# What if William the Norman had not conquered? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684 "2011-10-05T14:30:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/21 "2011-10-06T00:25:44Z")
British cuisine would presumably feature rollmops and lutefisk on top of what they have now. _shudder_ [QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Did the concept of “Europe” even exist then? [/QUOTE] Europe ? No. Hell, the concept of “countries” in the first place didn’t exist. Christendom however ? Possibly. The First Crusade kicked off only a decade after William’s victory and did involve combattants from most of Europe butchering side by side, so a certain kind of high level “brotherhood” (can’t find a better word right now, slightly drunk) did demonstrably exist, at least when a common foe was involved. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/22 "2011-10-06T00:29:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Europe ? No. Hell, the concept of “countries” in the first place didn’t exist. Christendom however ? Possibly. The First Crusade kicked off only a decade after William’s victory and did involve combattants from most of Europe butchering side by side, so a certain kind of high level “brotherhood” (can’t find a better word right now, slightly drunk) did demonstrably exist, at least when a common foe was involved. According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe) the term “Europa” as a synonym of “Latin Christendom” dates to the Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th Century. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/23 "2011-10-06T00:30:43Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Europe ? No. Hell, the concept of “countries” in the first place didn’t exist. Christendom however ? Possibly. The First Crusade kicked off only a decade after William’s victory and did involve combattants from most of Europe butchering side by side, so a certain kind of high level “brotherhood” (can’t find a better word right now, slightly drunk) did demonstrably exist, at least when a common foe was involved. The Church would say “communion,” I suppose. Other words might be [ecumene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumene) and [amphictyony.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphictyony) But, whatever you call it, did the concept, pre-1066, really include France but exclude England, Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia? (All of which were thoroughly Christian by then, I believe.) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/24 "2011-10-06T00:30:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I have read that in the 18th Century, a kind of political myth emerged – I think Jefferson believed it – that there was this substantially democratic pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon society, with its [hundreds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_%28county_subdivision%29) and its [Witenagemot,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witanagamot) which the Normans suppressed with their Continental feudalism and royalism – so everybody who fought to expand the power of Parliament against the Crown (or, for the independence of the Colonies) was really fighting to “restore” the ancient Anglo-Saxon liberty. > > Was there anything at all to that? Put another way, would the constitutional development of non-Norman England have been any more democratic, in any sense? Don’t believe so. The Vikings had sort of the same thing going on with the \*[things](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_%28assembly%29) \*and _althings,_ but those ultimately devolved into hereditary monarchy like everyone else, similarly to how the Roman Republic gave way to Emperors. People with swords are generally quick to figure out their inherent socio-political advantage over people without swords. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/25 "2011-10-06T00:36:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, whatever you call it, did the concept, pre-1066, really include France but exclude England, Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia? (All of which were thoroughly Christian by then, I believe.) Well, there were Danish and Norwegian crusaders, so that takes care of Scandinavia. I’m not 100% familiar with the spread of Christianity in the British Isles so I can’t speak for a theoretical non-Norman England/Ireland. Then again, a theoretical non-Norman England would be a Scandinavian England, so… ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/26 "2011-10-06T00:47:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I have read that in the 18th Century, a kind of political myth emerged – I think Jefferson believed it – that there was this substantially democratic pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon society, with its [hundreds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_(county_subdivision)) and its [Witenagemot,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witanagamot) which the Normans suppressed with their Continental feudalism and royalism – so everybody who fought to expand the power of Parliament against the Crown (or, for the independence of the Colonies) was really fighting to “restore” the ancient Anglo-Saxon liberty. > > Was there anything at all to that? Put another way, would the constitutional development of non-Norman England have been any more democratic, in any sense? It’s funny, bacause back in the XIXth century at least, there were French writers presenting the Gauls exacly that way. Kind of a democratic society of true French that were to be run (ran? grammar help here) over by the oppressive and feudal thinking Franks (they kind of mixed Gallo-Romans and Gauls). It wasnt a far right theory, it was a strongly left wing one, that tried to put perspective on class warfare by explaining it ethnically. It was pure bullshit, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/27 "2011-10-06T00:49:38Z")
I think overall the world would be a better place. Feudalism would not be installed in England and thus will avoid a period of Continental despotism. Instead it will continue in its natural and traditional course of freedom with the Scandinavian and Teutonic nations. Indeed the presence of rich and populous England will invigorate the Nordic culture. In religious matters, the influence of the Roman Church will be lessened hopefully. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/28 "2011-10-06T00:53:24Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > IFeudalism would not be installed in England and thus will avoid a period of Continental despotism. Total contradiction in terms. Feudalism isnt Despotism. It’s quite its opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/29 "2011-10-06T01:06:25Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Instead it will continue in its natural and traditional course of freedom with the Scandinavian and Teutonic nations. _spit take_ I think you should might could bone up on your Scandinavian and Deutscher history, mate. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/30 "2011-10-06T01:12:28Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Feudalism would not be installed in England and thus will avoid a period of Continental despotism. As **Capitaine Zombie** alludes, Edward the Confessor was far more of a despot than his contemporary Henry I of France. Anglo-Saxon England was much more centralized and Edward was the wealthiest landholder in the kingdom, with considerably more internal authority than that exercised in the very loosely held early Capetian kingdom ( where it has been alleged the wealthy Count of Flanders could raise twice as many knights as his sovereign the King of France ). At any rate, it has been argued that feudalism was already on the march in England pre-Conquest. It was a rational system and England wasn’t quite the isolated backwater some may suppose. Given the close proximity and what would have naturally been increasing economic and likely political ties to France, it is probably inevitable that some homegrown version would have been established in short order. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/31 "2011-10-06T01:22:53Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > No Hundred Years War? That one at least is pretty much a given. The root of the HYW lies within bothersome lineage and heritage of titles fuckery. If William doesn’t conquer England, his descendants don’t gain enough foreign land to renege on their allegiance to the French crown (illegitimate as it might have been at the time - roll with it dawg) in the first place and certainly don’t hold influence over enough land & people to oppose the royal host. Which still leaves the matter of them Burgundian bastards to deal with, but absent too much of an English threat I reckon we’d have pwnd them relatively easy. Just give it a handful of centuries to get a good run up. And, funnily enough, that might have been a \*bad \*thing looking back: modern historians do give ol’ Joan a lot of credit for propping up the idea of France in the first place ; the notion that from here to here, that shit be OURS. Without the HYW, France might have ended up something like Renaissance Italy or the HRE - an internecine web of consanguineous autonomous principalities permanently a-feuding and a-backstabbing. Not that it wasn’t that _de facto_, but you know what I mean 🙂 TL;DR : the idea of France benefited from a common Limey Bastard enemy just as much as the idea of Europe benefited from a common Musselman Bastard enemy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/32 "2011-10-06T01:23:54Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Don’t believe so. The Vikings had sort of the same thing going on with the \*[things](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_%28assembly%29) \*and _althings,_ but those ultimately devolved into hereditary monarchy like everyone else, similarly to how the Roman Republic gave way to Emperors. People with swords are generally quick to figure out their inherent socio-political advantage over people without swords. IOW, it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/33 "2011-10-06T01:26:16Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > In religious matters, the influence of the Roman Church will be lessened hopefully. Wait, what?! Is this a whoosh? What would there be instead? A [Celtic Church](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_church) independent of Rome? Or what? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/34 "2011-10-06T01:27:59Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > As **Capitaine Zombie** alludes, Edward the Confessor was far more of a despot than his contemporary Henry I of France. But at least he **admitted** it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/35 "2011-10-06T01:28:52Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > That one at least is pretty much a given. Can’t say it is a _given_. Just have Harold Godwinson’s great-grandson Sweyn II Wulfnothson marry Eleanor of Aquitaine and hello fireworks :D. But I’ll grant it is a heck of a lot less likely :). ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/36 "2011-10-06T01:38:34Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Can’t say it is a _given_. Just have Harold Godwinson’s great-grandson Sweyn II Wulfnothson marry Eleanor of Aquitaine and hello fireworks :D. > > But I’ll grant it is a heck of a lot less likely :). … Actually now that you mention it, and going by Murphy’s Law combined with Discworld’s rules of statistics, it’s almost a certainty. Joke aside, even assuming zero liege/lord bullhickey you just know the French kings, holding dominion over a (sort of) unified France, would have nigh instantly decided to fuck shit up in the next country over. I mean, that’s what we French do, let’s not kid ourselves about it. From then on, it’s really just a toss up between Screw D-Day, a Reverse Schlieffen Plan or Operation Reconquista-schmeconquista. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/37 "2011-10-06T01:52:08Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > At any rate, it has been argued that feudalism was already on the march in England pre-Conquest. It was a rational system and England wasn’t quite the isolated backwater some may suppose. Given the close proximity and what would have naturally been increasing economic and likely political ties to France, it is probably inevitable that some homegrown version would have been established in short order. I agree; it was already beginning there, and England was definitely not some backwater. In fact, it was already oen fo the richest posessions in Europe, and had King Harold more time to put an army together it’s unlikely anyone could have knocked him off his mountain. Indeed, even after racing his troops north, fighting and destroying Harold Hardrada, and then running back south to meet William of Normandy, he _still_ came within a hair’s breadth of winning. One minor note: it was actually middle/northern England that thrived during what we now call the Dark Ages, being a huge center of learning, wealth, and trade. However, the Vikings put an end to that, and did so with such gusto that the entirety of English civilization moved south. It’s intersting to consider that England today might have had a unified government around York rather than London, had history gone just a little differently. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/38 "2011-10-06T02:14:35Z")
Well, my ancestor wouldn’t have come over. [http://ourbartlettfamily.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-surname-origin.html](http://ourbartlettfamily.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-surname-origin.html) Father’s mother’s side. Course, they never really changed history much anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/39 "2011-10-06T02:36:19Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > One minor note: it was actually middle/northern England that thrived during what we now call the Dark Ages, being a huge center of learning, wealth, and trade. However, the Vikings put an end to that, and did so with such gusto that the entirety of English civilization moved south. It’s intersting to consider that England today might have had a unified government around York rather than London, had history gone just a little differently. Hmph. Never happen. No center of civilization will ever have a name as silly as “York.” Sounds like you just threw up in your mouth a little. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/40 "2011-10-06T03:54:29Z")
The English may have ended up looking different. IIRC, some physical traits like red hair and blue eyes became more common after the Conquest. But more importantly – and I have just scoured my history books but cannot find it, but I clearly remember reading it – a specific jaw pattern common to the mainlanders took hold in England, resulting in an especially noticeable change in appearance after some generations. Does this sound familiar to anyone? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684.md?page=3)