It was very important. The Normans completely supplanted the ruling aristocracy of England and changed the culture of the country. The Normans were some serious bad asses and conquered Sicily and nearly conquered the Byzantine Empire. There’s a podcast on them called Norman Centuries which I also recommend.
The aristocracys were already interwed before the conquest. I mean williams wife was related by marriage to haralds wife, and this cementing of families continued. One impact you see is the saxon families ended up kore interwed to the scottish nobility, st margaret being an example
Attention-grabbing headline, but the article itself answers the question: very important.
"Hastings was one of those battles which changed the course of history, most directly for England but also, as events turned out, for Britain and for France... In terms of its consequences, Hastings must be the most important battle ever to have been fought in England... the consequences of its outcome changed the course of English history definitively."
When you think that the Norman successors still own the vast majority of England to this day, cramming the Anglo-Saxons into rabbit hutches on high density estates, very.
Based on what - that some of the aristocracy have French/Norman sounding names? A lot don't.
Nearly a thousand years of interbreeding insures that the genes have been well and truly intermixed by now. I have no idea if my ancestors were orginally saxon, norman or something else. And I expect that it true of 99% of other people in the UK.
Surely the alternative would have been that land being owned the Anglo-Danish elite installed by Cnut a few decades earlier, or perhaps a newly installed Norwegian elite had Harold lost at Stamford Bridge.
Britain's ownership inequality is probably more a result of the tradition of primogeniture where aristocratic land holdings remained concentrated whereas in France they were subdivided on inheritance.
I blame Britain's tiny homes on our early industrialisation creating terraced houses which have subsequently been difficult to redevelop at higher density. Other countries seem to have skipped that and instead built tenements that eventually turned into flats at a much higher floor area per land area.
The English class system is anchored in this event - the ruling/upper class was replaced in its entirety by the Norman invaders, leaving two very distinct identities.
A reporter for the Financial Times once asked Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster, what advice he would give to a young entrepreneur wanting to succeed. He joked: "Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror."
Didn't an existing class hierarchy (at least in part) enable the Normans to do this? When the aristocratic army was defeated, the entire country was defenceless and they could replace the existing aristocracy.
Indeed, and having replaced the aristocracy they let the 'lower classes' carry on much as they had before, continuing with their existing customs and (lower level) forms of governance - just with new 'top bosses' if you will.
So in comparison to other places that did not have such a wholesale aristocracy replacement, this really cemented the class divide. No longer was the aristocracy 'like you but richer/more powerful', but quite different - different language, customs etc.
1066 was the last successful invasion of the British mainland, so, aside from the odd civil war, no sweeping 'cataclysm' occurred to shake things up. We didn't even have a revolution like the French, instead a gradual (over centuries!) transition to our current democratic system, with a constitutional monarchy (itself a remnant of the old ruling system).
That odd civil war was more than a tiny bit like revolutions elsewhere though (violent beheadings, paranoid totalitarianism, bourgeois ascendancy) - it just happened a little earlier than others. British history is all gradual and continuous, except for the big abrupt cataclysm in the middle of it.
Right, but after about 11 years of Puritan government, people wanted Christmas back, so the monarchy was restored (but with a tacit understanding that sovereignty now laid with Parliament).
At the time it was important, but the real impact came later when it was absolutely pivotal in giving British school children something to learn about and write a report on for one summer of their school life. There isn't a single person who went to school in England who doesn't know about the battle, the Bayeux Tapestry, and the Doomsday book.
(Hyperbole obviously, before people reply to say they went to Hastings Secondary and have never heard of William the Conqueor.)
William the Conqueor was a fellow who used to make horns out of the shells of large sea snails; he used to travel across the Pacific in a catamaran, from island to island make horns and selling them.
If William the Conqueor had been on the English side at the Battle of Hastings then the English would have one because their warning horns would have been top notch, everybody says so.
Likely, the long-term outcome would be the same. Harald wouldn't have been in a great position to fight of William, either. He might have simply ceded southern England without even a fight.
