R.R. Davies, Domination & Conquest: The Experience of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, 1100-1300 (1990)

This slim volume is a masterpiece. It's tightly argued and clearly written, using apt quotations from many primary sources to support its case. Davies deftly combines observations about basic trends with acknowledgement of complexities and countervailing trends. His basic argument is contained in the title, which initially puzzled me. I had assumed that conquest came first, followed by domination. However, the reality was the other way around: first came domination - a slow, sometimes invisible process, by which the Welsh and Irish (and to a lesser extent the Scottish) adapted themselves to "Anglo-Norman" patterns of thought, economic relations, acknowledgement of a diffuse feudal "overlordship," Church practices, etc. Domination was not limited to soft power, however. Anglo-Norman "conquistadores" were its sharp cutting edge, as they claimed small islands of direct control, extending outwards from their castles, though rarely very far. The English kings only intermittently took an active role in this aristocratically driven enterprise. The lack of written records and the predominance of customary relations, for one thing, limited the reach and power of the English colonizers. Only in the thirteenth century did domination take on a harder edge, part of the growth of centralized, bureaucratic state power across Latin Europe. The book fits well with Robert Bartlett's The Making of Europe, which was published just a few years later and probably draws on Davies. Both books are helpful for understanding Europe's growing vitality and drive to expand in this pivotal period. Domination & Conquest is also invaluable for its convincing portrait of the varieties and subtelties of colonization.