The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Anglo Saxons ｜ Interview with Tom Rowsell

00:00:00.080 Hello and welcome to this interview where I should be talking with returning guest Tom Rousell. How are you?

00:00:04.880 Not bad, thanks, Bo. It's good to be back.

00:00:06.500 Yeah, no, great to have you back. Last time we talked about sort of much more pre-history of sort of like Bell Beakers and Iron Age and that sort of thing.

00:00:14.500 Silbury Hill.

00:00:15.340 So I thought this time we could skip out the Romans, because what did they ever do for us? 1.00

00:00:19.660 Yeah.

00:00:20.920 And start talking about the, try and pick your brain a bit about the Anglo-Saxons.

00:00:25.140 That's a topic I love.

00:00:25.880 So everything from sort of 410, when the Romans left, through to 1066.

00:00:32.240 Yeah.

00:00:32.720 Just sort of a bit of an overview, an hour, an hour and a half on that.

00:00:37.460 And hopefully it'll be enjoyable for people out there.

00:00:40.000 Yeah, whatever you want to know about, I'll try and talk about it as much as I can.

00:00:44.420 It's a topic I love, but I focus on specifically, like my areas of study for the Anglo-Saxons have mostly been to do with like the culture,

00:00:52.260 the religions, the like, you know, paganism and Christianity, the social structure and the general like Germanic ways of being,

00:01:03.180 like how they treated their lords, how they organized the land and how they made their art, where their art originates and this kind of thing.

00:01:12.760 rather than the dates that the different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms went to war with one another or things like that.

00:01:19.900 I know a bit about that, but that's like many people who are historians, like that would be their focus.

00:01:25.100 And they'd say, oh, yeah, well, when Offa did this and that and whatever.

00:01:28.600 But it's not the kind of history that is most interesting to me.

00:01:32.700 Okay, cool. Well, I thought I'd go through it sort of vaguely chronologically and just wherever the conversation takes us.

00:01:40.120 Yeah, because my understanding is much more that sort of classical, much more classical sort of story.

00:01:47.360 What kings, what dates, what kingdoms overtook, what other kings.

00:01:51.500 So hopefully between us.

00:01:52.500 Yeah, we'll get a more comprehensive picture then. You can pick up where I'm weak.

00:01:56.120 So one of the things I wanted to ask you about is before we sort of start, it's just in a general.

00:02:03.180 We haven't started yet.

00:02:04.320 Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Before I start on like what happened in 410 or 409.

00:02:09.940 Just a general point. I was reading a book just the other day for this, just sort of brushing up a more modern book.

00:02:18.020 Mark Morris, it was. And he was just making the point that I thought was interesting.

00:02:22.280 That the world in, say, 450 AD, all of this is going to be AD.

00:02:29.100 The world in, say, 450 is very, very, very different to 1050.

00:02:35.260 Mm, yes. Yes.

00:02:37.100 And, but people, a lot of people might think, you know, Fetty Lone Resolution, it's just the Anglo-Saxon period.

00:02:42.880 It's just, they're all, you know, like there's not much difference between Radwold and Harold Godwinson.

00:02:50.180 But in fact, they'll be very different people. They lived in very different worlds.

00:02:54.260 Do you think that's fair to say?

00:02:55.240 Yeah, I think there's some problem like with what dark ages means.

00:02:58.780 Like nowadays, historians don't say dark ages, but because they think, you know, it's misleading.

00:03:04.460 It wasn't a dark age in some respects, but, and so it, you know, less popular to use.

00:03:11.560 But it was a dark age. Initially, it was called a dark age because we don't have as much insights in this dark period.

00:03:19.340 The Romans wrote a lot of things down.

00:03:21.440 And then suddenly, as the Roman Empire falls, there's just this period where we don't have much written down until like the monasteries start, you know, writing stuff down a lot again.

00:03:28.960 So like the high middle ages is a tie is not really the dark ages, like the high that when we think of knights and shining armor, we're talking about 12th century, 13th century, whatever, 14th century.

00:03:40.760 That is completely different. That's that period is a bit more like 1066, but the, the 450 is your, it's an age of, well, it's the darkest dark age because it's not only did like all like we can see production of like the kind of factories of the time, like producing pottery and stuff.

00:04:05.220 This is just gone. They're not there anymore. People aren't producing things and distributing like on mass, like things like, you know, basic stuff like pottery and huge cultural turnover happens, turmoil, all different parts of Europe, not just in Britain, but, you know, like Clovis and the Franks, the Franks are like a German, Germanic people take over Roman Gaul.

00:04:33.140 And that's like a completely different world from like, you're talking about Gaul was like a very well-established Roman colony with a proper Romanized state and a system of taxation in place in Gaul.

00:04:48.720 And suddenly it's completely ruled over by barbarians. And this is like, not like the middle ages at all. You're more, it's more like a kind of the transition away from the classical Europe of the, of ancient Rome into the dark period that leads into the high middle ages. 0.68

00:05:10.720 After this, this period of what Julius Evola is not a proper historian is a philosopher of it more than that, but he calls it like the Nordic Roman culture, which is the period in which the peripheral barbarians merge with the civilized cultures of the Mediterranean to form the synthesis, which is Europe as we know it today, the Nordic Roman combination.

00:05:38.720 Yeah.

00:05:40.720 Because I, I'm one of those people who won't abandon the term dark age, because I know what I'm talking about there is the literary evidence.

00:05:50.720 Yeah.

00:05:51.720 There's very little.

00:05:52.720 Because the archeology, yeah, nothing stopped. Life didn't stop. So the archeology is still, there's still tons of archeology. And, but in terms of the literary evidence and the light of history in terms of literary evidence, it goes dark big time.

00:06:09.720 Yeah.

00:06:10.720 So for example, just for, well, quickly to say, cause I quite often do at the beginning, towards the beginning of my videos to talk about the sources. So we're looking at, um, the venerable bead.

00:06:17.720 Yes.

00:06:18.720 Um, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

00:06:20.720 Yes.

00:06:21.720 Uh, Gildas.

00:06:22.720 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gildas. Um, and even you've got maybe doomsday, I know, doomsday, but I know that's later, that's much, much later, but it is a snapshot essentially of late Anglo-Saxon England, not Norman England.

00:06:35.720 I mean, it was 20 odd years after 1066, but, um, it takes a picture of largely an Anglo-Saxon world still.

00:06:43.720 Yes.

00:06:44.720 So we've got bits and boxes.

00:06:45.720 Geoffrey of Monmouth.

00:06:46.720 Yeah.

00:06:47.720 Asa's life of Alfred.

00:06:48.720 Uh, those are the main things anyway, for Britain at least.

00:06:52.720 Right. For Britain. 0.67

00:06:53.720 There's other things, you know, like what, there's Aldrich Vitalis talk about earlier periods.

00:06:57.720 Um, but the point is that that's not a great deal.

00:07:01.720 No.

00:07:02.720 That's not a great deal.

00:07:03.720 We're talking about centuries of history for like several nations in, in the, in the Northwest of Europe.

00:07:08.720 And for the earliest bits, it's sort of, it's kind of bead, right?

00:07:13.720 Yeah.

00:07:14.720 It's like this.

00:07:15.720 So if he doesn't tell you something, then we just don't know.

00:07:18.720 You've got the archeological record, but in terms of literary evidence, it's really dark.

00:07:23.720 It's gone dark.

00:07:24.720 There's, there's not so much, there's not as much.

00:07:26.720 Yeah.

00:07:27.720 It is an appropriate term in that sense.

00:07:29.720 It has some currency still.

00:07:30.720 Uh, uh, uh, uh, but I, and also, and there is an archeological equivalent as well.

00:07:35.720 Like I said, there is a change.

00:07:37.720 The Justinian plague maybe contributed to this, but things are not like they used to be in Northwestern Europe, uh, at that point.

00:07:46.720 And it's not just because it's not actually because the Anglo-Saxons brought a dark age, the dark, they came to a darken place. 0.88

00:07:53.720 Uh, it was very different.

00:07:56.720 I like to compare for that period, maybe France and England to show the difference because Gaul was a Roman colony that was with proper Roman infrastructure and remained.

00:08:07.720 So even after the fall of Rome, Britain was not because the Romans literally retreated in the same way Americans retreated from Afghanistan.

00:08:18.720 They just left and the Romanized Britons who couldn't go and move somewhere else. 0.99

00:08:24.720 That was more civilized.

00:08:25.720 We're just left with like, there's no infrastructure and the roads weren't maintained anymore.

00:08:29.720 Nothing.

00:08:30.720 It's completely different thing.

00:08:31.720 So when the Germanic barbarians invade Gallia and make it Gaul, Gaul meaning land of foreign, it's the same as Welsh. 0.95

00:08:38.720 Gaul means foreigners. 1.00

00:08:39.720 Um, uh, in Germanic wall, wall, Gaul.

00:08:43.720 The, they basically installed themselves as the new Roman elite in France and call it France now. 0.96

00:08:52.720 Uh, and they were able to tax the people in the same way it was done.

00:08:57.720 That's not what happened in Britain at all.

00:08:59.720 There was something completely different.

00:09:01.720 And Britain, even before when the Romans were here, they were like, Hmm, this place is vulnerable to, from the, from the Saxon shore, as they called it, which is the North Sea.

00:09:13.720 They called it the Saxon shore because they knew the Saxons could always attack from that right.

00:09:16.720 And the Scotty, as they called them is what we call the Gales, uh, from Ireland.

00:09:21.720 And, uh, there was, um, the conspiracy of barbarians in the late fourth century where there was like a way of like Romans were trying to make sure that the barbarians wouldn't invade their British colony.

00:09:32.720 The British colony was always vulnerable to that.

00:09:34.720 When of course the Romans left, they were proven right because all these barbarian groups, the Picts invade, like started, uh, harassing the, uh, the Britons, the Romanized Britons to the south. 0.97

00:09:44.720 Um, and according to the semi legendary narratives, which I'm sure you're familiar with by, um, uh, is it, uh, not Beda in, um, I think it's Jeffrey or Gilda says the, um, you know, uh, the King Vortigan was so, uh, fed up with fighting the Picts that he is like, we need help.

