Does the Date Still Matter

Bibliographic Data

ID4558630
AuthorsDavid Bate (0000-0002-6138-1068), David Bates (0000-0001-7438-9491, University of London, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume78
Issue202
Pages443-464
Publication date2005-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistorical Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0950-3471 • E-ISSN: 1468-2281
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00355.x
OpenAlexW2164344023
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited18

1066 was once regarded as the date everyone knew. It remains widely known among the large numbers of the general public with an interest in history. This article suggests that popular perceptions of 1066 are a range of at times confused memories and that so-called academic history has in the last fifty years had little impact on them. It acknowledges that revolutionary changes in contemporary historians' approaches to the past have made 1066 less significant as a date, yet argues that the date's very popularity with the general public and the centrality of change to historical analysis makes a clear perception and extensive dissemination crucial. It suggests that 1066 was ultimately an act of legitimated and purposefully directed violence and needs to be discussed as such. It is necessary to guard against automatically associating every change in the decades after 1066 with the impact of the Conquest and to see them instead as often being aspects of wider processes. It is also crucial to see 1066 as an event of European significance and to set it within the multicultural history of the British Isles. It had consequences which fundamentally shaped English and British history. Perhaps surprisingly, new information and new interpretations of long familiar sources are possible

Historical Economic and Social Studies · History