The Bayeux Tapestry, the Norman Yoke & English Radical History
With the news that the Bayeux Tapestry is to be loaned to the British Museum I had a scroll through the 900 or so below the line comments on the Telegraph’s version of the story.
Most were predictable, a few made sensible points but there is no mention of the Norman Yoke. Clearly Telegraph readers were not paying attention in history lessons despite being great fans of patriotic English history.
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the events that led to William 1 taking the throne of England, displacing the previous Anglo Saxon ascendancy.
Tom Paine in Common Sense (1776) wrote about what this meant for radicals:
A French bastard landing with an armed banditti and establishing himself as King of England against the consent of the natives.
The Norman Conquest was in the terms of the Norman Yoke the beginning of French oppression where Anglo Saxon laws and customs were replaced by French ones.
Magna Carta (1215) restored some rights but primarily to the gentry.
The Norman Yoke was also a key issue in the English Civil War of the 1640s and the establishment of a Commonwealth after 1649. From Cromwell the despatch of King Charles 1st was about reclaiming English laws which now resided not with a monarch but with Parliament.
Gerard Winstanley of the Diggers went further writing that the execution of Charles meant that ‘we have by this victory recovered ourselves from under his Norman yoake’
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was held by eighteenth century radicals as doing little to life a renewed Norman Yoke and the idea was part of the early nineteenth century Freeborn Englishman’s outlook, one of whose principles was freedom for domination. By this time of course radicals were looking to the example of the French who had despatched their own King.
Christopher Hill’s essay the Norman Yoke (1955) looked at the impact of the idea in English history sometimes supporting the idea of backward looking Arcadia, sometimes leading to republican conclusions.
Whether that great patriot Nigel Farage will opine we shall see. After all the origin of the name Farage lies with French Huguenots
The expletive deleted Norman yoke. We’re still suffering it.