00:10:06.720 Let's call on the Saxons to come and help. 0.90

00:10:08.720 And, um, he invited over these, uh, federal, fed, federati or whatever they call them, uh, uh, in Latin, um, to come and help them fight.

00:10:18.720 And they didn't go away afterwards, which might have, obviously that can't explain the reality.

00:10:23.720 I can talk later about the genetic and archeological evidence, but it might, that might be part of the real story.

00:10:29.720 Right.

00:10:30.720 So, I mean, so we mentioned that the Romans just leave, but Honorius needs every last and Stilicho needs every last soldier and legionary back in Rome immediately because of, um, Alaric. 0.97

00:10:43.720 Uh, so yeah, but it doesn't mean that.

00:10:45.720 Another Germanic barbarian. 0.93

00:10:46.720 So, but it doesn't mean that all sort of, because the people, historians describe the people now as sort of, uh, Romano Britons.

00:10:54.720 So, um, depending on how accurate you want to go with that, but the point is, is that Roman culture didn't just immediately leave.

00:11:03.720 Like the Villa culture still survived for a while.

00:11:06.720 The archaeology seems to show that.

00:11:08.720 Yes.

00:11:09.720 Um, so, so now we've got this sort of a transitional period between the Romans leaving and, uh, the remaining Romano Britons. 0.92

00:11:19.720 And the first, the first of many sort of waves of invasion from, uh, the, the continent, whether it's Saxony, Lower Saxony, uh, uh, Frisia, uh,

00:11:31.720 And Ireland.

00:11:32.720 Right.

00:11:33.720 The Scotty.

00:11:34.720 This is the period that Pickland gets transformed into Scotland.

00:11:36.720 We call it now because of this Gaelic tribe called the Scotty.

00:11:39.720 But I mean, I think Romano Briton, you sound like you're a little bit, it's not clear on the term, but I think it's very accurate because these people are not like the Celts that Caesar met.

00:11:50.720 Right.

00:11:51.720 At all.

00:11:52.720 Yeah.

00:11:53.720 Even before then.

00:11:54.720 Culturally.

00:11:55.720 Like the, even before like proper Roman, like, you know, overlordship, the Gauls and the Britons had some coinage, you know, they were making coins in the style of Romans.

00:12:06.720 The people in Britain after the Romans left didn't even have coins.

00:12:11.720 Hmm.

00:12:12.720 So they were like more primitive in some ways than the pre Roman Britain.

00:12:16.720 Yeah.

00:12:17.720 Like these people were like so dependent on, it's like, if it's like, it's different kind of thing.

00:12:22.720 It's like, they were like Romanized and then the Roman infrastructure is gone.

00:12:26.720 It's kind of like what would happen to us if our infrastructure is gone.

00:12:29.720 Like there was no longer, you know, they couldn't live in the way they had previously lived.

00:12:35.720 And there was this very great weakness as a result.

00:12:37.720 There was no like standing army to protect them from barbarians. 0.52

00:12:42.720 Like there wasn't a system of like a militarized system to like defend from the Picts or any other enemies.

00:12:48.720 And they obviously didn't have the economic structure in place that could deal with like the sudden loss of trade with the continent.

00:12:57.720 So it was pretty bad time to live.

00:13:00.720 It was probably horrendous, actually.

00:13:02.720 And even before the barbarians got there.

00:13:05.720 And I don't know to what extent the Justinian plague, this is something people, the Justinian plague would have had some effect too,

00:13:11.720 because that would have damaged the population.

00:13:13.720 We're talking about the 530s, is that off the top of my head?

00:13:17.720 Is that right? Or is it later?

00:13:19.720 Well, it's just after Hagia Sophia is completed, isn't it?

00:13:23.720 So when's that? I can't remember.

00:13:24.720 I thought that was in the late 300s.

00:13:26.720 Oh, okay.

00:13:27.720 So that's why I thought it was just before, just before the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

00:13:30.720 Now I'm questioning myself.

00:13:32.720 I've done content on Justinian and both for my channel and on here.

00:13:36.720 I've done a thing about the new cameras.

00:13:37.720 I should know off the top of my head.

00:13:39.720 Yeah.

00:13:40.720 I thought Justinian was in the 500s, but...

00:13:43.720 So Google it.

00:13:44.720 Anyway.

00:13:45.720 Yeah, go on.

00:13:46.720 Anyway.

00:13:47.720 So you mentioned there Vortigern and then, well, Hengist and Horsa.

00:13:51.720 So that's often where if you read sort of a fairly low resolution history,

00:13:57.720 like Churchill's history of the English-speaking peoples,

00:13:59.720 or I love Sir Charles Omeran's history of the English,

00:14:02.720 they sort of go straight in often with sort of the Hengist and Horsa thing.

00:14:07.720 And one time I had you while we were talking and just,

00:14:10.720 we weren't talking about the Anglo-Saxons, I don't think specifically,

00:14:13.720 but somehow Hengist and Horsa came up and you said,

00:14:16.720 you thought they were probably entirely fictional or maybe sort of gods.

00:14:20.720 They're gods.

00:14:21.720 They're gods.

00:14:22.720 They are gods.

00:14:23.720 What do you mean by that?

00:14:24.720 Tell me...

00:14:25.720 What are you talking about?

00:14:26.720 For those who aren't aware, we should say first what you're talking about

00:14:28.720 in the actual narrative presented, which is by a Celtic author,

00:14:33.720 Welsh author, the two twins come along for the Anglo-Saxons.

00:14:39.720 The first Anglo-Saxons to come like Hengist and Horsa.

00:14:43.720 Now, those names aren't attested anywhere.

00:14:46.720 They're not normal names and they both mean horse and they're twins.

00:14:50.720 So if you're aware of Indo-European religions, they always have two horse twins, 1.00

00:14:54.720 like Custer and Pollux in the Greek version, Roman and Greek, the Theoscori in Greece.

00:15:03.720 Or in India, they have the Ashfin twins, the two twin horse boys. 0.99

00:15:07.720 And they're always the sons or grandsons of the Skyfather.

00:15:10.720 Hengist and Horsa appear in genealogies as the great-grandsons or grandsons of Woden,

00:15:17.720 this paternal, the main god of the Anglo-Saxon pantheon.

00:15:20.720 So they're horse, they're twins, two males, both called Horse,

00:15:24.720 and they're great-grandsons of the Skyfather.

00:15:26.720 It's pretty obvious.

00:15:27.720 Also, these twins can sometimes play progenitor roles in various versions,

00:15:31.720 like in the version for Rome, they changed a bit,

00:15:35.720 and they're more wolf boys called Romulus and Remus,

00:15:38.720 and the two boys become the progenitors of the Roman race.

00:15:42.720 So the English have like the progenitors of... 0.97

00:15:45.720 Racial progenitors are the Hengist and Horsa, you know, this myth. 0.99

00:15:48.720 And then the Welsh guy heard the Anglo-Saxon pagans saying this and says,

00:15:52.720 oh, well, it was probably like, you know, they're just people,

00:15:55.720 and I'll hemorrhize them as actual people and work a story into it,

00:15:59.720 where they're just normal people.

00:16:01.720 But also there's Dutch... 0.97

00:16:03.720 I can't remember, there's Dutch manuscript evidence

00:16:06.720 where they talk about Hengist and Horsa as well,

00:16:08.720 and they're a progenitor of tribal people in Holland as well.

00:16:13.720 So it's like they have the same role in Holland as in England,

00:16:17.720 where there's this divine, semi-divine descendants

00:16:20.720 that link your people to the gods,

00:16:22.720 because they're like the grandsons of the greatest god,

00:16:25.720 and they're our ancestors.

00:16:26.720 You know how it works?

00:16:27.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:28.720 And, you know, the horse stuff makes it pretty obvious.

00:16:31.720 But that...

00:16:32.720 So I think that this...

00:16:33.720 What we're seeing here is a Welsh... 1.00

00:16:35.720 A Welshified version of an Anglo-Saxon narrative,

00:16:39.720 which was divinized.

00:16:41.720 Like, just like how the Odyssey, for example,

00:16:43.720 includes the gods in the stories of the Trojan War, right?

00:16:46.720 So the Anglo-Saxons would have a story of their settling of the British Isles,

00:16:49.720 which incorporated the gods into it.

00:16:51.720 And when a Christian Welshman hears that story,

00:16:54.720 he tries to, like, throw out all the pagan stuff 0.68

00:16:56.720 and try and make it make sense from a rational Christian monk perspective.

00:17:00.720 Hangers and Horses are two guys.

00:17:01.720 Right.

00:17:02.720 That's what I think happens.

00:17:03.720 When you say it like that, it's extremely plausible.

00:17:05.720 What's the Welsh collection?

00:17:06.720 What are you talking about there?

00:17:07.720 Geoffrey of Monmouth?

00:17:08.720 Or where does it come from?

00:17:09.720 Is it a Welsh version of an Anglo-Saxon chronicle?

00:17:12.720 The story of Vortigun that we just talked,

00:17:14.720 that's from a Welsh source, isn't it?

00:17:16.720 It's not bead, is it?

00:17:17.720 I don't know where it first appears.

00:17:19.720 I don't know where that first appears.

00:17:21.720 I think it's Gildas or Geoffrey.

00:17:23.720 I can't remember which one now.

00:17:24.720 I get them mixed up sometimes.

00:17:26.720 So that's not very good of me.

00:17:27.720 No, no, no.

00:17:28.720 They have very few sources for the period,

00:17:31.720 but I managed to get them confused anyhow.

00:17:33.720 It's definitely the case, though, isn't it,

00:17:35.720 that historians during the Dark Age

00:17:40.720 or during the Medieval period

00:17:42.720 sort of tried as best they could

00:17:45.720 to fill in the gaps.

00:17:48.720 Yeah.

00:17:49.720 And so when they don't really know for sure

00:17:53.720 what happened, they quite often,

00:17:56.720 we sort of know now, don't we?

00:17:58.720 I mean, it's the job of the modern scholar historian

00:18:00.720 to say that bit's not reliable.

00:18:03.720 That bit in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle must be incorrect

00:18:05.720 or whatever.

00:18:06.720 Yeah.

00:18:07.720 Well, that's exactly what I think they were doing

00:18:09.720 at the time as well.

00:18:10.720 They're like, well, that doesn't match the Bible. 0.72

00:18:12.720 So it's not true.

