- 50 minutes ago
After the Battle of Hastings, the Norman Conquest was a brutal foreign occupation that would eventually draw in Wales and Ireland too. Exploring how the Normans consolidated their power by building castles all over England, Michael Wood visits the excavation of an enormous Norman Castle mound at Mount Bures in Essex, and returns to the community big dig at Long Melford.
探讨了1066年诺曼征服后, 英格兰盎格鲁-撒克逊农民的生活状态, 以及 “诺曼枷锁” 这一历史概念的形成与影响...“诺曼枷锁”（Norman Yoke）指诺曼征服后, 征服者威廉及其后继者推行的整套封建压迫体系,被视为剥夺了“生而自由的英格兰人”的古老权利, 该说法17世纪英国内战期间被激进派（如掘地派领袖杰拉德·温斯坦莱）用作反抗土地所有制与王权的论据, 此后在19世纪更被浪漫化为“失落的撒克逊天堂”.
探讨了1066年诺曼征服后, 英格兰盎格鲁-撒克逊农民的生活状态, 以及 “诺曼枷锁” 这一历史概念的形成与影响...“诺曼枷锁”（Norman Yoke）指诺曼征服后, 征服者威廉及其后继者推行的整套封建压迫体系,被视为剥夺了“生而自由的英格兰人”的古老权利, 该说法17世纪英国内战期间被激进派（如掘地派领袖杰拉德·温斯坦莱）用作反抗土地所有制与王权的论据, 此后在19世纪更被浪漫化为“失落的撒克逊天堂”.
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00:06The story of the British is one of the most extraordinary tales in history.
00:13It's a tale of conflict and struggle, of invasions and civil war.
00:24It's a story of resistance and endurance and at times sheer bloody-minded defiance.
00:31And it was the people themselves who made our history.
00:38Often in the face of great adversity, it was the people who won our rights, one of our great legacies
00:44to the world.
00:48And if there's one time when these ideas begin to emerge at grassroots, it's the time between the Norman Conquest
00:55and Magna Carta.
00:57A time when the histories of all our peoples, Scots, Irish, English and Welsh, are drawn together.
01:03In the next chapter of our story, the coming of the Normans, Magna Carta and the first fights for freedom.
01:26At the year 1000, the first millennium, many in Christendom thought the world might end.
01:32But it didn't, of course, and afterwards, people went forward with a new optimism.
01:38Across Britain, the standard of living rose with stable governments.
01:41And England became one of the wealthiest countries in Europe.
01:45But that made it a prize.
01:47And in the 11th century came the most fateful invasion in British history.
01:53Just imagine the scene.
01:55It's late September.
01:56Six or 700 ships floating on the morning tide.
02:01Troop ships, supply vessels carrying everything from portable forges to the prefabricated pieces of a wooden Mont-Bailey castle.
02:11There's only maybe 8,000 or 9,000 front-line troops, but they're the hardest men that you could imagine.
02:18And their goal is the conquest of England.
02:21And these events here on Pevensey Beach will eventually engulf not only the whole of England, but Wales and even
02:28Ireland.
02:29We've reached the most famous date in the history of Britain.
02:341066.
02:44England in 1066 was a good place to live by the standards of the day.
02:52It had a national law, a strong sense of national identity.
02:59It had many towns, local government and a money economy.
03:04And the wealthiest part of England was the fertile lands of East Anglia.
03:11This is the wonderfully named parish of Old Newton, Gipping and Dagworth.
03:17A little corner of Anglo-Saxon England.
03:21300 people in scattered farmsteads along the valley of the River Gipping.
03:28And we come here to find one Anglo-Saxon farmer, a man who had just 150, 200 acres, a mill,
03:36a little church.
03:37And his name was Bremer.
03:39In Anglo-Saxon it means the renowned, the famous.
03:43And as we'll see, he'll live up to his name.
03:51Bremer was a free man.
03:53He lived here in Little Dagworth in the depths of the countryside, but he had a voice in local and
03:58national affairs through the meetings of the courts of Hundred and Shire.
04:03This is the site of his farm, and like countless family houses in Britain, it's got quite a tale to
04:09tell.
04:11Some Australians turned up and said that they'd tracked their own ancestry to Dagworth, and that they were living in
04:19a place which was also called Dagworth, I think, a sheep station.
04:23I think there's meant to be some sort of link to the writing of Waltzing Matilda, wasn't there?
04:27Yes.
04:27On that sheep station.
04:29Yes.
04:29The birth of Waltzing Matilda in Dagworth.
04:32We really are on a historical ley line here.
04:36Originally it would have been an open hall house, you know, sort of one large space, a fire somewhere in
04:44the middle of the hall and probably just an opening in the roof.
