Talk:Harrying of the North

message: Reading I've done, (the History of Ilkley by Collier) suggests there were two Harryings, with about 10 years between them. Can anyone comment on that assertion? thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which sounds a bit like Revolt of the Earls ... but it my recollection tallies with your "betrayed her husband to the king and became one of the first female land owners in England", which does not seem to be covered by that article's "Meanwhile the Countess held out in Norwich until she obtained terms for herself and her followers, who were deprived of their lands, but were allowed forty days to leave the realm. Thereupon the Countess retired to her estate in Brittany, where she was rejoined by her husband". I'm sure there's an article on her somewhere in wikipedia... the Revolt of the Earls doesn't sound much like a harrying, more your normal series of battles. --15:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I acctually live in what was Countess Edith's land in Northamptonshire or so I believe... I suspect the problem is that for so many years many chronicles and chroniclers were considered 'unreliable' that we have ended up with quite a few versions of that period of English history. I mean, for the longest time the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was considered unreliable. Blasted historians. They shouldn't revert more than 3 times in a 24 decade period >.< Narson 17:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooops. Judith, not Edith. Damn, my memory is failing in my old age. Narson 19:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, there was a second (some say even worse) Harrying in 1080, conducted by Bishop Odo of Bayeux (who also was directly responsible for much of the damage in 1069-1070). Orderic Vitalis describes Odo as one of the principal oppressors of the English people, so the English must have been relieved when he was imprisoned in 1082, and concerned when in September 1087 the Conqueror on his death-bed ordered Odo's release. Fortunately, Odo rebelled against William II in early 1088 and was defeated - in large measure by the English people, who thus exacted some revenge for 1066, 1069, 1070 and 1080. Zoetropo (talk) 06:45, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: How many harrys?

message: I'm not a historian and just read this page out of curiosity. But was very surprised to see the link between The Harrying and the present day relative poverty of the North. Is that credible?
80.229.137.151
:I'm not sure that this is entirely accurate. The north's period of greatest began to wane much earlier, with the barbarian raids of the Vikings who sacked Lindisfarne. Wessex in the south became most dominant after that. The Harrying of the North would have had a big effect, certainly but the Normans did a lot of rebuilding afterwards. I think an accumilation of continuous Scottish raids in the Middle Ages and then Herny VIII's destruction of the monastries moving towards to a far more centralised, London dominated state would have probably been the biggest cause of the north being poorer. In any case there are areas of relative prosperity in the north today, I think most sane people would prefer to live in Harrogate than Brixton. - Yorkshirian (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question 

message: As a non-British fellow, the clarity of this article & event would be vastly improved if a map was provided herein! 218.25.32.210 (talk) 03:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a generic contemporary north of england map. We could do with a better one, but I don't hold out much hope ... not sure how much information there is to identify the geography of the harrying. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need a map! 

message: the article says the death toll is believed to be over 100,000 but in the article World population estimates about the estimated world population the numbers are around 400.000 for this time and although those numbers are just guesses the percentage seems not plausible. Eeignet (talk) 11:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that you meant that estimates for the world population at that time was about 400,000,000? The Harrying of the North article states that the contemporary chronicler Orderic Vitalis said that the death toll was over 100,000, however Orderic was writing his account in Normandy and his information was largely derived from William of Poitiers Gesta Guillelmi. Other chroniclers such as William of Malmesbury described the destruction of the north from, apparently, first hand experience. The Domesday Book provides a fairly accurate survey of the people on the land, figures then have to be estimated for the women and children as well as the town dwellers, this comes out at about 2.25M ( see Bartlett. "England Under the Norman and Angevin kings" for more detail). Domesday compares the holdings under Edward the Confessor to the holdings in 1086, thus the Yorkshire Domesday is a record of the extent of waste due to the punitive measures taken during the winter of 1069-70 and enables a reasonably accurate figure to be extrapulated.Wilfridselsey (talk) 13:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  my bad Eeignet (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death toll 

message: It's a curious fact that in 1087, before William the Conqueror headed on his last journey to Normandy, Count Alan Rufus persuaded the King to come north to York to "refound" St Olave's Church as a way to apologise for the damage done during the Harrying. Zoetropo (talk) 06:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  St Olave's Church 

