I teach some secondary school history in the UK and managed to get myself into hot water with the Head of History over a debate I had with a student, whom I agreed with. At the end of my lessons I give students time to question what we learned that day. One student asked why we look at the Angevin Empire as an early British Empire when William was Duke of Normandy, so surely it would be Normandy/French Empire? In that when we talk about Henry V we talk about getting French areas back, but weren't the UK invaded by French Normans?
In fairness I agreed with him, but as a non-history specialist (I'm a geography teacher) said I'd check with Head of History (as she is specialist) and let him know more next lesson. Head History was really mad at me and said I'd miss-taught the lesson and I would have to apologise to the class for misinforming them. She did not explain why I or student were wrong. I'm just trying to teach students fair history and I'm happy to be told I'm wrong, but I'd like to know why.
Can someone help me out as I'm confused?
So, let me preface this by saying that I'm not from the UK, have no experience in UK schools, and have never taught on the secondary level, so I can't really address how this issue is presented in British schools. My understanding is that schools in general are much more concerned with teaching the approved curriculum than they are with getting it right, so this may be an issue you just can't win on.
With that said, there's a fair bit to unpack. First, the Angevin Empire is typically dated as beginning when the House of Anjou came to the English throne. That is, when Henry, Count of Anjou, succeeded Stephen of Blois as king of England in 1154. It came to its full fruition when Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine and combined her inheritance with his own, giving him control over Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, Aquitaine, and Gascony (there may be some I'm leaving out). It is usually considered to have collapsed during the reign of his son, John, when Philip of France seized Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine, leaving John only in possession of Gascony and a portion of Poitou.
With that said, I think we very much make a mistake when we view the Angevin Empire - or, indeed, the Middle Ages writ large - through a modern, nationalist lens. This is a way of viewing and ordering our world that would have been foreign to the people who lived during that time. As a rule, medieval politics were much more personal and medieval identities were much more local than we are accustomed to. The Angevin Empire was neither English nor French. The kingdom of England did not own Normandy or Aquitaine. Rather, the king of England was also the ruler of those territories. The people of Normandy were Norman, not French or English. The great men who served the king of England did not necessarily view themselves as serving England, but serving the person of the king.
Put another way, the identity of the ruler did not automatically change the culture of the governed people, or necessarily even have very much impact on it. In the five centuries before the year 1200, England had been ruled (or dominated) by kings who were of Mercian, West Saxon, Danish, Norman, Frankish, and Angevin extraction, but it did not stop being England, and most of the people who lived there experienced very limited changes in their day-to-day lives. The structure of English government survived the Norman conquest largely intact. The shire system, the fyrd, and most of the common law persisted, albeit with small changes occurring over time. The country did not cease to be dominated by an aristocracy of land-owning soldiers; only their ethnicity changed.