The Normans post-conquest

[MikeBrn]

I was thinking of drawing up some "historical" skirmish scenarios for the period in Britain after William was crowned king- eg, the Harrying of the North and Hereward's rebellion – just for our group to play.

The English/British forces should be, I guess, fairly straightforward – of Anglo-Danish or Welsh background depending on where the scrap is set.

The "Norman" forces, however, just left me thinking. Did they leave a standing "army of occupation" in England for many years beyond 1066 and so any armed insurrections would be "put down" using Norman troops stationed here or ferried over from the Continent or were the troops subsequently "levied" from local lands held by landowners/knights friendly to William's regime and so they would be dressed and fight like Anglo-Danes (for example) but perhaps with some Norman knights to lead them?

More of an idle curiosity question really as if fielding a Norman force in England in late 1000s then was just wondering how truly "Norman" it really was.

Mike

[Duncan Head]

The "Norman" forces, however, just left me thinking. Did they leave a standing "army of occupation" in England for many years beyond 1066 and so any armed insurrections would be "put down" using Norman troops stationed here or ferried over from the Continent or were the troops subsequently "levied" from local lands held by landowners/knights friendly to William's regime and so they would be dressed and fight like Anglo-Danes (for example) but perhaps with some Norman knights to lead them?

William was calling out the English fyrd as part of the royal army as early as the reduction of Exeter in 1068. I am less certain about what would happen at local level, though.

[aligern]

I think that the fyrd is a continuing obligation that just morphs into the levy that thevAssize of Arms would produce. I pretty certain that the fyrd is what produces the bulk of orced at Northallerton/The Standard in the 1130s.  I expect that the fyrd would be summoned locally if the Norman lord felt secure in their loyalty. iIRC the fyrd responds to the invasion by the sons of Harold who are worth a look up for a scenario.
I suggest that William gave lands to his major retainers who then parcelled them out o support the number of men that the king demanded of them. These minor lords would then build a wooden castle or fortified manor house (or take one over) and occupy it with their group of men, some mounted, some spears, some archers/bowmen.  When action threatened the nearest local lord would send a message to his lord who would summon his retainers and form a force to go relieve whatever castle was beseiged.
It is not at all impossible that some of the troops in the castles would  be Englishmen and many were almost certainly Flemings or French who came to England for mercenary service after the Conquest.
Whilst new mercenaries arrived after 1066 I'd expect some originals to have left after all, the rewards for sitting in a damp castle on the Welsh border cannot have been  as good as being paid for a war in Northern France with opportunities of plunder.
Roy

[aligern]

http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/1067-69.html

See the above for ThevSons of Harold coming from Ireland, so an Anglo Irish force and being worsted by the fyrd and perhaps Norman castellans.
Roy

[aligern]

For the avoidance of doubt the sons of Harold would have had Dublin Norse and possibly Irish supporters in the fleet that that they brought.
Roy

[Mick Hession]

Some more information on the Irish-based expeditions, from a Slingshot article on Ostmen I wrote a while back:
"In the aftermath of Hastings Diarmait Mac Mael Na mBo, king of Leinster, lent the fleet of Dublin to the sons of Harold Godwinsson who used it to raid south western England in 1068 and again in 1069. One of the targets of the 1068 expedition was Bristol, Dublin's main commercial rival in the Irish Sea, which may not have been a coincidence. The raiders, in 52 ships led by Godwin Haroldsson, harried Devon and Cornwall and fought a pitched battle in Somerset against local forces led by one Eadnoth, a Saxon noble who had submitted to the Normans. Eadnoth was slain and his army beaten but Godwin's army had suffered heavy losses so returned to Dublin. The 1069 expedition was slightly larger, with 64 or 66 ships and this time Godwin was accompanied by his brother Edwin. The expedition landed in Devon but failed to take Exeter and was defeated by an army under Brian Fitz Eudo, son of the count of Brittany. "

So you'd have a raiding force of a core of English exiles (Huscarls?) with a main body of Dublin Norse and probably some Irish mercenaries. We don't have numbers, but at 20 men per ship the 1068 force would have had about 1,000 men, the 1069 one more like 1,300. I imagine Eadnoth's army as a largely or all-English force, but for variety you could give Brian FitzEudo some Breton horsemen as an alternative to Normans (if your favoured rules make a distinction, of course).

Cheers
Mick 

     

[MikeBrn]

Thanks all for the replies - it was only when drawing up notes for the Norman forces that made me think whether they would, in effect, be Norman at all. I suspect the govt forces (for want of a better term) would wish to rely on a Norman-ish core but, as suggested, a chunk of the force could well be made up of non-norman troops.

I remembered after posting that I had Rex's 1066 book and in it he makes mention that William "disbanded the mercenary part of his army" in 1068 although that was perhaps because they had reached end of service in any event.

Thanks again.

Mike

[Mark]

There's a 1069 SAGA mini-campaign (more a report than a scenario) in the latest Wargames Illustrated (305).