Abstract
In the late 11th century, English society was permeated by an awareness of ethnic difference, and of the contrast between English and Normans. Most strikingly, awareness of ethnic difference spread throughout bureaucratic systems and documents. An understanding of the level of the cultural divide between the English and the Normans, and the nature of the precise differences, is an important prerequisite to understanding the interaction between them. This chapter focuses on cultural differences that contemporaries described, because those are the ones most likely to have served as markers of ethnic difference in post-conquest England. Fortunately for the development of ethnic harmony, the English and the conquerors had much in common, thus lessening the possibility of irreconcilable cultural clashes that could permanently divide them. Nonetheless, the cultural differences were by no means negligible, and this chapter shows that a fair amount of acculturation was necessary before the two peoples could hope to become one.