1. The composite nature of the “Norman” invasion has long been recognized to have included Bretons, Flemings, Lotharingians, Picards, and Lombards, among others. The label “Normans,” however, remains a useful collective term of reference. For a recent appraisal of the problem of racial identity and the nature of the process of establishing an “English” consciousness, rather than a “Norman” one, see Hugh Thomas, The English and the Normans. Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity: 1066–c.1220 (Oxford University Press: 2003).
2. Chronicle ofJohn of Worcester, The, R.R. Darlington, P. McGurk, and Jennifer Bray, eds., vols. II and III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995–1998), III, pp. 12–13.
3. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, R.A.B. Mynors, R.M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom, eds., 2 vols., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998–1999), pp. 470–471.
4. C.W. Hollister, “Normandy, France, and the Anglo-Norman regnum,” Speculum 51 (1976): 209), but the author makes some important qualifications to the statement. On the problem of unity,
5. see: John le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).