Lesson video

Hi there, it's Mr. Charles here, I'm a history teacher from Norwich and today's history lesson is going to be on the Normans, who they were and where they came from.

This is the first lesson of four, where we're going to be overall looking at how a Norman became King of England.

Please make sure that you've got a pen and paper at the ready or something to write on and you're free of all distractions.

So, if you've got a phone buzzing beside you, then please make sure you just put it in another room, so it doesn't distract you from your learning.

If you need a moment to just make sure you're in a quiet place free of distractions and you've got pen and paper or something to write on, then please take it and then press play again when you want to resume the video.

Okay, now you're free of distractions and you've got something to write on, we can crack on with the lesson.

Now, if you look at this slide, then you can see there are three images on it.

And I want you to focus on the far right image, because this is a painting of a man, a man who was actually King of England at one point and he is kind of the focus of this lesson.

So this man is known as William I or William the Conqueror and he became King of England in 1066.

We can see that actually, he's quite well remembered because we've got the image of a coin there, this coin is a 50p coin and it was released in 2016 and it shows the Battle of Hastings.

And this was a battle that William I or William the Conqueror fought it and what we've also got down the bottom is an image of a battle re-enactment and if you were at re-enacting a battle, then you were acting out a battle from the past.

So this battle re-enactment is also of the Battle of Hastings and it took place in 2016.

So we're really thinking also, why is this still remembered, this historical event? Why is Williams still remembered? And the key focus of our inquiry is how did this man get to become King of England? I've mentioned the coin on the last slide and in 2016, that was the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.

The Battle of Hastings was a battle that took place as part of the Norman invasion of England, and we'll look up what that means in this lesson and also in future lessons.

Now, if you look at our timeline it's really zoomed-out and we can see that actually we're in the 21st century, which is 2020, if you're watching it in the year 2020.

Now, if you go back all those years, over 950 years ago now, this is when the Norman invasion took place and that was in the 11th century.

Now, if you're thinking of a date, any date in the 11th century, then you could have 1040 or 1083 or 1066, which is when this Norman invasion took place.

So anything with 10 in front of it, which is a date, that is in the 11th century and that's the period which we're going to be looking at when we look at this lesson and the next.

But firstly, before we look at the invasion itself, we need to really know why it's called Norman and this stems from the area where the Normans come from and this area is called Normandy.

If you look at this map on the left, this is a map from 2016 and it shows France, and France is that big white area and Normandy is that red part of France.

So just like in England, there is Yorkshire and there are kind of counties or areas, Normandy is an area inside France.

So that's important to remember.

So the Normans were from France.

Now, if we look at the right hand map, we can see that Normandy is a lot smaller than England.

So you'll see both England and Normandy are shaded red but Normandy is that bit where the arrow is pointing to and we can see it's a lot smaller, as I said, than England.

This lesson, we're going to look at who the Normans were and where they came from.

What do we know about them? Who ruled over Normandy, this small area in France? Now up here we have a fact file and it says that Normandy was ruled by Duke William of Normandy and he ruled between 1035 and 1087.

So, quite a long number of years he ruled for and before that, his father ruled Normandy.

We have the population of Normandy at the time in the 11th century.

There were around 150,000 people who lived in Normandy at this time.

It's size is 31,000 kilometres squared, which sounds like a massive area but in actual fact, as we can see from that map in comparison to England, it wasn't actually that big.

And it's army size, it could raise around 12,000 troops at most.

And it was fairly rich for its size, remember, it's not a massive country so, therefore it can't have loads and loads of taxes from millions of people, it only can get taxes from 150,000 people, 'cause that's the amount that lives in Normandy.

But it's fairly rich for its size and it takes in its own taxes.

This Normandy area is run by William and he pretty much has most of the control over Normandy.

Whereas today in the 21st century, Normandy is very much a part of France and has to listen to the French Prime Minister and President.

What I'd like you to do is, I would like you just to pause the video in a second and copy down three facts that you think are most important from the fact file above.

So three facts about Normandy in the 11th century, I just want you to write them down and you can write them down as bullet points or however you choose.

So pause the video now and then come back to it after you've finished.

Now, after this slide, you guys are going to be reading something about these two people who we got on screen and also about the history of Normandy.

Now, I thought it'd be easier for me to give a little bit of background information about these two people before you go into your reading, so you just have a little bit more of an idea about what they did and who they were.

So the first thing or first person to note, is Duke William of Normandy.

Now his father was the Duke of Normandy and once his father died, William inherited the title, he became the ruler of Normandy.

But unfortunately for him, he inherited it quite young, so therefore lots of people thought they could maybe take advantage of William, particularly Norman nobles.

They fought for power over William in his early life.

They hoped if they were close to him or if they had his ear, so to speak, they would be able to actually increase their own power and wealth.

And so William was constantly fought over by these Norman Nobles in his early life and later on as well, he had to put down rebellions from Normans for trying to maybe take his power.

The last thing to know about William is that he was born illegitimate.

Now, illegitimate means that he has a.

or his parents were unmarried.

