ABSTRACT
This chapter explores comparatively in relation to different regions some of the core issues that have been raised, historiography on the Normans, and to make a few suggestions of the own about how they might be approached, interpreted and illuminated. Norman incomers undoubtedly brought with them novel ideas and practices into the outer zones of Europe, and the socio-cultural and political configuration of the spaces was much altered in the process. In ‘middle Britain’, the Normans encountered a multi-cultural population represented by a medley of Brittonic-, English-, Gaelic- and Norse-speakers. The hypothesis can have only relative rather than absolute meanings, and once read as such it leaves room for, among other things, Norman presence and participation, and ‘Norman’ legacies. Such observations prompt consideration of the ways in which themes relating to ‘state-building’ might aid our understanding of the Norman Edge.
