[kirian]

"No diaspora of English nobility, many of whom left rather than become subject to Normans" - do you have any other links or more information about this comment, i.e. which nobles and where did they go? I'm curious to find out more as was not aware of this aspect. Thanks

[phillc73]

Harold's mother, Gytha, left England with other prominent nobles. I seemed to recall her going to Flanders, Wikipedia (that credible source) suggests somewhere in Scandinavia instead.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gytha_Thorkelsd%C3%B3ttir

Edit: Worth listening to are these BBC 4 In Our Time Podcasts.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011jvlt

The Domesday Book: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040llvb

[berntb]

Well, you got an influx to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard

"Composed primarily of Scandinavians for the first 100 years, the guard began to see increasing numbers of Anglo-Saxons after the successful invasion of England by the Normans.

[..]

the Guard was commonly called the Englinbarrangoi (Anglo-Varangians) [after a point]"

(That is all I really read about that subject.)

[ZanyProgrammer]

Though I seriously don't think that not having English Varangians would've changed the course of Byzantine History-Manizkert, the Crusades, and lots of infighting and civil wars would've probably still happened. Manzikert was only 5 years in the future.

[berntb]

Well, thinking about this a bit more... you could argue that my position is really simplified.

Christianity wasn't that nice either. Exterminating all competing religions (Asatru, Catharism, South American religions etc) and probably even worse pogroms than the Muslim world, etc.

[berntb]

I was answering a question about where the Anglo Saxon nobility went after 1066. I didn't touch the main subject of this discussion (how history would have been different).

Edit: But please expand on the subject, as if I had meant that. It would be interesting. :-)