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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 1539: Pushing the Boundaries: Normans across the Sea, I - Crossing the Channel

Thursday 9 July 2020, 09.00-10.30

Organisers:Philippa Byrne, St John's College, University of Oxford
Caitlin Ellis, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Caitlin Ellis, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Paper 1539-aAd Pevensae: Destination Pevensey Castle, 28 September 1066
(Language: English)
Allan Brodie, Historic England Swindon
Mark Bowden, Historic England Swindon
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Architecture - Secular, Maritime and Naval Studies, Military History
Paper 1539-bPagan Tides: Control of the Sea in Dudo's De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum and Fulbert's Vita Sancti Romani
(Language: English)
Katherine Cross, Wolfson College, University of Oxford / British Museum
Index terms: Hagiography, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 1539-cEnvironmental Considerations of the Norman Invasion in 1066
(Language: English)
Rebecca Tyson, Department of History, University of Bristol
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Maritime and Naval Studies
Abstract

The three sessions in the 'Normans across the Sea' series examine how the sea can be used to define and/or deconstruct ideas of Norman borders and Norman identity. Session 1, 'Crossing the Channel', unpacks the archaeological, literary, and historical significance of the Channel as both boundary and highway. Brodie and Bowden discuss the anchorage and castle at Pevensey, a base of operations in 1066, considering whether its true significance was military or symbolic. Cross examines the meaning of control over the channel in early Norman chronicles, and how water was used to define Norman territory and Norman Christian identity. Tyson's paper addresses the environmental and physical reality of crossing the channel, considering how the (often difficult) experience of sea travel shaped Norman politics.