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00:00Almost a thousand years ago, a man assembled an armada of 15,000 warriors.
00:17He had made Normandy a rich, powerful land.
00:21But hatred was at his door.
00:23Mocked, detested, and envied, his burning ambition led him to formulate a wild, yet meticulously planned scheme to invade England and become king.
00:42For this, he would go down in history as William the Conqueror.
00:46What remains of his story?
00:56Largely erased, forgotten, and left in ruins, traces do remain.
01:01Thus, the line between one man's dream and historic reality becomes blurred.
01:12It could be a bit higher, but it's not bad.
01:16Yes, the neck was totally bare.
01:22We can see their shaven necks on the Bayeux tapestry.
01:25It probably helped when wearing the helmet or the headgear that went underneath.
01:44Our story begins with a little riddle.
01:47The exact date of William's birth has never been known.
01:51But it is commonly accepted that he was born around 1027.
01:58What we know for certain is that he was raised in Falaise in Normandy, in the castle of his father, Robert the Magnificent.
02:04As the Duke of Normandy, his father had influence.
02:10His mother, Arlette, however, was a local girl with no noble blood.
02:16William was therefore considered a bastard.
02:19What was going on at this grandiose ceremony?
02:28What was Robert the Magnificent's plan?
02:31Before setting off on a pilgrimage, Robert the Magnificent, the Duke who ruled Normandy from 1030 to 1035,
02:44officially enthroned little William when he was only seven.
02:51He inherited a duchy with, theoretically, the recognition of nobles.
02:55But they did not uphold their commitment.
02:59My heart was only seven years old.
03:01My heart was only seven years old.
03:02My eyes would say my submission.
03:04And my heart was only one of my dreams.
03:07To defeat Guillaume the Batard.
03:10On the death of Robert the Magnificent, the Normans contested young William for two reasons.
03:20Firstly, because he was a bastard.
03:23It wasn't as fashionable as in the previous century, when practically all the Dukes of Normandy were of illegitimate birth.
03:31Secondly, because he was a child, and certain ambitious uncles of William were staking their claim to power.
03:38At one point, around 1045, they tried to assassinate him in Valogne.
04:01Luckily, a jester in Valogne, a close friend of William, called Gaulle,
04:06overheard the would-be assassins and their accomplices plotting.
04:12He went straight to wake the Duke in his bed and ordered him to leave as quickly as possible,
04:18taking only a cloak and jump on his horse or be murdered in a matter of minutes.
04:25William fled and rode all night towards Falaise.
04:33He must have crossed the ford of the BDV, which was extremely dangerous.
04:39He must have crossed the Bessin, avoiding the towns where accomplices may be waiting.
04:47He also crossed the forest of Brocheville.
04:50This flight helped forge the myth of William as young, brave and headstrong.
04:55A bastard and a loner, capable of riding 150 kilometers with killers at his heels.
05:01Texts of the time transformed this event into legend, but struggled to authenticate the details.
05:08Was William's horse spooked?
05:11Perhaps William was unseated.
05:14What if there never was a river to cross?
05:18What can historians say with certainty?
05:23In fact, just what do we know about William?
05:26It was all so long ago.
05:28What was he really like?
05:31We obviously have portraits of William from the 14th, 15th, 19th centuries,
05:37even statues like the one in Falaise.
05:40And this is a more or less romantic vision of the character, not based on anything historical.
05:55William never doubted his own legitimacy.
05:59Most of the Dukes of Normandy came from illegitimate marriages.
06:03Consequently, he was totally in line with his ancestors,
06:07and considered that those who challenged his legitimacy were rebels,
06:12and that it was his duty to punish them for that.
06:22William took refuge in Falaise,
06:24and there, aged 18, took his first political initiative.
06:29He called upon his suzerain, the King of France,
06:32and, with his help, was able to bring down the accomplices who wanted to take his power.
06:40That was the Battle of Valaisdune.
06:43William and the King faced between one and two thousand warriors
06:46commanded by the rebel barons with the bewitching names
06:49Renouf de Brixard, Grimoul de Plessy, and Amon Le Dentu.
