A biography of the famous Duke of Normandy.
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Born in Falaise in 1027, a descendant of the fearsome Vikings, William the Conqueror received the ducal crown of Normandy in 1035, following the death of his father Robert the Magnificent in the Holy Land. But the Norman barons rebelled against their young duke, who managed to escape them before crushing them at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes in 1047.
Four years later, William decided to build the Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen, the city where the new power was established. While building a strong feudal state in Normandy, William laid claim to the throne of England. The fantastic naval expedition that ended with victory at Hastings in October 1066 was, in his eyes, merely a legitimate settlement.
It made a bastard into a king of England crowned in London. William imposed the Norman hierarchy upon England: the Anglo-Norman monarchy was then the best-organised state in Western Europe.
Author Gilles Henry, "ancestor hunter" and "history detective", three-time laureate of the Académie Française, has published more than 60 works: biographies, investigations, genealogy guides, albums, dictionaries. He has a keen interest in heritage in all its forms.
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