SOURCE: Otter, Monika. “1066: The Moment of Transition in Two Narratives of the Norman Conquest.” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 74, no. 3 (July 1999): 565-86.

In the following essay, Otter examines William's Life of Wulfstan, focusing on his treatment of the Norman conquest and comparing it with the treatment of the conquest in the anonymous Life of King Edmund.

The year 1066, touted in the British humor classic 1066 and All That as one of only two truly “historical” dates (i.e., dates that anyone can remember), has assumed for us the character of a watershed in English history, a crucial moment of change and transformation. Indeed, the date is so memorable that the number 1066 itself can stand on its own, metonymically implying the Battle of Hastings, the accession of William to the English throne, the Norman Conquest, the end of Anglo-Saxon culture, the realignment of England in the geopolitical and cultural...