And given William's subsequent Harrying of the North, I don't think that Harald would be able to hold on to it very long. He was intent on taking over the whole thing, and he had a much stronger force coming over the English Channel than over the North Sea.
Of course we can never really tell. I could spin a million other possible outcomes. But in this case, William really did have an overwhelming force. Godwinson had a home-field advantage, and might have won if he hadn't exhausted his force just getting there. The Vikings weren't going to fare better.
I was wondering a while ago what the outcome would have been if the order was reversed. Harold Godwinson might have fought off William of Normandy, but then be too exhausted to stop Harald Hardrada, all with just a few weeks of difference in timing.
Not affiliated, just a fan, but if this is a topic you're interested in, I highly recommend Michael Livingston's "1066: A Guide to the Battles and Campaigns."
>French customs then took root through England and English affairs began to change in various ways
You can replace this statement with French language and it's still be true:
French "language" then took root through England and English "language" began to change in various ways.
Fun facts, about one-third of modern English language are actually made up from French words and vocabulary.
I remember reading one posted announcement notice at a French university, and surprisingly understood most of the contents of the notice although it's written in French and I cannot speak French.
However, if I don't read the notice but relies on French to verbally reading the notice to me, I'd not understand the contents.
Apparently most of the working and professional words in English were taken from French (this made up most of the loan words from French to English). Thus the notice is easily understandable by reading it if you know English language since the notice is in professional setting (i.e university).
Hastings affected the wider politics of Europe, not just England. For centuries before Hastings, England had been involved with Scandinavia, especially Denmark and Norway. After Hastings it was totally entangled with France, pretty much forever.
The 1851 book "The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World"[0] and its ilk is likely what the author refers to when talking of "decisive battles where popularised in the 19th century".
It is pretty obvious that single battles hardly determine long war outcomes, but it's a pretty attractive idea that a kingdom can be lost for want of a nail and all that.
Thanks for the link. I had often heard of the importance of the battle of Marathon, but couldn't remember its provenance.
Here's an interesting excerpt from the Siege of Orleans though:
the struggle by which the unconscious heroine of France, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, rescued her country from becoming a second Ireland under the yoke of the triumphant English.
That's quite a statement from a 19thC English man.
I don't think that's obvious at all. I think there are obviously a mix of wars where the outcome was inevitable, and where it was decided through a series of one or more battles.
In WWI, for example, if Germany had won the battle of the Marne, they would have captured Paris in 1914 and likely (eventually) have won the war.
All I can say is that people do seem to overestimate the impact of losing a war. Just like they overestimate the need to wage war in the first place.
The main outcome of a war is loss of lives and infrastructure. Political changes are minor; maybe they will start teaching the language of the invader in schools as an elective... Maybe restaurants will get new foods added to the menu. Maybe taxes will go up a little... A bit more immigration from that country... Money will go to a different set of politicians.
But if you want a modern proof; look at Iraq and Afghanistan... Under US occupation for many years. They have the same people, same language, same culture, same everything as before... It's like they never lost any battles. Look at Germany after they lost WW2; they still speak German. Their cultural identity is still very strong; maybe it affected their foreign policy a little but apart from that, it's hard to tell.
War is truly useless except for those selling weapons and for a couple of big companies that are trying to acquire some mineral resources or securing some trade routes. There's really no other purpose.
My ancestors are from a country which (during the French revolution) had voluntarily changed 'ownership' from France to Britain and later back to France again. They still speak French. Nothing changed, at all, except for the fact that the elites conveniently avoided the Guillotine... Fast forward 300 years and you can't tell any cultural or economic difference at all from the other neighboring nations which remained under France and had experienced the Guillotine; same GDP numbers, same culture, same everything.
Anglo-Saxons like to make fun of the French for surrendering easily but as a regular citizen, it actually makes logical sense. I think it just shows that the government is better aligned with the interests of the people.
