For that matter, Northumbrians would be more connected by trade and blood with Scandinavia and Scotland,
Other than a prolonged period of stable unity that hasn't rubbed anyone the wrong way.
There's nothing holding England together under the post-Saxon dynasties either except a combination of that and royal fiat, mostly the former (as royal fiat requires royal administration).
I don't want to say you couldn't have a split up - a weak king and strong earls would be a problem - but its not a matter of Mercians and Wessexers longing for the good old days of being their own states.
My point is that Harold doesn't need to commission an exhaustive survey to know this when he (as Earl of Wessex prior to being king of England) is familiar with conditions locally, and William who doesn't know England at all probably doesn't even know whether the locals call York Jorvik or not.
I'm not saying he intimately knows everything, but an Anglo-Saxon equivalent to the Doomsday book, if one was made, would probably be a slimmer volume.
Scotland? How do you work that out? Sure, Saxons and Gaels made plenty of political marriages; but Saint Peggy, to take the obvious example, was actually descended from the Wessex line and not Northumbrian at all.
Speaking of Scotland: although obviously we had the example, and the threat, of England spurring us on, our history goes to show that it's perfectly possible to institute *feudalism from the top down inside a country.
Would there have been similar effects on England if Harald had conquered them (massive loss of life and replacing a good chunk of the nobility) or would the changes to England be similar to Harold keeping his throne?
Nor am I saying that such a thing is inevitable, only possible. What other western European polity went through that period without even a threat of Balkanisation?
I think we're just talking about completely different things now.
I was thinking of the Lothians and whatever would be the borders area ITTL.
Didn't David invite Anglo-Normans to become lords in Scotland? Would you see an ambitious English king doing likewise?
The southeast had been gradually conquered before 1066, but the border was as yet far from fixed (William himself campaigned as far as the Forth, IIRC), and so it was considered to be 'England under the rule of the Scots' and somewhat distinct from Alba proper. Point is, there's no tie to the court of Alba - they were more interested in ties to Wessex, 'cos Wessex counted - no closeness to the Gaelic culture, and really no equivelent to the 'Anglo-Danish society'.
What did fix it? As in, what was the basis on which it was accepted that this part of Angle-land belonged to that side of the border?
The Davidian revolution largely did away with the administrative distinction (since it was no longer 'Gaels rule Saxons and Britons' but 'Frenchified and Latinised feudal classes rule everyone') and the border was settled with England at York in 1237, Berwick-on-Tweed and the Debatable Land notwithstanding.
What polity has ever gone through history without a chance of it? But saying that its a thing Anglo-Saxon England will have to deal with implies that you believe it would be more likely than OTL.
The southeast had been gradually conquered before 1066, but the border was as yet far from fixed (William himself campaigned as far as the Forth, IIRC), and so it was considered to be 'England under the rule of the Scots' and somewhat distinct from Alba proper. Point is, there's no tie to the court of Alba - they were more interested in ties to Wessex, 'cos Wessex counted - no closeness to the Gaelic culture, and really no equivelent to 'Anglo-Danish'.
Hmm. For us it was partly that we invited them before they turned up anyway, given what happened to the other bits of the islands outside England. And the Scottish feudal aristocracy was not entirely imported and did include Scots. So I don't think there would have been a Norman influx the size of ours (proportionately, I mean) if England has decided to have castles and cavalry at about that time. Certainly nothing like the total abolition of the Saxon landowners you got IOTL.
So presumably a matter of England's kings not feeling it was worth pushing it further and Scotland's kings in no position to push their side further, to possibly oversimplify for discussion's sake?
Saxon England would probably develop, very generally, along Franco-German lines, with a native nobility not having to rely upon a king to secure their rights over native peasantry and burghers.
Interestingly enough, it was actually us abandoning claims to the far north of modern England in the main. But yeah, nothing in Lothian is particularly worth having if you're looking at it from London.
Conversely, the king might back the native peasantry and burghers against the earls. In the short term over a different sort of relations in the social order (what's the Franco-Germanic equivalent of a thane?), in the long term possibly in the interests of securing royal power.
Makes sense.
By the way, for those of us not fluent in Scots(?), what does your sig say/mean?
Ah, no, I wasn't thinking so much among the royalty and nobility as among the people. My bad.
So if an English king wanted to feudalise he'd probably put out invitations more generally? Italians, Spaniards, Germans, as well as French?
By the way, for those of us not fluent in Scots(?), what does your sig say/mean?
Ah, now I think I'm able to say what I'm trying to get out. Norman nobles in England almost had to support the Norman king, because he was their font of power (or whatever). Saxon nobles wouldn't have that liability.
I have no idea...
If it does you no harm, it'll do you no good.
Interesting saying.
It's a good old piece of the grim Presbyterian wisdom, but the reason I always remember it is because my granny once had reason to attend an Orthodox service and heard it as a Mondegreen of some Church Slavonic liturgical chant, which is an image that stays with one...
But the Tweed valley and the other parts of the Marches are a quite limited area and don't include Lothian, which is cut off from them by some pretty rugged hills. There's no reason for people in Lothian to feel any fellow-feeling with Yorkshiremen. And the existence of the Marches never threatened England or Scotland as kingdoms: the Bordermen were too busy threatening each-other.
And in contrast to Norsemen, no Scotsmen - at this point and for centuries after, a 'Scotsman' was properly a Gael - actually lived in the north of England.
When I say 'feudalise', I mean some big reform of military-social structure. As someone has mentioned to, one might say of King Alfred that England had undergone something quite similar a couple of hundred years before. It could happen from within. After all, somebody had to invent feudalism to begin with.
Scotland was deliberately copying a successful system - partly as an alternative to having the said system come and impose itself. But English *feudalism - which need not look terribly look the OTL version - need not necessarily be imported at all.
Well, they had military force on their own, so it could be interesting.
I'd never realised that bit of geography, ah.
When did Saxons become respectable Lowlands Scots and Gaels become Erse barbarians?
Oh, of course, I was just making a fun suggestion.