06:54Historians consider that it was a great battle and a chance for William to prove his worth.
07:01They even say that the fighting was so terrible,
07:05and the massacre on such a scale that the river Orne ran red with blood.
07:11William settled in Caen, where he built his castle, making the town the capital of Lower Normandy.
07:30It's hard to pick one's way through this warren of ruins today.
07:34What here dates back to William?
07:36The ramparts, the ditches, the keep, the artillery terrace
07:41are just a succession of changes wrought through the centuries.
07:45Yet, on the ground, there are traces that give us a clue
07:48as to what the castle and the town might have been like around the year 1000.
07:53Perhaps a castle, peace, wealth.
07:57All that was missing from the perfect picture was a wife.
08:01William and Mathilde formed a couple unlike most others in the Middle Ages.
08:13All their lives they were faithful to one another,
08:16and William had no known mistress nor bastard.
08:20He chose Mathilde, daughter of the Count of Flanders,
08:25one of the most powerful figures of the time.
08:29Mathilde was a descendant of the kings of France, the Carolingians,
08:33so the bastard was marrying into the highest royal line.
08:37of the highest royal line.
08:44You are at home, there are 200 people who are waiting for you.
08:47News of the marriage was heard in Rome, where Pope Leo IX did not accept it
09:06for reasons of fifth degree consanguinity between William and Mathilde.
09:10He therefore banned the marriage.
09:17But that did not stop William from marrying Mathilde,
09:20either in 1050 or in 1051, in Eau, on the edge of the Duchy of Normandy.
09:29William was a builder.
09:31He and Mathilde built the men's abbey and the women's abbey in Caen,
09:35acts of allegiance that must have gone down well in Rome with Pope Nicholas II,
09:40with whom William had made his peace.
09:45Could we imagine that William's story ends here?
09:50Good husband and father, pious Christian, occasional builder,
09:54could William have become a provincial nobleman?
09:57No, there was no room for routine.
10:00The surprise, when it came, came from England.
10:03Edward the Confessor took the throne after a 28-year exile in Normandy.
10:08He had no heir, and so he chose William to succeed him.
10:12Thus, he overlooked his English brother-in-law, Harold.
10:17In 1064, Harold set sail to come and meet William.
10:22And when he landed on the Pontier coast to the north of Normandy,
10:26he was taken prisoner, and William ordered his release.
10:30It was at that time, in fact, that the Bayeux Tapestry was begun.
10:35A treasure of humanity, a treasure trove for any historian, a work of propaganda, as well as a powerful testimony of the manners of the time, the Bayeux Tapestry also told of what was to come, of the upheaval in William's life, and far more besides.
10:58We know the Bayeux Tapestry was exhibited in early July every year for the Feast of Relics in Bayeux Cathedral.
11:11It was laid out in the nave so as to be completely visible to the public who came to the cathedral.
11:17The crowd jostles to relive the adventures of William and Harold.
11:25Here they are, setting off to wage war together in Brittany.
11:30It seems that a friendship grew between the two men, but William was wary of Harold's ambition and asked him to swear on the relics to promise to back his claim to the throne of England.
11:41This oath was probably sworn in the crypt of Bayeux Cathedral.
11:48One thousand years on, the crypt is still there, identical, aside from paintings that an untrained eye might think were of that period, but which were actually added 400 years later.
12:03The text of the oath was authenticated, transcribed according to the testimonies of several who took part in the ceremony.
12:16By this oath, I, Harold, will be the representative of Duke William at the court of my lord, King Edward, as long as he shall live.
12:36I shall do all in my power, so that after Edward's death, the kingdom of England be handed to him.
12:46I shall not get to a chamber of anō.
12:50Back in London, Harold soon witnessed the last moments of Edward the Confessor, who, on his deathbed, entrusted the Kingdom of England to her own way of being.
13:15of England to Harold.
13:20He was a weak king who had promised his throne
13:23to several figures, so much so that several figures
13:28might feel legitimate.
13:38We have reason to think that, at the last moment,
13:41the moment of his death, he designated Harold
13:44as his successor, as the tapestry shows.
13:51Edward died on January 5th, and the very next day,
13:55Harold had himself crowned king.
