Introduction
The Norman Edge: Identity and State-Formation on the Frontiers of Europe is a new colloborative research project based in the History Department at Lancaster University. The project is funded by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and will run until December 2011.
One of the most distinctive features of the period between the mid-eleventh and early thirteenth centuries was the migration of Normans from their northern French homeland to the frontiers of Christian Europe. The conquest of England in 1066 is only the best known example of Norman conquest, settlement and state-building, and must be seen as part of a wider phenomenon beginning in the 1030s and continuing until about 1200. Normans established themselves in northern England and southern Scotland as a consequence of the conquest of England; in southern Italy and Sicily through involvement in local power struggles; and in Syria and Palestine initially through participation in the first crusade and subsequently as part of the creation of new western states in the region. Norman expansion was both strategic, as in the conquest and settlement of northern England, and opportunistic, as in southern Italy and in the eastern Mediterranean.
The proposed research will investigate the salient characteristics of Norman expansion, and its significance for a fuller understanding of medieval political communities and state-building. Preliminary work comparing Norman elites in southern Italy and Normandy suggests that an important factor in the construction of new Norman polities was the capacity of settlers in the diaspora to maintain connections between themselves and with the 'homeland' of Normandy. This project will extend the analysis in order to produce for the first time a systematic study of the relationships between different parts of the Norman diaspora. The nature of these relationships took different forms, involving networks determined by political patronage, social loyalties, kinship and spiritual affinities. In some cases, these relationships are shaped by familial or feudal ties, and can be seen clearly in the presence of members of the same kin group in each of the three parts of the diaspora, and in the resources available to Normans from one region to another. In each area of new settlement, Normans faced established local elites with whom power had to be either contested or shared. Moreover, the ethnic and religious composition of the native peoples differed across and within these regions, and included Muslims, Arabic-speaking Christians, Greeks, and English- and Celtic-speaking inhabitants. The challenges posed by this diversity to Norman political and ethnic identity will provide a crucial dimension to the research.
Research questions
The project addresses the historical development of political cultures in three areas on the periphery of the 'Norman world': middle Britain (northern England and southern Scotland), southern Italy, and the crusader states. Its specific focus is the relationship between medieval 'state-formation' and those political identities which crossed state frontiers as a result of individuals exploiting links which transcended local, regional and national boundaries; and how far these individuals' decisions and attachments produced distinctive local cultures within broader settings. Its approach gives new insight into the processes of medieval western European expansion, state-formation and identity-construction, and re-evaluates the political ontology of the Norman world. The following key questions are central to its methodology and scholarly aims:
What imagined or substantive solidarities existed within ethnic, kinship and lordship-defined groups in each of the three areas studied?
What networks existed between individuals from these groups and members of those groups resident outside those areas, and how were they maintained?
What possible advantages did claimed membership of those latter groups give individuals at a local level, and how did they exploit them?
To what extent did trans-European networks and identifications act in competition or in harmony with the emerging eleventh- and twelfth-century states and regions?
Were these networks strong enough to sustain the 'Norman world' as a politically and culturally important concept for eleventh- and twelfth-century 'Normans'
To what extent were processes of state-formation endebted to indigenous practices which were adopted and adapted by the Norman rulers?
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