Do you rank the Battle of Hastings in the top 10 most important battles in history?
These lists are all obviously culturally biased and frankly, arbitrary. Again, why are battles central to the history of the USA or Britain or the Roman Empire listed, and battles central to the history of Russia or China or the Persian Empires aren’t?
To take the last example, I’m pretty sure that the only battles that will ever appear in such lists are those that involved the nations westerners are most familiar with, Rome and Greece, like Marathon. The Achaemenid Empire, starting from nothing, conquered the Middle-east, and Anatolia, and Egypt, and…but somehow its only battles worth remembering are defeats against the Greeks? Objectively?
“Important” is far too subjective and imprecise a term. Influential, probably is a better term. It’s one of those battles where the course of history was changed. Other ones I can think off, are Badr, Talas, Diu, all three Panipats, Ayn Jalut, Issus, Scipios campaigns in Spain, Marne 1914.
Note, no Anglo-Saxon bias there.
Ok, tell me why Hastings is more important that Manzikert, that happened almost at the same time (and don’t appear on the lists) for instance.
My firm belief is that the only reason Hastings is on the list and Manzikert isn’t is anglo-centrism by english-speaking list writers.
Most serious military historians would certainly put Manzikert at least as high as Hastings for historical significance - it lost the key recruiting grounds of Anatolia to the Byzantine Empire for ever.
I think looking at lists on the internet and expecting them to reflect actual historical significance is like expecting the History Channel to be a good source to develop a wide ranging historical education. Both are aimed at known markets.
But Hastings would probably be on most serious military historians list of “most decisive battles in history” whether or not they published them online.
Disagree :).
A language is a dialect with an army ;).
Old English:
*Þæt mælede mín módor
þæt me scolde ceapian
flæge and fægra ára,
faran aweg wið wícingum,
standan úppe in stefnan,
stíeran deorne cnear,
faran swá tó hæfene,
héawan man and óðer. *
Old Norse:
Þat mælti mín móðir,
at mér skyldi kaupa
fley ok fagrar árar,
fara á brott með víkingum,
standa upp í stafni,
stýra dýrum knerri,
halda svá til hafnar
höggva mann ok annan.
*The English and Norse language varieties involved here were genetically closely related and are generally believed to have been mutually intelligible. For example, Thomason and Kaufman state that Norse and English at the time of their contact were structurally and lexically close enough that“it was relatively easy to understand the other language without learning to speak it” although “one could never be in doubt which language was being spoken.” *
From here.
It appears that Old Norse died out in the Danelaw within two generations of the resumption of English control, per the article quoted above. Cultural ties of course can linger longer. There are still people calling themselves Arabs in Afghanistan, but they don’t speak Arabic.
Well, I did say I was exaggerating ;). But England certainly was in a northern orbit and its historical trajectory was clearly revolving around that North Sea system, not Western Europe.
I put Manzikert in a similar category :). However slightly below Hastings, because much of the damage was indirect. Manzikert in of itself shouldn’t have been decisive, it was the pervasive rot in the Byzantine system that failed to recover and allowed a gradual decay of the Eastern borders in the years following. Leading as we all know to an eventually profound demographic shift as Anatolia was Turkicized.
By contrast Hastings was more directly and immediately decisive, with both Harold Godwinson and his two younger brothers Gyrth ( another Norse name from mom 
) and Leofwine being eliminated, basically decapitating the opposition party. Granted the massive displacement of the Anglo-Saxon ruling class happened a little later after the failed revolt against William. But Hastings was a little more direct in its influence than Manzikert.
Interesting referencing - thanks. I will print it off and read it again.
I am not a linguist (I suspect you may not be too) so hopefully can be excused citing a wiki page Old English - Wikipedia but that suggests to me that OE assimilated aspects of ON as spoken in the North East of England. I presume ON did likewise - which may be your point.
I am not sure you cite gives any support to the theory that late OE speakers could understand true Scandinavians or visa versa, but rather talks of the situation in England.
I simply don’t accept your view of England’s historical orbit. Sea routes were king over land routes so I would simply suggest that Scandinavia and the coast of northern and western Europe were equally in England’s orbit and there was just as much differential between England and Scandinavia and between England and the North Germanic lands other than in the ex-Danelaw counties.
