ABSTRACT
Few if any subjects have provoked more disagreement over a longer period than the Conquest, and few if any have been more bent by non-historical considerations, participants tending not only to take sides but also — worse and even — to commit the evident anachronism of seeing the pre-Conquest English as ‘us’ and the Normans as ‘them’. The Normans had very little to teach, even in the art of war, and they had very much to learn. They were barbarians who were becoming conscious of their insufficiency.
