Today in History: The Battle of Hastings [10/14/1066]

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[yankeedame]

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

Date: 14 October 1066
Location: Hastings, England
Result:

Decisive Norman victory

Combatants

Normans, supported by Bretons, Flemings & French v. Anglo-Saxons

Commanders William of Normandy, v. Odo of Bayeux Harold Godwinson

Strength
7,000-8,000 v. 7,000-8,000

Casualties
-- Unknown, thought to be around 2,000 killed and wounded
-- Unknown, but significantly more than the Normans

View from Battle Abbey to the field
where the Battle of Hastings took place.

(Oct. 14, 1066) Battle that ended in the defeat of Harold II of England by William, duke of Normandy, and established the Normans as rulers of England. On his deathbed Edward the Confessor had granted the English throne to Harold, earl of Wessex, despite an earlier promise to make William his heir. William crossed to England from Normandy with a skilled army of 4,000–7,000 men, landing at Pevensey in Sussex and moving eastward along the coast to Hastings. Harold met the Norman invaders with an army of 7,000 men, many of whom were exhausted from the forced march south to meet William following Harold's victory at the battle of Stamford Bridge three weeks earlier. The English were defeated after a day-long battle in which Harold was killed. After the battle, the Norman duke moved his army to London and was crowned William I on December 25.

External Links:

Hastings Battle 1066

1066 US

[TimSkalaBim]

It was a battle and outcome that shaped the political face of Europe for all subsequent history.

I'm curious to know if you think the shaping of Europe that occured after Hasting was for good, or ill, or neither, or both or something else? I've no motivation to ask, other than curiosity.

[GadareneDemoniac]

I'm proud that my ancestors had the good sense to leave France in 1066; and even more so to come to America a few hundred years later!!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Oops! Forwarding! This one is yours!

"Thanks for the map, pix. ...."

[bboop]

We were in York and didn't even go to this site. Duh. Is the bridge still there? The site marked? Must be marked. Harald did his best.

[middie]

The resulting period of Norman England changed world history that remains to this day. William's rule and subsequent rulers detached England from any claim by Scandinavian ruling familes' claim to the English throne. The Normans imposed a mandate on landed estate to provide trained fighters at the call of the crown. They dissipated the largest land holdings. The combination over time of the social and political changes created what passed down through English history as the gentry and royal classes that had the loyalties of those working the land under their protection.

When the Normans were sent packing and the Cornwellian dust-up was supressed, England was left with a society ripe for the evolution of the common law and an institution of popular representation--Parliament. Social institutions that promote popular and peaceful (relatively speaking) participation grow distinctly different from the royalty and ''Divine Right'' concepts of governing that remained and persisted on the continent until the Franco-German War of the mid-19th Century and the end of the Balance of Power philosophy of foreign affairs that resulted in WW I.

So, yes, in very few words, the introduction of, and eventual elimination of, Norman rule in England was the seminal cause of many beneficial effects on European as well as world history. I doubt that the exploration and settling of the part of North America that turned out to be the U.S. would have evolved in a popular government as it did. The post-Norman England from the 15th Century and its need for raw materials, hence the growth of its sea power, and trade developed in a way that I believe would have been starkely different but for the expulsion of the direct Norman rule but with distinctive remaining influence of Norman instituted social constructs from their time of rule; both a European flavor and a ever-evolving demand for popular government and equity in law. And this doesn't even consider the influence of the Scots and Irish (post-Cornwell).

[IronJack]

I assume "Cornwell" is "Cromwell."

[middie]

I can think, didn't say anything about typing...

[SunkenCiv]

Today in History:
The Norman conquest of England began 940 years ago today (1066 A.D.)
Answers.Com
Posted on 09/28/2006 2:48:03 PM EDT by yankeedame
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1710121/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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[decal]

The town of Stamfordbridge has grown around the site - there's just a small monument there now.

http://tourguide.panoptics.co.uk/view.php?tid=26&fullscreen=true&PHPSESSID=9a924bb6d1294814964754c5d52276dc

[middie]

One other note to your question about the Norman era of England: The language, social customs and political/law heritage of central Europe likely would have been different circa 9 A.D.by the political, strategic and fiscal decision of Caesar Augustus to abandon plans to colonize territory that has become first the Germanic states and now a more compact Germany. The language of Rome was not superimposed on the barbarian/Sandinavian tongues as it was on the Franks and Flemish along the North Sea littoral. The Indo-European languages prevailed and skipped in a linguistic crockpot to the English. Thus, we see today the mixture of an English language that contains Frankish culinary terms with Romanace Language, Latin origin lexicon of government and law with Saxon adjectives, nouns and verbs that cross all aspects of our language.

Norman England left a legacy of language that only partially filled out the lexicon and the rest from its later Saxon ties.

I don't mean to belabor the point but you asked a probing question.

[george76]

" Norman forces under William the Conqueror..."

Is it accurate to say that the Norman forces were former vikings who had settled in Normandy ?

[middie]

One other note to your question about the Norman era of England: The language, social customs and political/law heritage of central Europe likely would have been different circa 9 A.D.by the political, strategic and fiscal decision of Caesar Augustus to abandon plans to colonize territory that has become first the Germanic states and now a more compact Germany. The language of Rome was not superimposed on the barbarian/Sandinavian tongues as it was on the Franks and Flemish along the North Sea littoral. The Indo-European languages prevailed and skipped in a linguistic crockpot to the English. Thus, we see today the mixture of an English language that contains Frankish culinary terms with Romanace Language, Latin origin lexicon of government and law with Saxon adjectives, nouns and verbs that cross all aspects of our language.
Norman England left a legacy of language that only partially filled out the lexicon and the rest from its later Saxon ties.

I don't mean to belabor the point but you asked a probing question.

[george76]

" Norman forces under William the Conqueror..."

Is it accurate to say that the Norman forces were former vikings who had settled in Normandy ?

[middie]

I think there is some historical data that links the Franks to Viking explorations and settlements along the eastern Channel coast. The 8th - 9th Century Vikings had a trade route originating at what today is Sweden from a mid-Baltic port through to the North Sea and into England in what we know as the Northumbria and East Anglia regions and until mid-10th Century Scotland and the N.E. quadrant of the English isle was dominated by Scandanavia war lords. It would be reasonable to assume that they left linguistic as well as social influence on those regions as well as along the coastal area of today's Belgium and Netherlands.

Accurate to label Norman forces as decendants of Vikings? Sure, why not? It makes sense that at least some were. There is certain to be an atlas of world history that would answer the question better than a recollection from graduate school of forty years ago.