AHC: Normandy remains Scandanavian

How is it possible for Normandy, in france, to remain part of the Scandanavian world, culturally and politically, to the present day?
 
Very difficult, the two main problems are that it wasn't a true population replacement like Orkney but merely a new immigrant aristocracy and secondly at that point in time there wasn't such a thing as a Norse Christian culture, either you were Pagan Norse or you were Christian which meant Frankisation.
Secondly they were surrounded by and rapidly assimilated into the Frankish culture of their fellow nobles.
I think you could maintain a distinct semi-Norse aristocracy with a bit of butterflies, specifically have the Vikings raid, plunder and depopulate Neustria more before settling and then settle in greater numbers. Follow that by having even more autonomy from the Frankish Kings and a slower pace of Christianisation, possibly including a translation of the Bible and scriptures into Norse.
 
It is not.

I don't know about it having been that "Scandinavian" to begin with, but I don't see why Normandy COULDN'T have been Nordified to the same extent as England's Danelaw, where there was large-scale resettlement instead of merely introducing a new aristocracy (unless one means to claim that pre-Viking Normandy was somehow more populated than the larger and more prosperous Northumbrian part of England). Granted you'd need to work at it in terms of a timeline, but it doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all.
 
I don't know about it having been that "Scandinavian" to begin with, but I don't see why Normandy COULDN'T have been Nordified to the same extent as England's Danelaw, where there was large-scale resettlement instead of merely introducing a new aristocracy (unless one means to claim that pre-Viking Normandy was somehow more populated than the larger and more prosperous Northumbrian part of England). Granted you'd need to work at it in terms of a timeline, but it doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all.
So could you get it to the point where in the alt-nationalist age, they would have a distinct, germanic, language and culture?
 
I don't know about it having been that "Scandinavian" to begin with, but I don't see why Normandy COULDN'T have been Nordified to the same extent as England's Danelaw, where there was large-scale resettlement instead of merely introducing a new aristocracy (unless one means to claim that pre-Viking Normandy was somehow more populated than the larger and more prosperous Northumbrian part of England). Granted you'd need to work at it in terms of a timeline, but it doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all.

Because Norse and AngloSaxon language and culture were so close?

Seriously, look at Normandy, look at Russia. Both places the Norse disappeared with barely a slash, absorbed into the Christian culture surrounding them.

Besides. What replacement in the British Isles? The Danelaw has left England and English with a strong influence, but the place and language were clearly AngloSaxon. Even the Scottish isles, Gaelic took over, so 'Torfin' is a Gaelic name today. I lol('d when i read that in ?Buchan?.

So, youd need some really, really big pods for this to happen.

I wont call it asb, but i sureunderstand those who do.
 
Because Norse and AngloSaxon language and culture were so close?

Seriously, look at Normandy, look at Russia. Both places the Norse disappeared with barely a slash, absorbed into the Christian culture surrounding them.

Besides. What replacement in the British Isles? The Danelaw has left England and English with a strong influence, but the place and language were clearly AngloSaxon. Even the Scottish isles, Gaelic took over, so 'Torfin' is a Gaelic name today. I lol('d when i read that in ?Buchan?.

So, youd need some really, really big pods for this to happen.

I wont call it asb, but i sure understand those who do.

Yes, but IOTL neither Normandy nor Russia was RESETTLED by the Norse, merely ruled over by a small elite. Meanwhile, much of Britain and the Baltic were resettled by Anglo-Saxons and Germans (respectively) in opposition to speakers of rather alien languages, and what do folks in those places speak now? I never bought into the idea that the local language will always absorb that of the invaders; it's a strong possibility, but nowhere near a given.

What I suggest is a wholesale resettlement of Normandy by Norse families, with the locals either subsumed into the population (a la the Britons into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) or somehow displaced/killed off (which would be much, much harder to do than the former options, but it's hardly an unprecedented tactic).

I'm aware that you'd need a good POD or two to make this work, but I don't see the ASB-ness of it at all.
 
Yes, but IOTL neither Normandy nor Russia was RESETTLED by the Norse, merely ruled over by a small elite. Meanwhile, much of Britain and the Baltic were resettled by Anglo-Saxons and Germans (respectively) in opposition to speakers of rather alien languages, and what do folks in those places speak now? I never bought into the idea that the local language will always absorb that of the invaders; it's a strong possibility, but nowhere near a given.

What I suggest is a wholesale resettlement of Normandy by Norse families, with the locals either subsumed into the population (a la the Britons into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) or somehow displaced/killed off (which would be much, much harder to do than the former options, but it's hardly an unprecedented tactic).

I'm aware that you'd need a good POD or two to make this work, but I don't see the ASB-ness of it at all.
So you are saying that if more vikings settled normandy, and displaced the french, that Normandy could be norse-majority?
 
So you are saying that if more vikings settled normandy, and displaced the french, that Normandy could be norse-majority?

Maybe; I'd be more comfortable with saying that it's as likely as England ending up Norse majority with the right POD. Of course, that begs the question of "why wouldn't the Norse just settle there instead of Normandy/Neustria", which is a problem one would need to butterfly away for this idea to happen.
 
You hit the nail on the head, the Empire of the Franks was simply a much harder target than the Heptarchy and that meant the sort of sustained onslaught that made the establishment of the Danelaw possible and the ability to set up an independent realm (Jorvik) isn't there. I suspect Rollo would have liked to have emulated Ivar the Boneless and avoided Christianisation but he wasn't able to.
 
There weren't all that many Norman settlers in Normandy, and the Varangians were a tiny proportion of the total population of Russia (outside Ladoga) already by the 11th c.

It's hard, really. The Norse never had the numbers to replace more numerous and often more advanced peoples, though they were supremely effective at exploiting internal weaknesses to take over rulership or contribute to the aristocracy.
 
The Norse engaged in trading, raiding and colonization. In the latter, they were not very successful agianst policies that had their coprolites together. But Scandinavia produced a steady surplus of population looking for better land and climate.

What you need is a shattered France. Without any organization to resist, the Norse could replace the population, and Normandie today would be a unit more similar to Belgium. Or possibly Flander.

It is worth remembering that after a thousand years of lingusitic drift, my Norwegian still lest me chomp through Dutch texts, albeit slowly.

And the Norse did almost replace the British in the north of England. Like the Anglosaxons before them. It took the Harrowing to stop it.
 
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