message: In the background information section there is the phrase "...Edgar Ætheling, grandson of Edmund and half-brother of Edward the Confessor." I read this as stating that Edgar was the half-brother to Edmund, whereas, surly the case is that Edward was the half-brother of Edmund Ironsides. Presumably then Edgar's relationship to Edward is something like half-grand-nephew, if such a term exists. 
So, should this phrase read something like "...Edgar Ætheling, the grandson of Edmund Ironsides who was half-brother to Edward the Confessor."?
Graham.Fountain | Talk 12:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right. I'll see what I can do. Wilfridselsey (talk) 13:04, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apparant error 

message: The article states that "the land was salted" - I very much doubt that the Normans gathered tons and tons of salt with which to render the entire countryside of the north infertile - "salting the earth" is a reference to an ancient *ritual* act, symbolically rendering a place uninhabitable for future generations, not to a practical method of rendering large tracts of farmland unproductive. This should be edited I think?
Mhilhorst (talk) 09:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and have removed the mention. Lumos3 (talk) 11:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the Romans might have actually done this round Carthage etc, but even there it should be mainly considered as symbolic, and the Normans surely lacked the technology and money to do this on any meaningful scale. Johnbod (talk) 11:12, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Salting the land"? 

message: I noticed on looking at the cited source for the Orderic quote in the "The Harrying" section that the quoted material does not match the actual source. The quote in the article is a paraphrase of the relevant portion of Orderic's words rather than a direct quote. Doing some digging, I came across what appears to be the source of this paraphrase at a now-defunct site for students about the Norman Conquest (see archive.org capture here); this site was referenced in an earlier version of the article. I can see why this quote was kept, being much more succinct than the original Orderic quote, but it struck me as odd that the quoted text did not actually appear in the source provided. I will leave it to more regular users to determine the best way to handle this issue; but in case anyone decides to use some part of the original Orderic that is cited, I will include a copy of the relevant text below this note for easy access. 108.48.97.105 (talk) 00:43, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orderic quote paraphrase 

message: Hey, I've been reading about William (the Conqueror), and found this article interesting. I did stumble over the style of the section "The Harrying" though, since by proportion there are more statements of views taken by some people today (I guess historians - the people have no Bio's here, so I couldn't tell who they are), than actual description of the harrying itself....
I would suggest to move this discussion to a separate section describing different views of the events at the least. 
To be honest, my feeling is that the "contrary" views are inserted in a one-sided and/or misleading way, and that current scientific opinion in general probably does not question the fact that scorched earth tactics were used in a widespread manner by William (and to pretty devastating effect). (As at least one of the historians is let to point out, this is something that occurred frighteningly often in history. But that doesn't make it any better, or mean that the act itself needs to be put in question, I think.)
I've not actually looked into that, but if that were the case, than a lot of the "contrary" views need to be removed as WP:Undue (as they are being undue prominence/ weight).
Regards 37.49.76.172 (talk) 08:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You should look at the  NPOV - Genocide? section on this page, for background. Although it is generally accepted that William did Harry the North, modern historians are split on how much destruction he was actually responsible for, and whether you can describe the action as Genocide, because what he did was regarded by some as the norm for that era. Thus there are many differing views on the amount of destruction, rather than contrary views, which is what is reflected in the text. Wilfridselsey (talk) 09:26, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeated statements of contrary views regarding the Harrying 

message: William in no actual sense of the word committed genocide, and the fact is that the sources for the Harrying being a genocide are bunk. A throwaway comment from Kapelle there (which is never really explored in depth), a non-academic source which compares the Norman occupation of England to the Nazi occupation of France there (The English Resistance: The Underground War Against the Normans), finish it off with a book by a genocide historian with no background in the period, and you get to pretend the categorisation of the Harrying of the North as a genocide can remotely be taken seriously. You might as well call the March to the Sea a genocide if you're counting the Harrying.
The Harrying was undoubtedly bad, an atrocity even by the standards of the time, but it was not a genocide. Genocide is not 'when a lot of people die'. Say this as someone with an immense fondness for pre-1066 England rivalled only by an immense dislike of historians of post-1066 England, btw, just to clarify where I'm coming from.
This is incorrect. The Doomsday Book clearly indicates a demographic population drop of around 75% in the areas Laid To Waste during "Williams campaigns" , and the intention of William's strategy was to ethnically cleanse the rebellious areas of his new Domain as they were Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and other culture groups of the at the time ethnically diverse inhabitants of what we now call Great Britain. 
The Harrying of the North Was a Genocide, and numerous desperate and varied contemporary scholars, Abbots, Bishops, Monks, oral traditions, folk tales, and indeed in GIS analysis of the main agricultural areas currently found across the north and in areas the doomsday book clearly tells were "laid to waste" In a way brutal and unseen even for the contemporaneous period of 1066 not just in Great Britain but across Western Europe.
I escalate this and contend that to uphold Wikimedia standards the claims of Genocide must be more strongly worded within the article.
What is your response?
Best.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.165.210 (talk) 23:40, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we can start by asking what percentage of scholars actually view it as a genocide - at present, the Great Famine of Ireland article states a minority of scholars assert that the aforementioned event was a genocide, which is all very well and true when backed up by good references. Unfortunately, the Harrying has only drawn a fraction of the level of scholarly analysis that the 'Potato Famine' has and is largely discussed in the matter of the north/south divide...1000 years past the event...--SinoDevonian (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Genocide' 

