Hi, guys, how are you, so i was wondering, how do you guy feel about the norman conquest, like are you proud of them conquering England, i think most of us feel more incline to side with Harold Godwinson or Edgar Aetheling since they are from the anglo-saxon house, and most of us are anglo-saxons, and of course that the normans replace most of anglo-saxon nobles, and confiscated the land of them, but at the same time William brought England the politics, the feudal system, architecture, that made modern England, but of course this new systems, constructions, etc, couldn't have been done without anglo-saxons, since of course anglo saxons were required to build, to fight, etc. And I honestly don't feel that much as if we anglo-saxons were replaced, or oppressed, since well there was never a caste system in where anglo-saxons were inferior to normans; or racism towards the anglo-saxons, but let's be honest normans weren't that much physically different to the anglo-saxons. And even the son of William I married the granddaughter of Alfred the Great, an anglo-saxon king. And also, when William conquered England, he declared himself King of England, didn't make it a new kingdom, or an extension of Normandy, he "became" english, and "adapted". And then there is a lot of people saying that france conquered us, but it was not france, it was a french guy, who was of nordic origin, I wonder if most of us have nordic ancestry because of this conquest or the multiple viking raids, but yeah i would rather be conquered by vikings, nordics, normans, than being conquered like for example spain who was conquered by muslims and north africans, or the celtics of france who were conquered by romans, etc. So let me know how do you feel about this theme, thank you for reading 😄

Making Anglo Saxon artefacts

https://www.instagram.com/nickberryart/

Hope it's not a stupid question

Hi,

I remember a few years finding an incredibly detailed blog/website that made the argument there had always been a Germanic/Old English speaking community in the east / parts of England pre the Anglo-Saxon period. A lot of etymological arguments were made using place names for example. I cannot for the life of me find it. Does anyone know where I could find it?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2

The Gretzinger et al. 2022 paper seems pretty conclusive that the English are a plurality Anglo-Saxon In heritage, with most of the non-Anglo-Saxon DNA, at least in the southeast of England, being French-like from medieval era and not native Briton. Why is it that such findings don't seem to have been widely disseminated and understood by many people? including people highly interested in genetics and history?

I think there is an issue with science communication on this issue, I don't remember the findings being explained clearly in the media at all, and the fact that English people are in fact mostly descended from migration era settlers is surely interesting and salient - especially as the paper gives estimates of native Briton ancestry as less than 20% in some regions. Yet I still see people posting theories from 2002 from Sykes and posting the 2015 era 2 way model studies like 'people of the British isles' everywhere.

The idea of English people as 20-40% Anglo Saxon and 60-80% Native Briton seems to have been ingrained into so many people and is proving a difficult illusion to break.

It is just surprising that such a massive paper from the largest and most respected genetics laboratory cannot get any penetration into popular consciousness.

Can anyone shed some light on the Belgic theory of southern Britain?

I’ve read about it and it seems fairly controversial however i remain curious .

The theory goes that “Germanics” from what is now Belgium were already in Britain partially around Kent in numbers before the Anglo Saxons began to arrive. (Separately isn’t it interesting/ ironic that ‘ Germanic’ is basically a Latin/celtic exonym for neighbour or them- basically an inverse Wealas/Wealh)

The theory is used to explain the well known phenomenon of the lack of influence of Brythonic on English although there is a lot a counter evidence to this appearing include phonics and sentence structure , plus the Britons of the east would have used a lot of vulgar Latin in daily speech, and likely a fairly different vocabulary to most of Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria but I digress.

Although it won't be published until next month a few of the new ideas found in Tom Licence's book on Harold have already come out in interviews and articles. To my knowledge he argues for two main revisions:

1. After the Battle of Stamford Bridge Harold Godwinson did not march overland to London but instead boarded a ship and sailed south, then making his actions at Hastings a joint operation between his fleet and army.

2. Harold lost the support and earned the ire of Pope Alexander II because he had supported an antipope.

Both are interesting ideas and I look forward to seeing Licence's arguments but the second one is particularly interesting. I remember reading a later letter of Alexander's which makes reference to nondescript "mali capitis" who held power in England before the Conquest and for as important as this letter seems it has never been mentioned in a biography of Harold to date, AFAIA. The only reference to it that I've seen is in Licence's biography of Edward the Confessor where he suggested that the evil head could be either Edward or Harold.