04:47Back in 1066, there was an Anglo-Saxon man who lived here, and he probably was married and maybe had
04:54three little boys for all I know.
04:57There is Bramie with his karakate and a half, maybe 175, 180 acres, something like that.
05:0413 cows, 12 pigs, 16 sheep and 40 goats and two plough teams.
05:11Do you know how they used to plough?
05:13By horses or by an oxen.
05:17But I think 40 goats sound rather useless today.
05:29The story of 1066 has been told many times, King Harold, William the Conqueror, but this is the tale of
05:37an ordinary person swept up in those great events.
05:41And Bramie and his wife and kids, if he had them, had no reason to think that their world would
05:47change here in a delightful hall by the river Gipping.
05:51They could still go on pilgrimage to Bury St. Edmunds and hold their customary feasts for their workers.
06:00they could go to the market and spend their silver pennies
06:07but there was a catch
06:08Bramie as a freeman owed military service to his king
06:13and if war came he had to take his coat of mail
06:17and his spear and his horse and go to fight in the war
06:23and in the autumn of 1066
06:26war came
06:35from the start luck was against the english
06:38when the normans landed the english king harold was up in the north
06:42fighting the vikings
06:51so the english were exhausted when they faced william's new model army
06:56with their shock weapon cavalry
07:02october the 14th 1066 was a catastrophe for the english people
07:08a havoc of our dear nation as a chronicler said
07:13and under bitter sky pierced by the cruelest blackest rain
07:20the heart of england
07:22the flower of england fell that day says the anglo-saxon chronicle
07:27and with them under the banner of his lord earl goeth of east anglia
07:32the faithful freeman bremer of dagworth
07:35he was killed at the battle of hastings
07:39they've made a war memorial for him in the book with his name
07:44the local people here have remembered him a real local hero
07:48and we're still talking about him now a thousand years later
07:56with the death of king harold and the annihilation of the english army
07:59duke william had won england with one blow
08:07william brought over his aristocracy but for working-class people like us as an anglo-saxon
08:14so much was seemed to have been ripped away from us
08:23our connection with that leadership was replaced with a foreign language our aristocracy was wiped
08:30out in the in the battles and i don't know sort of working-class people you feel you somehow you
08:36feel that today that the that the position was usurped i don't know i love the fact that you use
08:41this term the working-class people because of course in 1066 and long after it was virtually all of
08:48us were the working people of england weren't we you know that that's what we ended up doing
08:52wasn't it making us do the stuff for them yeah yeah i mean it was a brutal occupation i think
08:57and
08:58the english remembered it the end of the world as we know it
09:05so began what would become known as the norman yoke the loss of english liberties at the hands of a
09:13new aristocracy of french-speaking barons
09:19as autumn went into winter william ravaged south eastern england burning fields and villages forcing
09:26the surviving english leadership to meet him this is where the representatives of the english nation
09:33and the english did believe they had a nation in 1066 submitted to william the conqueror
09:42the archbishop of york the earls of the midlands in the north a surviving nobility and all the best and
09:48men of london the citizens of london already the richest most influential civic body in the country
09:56and they surrendered to william out of force of circumstance says the anglo-saxon chronicle
10:03after the normans had done their worst devastating the countryside and william promised that he would
10:11be a gracious lord to them they all knew what that meant as a contemporary observed from this moment
10:21cold heart and iron hand now ruled the english land
10:28and william wasn't a man to cross even his friends said that if anyone wants to know what kind of
10:35man
10:35king william was listen to me for i knew him and lived in his court king william had great
10:42wisdom and power but he was a harsh and cruel man and utterly given over to greed
10:52over the next three years the normans crushed english resistance william ravaged the whole of
10:58the north reducing the people so it was said to eating rats and grass and even human flesh
11:08and everywhere said an eyewitness he built castles to oppress the poor people of england
11:15there were around 500 of them all together at first simple earth mounds with wooden stockades
11:23which have long since gone
11:28here in mount bjors in essex the normans threw up a gigantic mound which has given its name to the
11:35village
11:37the mound sits on land owned by 92 year old ida mcmaster who invited archaeologists led by karenza lewis
11:45to investigate welcome
11:49lovely thank you boys at last how many years has it been well we found some roots we haven't found
11:56any
11:56traces of a structure we found two post holes it doesn't look as if anyone was ever actually
12:01living here i'd waited 40 years to have this dig i couldn't believe it you know when he said karenza
12:09was going to mastermind it the dig fulfills a promise ida made to her late husband bill
12:18who all his life was fascinated by the story of the village and its norman mound when he brought me
12:25out here first of all and described what what there was here in this village i absolutely fell in love
12:33with it i couldn't do anything else but try and find out all about it
12:40this is the top of the mott the castle mound and these are introduced introduced by the most of the
12:47villagers are involved in this community dig hoping to solve the mysteries of the mound
