Question for Brits and English History buffs

[JSojourner]

Supposing England remained dominated by Saxons (either the Normans are defeated or simply do not invade), how do you think the country would have been different throughout history -- then and now?

Was just reading a little about Edward the Confessor since today is the day the Anglican Church commemorates him.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Considering the importance of the Norman occupation (ahem) on social structure (such as the introduction of feudalism. I mean, highlight and underline this. Seriously), land ownership and so on, many of the differences would be so vast that it's impossible to speculate.

[patrick1]

Considering the importance of the Norman occupation (ahem) on social structure (such as the introduction of feudalism. I mean, highlight and underline this. Seriously), land ownership and so on, many of the differences would be so vast that it's impossible to speculate.

I took quite a bit of British and Irish history in college and continue to read up on it.  I never really read anything that stated this but one can really see the social/class stratification that remains even to this day in England and link it back to the conquest.  If you can recommend anything good I'd be much obliged.  I'm sure that the landed classes surnames are even majority Anglo Norman today.  I know that this definitely was the case in Ireland with many powerful Hiberno-Norman dynasties.

Another sidebar- do you think the social stratification would have any roots in Romano Briton times or is this a stretch.  I'd think that culture was co-opted by the Anglo Saxon cultural influx.

[k-onmmunist]

Pretty much too hard to speculate on. England would be ENTIRELY different in terms of culture, social structure, politics... everything.

[JSojourner]

I wish we had more written history from the Saxon period.  Those charters and grants are nice but I suspect we have culled just about everything we can possibly get from them.

If I could avoid disease, being disembowled or burned alive...I would love to go back to about 500 AD and just watch everything unfold until 1066.  Of course, King Alfred is a hero of mine.

[12th Doctor]

I speculated about the linguistic differences in this thread:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=102731.0

Other than that, like many other said, the structure of the culture was basically flipped over, though not as drastically as many like to think.

After all, the Norman's eventually ended up restoring much of the systems that had previously existed anyway, in the great arguments over the Laws of the Confessor.  Though the veracity of the Laws themselves is questionable, they were based off of previously existing Anglo-Saxon custom.  Later kings, like Henry II would do everything they could to out English the English.

This is not to say that nothing would have changed much.  Far from it.  Different world view, different people making the rules.

[12th Doctor]

Certainly, Britain's prime orientation would have remained toward the North, which would have opened the doors for all kinda of possibilities.  What of a new Cnut, another successful Norse invasion of England?  Or perhaps the reverse, with the Angles spreading their influence to the other side of the North Sea.

Keeping the Brits from mingling with the Continent is a hopeless adventure, however, since it was pretty inevitable.  As I pointed out, most Continental influences on England didn't come over with the Normans at all, but much later.