00:18:13.720 So we know the Bible is 100% true

00:18:15.720 because that's the only thing that is true

00:18:17.720 is we're Christian Catholic monks.

00:18:19.720 And anything we hear that doesn't match the Bible is untrue.

00:18:22.720 So we have to try and change it to make it match the Bible.

00:18:25.720 So that's kind of how, that's just how people are.

00:18:27.720 Like they have like one reference point of truth,

00:18:29.720 like from a trustworthy source,

00:18:31.720 and they try and make other things fit into that narrative.

00:18:34.720 Oh, definitely.

00:18:35.720 We were talking earlier just on the podcast about how historians

00:18:38.720 copy each other and sort of always have since antiquity.

00:18:42.720 One classic example, always spits in my mind of that,

00:18:45.720 is that one of the biographers of Charlemagne

00:18:48.720 described Charlemagne's eating and drinking habits.

00:18:52.720 And it's exactly word for word Suetonius talking about Augustus.

00:18:56.720 And so people in the much more modern era have noticed that

00:19:00.720 and said, oh, well, that's completely unreliable then.

00:19:02.720 He's just, Augustus is like the perfect emperor.

00:19:05.720 So we're just going to copy that.

00:19:09.720 And we don't know if it says anything truthful about Charlemagne.

00:19:12.720 Yeah, I think that tropes like that as well in storytelling,

00:19:17.720 you notice a lot of Catholic early hagiographies are the same as other saints.

00:19:23.720 So you'll see two different saints with the exact same story.

00:19:26.720 And it's kind of just like storytelling is,

00:19:31.720 I mean, you could sometimes, maybe you'll watch a Spider-Man

00:19:35.720 and it's the same plot as you saw in a Batman and they just took from an episode.

00:19:39.720 You know what I mean?

00:19:40.720 Like the characters change, but the stories, if someone knows a story that works

00:19:44.720 and they'll just kind of copy it, it's like a format of storytelling

00:19:48.720 and like things get confused about the actual reality of events.

00:19:53.720 But yes, certainly whenever you see a story that you also see somewhere else

00:19:57.720 exactly the same, then you should doubt the authenticity of it.

00:20:00.720 But it might not necessarily, it might still have a kernel of truth.

00:20:03.720 For example, like the mythologized narrative of the Hengist and Horsa thing.

00:20:09.720 I still think that Vortigan probably, it's perfectly possible that Vortigan

00:20:13.720 imported mercenaries from Saxony and that these people were like the first

00:20:22.720 among a great number of other settlers who came later.

00:20:26.720 Maybe, you know, like they send word for more people.

00:20:28.720 An army at that time could be very small, like a very small amount.

00:20:34.720 It might have been that the amount of people Vortigan actually invited over was like a hundred men.

00:20:39.720 And certainly we know from like both a study of skull measurements from Eastern England at the time

00:20:46.720 and another one of DNA of skeletons from the time that between 75 and 80% of the population

00:20:51.720 of the Eastern seaboard of England was replaced initially.

00:20:56.720 That is not possible with a hundred soldiers. There's no way.

00:20:59.720 There was wholesale migration of families and settler colonialism, which is not recorded in these sources,

00:21:07.720 but it must have happened something like that.

00:21:09.720 But this mythologized, that doesn't mean this mythologized sort of narrative of the events

00:21:14.720 that we find in medieval sources isn't true.

00:21:17.720 It might just be, you know, a part of it. Like this is, it's kind of like the Windrush now. 0.99

00:21:22.720 Everyone talks about like the origin of mass, of like multiculturalism in UK as like Windrush. 0.64

00:21:27.720 Not even 1% of the immigrant population of Britain comes from Windrush.

00:21:31.720 It's not, it's not even, it's not remotely significant in like the actual proportions, but it did actually occur.

00:21:36.720 Windrush was a real event and it kind of like has been mythologized as like a way for British people

00:21:41.720 to understand multiculturalism, something like that maybe.

00:21:44.720 Yeah, it's very, very interesting. I mean, you've mentioned again that Charlemagne story.

00:21:49.720 It might be, because in that example, it was that he eats in this particular way and only has one glass of wine at dinner.

00:21:56.720 It might be that that was true about Charlemagne.

00:21:59.720 The biographer, those are, to describe that, ah, that's true also of Augustus.

00:22:05.720 So I will use it. It doesn't mean it's untrue.

00:22:08.720 But still, anyway, these are the vagaries, the vagaries of history.

00:22:12.720 And we just don't have multiple, multiple sources to sort of cross check things.

00:22:16.720 Again, quite early on, if it's not in like the earliest bits of the Chronicle or if Bede doesn't talk about it,

00:22:23.720 then we just got, we haven't got a great, you know, there's no great sources to...

00:22:29.720 No.

00:22:30.720 It's only the archaeological record you've got, which is, you know, by its very nature, incomplete.

00:22:36.720 But what we also have, and I mean, these are all true statements you're making, but I think sometimes they obscure what a lot of people don't realize is that the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes were just not like unique peoples.

00:22:52.720 They were just Germanic tribes, and they were like all the other Germanic tribes. 0.96

00:22:56.720 They shared common, they could speak to the other Germanic tribes.

00:22:59.720 The language, there wasn't an Angle language in the Saxon language.

00:23:02.720 They just spoke like, you know, proto-West Germanic or something like that, like an early form of West Germanic, which became, you know, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, Old High German, like the languages that later derived from them.

00:23:14.720 But even then, the North Germanic languages were mutually intelligible with early West Germanic.

00:23:18.720 So it wasn't even like they were distinct from the people in Scandinavia that much.

00:23:21.720 And the same gods, a lot of the same rituals, and they traveled around and they shared myths.

00:23:26.720 Hence the main myth that we got from Anglo-Saxon England, Beowulf, is set in Sweden.

00:23:31.720 There's a reason for that, because they had no... these were part of their cultural horizon.

00:23:36.720 They talk about the Goths and the Lombards in Beowulf.

00:23:40.720 They're talking about these people as known peoples whose activities are relevant to English people because they were kinsmen.

00:23:46.720 When St. Boniface from Devon wants to preach to the Saxons in Germany, he does so because he says they are our brethren.

00:23:54.720 They're our brothers, and he's not talking about brothers in Christ because they're pagans.

00:23:57.720 He said we have to preach to our kingdom. They're the same people.

00:24:02.720 So now when you understand the entire Germanic world shared in certain cultures, then you understand that literary sources from other parts of the Germanic world are very instructive to help us understand what the early English were like.

00:24:15.720 And we don't have sagas like we do from Iceland for England, but if you read the Icelandic sagas, you'll get a good insight into...

00:24:23.720 And even sources, late sources from the Viking Age or earlier sources like Tacitus describing Germanic tribes during the Roman times, you're still getting a good insight into what these people are like.

00:24:33.720 Because even in the thousand years between the Viking, like late Viking sources, like, you know, in the Viking Age 1000 years ago and 2000 years ago, Tacitus writing.

00:24:45.720 But and between that is the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England.

00:24:49.720 But there's some commonalities, even at the far extremes of that millennium.

00:24:53.720 So I think reading about Icelandic literature is important.

00:25:00.720 I mean, I did a course in Icelandic literature at university as well, even though I was mostly studying Anglo-Saxon stuff, because the culture it depicts is very similar to the one you see in Beowulf or in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

00:25:16.720 It's remarkable, isn't it? It's remarkable. It's more homogenous then than now in all sorts of ways.

00:25:23.720 Do you think, do you think in a broad sense that the sort of fifth century, sixth century invasions, migrations of the Anglo-Saxons, the Jews, the Frisians,

00:25:36.720 well, do we know if there's any evidence that they were forced that way by people more to the east?

00:25:43.720 I don't know, like the Swaby or something is forcing them to, because the only reason I think that is that quite often in the east, in like the Eurasian steppe, that people sweep into Hungary and Bulgaria and the Balkans because they're pushed that way by yet more ferocious people further to their east.

00:26:02.720 Do you think there's anything in that with the invasions of Britain?

00:26:06.720 Yes and no. Yes and no. Yes, I think there were, like, the migration period in general is a time when many peoples are moving around, hence the name, you know, the migration of peoples.

00:26:19.720 In Germany and other Germanic countries is literally called the race migration period, or the people's migration period, as in different peoples are moving, specifically not people, but peoples en masse.

00:26:34.720 And that includes, you know, the Huns. And the Huns are a big influence on the Germanic world for a long time afterwards. Like those Viking sagas include Huns as characters.

00:26:48.720 Attila the Hun is a character in Volsunga Saga, Atli. And the Huns are, you know, they're there in the Germanic world. And I mean, even the Huns were pushing on the Goths.

00:27:00.720 But the Goths had invaded Ukraine long ago. The Goths had mixed with Huns and the Ostrogoths disappeared because of that over mixing with, like, the peoples, the steppe peoples, basically, in the east.

00:27:12.720 But them encroachments in, and the Avars, and that's causing other westward migrations of Germanics. 0.78

00:27:21.720 You know, it's not a coincidence that the Lombards and the Goths and all these different people are moving around at that time.

00:27:26.720 But it's not recorded in any Germanic source as a catastrophe. It's, in fact, in Beowulf and in the sagas, this era is basically like a golden age.

00:27:41.720 It's like the perfect period. It's like when everyone was more heroic and men were better.

00:27:45.720 The men in the Viking Age described the Migration Era as being a superior time when everything was better. 0.86

00:27:51.720 People were stronger and braver and everything was amazing.

00:27:54.720 And that's often the case. In the Iliad, Old Man Nestor is saying that on the beaches of Troy.

00:27:59.720 Men used to be real men back when I was young, when my grandfather was...

00:28:03.720 It's a human trait, but it's there in a narrative context. When they're talking about that age, they're like,

00:28:12.720 Oh, in this golden age of Great Maids, the Goths are so respected by all Germanic peoples because they were the ones who went down south 1.00

00:28:22.720 and took on the Romans. They spread so far and everyone knows about them.

00:28:27.720 So I think that other Germanic people were proud to have this kinship connection to the Goths.

00:28:34.720 And now genetic evidence has showed the Goths originated in Sweden.

00:28:37.720 And that's what some people at the time said, some medieval historians in France.