12:53tiny population in mount bjors there's only like kind of 30 peasants isn't it there's no significance
12:58whatsoever it seems very strange that they should have such an enormous earthwork for such a small
13:02place at that time and it's a massively it's a 10 meter size it's in the top it's a class
13:07one mop that is the top category of mott there's one of the tallest ones in the country
13:15it's a perfect symbol of the norman impact you've got to imagine this huge fighting platform made of
13:22wood on top and if there was an outer bailey an enclosure around the church that would have
13:29been packed with buildings claustrophobic granaries and barracks stables forges for especially for
13:37the metal working that you needed to maintain the army with armor and weaponry and a blitzed landscape
13:44all around and not a tree standing behind which the poor benighted anglo-saxon peasants could get
13:51anywhere near this this was a brutally functional fighting platform bristling with weaponry at the
13:59top of the local pyramid of domination the normans were a minority an armed elite maybe only 30 000
14:12newcomers unlike the saxons and the vikings you'd be hard pushed to find them in our british dna
14:19but they left their mark
14:23people with french names are still the richest britons today
14:26better educated better off longer lived from beauly to belgravia they've still got the best real estate
14:34jane austen's mr darcy was a norman
14:41in winter 1085 with his grip on the land now secure william ordered a survey of england
14:49to find out what there was who owned it and how much tax could be got out of it
14:55and the result was the first detailed portrait of england doomsday book
15:05this is the exeter doomsday book the local draft before the final compressed version
15:15it's the raw data of history one scribe taking over from another scribe in the middle of an entry
15:23some of them not very familiar with english by the look of it how for instance they managed to make
15:30bull festra out of buckfast i don't know
15:36doomsday doomsday doomsday lists more than 13 000 places with their human population
15:41and even their animals it is to tell them but it
15:47they thought to him shame to don it's a shame to tell this but he thought no shame to do
15:55it
15:56an ox
16:03he didn't leave out a single ox a single cow a single pig
16:11doomsday reveals that england in 1086 had two million people mainly rural but more than a hundred towns
16:19more than half of the english were tied peasants 15 free men and women
16:26and one in 10 still slaves and all this information was gathered by the old anglo-saxon system of local
16:32government the local juries courts of the hundreds shires and boroughs like shakespeare stratford for
16:39instance we have about 1700 acres of arable there are 29 households 21 of them villains and seven
16:49smallholders we have land for 31 plow teams five acres of meadow on the avon and a mill that gives
16:5810
16:59shillings a year and 1000 eels
17:06for most places in england it's the first time they appear in history take long melford in suffolk
17:14in our big community dig we'd already found that melford had been a busy place in roman times we'd like
17:20to get through to something from sort of roman or saxon time in the dark ages it almost vanished
17:27but now in doomsday it's thriving with 400 people sheep flocks a church and the mill that gave the
17:35town its name who did that did you do that one live love did you help loads of smoking pipes
17:42again in
17:43our dig we were hoping to find traces of the ordinary people listed in doomsday the unfree villanes and
17:50cottages and of the 50 test pits in melford two were in a hamlet called kentwell separately listed in
17:58doomsday one two three four five five six seven eight nine nine the three trays there and that tray
18:08at the back are all medieval there's nothing in it except medieval pottery so we're looking at a 40
18:13centimeter thick deposit dating to the early medieval period i think this is an a very late
18:21sherd of thetford where it's early medieval right but the point of that is it probably dates to round
18:26about the time of the doomsday book yes there's not only long melford but there is a little account
18:32of a separate manor called kentwell in 1086 and that's what i'd love to know held by an anglo-saxon
18:39farmer freely whose name was alfgar living on this little estate were seven villains who were like
18:46semi-free peasants one border who's like a dependent peasant you know cottager five beasts
18:5430 pigs 80 sheep in 1066 it's a wonderful specific detail again isn't it and you just wonder well
19:03could this could this have been part of that tiny little estate there's a very very good chance that
19:08your list of names in the in the doomsday book some of them actually probably use these pots i mean
19:14they're the right day 10 10 70 10 80 10 90 you know so the english faced up to living
19:20under foreign
19:20occupation the normans didn't mix with them for three or four generations there's no intermarriage
19:26the french-speaking normans saw themselves as socially and ethnically superior the anglo-saxons
19:33lived under a kind of apartheid from the big house the norman lords observed their new subjects
19:41with a mixture of curiosity and lofty gallic distaste the english have places in every village they call
19:52ale houses
19:58there the english peasants sit at their benches with their pots of ale
20:04and believe it or not at prayer time they don't go to church they just stand up pray and carry
20:16on drinking
20:21that's why the normans say in every english pub you'll see the devil
20:39but beyond the ale houses life was nasty brutish and short the english lower classes could be
20:46arrested and executed with no trial what an amazing vista that is isn't it habeas corpus simply didn't
