How did the Battle of Hastings affect England?

Answer 1

Willam of Normandy became king. Many of his nobles were given lands formerly held by Saxon lords. The same applied to the Church. The Norman version of the feudal system was imposed.

Answer 2

The Battle of Hastings and the subsequent Norman conquest lead to drastic changes for the English people and culture. For the first time sinces the Roman Empire, England was connected to an international empire on the continent. The Normans controled lands in France, England, Sicily, and were attempting to attack Byzantium in Greece. The Normans treated England very much like the conquered province that it was. Four Fifths of the land in England changed hands from local Anglo-Saxon barons and earls to the Flemish, Bretish, and Norman lords who had supported William the Conqueror. The English were now captive in their own land. The English clergyman were all replaced with new Bishops from the continent, as were the members of the king's court. French became the language of politics, law, and religion. William also instituted the "Law of Englishry" whereby any corpse found in England was presumed to be that of a Norman unless it could be proven English. If the body could not be proven to be English, heavy fines were imposed on the inhabitants of the nearest town.
Over the next decades and proceeding centuries, the contact with France took a cultural effect on England. Many words from French were apopted and apapted into the English language. The English became to consume French products such as wine, and to adopt French styles of dressing.

Answer 3

Battle of Hastings was a decisive battle fought between Norman rule William and Anglo-Saxon king Harold II on 14th October, 1066. Before William of Normandy completed conquest of England, a fierce struggle for succession was taking place in England. With the success in Hastings, the Norman conquest was complete and it was the start of Norman dynasty which continued ruling England till 1154.

Answer 4

The Battle of Hastings in 1066 changed the course of English history by ending the Viking threat when William the Conqueror defeated Harald of Norway earlier. William then defeated his brother Harold at Hastings, becoming the first Normal ruler of England.

Answer 5

Significance of the Battle of Hastings: LanguageOne of the most obvious changes was the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect of Old French, as the language of the ruling classes in England, displacing Old English. Even after the decline of Norman, French retained the status of a prestige language for nearly 300 years and has had (with Norman) a significant influence on the language, which is easily visible in Modern English. Governmental systems Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon England had one of the most sophisticated governmental systems in Western Europe. All of England was divided into administrative units called shires (shares) of roughly uniform size and shape, which were run by officials known as "shire reeve" or "sheriff". The shires tended to be somewhat autonomous and lacked coordinated control. English government made heavy use of written documentation which was unusual for kingdoms in Western Europe and made for more efficient governance than word of mouth. The English developed permanent physical locations of government. Most medieval governments were always on the move, holding court wherever the weather and food or other matters were best at the moment. This practice limited the potential size and sophistication of a government body to whatever could be packed on a horse and cart, including the treasury and library. England had a permanent treasury at Winchester, from which a permanent government bureaucracy and document archive begun to grow. This sophisticated medieval form of government was handed over to the Normans and grew stronger. The Normans centralised the autonomous shire system. The Domesday Book exemplifies the practical codification which enabled Norman assimilation of conquered territories through central control of a census. It was the first kingdom-wide census taken in Europe since the time of the Romans, and enabled more efficient taxation of the Norman's new realm. Systems of accounting grew in sophistication. A government accounting office called the exchequer was established by Henry I; from 1150 onward this was located in Westminster. Anglo-Norman and French relations After the conquest, Anglo-Norman and French political relations became very complicated and somewhat hostile. The Normans retained control of the holdings in Normandy and were thus still vassals to the King of France. At the same time, they were their equals as King of England. On the one hand they owed fealty to the King of France, and on the other hand they did not, because they were peers. In the 1150s, with the creation of the Angevin Empire, the Plantagenets controlled half of France and all of England, dwarfing the power of the Capetians. Yet the Normans were still technically vassals to France. A crisis came in 1204 when French King Philip II seized all Norman and Angevin holdings in mainland France except Gascony. This led to the Hundred Years War when Anglo-Norman English kings tried to regain their dynastic holdings in France. During William's lifetime, his vast land gains were a source of great alarm to the King of France and the counts of Anjou and Flanders. Each did his best to diminish Normandy's holdings and power, leading to years of conflict in the region. English cultural development A direct consequence of the invasion was the near total elimination of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and the loss of English control over the Catholic Church in England. As William subdued rebels, he confiscated their lands and gave them to his Norman supporters. By the time of the Domesday Book, only two English landowners of any note had survived the displacement.[9] By 1096 no church See or Bishopric was held by any native Englishman; all were held by Normans. No other medieval European conquest of Christians by Christians had such devastating consequences for the defeated ruling class. Meanwhile, William's prestige among his followers increased tremendously because he was able to award them vast tracts of land at little cost to himself. His awards also had a basis in consolidating his own control; with each gift of land and titles, the newly-created feudal lord would have to build a castle and subdue the natives. Thus was the conquest self-perpetuating. Legacy As early as the 12th century the Dialogue concerning the Exchequer attests to considerable intermarriage between native English and Norman immigrants. Over the centuries, particularly after 1348 when the Black Death pandemic carried off a significant number of the English nobility, the two groups largely intermarried and became barely distinguishable. The Norman conquest was the last successful conquest of England, although some historians identify the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as the most recent successful invasion from the continent. Major invasion attempts were launched by the Spanish in 1588 and the French in 1744 and 1759, but in each case the combined impact of the weather and the attacks of the Royal Navy on their escort fleets thwarted the enterprise without the invading army even putting to sea. Invasions were also prepared by the French in 1805 and Nazi Germany in 1940, but these were abandoned after preliminary operations failed to overcome Britain's naval and, in the latter case, air defences. Various brief raids on British coasts were successful within their limited scope, such as those launched by the French during the Hundred Years War, the Spanish landing in Cornwall (Huernwall) in 1595, the Dutch raid on the Medway shipyards in 1667 and raids by Barbary pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_England#Significance

Answer 6

Its the last time an invasion of the British Isles has ever suceeded ! I know of only 2 others, both in the Napoleonic wars which amounted to nothing at all.

Answer 7

One change that the Battle of Hastings did to England was the language changed. The ruling class changed from Old English to an Old French dialect.

Answer 8

After the Battle of Hastings, the French siezed occupation of Britain. This was the last time Britain was ever invaded.

Answer 9

At Hastings in 1066, the [French] Normans defeated the [Anglo-Saxon] English and thereby conquered England.