# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/41 "2011-10-06T05:57:05Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Kind of a democratic society of true French that were to be run (ran? grammar help here) “to be run” is correct; “run” is the past participle and takes any auxiliary verbs that are going; “ran” is the past historic (passé simple, but in English everyone uses and understands it. Then again, we have far fewer verb forms). /grammar help ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/42 "2011-10-06T06:02:32Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Feudalism would not be installed in England England was already [completely feudal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harold%27sFealty.jpg) before the Conquest. > [@](#): > > Instead it will continue in its natural and traditional course of freedom with the Scandinavian and Teutonic nations. Such a free society, they didn’t even have a word for slave…oh, wait, [they did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrall). ---
**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, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/43 "2011-10-06T08:24:50Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > “to be run” is correct; “run” is the past participle and takes any auxiliary verbs that are going; “ran” is the past historic (passé simple, but in English everyone uses and understands it. Then again, we have far fewer verb forms). > > /grammar help Hey thanks, I have a few recurring blindspots in English, and run/ran is on top of that list (got the same problem with the past participle vs past simple of become/became). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/44 "2011-10-06T12:55:50Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Such a free society, they didn’t even have a word for slave…oh, wait, [they did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrall). A Hundred Quatloos on the Teutonic Warrior! ---
**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, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/45 "2011-10-06T13:05:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. Haha. In all seriousness, though, northern England was a thriving center; southern England was the backwater. This, of course, was one of the reasons the Vikings hit the place so hard, and wound up destroying more or less all the towns and monasteries. In fact, northern England was probably one of the wealthiest places in Europe post-Rome, until that. Fortunately, the name York was established later on. It was called North Umbria before that, and I think we can all agree that’s a very badass name. York was the sire of an old Roman center, but became established as part of the more modern Kingdom of England only around 1500, after a royal decree of 1484 (yes, I had to look the dates up). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/46 "2011-10-06T15:28:09Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Fortunately, the name York was established later on. It was called North Umbria before that, and I think we can all agree that’s a very badass name.. Northumbria was the kingdom of which York was the capital, but the city was never called Northumbria. The Romans called it Eboracum, the Saxons, Eoforwic, and the Vikings, Jorvik. Jorvik is the name that got turned into York. ---
**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, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/47 "2011-10-06T16:12:14Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Northumbria was the kingdom of which York was the capital, but the city was never called Northumbria. The Romans called it Eboracum, the Saxons, Eoforwic, and the Vikings, Jorvik. Jorvik is the name that got turned into York. Ah, I ued a vague “it” there. Sorry if I confused anyone. I meant to say “it” as the region of Northumbria predated the name “York.” ---
**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, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/48 "2011-10-06T16:35:46Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Fortunately, the name York was established later on. It was called North Umbria before that, and I think we can all agree that’s a very badass name. The historical implications . . . “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fan, I smell the blood of a Northumbrian!” “There’ll always be a Northumbria.” . . . “In plain Northumbrian, . . .” “A Northumbrian, an Alban and an Eiran walk into a bar . . .” No. Sorry. Badass as it be, it just doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/49 "2011-10-06T16:37:28Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Fortunately, the name York was established later on. It was called North Umbria before that, and I think we can all agree that’s a very badass name. Not too be a pedant, but it’s Northumbria, one word. York under Scandiwegians was called Jórvík, which is an even badass-er name. (And Eoforwic before that, but that just sounds like a speech impediment.) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/50 "2011-10-06T16:44:10Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > 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. Heh. What a droll juxtaposition of erudition and the vernacular! You be pimpin’ in style. ---
**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, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/51 "2011-10-06T16:53:13Z")
I recall one of my HS English books was [_The Medieval Myths,_](http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Myths-Norma-Lorre-Goodrich/dp/0452011280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317919270&sr=1-1) by Norman Lorre Goodrich, and one of the stories was “Peredur son of York,” which confused me a bit when I later did a term paper on Arthurian legends and encountered the same? a substantially similar? story in [_The Mabinogion_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion) – a collection of **Welsh** legends – called [“Peredur Son of Efrawg.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peredur_son_of_Efrawg) I guess that’s just the Welsh for “York,” derived from the Roman/Latin name, Eboracum, and probably pronounced efff[bilabial fricative]rrr[rolled][glottal g, also rolled][clearing of phlegm from larynx]. The story is similar to Chretien de Troyes’ [_Perceval_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceval,_the_Story_of_the_Grail) except that there is no Grail in it. Nobody’s sure if _Peredur_ was based on _Perceval_ or vice-versa or they drew on a common source or what. And of course a lot of medieval Grail literature, plus Wagner’s _Parsifal,_ was based on or inspired by _Perceval._ But I was never clear on the connection of any of the above to York or Northumbria. (Never heard of any other connection of that region to the Grail legends.) Does anybody know? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/52 "2011-10-06T20:40:18Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Hey thanks, I have a few recurring blindspots in English, and run/ran is on top of that list (got the same problem with the past participle vs past simple of become/became). No worries. “Became” is the past simple, “become” is the past participle. Once upon a time you could have said “I am become” (as in the Oppenheimer quote) along with “I am come” and so on, just as some French verbs take _être_, but it’s a terribly archaic construction now. /grammar ---
**Author:** ![Jaguars](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaguars/32/5879_2.png) [@Jaguars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaguars)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/53 "2011-10-06T21:14:41Z")
Without the invasion, we would be missing two of our best historical records [-The Domesday book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book) and the Bayeux tapestry. I guess eventually equivalent records would be produced, but without the necessity of getting a handle on a newly conquered country, they may have been a long time coming. So our viewpoint on that time would be considerably more vague. ---
**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, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/54 "2011-10-06T22:57:00Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > York under Scandiwegians was called Jórvík, which is an even badass-er name. “Theodoric of Jorvik, Medieval Barber/Judge . . .” It works! 🙂 ---
**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, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/55 "2011-10-06T23:18:38Z")
> [@Jaguars](#): > > Without the invasion, we would be missing two of our best historical records [-The Domesday book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book) and the Bayeux tapestry. I guess eventually equivalent records would be produced, but without the necessity of getting a handle on a newly conquered country, they may have been a long time coming. So our viewpoint on that time would be considerably more vague. Is our picture of contemporary France vague for that reason? ---
**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 7, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/56 "2011-10-07T01:32:28Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > 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. I concede the point there. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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? As seen by the Great Schism a Church could be independent of Rome. > [@MrDibble](#): > > England was already [completely feudal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harold%27sFealty.jpg) before the Conquest.Such a free society, they didn’t even have a word for slave…oh, wait, [they did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrall). I meant free in comparison to Continental Europe. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/57 "2011-10-07T02:18:41Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I meant free in comparison to Continental Europe. Well, how? I mean, would England’s Witenagemot or whatever survive and grow in power, while the rest of Europe (including Scandinavia) evolved into feudal monarchy with few or no democratic elements (as noted by **Kobal2** in post #24 and **Tamerlane** in post #30)? Why? ---
**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 7, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/58 "2011-10-07T03:14:36Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > 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? I guess that’s a “no.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/59 "2011-10-07T03:20:00Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I guess that’s a “no.” I always thought red hair in England came from transplanted Irish. ---
**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 7, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684/60 "2011-10-07T03:21:00Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I guess that’s a “no.” I’m no historian/geneticist but the invading Norman army was probably not even Norman in its majority. And seeing as the Normans themselves were bastards, I dont see how a such a thing could have happened (and I dont know how much invading peope vs local people you need to change the features of a pop). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-william-the-norman-had-not-conquered/598684.md?page=4)