20:55exist right over northeast over to leicester over there yeah towards market harbor over there this is
21:00this is the quarry yeah it's always spectacular if you come up here every evening or
21:05i wanted to do a photography project where i explored how the quarry and nature could coexist
21:11together but in doing that i suddenly realized there's a lot more here to see than just the quarry
21:19what colin discovered was that croft hill was a norman execution site
21:26when you walk down through those and you see them you just think about
21:29people perhaps hanging from the trees and dying their miserable deaths on a december day like
21:34this actually it's winter time isn't it the anglo-saxon chronicle tells the story
21:39they say that many of them suffered unjustly somewhere normans are just trying to say well
21:44we're in charge and that's it it doesn't really matter what you think we yes we just uh we're
21:49going to impose our our rule on you and yes you'll do what we say
21:59in this same year before christmas ralph bassett held a court of the king's thanes
22:04at hound hill in leicestershire and hanged there more thieves than anyone had before
22:1244 men were killed in no time six of them were blinded and castrated and honest people said many
22:21of them suffered very unjustly but our lord god from whom no secrets are hid
22:29sees the poor oppressed by every kind of injustice
22:34deprived of their property and their lives a terrible year was this
22:52in dagworth a norman colonist was rewarded with bremer's house his name was gross guillaume gross
23:01what happened to bremer's family we don't know maybe they lived on their own land as tenants
23:10by 1086 only two leading english landowners were left out of 1400 the top of english society had gone
23:19their land stolen by norman feudal lords all over the country english people now had to rent their
23:27their land as doomsday says miserably and with a heavy heart
23:44but brutal as the norman conquest was it unleashed huge energies in british society
23:52the close links with normandy and france opened up trade and galvanized the economy
24:00bristol for example hardly merits a mention in doomsday book but it was a strategic port on the
24:07sea routes to wales and ireland and in the 12th century it boomed bristol rose very rapidly in the
24:15middle ages become the third greatest city in britain and of course it would remain the outlet to
24:21ireland and the north atlantic right down to the time of brunel's great britain and the great western
24:29railway but the real clue to bristol is in its name you mean anglo-saxon bridge stow the meeting place
24:38by the
24:39bridge what made bristol tick throughout its history was trade and the bristolians traded anything skins
24:49wine fish and slaves the earliest trade of risk to coordinate detail is the slave trade of the of
24:56the sort of 12th century so it's welsh slaves and also english slaves of course being ultimately sent
25:02across to the developed countries of the world which is like the moorish states of uh of spain
25:11norman bristol made money in a few generations the town's population shoots up from doomsday's few
25:17hundred people to 10 000. via tuta et industria so all these cities that made their wealth on hard work
25:27this is actually part of a medieval building and you've actually got this medieval um arch doorway
25:32here which is all sort of blocked in and to help attract business the good burgers of bristol
25:38rebranded their town when bristol's petitioning against gloucester having been made into an
25:42independent head port and gloucester is saying oh well we're older we're we're much older we were founded
25:47by caesar in 45 a.d and and and bristol comes back to it and says oh yeah but we
25:52were founded by the
25:53trojans we're founded by uh brutus whatever and that's them there that's the trojans so brilliant
26:00isn't it what a beautiful corner
26:04so norman bristol took a new path as well as furs from the north and irish flax the market here
26:11now
26:11offered mediterranean spices and french wines the normans were slowly beginning to change the english
26:19and the english were starting to emulate the normans these are the original trading tables called the
26:26nails in bristol as they're known these bronze nails and this is actually where people would do business
26:30in the middle ages onwards if you want to pay someone your debt back you know you can pay them
26:37cash
26:37on the nail in bristol uh or you can be using it to write up contracts that's for my argosy
26:44to aleppo
26:45that's my fever god we don't run to that much
26:54in the early 12th century using bristol as a base the normans invaded south wales
27:01in pembrokeshire alone they built 50 castles and the first systematic exploration of one of them
27:09is here at nevon the normans when they arrived here probably about 1108 1109 put up this large earth
27:17mound probably with forced local labor this creates a defensive headland
27:27here in wales too the normans removed the top of the ruling class
27:32but learning their lessons from their alienation of the english here they co-opted many locals
27:39the anglo-norman lords simply came in took over the existing social organization the existing land
27:45structures and simply supplanted the the very top of the aristocratic elite many welsh laws were retained
27:54many welsh customs were retained
27:58here in pembrokeshire the normans created an enclave studded with castles which even today
28:04is distinctive in its language and customs the dividing line is known as the lansker line
28:11it runs through towns and villages and even split some places in half like narberth
28:20so this part of west wales became known as anglia chance walliana england the other side of wales