00:28:41.720 I mean, some actual historians living in medieval times referred to Scandinavia as the womb of nations,

00:28:47.720 saying that the Franks originated in Scandinavia.

00:28:50.720 And that's been vindicated because we know now that basically the Germanic people sort of poured out of Scandinavia

00:28:56.720 into the continent and replaced other peoples or mixed with other peoples.

00:29:01.720 But, yeah.

00:29:03.720 That is fascinating.

00:29:05.720 I was listening to Dan Carlin just the other day.

00:29:08.720 He did a lot of podcasts years ago called Thor's Angels.

00:29:12.720 And he talks about the womb of nations.

00:29:14.720 There's one sort of in Central Asia, sort of the Altai Mountains, like where the Mongols came from

00:29:19.720 and lots and lots of people seem to have just constantly funneled out from there.

00:29:23.720 The same in Scandinavia.

00:29:24.720 It seems to have been a womb of nations, a womb of peoples.

00:29:28.720 Yeah.

00:29:29.720 Just constantly.

00:29:30.720 To answer your previous question, like it isn't because of other tribes pushing them out necessarily.

00:29:37.720 I think Scandinavia specifically, the case of Scandinavia may be like a kind of pump, a people pump, 0.84

00:29:42.720 because it has fluctuating over the centuries climates.

00:29:47.720 And for example, 18th century, a lot of people had to leave Sweden because it had had previous good weather for a few centuries.

00:29:56.720 And then the population expanded and then it got very bad.

00:29:58.720 There's not enough food and people are starving and they will flee to America and become Minnesotans, whatever. 0.99

00:30:03.720 That's why you have lots.

00:30:05.720 So that kind of thing happens.

00:30:06.720 The population grows a lot.

00:30:08.720 And then suddenly there's very bad weather.

00:30:11.720 And then you get Nordic people just flooding Europe all over the place and causing havoc. 1.00

00:30:16.720 I think something like that could have happened rather than more people.

00:30:19.720 But most of the ones who came to England, though, are not coming directly from Scandinavia.

00:30:24.720 In 2022, a study of Anglo-Saxon DNA did speculate that a certain amount, not speculate, sorry.

00:30:30.720 It did theorize based on genetic evidence that a certain amount of them came from southern Sweden.

00:30:36.720 But I think the subsequent study, which looks at DNA in a different way, in a more detailed way,

00:30:41.720 kinship sharing shows that no, actually the majority of the Anglo-Saxons were coming from exactly the places Bede said they were coming from,

00:30:48.720 which is the Jutland Peninsula, Jutland, some pronounce it, Jutland in Danish.

00:30:53.720 I say Jutland because that's what it should be called.

00:30:56.720 But the Jutland Peninsula and the angle of, you know, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, exactly what you'd expect them to be coming from.

00:31:03.720 Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:04.720 That just makes perfect sense when you look on the map.

00:31:06.720 That's where he said they came from.

00:31:08.720 And that's where they did come from.

00:31:09.720 Sometimes Bede's right.

00:31:11.720 What's your feelings on Bede, then, in general? Are you, do you think, do you enjoy reading Bede, or is it a slog, or do you put much store in what he says?

00:31:22.720 I think a lot of people, Bede can be read by a non-historian.

00:31:25.720 You can just pick it up and read it. Like, it's not hard going.

00:31:28.720 You just get a Penguin paperback for like $7.99.

00:31:30.720 Yeah.

00:31:31.720 I think, I think that, don't be intimidated by, oh, I'm like looking through some like ancient monks, like impenetrable prose.

00:31:39.720 It's just some guy talking about what he thinks happened in this country.

00:31:42.720 To give you a context of what kind of a guy he was, he's a Northumbrian raised in a, like, basically like an enclave of Mediterranean Roman culture in barbarian Northumbria.

00:31:55.720 At a time when there are still pagans running around England, and most of the old civilized way of life of Roman is gone. 1.00

00:32:02.720 But these little monasteries are...

00:32:04.720 He's a monk.

00:32:05.720 He's a monk.

00:32:06.720 He's still plugged into the Mediterranean way of life.

00:32:10.720 And he's been raised that way. He's not like a convert or anything like that.

00:32:14.720 He's been raised in it. He's fully literate.

00:32:16.720 And his read, everything he's reading and indulging culturally is foreign.

00:32:22.720 It's not England. It's all stuff from the, you know, the Christian Roman world. 1.00

00:32:27.720 And we're talking, what, late 600s? It's the 600s. Is it late 600s?

00:32:32.720 Yeah.

00:32:33.720 He's late, end of the 7th century, yeah.

00:32:35.720 So there's a few, like, I think there's definitely a few pagans kicking around.

00:32:39.720 Certainly, if he didn't know any pagans personally, he definitely would have known people who knew pagans.

00:32:43.720 Like, the older people he knew would have known pagans, definitely would have known lots of pagans, probably had seen pagan rituals.

00:32:50.720 So when he's talking about paganism in England, he, even if he, let's say, we don't know exactly how much he saw firsthand.

00:32:58.720 It's certainly possible he's seen pagan stuff firsthand, but even if he hasn't, it's not very far removed from it.

00:33:05.720 Like, other monks who he knew personally or people who traded with the monasteries would have seen and known pagans in that country.

00:33:12.720 So he's writing about the history of England, but he's calling it the ecclesiastical history of England.

00:33:17.720 He wants to talk about England as a Christian people.

00:33:21.720 And he's inventing England in that way, because England was not yet fully a Christian people.

00:33:26.720 It was almost, and it certainly wasn't really a people in a united political sense yet.

00:33:32.720 But he's planting the seeds that would allow Alfred and Adelred to make England a nation.

00:33:38.720 Yeah, definitely. He's long before there's a single kingdom, whether you want to say Alfred or Afghanistan or whatever.

00:33:44.720 He's quite a long time before that, hundreds of years before that.

00:33:48.720 So we owe him a debt for inventing, like, coherently saying the gentis anglorum exist, meaning the English race are a thing.

00:33:57.720 And he fully admits that they were pagan. He's probably a bit embarrassed about that.

00:34:01.720 But he glosses over, doesn't give us a great insight into the pagan religion, but he talks, you know, some of the gods from him.

00:34:08.720 And he's talking a bit about the settlement process and how it happened.

00:34:12.720 But that is how trustworthy is he? I'd say as long as you look at him for what he is, then you can read his biases.

00:34:20.720 He is a man who is a Christian who wants to define the English as a people in opposition to the Celtic Christians.

00:34:31.720 So the problem is that he simultaneously believes in the prestige of Christianity.

00:34:37.720 And he wants to make sure that people, the English people are recognized as not being like the Celtic people who were Christian for longer.

00:34:44.720 So it's like a bit embarrassing for him because he has loyal to Rome, you mean, is what he was saying.

00:34:50.720 I think this is a misguided as well. Some people think that like there was this thing called Celtic Christianity.

00:34:55.720 That was this like separate version of Christianity that existed in Britain.

00:34:59.720 But I don't think that ever really existed. I don't think I don't think that the Christianity of the Celts was as distinct from any other kind of Christianity in Western Europe at the time, as people sometimes say there was a disagreement on the placement of Easter.

00:35:15.720 Other than that, there's not that much difference. It's pretty much the same. And there's, you know, this Roman, they're both Roman.

00:35:22.720 Yeah, right. I mean, so let's talk a little bit about Christianity, then get it get out of the way. 0.94

00:35:28.720 Because you're pagan, right? I'm not Christian. 0.94

00:35:34.720 But nonetheless, fascinated by it. When you read Bede, I mean, it goes back to St. Augustine of Canterbury.

00:35:40.720 Right. So, you know, we've had Christianity here since near the beginning of of Christianity being the main religion in the Roman world in one way or another.

00:35:52.720 Yeah, it's been here because there were soldiers, but it doesn't mean it was dominant or anything.

00:35:56.720 So it's not like it's just absolutely not the case that the the Angles and the Saxons and the Jews bought Christianity.

00:36:02.720 No. That's just that.

00:36:04.720 No, and he doesn't. He wouldn't make that claim. He doesn't try to make that claim either.

00:36:07.720 Right. Which would be per Djangoism if he did like.

00:36:10.720 But so then there's this idea that the the perhaps the the Vikings or just the Norsemen push out push out Christianity to some degree in the areas that they come.

00:36:26.720 I'm getting a bit later in time now. But nonetheless, there's this sort of this outpost of, yeah, well, Celtic Christianity.

00:36:33.720 Sort of this narrative of it's holding on, clinging on by its fingernails in places like Skellig St. Michael.

00:36:40.720 So some some some some really obscure places like out in Ireland and stuff.

00:36:45.720 Well, Ireland remained Christian all of the time. Yeah. Ireland was Christian. 0.52

00:36:48.720 And then when when Rome, when yeah, when Rome reasserts itself, there's some sort of this what you're talking about, that there's some sort of schism might not be the right word, but two two different forms of Christianity sort of battling for supremacy in these islands.

00:37:09.720 You know, just saying that that's you don't think there was there's much to it, really.

00:37:13.720 No, I don't think that's true. I think that what you're seeing was an ethnic conflict.

00:37:17.720 But that narrative, sorry, before you go, that narrative, you will see that in quite a lot of books.

00:37:21.720 Yeah, I know, especially older ones. I'm not saying you're wrong or they're right.

00:37:24.720 I mean, first off, I'm not a theologian, so I can't talk too much about like the schism.

00:37:28.720 But it's not it doesn't seem like anyone at the time is talking very much about a schism.

00:37:33.720 It does seem like that's a bit strong for me. Yeah, it's like it's just they have a different dating of Easter.

00:37:39.720 Right. Other than that. OK, yes, they have the Celtic Christians had a kind of monastic tradition in the in the in the in the in the.

00:37:47.720 same way as St Anthony is based on St Anthony's.

00:37:50.720 You know, he secludes himself into the desert and just go.

00:37:54.720 You know, they their desert was these little monasteries on the Celtic islands or whatever.

00:37:58.720 There's no theological reason that the church would oppose that the English were converted by two missions.

00:38:10.720 One of them was from the Gaelic Monastery of Columba on Iona, which also sent missions to Pictland to convert the Picts and to the Gaels in Britain, because the Gaels who invaded some of the Gaels, the Scotty who invaded Britain were still pagan, whereas all the Gaels in Ireland had converted.

