North African coast. In The Normans, author Lars Brownworth follows their story, from the first shock of a Viking raid on an Irish monastery to the exile of the last Norman Prince of Antioch. In the process he brings to vivid life the Norman tapestry’s rich cast of characters: figures like Rollo the Walker, William Iron-Arm, Tancred the Monkey King, and Robert Guiscard. It presents a fascinating glimpse of a time when a group of restless adventurers had the world at their fingertips.

Quick and accessible introduction to a moment in history

This book provides the most comprehensive examination of the Normans available, examining the emergence of the Normans, their characteristics as a group, and their various achievements in war, culture and civilization.

The Bayeux Tapestry is the world’s most famous textile–an exquisite 230-foot-long embroidered panorama depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is also one of history’s most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture. In his fascinating new book, Yale professor R. Howard Bloch reveals the history, the hidden meaning, the deep beauty, and the enduring allure of this astonishing piece of cloth. Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold, and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history. Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by Tapestry’s evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic “The Song of Roland,” which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin. The richest horde of buried Anglo-Saxon treasure, the matchless beauty of Byzantine silk, Aesop’s strange fable “The Swallow and the Linseed,” the colony that Anglo-Saxon nobles founded in the Middle East following their defeat at Hastings–all are brilliantly woven into Bloch’s riveting narrative. Seamlessly integrating Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Byzantine elements, the Bayeux Tapestry ranks with Chartres and the Tower of London as a crowning achievement of medieval Europe. And yet, more than a work of art, the Tapestry served as the suture that bound up the wounds of 1066. Enhanced by a stunning full-color insert that includes reproductions of the complete Tapestry, A Needle in the Right Hand of God will stand with The Professor and the Madman and How the Irish Saved Civilization as a triumph of popular history.

The first great city to which the Crusaders came in 1089 was Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. It was the key to the foundation, survival and ultimate eclipse of the crusading kingdom. The riches and sophistication of the city nevertheless made a lasting impression on the crusaders, and through them on western European culture.