This book examines the emergence of the Normans, their characteristics as a group, and their various achievements in war, culture, and civilization.

The Normans were a product of history rather than a natural ethnic or regional group. This book explores what they believed made them a distinct people and how they constructed their identity. Marjorie Chibnall examines the enigma of the Northmen who first settled around the Seine estuary and built a principality that took their name and became the springboard for wider expansion and the conquest of England. The book moves on to study the rise of Normandy, and the integration and influence of other groups including the Saxons, the Franks and new Scandinavian leaders. The Normans' remarkable warfare and maritime successes are revealed in detail including their conquest of England, infiltration of Wales and Scotland, and assimilation in Ireland; and their campaigns in the South of Europe including southern Italy and the Mediterranean region. The book also examines the development of Norman culture; the writing of their own history; Norman myth; and their achievements in bringing together various racial and cultural elements to form a single people.

This book provides the most comprehensive examination of the Normans available and will be invaluable for students and all those interested in European history.

List of Plates.

List of Maps.

List of Genealogical Tables.

Preface.

Abbreviations.

Part I: People and Duchy:.

1. The Emergence of a Norman People.

2. The Rise of Normandy.

Part II: Conquest and Settlement in the North:.

3. The Kingdom of England.

4. Wales, Scotland, Ireland.

Part III: The Normans in the South:.

5. Southern Italy.

6. The Kingdom of Sicily.

7. Mediterranean Expansion.

Part IV: Myth and Tradition:.

8. The Norman Myth.

9. The Norman World.

10. The Normans after 1204.

Select Bibliography.

Index.

Marjorie Chibnall is Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and has also lectured in the universities of Southampton and Aberdeen. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and her books include Anglo-Norman England 1066-1166 (1993) and Empress Matilda (1987).