Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
King Henry II
of England soon followed (1171) to remind Strongbow who was boss,
proclaiming the entire island under English (Anglo-Norman) rule. By 1250, the Anglo-
Normans occupied two-thirds of the island, controlling the best land while clustered in
walled cities surrounded by hostile Gaels. These invaders, who were big-time administrat-
ors,usheredinanewageinwhichsociety(government,cities,andreligiousorganizations)
was organized on a grander scale. They imposed feudalism and scoffed at the old Gaelic
clan system that they intended to replace. Riding on the coattails of the Normans, monast-
ic orders (Franciscans, Augustinians, Benedictines, and Cistercians) came over from the
Continent and eclipsed Ireland's individual monastic settlements, once the foundation of
Irish society, back in the Age of Saints and Scholars.
Normans lived in tightly packed settlements surrounded by their superior fortifications.
But when the
Black Death
came in 1348, it spread more rapidly and fatally in these tight
Norman quarters than it did in rural, far-flung Gaelic clan settlements. The plague, along
with Normans intermarrying with Gaels, eventually diluted Norman identity and shrank
English control.