28:29one of the things that happens as the anglo-norman world evolves and has contact with the welsh is that
28:35you start to get welsh princes and lords who are starting to
28:40you do things in a more angular normal way they build castles curiously forming their castles and
28:49their settlements they now give the fixed points from which wales can be held so by the late 13th
28:56century edward the first is able to march into wales capture key welsh castles and the welsh lose
29:04power because by now you have got wales in controlled centers the welsh create their own kind of yoke as
29:11it
29:11were so the norman conquest of england in time drew in wales and then ireland too leaving legacies we're
29:20still trying to untangle today on the horizon though they couldn't see it yet glimmerings of a greater britain
29:31but history never stands still by the 1180s a hundred years after doomsday through a gradual almost
29:39imperceptible process of change the normans are starting to become english
29:48london is now the pre-eminent city the financial and commercial capital building on its anglo-saxon
29:55foundations look at that tower of london over on this side here and this little pattern of streets
30:02here it gives you a fantastic idea much better than the modern a to z jetties coming out into the
30:09river
30:09and a host of ships in the middle ages in the 13th century these wharves were frequented by merchants
30:16from france and germany in the baltic one of them named after matilda the daughter of the norman king
30:23henry the first dowgate is anglo-saxon and queen hive the one dwarf of the medieval world that still
30:33survives queen hive was used by londoners to bring in their corn from the normans till the 20th century
30:43across england and scotland too towns brought a commercial revolution
30:49the first driving force is the rise in the population and also a gigantic explosion in the money supply
31:00this was the only currency don't forget all the money you're talking about in the 12th and 13th
31:05century is just silver pennies so although you have pounds shillings pence marks there's just one coin
31:12and the 240 of these and the more money you have the more you need markets to spend it in
31:18i won't get
31:19you to roll it all out if you walk backwards a little bit the 13th century was the golden age
31:24for
31:25the creation of markets across britain lots of grants of new markets and fairs and it's on these rolls that
31:33they're all recorded keep going you'll have to go on and on throughout the course of 13th century well
31:38over 2000 of these grants setting up new markets and fairs were issued and look the very very second
31:48entry is a pardon to the abbot of hales of the palfrey which he's given the king to have one
31:57market each
31:58week lasting for two days at hales and the only condition of pardon this palfrey is that he's got
32:05to use the money he would have spent on the poor fee buying two chalices for the abbey
32:13and like long melford in suffolk or kibworth in leicestershire hales owen in the black country
32:19is typical the market here was founded in 1220 and it's still a market today
32:27down here we have a rebuilt admittedly dancers outfitters where i bought this jacket and where
32:37i bought my first suit in 1968 the latest fashions food tools this is a medieval new town with a
32:45grand
32:46norman parish church it's a magnificent building isn't it it's huge and you look in doomsday book
32:54there are two priests what more do you want to show the importance of the place
33:01black country smethick and west bromwich birmingham just over the hills there
33:08not perhaps the most resonant historical landscape in britain you might have thought but the roots
33:14of the industrial revolution here in the black country go much much further back than you could
33:19ever have guessed there's an incredible continuity of life and work and even political action by ordinary
33:26people back at least until the 1200s back then the town was owned by the lord of the manor the
33:34local
33:34abbot now like today hales owen was also a metal working place nailers and cutlers making the tools
33:42in a mainly agricultural society but they were only licensed to work with the abbot's permission
33:49here to the court of the manor of alzowen in 1312 the abbot gives permission to robert smith of dudley
33:58now living in alzowen to fund and build a forge at iron mill bank
34:06to make battle from which he made forge hatches and other tools for the term of his life
34:17and you can still find the sights of those medieval cottage industries hidden behind the modern
34:23townscapes the roots of our industrial past for which the black country will become famed across
34:29the world it may look unprepossessing but this is a wonderful spot for history you've got the telford
34:37bridge here and a medieval mill site and this must be the place where hugh the cutler made his grinding
34:45shop in 1346 to practice the art of the metal worker so here in hales owen hugh the cutler and
34:59all the
34:59workers on the manor and the traders in the market too needed the abbot's license to sell the product of
35:12their labor it's going to be a very very useful field because it hasn't been walked before
35:20the field walkers are here to survey the abbot's domain
35:24is put their arm out so put your right arm out and touch the shoulder of the next person come
35:31on
35:31push him along that side as the borough's archaeological office i need this evidence
35:37i need this information i couldn't work without these lads it's a crucial task searching for the
35:44material evidence gathering the raw data of local history i like to get out in the countryside as much
35:52as i can and um being interested in local history well history but particularly local history
35:58it's a it's a good way of combining the two there's family outing today yeah it's uh and they're all
