"William the Conqueror and The Harrying of the North" Topic

"The Harrying of the North was a campaign of brutal violence carried out in the north of England by King William I of England, in an attempt to stamp his authority on the region. He had recently conquered the country, but the north had always had an independent streak and he wasn't the first monarch to have to quell it; he was, however, to be famed as one of the most brutal. A question remains though: was it as brutal as legend has it, and can documents reveal the truth?

In 1066, William the Conqueror seized the crown of England thanks to victory at the Battle of Hastings and a brief campaign which led to the public submission of the country. He consolidated his hold in a series of campaigns which were effective in the south…"
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I live in the area harried. Domesday Book has nothing recorded because there was nothing left to tax. It was not until the 1183 Boldon Buke that there was much to record and therefore tax.

William was a 'pet' of the Pope, so if the Pope thought it was awful it was very awful. Up on the moors they still recall King William's winter passage with the phrase "swearing like King Billy". Apparently the Bastard was noted for vile language!

The villages of the North York Moors are reputedly the only ones that survived due to remoteness and the atrocious weather up there. Significantly, William only endowed castles along the line of the bottom of the southern scarp of the Moor plateau. Up above were unharried Wildlings! In contrast, villages on the upper part of the Great North Road seem to have been wiped from the face of the earth, and were only showing signs of (weak) economic activity 100 years later. In Saxon times these had been very prosperous indeed. They formed part of the power base of the Earls Edwin and Morcar pre-1066.