In a few years a northman in blood was Archbishop of Canterbury and another northman in blood was Archbishop of York.
[Sidenote: The three Northern Kingdoms] The fusion might have been delayed if not wholly averted by continued descents from the Scandinavian homeland.

But with Eadred's reign the long attack which the northman had directed against western Christendom came, for a while at least, to an end.

On the world which it assailed its results had been immense.

It had utterly changed the face of the west.
The empire of Ecgberht, the empire of Charles the Great, had been alike dashed to pieces.

But break and change as it might, Christendom had held the northmen at bay.