Everything about Harrying Of The North totally explained
The
Harrying (or
Harrowing)
of the North was a series of campaigns waged by
William the Conqueror, in the winter of
1069–
1070 in order to subjugate
Northern England and is part of the
Norman conquest of England. It effectively ended the quasi-independence of the region through wide scale destruction resulting in the relative pacification of the local population and the replacement of local
Anglo-
Danish lords with
Norman ones. The death toll is believed to be 150,000, with substantial social, cultural, and economic damage. Due to the
scorched earth policy, much of the land was laid waste and depopulated, a fact to which
Domesday Book, written almost two decades later, readily attests.
Background
With the abdication of
Edgar Ætheling from the kingship of England in December
1066, the population of northern England found themselves bereft of the state protection which a king provided, for William's victory hadn't been secured there. Despite their never having sworn allegiance to Edgar, William considered the northerners rebels as they were within the realm of
King Edward, whom he regarded as his direct predecessor.
Pre-conquest society can be described as “Anglo-Scandinavian” carrying a cultural continuity from a mixing of
Viking and Anglo-Celtic traditions. It was reported that the dialect of
English spoken in
Yorkshire was unintelligible to people from the south of England, the aristocracy was primarily
Danish in origin, and the
Anglo-Saxon kings were said to only exercise a limited amount of power in the shire.
William secured the situation in Northumbria with the quick appointment of
Copsi, a native who had done homage to William, as earl. The appointment didn't last as Copsi was murdered by
Osulf, son of Earl
Eadulf III of Bernicia, whose family had long been rulers of
Bernicia and at times Northumbria also. When the usurping Osulf was also killed, his cousin,
Cospatrick, bought the earldom from William. He wasn't long in power before he joined the Aetheling in rebellion in
1068. With support of
Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and
Morcar, the deposed
earl of Northumbria, Edgar rebelled against the new king but was immediately defeated. He fled to the court of King
Malcolm III of Scotland and there married his sister
Margaret to the Scottish king in expectation of assistance. Upon receiving the assistance, he began to plot with the
king of Denmark,
Sweyn II, a nephew of
King Canute. With his allied forces he invaded in
1069 to claim the crown to which the old
Witan had once elevated him. It was at this time, on
28 January, that the rebels converged on
Durham and murdered the newly-named earl
Robert de Comines, a
Norman who ignored the advice of William's ally, the
bishop of Durham,
Ethelwin.
The Harrying
At that juncture, Ethelwin abandoned the pro-Norman camp (the only English
prelate to do so) and a mixed army of
Gaels,
Vikings, and
Angles fell on the north to secure the throne for the old dynasty. The army captured
York, but made no other headway and the Northumbrians proclaimed no independent state. William promptly dispatched an army north to stop the attempted restoration of the West Saxon line to the throne. Again Edgar fled to Scotland and, for the first time in many years, the king of England paid the
Danes to leave his soil.
From the
Humber to
Tees, William's men burnt whole villages and slaughtered the inhabitants. Foodstores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would soon succumb to starvation over the winter. The survivors were reduced to
cannibalism, with one report stating that the
skulls of the dead were cracked open so that the brains could be eaten. A plague followed.
Even some people who were usually in support of William and the Normans were horrified by his actions;
Aftereffects and Legacy
Having effectively subdued the population, William carried out a wholesale replacement of Anglo-Saxon leaders with Norman ones in Yorkshire. He granted
Alain Le Roux the
Honour of Richmond in
1071 giving him control of York. As a result of the demographic decimation, Norman landowners sought settlers to work the agricultural fields. Evidence suggests that such barons were willing to rent lands to any men not obviously disloyal. Unlike the Vikings in the centuries before, Normans didn't settle wholesale in the shire, but only occupied the upper ranks of society. This allowed an Anglo-Scandinavian culture to survive beneath Norman rule. Evidence for continuity can be seen in the retention of many cultural traits:
It wasn't until
1072 that William appointed another earl in Northumbria and the Scots made peace. It was, further, not until
1074 that Edgar and William made peace and William's hold on the crown was theoretically uncontested.
From the Norman point of view, the tactics were a complete success, as large areas, including regions as south and west as
Staffordshire, were waste (
wasta est, as Domesday says) and further rebellions of any substance didn't occur. Contemporary biographers of William considered it to be his cruelest act and a stain upon his soul, but the deed was little mentioned before
Whig history and wasn't mainstream knowledge until then.
The effect on the north was immense and, in economic terms, there was a great inequality between North and South until the
Late Middle Ages and arguably into modern times. In the
fifteenth century, the
Council of the North was enacted to repair some of these inequities.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Harrying Of The North'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://harrying_of_the_north.totallyexplained.com">Harrying of the North Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