But the change affected a country that was massively less relevant than the Byzantine Empire.
If another battle occuring at the same time had resulted directly in an even more massive cultural change in, say, a 500 000 strong population somewhere in the Caucasus, would you say too that it was a more significant battle than Hastings just because the local cultural impact was greater?
Isn’t there a point where a nation/population is so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things that regardless how profundly it’s affected, it’s not a significant world event?
I’m not disputing that Hastings had a profund impact on England at the time. I’m arguing that England at the time wasn’t important enough on the world stage (pretty much a non-entity, in fact) for Hastings to be considered a major event worth to be listed on “10/20/50 most important battles in the history of the world”.
My own point of view is that if it was just a “blip” on the radar at the time, it’s not a major event (and I explained why I think that the fact said country would became relevant later shouldn’t matter). And outside of the small English population of the 11th century, it was just a small blip. I mean William isn’t even very remotely in the same category as Genghis Khan, is he?
If we tried to take the point of view of ETs watching the events unrolling from say 1000 to 1200, do you think they would even mention Hastings? Small european warlord beats the crap out of small European warlord. Big deal.
And I wanted to add : culture of the small local population switch from northern-western-northern European to just northern-western European. Big deal too.
I meant that William was a vassal of the King of France (i.e. Paris), and therefore the realm he founded was one too - IIRC he even had to ask for permission for his invasion, or at least formally notify the French king he was about to do something awesome.
That fealty was never in dispute… up until the heir-less death of the third (and last) son of Philip IV the Totally Hawt, at which point the de facto king of England refused to pay homage to whoever uncle or cousin was designated as the new head honcho of France - the claim being that since the line of French rulers descended directly from the guy William had been a vassal to, and to which homage had traditionally been paid to up until then, had come to an abrupt end; then any allegiance died with it (and in fact, *they *were now kings of France by virtue of having a direct daughter of Philip IV in their family tree).
Whether that particular legal claim was absolutely valid, absolutely invalid or self-serving opportunistic bullshit made moot by force of arms is left as an exercise for the reader :p.
A draw ?! At the height of the war, the kings of England and their vassals owned or claimed more than half of the territory that is now France (…with still quite a ways to go to reach “almost completed conquest” :rolleyes:). At the end of the war they were gone from the continent altogether, had a Scottish Problem to deal with, certainly were not kings over France AND the French wound up with Burgundy, Brittany and Flanders as a bonus package.
So, yeah. Sure, the French didn’t cross the channel to finish the job, but as “draws” go, that’s one of the good ones, neh ? 
You English wankers started it !
[QUOTE=notquitekarpov]
Rubbish. […]
It is silly to ask what England did for anyone - England wasn’t doing it for anyone but itself or at least its Ruling Class any more than France or Spain were dong anything for anyone but themselves when they were top European dogs (I don’t think you can include Germany in the list - they really have been irrelevant for all but the last 100 to 150 years).
[/QUOTE]
Of course they were doing everything *for *themselves - but I’m talking impacts here.
In the same time frame France set up shop in the Levant (the Kingdom of Jerusalem wasn’t strictly or exclusively a French creation, but it was mostly ruled by French nobles). Venice & Genoa were masters of all Mediterranean commerce and the western end of the Silk Road (once they’d found a way to deal with the Greeks that is - which was a bit of a dick move to be honest, but there you go). Germany “pacified” and Christianized lands all the way to modern Russia, also “invented” a whole new brand of Christianity. And movable type while they were at it. The Danes and Swedes founded Russia in the first place (and a number of other, smaller kingdoms) and later went on to rule commerce throughout the Baltic, wood and fur in particular, effectively making them high lords over the building of every last ship in Northern Europe - until Canada happened.