So I'll read this out, because this is the glossary term I've got for it, which you'll look at later.

It says, people in the 11th century were considered illegitimate if they were born but their parents weren't married.

And nowadays, I should stress, this doesn't matter.

If rulers were illegitimate, they were often seen as less respected and had a weaker claim to rule.

So William also, in addition to being given the title of Duke of Normandy quite young and having lots of people fight over control of him, he also had this issue, where he was considered illegitimate and therefore a bit less respected than other people and therefore some people thought he had a weaker claim to rule Normandy and tried to take advantage of that.

Now, if we look at Matilda of Flanders, she married William in 1051 but before that, she was born legitimate, meaning that her parents were married.

As I said, this doesn't matter at all in the 21st century but in the 11th century it did.

So she was legitimately born, her parents were married, therefore she was respected and she was also from a very wealthy and respected house, which means family really, of Flanders.

Flanders is a place in France.

She married William in 1051 and she was noted for being an exceptional queen and good wife to William as well.

Now, what you'll do is, in the reading soon, you will have a look at these two characters but also the history of Normandy as well.

So, this is where you are going to do a bit of reading and then answer some questions.

So we can see that there are five questions you are going to answer and you're going to be looking and reading through the text.

There is also a challenge question down the bottom there, which is, what were the differences between William and Matilda? And if you can, try to complete that question as well and maybe give a little bit of a longer answer for that one.

If you pause the video in a second and then click onto the worksheet, which are some slides with some texts on it, you will then come across these questions after you've read through the text and you will then be able to write down your answers.

We will go through the answers afterwards.

So, what I need you to do now is just pause your screen and then go to answer the questions after reading through the text.

Well done guys, superb effort on the reading and answering the questions.

So what we're going to do now, is we're going to look through the answers to these questions and you can check your own and maybe you could always adjust or take them off as we go along.

Feel free to pause the video if you want to add a bit of extra information or make some adjustments.

So what I've put on here is there's an acceptable answer, which is an okay answer but maybe is missing a little bit of information or maybe the punctuational spelling isn't quite right.

And there's also a good answer and this is one where the punctuational spelling is great and also it's got some extra information.

So the first question is, who ruled over Normandy? And an acceptable answer would be the Duke of Normandy ruled over Normandy.

The reason that's acceptable is maybe it just misses out a bit of extra information you could always add in, and also it doesn't have a capital on the T at the start of the sentence and the D for Duke.

And there's a good answer as well here, which is, the ruler of Normandy was called the Duke of Normandy.

One Duke of Normandy was William, who became Duke in 1035.

Now do not worry if your answer looks not very much like these, even teachers if they were told to answer a question, would answer things differently.

But if you see a little bit of something that is similar in either of these answers on here, then you can give yourself a tick and if you don't, then don't worry too much, there's always the next question and you can maybe add in some of the things which are on this slide.

So do not worry if yours isn't exactly the same as mine, everyone is different and that's what makes a life so brilliant.

Okay, moving on to number two, what powers did the ruler of Normandy have? Now an acceptable answer here would be, the rule of Normandy could choose to go to war with other countries.

A good answer would be, the Duke of Normandy had several powers, including the ability to declare war and raise taxes.

Normandy was mostly independent from France.

And by independent, we mean mostly separate from France.

Now, if we think about our maps today, we know that Normandy in the 21st century is part of France but back in the 11th century , maps didn't look the same as what they do today and Normandy was kind of like its own little kingdom separate from France.

And so, the world and maps looked different to what they do today.

So Normandy in the 11th century had a lot more power for itself, like the ability to declare war, like the ability to raise their own taxes, than certainly today, okay? Number three, why was fighting an important feature of the Norman way of life? So an acceptable answer here, is that fighting was important because William liked doing it and everyone listened to the ruler, which is correct, often people want to be close to the ruler and want to be in his favour and so, yes, that is correct.

I'll Just take a quick sip of water.

And a good answer is that, fighting was an important feature of the Norman way of life, because the Normans had been influenced by the Vikings.

So Vikings have blended into Norman society by the 11th century but the warrior way of life remained.

So, particularly in the night from 10th centuries, Vikings went on raids around all different areas including England and the Vikings also started to settle after doing these raids.

They started to think, "Hmm, it isn't so bad here "in say France or in England." And they wanted to settle there rather than in their native where they come from, Scandinavia.

And so Vikings really left a big imprint on Norman society.

The Normans came from the Vikings and Vikings were, the Viking spirit made sure that fighting was a really important feature of the Norman way of life.

Okay, number four, what was William like as a person? What experiences in his life may have made him this way? So an acceptable answer would be William was a strong person who was determined.

And I think we can tell that because after all, he's had a lot of adversity, a lot of problems in his life, like becoming King of, I should not say King I should say Duke, from a young age, like having lots of nobles fighting over him, like being born illegitimate, which was not the best thing to be born as in the 11th century.

Obviously it doesn't matter now.

Good answer, so William was a strong ruler who was very determined.

