Responses to the Threat of Invasion, 1085
| Autor: | J.R. Maddicott |
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| Rok vydání: | 2007 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The English Historical Review. :986-997 |
| ISSN: | 1477-4534 0013-8266 |
| Popis: | In the autumn of 1085 William I faced the threat of an imminent invasion from Denmark, led by King Cnut and possibly supported by Count Robert of Flanders. William of Malmesbury suggests that William responded to this threat by summoning a council on his return to England from Normandy, probably in October 1085. At this council (hitherto virtually unnoticed by historians) it was decided to divide the large mercenary army which the king had brought back for the land's defence and to quarter its members on the households of the magnates: a decision to which the magnates themselves consented. The more famous Gloucester council which followed later, in December 1085, was succeeded by an ecclesiastical synod where further steps were taken for the kingdom's protection. The heads of the Fenland abbeys of Crowland and Thorney, one of them a suspect Englishman and the other old and unmartial, were replaced by two more thoroughgoing Norman loyalists: a reaction to the need to safeguard what would have been a particularly vulnerable region ion the event of an invasion. The decisions made at both the autumn council and the December synod should be given due weight in assessing the purpose of the Domesday survey initiated at the Gloucester council, for they suggest a rationale which was in part defensive and fiscal. Taken together, the two councils point to a consensual style of government and to the precocious subjection to magnate consent of what was in effect taxation. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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