This guy had the weakest legitimate claim to the throne of England and didn't deserve to win at allIt just so happened he was fortunate enough (like most happenstances in life, your enemies' mistakes is your fortune) for Harold and Harald's armies to weaken each other at Stamford Bridge before he finished off Harold at Hastings.
He had no legitimate claim,he was a bastard
Right of conquest is the most tangible right
>>18034880So is it right for me to come to your house and bully you relentlessly while you cry for mommy, Anon?
>>18034785Literally the only person with any legitimacy or even recognised as heir by Edward when he lived was Edgar. Harold's claim was 'the King said so but he didn't tell anybody but me btw' and this is also William's claim. They didn't really give a shit about any real legitimacy
>Be Saxon peasant, thrall under Aethelwulf>Life is good>Then one day, 190 heavily armoured Normans roll up to your swinestall, throwing Aethelwulf's head in the mud>"This village now belongs to Roger de Montgomery, loyal baron of King William."How do you respond without them burning down you home as punishment?
>>18034904Get my house burnt down anyway because somebody else did 10km away
>>18034904Has anything changed other than the lord?
>>18034910He also doubles your taxes and confiscates your oxen.
>>18034914Well I don’t like that very much. Quite rude innit.
>>18034904Well I didn't vote for him.
>>18034904>"Ce village appartient désormais à Roger de Montgomery, baron fidèle du roi Guillaume."Oi, what did he say?
>>18034888If I were to cry "that's not right", would you stop doing whatever you're doing?No, you would stop only once police come and restrain you with the use of strength.You get what I mean now?Law without firepower is just words
>>18034899You forgot Harald Hardrada but yeah Godwinson and the Bastard were not legitimate heirs, I guess they just seized the opportunity
>>18035009>>18034888
>>18034904More like this:>Be Saxon peasant, thrall under Aethelwulf>Life sucks ass and you're literally the same value as 3 cows>Then one day, 190 heavily armoured Normans roll up to your swinestall, throwing Aethelwulf's head in the mud>"This village now belongs to Roger de Montgomery, loyal baron of King William.">They free you from slavery and give you a shit ton of holidays, beautiful buildings to be monks in, and begin taking actual scientific surveys of the kingdom
>>18035315>the anglo saxons did not have religious holidays or stone buildings before the conquest>the domesday survey was scientific in nature and not William appraising the exact financial value of his new domainAlso regarding english monasteries the first thing the normans did was loot their contents to redistribute as patronage to their favorite monasteries back in normandy
>>18035330Anti-Normanism was cool back in the 1800s. I think most historians today acknowledge that Normans were a blessing in disguise for the British islesAnglo Saxon buildings were wood for fucks sake. Norman architecture basically became the default medieval standard
>>18035338The looting of monasteries after the Conquest is well documented, anon, not some polemical invention by 19th century English nationalists. The fact is like all conquests it was a brutal affair that even second generation Norman historians acknowledged. I doubt those that managed to survive the Harrowing of the North felt much gratitude towards William kek
>>18034803Which explains why the English accepted his rule so easily
>>18035262Fucking hack plagiarized BrennusThat's why Caesar won, Pompey had no imagination
>>18035006>Hon hon hon where c'est le Anglo mademoiselles?
>>18035347Im not too familiar with William ever ordering the monasteries to be looted. He was pretty pious; asked the Pope if the invasion was okay, and the Pope totally sanctioned it actually, so...Like I said, anti-Normanism is over-played. If you can't see why England being absorbed into the Norman/French influence is a positive thing, then you're just being obtuse.>I doubt those that managed to survive the Harrowing of the North felt much gratitude towards William kekYou're acting like Anglo-Saxon England was some idyllic place...according to William's surgery, over 10% of the Anglo-Saxons were slaves.
>>18035367I get that you meant to say survey, but surgery sounds funnier.
