Historian Dr Marc Morris explores why 1066 remains the most famous date in English history and the changes brought by the Norman takeover.
Dr Marc Morris is coming to St Albans Cathedral on Thursday 7 October 2027, for a talk titled The Norman Conquest: Why Does It Matter? It runs from 7:30pm to 9:00pm, and it's part of the cathedral's Adult Learning programme.
The talk starts with a question most of us have heard since school: why does 1066 remain the most famous date in English history? Morris will run through the story that's so well known from the Bayeux Tapestry — William the Conqueror's invasion and King Harold being felled by an arrow — before looking at the seismic changes that took hold across England in the wake of the Norman takeover. It's not just a retelling of the battle, but a look at what actually changed in the years that followed.
Morris is a historian specialising in the Middle Ages who studied and taught at the universities of London and Oxford, and he's a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He's written a fair bit on this period: The Norman Conquest (2012) is one of his earlier books, and The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England (2021) became a Sunday Times bestseller. He's also written biographies of Edward I and King John, and in 2003 he presented the TV series Castle and wrote the accompanying book.
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As it's part of the Adult Learning programme, clergy and readers in the St Albans Diocese get complimentary access. For everyone else, it's 7:30pm to 9:00pm at the cathedral on 7 October.
