IT WAS a date that was to change our history forever.

Nine hundred and fifty years ago this week, the world of Anglo-Saxon England came to an end with defeat for King Harold at the Battle of Hastings by William Duke of Normandy.

It was a seismic event, akin some might say to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas or the defeat of the Confederacy states in the American Civil War; events that changed the lives of local people forever.

But did life change that much for the people of Hampshire after that October day in 1066?

In Hampshire and the rest of England and Wales, the arrival of the Normans meant the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture, laws and ways of living that had evolved since the end of the Roman occupation were replaced by a new way of life brought in by the conquerors.

But for ordinary residents the changes may not have been as dramatic or sudden as some historians might have us believe.

And while it is true that local rulers were replaced, forts and castles built and new laws usurped some old traditions, much of life in the county would have gone on as it had before.

So what did the Norman Conquest mean for the people of Southampton and Hampshire? And what would life have been like 950-years ago as news of the defeat at Hastings filtered through to the small towns and villages of the sparsely populated county?

With the exception of Winchester, then the capital of England, the rest of the county’s towns were small. Southampton despite its position as a thriving port – King Canute had been crowned in the town in 1016 – had a population of just 770 according to the Domesday Book, the census by which William l had listed all of his new kingdom. (London’s population was around 12,000, York about 8,000)

On the eve of the Norman Conquest, the majority of Hampshire people would have lived in little villages, where life was almost completely self-sufficient and self-supporting.

For two generations the land had been at peace and this had made it prosperous, taxes had been reduced and even the weather was good as England entered a phase when the summers were unusually warm and sunny and the winters mild.

Village life was isolated. A typical Hampshire village would have been surrounded by a fence and its land by another outer fence. Beyond that were miles of thick forest and heath where villagers would herd their pigs or gather logs, but would not willingly spend the night.

Tracks led to other villages. But although it was safe to wander, few had any reason to travel.

The village had evolved a complicated hierarchy and structure. At the bottom were serfs or slaves, then cottagers or cottars, then ceorls (churls), who farmed as much as fifty acres.

A local lord, or Thane, was the most important person. None of these people could claim the absolute ownership of land.

Each of them owed duties to the others above and below him. Nobody in theory was above the law.

Within his or her own village, Hampshire man or woman would have known everybody but knew little or anything of the outside world.

News that came into the village was brought by peddlers, or came down from the house of the lord.

News of the death of Harold and the new King William would have filtered through this way.

The village land was farmed as one large open field and it was ploughed in strips, usually ten times as long as they were wide because of the time wasted in turning a plough with a team of eight oxen.

The pasture for sheep and cattle was held in common, perhaps also the herds themselves.

The villagers hunted and fished and most rivers were teeming with fish and eels and the forest was full of game. Deer however were strictly the king’s or earl’s prerogative and the penalties for poaching were severe.

Houses were thatched, had wooden frames of oak or chestnut, with walls of wattle plastered with clay. Everyone lived round the central fire but could have separate huts for sleeping.

The thane’s house was larger as it had to accommodate anyone who came on officialbusiness to the village and had a strong palisade. Clustered around the thane’s house were the priest’s house and the church.

Some of the houses in the towns such Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester had the lower parts made of stone with the upper storey of wood.

There were few or no slaves in little villages, but they were numerous in the larger towns.

A man could be enslaved for robbery or failing to pay his taxes or fines.

Enslavement was the equal of long imprisonment now. It was possible to buy a slave in any town and tax would be paid, around fourpence for a man. The tax on the purchase of a horse was a penny at the time.

Thanes, or their sons or deputies when they grew old, gave military service and were the mainstay of the Fyrd, the army the King could call out, or the earls on the King’s behalf, to defend the realm.

Each was on call for two months in the year. He was equipped with a battle-axe sword and mace, helmet and his coat of chain-mail, or of leather with iron rings sewn on it, and his horse. The horse was for riding only, not for fighting as the English fought on foot.

Women were far from powerless and could be a landholder. It was common for bridegrooms to give estates to their brides, either as part of a marriage settlement or as the morning gift presented after the wedding night.

Wives were expected to carry out many tasks. They boiled meat and baked the bread; spun, dyed and wove wool and made the clothes; milked the sheep and goats and perhaps the cow, and made the butter and cheese.

Women brought up the children, fed the hens, worked in the fields at harvest, made the pots and brewed the beer.

There was no schooling for children who were expected to help look after the animals.

Church attendance was regular, where the village priest read a simple sermon. No one else in the village could read, except perhaps the thane and his family.

The love lives of Hampshire’s Saxon younger residents would have been recognised by teenagers today as they flirted with each other. Adultery was illegal, and the penalty for rape was castration.

For sport, villagers played a game that would have looked like a crude form of football as well as a game with a bat and ball that evolved to become cricket. Indoors they played draughts or checkers.

For entertainment, villagers had plenty of feasts to look forwarded to where great quantities of beer was brewed and consumed.

Christmas and the winter solstice, Easter and May Day, Whitsun, Rogation Day and Lammas, a harvest festival, a sowing festival and a ploughing festival, feasts on appropriate saints’ days and feasts on finishing haystacks all featured, as well as betrothals, weddings and birthdays.

It seems an idyllic world almost, even if life expectancy was much shorter than today and serious illness would have meant living with pain with little or no medical knowledge to fight off what are today easily defeated diseases and ailments.

On October 14 in 1066 events were unfolding that were to change this way of life for good – but not as sudden or dramatically as some might believe.

