The Norman World of Art
Anglo-Saxon art gave way to Romanesque under the Conqueror and his successors, but the change was more gradual and less one-sided than the political changes might lead us to suppose.
The victory of Duke William of Normandy and his army in 1066 cleared the way for an invasion into England of artistic fashions which were already firmly established on the Continent. But even in the pre-Conquest period England was not entirely cut off from the artistic life of the Duchy. During the peaceful reign of Edward the Confessor Norman culture and art had already begun to infiltrate. Edward was himself half Norman and had spent part of his childhood in Normandy; upon receiving the English crown in 1042, he naturally enough surrounded himself with Norman advisers and maintained certain Norman customs.
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