# 1066
**1066** is the year in which Duke William of Normandy conquered Anglo-Saxon England, defeating and killing King Harold II at the [Battle of Hastings](https://www.edgepedia.org/battle-of-hastings) on 14 October and replacing the English ruling class with a Norman one. The year contained three pitched battles, two foreign invasions, and three kings of England, and it opened the Norman Conquest of England, which was completed only in 1071.[1](https://thebayeuxtapestry.com/timeline-1066.html) • [2](https://www.worldhistory.org/Norman_Conquest_of_England/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Death of Edward the Confessor | 5 January 1066, leaving no direct heirs; Harold Godwinson crowned king on 6 January[3](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/) • [4](https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/en-gb/blogs/medieval-world-blog/1066-timeline-norman-conquest) |
| Northern battles | Harold defeated the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada and Tostig at Stamford Bridge on 25 September, after the Battle of Fulford on 20 September[3](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/) • [5](https://saxonhistory.co.uk/1066-battle-of-hastings/timeline-of-the-battles) |
| Norman landing | William's fleet of about 700 ships crossed the Channel on the night of 27 September and landed at Pevensey in Sussex on 28 September[6](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/teaching-resources/story-of-1066/) |
| Battle of Hastings | Fought 14 October 1066, lasting all day by medieval standards; Harold and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine died in the defeat[3](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/) |
| Completion of the Conquest | Norman control was established over a five-year period from 1066 to 1071, against rebellions from Exeter to York[2](https://www.worldhistory.org/Norman_Conquest_of_England/) • [7](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1323/the-impact-of-the-norman-conquest-of-england/) |
| Land redistribution | Some 200 Norman nobles and 100 bishops and monasteries received estates that had been distributed among 4,000 Anglo-Saxon landowners before 1066[7](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1323/the-impact-of-the-norman-conquest-of-england/) |
| Lasting changes | Norman elite replaced the Anglo-Saxon one, the Church was restructured, motte-and-bailey castles and Romanesque cathedrals were introduced, feudalism spread, and English absorbed thousands of French words[7](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1323/the-impact-of-the-norman-conquest-of-england/) |
## The succession crisis
The year began with the death of the elderly King Edward the Confessor on 5 January 1066. He left no direct heirs, and the country faced invasion by two rival claimants: [Harald Hardrada](https://www.edgepedia.org/harald-hardrada), King of Norway, and William, Duke of Normandy. The most powerful men and women of Anglo-Saxon England gathered in London to choose a ruler, and [Harold Godwinson](https://www.edgepedia.org/harold-godwinson), Edward's brother-in-law, was crowned on 6 January.[3](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/) • [6](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/teaching-resources/story-of-1066/)
The Norman case for the throne rested on a claimed promise. According to Norman sources, Edward had promised William the crown of England, and the [Bayeux Tapestry](https://www.edgepedia.org/bayeux-tapestry) depicts Harold swearing an oath to William, perhaps agreeing to back the duke's succession. Historians suggest the events leading to the invasion were messier than the tapestry's version, which tells the story of the victor.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/Norman_Conquest_of_England/) • [9](https://apnews.com/article/c37278964088278ef0e7c70be4806f67) William also secured papal support, receiving a holy banner to carry in battle.[6](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/teaching-resources/story-of-1066/)
## Three battles in five weeks
**The northern invasion came first.** Harald Hardrada landed near York in mid-September, joined by Tostig, Harold's exiled brother. York surrendered and agreed to send an army to join the Norwegian conquest. The English forces were beaten at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September, a battle often overshadowed by the two that followed but one with significant strategic consequences.[6](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/teaching-resources/story-of-1066/) • [5](https://saxonhistory.co.uk/1066-battle-of-hastings/timeline-of-the-battles)
Harold marched north with great speed, decisively defeating and killing Hardrada and Tostig at the [Battle of Stamford Bridge](https://www.edgepedia.org/battle-of-stamford-bridge) on 25 September. His household troops, the huscarls, had ridden from London, won in the north, and then ridden back south, dying at Hastings three weeks later.[3](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/) • [5](https://saxonhistory.co.uk/1066-battle-of-hastings/timeline-of-the-battles)
