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What if Harold had won at Hasting in 1066

TheCatWoman

I've just been reading a book on the Vikings which ends at 1066 with the death of Harald Hardrader, but Harold Godwineson at Stamford Bridge, just before he had to scoot back south to Hasting to meet William of Normandy and be killed. William, known as the conquerer took over and so began a new phase in Englands history, I say England as Scotland, Wales and Ireland were not part of it and Great Britain didn't happen for  several centuries.

England had been a part of massive Scandinavian trading networks that stetched from Dublin to Constantinople and maybe further and from the Med to Greenland and America, although they never really made much of an impact on America as far as we know. The church in Rome was trying to pull everyones eyes south again and was largely successful, although how successful if the Normans hadn't been around is unknowable. 

Would we be speaking a different version of English if we had no French loan words, like pork beef and lamb, pig cow and sheep are English words and were and are sill used for the animals on the hoof, rather than on the table, which gives you some idea of the power dynamics of the time.

If Harold had won and the Harrying of the North hadn't happened would we still have what are now the ruins of the great Cistercian abbeys, such Rivelaux and Fountains? Most of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Durham and Cumbria were more or less depopulated by Williams ethnic cleansing, leaving the north as a "desert" so sought after by the Cistercians in thier early years.

What differences can you think of and what questions do you have?

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  • I'm a bit of a dunce when it comes to history, but I do know that our language gained lots of French words due to the Norman conquest of England.

    So if Harold had won, we may not have a lot of the words we commonly use now.

    A single man would not be called a bachelor

    Brown hair would not be called brunette

    Army trainees would not be called cadets

    A personal driver would not be called a chauffeur

    A place where water is collected & stored would not be called a reservoir

    There are many, many others - we wouldn't eat in a restaurant or choose food from a menu. We'd have had to create other words for allowance, energy, detour, elite, expatriate, gallery, hotel, identity, illusion, insult, irony, literature, machine, technique, tournament, and utensil, just to name a few.

    I have a question - what was this "ethnic cleansing"? 

  • in reply to Lotus

    Lucy Worsley's programe Lucy Worsley Investigates (s2, ep03) takes a good look at The Harrying of the North, which was William's response to uprisings against his rule, it's a brutal watch, but I think it's something that needs to be better known.

    We would still have been Christian, although maybe there would have more and different Pagan survivals. The papcy was going through a period of change and became much more hard line, enforcing things like priestly celibacy, or trying too. If the Normans had lost its possible that we wouldn't have lost so many of our native saints to obscurity, the church was also trying to tighten up qualifications for sainthood at the time and was unsainting some.

    Whilst Edward the Confessor was leaning more towards southern Europe and Normandy, I think we would of been more like the Netherlands, as for Scotland, Wales and Ireland it's hard to tell, nation building seems to have been a response to Viking incursions, but also a growing and more international church wanting everyone under its wing or yoke, whichever you prefer. We could have ended up with more of an east west split rather than the north south one we have now, Wales, Western Scotland, the Isles and Ireland and possibly parts of Devon and Cornwall could have been a more closely allied trading block, with the Europe facing eastern parts of Britain being more European, again, this seems to have been the case before the Romans came and in the decades after they left too. 

    If William had been killed at Hastings then it would of ended his ambitions and thrown Normandy into chaos, it's possible that Brittany would have been larger?

    Theres quite a bit of uncertainty and controvercy about the law, the Normans always said the would keep the law as it was in the time of Edward the Confessor, some laws probably did stay the same, but others certainly didn't , the harsh forest laws were certainly a Norman introduction.

    I'm often suspicious of sudden changes and pivotal moments, but they do happen and I think 1066 was one. Of course there was a lot else going on at the time and the Battle of Hastings was apart of it, but the Battle of Stamford Bridge which Harold fought a few days before Hastings and won, effectively killed off the last Scandinavian king who had a claim to the English throne and was capable of reorientating us northwards again, Harold Hardrader.

Reply
  • in reply to Lotus

    Lucy Worsley's programe Lucy Worsley Investigates (s2, ep03) takes a good look at The Harrying of the North, which was William's response to uprisings against his rule, it's a brutal watch, but I think it's something that needs to be better known.

    We would still have been Christian, although maybe there would have more and different Pagan survivals. The papcy was going through a period of change and became much more hard line, enforcing things like priestly celibacy, or trying too. If the Normans had lost its possible that we wouldn't have lost so many of our native saints to obscurity, the church was also trying to tighten up qualifications for sainthood at the time and was unsainting some.

    Whilst Edward the Confessor was leaning more towards southern Europe and Normandy, I think we would of been more like the Netherlands, as for Scotland, Wales and Ireland it's hard to tell, nation building seems to have been a response to Viking incursions, but also a growing and more international church wanting everyone under its wing or yoke, whichever you prefer. We could have ended up with more of an east west split rather than the north south one we have now, Wales, Western Scotland, the Isles and Ireland and possibly parts of Devon and Cornwall could have been a more closely allied trading block, with the Europe facing eastern parts of Britain being more European, again, this seems to have been the case before the Romans came and in the decades after they left too. 

    If William had been killed at Hastings then it would of ended his ambitions and thrown Normandy into chaos, it's possible that Brittany would have been larger?

    Theres quite a bit of uncertainty and controvercy about the law, the Normans always said the would keep the law as it was in the time of Edward the Confessor, some laws probably did stay the same, but others certainly didn't , the harsh forest laws were certainly a Norman introduction.

    I'm often suspicious of sudden changes and pivotal moments, but they do happen and I think 1066 was one. Of course there was a lot else going on at the time and the Battle of Hastings was apart of it, but the Battle of Stamford Bridge which Harold fought a few days before Hastings and won, effectively killed off the last Scandinavian king who had a claim to the English throne and was capable of reorientating us northwards again, Harold Hardrader.

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