All of that had an impact far and wide beyond the strict territorial frontiers of the people & states in question. The coins that flowed throughout Europe, the fashions, the philosophical or political currents, the architectural trends, the new methods of warfare… from the fall of Rome to Columbus making an erroneous geographical assumption, precious little of that was English or borne of England. Which is what I meant by “what did England *do *for anyone ?”, itself a rebuttal of the notion that Great Britain somehow dragged Europe out of the Middle Ages (not that there ever needed a drag in the first place, or a hole to be dragged from, but medievalists will apparently never manage to revive the horse that the 17th century philosophers bludgeoned into paste)
Y’all became real players *after *you’d carved a nice plump foreign Empire for yourselves. And even then… but that’s another story.
And the point is that the Battle of Hastings **or **its immediate impacts have very little to do with that Empire, and are certainly not directly responsible for it (to quote AK84). Obviously we’ll never know for sure, but I don’t really expect a purely Celto-Briton proto-state - flashed forward 500 years - would have found itself in a vastly different geopolitical position wrt Christendom or taken vastly different steps to rectify it.
I have to leave the boards now for today - but this last post has WAAAAAAY overreached reality.
I really do not know where to start… but I never claimed England did any of that stuff - it is just your straw man construct that anyone is claiming they did. It is pretty hard for a state on the edge of Europe to have influence in the places you mention.
You may as well have a go at your list of states for restricting themselves to Europe.
I’ll leave others to tear it apart for now, and return to sweep up the debris in a day or two.
I am most definitely not a linguist ( three years of High School French and it all sounds familiar, but I can’t really speak a word - you can call me the anti-clairobscur ). So I’ll take some chastisement calmly if I’m completely off base.
However the reference I was originally looking for I’m almost certain was in Cnut:* The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century* by M.K. Lawson ( 1993, Longman Group Limited ). I could swear it talked about a loose mutual intelligibility between Cnut’s Danes and the native English. But I read it years ago, it isn’t in the index and I couldn’t find it on a quick thumb-through so I googled up that article for you.
Less relevant in the 11th century, yes. Massively less relevant I’d disagree on. England ranked somewhere between Denmark and France as a substantial state at the time, but the territorial entanglement in France alone is enough to lend it added relevance.
Sure. I don’t know where I’d draw the line, but 11th century England isn’t it.
I just disagree. I will agree that some of the impetus for its importance comes from a backwards reflection through a lens of England’s later rise. But in of itself Hastings is very interesting in its impact - you just don’t see wholesale replacements of ruling elites like that very often.
I think they would just as an interesting case study :). But again I also think you are guilty of underselling 11th century England just a tad. It wasn’t the HRE, but it was a fat, fat prize the acquisition of which seriously altered the balance of power in Western Europe. If Harald Hardraada or Sweyn II had taken it you can bet Norway or Denmark would have been far more central to European politics than they were in that period.
Didn’t say that *you *did, but then you’re the one who replied to my reply to AK84’s post, #18, quote :
as well as septimus’ #17 :
And the point is, whether we’re talking 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th or 15th century, England was certainly not the “epicenter of a worldwide empire”, nor was it “a great power” or “lead[ing] the way for Europe” outside of its sharply limited sphere of influence over Ireland & Scotland (with a relatively brief peak during the HYW). Certainly not when paralleled with other European & North African powers of this (rather long) era.
As for the difficulty for “a state on the edge of Europe to have an influence in the places I mention”, as I said the Franks somehow found it in them to build comfy digs for themselves in the Levant. The Northmen/Normans set up shop in *Sicily *of all places. Now that’s pushing the geographical envelope :p.
I’m sure Europe was itself a very pissant little part of the world and more globally momentous events transpired elsewhere (the empire of Mali, Genghis, China…), but European history is what I know, so.
I googled "most important battles in history and they are all focused on the development of western civilization.
I’m pretty sure there were some pretty important battles that shaped the glide path of Asia. They even have video games about these battles.
Because post-Hastings England had no effect on the rest of the world outside Europe, ever, of course…
I love, love, love that map!
It has already been pointed out that Hastings did not have anything to do with the rise to power of Britain, which only started in the 18th century, after their fleet grew strong enough to contest the Dutch supremacy at sea.
*That should be 17th century, of course.
So your saying England would have just languished on its little island while the rest of Europe left it behind? Many times upthread, it’s been mentioned that in 1066 England was one, if not the most advanced nation in Europe. Who’s to say the Anglo-Saxons might not have lead them to the same type success.