00:38:34.720 So the Christian Gaels sent missions to their Gaelic brothers in Britain to make them convert.

00:38:38.720 They sent missions to the Picts to make them convert some of the last Celtic pagans then gone.

00:38:43.720 And they sent a mission to Northumbria to convert the ancestors of Bede. 0.99

00:38:48.720 So Bede's part of England was converted by the Celts. 0.72

00:38:51.720 The south of England was not converted by a Celtic missionary.

00:38:54.720 It was converted directly by the Gregorian mission.

00:38:57.720 St. Augustine.

00:38:58.720 Yeah.

00:38:59.720 Right.

00:39:00.720 So.

00:39:01.720 Of Canterbury.

00:39:02.720 Of Canterbury.

00:39:03.720 Yeah.

00:39:04.720 So the two St. Augustines.

00:39:05.720 And St. Augustine had a pretty, for the accounts we have, a pretty receptive audience, because the pagan king said, look, we're not going to take your religion.

00:39:17.720 Sounds very nice, but we've got our own religion.

00:39:20.720 Thanks.

00:39:21.720 However, you're free to go and preach among us if you like, and we're not going to stop you.

00:39:26.720 And we'll look after you and make sure no one hurts you. 0.98

00:39:29.720 And so they were like, green light, let's fucking do this. 0.97

00:39:32.720 And then, oh, excuse me. 0.96

00:39:34.720 And then, so they pushed really hard on the mission because there was, they refused to convert initially, but they didn't ban him from like the Japanese. 0.62

00:39:44.720 They didn't ban missionaries, which would have been if they'd recognized.

00:39:48.720 So they didn't.

00:39:49.720 The pagan kings of England did not recognize Christianity as a threat, but they also didn't initially want to convert to it.

00:39:56.720 But that obviously over time, when you've got people disseminating propaganda, it's only, you know, unchecked.

00:40:03.720 It's quite open minded of them.

00:40:06.720 It's classic sort of polytheism, really.

00:40:09.720 It's like, yeah, we're not, we, there isn't just one God and there's one word and it's the only way and anything else is heresy that must be burnt out.

00:40:18.720 No, it's like, yeah, no, go ahead.

00:40:19.720 It's also diplomacy because their Frankish brethren, you know, the brothers on the continent, this is where the wealth is.

00:40:28.720 The Merovingians are richer and it's important to have good relations with them.

00:40:35.720 I think that a lot of the conversions of Anglo-Saxon kings were based on things like keeping up with the Joneses.

00:40:41.720 Like this is the new fancy cult that all the rich guys are on the continent are involved in.

00:40:47.720 Right.

00:40:48.720 And, you know, the last Germanic people to the table are the Scandinavians and they're the poorest and most, you know, peripheral. 0.99

00:40:55.720 So it's not a coincidence.

00:40:56.720 And wasn't it the king, is it the story going, the king's wife was already Christian?

00:41:01.720 Was it she whispering in his ear?

00:41:03.720 Yeah, there are.

00:41:04.720 Saying, give him, at least give him an audience.

00:41:06.720 Well, they were actually keen for Anglo-Saxon, they wanted queens, Christian women to marry.

00:41:16.720 You'd think like the church would tell Christian women, don't marry pagan men, but they didn't.

00:41:20.720 They said they were very happy when Christian queens would marry a pagan king because then they've got one in his court, whispering in his ear, saying, oh, you know how women can be. 1.00

00:41:31.720 And then also his children who, I mean, the king doesn't have time to, you know, give religious instruction to his own children.

00:41:39.720 So I think it's the same for Clovis.

00:41:41.720 I think he's missus with Christian first. 0.64

00:41:44.720 Yeah, they're very, very, very good.

00:41:47.720 Like Christianity is the first mass, what's the word, like mass ideology. 0.69

00:41:52.720 Maybe ideology is wrong because ideology is just such a modern concept.

00:41:55.720 It's a religion, not an ideology.

00:41:57.720 But it's it's it's to deal with the mass mind the way ideology does.

00:42:02.720 Ideology thinks of man in terms of the mass mind.

00:42:05.720 Christianity did that first. 0.98

00:42:07.720 And it was like, how can we get how can we win minds?

00:42:11.720 And what is the process by which we, you know, get access to the children and the women and, you know, and the power centers and then force them to disseminate our preferred rules and laws. 0.73

00:42:21.720 So it was very systematic and very effective in its takeover.

00:42:25.720 Well, Christianity in that period, we might be used to sort of an extremely weak wristed, wishy washy church of England. 0.98

00:42:33.720 But that's not what they, that's not what they were doing.

00:42:35.720 So it was more than just a theology.

00:42:37.720 It is also a political ideology, much as like Islamism.

00:42:42.720 It's more than that even.

00:42:43.720 Right.

00:42:44.720 It's a way of, it's a whole system of thought.

00:42:47.720 A whole way of structuring society.

00:42:49.720 It's like an ideology.

00:42:50.720 Yeah.

00:42:51.720 It's a holistic way of being.

00:42:52.720 It completely encompasses everything.

00:42:53.720 I didn't want to use the word ideology because I think that has a specific association with post-religious ways of being.

00:43:00.720 It's like an 18th century word.

00:43:02.720 Yeah.

00:43:03.720 But I think people understand what I'm going to get at by saying that.

00:43:07.720 It's more than just a theology.

00:43:08.720 Yeah.

00:43:09.720 It's a way, it's like, it's the same as Islam. 1.00

00:43:11.720 Like you said, it's an entire way of life.

00:43:13.720 Like you don't just say, okay, I'm a Christian.

00:43:14.720 I'll see you at church on Sunday.

00:43:16.720 That's the end of it.

00:43:17.720 It's like, no, no, no.

00:43:18.720 You've got to enforce this.

00:43:19.720 You've got to completely prevent anyone from worshipping the old religions. 1.00

00:43:23.720 And you've got to kill them if they try and do it. 0.98

00:43:25.720 One last thing between the, before we move on from Christianity entirely, between the Celtic form of Christianity and the Roman Gregory mission form of it. 1.00

00:43:36.720 Their artistic aesthetic was different though, right?

00:43:39.720 That's fair to say.

00:43:40.720 Is it not?

00:43:41.720 In the archaeology, you can say this is, this is highly Celtic Christian.

00:43:47.720 And this isn't.

00:43:48.720 That's a great question.

00:43:49.720 Yeah.

00:43:50.720 It's a really interesting question because, well, I mean, I can't give a yes or no because it's a bit complicated, but like the, the wrote the late Roman artwork is in the British Isles.

00:44:06.720 It's like, um, there's not a lot of stuff artifacts there, but like, it's not always explicitly Christian, uh, in its context.

00:44:15.720 And like, um, the, the definitive art style that most people call Celtic not work or Celtic wrongly and associated with insular Christianity everywhere from Ireland to Cornwall to England, all across the British Isles comes from Anglo-Saxon pagans.

00:44:34.720 And that style is because the North, the monks who went to, I mean, the, the mission, the aid and mission to Northumbria, they adopted these Gaelic Christians adopted the pagan style of art from the Northumbrian Anglo-Saxons of these interlocking serpents and things not work.

00:44:54.720 And they produced their own version of it in manuscript forms.

00:44:59.720 And that, that style of art in those manuscripts became the, uh, the, the defining insular, what we call insular art style.

00:45:08.720 Some people call it Celtic not work or whatever, and they call it Celtic because it's seen all over Ireland and Scotland, wherever, but it, it comes from English pagans.

00:45:15.720 And it becomes also definitive of Christianity in these are because the first manuscripts and the first Christian crosses all have this artwork on it, but it didn't exist in Celtic art.

00:45:25.720 It didn't exist in the Roman period.

00:45:26.720 It didn't exist except in Scandinavia among Odin worshipers because all these intertwined serpents and things are so, it's basically like two parts of pagan theology.

00:45:37.720 Like one, they believe that all reality fate is actually an interwoven web of threads, which is controlled by the Norns.

00:45:46.720 Weird, it's called fate.

00:45:48.720 It's where we get the word weird from.

00:45:50.720 And also they believe that when you die, the underworld is full of snakes and serpents.

00:45:55.720 So seeing all these interwoven threads and snakes and things reminds you of death and of fate and of being the entire totality of existence.

00:46:03.720 And that comes into, is adopted very cleverly by the Gaelic monks and becomes something very Christian instead.

00:46:09.720 And we can say it's certainly not Rome, Roman.

00:46:13.720 And when I say Roman, I don't mean ancient Rome.

00:46:15.720 I mean, I mean Catholic, where the Popes is what I'm talking about.

00:46:20.720 It's not present.

00:46:21.720 It's not present before that.

00:46:23.720 It's not present before that contact.

00:46:25.720 And the first example you can see of it is in Scandinavia and Northern Germany, where it's called Sarlin style one.

00:46:32.720 And it's believed that the Germanic pagans at that time, they didn't have until the migration era.

00:46:37.720 Germanic people invented it in the migration era and they believe it is called zoomorphic animal style based on art from the steppe.

00:46:49.720 So it's got some precedent in Scythian art in the first millennium BC, but it doesn't appear in continental Germanic Europe until like the 300th or 4th century or something like that.

00:47:02.720 And there's a few hundred years gap there.

00:47:05.720 And I think that the transmission from Iranic Scythian barbarians to Germanic barbarians was facilitated probably via Hunnic and Turkic peoples,

00:47:16.720 with whom I've already said during the migration era, the Germanic people had close contact.

00:47:20.720 So they would have taken this style of art, changed it because it's not the same as steppe art, changed it to integrate all these knots.

00:47:27.720 That's the main thing. The animal style, the zoomorphic animal style of the steppe was then turned into all these strange knotwork and then taken up by Gaelic monks to become what we call like Christian Celtic art.

00:47:39.720 And you just don't see it in Byzantium in Greece, the Balkans, Italy, Spain, North Africa.

00:47:44.720 Well, you know, what you do get there is vine scroll where you have like you can have like often at the side of margins or manuscript or on like on a sarcophagus or something.

00:47:55.720 Vines are like grapevines like tangled up, but it's very clearly grapevines and the knots are not like they're more elegant.

