General Notes

Nickname:<NICK> Le Conquberant"
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8XHZ-SV
William I, byname WILLIAM The CONQUEROR, or The BASTARD, or WILLIAM of NORMANDY, FrenchGUILLAUME le CONQUÉRANT, or le BÂTARD, or GUILLAUME de NORMANDIE (b. c. 1028, Falaise, Normandy--d. Sept. 9, 1087, Rouen), duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England from 1066, one of the greatest soldiers and rulersof the Middle Ages. He made himself the mightiest feudal lord in France and then changed the course of England's history by his conquest of that country.

Early years

William was the elder of two children of Robert I of Normandy andhis concubine Herleva, or Arlette, the daughter of a burgher from the town ofFalaise. In 1035 Robert died when returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, andWilliam, his only son, whom he had nominated as his heir before his departure,was accepted as duke by the Norman magnates and his feudal overlord, King Henry I of France. William and his friends had to overcome enormous obstacles. Hisillegitimacy (he was generally known as the Bastard) was a handicap, and he hadto survive the collapse of law and order that accompanied his accession as a child.

Three of William's guardians died violent deaths before he grew up, and his tutor was murdered. His father's kin were of little help; most of them thought that they stood to gain by the boy's death. But his mother managed to protect William through the most dangerous period. These early difficulties probably contributed to his strength of purpose and his dislike of lawlessness and misrule.

Ruler of Normandy.

By 1042, when William reached his 15th year, was knighted, and began to play a personal part in the affairs of his duchy, theworst was over. But his attempts to recover rights lost during the anarchy andto bring disobedient vassals and servants to heel inevitably led to trouble. From 1046 until 1055 he dealt with a series of baronial rebellions, mostly led bykinsmen. Occasionally he was in great danger and had to rely on Henry of France for help. In 1047 Henry and William defeated a coalition of Norman rebels atVal-ès-Dunes, southeast of Caen. It was in these years that William learned tofight and rule.

William soon learned to control his youthful recklessness. He was always ready to take calculated risks on campaign and, most important, tofight a battle. But he was not a chivalrous or flamboyant commander. His planswere simple, his methods direct, and he exploited ruthlessly any advantage gained. If he found himself at a disadvantage, he withdrew immediately. He showedthe same
qualities in his government. He never lost sight of his aim to recover lost ducal rights and revenues, and, although he developed no theory of government or great interest in administrative techniques, he was always prepared toimprovise and experiment. He seems to have lived a moral life by the standardsof the time, and he acquired an interest in the welfare of the Norman church.He made his half brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux in 1049 at the age of about 16,and Odo managed to combine the roles of nobleman and prelate in a way that didnot greatly shock contemporaries. But William also welcomed foreign monks andscholars to Normandy. Lanfranc of Pavia, a famous master of the liberal arts, who entered the monastery of Bec about 1042, was made abbot of Caen in 1063.

According to a brief description of William's person by an anonymous author, who borrowed extensively from Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, he was just above average height and had a robust, thick-set body. Though he was always sparing offood and drink, he became fat in later life. He had a rough bass voice and wasa good and ready speaker. Writers of the next generation agree that he was exceptionally strong and vigorous. William was an out-of-doors man, a hunter and soldier, fierce and despotic, generally feared; uneducated, he had few graces butwas intelligent and shrewd and soon obtained the