- published: 02 May 2014
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The Normans (in French: Normands) were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock. Their identity emerged initially in the first half of the 10th century, and gradually evolved over succeeding centuries.
They played a major political, military, and cultural role in medieval Europe and even the Near East. They were famed for their martial spirit and eventually for their Christian piety. They quickly adopted the Romance language of the land they settled, their dialect becoming known as Norman or Norman-French, an important literary language. The Duchy of Normandy, which they formed by treaty with the French crown, was one of the great fiefs of medieval France. The Normans are famed both for their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture, and their musical traditions, as well as for their military accomplishments and innovations. Norman adventurers established a kingdom in Sicily and southern Italy by conquest, and a Norman expedition on behalf of their duke, William the Conqueror, led to the Norman Conquest of England. Norman influence spread from these new centres to the Crusader States in the Near East, to Scotland and Wales in Great Britain, and to Ireland.
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho, and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the main antagonist of the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The character was inspired by serial killer Ed Gein.
Both the novel and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation explain that Bates suffers severe emotional abuse as a child at the hands of his mother, Norma, who preaches to him that sexual intercourse is sinful and that all women (except herself) are whores. The two of them live alone together in a state of total codependence after the death of Bates' father until Bates reaches adolescence, when his mother takes a lover, Joe Considine. Driven over the edge with jealousy, Bates murders both of them with strychnine. After committing the murders, Bates develops dissociative identity disorder, preserving his mother's corpse and assuming her personality to repress her death and escape the guilt of murdering her. He inherits his mother's house — where he keeps her corpse — and the family motel in fictional Fairvale, California.