Norman yoke
Encyclopedia
The Norman yoke is a term that emerged in English nationalist discourse in the mid-17th century. It was a shorthand phrase, useful for attributing the oppressive aspects of feudalism
in England to the impositions of William I of England
, his retainers and their descendants.
believed that the Normans had imposed a yoke
on the English: "And so the English groaned aloud for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable and unaccustomed". The culturally freighted term of a "Norman yoke" first appears in an apocryphal work published in 1642 during the English Revolution
, under the title The Mirror of Justices; the book was a translation of a French
work supposed to be of the late thirteenth century. Despite the doubtful surroundings of the term's birth, it had enough truth in it to be useful. But its presence in an argument that purports to be historical can be a red flag
to a cautious reader.
Frequently, critics following the Norman Yoke model would claim Alfred the Great
or Edward the Confessor
as models of justice. In this context, Magna Carta
is seen as an attempt to restore pre-conquest English rights, if only for the gentry. When Sir Edward Coke
reorganised the English legal system, he was keen to claim that the grounds of English common law
were beyond the memory or register of any beginning and pre-existed the Norman conquest. He did not use the phrase "Norman Yoke" however.
The idea of the Norman Yoke characterized the nobility and gentry of England as the descendants of foreign usurpers who had destroyed a Saxon golden age. Such a reading was an extremely powerful myth for the poor and excluded classes of England. Whereas Coke, John Pym
, Lucy Hutchinson
and Sir Henry Vane
saw Magna Carta rights as being primarily those of the propertied classes, during the prolonged 17th-century constitutional crisis in England and Scotland
, the arguments were also taken up in a more radical way by the likes of Francis Trigge, John Hare
, John Lilburne
, John Warr
and Gerrard Winstanley
of the radical Diggers even calling for an end to primogeniture
and for the cultivation of the soil in common. "Seeing the common people of England by joynt consent of person and purse have caste out Charles
our Norman oppressour, wee have by this victory recovered ourselves from under his Norman yoake." wrote Winstanley on behalf of the Diggers, in December 1649. In The True Levellers Standard Advanced Winstanley begins:
's Take Your Choice (1777) and featured in the debate between Thomas Paine
and Edmund Burke
. It was also championed by Thomas Jefferson
.
By the 19th century, the Norman Yoke lost whatever historical significance it may have had and was no longer a 'red flag' in political debate. But it still carried its popular history usefulness, conjuring up an imagined Anglo-Saxon golden England, as in Sir Walter Scott
's novel Ivanhoe
where a 'Saxon proverb' is put in the mouth of Wamba (Ch. xxvii):
Among Victorian Protestants, the idea of the "Norman Yoke" was sometimes linked with anti-Catholicism
, with claims that the English Anglo-Saxon
Church was freer of Papal influence than the Norman one. They cited events such as the Pope's blessing of William the Conquerer and the homages of various Plantagenet kings to the Papacy as proof of this idea. This linking of "Anglo-Saxon"
English nationalism
and anti-Catholicism influenced Charles Kingsley
's novel Hereward the Wake
(1864), which, like Ivanhoe, helped popularise the image of a romantic Anglo-Saxon England destroyed by the Normans.
Michael Wood touched upon the Norman Yoke concept in the context of highly mythologized so-called 'comic-book history' for the BBC History series 'In Search of England'.
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
in England to the impositions of William I of England
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
, his retainers and their descendants.
History
The medieval chronicler Orderic VitalisOrderic Vitalis
Orderic Vitalis was an English chronicler of Norman ancestry who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12th century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. The modern biographer of Henry I of England, C...
believed that the Normans had imposed a yoke
Yoke
A yoke is a wooden beam, normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, used in different cultures, and for different types of oxen...
on the English: "And so the English groaned aloud for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable and unaccustomed". The culturally freighted term of a "Norman yoke" first appears in an apocryphal work published in 1642 during the English Revolution
English Revolution
"English Revolution" has been used to describe two different events in English history. The first to be so called—by Whig historians—was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, whereby James II was replaced by William III and Mary II as monarch and a constitutional monarchy was established.In the...
, under the title The Mirror of Justices; the book was a translation of a French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
work supposed to be of the late thirteenth century. Despite the doubtful surroundings of the term's birth, it had enough truth in it to be useful. But its presence in an argument that purports to be historical can be a red flag
Red flag (signal)
Red flag is a semi-official term to denote various attention and awareness indicators and signals, both explicit and implicit. It can be used in various contexts usually as a warning or when things seem too good to be true as well as unexpectedly good results.The earliest citation for "red flag" in...
to a cautious reader.
Frequently, critics following the Norman Yoke model would claim Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
or Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....
as models of justice. In this context, Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
is seen as an attempt to restore pre-conquest English rights, if only for the gentry. When Sir Edward Coke
Edward Coke
Sir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...
reorganised the English legal system, he was keen to claim that the grounds of English common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
were beyond the memory or register of any beginning and pre-existed the Norman conquest. He did not use the phrase "Norman Yoke" however.