Has anyone seen any interviews or articles which reveal any more of the author's new ideas? What's everyone looking forward to most? Personally, I'm hoping that this book sheds greater light on Anglo-Papal relations around 1066 because they seem poorly understood and over the past decades a lot of groups with certain interests have taken advantage of that.

I've been really digging into the literature around early medieval landscape, and this paper is super interesting. Using deer bones found at archeological digs, along with other changes in landscape, weapons, and literature, Sykes constructs a timeline for an Anglo-Saxon social and political shift from a redistributive mode to a more privatized mode of elite control and social distance between elites and the rest of society.

It brings to mind a Beowulf-type scene of feasting and gift giving in Heorot ("Hart") changing over time to the lordly residences that we see just pre-Conquest. It also gives evidence that the type of elite social and political changes we see after the Normans (hunting as a status indicator, elite control over landscape, classic "feudalism") had started long before William crossed the Channel.

Hi all, I’m and 11th grade ELA teacher and we’re going to start reading Beowulf soon. My school population has quite a few Portuguese and Spanish speaking students. While I have many glossaries available to students, those who are just now moving to the US may struggle to get through the text. Whenever we read a text in class, I always encourage them to read it in English (as best as possible) and use a translated version that I supply as a support for reference.

I had no problem finding a Spanish edition free online for my students to use (here’s hoping it’s okay), but I’m struggling to even find the existence of a Portuguese edition. I know an actual translation will help more than just having kids type what they’re confused about into a digital translator, as already translated pieces tend to catch the nuance a bit better.

Any assistance is appreciated!!

Writing in the pit of World War II, Sir Frank Stenton conceded England’s founding historical source was flawed, partial and obviously legendary. But he said it was too important to doubt.

At the turn of the 20th Century, critics began doubting the credibility of the main source for early English history, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the news outlet of Alfred the Great’s Wessex. 

Some said it was a worthless tissue of origin myths, false place-names, inconsistent etymologies and chronological errors. Writing in the depths of World War II which threatened Britain’s obliteration, Sir Frank Stenton won extravagant academic praise for allegedly saving what amounts to Alfred’s justification for being king from the sceptics. 

He argued that, despite flaws, the Chronicle preserved an authentic, long-lost oral tradition and the genealogies of early medieval chieftains and real history. Stenton thought he had exonerated Alfred of the doubters’ charges that the history of the kingdom that became England is a forgery and political propaganda.

To read the full extract, click below:

https://wessexxfiles.substack.com/p/in-the-darkest-days-of-world-war

Alfred secured the throne of Wessex in 871 through a highly questionable political manoeuvre that sidelined his nephews who had a better claim.

 So, he badly needed to solidify his doubtful right to take the throne. To do this, he ordered scribes in his scriptorium literally to invent a 300-year-long genealogy claiming he had descended from a semi-mythological Germanic founder, Cerdic. 

This ignored great historical gaps, civil wars and usurpers to create a largely fictional unbroken line of father-to-son royal-blood succession. 

By this means, Alfred claimed his forebears were Germanic heroes descended from Woden. In fact, his family were Romano-British native and he claimed to rule Wessex by right of a conquest that never happened.

To read the full extract, click below: 

https://wessexxfiles.substack.com/p/alfred-the-great-built-a-myth-and

Now I dont really know if I have to look more into this but as far as I searched I couldnt find the origins or at least evidence for the lives of the kings (such as *Mordaf ap* *Hopkin* or *Eluid ap Fferferdynof* ) of"West Wales" in the period 790s-890s.

Vague names appear and it seems that the "kingdom" was conquered by the West Saxons in the early 9th Century. Donyarth, the only king I found in wikipedia (a questionable source for some) that has at least some background appears to have died in the 875. Thus my question arises, who were the kings from the battle of "Gafulforda" when the kingdom largely fell to the death of Donyarth and where can I find more information on them? Thank you.