13:57The news traveled very fast in England
14:12and immediately went to Normandy,
14:14thanks to the great number of spies on English soil.
14:18So William was quickly informed.
14:20Edward is dead, and Harold
14:35s'est fait couronner roi,
14:37malgré son serment.
14:41Usurpateur.
14:43Parjure.
14:46Usurpateur.
14:46Parjure.
14:52Usurpateur.
14:54Parjure.
14:55Usurpateur et parjure.
15:00One can ask whether Harold really did go back on his word.
15:06Some dispute it, but it does merit discussion.
15:10There are, in fact, quite a few sources on the subject
15:12from the quills of medieval authors,
15:15penned in the scriptory of monasteries.
15:18Among them, William of Poitiers,
15:20William of Jumiège,
15:21and the Anglo-Norman monk,
15:22Orderic Vital.
15:27And we have another version.
15:30That of Vasse,
15:32a Norman author who wrote the Roman de Roux.
15:34Vasse's account was written a century after the events.
15:44But he relied on the testimony of his father,
15:48who was present at the Battle of Hastings,
15:50and gives us information
15:52that we don't get from other sources.
15:56The Duke was delighted.
15:58He was happy with the flag
16:00and the permission given him by the Pope.
16:01He sent for blacksmiths and carpenters.
16:25Building materials were hauled in,
16:27wood brought, dowels were shaped,
16:29planks were planed,
16:30boats and ships were fitted out,
16:32sails were set,
16:33masts were mounted.
16:35A lot of bodies were busied,
16:37lots of money spent.
16:38It took the whole summer and harvest time
16:40to fit out the fleet and raise the troops.
16:42In the second half of April,
16:59an exceptional event happened in the western sky.
17:02What signifie ce signe dans le ciel?
17:17Je sais pas.
17:20Ma, non capisco.
17:24Eh, toi le flamand!
17:25We now know it was Halley's Comet.
17:33It shone in the sky for a fortnight.
17:36To the people of the time,
17:38it foretold of a calamity,
17:40a shift in the destiny of kingdoms.
17:42The presence of Taifere,
17:50a rather excitable character,
17:52endlessly shouting the song of Roland,
17:54was recorded by Vasse,
17:55the Norman historian.
18:00Taifere, who sang so well,
18:02preceded the Duke,
18:03singing of the exploits of Charlemagne,
18:05Roland and his vassals,
18:06who died at Rencevaux.
18:07It was the sword of a good soldier.
18:16Still playing at war,
18:17but not yet with any conviction,
18:19William moved his pawns
18:20further north to Saint-Valéry
18:22in the Bay de Somme,
18:23still waiting for a favourable wind.
18:26Les hommes sont venus de loin,
18:28parfois de très loin pour vous rejoindre.
18:30Ils sont prêts à se battre,
18:31mais l'inaction leur pèse.
18:34Les cas d'insubordination
18:35et d'indiscipline se multiplient.
18:36Ces hommes sont tous volontaires.
18:38Que ceux qui veulent renoncer partent,
18:40nous n'avons que faire des faibles.
18:41Vous devez annoncer
18:42ou que l'expédition est reportée
18:44au printemps prochain
18:45ou que nous embarquons demain.
18:47Sinon, tout ce à quoi vous avez travaillé
18:48pendant des mois sera un fiasco.
18:50Au prochain printemps,
18:51ce sera trop tard.
18:52Demain, c'est trop tôt.
18:54La traversée sera un succès,
18:55mais nous devons attendre encore.
18:56William stayed two weeks
19:06in the Baie du Somme
19:07and waited for a favourable blowing
19:09from the English side.
19:11On the morning of September 28th,
19:20the wind turned
19:21and allowed William to embark.
19:23For a historian who has dedicated his life
19:44to the saga of William,
19:46the crossing of the Channel
19:47by the Norman Armada
19:48remains a moment to be endlessly pondered
19:50and reimagined.
19:55Mesdames, dans quelques instants,
19:57nous entrerons dans le tunnel
19:58sous la manche sur la traversée
19:59pour maintenir une rafaine de minute environ.
