What if?????

Originally posted by Belisarius True, though perhaps I was not clear when said 'major European power'. What I meant was Britain as a dominant world colonial force, as Eurocentric as that may sound.

Precisely my point is that the Norman feudal interfernce in British affairs, using England as source of manpower for their dynastical quarrels in France actually retarded the potential for colonial expansion of England-Britain. If England wouldn't have been tied in French wars since 1314 to 1558, when the last British enclave in the mainland, Calais, was conquered by the French, they would have had more free time and resources to make expeditions to the newly discovered lands and possibly North American colonization and British colonization elsewhere would have started earlier. So I actually suspect that the Norman influence was rather negative for England in this matter.

It can be seen as positive for other potential rivals of France, though, as this country, the most populated and rich of all Europe at the time, had its hands full with the Anglo-Normans. Else the French might have tried to domnate all mainland Europe or something.