00:48:02.720 Whereas what you see, like that Celtic style is like this dense, like in, in that impenetrable, like so complicated and almost like that.

00:48:13.720 You look at them in a completely different way that like elegant sort of vine scroll in, in ancient classical art that transferred into early Christian art is something just like quite harmonic harmonious rather.

00:48:24.720 I mean, and it's sort of, you know, just like a pleasant border, whereas the Celtic or Germanic knotwork is something else.

00:48:31.720 It's very intricate and it's something you stare at like a magic eye puzzle and you can look at it for ages.

00:48:36.720 You're like, wow, there's so much, it's so complicated.

00:48:39.720 And I think that's what you were, how you were intended to look at it.

00:48:41.720 You were supposed to stare at it like a psychedelic sort of experience or something like that.

00:48:45.720 Yeah. Or like those incredible manuscripts of stained glass.

00:48:48.720 Stained glass is sort of for the illiterate.

00:48:51.720 You can't read the text.

00:48:53.720 So you're given something visual that you can focus on.

00:48:58.720 Okay.

00:48:59.720 So let's move on from that a little bit.

00:49:01.720 Let's go and talk about Ragworld and Sutton Hoo.

00:49:04.720 Yeah.

00:49:05.720 Because that is quite early on, right?

00:49:06.720 We don't know if it's definitely Ragworld, but.

00:49:08.720 It's very, very likely to be.

00:49:09.720 Okay.

00:49:10.720 You think.

00:49:11.720 For a number of reasons.

00:49:12.720 If you had to put 50 quid on it, you would.

00:49:14.720 I'd say is, I mean, I'd usually really hate when like.

00:49:17.720 They find a grave is found somewhere in the world.

00:49:19.720 Like Ainsley Greaves and like, this is Alexander of Macedon.

00:49:22.720 This is like, they want to put a name on it so they can say, we know for sure when there's so many people it could be.

00:49:26.720 But in this case, we can date it quite well.

00:49:29.720 And you know, the region.

00:49:32.720 And that's the region and the place where this king existed.

00:49:35.720 And also we know about his life from beads description.

00:49:37.720 I think it's beat like says that.

00:49:39.720 Radwald was this guy.

00:49:41.720 He was a pagan. 0.65

00:49:43.720 And then he started to adopt Christianity.

00:49:47.720 And he put a Jesus idol in the temple of the gods next to Woden and Frey and Thunor and the Anglo-Saxon gods.

00:49:56.720 But he continued to sacrifice to the pagan gods as well.

00:49:59.720 And then later on, he went back to being a pagan.

00:50:03.720 Obviously, he probably figured out that you're not allowed to have.

00:50:06.720 He thought it was like a non-exclusive deal at first.

00:50:08.720 And then he was like, OK, this is a bit more culty than I realized.

00:50:12.720 You can take him back.

00:50:13.720 Isn't that interesting whether you can be more than one thing at once.

00:50:18.720 It's possible or you can go and you can recant or be an apostate or whatever.

00:50:23.720 There's a gray area, a crossover period.

00:50:28.720 Well, you weren't allowed to.

00:50:30.720 He obviously didn't.

00:50:31.720 It shows that the king, the preachers who brought Christianity to the king, didn't impress upon him the actual nature of Christianity.

00:50:38.720 So that he completely misunderstood it.

00:50:40.720 And obviously, none of his advisors or anyone were able to communicate to him what Christianity really was well enough that he would not do this thing.

00:50:52.720 Eventually, someone obviously did explain to him.

00:50:54.720 And then he was like, I don't want it anymore.

00:50:56.720 So he became an apostate.

00:50:58.720 Madonna getting into Kabbalah briefly.

00:51:00.720 Yeah.

00:51:01.720 Figuring out a bit more than she bargained for.

00:51:04.720 But why do I think that it's him?

00:51:07.720 Well, the time's right.

00:51:08.720 The place is right.

00:51:09.720 And then the grave is an unambiguously pagan barrow, ship burial, very Scandinavian-specific type, because actually most of West Germanic peoples don't have ship burials.

00:51:23.720 It's almost exclusively North Germanic.

00:51:25.720 It's this style of helmet and this ship burial is found a lot in Eastern Sweden.

00:51:31.720 So it actually made people at first think that this was somehow a Swedish connection, but it's not from Sweden.

00:51:36.720 It's an angle.

00:51:38.720 And it just shows that the boat grave phenomenon was more quite widespread.

00:51:44.720 A ship grave, rather, because it's boat grave procedure.

00:51:47.720 But this is a big ship, very prestigious burial.

00:51:51.720 The helmet is fully an Odinic artifact.

00:51:54.720 It represents Woden.

00:51:56.720 One side of the garnets have a gold leaf behind that makes it shine and the other doesn't.

00:52:02.720 The dragon has one shining eye and one non-shining.

00:52:05.720 The dragon goes over the crest.

00:52:06.720 And then all these, the pressplex are impressed with pictures of horned Odin dancers who have these two ravens crest and dance with spears.

00:52:15.720 Odin, or Woden, was the spear god and the raven god.

00:52:18.720 And he had these two ravens representing thought and memory.

00:52:21.720 It's very much, this is the helmet of a Woden worshipper. 0.99

00:52:24.720 And there's loads of other very clearly Woden artifacts depicting two ravens within it.

00:52:29.720 But there's also Byzantine Christian artifacts in it with saints' names engraved and crosses and stuff, imported all the way from probably Constantinople or somewhere like that.

00:52:41.720 I think some of the garnets are from India or the Indus Valley.

00:52:44.720 Yeah, the garnets, that's another matter because the garnets are probably from Sri Lanka or something like that.

00:52:49.720 But they're not, that doesn't show a cultural connection to Sri Lanka.

00:52:52.720 No.

00:52:53.720 Those are just, the garnets are probably traded.

00:52:55.720 That's just trade.

00:52:56.720 The trading, Germanic art always used these red garnets that come from South Asia.

00:53:00.720 There was a trade route, they probably had no idea where these garnets were coming from.

00:53:04.720 That's not the case with the Byzantine silverware.

00:53:07.720 They knew that this was Christian silverware and they knew it was coming from there and he didn't acquire it randomly like along a trade route.

00:53:13.720 It's possible, some one theory is that this, the people who got these were because they actually were serving as federati in the emperor's army and they were given these as presents.

00:53:26.720 The Byzantine emperor.

00:53:27.720 Yeah, like the Byzantine emperor.

00:53:30.720 And that would mean he was, that would explain why he converted to Christianity because he spent some time in what's now Turkey.

00:53:36.720 And he was like, yeah, I'm a Christian.

00:53:38.720 Yeah, sure.

00:53:39.720 Okay.

00:53:40.720 Now give me the, give me the silver.

00:53:41.720 And then he goes home and he's like, now I'm back to going to Woden.

00:53:44.720 Or, or it could just be that he had men in his retinue who had served over there and then they get gifted as the cycle of wealth in Germanic society is such that the king or is the Lord is surrounded by his best men.

00:54:00.720 And they go out, acquire gold, which is give them all to their king.

00:54:04.720 Who's the, in, in Germanic cultures, they would refer to the king or as a ring breaker, which means someone who distributes wealth because all you give him a gold ring.

00:54:13.720 He'd break it up and give it out to everyone or his best guys.

00:54:16.720 If you ask the more, the more you do for him, the more he gets back to you.

00:54:19.720 And also he looks after the people who don't have anything.

00:54:22.720 It's like kind of, it's a very managed economy, you know, with a centralized managed economy, everything goes through him.

00:54:29.720 And, um, but he's expected to be very open handed and, uh, a river to his people.

00:54:33.720 Yeah.

00:54:34.720 You know, this is what they call a good cuning in, uh, you know, someone who really helps all the people, but also rewards loyalty.

00:54:43.720 And the whole culture was so centered around military loyalty to their leader.

00:54:49.720 Like they were happy to die for him passionately.

00:54:52.720 Whereas the Roman military had previously had, you know, dispassionate regimented, highly trained warriors.

00:54:59.720 The Germanic war system was based on the extremely passionate desire of the soldier to protect his Lord and, uh, who would go into battle with them.

00:55:09.720 So, uh, they would, you know, want to win glory that way.

00:55:13.720 And they would not never want to return from a battle where he had died would be a very great shame to them.

00:55:18.720 So this guy, Radwald, he's got these Christian stuff in his burial.

00:55:22.720 So he obviously has a life.

00:55:23.720 There's a, not a Christian burial at all, but it's got very, very clearly Christian goods.

00:55:28.720 And it fits the bill is Radwald, I think.

00:55:30.720 Okay.

00:55:31.720 Uh, one quick thing to say about the, the, the, the famous helmet.

00:55:34.720 Uh, yeah, absolutely.

00:55:35.720 With the Bowdoin connection with the one eye and all sorts of things.

00:55:39.720 The thing I thought was, um, fascinating is in the, the general design with the neck guard

00:55:44.720 and the cheek guards is a Roman cavalry.

00:55:46.720 It certainly is.

00:55:47.720 Yeah.

00:55:48.720 So we're still in the, we're still in the shadow of the Roman world. 0.66

00:55:53.720 Yeah.

00:55:54.720 That's a good point in all sorts of ways.

00:55:55.720 But, um, I've got a couple of shorts, uh, where we were, me and Carl went to the British

00:55:59.720 Museum to do a thing about the Assyrian freezes one time.

00:56:02.720 But while we were there, we also just quickly did a few shorts about the other things.

00:56:06.720 Of course we had a quick look at something.

00:56:08.720 I actually, I don't, have you ever been to the actual place?

00:56:10.720 I used to go there every bloody day.

00:56:12.720 Oh, you mean the Sutton Hoo, or you mean the British Museum?

00:56:14.720 No, no.

00:56:15.720 The actual Sutton Hoo strike.

00:56:16.720 No, I've never been to that.

00:56:17.720 I've never been to that.

00:56:18.720 I went there once, many moons ago.

00:56:19.720 Um, and there's a, there's like a Georgia and Victorian house there and it's all out in the

00:56:24.720 grounds.

00:56:25.720 And there's some other barrows there, which are un-excavated.

00:56:27.720 But they've done like a geophys or whatever they've done and decided there's nothing under

00:56:32.720 them.

00:56:33.720 But just one thing I want to say, because it is so famous.

