Norman

William Seymour takes us on a visit to the New Forest, stretching from Southampton Water to the Wiltshire Avon, and the favourite hunting ground of many English monarchs.

Between the coming of St. Patrick and the arrival of the Normans art, literature and religion flourished in a country that had no organised central government.

The latest in Rob Murray's series of Alternative History cartoons.

Was King Harold slain by a Norman arrow that pierced his eye? Charles H. Gibbs-Smith adduces a powerful argument for correcting the traditional story. 

On August 2nd, 1100, the harsh, violent, cynical ruler, who was the second Norman King of England, mysteriously met his death while hunting in the New Forest. W.L. Warren asks: was it by accident or conspiratorial design, or was he the victim of a pagan fertility cult?

W.L. Warren makes an attempt to sift the facts from the lurid legend of an English monarch who has left a reputation for evil second only to Richard III’s. 

J.J.N. McGurk describes how Gerald’s later years were filled with his excellent books on Wales and his unsuccessful struggle for a bishopric.

The son of a Norman Marcher lord and a Welsh princess, J.J.N. McGurk writes, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis’ was a brilliant recorder of British life in the twelfth century.

A European rather than merely an Englishman, John embodied the new humanism that permeated twelfth-century thought, by J.J.N. McGurk.

Joan M. Fawcett utilises the household records for the Countess of Leicester, sister of Henry III, to retrace a crucial year for the de Montfort fortunes.