20:03A few moments,
20:04we're answering the tunnel
20:05that they'll turn the turn of you.
20:16Mes amis!
20:19L'heure est proche!
20:21Nous allons prendre ce qui est à nous!
20:24Vous êtes prêts, mes normands!
20:27Dieu nous aille!
20:29Dieu nous aille!
20:30Dieu nous aille!
20:32Dieu nous aille!
20:33Nobody expected the Norman landing.
21:03That was part of William's plan.
21:08He knew that Harold had sent all his troops north to face the Norwegians, and at Stamford
21:13Bridge, on September 25th, there was a terrible battle where virtually all the Norwegians
21:18were slaughtered.
21:23William took advantage of this absence of troops in the south, the land unhindered.
21:33He landed on Pevensey Beach.
21:40The next day, the infantry set off across the fields, while William's fleet made for a little
21:46harbor at the foot of Hastings' cliffs.
21:54From that point on, the little village of Hastings has owed its universal renown through
21:59the ages to William.
22:08On the English side, the men with long hair gathered by the famous grey apple tree.
22:17Tired but galvanized by their victory against the Norwegians, they readied themselves to
22:21take up arms yet again.
22:24The army of King Harold was akin to what we normally consider to be a feudal army.
22:31There were two main parts to it.
22:34One were his own household, which was essentially the aristocracy of England, who held their land
22:41on the basis of military service and personal loyalty to King Harold.
22:45And they are usually called the housecarls of the king.
22:48But crucially, in battle, they didn't fight on horseback like cavalry normally fight.
22:53They dismounted and they fought with the sword and the axe, like the Norman infantry.
22:58Alongside the housecarls, there was the Anglo-Saxon word,
23:02the third, in other words, the feudal levies, and the words are linked, who were the normal
23:09country people of England who owed their own tenure to their lords, who owed their tenure
23:14to the king.
23:15They had the duty of turning out for so many months or so many weeks every year to fight
23:19for the king.
23:20And one of the problems with Harold's army, as indeed the feudal armies later on, is
23:25that that right only lasted for six weeks or two months.
23:29So there's a point at which the third was called, was assembled, was ready to fight,
23:32and after so many months he went home again.
23:35So Harold had some limitations there.
23:38It's probable that if Harold had waited two, three, four days, and no more than that, to
23:45assemble a force that was significantly bigger and significantly better rested than the force
23:49he actually fielded at Hastings, then he might have triumphed and English history would
23:56look rather different.
23:57The English were shrewdly encamped at the top of the hill, which overlooked the plain by
24:07some 40 meters.
24:12And William had naturally camped at the foot of this hill to be able to maneuver.
24:16And he tried to reinforce it.
24:21Mixed water.
24:23rito сказать
24:25Orеж лайkas
24:26The sectores are up there! The sectores are up there!
24:33This evening, you will be on the road and you will be on the road!
24:39Seigneur Guillaume, je vous ai longtemps et fidèlement servi.
24:55Pour toute récompense, je vous demande ceci. Accordez-moi le premier coup de la bataille.
25:01Va Taillefer, je te dois bien se prie. Et si tu meurs, c'est nous qui chanterons ta gloire.
25:08Taillefer! Taillefer! Taillefer! Taillefer! Taillefer! Taillefer!
25:27The battle began at nine in the morning, as William de Poitiers tells us.
25:33The Normans first deployed their archers.
25:40They sent them in as close as possible.
25:43But hardly were they within an arrow's range, around 40 to 50 metres.
25:50Then spears rained down on them from the hill, killing a good many men.
25:57William saw, then, he would obtain nothing with his archers, and sent in his infantrymen.
26:03The battlefield sheds light on the customs of the time.
26:08We find that William's half-brother Odo swapped his cassock for a chainmail suit.
26:12As a bishop, he didn't have the right to shed blood, so his sword was forbidden, but a club was tolerated.
26:18inviting the cavalry to destroy the militia from theлу.
26:36Let's go.
27:06For around one and a half to two hours, William had both his infantry and cavalry attack the hill.
27:19But they couldn't gain a foothold, as they were hindered by the hail of spears and shafts of all kinds hurled by the English.