00:56:34.720 Anyone knows anything about the Anglo-Saxons?

00:56:36.720 It's almost to the point of cliche.

00:56:38.720 It's very, very famous.

00:56:39.720 I remember being a very small child, being told all about Sutton Hoo and being shown pictures

00:56:43.720 of it.

00:56:44.720 But I do think it is an absolutely remarkable thing.

00:56:47.720 When you see those photos from the thirties of 1940s, I think they first found it just before

00:56:52.720 two started and they did all the excavations just after the war ended.

00:56:56.720 Uh, when you see the photos of that, this outline of a ship.

00:57:01.720 Uh, it blows my mind.

00:57:03.720 And when you look at the, what they actually found, cause it was, it's not just that helmet,

00:57:07.720 as you mentioned loads of things for a whole room really full of treasures.

00:57:13.720 It was a ship burial tradition.

00:57:14.720 I mean, it continued for hundreds of years.

00:57:16.720 It's just, it was just sitting there in someone's back garden.

00:57:20.720 Essentially.

00:57:21.720 It was more in the back garden.

00:57:22.720 They had land, but she was just sitting on their land and they just thought that might

00:57:26.720 be a, that, that, that may well be some sort of barrow of some type.

00:57:30.720 Well, there were several barrows on her land. 1.00

00:57:33.720 Yeah.

00:57:34.720 They did.

00:57:35.720 They drum, they did dramatization of the excavation and how it came about on, on Netflix

00:57:38.720 called the dig.

00:57:39.720 Is it any good?

00:57:40.720 Is it worth watching?

00:57:41.720 Actually, it's quite an entertaining drama, but they make Stuart Pickett a homosexual, 1.00

00:57:45.720 which he was not, uh, a repressed homosexual.

00:57:49.720 Did they make him black? 0.68

00:57:50.720 No, they just made him gay, but he was not gay.

00:57:52.720 Uh, and it's like this whole thing about, he's like, he's married and like, they're trying

00:57:56.720 to make out he's like a closeted homosexual. 0.83

00:57:58.720 There's no reason for anyone to think that they just decided to add that in like, as

00:58:01.720 a, as a narrative thing.

00:58:02.720 It doesn't help you understand anything.

00:58:03.720 Why not?

00:58:04.720 What they also took out is interesting is that the lady and by which lady, I mean, she

00:58:09.720 was a, you know, an aristocrat of some kind.

00:58:11.720 Yeah.

00:58:12.720 She, uh, report, the reason she wanted to excavate is cause she saw an army of ghosts

00:58:18.720 marching around the barrow and that she, she was, uh, you know, uh, what was the word? 0.78

00:58:23.720 Clairvoyant, whatever they used to say.

00:58:24.720 Yeah.

00:58:25.720 It was a very popular late 19th century, early 20th century that people believed in spiritism

00:58:30.720 and stuff.

00:58:31.720 Um, my great grandmother at that, around that time when her husband died, had a, a medium

00:58:36.720 communicate with him through, for the dead and things like that.

00:58:38.720 I think it was the same with her.

00:58:39.720 Her husband died.

00:58:41.720 People did that quite a lot then of more than people might imagine.

00:58:45.720 Uh, anyway, she said she could see an army of soldiers marching around the barrow.

00:58:50.720 And that is why she told them to excavate that one. 0.99

00:58:52.720 And they just, people like to gloss over that, but it was right.

00:58:56.720 Yeah.

00:58:57.720 Well, she wasn't wrong. 0.95

00:58:58.720 And, um, it, it to me sounds like that could have been part of the funerary ritual that

00:59:03.720 his retinue would march around the barrow, perhaps when, after having, um, interred him.

00:59:08.720 I mean, it does set your imagination off fire.

00:59:10.720 It does me even to this day, uh, because it's not like there's, we've found loads of

00:59:15.720 these.

00:59:16.720 It's no, it's pretty unique.

00:59:18.720 There should be, there should be, there probably were a lot more being robbed and

00:59:21.720 what over the years, but.

00:59:22.720 I just find it, uh, not just the actual treasure itself, which you can go and see in the British

00:59:27.720 Museum, um, in Bloomsbury, get off at Holborn.

00:59:29.720 Uh, or Tom Cook Road.

00:59:30.720 You've got to see it.

00:59:31.720 But the actual, I just find the actual sight and that it was, again, when you see the

00:59:37.720 old black and white photographs of this, it's a big thing.

00:59:40.720 I think it's quite bloody big.

00:59:42.720 It's a big band.

00:59:43.720 So, but that infers so much.

00:59:46.720 He must've been extremely powerful and rich.

00:59:51.720 And there must've, the amount of, I mean, it's quite near a river, uh, but nonetheless,

00:59:56.720 the amount of energy, time and energy to drag that up there and buried it, or at least

01:00:02.720 half buried it and built, build a mound over it.

01:00:05.720 The amount of wealth that they just put in there, essentially lost to them now at this

01:00:09.720 point.

01:00:10.720 I didn't see it like that.

01:00:11.720 Of course.

01:00:12.720 No, true.

01:00:13.720 True.

01:00:14.720 But also, and it's not just the things that are in display in the museum.

01:00:16.720 Like there would be huge amounts of animal sacrifices and this wouldn't have just been

01:00:20.720 like, it wouldn't have been a funeral like today where you just stick someone in the ground,

01:00:24.720 say the prayers and cover them up.

01:00:26.720 This would've probably gone for days.

01:00:28.720 So this would've had.

01:00:29.720 Feasting.

01:00:30.720 Yeah.

01:00:31.720 The barrow would've been like partly open with the boat within it.

01:00:34.720 And there would be a whole process of feasting, drinking, animal sacrifices, and horses all

01:00:40.720 going in there.

01:00:41.720 And this is the same essential burial tradition.

01:00:44.720 You see, like the Saxons in England didn't have boat burials anywhere.

01:00:48.720 It's only Angles who did it, so it's Anglian regions.

01:00:52.720 But in continental Europe and in Scandinavia, it was happening a lot.

01:00:57.720 And it carried on right into the Viking Age so that even though, you know, by the seventh,

01:01:02.720 eighth century in England, there's no more pagan burials in the eighth century, but until

01:01:07.720 the Vikings come back and they bring back the exact same burial rites.

01:01:11.720 So you find in Scotland now, they find boat burials in barrows in Scotland.

01:01:15.720 But they're Vikings.

01:01:16.720 But they're Vikings.

01:01:17.720 They're not Anglo-Saxons. 0.88

01:01:18.720 So it's a completely different culture, right?

01:01:21.720 Except with the exact same funerary tradition.

01:01:24.720 It's obviously the same culture and the same god as well as the centre of their thing.

01:01:28.720 It's like Woden, Odin, it's the same thing.

01:01:30.720 It's like pretending...

01:01:31.720 Some people will say, if you don't understand why Woden and Odin are the same god, the Old

01:01:36.720 Norse word for wolf is Ulf.

01:01:39.720 And the Old English is wolf.

01:01:41.720 You just take the W away.

01:01:42.720 Woden, Odin.

01:01:44.720 They just took the W off.

01:01:46.720 Worm, Orm.

01:01:48.720 It's the same word.

01:01:49.720 It means snake.

01:01:50.720 But they just take the W away.

01:01:52.720 And there's no big difference in the Viking and Anglo-Saxon religion.

01:01:56.720 And even the entire tradition of a barrow is much more ancient than either of them.

01:02:02.720 Right.

01:02:03.720 And actually, the Anglo-Saxons acknowledged that because the initial Indo-European settlers

01:02:11.720 of the British Isles, the Bell Beaker folk, had barrows. 1.00

01:02:14.720 And they built a lot of them between 4,500 years ago and around 3,000 years ago.

01:02:21.720 They kind of stopped.

01:02:23.720 People in Britain didn't make any barrows after that.

01:02:26.720 And it's mostly associated strangely with the coming of Celtic culture, which is strange

01:02:30.720 because in the continent, Celtic cultures did have barrows.

01:02:33.720 For some reason, when Celtic culture comes to Britain, it results in the stopping of barrows. 1.00

01:02:38.720 But anyway, the Anglo-Saxons therefore came to a country where there were ancient barrows that were,

01:02:46.720 what, like 4,000 years now, at least 3,000 years old or whatever, something like that.

01:02:53.720 Right, so fantastically ancient to them already.

01:02:56.720 And they were like, those are sacred.

01:02:57.720 Yeah.

01:02:58.720 And they built fences around, like for example, at Spong Hill outside Brighton,

01:03:02.720 they built a fence around the Bronze Age barrows and they use it as a burial ground

01:03:06.720 and bury their dead in those old barrows or in new barrows adjacent to those old ones.

01:03:11.720 So they recognized that the Bronze Age, Belle Beaker burial tradition was the same as theirs.

01:03:16.720 Right.

01:03:17.720 And that's really interesting because later on, Christian Anglo-Saxons stopped thinking of barrows that way.

01:03:26.720 They started to think of them as being Welsh and inhabited by Welsh demons.

01:03:32.720 There's a hagiographic account of an Anglo-Saxon saint who, in the style of St. Anthony,

01:03:38.720 goes to live in the desert, which is on top of a barrow.

01:03:41.720 And there he's assailed by Welsh-speaking demons, which represent the spirits of ancestors, pagan ancestors. 0.99

01:03:46.720 But now instead of being, well, as early pagan Anglo-Saxons were like, these are our kin in the ground somehow 0.93

01:03:52.720 because they have the same burial rite.

01:03:53.720 Now the Christians are like, no, these are alien Celtic people. 0.99

01:03:56.720 We don't, we don't want anything to do with them.

01:03:58.720 We're Christians.

01:03:59.720 So it's an interesting transition.

01:04:00.720 It's fascinating.

01:04:01.720 I've got, there's so many things I've got.

01:04:03.720 We have, we've been going for a little bit of time already, unfortunately.

01:04:06.720 Yeah.

01:04:07.720 There's so many things I wanted to ask you about.

01:04:08.720 I mean, just one of them, just, just a complete aside, just while you're talking there, just

01:04:12.720 made me think of an account.

01:04:13.720 I think it was from Geoffrey of Monmouth where he said about Stonehenge.

01:04:17.720 He thought he'd been magically planted there from Ireland.

