Empires of the Normans Conquerors of Europe

Review by Booklist Review

When Duke William of Normandy embarked for England in 1066, he was not the first Norman to venture abroad to seize riches and territories. For several decades prior, Normans had been gravitating to southern Italy, then a pastiche of principalities and Byzantine provinces. By the 1040s, one Norman family had replaced them as overlords of the region and obtained papal sanction for their conquests, which eventually became the Kingdom of Sicily. William was not keeping up with the Jones, err, Hautevilles. Intra-Norman competition, suggests historian Roach, was possibly one of William's motivations to assert his dubious right to the English throne. In any event, Normans in the century on either side of 1066 were in conquering mode, and their fortunes inform Roach's fascinating narrative of this aspect of the medieval world. He begins with a natural question: who were the Normans? Not sure themselves, they had chroniclers, typically decades after events, record their lineage and exploits; these inherently apologetic writers Roach interprets astutely, enabling readers to understand complicated dynastic successions that lay beneath many episodes of the Norman era. For example, what to do with Bohemond, black sheep of the Hauteville clan? Send him on the First Crusade, of course. Tracking the course of Norman influence around the Mediterranean Sea and British Isles, and its evaporation with King John's loss of Normandy itself in 1204, Roach has produced a quality popular history.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Medievalist Roach (Aethelred the Unready) examines in this expert if somewhat stilted account the profound impact of the Normans on European history. A Viking war band that settled in the northern reaches of the Seine River in 911, the Normans famously conquered England in 1066. Roach gives due consideration to those events, but also spotlights lesser-known aspects of Norman history, including their presence in southern Italy, Sicily, and North Africa; the role of Norman forces in Byzantine Asia Minor and the Crusades; and their influence on Welsh, Scottish, and Irish culture. Throughout, he highlights how the Normans retained their nomadic warrior heritage, exploiting opportunities created by regional disputes in Italy and serving as mercenaries for Byzantine general George Maniakes and others. Though the Normans quickly adopted the language and culture of those elites whom they conquered, they also managed to maintain their collective self-identity by passing down names and customs to later generations. Roach is a lucid explainer of dynastic history, but he mars the narrative with an overreliance on clichés ("But just as things were looking up, clouds gathered"). Still, this is a well-informed and comprehensive introduction to the Norman legacy. (Aug.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Historian Roach (Æthelred the Unready) presents the medieval Normans as unsurpassed conquerors and cultural influencers who ranged far beyond the blood-soaked fields of 1066 England. Roach delves deeply into the manifold imperial footprints the descendants of Viking Northmen left all over France, the British Isles, Iberia, the Middle East, and parts of Germany. The ubiquitous Normans conquered many kingdoms outside of Normandy, introducing lasting notions of the noble aristocracy, mercy, chivalry, as well as the construction of architecturally astounding cathedrals and castles. Spread so far afield, the Normans soon put down lasting roots in their conquered lands, assuming localized identities over time which mitigated any fragile sense of "Norman" identity. Roach contends that the Normans stood out in an "age of overachievers," with their greatest legacy being the political and cultural integration of large parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. Roach assiduously interrogates a diversity of medieval sources (some dependable, some less so) to spin a comprehensive and engaging tapestry of the Norman ascendancy as well as its eventual subsummation into the broader European fabric it helped create. VERDICT This researched and compelling history will be a welcome addition to history buffs.--Peggy Kurkowski

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