**William crossed while Harold was in the north.** On the night of 27 September his fleet of about 700 ships made the Channel crossing, landing at Pevensey in Sussex on the morning of 28 September. Harold hurried south, arriving in London around 6 October, where many of his best troops were still straggling back from [Yorkshire](https://www.edgepedia.org/yorkshire). The two armies met at Hastings, near a place known to the English in 1066 as Senlac, on 14 October.[6](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/teaching-resources/story-of-1066/) • [1](https://thebayeuxtapestry.com/timeline-1066.html) • [10](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/what-happened-battle-hastings)
The battle was exceptionally long by medieval standards, lasting all day, an indication of how evenly matched the armies were. English sources such as the [Anglo-Saxon Chronicle](https://www.edgepedia.org/anglo-saxon-chronicle) are occasionally contradictory, and debate continues about key events. Harold's death, depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry as an arrow to the eye, decided the day; his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine also fell.[3](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/) • [10](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/what-happened-battle-hastings)
## Completing the Conquest, 1066–1071
Hastings did not end the fighting. William was obliged to see off several major invasions and rebellions, from Exeter to York, over a five-year period from 1066 to 1071. The pre-conquest elite collapsed under the combined blows of Hastings, the [Harrying of the North](https://www.edgepedia.org/harrying-of-the-north), and failed uprisings, leaving a political vacuum that Norman control filled through the 1070s.[2](https://www.worldhistory.org/Norman_Conquest_of_England/) • [7](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1323/the-impact-of-the-norman-conquest-of-england/)
William and his followers built castles and fortifications across the country to control the local population, and impressive religious buildings rose in the Norman era. By the time of Henry I's death in 1135, every Saxon cathedral in England, at Winchester, Rochester, Worcester, and Ely, had been torn down and rebuilt in a massive Romanesque style.[11](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/1066-and-the-norman-conquest/) • [12](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/art-exhibitions/dovecotes-deer-vineyards-and-lots-of-castles-apart-from-that-what-did-the-normans-ever-do-for-us)
## Consequences
The redistribution of land was the biggest change in land control in British history. Some 200 Norman nobles and 100 bishops and monasteries received estates previously held by 4,000 Anglo-Saxon landowners. The Church was restructured, feudalism became much more widespread, and the English language absorbed thousands of French words, producing pairs of equivalents such as royal/kingly, enquire/ask, and insane/mad. Primogeniture was not a direct Norman import, but it was implicit in how the law developed after 1066.[7](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1323/the-impact-of-the-norman-conquest-of-england/) • [13](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/ora-et-guberna-the-economic-impact-of-the-rule-of-st-benedict-in-medieval-england/E01070E42920141FBA2EC5BCBC427CA3) • [12](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/art-exhibitions/dovecotes-deer-vineyards-and-lots-of-castles-apart-from-that-what-did-the-normans-ever-do-for-us)
The Conquest also bound England to the continent. Decades of Viking raids had drawn England politically and culturally toward the Scandinavian world; after 1066 the orientation shifted to northern France, and many English and Norman families intermarried while the Norman elite learned the history and traditions of their new home.[14](https://www2.epl.ca/public-files/great-courses-pdfs/1066-The-Year-That-Changed-Everything.pdf) The Norman claim that [Edward the Confessor](https://www.edgepedia.org/edward-the-confessor) had bequeathed the kingdom to his kinsman William established, in one historian's argument, a framework of ideas about legitimate royal succession and land tenure with far-reaching consequences for political life and the common law.[15](https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXIII/504/1284/410889)
