User talk:Indy946

William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, was not French, he was a Norman, although he did speak French. The expanding Kingdom of France eventually captured Normandy from the English, but in Williams time Normandy had never been part of France. William was a Norman, a contraction of Norseman, in other words a Viking. The French nobles were Franks, a German tribe, and the peasants Gauls, a Keltic tribe.