The Harrying of the North | Destruction, Famine, Submission

The Harrying of the North began just after Christmas in late 1069 and continued a few months into 1170. William the Conqueror employed scorched-earth attacks, destroying fields, animals, and the inhabitants rather than pursuing conventional warfare. The attacks killed, drove away, or starved almost seventy-five percent of the population. The vast destruction caused a decade of famine, taking centuries to recover.

The events leading up to this destruction began on January 28, 1069. At Durham, the Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian rebels ambushed the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines (or Cumin), killing him and his troops. 

In February, the Northumbrian rebellion continued when Edgar Ætheling, the last male heir of the Anglo-Saxon royal house, joined the Northumbrian rebels and destroyed the Norman garrison in York. William the Conqueror quickly reinforced York by building a second motte-and-bailey castle. 

King Sweyn II of Denmark sent an army to aid Edgar Ætheling and the rebels in an attack on York on September 21, 1069. They destroyed both Norman castles and killed many Norman soldiers. The Danes returned to their ships in the Humber in late 1069 after being paid off by William to leave the rebels vulnerable.

William’s armies spread out over more than one hundred miles of territory, as far north as the River Tyne. Food was so scarce in the aftermath that people resorted to eating horses, dogs, cats, and even human flesh.

In Libellus de Exordio, written between 1104 and 1107, Symeon of Durham, a Benedictine monk, wrote:

“It was horrible to observe, in houses, streets and roads, human corpses rotting... For no-one survived to cover them with earth, all having perished by the sword and starvation, or left the land of their fathers because of hunger.”