27:27William de Poitiers, William the Conqueror's biographer, said the cloud of projectiles was so dense, it blocked out the sun's rays.
27:41Perhaps an exaggeration for the sake of the epic, but it shows that the English were able to keep the Normans at bay.
27:47And that's what they did for the first couple of hours.
27:49What happened next was an incident stemming from a bold manoeuvre that the Bretons were charged with performing.
27:59They advanced as close as possible to the English flank, and at a given moment, they provoked what is known as a feigned flight.
28:14It was a ruse.
28:18William's soldiers appeared to turn back, to retreat from the shield wall of the Anglo-Saxon housecarls, which hitherto had been impregnable.
28:28So the pretense on the part of the Normans to give up, to retreat, to run away, tested the discipline of the Anglo-Saxon army to breaking point.
28:40And there was a moment when they broke their wall, they ran down the hill, and of course, by doing that, they exposed themselves to attack by men on horses, armed with lances, and were extremely vulnerable.
28:53William, who had advanced on his horse to direct the highly delicate feigned flight manoeuvre, was held up because his horse was killed by an English spear.
29:10The horse collapsed and rolled on top of William the Conqueror.
29:17William's fall became one of the great dramatic moments of the Battle of Hastings.
29:21As a knight, it's something you'd be keen to tell your beloved when you were reunited after the fighting.
29:27Here, William becomes his own historian.
29:30On me croit mort.
29:32La fausse fuite de mes valeureux Bretons entraîne la fuite de toute l'armée qui croit tout perdu.
29:37Si je n'interviens pas très vite, ce sera un désastre, dans lequel nombre d'hommes périront en vain.
29:43Il me faut renverser le cours du destin.
29:46Je me relève.
29:46Sans prendre le temps de parler, je renverse le chevalier le plus proche de moi.
29:51J'enfourche son cheval.
29:52It was as if nothing else existed but the epic of a hero, whom fate has pitched alone against the world.
30:01Dios arm!
30:02Je retire mon casque et je montre à tous que je suis bien vivant.
30:15Voyez-moi tous.
30:17Dieu aidant, je vaincrai.
30:20Vous abandonnez la victoire pour courir à votre perte et à une perpétuelle infamie.
30:25Quel chemin s'ouvre à votre retraite ?
30:28Si vous fuyez, aucun de vous n'échappera à la mort.
30:32Alors les fuyards font demi-tour.
30:36Et là, vraisemblablement...
30:36Et probablement, a new phase began then, identical to the first.
30:41That is, that William relaunched his archers, his infantry and his cavalry.
30:48Et we can say that from 1 or 2 o'clock until 3 in the afternoon, William met with the same failure.
30:54They needed to clear the battlefield, to take away the corpses, the dead horses, the wounded,
31:11to restock with weapons, spears, arrows and all kinds of lances.
31:17They also had to regroup a certain number of forces to enable them to mount another attack.
31:22One of the problems with Harold's army was the lack of archers.
31:29And it's very difficult to explain that, because archery was a perfectly common thing in England,
31:34just as it was in Normandy.
31:36And one of the, not strategic, but tactical advantages William had, as we all know,
31:42was the large company of archers he brought with them and the effect they had on the battle.
31:47If we look carefully at the Bayeux tapestry, we see that there's a character called Harold
31:53who gets an arrow in the eye.
31:55And just next to him is a knight amputating another character's leg.
32:00That's a second representation of Harold.
32:03And once the king was dead, the idea of the state in Anglo-Saxon England was not strong enough
32:17to hold this mass of people together.
32:19So with the death of the king, all loyalty to a common cause breaks apart and disintegrates.
32:25And at that point, the dispersal of the English army is inevitable.
32:29There's no one there to hold them together.
32:31The king and his two brothers have both been killed, and the Normans rule the field.
32:38It is hard to evaluate losses on either side.
32:42We know both sides suffered severe losses, probably around 3,000 dead on the English side,
32:482,000 dead among the Normans, Bretons, and French.
32:55So it was probably a very hard battle, which lasted from 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening.
33:04It was one of the great battles of the Middle Ages, which obviously changed the fate of England.
