An article on the harrying of the north - post 1066 and all that......

[Imperial Dave]

http://www.historyextra.com/article/bbc-history-magazine/battle-of-hastings-aftermath-consequences-harrying-of-the-north?utm_source=Twitter%20referral&utm_campaign=Bitly&utm_medium=t.co

a nice summary of the next few years after the Battle of Hastings

[Erpingham]

Good for those doing a history exam with the question "How decisive was the Battle of Hastings?".  And of course for those planning wargames campaigns

[Imperial Dave]

especially the wargame campaigns bit 

[Darklinger]

Another interesting find by Holly! Keep it up!

Only a pity it doesn't also touch on the resistence led by Hereward the Wake.

It's interesting to me how popular writing about these events reveal what Peter Rex in his book, 'The English Resistence' called "subconscious pro-Normanism in much writing about the Conquest" - which is very evident here.

There is a lead on, at the bottom, to an article by David Bates about William. Have just bought a review copy of his tome of a book on the subject - hope it is better written than this scrappy article, and not so willfully and loudly revisionist in intent, merely to concede that things are either probably much as previously thought, or unprovable either way.

[Patrick Waterson]

It might be interesting to air our own thoughts on alternate history: what if the Normans had lost at Hastings, and William had received six feet of English earth for his portion?  What then for Harold and England?

[Jim Webster]

we'd probably continue to have been linked more closely to Denmark and Norway rather than France. which might have given more weight to Northern Europe in European history

[Erpingham]

I think this would be the jump off point.  Instead of developing interests in France, with consequential wars, we would probably have been part of a series of consequential wars in Scandinavia, where there were already dynastic interests.

[Andreas Johansson]

Maybe I should be grateful that the Bastard won, because else succeeding English kings might've spent following centuries devastating around here, rather than in France.

Of course, it's no given that a continuing "Saxon" England would've been the sort of centralized and expansionist kingdom that Norman England turned out to be.

[Erpingham]

Maybe I should be grateful that the Bastard won, because else succeeding English kings might've spent following centuries devastating around here, rather than in France.

My admittedly limited reading of Scandinavian history suggests you didn't really need much help with the devastation - when the Scandinavian countries weren't invading each other, they were suffering from Baltic pirates or fighting civil wars.

[Andreas Johansson]

My admittedly limited reading of Scandinavian history suggests you didn't really need much help with the devastation - when the Scandinavian countries weren't invading each other, they were suffering from Baltic pirates or fighting civil wars.

Yeah, but there's an extra humiliation in being devastated by Englishmen

[Jim Webster]

My admittedly limited reading of Scandinavian history suggests you didn't really need much help with the devastation - when the Scandinavian countries weren't invading each other, they were suffering from Baltic pirates or fighting civil wars.

Yeah, but there's an extra humiliation in being devastated by Englishmen

But I suspect the English might have become more Norse/Danish in the circumstances 

[Erpingham]

My admittedly limited reading of Scandinavian history suggests you didn't really need much help with the devastation - when the Scandinavian countries weren't invading each other, they were suffering from Baltic pirates or fighting civil wars.

Yeah, but there's an extra humiliation in being devastated by Englishmen

But I suspect the English might have become more Norse/Danish in the circumstances 

Much better to be devastated by one of your own

[Patrick Waterson]

Yeah, but there's an extra humiliation in being devastated by Englishmen

British historians seem to regard it as almost an honour.

Of course, it's no given that a continuing "Saxon" England would've been the sort of centralized and expansionist kingdom that Norman England turned out to be.

We have the evidence of Edward (the Confessor)'s reign to suggest that it would not, and Harold Godwinsson's reign to suggest that it would.  I think it would have depended mainly on the monarchs.

we'd probably continue to have been linked more closely to Denmark and Norway rather than France. which might have given more weight to Northern Europe in European history

Inclined to agree.  The Scandinavian connection would be an obvious one to develop, perhaps mainly through dynastic alliance rather than devastation, and the emergence of an Anglo-Norwegian rather than an Anglo-Norman kingdom seems a distinct possibility.  One wonders whether such a realm would have been naval and expansionist, and if so where it would have expanded.

One notable loose end would have been Normandy, deprived of its duke and most of its fighting strength.  Would it have recovered under a new lord, or been absorbed by the Kingdom of France?  And what effect might this have had on Norman expansion elsewhere and, for that matter, participation in the Crusades?

[Jim Webster]

Yes the Norman angle is interesting. I can imagine that they might have been re-absorbed into the Northern world, but there again, they'd actually expanded well into Italy before the conquest of England, and it might be that without England to distract them we'd have seen even more Normans heading south into Italy and Sicily.
Once you've got them, Byzantium looks like an obvious target 

[Erpingham]

I suspect that the French would try to re-absorb Normandy  at some point and there would doubtless be Breton interest in making the most of the situation (although they too would be weakened by their losses at Hastings).  England with a strong king would be quite a well organised and wealthy player in Anglo-Scandinavian developments and could probably face down the Danes (who seem rather luke warm in their English ambitions in 1069-70).  Dynastic alliances both toward France and toward Scandinavia I'd guess, which always risks military intervention.  The channel area is likely to throw up piracy and raiding issues.  English designs on Scotland and Wales predate William (IIRC he claims overlordship of Scotland as King of England, not as a bit of freelance agression) so I'd expect early friction in those areas.  If moving in a Scandinavian orbit, I'd expect the English to be interested in the affairs of Kingdom of Man and the Viking towns of Ireland too.