to considerably widen the thread perspective here - and with reference to northernness or not on the 'our emma' thread - here's a quote from william the conqueror included in 'Book of Trespass' by Nick Hayes that i'm currently reading - the year after Harold fell orf his 'orse, William commenced a campaign titled 'The Harrying of the North'

- 'in mad fury i descended on the english of the north like a raging lion, and ordered that their homes and crops with all their equipment and furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So i chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of this fair people.'

- Alas indeed! I'd thoroughly recommend the book - it convincingly develops the argument that the owners of the land, the enclosures, the obscene greed and cruelty of our class system endures to this day in only slightly amended form.