“Four generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or to unite, by a common language and mutual interests, two hostile races, one of which still felt the elation of triumph, while the other groaned under all the consequences of defeat.”

Scott begins his novel with a historical survey of England in the period following the conquest of the land by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This battle heralded the passage of England from the English-speaking Saxons or Anglo-Saxons to the French-speaking Normans, and the following centuries were characterized by tension between the new ruling class (made up predominantly of Normans) and the old—and now displaced—Saxon aristocracy. These tensions form an important part of the novel’s historical, social, and cultural context.

“‘By St. Dunstan,’ answered Gurth, ‘thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, clearly for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant land with their bones, leaving few here who have either will or power to protect the unfortunate Saxon. God’s blessing on our master Cedric, he hath done the work of a man in standing in the gap; but Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is coming down to this country in person, and we shall soon see how little Cedric’s trouble will avail him.’”

Despite his low social standing, Gurth is proud of his Saxon heritage, and here he gives voice to the shared Saxon feeling of displacement brought about by the Normans’ rule of the country. This general feeling is above all one of hopelessness: Though some Saxon nobility, including Gurth’s enslaver Cedric, stand up for their old ancestral rights, the power of the newer Norman rulers is well-established by now, and indeed often cruelly enforced (the cruelty of the Norman named here by Gurth, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf—will be displayed later in the novel, when Front-de-Boeuf brazenly captures Cedric and several others traveling with him).