These questions ask you to connect origin, movement and settlement, then follow one Norse-descended group into Norman history. Use a chain of evidence: identify the people, place the event in time, and check whether the clue describes travel, settlement or political rule.
Follow the route and the change in identity
Viking fleets began from Scandinavia. Raids on Britain and continental Europe were under way by the late eighth century, with Lindisfarne remembered as an early example. The same wider communities also traded and founded farms and towns. Their longships combined a narrow hull, shallow draught, one square sail and oars, allowing crews to cross seas, move into rivers and reach shores without developed ports.
| Place or period | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Eastern and northern England | Danish settlement and law created the region known as the Danelaw, not a new name for all England. |
| North Atlantic | Settlement reached Iceland and Greenland; travel reached the North American coast briefly without producing lasting colonies there. |
| Northern France | Norse settlers received territory and their descendants became French-speaking Normans. |
| Norman conquest in 1066 | William of Normandy won at Hastings and took the English crown. |
| England under Norman rule | Norman conquest changed major landholding and the language of the ruling class, while English continued among the wider population and Latin remained important in church and records. |
| Survey and early castles | William's landholding survey became the Domesday Book, while the first Norman castles were raised quickly from earth and timber. |
Check these tempting shortcuts
- Do not mistake a destination for a homeland. Britain and Frankish territory received raids and settlers; the voyages began from the Scandinavian north.
- Do not move the start of Viking raiding into the eleventh century. That later period includes Norman conquest, while the famous monastery raid belongs near the opening of the Viking age.
- Do not give a warship the form of a cargo vessel. A deep rounded hull serves carrying capacity, whereas the longship's shallow narrow form explains access to rivers and beaches.
- Do not reduce Vikings to raiders or enlarge a brief landfall into a permanent American colony. Match the scale and duration of the evidence.
- Do not assume that a change in the language of rulers erased the language spoken by the wider population. Political control, court speech and everyday speech can change at different rates.
Try it
Which statement about the Norman Conquest of England is correct?
- William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold at Hastings in 1066 and became king.
- William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold at Hastings in 1215 and became king.
- William Wallace defeated Harold at Hastings in 1066 and became king of England.
- Harold defeated William at Hastings in 1066 and kept the English crown for himself.
William ordered a great survey of who held land in England. In which record were its findings written down?
- Magna Carta
- The Treaty of Verdun
- The Code of Justinian
- The Domesday Book
Norman rulers put up many castles across England in the years right after the conquest. What were those first castles mostly made of?
- Cut stone, with rings of walls one inside another
- Brick, with tiled roofs above
- Stone quarried and shipped across from Normandy
- Earth and timber