University of East Anglia historian links 1066 conquest to papal politics

Research by University of East Anglia historian Professor Tom Licence suggests that the Norman Conquest of 1066 was heavily influenced by political and religious conflicts in Rome. According to findings published by Yale University Press in the book ‘Harold: Warrior King’, excerpts from a lost letter by Pope Alexander II held in the Vatican archives indicate that a power struggle between rival popes played a decisive role in the conflict.

Licence argues that King Harold may have inadvertently forfeited his claim to the English throne by supporting the wrong faction during a period when Western Christendom was divided between two popes. This political alignment may have provided William of Normandy with the religious legitimacy to frame his invasion as a ‘just war’. The research suggests that the outcome of the conquest was shaped as much by decisions made in Rome as by the military engagement at the Battle of Hastings.