1066: The year of the conquest
Introduction
In this review of 1066: The year of the conquest, I will identify Howarth’s purpose in writing this book and discuss how well he served his purpose. I will also assess the merits and shortcomings of this book in relation to the themes, the sources used, and the author’s writing style.
Author’s Theme
howarth 1066 was a description of the “tremendous drama [in England] which began on the 6th of January with the burial of King Edward in Westminster Abbey and ended on Christmas Day in the same place with the coronation of King William” (7). Howarth balances his book by offering insight into the life and character of all people in England, from peasants to the ruling classes, before and after the conquest.
The author’s purpose
Howarth claims that “it was not meant to be read as a work of scholarship, only as an evocation of the excitement, pleasures, and miseries of that year” (7). Howarth acknowledges the difficulty in determining a strictly factual account from a time when sources were sparse and/or biased. Because of this, Howarth necessarily had to make some assumptions and conclusions in his account of the conquest.
Author’s writing style
Reading Howarth’s book, it was very easy to forget that it is a historical account of the Norman invasion. His writing is very descriptive and colorful. Howarth succeeded magnificently in keeping the reader enlarged in the book. The book reads so much like a historical novel, that one wonders how factual it is. It is true that Howarth added his own opinions and advanced his own conclusions to the account to fill in the gaps for which there are no sources. For example, Howarth believes that the change in King Harold’s behavior between the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings is due to his learning of William’s papal blessing. This conclusion may be correct, but Howarth offers no supporting evidence. He never mentions that someone specifically told King Harold about that fact, he just says that someone must have. Therefore, Howarth does not base his conclusions on factual evidence, but rather on what he assumes must have happened. This may be necessary when very few sources exist, but, to me, he casts doubt on the validity of his claims.
Howarth’s writing style is popular, not academic. The portrait he paints of medieval England is very vividly done. Through his words, an image jumps to mind of exactly what the country looked like at that time. In addition to the image of England, Howarth is also very successful in giving us a sense of the characters of the men involved in the battle, from the villagers turned soldiers to the rulers they fought for. For example, it is very easy for the reader to see the disappointment and indecision on Duke William’s face after learning that King Edward had died and Harold had been crowned the new king.
I really enjoyed the way Howarth included the customs of the people involved. I think custom determines why people act the way they do, so it’s important to keep that in mind when reading the story. For this reason, I find the first chapter detailing the life of the average Englishman and Englishwoman very informative and entertaining.
I also appreciate how Howarth included earlier political and social events that influenced the way people acted before, during, and after the Battle of Hastings. For example, William’s invasion would have seemed puzzling if Howarth had not informed us of King Edward’s promise to him and the meeting between William and Harold in Normandy.
author’s sources
Howarth used primarily primary sources for this book. He claims that of the twenty sources he used, “twelve were written within living memory of 1066, and all but two within one hundred years” of the Battle of Hastings (7). Howarth also varied his sources to present the different versions of what happened; the different versions belonged to the English, Normans and Scandinavians.
conclusion
Taken as a whole, I think this was a good text on the Norman Conquest. Although some of its conclusions seem suspicious to me, the book is entertainingly written, while at the same time offering valuable information about the life of medieval peoples during one of the most important dates in Western history.
