What happens to France without Anglo-Norman England?

Quick question, and it's all in the title I suppose, but;

If William is defeated and killed at Hastings and Anglo-Saxon England flourishes without the Normans, what happens to France?

ITTL Anglo-Saxon England does not look south as they have no claim to the lands there, so without Anglo-Norman intrigue et al does France still unite without the hated English to battle against?

Thanks in advance, SirClive.
 
A lot wil depend on what happens in Normandy, Will the surviving children of William maintain the rule in Normandy and if so will they or at least think they have a claim on more of France.
 
A lot wil depend on what happens in Normandy, Will the surviving children of William maintain the rule in Normandy and if so will they or at least think they have a claim on more of France.

That's going to depend a lot on later marriages.

Anjou-Normandy is still something of a possibility, and will be fought even harder to maintain.

I can't see an Aquitane match still happening though.

This might well see a harder job for the Kings of France as they've got to work their way through several relatively strong vassals who can more easily drum up cross-national support for autonomy, rather than essentially one big vassal who can be branded as simply trying to displace the Capetians.
 
It could go in any direction really, while the King of France is relatively weak only having firm control of the the Isle de France and Champagne the same could be said of the Grand Duke of Muscovy or the King of Castile. With the notable exception of England (which was already centralised) and the HRE (which was more centralised than France in 1066) almost all the European Kingdoms saw a massive increase in Royal power between 1066 and 1500 so I think you would probably see some kind of centralised Kingdom come into being west of the Rhine. However without English interference and with the influence of butterflies you might see the North-South, Frankish-Occitan split be more important.
 
It could go in any direction really, while the King of France is relatively weak only having firm control of the the Isle de France and Champagne the same could be said of the Grand Duke of Muscovy or the King of Castile. With the notable exception of England (which was already centralised) and the HRE (which was more centralised than France in 1066) almost all the European Kingdoms saw a massive increase in Royal power between 1066 and 1500 so I think you would probably see some kind of centralised Kingdom come into being west of the Rhine. However without English interference and with the influence of butterflies you might see the North-South, Frankish-Occitan split be more important.

I was under the impression Castille was far more centralised due to the nature of the Reconquista.
 
I was under the impression Castille was far more centralised due to the nature of the Reconquista.

This was my understanding as well, I imagined (probably incorrectly) that England formed due to Viking incursions, Castile (and later Spain) formed due to Muslim incursions and France due to English incursions?

Could we see a HRE type of France where Il-de-France/Champagne being Austria and the rest being powerful and semi-independent nobles/princes?
 
I think that France will probably still centralize, though perhaps more slowly. As has been mentioned, having one vassal that had half the kingdom under his control and then confiscating almost all his possessions allowed the French monarchy to become the dominant political force in France in one fell swoop. Without the Angevins, I could see it being a slower process as the great fiefs are one be one incorporated into the French crown. The French kings claims to supremacy were recognized in theory (but not fact) from the 12th century. It seems very likely to me that some similar process of centralization will happen in almost any timeline.
However, if France is not centralized by, say, 1300, which is easily within the realm of imagination, the princes will be too strong to gain a hold over due to the socio-economic shifts that concentrated power upwards as the Middle Ages progressed. French princes almost destroyed France in OTL. Who is to say that will not happen in another timeline?
Scipio
 
I was under the impression Castille was far more centralised due to the nature of the Reconquista.

As I understand it Castile was more centralised than France but less than England with some powerful magnates and border barons. The Muslim threat strengthened Royal power but also created a caste of border warlords who did a lot of raiding and exploited the lawless nature of the border. Basically the Welsh Marches times 10.
 
A big factor would be the County of Toulouse and Duchy of Aquitaine, both were culturally distinct from Paris and the French Monarchs being Occitan rather than Frankish. Additionally as you can see Aquitaine was enormous.

France_1154_Eng.jpg


This image is from 1154 but in 1066 Blois, Nevers, Flanders and Picardy were all outside the Royal Domain. As you can see Royal position was incredibly weak, especially with regards to the south were there are two potential "over-mighty vassals"/future independent states. So if the House of Poitiers doesn't die out and if the Albigensian Crusade doesn't destroy the County of Toulouse it's very easy to imagine the French Kings would never assert their authority over what is now Southern France and being linguistically separate as well as political autonomous it's very easy to imagine that that whole area would remain separate. And with "France" weaker it might never assimilate Brittany which might remain Celtic.
 
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