message: User:Wilfridselsey - you have reverted this edit from an IP editor today , and although there is an article worthy doubt that gets covered in out sentence on David Horspool, I wonder whether the IP editor is right inasmuch as this doubt is not leadworthy. Our lead, without the disputed material, already has  (my emphasis). We then go beyond what the article actually says by adding  when we only cite Horspool (2009). I would contest that the word "some" already presents information that this is not a universal view. The discussion and unpacking of that belongs in the main, not the lead. Thoughts? Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Sirfurboy - I think that you have to look at the history of this article for an answer. When the article just expressed the traditional or Orderic Vitalis description of events then the article had an NPOV template. Some work was done to try an express a more 'balanced' view, hence the inclusion of the word 'genocide' and the possibility that Williams army did not cause as much destruction as originally thought. The discussion around genocide is that essentially it is a modern word and we should not use it, to judge William by modern standards, as he was simply doing what armies at that time did. You quote the Horspool reference, but there is a much more solid analysis by Dalton(2002) which is referenced in the main text. He says that it was only possible for  Williams army to carry out an extremely limited campaign.  Historians (not referenced in article)  such as Wightman (Northern History 10. 1975) concluded that estates were written off as waste as an administrative or an accounting device. Palliser (Northern History 29. 1993) suggested that not one of the Domesday Books entries for waste , for Yorkshire, attributed it to military intervention. Also if you turn this argument on it's head, there were a lot of estates listed that were not waste, inferring either there was no or little military intervention. Personally I am not convinced on the genocide label, I think that William's objective was to get the surrender of the Northern Earls. His army was pretty thinly spread across England and Wales and he had other rebellions to put down and castles to guard. However, several historians have used it rightly or wrongly. So my conclusion is that the one sentence about dissent from the traditional view is leadworthy. Particularly as it appears to be evolving into the mainstream.  I would remove or modify the sentence  'Records from the Domesday Book of 1086 show that 75% of the population died or never returned' as it does not provide context.Wilfridselsey (talk) 08:04, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the explanation. On that basis I am content. On that last sentence, would it help to change the mood? "Records from the Domesday Book of 1086 suggest that as much as 75% of the population could have died or never returned". Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:45, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

text: Thanks. I made the edit. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doubts expressed re. genocide label/extent in the lead 

message: Change
Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Scandinavian and Danish rebellions.
To ---> Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged native Celt Briton, Angle, Anglo-Scandinavian and Norse rebellions.
I suggest these changes to increase the article's accuracy, the area subject to the harrying had a substantial diversity in terms of the peoples who lived in this area of Britain prior to 1066.
See the Brittonic Kingdom of Elmet, and the Norse Jorvik. (Modern day Norwegian/Dane/Swedish peoples)
There's a wealth of academic evidence showcasing that the Saxons never settled in the north.
So the article is Wrong stating that Anglo-Saxons (As a combined group) were targeted by the Massacre.
Only Britons in Elmet, Norse folk in Jorvik, and Anglian Northumbrians were specifically targeted by King William's Norman, Saxon, and South Anglican Forces during the Northern Harrying.
See the Domesday Book, Historia Brittonum, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and the Tribal Hidage, in addition to Norse Sagas written in Modern Yorkshire, Sweden, Norway, and North Denmark. as Irrifutable evidence in support of this. 79.70.70.215 (talk) 13:03, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Still no, per the above. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:57, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 2 April 2023