2. The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They descended from Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of mostly Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock. Their identity emerged initially in the first half of the tenth century, and gradually evolved over succeeding centuries until they disappeared as an ethnic group in the early thirteenth century. The name "Normans" derives from "Northmen" or "Norsemen", after the Vikings from Scandinavia who founded Normandy.
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5. William, Duke of Normandy, launched his bloody and decisive invasion of Saxon England in 1066. In that year Edward the Confessor, King of England, died without heir, appointing by his will Harold Godwinsson, son of England’s most powerful nobleman, the Earl of Wessex, as his successor. Across the Channel, William of Normandy considered himself rightfully the next King of England, basing his claim on a promise by Edward the Confessor in the early 1050s and an oath of fealty sworn by Harold during an enforced visit to William’s capital at Rouen following his capture by the Count of Ponthieu. The Battle of Hastings
6. The battle was fought over the rest of the day, a savage fight with heavy casualties on each side. The issue in the balance until late in the afternoon; marked by repeated cavalry attacks on the Saxon position by William’s cavalry, violently repelled until the final assaults. The Normans found the Saxon warriors with their battle axes, and in particular Harold’s “housecarles”, a formidable enemy. There were many accounts of knights with their horses being hacked in pieces by these terrible weapons wielded in great swinging blows.
