Enjoy. And Happy Norman Conquest Day!
Essential Norman Conquest website
(Extract from the Bayeux Tapestry)
Showing posts with label Norman Conquest Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norman Conquest Day. Show all posts
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Norman Conquest Day 2012
I didn't have time to buy a cake for Norman Conquest Day this year, but I wanted to share something with you, so I found this fun website about the Norman Conquest! The Essential Norman Conquest is an interactive website where you can view a 360 degree panorama of the battlefield of Hastings as it stands today, explore 3-D battle maps, compare the clothing of Norman and Saxon knights, and more! You have to install Quicktime to make most of the features work, but this is a fun website if you have it.
Enjoy. And Happy Norman Conquest Day!
Enjoy. And Happy Norman Conquest Day!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Norman Conquest Day 2011 - let's eat cake!
Okay, here's my annual "purely representative of the actual event" cake reenactment of the Battle of Hastings. Some day I'm going to track down some actual Norman and Saxon toy soldiers, but in the mean time, just use your imagination.
Aside from the knights on horseback (Normans), this year's battle was so chaotic, even I couldn't tell who was on who's side!
Crash!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Smash! Wham!
Thud!
(That's Harold, going down. You can't see him, he fell off the cake.)
Click here to see a nifty Norman Conquest Day video I posted earlier today.
Click here to read/see all my Norman Conquest day posts
Happy Norman Conquest Day 2011!!!
Norman Conquest Day 2011
Happy Norman Conquest Day, everyone! I hope you enjoy this little animated reenactment of the Norman Conquest through the Bayeux Tapestry. Now I'm off to buy my annual Norman Conquest Day cake! :-)
To read some fun facts about the Bayeux Tapestry, click here.
To read some fun facts about the Bayeux Tapestry, click here.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Norman Conquest Day 2010
Before the battle
The Norman cavalry attacks the Saxon foot soldiers across the field of battle
(You understand this cake is representative only?)
After the battle
Happy Norman Conquest Day 2010!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Happy Norman Conquest Day!
Happy Norman Conquest Day! This year, Duke Wiliam (the standing knight, soon to be King William) is holding a council of war atop my cake, planning his invasion of England. (And yes, I know the armor and hair styles are all wrong for 1066. These knights are "representative", okay? Someday I'll track down some more authentic looking Norman and Saxon knights to put on my yearly cake!)
(And yes, someday I'm going to learn to take better pictures, too!)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Happy Norman Conquest Day!
On this day, October 14, 1066, Duke William of Normandy defeated the Saxon King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, becoming known to history as William the Conqueror (as well as King William I of England).
Although it has become politically correct in recent years to celebrate the “noble Saxons” and condemn the “greedy, avaricious Normans”, the simple fact is, those of us with English heritage undoubtedly have both Saxon and Norman blood running through our veins. So why not honor both sides of our ancestry? After all, if it weren’t for the Normans, we would be eating cow and swine (Saxon) at our tables, rather than beef and pork (Norman). Our police would be fighting “firen” (Saxon) instead of “crime” (Norman), and we would all have “eams” (Saxon) instead of “uncles” (Norman). Furthermore, we would be spelling words such as “question” (Norman) as “kwestion” (Saxon…although generations of English speaking school children might have thanked the Saxons for that one!)
Every year I celebrate Norman Conquest Day by buying cake and decorating it with knights from my pewter collection. This year, the blue rose symbolizes the hill near the town of Hastings where the native English Saxons took up their defensive position against the Norman invaders. The Normans utilized a relatively new military tactic—armed knights fighting on horseback, while the Saxons clung to their traditional “fighting on foot” strategy. You might think this would give the Normans an overwhelming advantage
, but the Saxons held off the invaders for most of the day. In the end, it was not a charging knight, but a lowly Norman archer who successfully shot an arrow over the shields of the Saxons and killed the Saxon King Harold, more or less by sheer “good luck”. (Or “bad luck”, if you happened to be King Harold!) Hence, the “knights” standing on foot on my cake represent the Saxons, while the knights on horseback represent the Normans. Unfortunately, I don’t have an archer in my pewter collection. And if the knights on my cake look a little blurry, just remember—it’s hard to snap a clear photo when knights are in motion, riding into battle!
So tonight, I’ll be sitting down to a nice piece of Norman Conquest Day Cake. And since cake simply cries out for a goblet of milk, I’ll also be using my Norman Soldier coasters to set my goblet on.
You can read more about the Norman Conquest if you’d like on EyeWitnesss to History.com.
For Saxon vs Norman words, see: A Very Brief History of the English Language (scroll down to The Norman Conquest and Middle English) and Everything2: Anglo-Saxon Words for Animals, Norman Words for Meat.
Although it has become politically correct in recent years to celebrate the “noble Saxons” and condemn the “greedy, avaricious Normans”, the simple fact is, those of us with English heritage undoubtedly have both Saxon and Norman blood running through our veins. So why not honor both sides of our ancestry? After all, if it weren’t for the Normans, we would be eating cow and swine (Saxon) at our tables, rather than beef and pork (Norman). Our police would be fighting “firen” (Saxon) instead of “crime” (Norman), and we would all have “eams” (Saxon) instead of “uncles” (Norman). Furthermore, we would be spelling words such as “question” (Norman) as “kwestion” (Saxon…although generations of English speaking school children might have thanked the Saxons for that one!)
Every year I celebrate Norman Conquest Day by buying cake and decorating it with knights from my pewter collection. This year, the blue rose symbolizes the hill near the town of Hastings where the native English Saxons took up their defensive position against the Norman invaders. The Normans utilized a relatively new military tactic—armed knights fighting on horseback, while the Saxons clung to their traditional “fighting on foot” strategy. You might think this would give the Normans an overwhelming advantage
, but the Saxons held off the invaders for most of the day. In the end, it was not a charging knight, but a lowly Norman archer who successfully shot an arrow over the shields of the Saxons and killed the Saxon King Harold, more or less by sheer “good luck”. (Or “bad luck”, if you happened to be King Harold!) Hence, the “knights” standing on foot on my cake represent the Saxons, while the knights on horseback represent the Normans. Unfortunately, I don’t have an archer in my pewter collection. And if the knights on my cake look a little blurry, just remember—it’s hard to snap a clear photo when knights are in motion, riding into battle!
So tonight, I’ll be sitting down to a nice piece of Norman Conquest Day Cake. And since cake simply cries out for a goblet of milk, I’ll also be using my Norman Soldier coasters to set my goblet on.
You can read more about the Norman Conquest if you’d like on EyeWitnesss to History.com.
For Saxon vs Norman words, see: A Very Brief History of the English Language (scroll down to The Norman Conquest and Middle English) and Everything2: Anglo-Saxon Words for Animals, Norman Words for Meat.
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