33:09From that moment on, instead of hurrying towards London,
33:19William made an encircling maneuver,
33:21continuing his butchery and setting fires to terrorize the population.
33:27And what he expected to happen, happened.
33:31The aristocrats and the inhabitants of London came out to surrender when William approached the city.
33:39Here, the sources differ quite significantly.
33:43And my own belief is that London didn't surrender as easily as it is usually assumed,
33:49and that there was actually a siege of London.
33:52In other words, London was captured by assault and not simply by surrender.
33:57So the Roman walls of London and the defended by the Anglo-Saxon nobility
34:03in support of Edgar the Eighthling, the Anglo-Saxon claimant to the throne once Harold was dead,
34:09put up a pretty fierce resistance.
34:12It's slightly surprising that we don't hear more about the siege of London in the Chronicles,
34:16and the really sad thing is that the bio-tapestry is cut off at the wrong moment.
34:21And I suspect it's true that the bio-tapestry actually had another 20 foot
34:27showing the capture of London at the end of it.
34:30A dizzying example of Saga's propaganda,
34:35the tapestry made no mention of any looting, rape, and murder by the Norman army.
34:40It omitted the bloody siege of London and consigned to oblivion
34:43the moving coronation of William on the throne of England,
34:46which was nonetheless carefully rehearsed and staged to avoid any mishap.
34:49Oh, Sérénissime, Guillaume, grand et pacifique roi, couronné par Dieu,
34:58je jure, fidélité.
35:03Fidélité.
35:05Vous comprenez pourquoi vous devez apprendre ce texte en anglais ?
35:09Hum.
35:10Puis vous irez vous asseoir sur ce fauteuil qui vous attendra.
35:14Et Monseigneur Eldred vous présentera le sceptre et la couronne.
35:25Le sceptre et la couronne.
35:30Demain.
35:32Demain, le sceptre et la couronne attendront.
35:34Demain, n'ouvrons pas la porte.
35:36À quelques malheurs en posant cette couronne sur votre tête ce soir.
35:44Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
35:45Why did William want to come so much ?
36:00Why did he make this huge effort to capture England ?
36:04Because England was very rich.
36:07The city of London was already a very important international port
36:12because the kings of England had had to pay off the Danes all the time with Danegeld,
36:20they were very good at raising taxes.
36:23They actually raised the money, revenues from their land.
36:28So it was a very attractive land for William.
36:33The population of London was the biggest of any English city.
36:36So large areas within the Roman walls were open land, they were vegetable gardens, they were fields.
36:42There were churches.
36:43There was some vestige of the Roman street plan, but not very much.
36:47But actually, most of the commerce of London took place in an area which was outside the walls,
36:53to the west of London, which is called by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
36:57and by archaeologists today, London Wick.
37:00And that is where the main centre of commerce and population existed.
37:04And then just further west of that, there was Westminster Palace.
37:07And that's where the political power and the commercial power actually lay.
37:12As the city of London was a key piece of the puzzle, heavily populated,
37:29and William feared a revolt, he immediately built fortifications.
37:33The biggest was called the Tower of London.
37:37It's an absolutely magnificent building.
37:40He builds it in the corner of the Roman wall at London.
37:47The corner, the eastern corner, so that it dominates both the city
37:54and it would be enormously dominant to anyone who approached London by ship up the River Thames.
38:03So they would come along the Thames, imagine merchants from the Empire, from Scandinavia, from France,
38:12ambassadors coming from, say, the Emperor or Flanders.
38:15They would come up the Thames and they would see this magnificent building.
38:21It was built out of cornstone, and we know that it was limewashed.
38:30That's why it was called the White Tower.
38:31The one side that wasn't magnificent was the north side, which didn't really matter.
38:37And all the toilets were designed so that they gave out onto the north side.
38:45So the entire tower, this magnificent white tower, but I'm afraid on the north side would have been rather spoiled by the effects of guardrabes.
38:58But they didn't worry about that.
39:00What matters is the three facades that people were really supposed to see.
39:05And it was tucked into a bit of the Roman wall.