After the battle William struck for London, the largest town in the country which he knew he had to hold. Once London was taken Winchester capitulated and William was recognised as King.

Hampshire had escaped the risks of devastation by William’s army although some destruction took place in the north of the county as the Normans moved on London.

The uprisings against the Normans in other parts of the country did not take place in the south, ensuring that the population remained more or less safe from harassment.

The villages and towns of Hampshire would have learnt slowly of the King’s death and, once William was accepted as the new ruler, of the change of monarch. But this had happened many times before with the Viking invasions and in-fighting between the earls of the kingdom.

Ironically, it was in the Hampshire countryside that the greatest changes would be felt in the coming months and years as thanes and earls were replaced and Norman landowners took over and introduced the feudal system from the Continent.

After 1066, most English landowners were dispossessed and replaced by Frenchmen. An estimated 8,000 Normans came to Britain, many of these were landowners.

William kept about 17 per cent of the land for himself. Domesday shows that the church kept its lands more or less intact after the invasion and William carved up the rest to reward his French nobles.

Most of the upheaval seems to have taken place in the countryside. The towns, including Southampton which already had a French quarter, were largely left unchanged.

The English and the French cultures mixed, but many of the Norman land-owning Frenchmen returned to France and ruled their estates from there.

The most striking physical changes for village and town life would have been the building of what are easily recognised as classic Norman churches.

In Southampton the invasion was to eventually see the creation of the city walls andBargate and its castle.

At Porchester the old Roman fortress was turned into a Norman fortification that still stands today.

Southampton’s prospered as it became the major port of transit between Winchester and Normandy. The city’s St. Michael’s Church was founded four years after Hastings and dedicated to St. Michael, patron saint of Normandy.

The Augustinian priory at St. Denys, was founded on 364 acres of land granted by Henry I, the last of the Norman Kings, in 1127 and St. Denys Priory continued as a religious house until 1536.

Those living in land to the west of Southampton found themselves under direct rule from the new king as he created his New Forest which still exists today of course.

Winchester, which was to remain as capital of England until the 12th century, was fortified, again with city walls and a strong castle as well as the still-existing Great Hall.

Change came gradually in most places. Some old English common laws survived and still do to this day. Customs clung on and a few local Saxon nobility retained their lands and positions.

By the time of William’s death in 1087 England was under the Norman heel, but for local people life went on very much as it always had done.

The Normans wrote the history books and the victors forge history in their style which is why the Norman Conquest is often portrayed as sweeping away the old Anglo-Saxon way of life.

Yet much remained and remains today. In the end it is not the French language of the conqueror that is spoken here in Hampshire today, but English.

The Anglo Saxon Foundation. David Howard - England Before the Norman Conquest: englisc-gateway.com) * What might have happened if Harold had not been defeated at Hastings 950 years ago?

Victory was far from inevitable for Duke William of Normandy. Arriving on the south coast of England he found himself unopposed as Harold had marched north to York with his army to meet and destroy a Viking invasion led by his own brother Tostig and King Harald Hardrada of Norway who both died.

Hearing that William had landed with his army of around 10,000 Normans and mercenaries, Harold chose to march south. Even then battle was not certain.

The campaigning season was coming to a close. Harold could have remained in London drawing the English army that had on the whole dispersed throughout the kingdom to help bring in the harvest.

By the spring he could have had an army three times the size of William who would have been forced to live off the land he held on the south coast.

Historians believe Harold’s fateful decision to give battle was due to the fact that as well as King but as overlord of Wessex – the area that included the coast where William’s army was now marauding – it was his duty to defend his own people.

Harold also had an army that was equal to William’s in size and his men were seasoned fighters.

The English may have been portrayed as less well equipped or able fighters as the Normans by later chroniclers, yet they were capable warriors whose battle axes were feared by opponents.

They had, after all, just smashed the Viking army in the north and, as testament to their abilities, Williams was later to take English soldiers to France with him to put down a rebellion among his French subjects.

The battle itself on October 14, 1066 is well chronicled. How Harold took up the superior position on top of Senlac Hill forcing William’s men to attack up hill. How the Duke came close to death when knocked from his horse and his men almost faltered.

How the English held out for 11-hours but as dusk fell the Norman cavalry – the English had none – broke though the Housecarls and bodyguards protecting Harold and cut him down. He may or may not have been struck in the eye by an arrow.

If Harold had been able to hold out and stay alive for another twenty minutes as night fell he would have been able to escape and rally another army to him at London.

With their king with them the English might yet have thwarted Duke William’s plans of conquest, but it was not to be.

After the battle Harold’s body was so cut about that his former mistress, Edith Swan-neck (Eadgifu Swanneshals) was brought to identify his remains.

It was said William denied him a proper burial instructing that his body be thrown into the sea. In fact he is most likely to have been buried nearby in an unmarked grave.

So died Harold, last of the Saxon kings of England. Most of his nobles and family were killed or fled in the months to come.

Some of the Saxon nobles made their way to the Byzantine court at what is now Istanbul to become the famed Varangian warriors.

Had Harold won, then William, if he had lived, would have been ransomed back to his Norman family, if they wanted him.

England would have remained a Saxon country which had for centuries looked to northern Europe and Scandinavia as its sphere of influence.

William the Conqueror’s reign was to be bloody and oppressive.

When he died in Rouen in Normandy 21-years later his body was stripped and robbed by his followers and left lying on the bare stone floor of his palace.