The Norman invasion and occupation of England was probably the most catastrophic single event in this nation's history. It brought slaughter, famine, scorched-earth warfare, slavery, and widespread land confiscation to the English population, along with a ruling class who had, in my cases, little but contempt for their new subjects. It wasn't until 1399, over three centuries after Duke Guillaume of Normandy launched his successful invasion, that England again had a king who spoke English as his first language.
The cataclysm of 1066 sparked nearly a decade of risings, rebellions and guerilla warfare across the country, as populations in north and south struggled unsuccessfully to repel the invaders. This resistance finds contemporary parallels in the struggles of the Viet Cong against the US army, or the French against the Nazis, yet today the English are remarkably ignorant of this period of our history.
This is all the more regrettable as the effects of Guillaume's invasion are still with us. In 21st century England, 70% of the land is still owned by less than 1% of the population; the second most unequal rate of land ownership on the planet, after Brazil. It is questionable whether this would be the case had the Normans not concentrated all of it in the hands of the king and his cronies nearly 1000 years ago.
Other Norman legacies remain with us too, or have only recently been purged from our society. Automatic hereditary monarchy, the 'ownership' of a wife by her husband, the inheritance of land and titles by the first-born son, the legal ownership of all lands by the monarch; all are Norman introductions. Historians today tend to sniff at the old radical idea of the 'Norman Yoke'. History, like any academic discipline, has it's fashions. In my view the Yoke was very real, and echoes of it can still be found today.
The first act of William the Conqueror, in 1067, was to declare that every acre of land in England now belonged to the monarch. This was unprecedented: Anglo-Saxon England had been a mosaic of landowners. Now there was just one. William then proceeded to parcel much of that land out to those who had fought with him at Hastings. This was the beginning of feudalism; it was also the beginning of the landowning culture that has plagued England – and Britain – ever since.
The dukes and earls who still own so much of the nation's land, and who feature every year on the breathless rich lists, are the beneficiaries of this astonishing land grab. William's 22nd great-granddaughter, who today sits on the throne, is still the legal owner of the whole of England. Even your house, if you've been able to afford one, is technically hers. You're a tenant, and the price of your tenancy is your loyalty to the crown. When the current monarch dies, her son will inherit the crown (another Norman innovation, incidentally, since Anglo-Saxon kings were elected). As Duke of Cornwall, he is the inheritor of land that William gave to Brian of Brittany in 1068, for helping to defeat the English at Hastings.
The land grab was not the only injustice perpetrated by the Normans that has echoed down the centuries. William built a network of castles with English slave labour from which he controlled the rebellious populace by force. This method of colonisation and control was later exported to Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as the descendants of the Norman kings extended their empire from England to the Celtic nations. They taxed the poor harshly (the Domesday book is a tax collector's manual), deepening rural poverty to enrich royal coffers which were used to fight the continental wars that ravaged medieval Europe. Not without justification has one historian referred to Norman rule as a system of "medieval apartheid".
The word 'murder' derives from the word 'murdrum.' Murdrum was a fine imposed by the first Norman king of England, Guillaume I, shortly after the conquest of 1066, and it was designed to protect the Normans who had come to England with him. If a Norman was found killed and the killer was not known, the murdrum fine was levied on the inhabitants of the entire area in which the body was found. The murdrum fine did not apply to English corpses, however.
Why would a law like this be needed? Presumably because a lot of Normans were turning up dead in mysterious circumstances. Many would have been victims of the people the Normans called the 'Silvatici' – the men of the woods, who were known to the English as 'green men'. The Silvatici was an underground resistance movement comparable to the French Resistance or the Viet Cong, and it flourished for a decade after the Conquest. It was mass resistance from the Silvatici that led to the Harrying of the North in 1069 – the land was stripped bare to leave them no hiding places – and to numerous other risings and rebellions which left a lot of Normans dead and made Guillaume's throne less secure than we might now assume. In fen, forest and field, it seems that a substantial proportion of the English population were prepared to resist their new masters.
Some of them remain legends to this day. On the fen island of Ely, an English landowner named Hereward resisted the Normans for years, building up an army of rebels, calling for assistance from the Danish king and, when Guillaume personally intervened in order to try and crush his rebellion, frustrating the king for years with tactics including the sacking of abbeys, the destruction of causeways and even the burning of the fens themselves. Over on the Welsh borders, an outlaw known as Eadric the Wild (or Eadric Silvaticus) refused to submit to the conqueror, and raised a rebel army which burned down Shrewsbury.
There would have been many more such rebels, forgotten now, who tried to hold back the tide of history. What do we remember of them today? Perhaps the English archetype of the outlaw in the greenwood, of whom Robin Hood is the best-known exemplar, began in the 1060s, with the rise of the rebels in the forests, fighting for their land. And perhaps we still see the green men in, of all places, our old Norman churches. It could be that those carved stone faces peering out from their haloes of leaves are more politically charged than we think.
These days, I can't stop myself wondering what kind of country this might be now if William had lost at Hastings. Would we have been spared the aristocratic estates and the hereditary monarchs? Could the industrial revolution, even the empire, have happened in the same way without that intense concentration of land and power? Would the English be a less deferential people than they often still, frustratingly, are?