39:09He used the Roman wall, which still existed, almost as if William was Caesar.
39:17And it's undoubtedly true that one of the reasons why the Norman conquest was a success
39:22was the proliferation of castles during William's lifetime, during the first years after the conquest,
39:29on the initiative especially of the king and his great nobles such as William Fitz Osborne,
39:34William de Warren and so on, who built castles to control England in a very, very solid kind of way.
39:42And their example was taken up by the lesser nobility as decayed followed decayed.
39:47After William's death, more were built.
39:49And by 1100, it's believed that there were about 500 castles in England,
39:54whereas before 1066, there had been about five.
39:58William's problem was that he couldn't be in Normandy and England at the same time.
40:03When he was in England, the Normans never actually rebelled,
40:07but often those from Le Mans, Angers and the Bretons did.
40:12Conversely, when he was in Normandy, he managed to quell any revolt,
40:16but the Scots and the Welsh were busy attacking England.
40:19There were incessant revolts,
40:24and the Norman yoke was mercilessly applied.
40:31There were massacres, particularly in the north,
40:34and for three years, William went from one region to the next
40:39with an army to massacre the population,
40:41sometimes an innocent population.
40:44We can say that by 1072, order had been restored,
40:48but it was an order imposed by terror.
40:53William was becoming old.
40:55He'd grown fat and had lost the confidence of those around him.
40:58His half-brother, Odo, was William the Conqueror's right-hand man for years.
41:09Each time William came to Normandy,
41:11he played the role of viceroy, who governed in the name of the king.
41:15So he was an important character,
41:17no doubt not well-liked, because he was very authoritarian.
41:21He prized wealth and riches,
41:22but he nevertheless governed England efficiently.
41:27But there came a time when he took too much liberty with the king.
41:30We're not absolutely sure of the circumstances,
41:33but it seems he wanted to set off on his own expedition to Rome,
41:36perhaps to overthrow the pope,
41:39perhaps to be elected pope.
41:40We don't really know.
42:04When William found out, he was appalled.
42:08The scene happened on the Isle of Wight.
42:10He was about to set sail,
42:12and William caught him on the Isle of Wight
42:14and ordered that his brother be arrested as a rebel.
42:24But nobody dared touch him because he was such an important figure.
42:30So William himself seized his brother's shoulder and said...
42:35And he was arrested, imprisoned in Rouen,
42:49and remained in prison until William's death,
42:51so for five years, from 1082 to 1087.
42:54His whole reign stretched over 20 years,
43:09between 1066 and 1086.
43:12So as he came to the end of his reign,
43:15he felt the need to know his kingdom better,
43:17for all sorts of reasons,
43:19for all sorts of reasons,
43:21but in particular for fiscal reasons,
43:23to know what sums were owed by such-and-such a lord,
43:28such-and-such an estate,
43:29or such-and-such a town.
43:32So he proceeded with a great survey.
43:35He sent his investigators to every county in England,
43:38and the result of this survey
43:41was written down in a great book
43:43called, in English,
43:46The Doomsday Book,
43:48which means The Book of the Last Judgment.
43:53So King William was able to know his people
43:55down to the very last inhabitant,
43:59like Christ at the final judgment.
44:03The Doomsday Book can also be summarized
44:05as a rather bizarre inventory.
44:08Mr. Smith owns a dozen rabbits.
44:11There are 2,500 pigs in Chester.
44:14Miss Charleston's hens did not lay any eggs
44:16in the year of our Lord 1072.
44:18Three calves drowned in Grimsby.
44:21Mr. Wesson's 80 cows produce 1,000 litres of milk.
44:25There goes a horse.
44:27The town of Luz has 412 inhabitants.
44:30Southampton, 5,433.
44:32Liverpool, 2,987.
44:34On November 1st, 1083,
44:39Matilda died in Caen.
44:41She was buried at the ladies' abbey
44:43that she founded.
44:45This was dreadful news to William.
44:47His faithful collaborator left him alone
44:49with conflicts to resolve,
44:51in particular with one of his sons,
44:53the eldest, Robert Courthouse.
44:55Robert Courthouse.
44:57Come on, vite.