>>18035367Pointing out that the Norman Conquest was a brutal affair that even their own historians noted isn't "anti-Normanism". The fact you have to rely on the same worn out tropes (they didn't use stone! >>/17990590/) to imply it was some kind of civilising mission by William and not another act of medieval conquest (with all the brutality and abuses of the conquered that implies) says it all.There certainly was no great cultural flourishing in the decades after the Conquest that would prove/imply William and his "Norman/French influence" unlocked anything.>You're acting like Anglo-Saxon England was some idyllic placeDon't strawman me. Slavery was already on the decline in Anglo-Saxon England and was only formally prohibited decades after the Conquest.
>>18035364And thus the English were born.
>>18035591It's one thing to point it out, it's another thing to pretend like the Norman Conquest was unusual at the time or anything beyond commonplaceWhat actually declined after the Conquest? Can you point out facets of England that became worse?
>>18035749Again, I never stated that the Norman Conquest was uniquely brutal or unusual for its time. My post was in reaction to greentext that implied the English experienced an immediate improvement in their living standards as a consequence of the Conquest.Please stop strawmanning >Can you point out facets of England that became worse?If I recall correctly a historian speculated that there was a significant decrease in life expectancy in Northern England after 1069 which he speculated may have been tied to William's attempts to improve literacy in Northumbria
>>18034785YOU HAVE NO LEGITIMATE CLAI-ACK
>>18034904Go back to soak in the swamp with my hefty wife Bertha and let them go back to their gay castles.
>>18035360Eh, Brennus was a foreign invader pressing whatever claims that he wanted. Pompey was btfoing enemies in a civil war and didn't want to get swamped down by obscure ancient laws.
>>18035755Okay, so after thinking about it, and you can't really seem to think of anyway England came out worse, do you admit that maybe the Norman Conquest was a blessing in disguise now?
>>18035338>Anti-Normanism was cool back in the 1800s.That was probably the century when Normans were seen most positively by English historiography. Before then it was popularly thought the Norman's were violent foreign invaders, who were overthrown by the English Plantagenet who restored English freedom (yes it was a bit silly) The 19th century was when a lot of the tropes of how the normans "civilised" were invented. This likely had something to do with the ongoing effort by the British empire to "civilise" India, and Brits looking back in history for a way to justify it - "see we were conquered and got civilised once, now we're just doing the same to over nations"
>>18035783kill yourself you retarded double nigger
>>18035783Anon there were still slaves being recorded in the Domesday Book as late as 1086. You have yet to point to a single improvement in English living standards in the aftermath of the Conquest.I could point to the Harrowing of the North, the forced labor to hastily produce castles that incited rebellion, or a dozen other things but I'm wasting my time arguing with some grand strategy autist that unironically thinks a new tech tree was unlocked by the English after the Conquest
>>18035827You unironically think the Anglo-Saxons would be better of like Ireland lmao
>>18035834"lmao" doing a lot of work in this post
>>18034785>This guy had the weakest legitimate claim to the throne of EnglandIt was better than the two Harolds, though that's not saying much. Edgar Aetheling was the only one who had a legit claim>It just so happened he was fortunate enough (like most happenstances in life, your enemies' mistakes is your fortune)Okay, I was wondering when the cope would start.
>>18035770Rome was all about obscure ancient laws thoughI see your point nonetheless, maybe I was too harsh on good ole Gnaeus. In his youth he had his moments
>>18034904Just kill em teebeehaych, I mean do you really think anyone's gonna come here up norf and harry me over it?
>>18035315>and give you a shit ton of holidaysHolidays hardly ever actually applied to serfs.>beautiful buildings to be monks inMost major monasteries were of Anglo-Saxon origin in Norman England and were made of stone.>>18035367>according to William's surgery, over 10% of the Anglo-Saxons were slaves.And during Norman rule nearly 90% of peasants became unfree serfs and laborers. >>18035834Anglo-Saxon England was nothing like Ireland. What kind of comparison is that?
