Anglosasi w oczach kronikarzy normańskich doby bitwy pod Hastings

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the opinions of two eleventh-century Norman chroniclers, William of Jumièges and William of Poitiers, about the nature and character of the inhabitants of newly conquered England. Their opinions were strongły influenced by the so called Normanitas which comprised such ideas as religious revival, knights' loyalty to the duke, feudalism, full ducal authority, and a love of war. Another thing is that the chroniclers tended to perceive the character of the English and the Normans from the perspective of political relations between Edward the Confessor, William of Normandy and Harold Godwinson. Our chroniclers were not particularly interested in the otherness of the Anglo-Saxons as such, which they noticed onły in the context of the struggle for the English crown. Since it was William of Normandy who emerged victorious from the battle of Hastings, it is no wonder that Norman chroniclers perceived the events and their participants from the point of view of the victors. They tried to prove William's claim to the English throne and to explain the causes of the failure of the Anglo¬ -Saxons. For this reason, they ascribed to Harold such characteristics as madness, tyranny, untrustworthiness, deceitfulness and insincerity, and then described the character of the English as a direct reflection of the character of their king. On the other hand, in order to prove that conquering England was no mean achievement for William of Normandy, the chroniclers emphasized such traits of the inhabitants of the conquered land as courage, bravery, and patriotism. Thus, it may be concluded that the way Norman chroniclers described the Anglo-Saxons tells us more about the extent to which they were rooted in Norman tradition than about the Anglo-Saxon reality.