British cuisine would presumably feature rollmops and lutefisk on top of what they have now. shudder
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Did the concept of “Europe” even exist then?
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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 and 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.)
Don’t believe so. The Vikings had sort of the same thing going on with the *things *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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
… 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.
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.
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?