36:05they're all interested it's a base of a past roman very pleased with that that's a nice piece
36:13it's just adding to the bigger picture of what was going on here um in medieval period and before
36:28it's a very valuable piece that's wealth
36:37we're standing just about here beside this piece of masonry here
36:44the whole complex is about 190 feet from east to west and about 100 feet north to south
36:54into the chapter house from 1215 to 1538 the abbot ruled the people's lives here
37:02for the unfree jobs housing marriage even death duties in the hands of the lord
37:08looks like a medieval roof absolutely beautiful the medieval crown posts
37:15so what was it i go to the infirmary yeah but there are other people who are not convinced
37:23and it's quite plausibly the abbot's house but certainly a very glamorous building and resented
37:29quite clearly in the court rolls by quite a few of the peasants yes particularly the higher class
37:34peasants who knew the score and who knew their legal background
37:43and we know what the ordinary peasants of hales owen thought about their lords
37:48thanks to an amazing treasure trove here in birmingham central library
37:54gosh any idea how how many miles of shelves you've got here
37:58well we think it's currently about 14. a collection of 215 court rolls survives from medieval hales owen
38:07recording hundreds of sessions of the abbot's court
38:14and one of them tells the story of a peasant activist whose battle with the abbot became bitterly
38:20personal his name was roger kettle roger kettle is very easily found because his name appears
38:27constantly in these records as a thorn in the flesh of the abbey who he sees as making unreasonable
38:36impositions on the tenants they realize that their conditions have deteriorated and they see the lords
38:44as being the people who have oppressed them and they see the king as a protector they can see that
38:51if only they could get back to the good old days when the king was fully in control and uh
38:57they you
38:58didn't have this this middle band of of lords uh squeezing them squeezing rents and services and payments of money
39:06from them what it says is that he made a fine with the abbot for the offense of having impleded
39:13him
39:14in the court of the lord king the peasants have of hails are in a club together to provide a
39:22what we would
39:23now call a fighting fund to pay a lawyer to put their case to the to the king's judges did
39:30they succeed no
39:31uh almost never did they succeed i mean they thought that the law was impartial they thought that the king
39:39could be persuaded to be on their side but they hadn't taken into account of course that the law
39:44was run by essentially aristocrats in favor of aristocrats so that uh constantly the lord's interest
39:53would be protected and defended by the lawyers and by the judges so what happens to cattle in the end
39:59the abbot arrested him and he he died in custody wow so the feudal system was still against the ordinary
40:13people and the violence caused by such tensions comes out in a new source for our social history
40:19the coroner's roles about bedtime on the 22nd of august 1266 henry coburn of great barford went out of his
40:28house there to drink a pot of ale at dawn the next day his mother agnes coburn went to search
40:37for him
40:37and found him dead his body having seven wounds about the heart and in the stomach apparently made
40:44with a knife four in the head apparently made with a pick and others in the throat on the chin
40:52and in
40:53the head and in the brain she immediately raised the hue which was followed and found pledges from humphrey
41:02and thomas quarrel
41:03i swear of almighty god that the evidence i give the english coroner is a product of that time a
41:12response
41:12to the tide of random killing it was a norman innovation using the english jury
41:18on the m1 motorway southbound courage it came formally in 1194 which i think was the reign of
41:25richard the first and it seemed to me then that it was just an opportunity of of raising money from
41:33the oppressed population of the country and the one way of doing that is if anybody died unexpectedly
41:40then that was a way that you could try and cash in on it of course under the legislation
41:45if you were killed if you killed somebody uh by by your horse or by your car uh that that
41:53horse or cart
41:54would under was called deodand i think it would be forfeit to the crown so you are if you if
41:59you had
42:00somebody ran out in front of you and you ran him over with your horse then bad news because they
42:05take
42:05your horse with you as as a penalty to the crown unless you could raise the money which might be
42:10your
42:10only source of livelihood might be the only source so this is why coroners were not terribly
42:14popular yeah not like today of course the bedford coroner's roles are one of the most amazing
42:22sources for the real lives of our 13th century ancestors and the jaw-dropping violence of everyday life
42:32and it was out of their world that the most famous legend of the time arose
42:38the story of an outlaw who stood against the tyrant king john
42:43a hero whom we know by a 13th century criminal nom de plume
42:49robin hood for one of the kings dear is your right hand let's go if you admit your guilt and
42:55save
42:56us the time the punishment is lessened we can take a finger the tale is a distant mirror of a
43:02time when for
43:03everybody the issue was who is the law supposed to serve no appeal
43:17the tale of robin hood and bad king john is a myth but like all myths it has a kernel
43:24of truth
43:25the law wants respect shouldn't the punishment fit the crime king john's abuse of the law had
43:32antagonized both the people and the nobles the barons increasingly now saw themselves not as norman
