Harold wins at Hastings

In response to Time Commanders, what would be the effect of a Harold win at Hastings?

 

Long term:
No British Empire.

Shorter term:
Heavy Cavalry will not be the 'ultimate' weapon of Medieval armies, but a flexible mixture of light & heavy mounted infantry.

Oh, Normandy gets smashed by the French, who claim it back. England, cut off from the Continent and without a reason to continually fight the French, has a prosperous time, and will probably take over Wales & Scotland (and Ireland?) before too long. Remembering that Harold II had beaten the Welsh so thoroughly that they beheaded their own king to make him go away...

 

English would be a less beautifull language....

 

The development towards using heavy cavalry as the main force of medieval armies was merely a practice that evolved from the system of proto-feudal lords who had the money and the time to purchase and learn to use the horses and heavy stuff required to be a knight in battle. This would have went the same way had William won or not, since it is a logical development from a rich elite and a culture which regards a horsed soldier to be worth ten foot soldiers!

 

True, far more German, and without that wonderful mixture of influences that make it fantastic to pun in!

 

Far more dutch me thinks, there are ppl in the north of holland who still speak a dailect very close to old english.

 

No, that culture was not there in pre-Conquest England!
We still clung to our Germanic roots which proclaimed that real fighting is fighting on foot, man to man, and being all butch & manly. Ok, so that last bit I added myself...

But in all seriousness, in terms of military status symbols, rich people showed their status in other ways. You hire a bunch of housecarls. These highly effective mercenaries were also blooming expensive, as not only did you pay their wages, and give them full board & lodging, but you also give them presents, too. The culture of the 'ring-giver' (Germanic & Celtic roots - the war-leader gives out expensive gifts to his dedicated followers)

Also, fighting from horseback was not something the English did. Why would they need to? Their enemies used heavy & light infantry, which is death to heavy cavalry. The English used heavy & light infantry. Unfortunately most of their light infantry had been chewed up at Fulford Gate, and the survivors were still marching down from Stamford Bridge.

The English certainly did not regard 1 horsed soldier as worth 10 foot soldiers. That was a Norman import.

 

Not in England, of course. What I was talking about was the general picture of Europe, since you said "Heavy Cavalry will not be the 'ultimate' weapon of Medieval armies". The development I mentioned was started in the Karolingian empire, which predated the Norman invasion by some 260 years. After all, continental Europe was shaped by Charlemagne, not by Harold of England.

Frysian is indeed very much like old English, but these are all languages of the Saxon family. The whole English language would be more Saxon, not specifically "German" or "Dutch" (the latter, btw, started out as a dialect of German). But certainly, when spoken, the Beowulf is more understandable to a Dutchman than Shakespeare's work.

 

Ah, yes, sorry.
I should have qualified my original statement better - I was thinking more Anglo-centric.

However - if battles between infantry & cavalry persist in infantry victories...

No, wait, they did anyway. In most battles, knights regularly dismounted to fight (see the 100 years war - Crecy & Poitiers are the only ones that do not follow this rule). Despite being made redundant by heavy infantry, and despite generally fighting as heavy infantry, the dunderhead social elite still believed in being knights on horseback. :roll: Right up until WW1 (and a bit beyond)

 

O.K.

I'm not being rude or argumentative, I just want to know...

How come if

Heavy cavalry decimated infantry that was not formed in a square as late as the Napoleonic wars?

I just don't understand, you are turning my perceived knowledge upside down :-?

 

Ok, it is dead simple...

If heavy cavalry attacks heavy infantry from the front, the cavarly loses.

If heavy cavalry is able, by skill or by good fortune, to attack heavy infantry from the side or rear, the cavalry stands a good chance of winning, provided the infantry do not recover from the initial shock before their formation is too broken.

Medieval formations tended to be quite deep, to allow plenty of men to step forward over the dead body of the man in front, and were therefore less susceptable to completely folding after being attacked in the rear. Plus, some units could (and did) provide all-round defence very quickly & easily - Pikemen are a good example here. In fact, the Scottish used a forerunner of the square at Bannockburn (and other battles) called the Schiltrom (spelling?). Basically a big circle of spear/pike men. It proved horribly effective against idiot English knights, but horribly vulnerable against archers...

Napoleonic warfare was all about getting as many muskets as possible to fire at the enemy at the same time. Therefore you get a 2 or 3 man deep formation, which is incredibly vulnerable to cavalry from the side or rear. So they developed the 'square'.

 

It was really all about guarding your flanks, horsemen are obviously much faster than footmen. So if the footmen deploy in a line then rather than attack frontally the horses will nip round the sides and rear. Once a foot formation looses cohesion individuals become highly vulnerable since a horseman has a huge height advantage. At Hastings the Saxons used woodlands to moor their flanks meaning the knights had to attack frontally. Unfortunately that means going into a wall of pointy things which no horse is willing to do.

As a battlefield wonder weapon the knight is greatly over rated (particularly pre plate armour) but in the "battlefield bully" role he excels.



Nuts Ricky got an answer in first

 

Anna Comnemna (spelling?) the Byzantine Princess had it right when she wrote of Norman knights:

(paraphrased) their charges always succeed, provided the enemy continually give ground.

If determined resistance is given, cavalry is doomed.

Placing cavalry as the centre of the army was a huge step backwards.
It is a useful shock troop and persuer of fleeing enemies, but nothing more.

Sorry Ebar!

 

Two other changes:

1) No castles in Britain. We would have stuck with the Burh - a communal fortress, for the townspeople, manned by the townspeople.

2) No prisons in Britain. Prisons were another Norman import. Before then (read any Anglo-Saxon Law Code - if you are immune to boredom) punishments were all fines (in money, goods or service) or mutilation / death for serious offences or those who could not or would not pay. People were not permitted to lie around all day wasting the King's money when they could be doing something useful...

 

Bu**er bang goes my lifestyle.

Mind you I suppose golf is useful.

 

:lol:
GP, a professional soldier was considered very useful. You'd be a housecarl...

 

But before the 18th century prisons were only for awaiting trial and execution. True imprisonment as a punishment in itself was an early modern development based on public authority seeing personal freedom as the greatest posession of a human being - nothing could be worse than to have it taken away.

 

then comes up the philsphocial question of what is freedom

 

Nope (well, kinda nope...) - the Normans actually lifted the death penalty in England. Although William I got fed up with Earl Waltheof and had him killed...

I take your point about imprisonment not being a punishment in itself up until the 18th Century, however in Anglo-Saxon England, people were not held in prisons prior to trial. This is a difference...

 

But I would have to work.