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The Myth of Norman Administrative Efficiency The Prothero Lecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

W. L. Warren
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Extract

ARGUMENT about the consequences of the Conquest is perennial and probably unresolvable. Exponents may be found of the full range of possibilities from essential continuity to catastrophic change. Yet amid all the diversity of opinion there is a piece of common ground: it is generally agreed that the Norman rulers not merely appropriated the governmental system of their.Anglo-Saxon predecessors but ran it more efficiently. Managerial efficiency is indeed commonly regarded as a Norman characteristic. In the early twelfth century the kingdom of Sicily and the kingdom of England were the two most prosperous, orderly, and astutely governed states in Europe. Both were under Norman management. Wherever else we find the Normans in their century of astonishing expansion they appear as irresistible take-over bidders, moving in upon and merging with any society, whatever its traditions and institutions, treating both lordship and government as aspects of business management, exploiting the assets and extracting the profits more effectively than the previous owners. So it seems a wholly reasonable assumption to attribute the development of royal government in the first two generations after the Conquest to a combination of managerial efficiency and the Norman rulers' need to get more out of their kingdom than their predecessors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 34 , December 1984 , pp. 113 - 132
Copyright
Copyright Royal Historical Society 1984

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References

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