44:59Toi, taille, taille.
45:02On va.
45:04On va.
45:06Quand vas-tu décider à aller chez le barbier, mon fils ?
45:10Va-t-il que je le fasse moi-même ?
45:13In the autumn of his life,
45:28William entered into conflict with the king of France,
45:31who was now Philip I, son of Henry I,
45:35who wanted to win back part of the Vexin
45:37that had been yielded to the Normans.
45:39This was a border region
45:42that had long been disputed
45:44between France and Normandy.
45:49And in 1087,
45:52William attempted an operation
45:53to seize the Vexin.
45:56Who is the king of France ?
45:58The king of France, Mr. Guillaume,
46:01has told you...
46:02What has he told you ?
46:05That you can no longer be a king.
46:07You can no longer be a king of France.
46:08You can no longer be a king of France.
46:09You can no longer be a king of France.
46:10You can no longer be a king of France.
46:11You can no longer be a king of France.
46:12Pardonnez-moi, Seigneur Guillaume.
46:15Le roi de France a demandé
46:16si le gros Guillaume
46:18allait bientôt accoucher.
46:24Quand j'irai faire mes relevails,
46:27c'est sur ces terres que je les ferai.
46:28J'irai à Notre-Dame de Paris
46:34avec 10 000 lances
46:36en guise de siège !
46:38During an expedition to the French Vexin,
46:49William had an accident.
46:51His horse reared up
46:53and he was wounded in the stomach
46:55by the pommel of his saddle.
46:57Transported to Rouen, his capital,
47:04it took him about a week to die.
47:08He retained his lucidity until the end.
47:12Orderic Vital had him deliver a long speech
47:15in which he admitted all his faults
47:17and distributed his inheritance,
47:19choosing William Rufus, his younger son,
47:22as his heir, not his eldest son, Robert Courtois.
47:30So William was a politician
47:32until the very end.
47:52According to Orderic Vital,
47:57William owned up on his deathbed
47:59to conquering England unfairly.
48:06But this wasn't in William's nature.
48:09He had too high an opinion of his mission
48:12and his legitimacy
48:13to reassess his reign in this way,
48:15particularly his conquest of England.
48:22Here, one must concede
48:24that Orderic Vital
48:25perhaps added a little romance
48:26to the story.
48:27Roald Cattard
48:28in the Technical's history.
48:29Ce que j'ai acquis moi-même…
48:33au prix de tant de crimes…
48:34je…
48:37je le remets à Dieu seul…
48:38seul l'archevêque de Canterbury
48:43pourra vous transmettre
48:45à la couronne légalement.
48:47Appuyez-vous sur l'archevêque
48:48dans vos décisions.
48:51Hein…
48:52c'est le plus loyal
48:55It's the most loyal of us.
49:01L'enfant
49:04m'a always served me
49:07and he will help you.
49:26What's that sound?
49:33It's the office of Notre Dame, Guillaume.
49:44The mother of God recommends his son.
49:55At that moment, panic spread throughout the house.
50:01All the barons fled, as well as the clerks.
50:05The servants left, taking the crockery.
50:11Guillaume remained alone on his deathbed.
50:25His body had to be taken by sea to Caen,
50:31as he wished to be buried in the abbey he founded
50:34in Saint-Étienne-de-Caen.
50:41William's tomb contains yet another riddle.
50:45Why have the conqueror say
50:47that he regretted claiming the throne of England?
50:51Was this an intuition of what was to come?
50:56It is said, who can say if it's true,
50:59that the ghosts of Matilda and William
51:01sometimes wander the throne room like lost souls.
51:04But some things we do know for certain.
51:07That Normandy lost its sovereignty
51:09and was definitively incorporated
51:11into the throne of France in 1204.
51:13That the Normans who had settled in England
51:16took wives and their descendants became English.
51:19That 250 years after the death of William,
51:22England invaded Normandy,
51:23launching a war that lasted 100 years.
51:27And that in 1944, 878 years after William,
51:31the British and their allies finally landed in Normandy,
51:35recreating the Normans' exploit in the opposite direction
51:39and on a far greater scale.
51:40and on a far greater scale.
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