He was also a fighter who had been in battles before.

His determination and fighting spirit may have come from his tough upbringing, where he had threats to his power coming from other powerful Normans and had to overcome them.

And maybe you could add extra things in there, 'cause after all, it's forgotten in this answer, this good answer, that he was born illegitimate.

So he's had to deal with sorry, problems all his life.

So, who was Matilda of Flanders? An acceptable answer would be, Matilda was a lady in the 11th century who married William of Normandy.

However, we can do better than that and a good answer would be, Matilda was from the powerful family of Flanders.

She was of legitimate birth, meaning that her parents had been married and a calming influence on William, who she married.

You could add in, I suppose, some of the things in the 11th century, in that acceptable answer, sorry, like she was a lady in the 11th century.

So you could maybe blend those two answers but certainly in the good answer then a little bit of extra information.

Lastly, there is a challenge question.

So what were the differences between William and Matilda, is the question.

And hopefully you've gone a little bit above and beyond in this question and maybe added a little bit of extra information.

So an acceptable answer would be, Matilda was calmer whereas William was more aggressive and determined.

That tells us some differences about their personality.

But good answer would be, one difference between William and Matilda was that William was illegitimate, whereas Matilda was legitimate.

This was important in the 11th century, as people respected those who were born legitimate more.

Another difference was that William was aggressive and sometimes brutal, whereas Matilda was calmer.

In that answer, we've given out much more information because you have given two differences and we've tried to explain one of those differences as well.

So those were the comprehension questions and from what we are going to do now, is we just going to do one last task before you do the exit quiz at the end.

So, this question up here.

So now we return to the question really posed in the inquiry question, looking at all these different lessons that we're going through.

So now we return to the inquiry question and the one that we looked at, at the very start of this lesson.

Is, how did a Norman become King of England? By now, we should know which Norman we're talking about.

We're talking about William.

So, in a minute, I want you to pause this video and complete a little task for me.

So, I want you to look at the list of bullet points below on this slide.

Which of the following reasons might help William become King of England? I want you to write them down on your paper.

So what things, what bullet points, might help William become King of England? All I want you to do is write them down on your paper.

As a challenge, you could set yourself, which of the reasons above, the bullet points above, might hold William back from becoming King of England? So what things might stop William from becoming King of England, of those bullet points.

So complete this, pause the video and when you're finished, press play again on the video and we'll go through what possible answers you might have put.

Pause the video now.

Well done guys, brilliant work, a great effort again.

You were writing down reasons that might help William become King of England and if you got onto the challenge, you were also writing down a separate list of reasons that might hold William back from becoming King of England.

So I'm going to go through these reasons one by one and you can then either tick or cross depending on your answers.

So the first bullet point, Matilda, his wife was powerful and respected.

Now this I think is a reason that would only help William become a King of England.

And we know that Matilda comes from a good family, a wealthy family and she's also legitimate.

So she adds a bit of respectability to William by being married to him.

So we would certainly say that William is stronger with Matilda than without her.

The second bullet point, William had a small population of around 150,000 people in Normandy.

Now we don't yet know the population of, say England or other countries around Normandy but I have noted on here that it's a small population.

So therefore I think that it's probably not a reason that would maybe help William become King of England, it would probably be a reason that might hold William back a little bit.

We did see in that map, the size of Normandy compared to England.

But again, we haven't looked at the population of England just yet.

The third bullet point, William was born illegitimate.

Now, this is certainly a reason that might hold William back from becoming King of England, because he was less well respected and it was particularly important back then that you were legitimate.

And so therefore, this is only going to be a bit of an impediment, something that will stop William from becoming King of England.

The fourth bullet point, William and his Norman army were good fighters.

Now this is a reason I think, that might help William become King of England.

If his army have that Viking blood within them and they're used to fighting and they're experienced fighters and that's going to be successful, because they're not just going to ask to become King of England, they're actually going to try and fight for it.

So therefore, that's got to be a reason that would help William become a King of England.

And this next one, the penultimate point, William could call on an army of at most 12,000 men.

Now, again we don't yet know the size of the other armies, so this could go either way.

This could either help William become King of England, maybe if England's army was smaller or it might hold William back from becoming King of England, perhaps if England's army was bigger.

But we'll be looking at that in the next couple of lessons.

Lastly, William was determined, ambitious and brutal.

I think this can only help William become King of England.

If someone is determined, they will stop at nothing to get what they want.

He's ambitious, he wants the throne and also he's not scared of using brutal, ruthless methods to try and take it.

So this is probably going to help William become King of England.

And that's the end of the lesson and well done for all your hard work and efforts, please, please, please, go to the next bit of at website and complete the end of lesson quiz, just to reinforce some of that knowledge that you've learned and also look back for your notes and think about the three most important things you've learned today.

If you want, you can ask a parent or a carer to take a picture of your work, because I know I'd love to see it and share it with Oak, but you must ask a parent or a carer to do that.

And all I've got to say to you, is have a fantastic day and I hope to see you all again, bye.