Every card in Medieval Britain 1066–1509, Year 11: Lanfranc, kings and popes, monasteries and language (Norman England option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- Which archbishop of Canterbury, accused of holding two bishoprics at once, was deposed in 1070?
Stigand
HintHe had been excommunicated by several popes.
WhyLanfranc replaced him. Stigand's lands and wealth were taken by William and he was imprisoned at Winchester. Reformers criticised pluralism, holding more than one Church post, as corrupt.
- From which Norman abbey did William bring Lanfranc to be Archbishop of Canterbury?
St Stephen's, Caen
HintNot Bec, where he had earlier been a monk.
WhyLanfranc was an Italian scholar who had been a monk at Bec before he became abbot at Caen. He became William's key adviser on Church matters, and the king and archbishop worked closely together.
- In his dispute with the Archbishop of York, what did Lanfranc secure for Canterbury?
Primacy over the whole English Church
HintYork's archbishop would not at first promise him obedience.
WhyThe Chronicle records Thomas of York refusing to swear obedience to Canterbury in 1070, and the dispute ran on. A council at Winchester in 1072 confirmed the primacy Lanfranc wanted.
- Which long-standing habit of many English parish priests did Church reformers such as Lanfranc want to end?
Being married
HintReformers wanted priests to live more like monks.
WhyMonks were already celibate, so this reform was aimed at ordinary priests. Lanfranc's wider aim was to free the Church from corruption and to modernise and reorganise it.
- What happened to Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots under William and Lanfranc?
Many were replaced by Normans
HintThink about who William trusted.
WhyMany English office-holders were removed or kept until they died and then replaced by foreigners. By 1095 no bishopric was held by an Englishman. Not everything changed: the English Church kept its basic structure and liturgy.
- Which archbishop of Canterbury quarrelled with William II, and later with Henry I as well?
Anselm
HintHe was a scholar-monk who had been abbot of Bec.
WhyWilliam II delayed filling the archbishopric after Lanfranc died in 1089. Anselm was named only in 1093, when the king was seriously ill, and the two men then quarrelled. Anselm later argued with Henry I about investiture.
- What was the Investiture Controversy about?
Who had the right to choose and install bishops and abbots: kings or the pope
HintA bishop was both a churchman and a landholder under a ruler.
WhyThe dispute was fiercest between the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV. It ended in 1122 with the Concordat of Worms. In England the quarrels were milder, and a compromise on investiture was reached in 1107.
- Which object did William's Norman writers say Pope Alexander II sent before the 1066 invasion as a sign of his approval?
A papal banner
HintIt is an object, not a document.
WhyThe claim comes from the Norman writer William of Poitiers and may have been made to strengthen William's case. William adopted the reformers' programme, and the English Church was brought into line with the reforming popes' ideas.
- In his Dictatus Papae, Pope ____ claimed that the pope could depose emperors.
Gregory VII
HintHe was born Hildebrand.
WhyThe Dictatus Papae set out the pope's claims over the Church and rulers. Gregory's quarrel with the Emperor Henry IV led to Henry's famous humiliation at Canossa in 1077.
- How did William II make money from vacant bishoprics and abbeys?
He left the posts empty and kept their income
HintThink about who gets the money when nobody holds the job.
WhyHe delayed filling the archbishopric of Canterbury for several years after Lanfranc died, taking its income meanwhile. The Church was very wealthy, so such vacancies were worth a great deal to the crown.
- The reformed order of monks, centred on a French abbey in Burgundy, whose houses the Normans brought to England
The Cluniacs
HintThe order took its name from the abbey where it began.
WhyEnglish monasteries grew in number and size under the Normans, and Norman abbots replaced English ones. The Cluniacs were part of the wider reform movement in the Church.
- Whose rule did English monasteries already follow before the Normans came?
Saint Benedict's
HintAn Italian monk of the sixth century.
WhyMonasteries had followed the Rule of Saint Benedict for centuries. Lanfranc did not invent it, but he revived it and used it to support Norman control.
- Why were many Norman monasteries rich, even though each monk gave up his own belongings?
They held large estates given to them by the king and Norman lords
HintThink about gifts from the powerful.
WhyIndividual monks owned nothing, but the monastery as a whole held land, and Norman monasteries often became very wealthy. The Chronicle says William built a great minster for monks, endowed it well, and that many other monasteries were built in his reign.
- Domesday Book was written in ____, not in English or French.
Latin
HintThink of a language of scholars and the Church.
WhyDomesday is written in Latin, in a highly abbreviated form. After the Conquest Anglo-Norman replaced English as the language of the ruling classes, though English did not disappear.
- Which language did the new Norman ruling class speak in everyday life after 1066?
Anglo-Norman (Norman French)
HintIt was a northern dialect from across the Channel.
WhyNorman French words entered English, and William himself never developed a working knowledge of English. It is not known how far French spread among the lower classes.
1★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0073
2★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0074
3★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0075
4★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0076
5★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0077
6★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0078
7★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0079
8★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0080
9★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0081
10★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0082
11★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0083
12★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0084
13★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0085
14★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0086
15★ GCSE-HIST-MED-0087
Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.