@justinneill5003

1 year ago

Excellent documentary, I've been fascinated by the history of Saxon England, and Harold in particular, but I still learned more from watching this. 1000 years on, this was still possibly the most dramatic and momentous sequence of events this country has ever seen, and because it resulted in the conquest, probably had a more profound, momentous and lasting effect on this nation than just about any other episode in our recorded history. It's sad that after a millennium, the earth now gives up so few clues about what happened that day, and history is written (or sewn onto cloth) by the victor to suit his purposes, much like the Tudors after the defeat of Richard III. It's a sobering thought that not a single aristocratic family in England can trace its noble lineage back further than the Norman conquest, because an entire layer of English society, the Saxon nobility, was totally wiped out; many slaughtered on the battlefield and in the battle's aftermath, or systematically dispossessed in the following weeks. I believe one Saxon earl did retain his title and lands for another year or two until he too was dispossessed by the Normans. It was literally out with the old, in with the new; the peasants feeding the pigs were still the same, but the lord in the castle collecting their taxes was new. And Tony was right, we are still living with the legacy of a rigid class system that has its roots in the Norman conquest. The nobility has become more diffuse over the centuries, with names of Celtic origin and some that are harder to identify, but just look how many of them still bear the prefix "De" or "Fitz" and you realise how comprehensive the influx of Normans was, all those years ago.

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