1066 The Year Of The Conquest Analysis

1066: The Year of the Conquest is a book by David Howarth trying to express the year 1066 through its battles. Specifically, the peace that the battles disrupted and the people involved such as the dukes, kings, earls, nobles, and the commoners. His goal is not to provide facts on what happened, his goal is to show his readers- whether they are scholars or those who enjoy history- the drama that unfolded that year, with as many reliable sources as possible. Howarth describes the year by referencing the “Bayeux tapestry, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The Carmen, Hastingae Proelio, Gesta Guillielmi, the Domesday, De Gestis Regum Anglorum Vita Wulfstani, and Historia Ecclesiastica” (Howarth, sources page). Howarth wrote this with as little bias as he could as he mentioned in his introduction and revealed to us the driving questions that prodded him to write this story. Anglo- Saxon England, according to Howarth, espeically before the Normans, was very easy-going and “self-sufficient”. Most people had plenty to eat and drink and they had enough space to maintain a healthy lifesyle, involving hard work and rewards. England had been at peace for a while and a middle class was beginning to appear. Villages had fences for protection for their vast …show more content…
Howarth goes to explain how the villages attempted to resist William and his army and how the barbarians burned their crops, stole their animals, raped and pillaged as they pleased. The people became scared and grew to fear them. Howarth does make a comment about how he speculates that William would not have been able to stop this from happening, especially because of all the promises he made to his men. However, resistance in London was strong as Howarth points out in one of his last chapters. The people were very adamant about having an English ruler and would try to do anything to stop William from being