## How much did 1066 change England?
Historians disagree about the scale of the transformation. Historians disagree about the degree of transformation the Conquest produced in each sphere: some hold that English developments after 1066 would largely have happened even without it, while others maintain that its effects ran deep, whether as benefit or harm.[16](https://academic.oup.com/reference/62384/reference-article-abstract/555075362) Current trends stress continuity between the periods before and after the battle, and scholars caution against automatically associating every change in the decades after 1066 with the Conquest rather than with wider processes.[14](https://www2.epl.ca/public-files/great-courses-pdfs/1066-The-Year-That-Changed-Everything.pdf) • [17](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00355.x)
A useful comparison is the Danish conquest of England by Cnut in late 1016. Only the second conquest, that of 1066, has been credited with the impact of a permanent transformation, and the events of 1016 have lodged far less firmly in the English national consciousness.[18](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvrdf1qb) One recent study argues that the importance of 1066 has been much overplayed and offers the Vikings' earlier impact as an alternative explanation of the Conquest's causes.[19](https://www.history.org.uk/historian/resource/9242/1016-and-1066-why-the-vikings-caused-the-norman-c)
The date itself has remained fixed in public memory as perhaps the most universally recalled date in English history, even as revolutionary changes in historians' approaches have made it less significant as a marker within the discipline. The Anglo-Norman period it opened is variously taken to end with the death of Henry I, in 1144 when Stephen lost control of Normandy, or in 1166, which makes an even century.[19](https://www.history.org.uk/historian/resource/9242/1016-and-1066-why-the-vikings-caused-the-norman-c) • [17](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00355.x) • [16](https://academic.oup.com/reference/62384/reference-article-abstract/555075362)
## The Bayeux Tapestry
The events of 1066 are preserved in a roughly 70-meter (229-foot) embroidery in wool thread on linen cloth, the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the story from 1064, when Edward sent Harold to offer William the succession, through the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. Historians believe it was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William's half brother, and probably sewn by women in England, possibly nuns. It is an invaluable source on 11th-century shipbuilding, armor, fashion, and warfare, though it carries a propaganda element telling the English that William was now king.[9](https://apnews.com/article/c37278964088278ef0e7c70be4806f67) • [20](https://apnews.com/article/b62ee313ab3d4a2e00635587b84a4fbe) • [21](https://apnews.com/article/25df880f705abe55cb732c6feb068fe7)
In 2026 the tapestry went on loan to the British Museum in London, its first display in Britain in 900 years, with the exhibition running from 10 September 2026 to July 2027.[20](https://apnews.com/article/b62ee313ab3d4a2e00635587b84a4fbe)
## References
1. [Timeline of 1066: The Year of the Norman Conquest, The Bayeux Tapestry](https://thebayeuxtapestry.com/timeline-1066.html)
2. [Norman Conquest of England, World History Encyclopedia](https://www.worldhistory.org/Norman_Conquest_of_England/)
3. [History of Battle Abbey and Battlefield, English Heritage](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/history/)
4. [1066: A Timeline of the Norman Conquest, Karwansaray Publishers](https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/en-gb/blogs/medieval-world-blog/1066-timeline-norman-conquest)
5. [Complete 1066 Timeline: Scarborough to Hastings, Saxon History](https://saxonhistory.co.uk/1066-battle-of-hastings/timeline-of-the-battles)
6. [The Events of 1066, English Heritage teaching resources](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/teaching-resources/story-of-1066/)
7. [The Impact of the Norman Conquest of England, World History Encyclopedia](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1323/the-impact-of-the-norman-conquest-of-england/)
8. [Timeline: Norman Conquest of England, World History Encyclopedia](https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/Norman_Conquest_of_England/)
9. [What to know about the Bayeux Tapestry, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/c37278964088278ef0e7c70be4806f67)
10. [What Happened at the Battle of Hastings, English Heritage](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/history-and-stories/what-happened-battle-hastings)
11. [1066 and the Norman Conquest, English Heritage](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/1066-and-the-norman-conquest/)
12. [Dovecotes, deer, vineyards and lots of castles, Country Life](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/art-exhibitions/dovecotes-deer-vineyards-and-lots-of-castles-apart-from-that-what-did-the-normans-ever-do-for-us)
13. [Ora et Guberna: The Economic Impact of the Rule of St Benedict in Medieval England, Journal of Economic History](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/ora-et-guberna-the-economic-impact-of-the-rule-of-st-benedict-in-medieval-england/E01070E42920141FBA2EC5BCBC427CA3)
14. [1066: The Year that Changed Everything, Great Courses](https://www2.epl.ca/public-files/great-courses-pdfs/1066-The-Year-That-Changed-Everything.pdf)
15. [Conquered England. Kingship, Succession, and Tenure, 1066-1166, The English Historical Review](https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXIII/504/1284/410889)
16. [Anglo-Norman Realm, Oxford Academic reference article](https://academic.oup.com/reference/62384/reference-article-abstract/555075362)
17. [1066: does the date still matter?, Historical Research (Bates, 2005)](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00355.x)
18. [Conquests in Eleventh-Century England: 1016, 1066, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvrdf1qb)
19. [1016 and 1066: Why the Vikings caused the Norman Conquest, Historical Association](https://www.history.org.uk/historian/resource/9242/1016-and-1066-why-the-vikings-caused-the-norman-c)
20. [The Bayeux Tapestry is at the British Museum after a secret journey from France, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/b62ee313ab3d4a2e00635587b84a4fbe)
21. [Tale of conquest and symbol of friendship, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/25df880f705abe55cb732c6feb068fe7)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › General historical chronologies › Year articles, medieval (501–1500)*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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