Stop 3: Normans, crusades, and contested authority

Chapters 11–16 · Atlas year: 1100 CE

Chapters in this stop

• The Normans
• The Norman Conquest of England
• The Crusades
• The Investiture Controversy
• The Medieval Church
• Knighthood and Medieval Warfare

First, find it

Zoom into the English Channel, Italy, the Byzantine frontier, and the eastern Mediterranean. Notice how ships, pilgrim roads, castles, and family claims connected distant places.

Keep this lens while reading

This block has unusually strong competing voices. Compare an administrative record, a Byzantine historian, and several reports of the same crusading speech.

Family question

When rulers and religious leaders both claim authority, what evidence could an ordinary person use to decide whom to obey?

Period voices and trustworthy context

Domesday Book classroom investigation

Primary record · The National Archives (UK)

Use the 1086 survey to investigate land, animals, work, wealth, and the unequal aftermath of conquest.

The Alexiad of Anna Komnene

Period voice · Internet History Sourcebooks, Fordham University

A Byzantine princess and historian describes her father's reign and encounters with western crusaders.

Five versions of Urban II's crusade speech

Source comparison · Internet History Sourcebooks, Fordham University

The versions disagree. Compare two and mark what each writer emphasizes, omits, or puts into quotation marks.