Strategic surrender is smart; if you know ahead of time which force is most powerful and can evaluate it objectively, you can save yourself the trouble of dying and you end up with a better outcome than you would have otherwise. It's risk management.
Of course, the Swiss are even smarter for staying neutral but France is too big to take a neutral stance (and they can actually drive outcomes) so they take one stance and then back-peddle if the tide turns.
And France does something else really smart which is; they embrace internal opposition; so if the tides turn, they allow the opposing elite take control without any fighting and it looks like France was always on the winning side.
Almost nobody recalls this, but during WW2, France was actually on the German side; president Philippe Pétain allowed the Germans in. But then later General De Gaulle pushed back when it looked like there was a good chance to turn the war around. And now everyone thinks France was always part of the allied forces.
French people hacked politics. I think now Americans are now also doing something similar. This is why the country is divided IMO and it's smart. Internal division is the cost of guaranteed victory.
It works so long as the population is politically flexible and only focus on what's important to them. If people don't mind changing religion or language or some laws, then it really doesn't matter who wins the war. If the enemy doesn't have clear objectives for a war, then the loser of the war can still control the outcome.
Describing Germany's loss in WW2 as 'affecting their foreign policy a little' represents a profound disconnect with reality, which is that WW2 fundamentally reshaped the entire world, cemented the US as a superpower, set up the USSR for its rise, split Germany in two (with major political effects to this day), ended European empires (UK, French), and ultimately brought about the EU. And those are just some of WW2's effects, which would have all gone completely different directions if Germany or Japan had won.
This is an elite narrative. What happened to normal people? In the real world? Germans still speak German. Germany is still very wealthy, many of the same companies are still around; including those which supported the Nazi war effort like Hugo Boss and Mercedes Benz. German chemical industry is extremely successful... Population of Germany exceeds that of France...
How did Germany's defeat actually negatively affect things for the people in the long run?
One of my ancestors (French side) had to close their business because they made the decision to keep paying for employee wages during the war while their business was forcibly put on hold by the French government... Winning the war didn't mean much to them... Mercedes people who made the German war machines were filling their pockets throughout the entire war. Didn't even negatively affect their reputation!
What happened to normal people is very different.
The people who won are those who looked out only for their own interests! It doesn't matter what side they were on.
> This is an elite narrative. What happened to normal people? In the real world?
What a rubbish point you're pushing. Millions and millions died or were exterminated. Countless fled or were forcefully displaced. The country was occupied and then split apart, the effects of the DDR can be felt to this day. The collective shame will outlast any generation alive today.
Many institutions survived, yes, as they often do. But everything else was a nightmare that echoes to this day.
There certainly were a lot of minor "elite" wars in Europe where power shifted back and forth across the aristocracy with no real difference to daily life. WW2 was not one of them. Nor, historically, was the Thirty Years War.
OP may be confused by the American colonial wars since Korea. Korea is the last one where you can see the difference in outcomes for the population.
> Look at Germany after they lost WW2; they still speak German. Their cultural identity is still very strong; maybe it affected their foreign policy a little but apart from that, it's hard to tell.
Name a more dramatic overnight cultural shift in all of human history than nazi to post war germany.
Germany was divided for more than forty years after the Second World War. That absolutely changed their foreign policy and those changes have continued to be felt into the present day. The Second World War ended traditional power structures and changed foreign policy for everyone. That’s reality.
The question was about the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Since the battle and the period following it are pretty well documented, there's no need to look for modern examples - we know what happened in England/Britain after William/Guillame won, and the results were absolutely transformative. Your summary of "the main outcome of a war" is completely disconnected from what took place in England after 1066.
I believe his point was that it was transformative for the elites (who are the one writing history) but not so much for society in general. A refreshing point of view; I also believe we tend to inflate the influence of war and politics and agency really in history.
If that was their point, then their point is completely wrong in the context of the War of Hastings.
Do you and the GP really not know anything about how William/Guillame's victory tranformed England, for everyone? The very language we're writing in at this very moment is a direct consequence of that victory.