43:40but as english and alert to the opinions of their fellow countrymen they moved against the king to fight
43:48arbitrary royal power in 1205 a meeting in oxford what they called a parliament forced the king to swear
44:00that he would preserve the rights of the english kingdom and in that simple phrase is the idea that
44:08our rights are the possession not of the king but of his subjects and that idea is what lies behind
44:17the
44:18most famous document in british history possibly in world history magna carta and so there it is
44:26the barons forced king john to agree to limit his own power copies were sent out all over england this
44:35one
44:35in hereford cathedral from 1217 this is an incredible iconic document everybody's heard of magna carta if
44:44you talk to people in the street um you know nine times out of ten they will have heard of
44:481066 and magna
44:49carta it's taken away the arbitrary nature of royal power and particularly in the reign of king john
44:57before the magna carta of course the king's will would decide everything rather than any written
45:04uh paper so magna carta was a bill of rights was basically just gathering all laws and free freemen
45:10were already quite free weren't they yes it's not really there's not so much that's very new in here
45:16it's just actually setting out formally these are the feudal laws these are the conditions by which we
45:22abide there are many clauses that talk about freeman and the rights of freeman and of course today
45:27our idea of freeman is everybody isn't it whereas in this context we're talking about a feudal
45:33society where the majority of people were tied to the landowners and the lords so the freeman we're
45:39talking about are actually the elite top cream so this is actually an elitist document it's a very
45:45conservative document it's not the thing that it has become and the most famous clause of all every
45:54free person has the right to a fair trial so no free man shall be captured or imprisoned have his
46:06goods taken unjustly without the judgment of his peers in english law the roots of that system went back
46:17to anglo-saxon times to the local juries elected in every village in those days the jury were all men
46:26over 12 years of age from two or three surrounding villages and unlike now away the jury knows anything
46:34about the case they're disqualified in those days the more the merrier because out of the villages and
46:40the dozens of people that might come somebody ought to know something about it and here in laxton
46:47england's last working open field village you can still see the jury supervising the regulation of the
46:54fields as it has since the 13th century right there gentlemen i'll call the court to order
47:02oh yay oh yay oh yay all manner of persons who own suit and service to the court lead of
47:08the queen's
47:09most excellent majesty morning gentlemen we'll swear in the jury with the foreman first
47:15i'd like to take the bible in your right hand bill haig you as foreman of the jury with the
47:20rest of your
47:20fellows shall inquire watching the court day here at laxton you understand something absolutely central to
47:28the beginnings of representative government here in england the jury you shall present nothing from
47:34hatred or malice but in all things you shall true and just presentment make according to the best of
47:39your understanding so help you god 12 good men and true the like oath which bill haig your foreman
47:47has taken on his part you and every one of you shall well and truly observe bound together by solemn
47:53oaths
47:53which connect each other and express their allegiance to the king or the queen or the ruler and in
48:00the old days they regulate not only the fields but law and order the whole way that the community got
48:05along
48:06together it's an entirely cooperative communally organized system and it's what the english the british
48:14later exported to the rest of the world okay onto the suit roll call that over s noble present s
48:24rose
48:26from the free men of the manor to the local knights of the shire it's how the people's opinions were
48:31conveyed to the makers of magna carta j walker absolutely m hennell it wasn't democracy but it was
48:39consultation d brown is here but not speaking and that's the key to what follows onto the minutes of
48:48the last court the presentment paper was received for top field s rose had allowed spray to drift onto
48:57in the 13th century with increasing peasant literacy these ideas were percolating everywhere at the grass roots
49:06in wales too after the english conquest of 1282 the jury system was introduced
49:15and even as the rulers of england were attacking wales we can see how it worked here in rothin in
49:22the
49:23borderlands where the two cultures met
49:27court of llanach 10th of june 1294 cadet blethyn accused henry rigby of lancaster of theft of an iron
49:37grey horse he put the matter before a jury of six englishmen and six welshmen who said that henry did
49:44take the horse without his leave but not thievishly though of course in war there are always profiteers
49:54and opportunists court of clannock 26th of august 1295 william howell complains that madden kite occupied
50:03his house in the time of madoc applewellins revolt against the english and that afterwards when william
50:10came back to town with the army of king edward he found madden running a brewery there the jury say
50:16that
50:17he is guilty is guilty and in war old enmities can always return court of llanach 10th of june 1294
50:24yoreth af kenwick is accused of disturbing the peace he cursed the constable and swore by the body of
50:30christ that soon the constable and other english will hear such rumors that they will not wish to come to
50:35wales again magna carta initiated dramatic changes in english politics back in 1215 king john had promised to