Questions like this can never be answered. But I think it's worth noting that in 2012, as in 1066, the ruling class still drink wine while the "plebs" drink beer, much of the country remains the property of a few elite families and the descendants of the Normans remain wealthier than the general population. Meanwhile, the nation as a whole is paying the price for the rapacity of a wealthy elite which feels no obligation to its people.
But it's worth noting something else too. The Norman conquest spurred a decade-long campaign of underground resistance by guerrilla bands across England – a story that is largely forgotten now. The Normans called these rebels the "silvatici" – the men of the woods, or the wild men – and they proved as hard to defeat as guerrilla fighters always are. Though the Normans were never expelled, the spirit of the silvatici can be traced throughout later English history, from the Peasants' Revolt to the tales of Robin Hood.
Not everyone takes conquest lying down. Today's elites might like to take note.
Notice how bojo is talking about cyberwarfare, AI directing soldiers on strategy and directed energy weapons? All these things will be trained on UK citizens, and Kier starmer will support all of this bollocks.
A big boost in defence spending, just as another war monger is about to enter the White House. Wish our bastid politicians would stop being the jewnited state's bitch.
Aiden Bailey
Taxing pubs and alcohol and sugar
Cooper Rogers
hajdukpilled
Jayden Peterson
Exile them all.
Robert Gray
Trump will be President for at least 4 more years
Jordan Taylor
The Normans oppressed your people don’t you know Jack. Stop having stockhome syndrome.
Angel Green
this is connected to Biden and the burgeoning globalist hegemony
Mass migration of third worlders beginning after WW2 has been far more catastrophic.
Nathan Smith
lmao you need to stop browsing outer/pol/ and take a breath of reality. Trump lost.
Christian Thomas
Nothing wrong with the Normans.
Adrian Perez
Odd, I was shilling these the other day, shame about the whack eastern-euro colourways they do.
Connor Collins
>Where is Boris getting all this money from? These are the things required to suppress UK citizens for the great reset. Do not ask where the money comes from, it will be made available as required.
Alexander King
The election was obviously rigged and Trump will win in court. He's literally bunkering himself in the WH.
Delusional, even if the election was a fraud the cuckold yanks won't do shit, Trump is going.
Jackson Moore
It obviously wasn't rigged brainlet. Democrats are terrified for China Flu. They voted by post. Trump literally told all his supporters to vote on the day in person. Why is everyone surprised that all the mail-in ballots are for Biden?! It was funny for the first few days but now it's just sad.
Grayson Nelson
normandy?
Oliver Price
might finally win something
Ryder Butler
>The cold war >The war on drugs >The war on terrorism The war on corona The war on Right-wing extremist terrorists
Xavier Perry
>1488 >DT = Donald Trump >mfy side >burger The most amazing receipt I ever got
Jace Barnes
Ancient history bro, why you so buttmad over the normans lmao?
Landon Cox
Our governments are so fucking retarded it’s insane. Let me buy fucking BOATS rn when my country is going through a cultural and demographic change that is going to end civilization. These fucking neocon boomer faggots should all be killed and their heads hung as a reminder to wake THE FUCK UP
Noah Carter
Trump is President for at least 4 more years due to all the fraud that's being uncovered. 350% of voters voted in Michigan, for example.
Henry Foster
What, exactly, would a 'Covid-19 expert' have been in March?
Comfy ass fucking post and history lesson before bed thanks user Britain’s historical nuance and majesty like much of the west makes me weep for its dying future
ok what about >the Scyt twitter thing >the Frankfurt military raid >the Dominion thing >the deep state thing >the Haspel cia thing >the China virus thing >the Venezuela elections >the Soros goy >that Pelosi lady >the FBI thingy >muh Kraken >muh ballots on the blockchain cope harder
it will be Africans winning though, thats the point you idiot.
Lucas Allen
>Poland +23,975/+637
Poland absolutely BTFO.
Justin Williams
>tfw shipwright working at one of the yards that will build these ships
Mixed feelings honestly.
Noah Taylor
Extraordinarily boomer post. The modern day state of things has nothing to do with feudalism.
Carter Lee
What does brit/pol/ think of Corbyn?
Aside: why haven't the right-wing parties of UK pulled their fingers out of their asses and united? They could be a force.
Benjamin Russell
There are about a dozen counties in MI that have over 100% of voters voting. There are sworn affidavits, videos and pictures of perfect, no-crease Biden votes with printed circles over his namebox.
Christian Ward
Jesus and Christmas will destroy the govt, the experts and the virus..its going to be such fun watching them scramble & try to stay in control
Thanks Jesus. top lad.
Ryan Diaz
They are best trainers I ever had light strong comfortable and you can get decent colours or just black white.
You guys should be supporting English manufacturing and not globalist brands anyhow.
Got some good deals on moment they are friken amazing and they mainly sell in Japan Germany.
There are no right-wing parties in the UK, and there are no right-wing people in the UK. There are only two significant types of people in the UK; atheist materialist egalitarian revolutionaries and highly confused atheist materialist egalitarian revolutionaries
