4. The Harrying of the North

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  • Created by: Alasdair
  • Created on: 14-06-17 22:12
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  • 4. The Harrying of the North
    • The events
      • William burnt countryside and villages of north and parts of north-midlands
        • Policy was called 'scorched earth'
      • Policy was to ensure no future Viking and Scandinavian  lands would have anything to live of
      • Debatable extent of damage (death of population and livestock) was caused by William
      • Actions condemned by Orderic Vitalis despite training as a monk in Normandy who stated he would 'rather lament the griefs and suffering of the wretched people than make a vain attempt to flatter the perpetrator of  such infamy'
      • As William moved North from Nottingham to York, he devastated countryside, burnt York, before destroying much of Yorkshire in period after Christmas
      • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remarks: 'William went northwards with all his army that he could collect and utterly ravaged and laid waste that shire'
      • Continued to move north to Durham, as small parties of soldiers moved from village to village in period between Christmas and Easter
      • Some suggestion these actions spread to Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.
        • Evidence in Domeday Book destruction of these areas was on same scale as in York
      • Speed incredible as William returned to Winchester by Easter 1070
    • Impact
      • Scale of devastation in Yorkshire supported by Domesday Book which suggests areas ravaged in 1070 were still derelict 17 years later.
        • 33% of Yorkshire still 'waste'
        • Further 16% virtually without resources
      • Over 80% of wasteland recorded in Domesday Book was from Yorkshire although some have suggested this can be explained by clerks writing off areas for which they had no information - seems unlikely
      • Reports of columns of refugees leaving area, corpses on roadsides and famine, which had been caused by burning of barns where corn for both eating and sowing was stored
      • By wrecking barns, food for two years was destroyed, adding  to problem of famine.
      • Even evidence of refugees going as far south as Evesham in Worcestershire where they were so weak that despite being fed by Abbot of Evesham Abbey, they died of hunger
      • Farms left uncultivated and villages deserted as peasantry felt full force of Norman wrath
    • William on his deathbed allegedly said:
      • "I fell on the English of the northern shires like a ravaging lion. I commanded their houses and corn, with all their chattels, to be burnt without distinction, and large herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever they were found, both you and old, of that fine race of people'
        • Likely what Orderic Vitalis thought William should have said
    • Purpose of brutal policy:
      • Ensure neither Northumbria nor Mercia revolted again
        • If this was William's aim, appears to have been successful as for most part William had broken English will to resist (with exception of Hereward in 1071)
      • Certainly appears to be Stenton's view that this was 'the most terrible visitation that had ever fallen on any large part of England since Danish wars of Alfred's time' was correct

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