50:46protect all ranks of society the whole community the communa tosius terrae the community of the whole
50:55land and in the french translation of course king john was a french speaker it's la commune de toute
51:04angleterre now the implication of that although of course they couldn't say it in so many words
51:10was that the opposition had the right to speak for and act for the community against the king
51:22and in 1264 that's exactly what happened in a battle at lewis in sussex the reforming barons defeated
51:29and captured king henry the third speaking for the whole community of the realm they hoped to use magna
51:36carter to create the first constitutional monarchy they were led by the charismatic earl of leicester
51:46simon de montfort the first english people's hero he is the pioneer if you like of democracy as we know
51:55it it was a germ it had to grow but it did not the beginning of something greater and i
52:01feel that that's
52:02important for us today it was the first time that ordinary people had some sort of say in government
52:07apart from the aristocracy it's this big issue of ruler's authority versus subjects rights starts
52:14of magna carta simon de montfort as its first big test he bothered to learn english he bothered to get
52:20in touch with people and that is why i feel he had the common touch the king's supporters now raised
52:27an army
52:27over the channel in france to invade england and overthrow the revolution to meet the threat de montfort
52:36mobilized the english people that summer with the king in his power de montfort summoned the greatest
52:44army that had ever been gathered in england to meet him near the kentish coast at a place called
52:52bearum down today on the a2 shades of the armada napoleon the battle of britain a people's army
53:05fighting as they said for england to be free imagine a vast encampment stretching as far as the eye can
53:16see
53:16thousands of tents in that summer of 1264 every village in england had been summoned to send men
53:24to this spot each one of them with money provided by their neighbors for 40 days of food supplies
53:31it was the first time in our history that such a huge gathering of people had come together
53:42not just for defense but for a great political cause we say that the king must be subordinate
53:52to the law we say that the precedence goes to the community of the realm
53:59and fights for indian to be free
54:09the invasion of england never came but the following year the barons fell out
54:14and de montfort was killed at evesham ever since he's been seen as a symbol of the english people's
54:22long march to freedom and the pool where he died became a place of pilgrimage
54:28people came from far and wide to make use of this water which they believed had miraculous powers
54:35why is this event so important in the history of the people of england
54:40why does this make such a mark and why is it so significant it's because really for the first time
54:47in history we get the sense of a popular movement uh it's difficult to find any such example any earlier
54:55than 1265. so our first great constitutional revolution failed but it was never forgotten
55:09we've reached the year 1300 the boom time is over across the british isles climate change brought a mini
55:18ice age which led to failed harvests famine and disease the french-speaking rulers of england though
55:26still waged their futile wars across britain in 1314 as the great famine began edward ii invaded scotland
55:37to be defeated by robert the bruce at bannockburn
55:45in the aftermath the scottish barons made their own declaration of freedom fired by the same great
55:52ideas that had inspired demand fought in the english the primacy of the people and the community of the
55:59realm the deeds of cruelty massacre violence pillage arson sparing neither age nor sex religion nor rank
56:10no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes
56:18but from these countless evils we have been set free
56:22by our most tireless prince king and lord the lord robert
56:29it is in truth not for glory nor riches nor honors that we are fighting but for freedom
56:37for that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself
56:48that text has been called the greatest statement of scottish nationhood ever made can i just ask you
56:54all what drives you to re-enact it that statement on its own is one of the main structures of
57:00this nation
57:03it's to keep the history alive and to remember where the structure of the nation evolved from
57:10a lot of people in scottland don't realize the importance of the declaration and by doing
57:16these re-enactments as we do them it's very short re-enactments it brings it back to people's attention
57:22it really is a basic statement of the people's interest and their own well-being and how the
57:29nations are going to take more interest in their own affairs
57:36the bitterness of the declaration of our growth towards the english and their war crimes things
57:41that had to be seen to be believed it says was an inevitable consequence of the english onslaught
57:49on the celtic peoples of britain and indeed ireland in the 13th century
57:55i call them english but of course the rulers of england were not english they were foreigners
58:00the angevins and the plantagenets were the successors of the normans and in their attack
58:06on the celtic peoples of britain they were furthering a norman project before 1066 the anglo-saxon
58:14achievement had been to create england yes it would be the normans and their successors who attempted to
58:22create great britain and as it looks from the 21st century it appears that they didn't succeed
58:29quite so well
58:34oh
58:39I'm somewhere over the rainbow, blue and star.
58:51And the dreams that you dare to fight, say I love the pie.