27th September
St Barry’s Day
Ships of William the Conqueror. Source: iStock photos
Today is St Barry’s Day. Barry (or Baruc) was a sixth century monk and lived and died on Glamorgan Island in South Glamorgan. He was buried there and his chapel became a place of pilgrimage but quite why, no one is certain. The island eventually became renamed as Barry Island in the saint’s honour, and is now the site of a large permanent funfair.
Today is also the day that the Norman and Gascon army of William the Conqueror disembarked at Pevensey Bay, Kent in 1066. William, Duke of Normandy had a vague claim to the English throne (he was the illegitimate son of Robert of Normandy who was cousin to King Edward the Confessor). The claim of the sitting tenant, and successor to Edward, King Harold Godwinson, was actually far weaker: there was no genealogical connection between Harold and Edward and his claim rested on the fact that he was allegedly promised the throne by the childless Edward on his deathbed. There is some irony in the fact that the English nobility supported Harold’s claim as a pre-eminent earl at Edward’s courts, despite his part-Scandinavian ancestry, while his rival William was a Norman, a descendant of the Vikings who had established the Duchy of Normandy a century before. Whoever was going to win the the upcoming battle, the huge influence of the Scandinavians on English politics was set to continue.
