Alt Histories, continued: What if the Anglo-Saxons won in 1066?

My previous post discussed what a surviving Roman Empire would have done for the world, this next post examines another critical juncture in European history that would have had profound implications for modern life if it had gone the other way. For this scenario, let's assume the actual timeline of Rome stands, and Rome falls in 476 A.D, and the "barbarian" Germanic and Scandinavian tribes take over the formerly Roman lands. However, the Alt-History occurs in 1066, with Harold of the Anglo-Saxons defeating William I of Normandy. What would be the implications of a Saxon-held England after 1066? The short answer would be...Tremendous. What many people don't realize is that the Norman conquest of England, had it not happened, would have completely altered the modern world. Like my previous alt-hist post described, the modern language would be very different, with English being a derivative of Old English and Germanic languages, anyone speaking "English" would really be speaking mostly Germanic, Latin or Nordic dialects, with some Viking or possibly French mixed in, but no French to the extent of actual, modern English. Politically, the situation would be even more astounding. The political situation in Northern Europe during the eleventh century was one dominated by Nordic peoples, the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, the Picts, the Celts, the Jutes, and the Varangian Rus'. Prior to around 1000 A.D., these people had been largely autonomous, but after Kings Cnut and Alfred of Wessex brought the Nordic peoples together in England, Denmark, Norway, and most of the North Sea and Baltic Territories, the "Nordmen" began to trade in earnest, form unions, and became quite wealthy. English, Danish and Nordic goods were shipped into the lands of the Kievan Rus' and Novgorod, in what we now think of as Ukraine and Russia, respectively, and Russian grain and crops were shipped to Constantinople in the South, and back to England and the Northern Lands in the North. Roman goods from Constantinople and Rome itself would enter the triangle of trade at their respective origin points. By the end of Cnut's reign, this "Northern Empire" with strong ties to Rome and Constantinople was well established, with King Harold of England as the main political figurehead of this Empire. William I, of course, destroyed this fledgling society in 1066 with the Norman conquest. But, what would have happened had the English managed to repel the Norman French? What would the result be? The answer, besides an English language largely free from French, would be a political situation in Europe where all the wealth in the known world would start to flow in a triangular trade route from Constantinople to the Northern Empire to England and back again, with trade and income coming in from Asia as well. Eventually, the Northern Empire, under the Anglo-Saxon control, with the backing of the Varangian Russians, the Kievan Rus', Constantinople and Rome, would have colonized America, sometime around 1100 A.D. Vikings had already been there in about 1000 A.D., and permanent settlements would have appeared by 1100. The rest of Europe, in awe of the Northern Empire, would start to gravitate towards the North, away from Rome; even Rome and Constantinople would be revived by the amount of natural wealth coming from the New World and the Anglo-Saxon trade with the Native Americans, and the Dark Ages would have been made lighter, with a Renaissance happening much sooner than it actually did. By 1300, we could have expected the Northern Empire to control most of Europe and the Eastern Seaboard of North America, from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to what is now Miami Beach, Florida, and by 1500, another Roman Empire, this one under the control of London, Oslo, Moscow, Constantinople and Rome itself, only even larger, would likely have appeared. The Eastern Seaboard of North America would be almost completely English, Germanic, Viking or Russian, and a colony of the Nordic Empire in Europe. All of this could have happened, had that afternoon in 1066 just turned out a bit differently.