I believe we all agree about the facts, just not about what constitutes an "important change".
Most people lives were unaffected; most people kept their language, their traditions etc. For contrast, compare with: the third Punic war, setting foot on America in 1493, the industrial revolutions...
Some of us have just decided that's where we draw the line: An event that is important enough to wipe out and replace the whole ruling class but that does not change, one way or another, the way people live, is not "important".
It is true that in the immediate aftermath of Hastings, life for most folks continued on largely as it had before.
But in the longer term both the administrative structure of the country (which very much affected individual folks' lives) and the language were significantly changed.
I don't see a reason to privilege one of these over the other. You could make the case, for example, that WWII was of little consequence because Germans today live much the same sort of life that they'd have been living if there had been no WWII. That's not clearly a false claim about people's lives, but it doesn't really serve the purpose of understanding the consequences of war very well.
This is not true. War materially changes the lives of the people before and after regardless of whether or not their language in customs are noticeably affected in the short term. Would you rather be a West German in 1938 or 1960? What about if you were Jewish?
I think the Jews in France in 1939 would have wished their government put up a better fight and had better generals who actually used the radio.
Also, the statement that France was on the German side is not true. The Germans conquered most of France in the first part of the war and installed a puppet regime that was loyal to them. This does not mean France was on the side of Germany, it means the Vichy puppet regime was.
You clearly know a decent amount about history, yet your analysis is so starkly wrong it appears you have an agenda.
My agenda is; I'm not going to war for any country because it's pointless. I think it's governments who have an agenda.
According to Claude, Petain was installed after France's defeat; that's true, but Vichy France was already considered collaborationist with Nazi Germany at the time. Many public figures were pro-nazi such as Coco Chanel.
It's kind of insane actually that seemingly many of the big companies which supported the Nazis are still in business and actually grew and became synonymous with luxury after the war; Chanel, Hugo Boss, Mercedes Benz...
You'd think it would be bad for reputation; but reputation is the bread and butter of these companies today!
What better way to illustrate just how wrong the masses are when it comes to war? Clearly what we were taught is wrong! It doesn't align with economic reality!
Doesn't this corroborate my point that who wins the war doesn't matter?
I seriously can't comprehend how anybody can say that the outcome of WWII didn't matter. For some wars, especially European wars before Napoleon, this is true. For WWII, I think there's a case to be made that no war in history has been more influential.
Your metric for what constitutes change is flawed. You can't say just because companies still exist and people still speak German that WWII doesn't matter. Seriously, take as step back and look at Germany before and after the war at all points. It's a completely different country that has fostered a people with completely different values.
Do you think Angela Merkel would have allowed so many refugees in if WWII never happened?
> Look at Germany after they lost WW2; they still speak German. Their cultural identity is still very strong; maybe it affected their foreign policy a little but apart from that, it's hard to tell.
What a comically bad take. I am looking at Germany and it is very easy to tell. Then go back a generation and look at what WWI did to Germany.
But as the article says, this battle really was tremendously important. The utter catastrophe led to the quick and permanent entrenchment of the Normans in Britain, with huge and long-reaching consequences reaching to the present: first and foremost, that the English language was profoundly altered at every level by influence from French.
>Anglo-Saxons like to make fun of the French for surrendering easily but as a regular citizen, it actually makes logical sense. I think it just shows that the government is better aligned with the interests of the people.
>Strategic surrender is smart; if you know ahead of time which force is most powerful and can evaluate it objectively, you can save yourself the trouble of dying and you end up with a better outcome than you would have otherwise. It's risk management.
France didn't particularly surrender early. WW2 France surrendered because they were fucked and didn't have a choice; if they hadn't surrendered when they did, they would have been slaughtered and then their replacements would surrender just the same.
Russia would have done the same (and in fact, Ukraine tried to switch sides, especially with the Holomodor in such recent memory), but the Nazis were not pragmatic about permitting 'subhumans' to live.
reply