AthelingThe harrying of the north
William winters in Yorkshire and destroys the means of life across the north.
What the record says
Villages, stores, and livestock were burned between the Humber and the Tees. Chroniclers record famine the following year, and Domesday still shows the land as waste seventeen years later. The Danes were paid to leave.
Certainty
| Fact | Value | Certainty |
|---|---|---|
| Date | 1 December 1069 | Exact |
| How sure we are | High | Of this record as a whole |
People
Related events
- The Danes and the north take York
Sweyn’s fleet in the Humber joins Edgar, Waltheof, and the Northumbrians against the Norman garrison.
- Papal legates depose Stigand
The council at Winchester strips the old archbishop of Canterbury and Winchester.
- Lanfranc becomes archbishop
The abbot of Caen takes Canterbury and begins remaking the English church.
- Edwin and Morcar rise in the Midlands
The brothers leave court after the promised marriage to William’s daughter fails to happen.
- Matilda is crowned queen
The Whitsun coronation at Westminster gives the conquest a queen and, before the year is out, an English-born son.
Sources
Where this is recorded
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Avalon Project)
- Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. Thomas Forester
- Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum, in Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Thomas Arnold, Rolls Series, 1882 to 1885
- The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, trans. Thomas Forester
Named in the record
- Domesday Book
Suggest a correction Opens an email with the record filled in. A source helps and is not required. Submissions are reviewed against sources, and those that stand up go into the record and the game, with credit if you want it.