The idea of the Norman Yoke characterized the nobility and gentry of England as the descendants of foreign usurpers who had destroyed a Saxon golden age. Such a reading was an extremely powerful myth for the poor and excluded classes of England. Whereas Coke, John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
, Lucy Hutchinson
Lucy Hutchinson
Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson was an English biographer as well as the first translator into English of the complete text of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura during the years of the interregnum .-Biography:...
and Sir Henry Vane
Henry Vane the Younger
Sir Henry Vane , son of Henry Vane the Elder , was an English politician, statesman, and colonial governor...
saw Magna Carta rights as being primarily those of the propertied classes, during the prolonged 17th-century constitutional crisis in England and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, the arguments were also taken up in a more radical way by the likes of Francis Trigge, John Hare
John Hare
John Hare can refer to:*John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham , British Conservative MP and government minister*John Hare , British actor and theatre manager*John Hare , Anglican Bishop of Bedford*John E...
, John Lilburne
John Lilburne
John Lilburne , also known as Freeborn John, was an English political Leveller before, during and after English Civil Wars 1642-1650. He coined the term "freeborn rights", defining them as rights with which every human being is born, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or human law...
, John Warr
John Warr
John James Warr is an English former cricketer. He played in two Test matches for England.His Test bowling average remains the worst of any English player, but Warr turned it into comic relief in his highly humorous after dinner speeches.-Life and career:He played for Middlesex as a right-arm...
and Gerrard Winstanley
Gerrard Winstanley
Gerrard Winstanley was an English Protestant religious reformer and political activist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell...
of the radical Diggers even calling for an end to primogeniture
Primogeniture
Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings . Historically, the term implied male primogeniture, to the exclusion of females...
and for the cultivation of the soil in common. "Seeing the common people of England by joynt consent of person and purse have caste out Charles
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
our Norman oppressour, wee have by this victory recovered ourselves from under his Norman yoake." wrote Winstanley on behalf of the Diggers, in December 1649. In The True Levellers Standard Advanced Winstanley begins:
- O what mighty Delusion, do you, who are the powers of England live in! That while you pretend to throw down that Norman yoke, and Babylonish power, and have promised to make the groaning people of England a Free People; yet you still lift up that Norman yoke, and slavish Tyranny, and holds the People as much in bondage, as the Bastard Conquerour himself, and his Councel of War.
Revival of interest
Interest in the idea was revived in the eighteenth century, in such texts as the Historical essay on the English Constitution (1771) and John CartwrightJohn Cartwright (political reformer)
John Cartwright was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the Father of Reform...
's Take Your Choice (1777) and featured in the debate between Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
and Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
. It was also championed by Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
.
By the 19th century, the Norman Yoke lost whatever historical significance it may have had and was no longer a 'red flag' in political debate. But it still carried its popular history usefulness, conjuring up an imagined Anglo-Saxon golden England, as in Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
's novel Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe is a historical fiction novel by Sir Walter Scott in 1819, and set in 12th-century England. Ivanhoe is sometimes credited for increasing interest in Romanticism and Medievalism; John Henry Newman claimed Scott "had first turned men's minds in the direction of the middle ages," while...
where a 'Saxon proverb' is put in the mouth of Wamba (Ch. xxvii):
'Norman saw on English oak.
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon to English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blithe world in EnglandMerry England"Merry England", or in more jocular, archaic spelling "Merrie England", refers to an English autostereotype, a utopian conception of English society and culture based on an idyllic pastoral way of life that was allegedly prevalent at some time between the Middle Ages and the onset of the Industrial...
never will be more,
Till England's rid of all the four.
Among Victorian Protestants, the idea of the "Norman Yoke" was sometimes linked with anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...
, with claims that the English Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
Church was freer of Papal influence than the Norman one. They cited events such as the Pope's blessing of William the Conquerer and the homages of various Plantagenet kings to the Papacy as proof of this idea. This linking of "Anglo-Saxon"
English nationalism
English nationalism
English nationalism refers to a nationalist outlook or political stance applied to England. In a general sense, it comprises political and social movements and sentiment inspired by a love for English culture, language and history, and a sense of pride in England and the English people...
and anti-Catholicism influenced Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.-Life and character:...
's novel Hereward the Wake
Hereward the Wake
Hereward the Wake , known in his own times as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile, was an 11th-century leader of local resistance to the Norman conquest of England....
(1864), which, like Ivanhoe, helped popularise the image of a romantic Anglo-Saxon England destroyed by the Normans.
Michael Wood touched upon the Norman Yoke concept in the context of highly mythologized so-called 'comic-book history' for the BBC History series 'In Search of England'.