01:04:21.720 By the devil.

01:04:22.720 Yeah.

01:04:23.720 Yeah.

01:04:24.720 Just, yeah.

01:04:25.720 It was actually an Irish thing and magic just placed it on Salisbury Plain.

01:04:28.720 Was it Merlin or?

01:04:29.720 Yeah.

01:04:30.720 I can't remember.

01:04:31.720 There's one, there's one tradition that says Merlin.

01:04:32.720 I mean, there's a manuscript showing Merlin as a giant building Stonehenge like, like

01:04:37.720 with Lego blocks or something.

01:04:39.720 But there's another tradition that's something I think a giant in Ireland threw the stones

01:04:43.720 from Ireland and they landed in England.

01:04:45.720 Like they had some funny ideas about Stonehenge, obviously.

01:04:48.720 So we wondered what the Romans really thought about Stonehenge, what the Angles and the Saxons

01:04:52.720 really thought about Stonehenge.

01:04:54.720 Just one example.

01:04:55.720 Just, but anyway, we could go into it.

01:04:57.720 In fact, we've got an idea of the Saxons had an expression, enter your work in old English,

01:05:02.720 meaning the work in old English, meaning the work of the giants or Jötner.

01:05:06.720 Like the Ayrton means it's like a kind of an enemy of the gods, a monster.

01:05:13.720 And they said about like ancient ruins and things like that, enter your work.

01:05:19.720 It was made by the monsters of old in ancient times. 0.96

01:05:24.720 So that's probably what they would have thought of Stonehenge as well.

01:05:27.720 Yeah.

01:05:28.720 But I wanted to say something, what you said about the interesting thing about the helmet

01:05:32.720 of Sutton Hoo being based on the late Roman cavalry helmets.

01:05:35.720 And I sometimes think that people, because sometimes as well, like when there's a poem,

01:05:41.720 Angles takes a poem, The Ruin, and it talks about some Roman ruins as enter your work. 1.00

01:05:45.720 So it's like, are they so stupid? 0.99

01:05:46.720 They didn't even know about what the Romans were? 1.00

01:05:48.720 Well, I think that's misunderstanding because that part of Northwestern Germany has Roman ruins

01:05:55.720 and stone circles, Neolithic stone circles.

01:05:57.720 So none of these things that are in England would have been alien to them

01:05:59.720 because they had them in their homeland too.

01:06:01.720 It's just poetic.

01:06:02.720 And the interesting thing about like the Britons, the Romano Britons and the Anglo-Saxons 0.87

01:06:10.720 is that they each were Romanized in a completely different way.

01:06:14.720 Whereas the Britons had been subjugated and civilized, semi-civilized, 0.89

01:06:22.720 not as well civilized as the Gauls had been, who were fully civilized. 0.99

01:06:25.720 The Britons had been partially civilized, which means they were familiar with villas and baths

01:06:31.720 and stuff like that, and wine.

01:06:36.720 The way of life of the Mediterranean was not unknown in Britain.

01:06:41.720 But to the Germanic, Northern Germanic peoples, not like the Southern ones who were neighboring the Romans,

01:06:45.720 but the people like the Angles and Saxons, these things weren't known.

01:06:49.720 But many, many people in the ancient Germanic world, even as far north as Norway,

01:06:54.720 traveled south to, and talk about in the second or third centuries,

01:06:59.720 traveled south to serve in the Roman military.

01:07:02.720 And like even in Norway, in Ovelsnes, near Ovelsnes, there's a burial from the second or third century,

01:07:09.720 which contains a warrior, a high-says warrior with Roman equipment that he'd acquired

01:07:14.720 from serving in the Roman military and then gone all the way back to Norway.

01:07:17.720 So they went long distances.

01:07:19.720 And the idea that they didn't pick up any Roman culture at all is absurd.

01:07:22.720 They did.

01:07:23.720 But their Roman culture they picked up was exclusively the military culture.

01:07:28.720 So the Roman depictions on like, for example, Trajan's column of

01:07:33.720 naked Germanic barbarians with clubs from 2000 years ago,

01:07:37.720 that's not what we're seeing 1800 years ago.

01:07:41.720 By that time, they have a system, a military system,

01:07:45.720 that is based exactly on the Roman military system with a similar hierarchy,

01:07:49.720 similar kinds of uniform that the Germanic armor is based on,

01:07:55.720 as you say, late Roman cavalry armor.

01:07:57.720 But it's different as well because they've integrated with all images of their gods

01:08:01.720 with Woden and like symbols of power, like the boar and the dragon that give them power in battle.

01:08:06.720 But yeah, it's like a kind of military cargo cult, if you will.

01:08:11.720 The only thing they took from the Romans is how to kill more efficiently. 0.89

01:08:15.720 I think that's very, very interesting.

01:08:17.720 Of course, famously for most of Imperial Rome's time, the frontier was set at the Rhine.

01:08:24.720 Yeah.

01:08:25.720 But that doesn't, obviously, their culture and their language and all sorts of things

01:08:29.720 didn't go further north.

01:08:31.720 Of course they did.

01:08:32.720 And yeah, I mean, by the time of, again, I'm thinking it wasn't that long ago,

01:08:37.720 I rereading Gibbon the bit about Honorius and Stilicho and Alaric.

01:08:42.720 And loads of the legions are Germans at that point.

01:08:46.720 Loads.

01:08:47.720 Like Swabians and stuff.

01:08:48.720 Yeah.

01:08:49.720 Loads of it.

01:08:50.720 And the liberals were Germans. 0.54

01:08:51.720 Yes.

01:08:52.720 I mean, you've even got a German bodyguard in the age of Caligula and Claudius.

01:08:57.720 Yeah.

01:08:58.720 And I think this is a lot older than people realize.

01:09:01.720 And the sources indicate because they just found recently some DNA studies on two,

01:09:05.720 they found two Swedish Bronze Age guys in Cyprus.

01:09:09.720 So, like, people, they might not even have been mercenaries.

01:09:12.720 They might have been merchants.

01:09:13.720 But the Bronze Age trade with Scandinavia and the Mediterranean was big.

01:09:18.720 There was a lot of trade going back and forth.

01:09:20.720 So these, the idea, like, popularized, like, Viking series, like, the northern Germanic peoples

01:09:26.720 were, like, isolated until the Viking Age.

01:09:28.720 It's just nonsense.

01:09:29.720 They were constantly...

01:09:30.720 The Varangian Guard, for example.

01:09:31.720 Yeah.

01:09:32.720 Well, that's the Viking Age, but... 0.79

01:09:33.720 A bit later, sorry.

01:09:34.720 Yeah, yeah.

01:09:35.720 The Goths had served previously.

01:09:36.720 That wouldn't have happened out of nowhere, though, would it?

01:09:38.720 No.

01:09:39.720 Something like the Varangian Guard.

01:09:40.720 It wasn't just one day, oh, now we've got the Varangian Guard.

01:09:43.720 No.

01:09:44.720 Surely there would have been a process that took centuries before.

01:09:47.720 Well, they referred to the Varangians as Goths when they were Vikings.

01:09:53.720 So the fact that the Greeks called the Vikings Goths indicates that they remembered from centuries

01:09:59.720 earlier this relationship with these Germanic people and considered them the same.

01:10:02.720 And that's because they were the same, really the same.

01:10:05.720 And, like, even people don't misunderstand what's meant by Germania when Tacitus says,

01:10:09.720 it's not talking about Germany.

01:10:11.720 Because even, like, he describes the Teutons, for example, as one of them.

01:10:15.720 That's...

01:10:16.720 The Teutons living mostly in what's Denmark, like, now Denmark. 0.93

01:10:19.720 And the word Teuton is the cognate with Deutsch, the word that Germans call each other.

01:10:25.720 The idea of Germany didn't exist as what we now think of as Germany.

01:10:30.720 And these far-flung regions of Germania, like Norway, is...

01:10:35.720 Those people were even being contacted by the Roman world.

01:10:40.720 It wasn't just the Swabians who lived at the edge of the, you know, of Roman territory.

01:10:44.720 It was deep into Germanic territories and influence from Rome because it was a very powerful and rich area.

01:10:51.720 And obviously, you know, people go where the money is.

01:10:54.720 Oh, yeah.

01:10:55.720 Oh, no, there's accounts of German people, Germanic peoples, visiting Rome.

01:11:03.720 Again, in, like, the sort of first century.

01:11:06.720 Mm.

01:11:07.720 And people in sort of suburban Rome complaining about them.

01:11:11.720 Yeah.

01:11:12.720 These giant, smelly guys with long hair or whatever.

01:11:15.720 And they're a bit scary, but they're not too bad.

01:11:17.720 Anyway, so, yeah.

01:11:19.720 Well, the interaction between Rome and Germany is fascinating.

01:11:22.720 But we're supposed to be doing the Anglo-Sector.

01:11:25.720 There's so many things.

01:11:27.720 Let's talk about King Arthur briefly, then, for a bit.

01:11:30.720 Okay.

01:11:31.720 So it's sticky, right?

01:11:32.720 I think that's one of the first things to say.

01:11:34.720 It's a bit sticky because some people like to think of it as a solid history.

01:11:41.720 But most of the accounts are not all that reliable.

01:11:44.720 Like, what, Mallory and Monmouth and there's various Arthurian legends.

01:11:50.720 I think it's good to maybe keep two separate things.

01:11:53.720 First, you have, like, the early potential accounts of him, which is sparse, extremely sparse,

01:12:01.720 which some people like to try to connect to actual Brothonic leaders.

01:12:06.720 Right.

01:12:07.720 And they may or may not be right.

01:12:09.720 But then...

01:12:10.720 What's your feeling?

01:12:11.720 My interest...

01:12:12.720 I don't care.

01:12:13.720 That's right.

01:12:14.720 Okay.

01:12:15.720 But I think the main thing is Arthur, as we understand, when we...

01:12:18.720 The only reason we're even talking about Arthur is not because he was some great rebel against the Saxon invasion.

01:12:26.720 Like, Celtic heroes that actually existed are remembered.

01:12:30.720 Boudicca, Caractacus, people like this, that actually exist.

01:12:34.720 But Arthur is just not celebrated like that.

01:12:37.720 There's no stones talking about him like Caractacus is.

01:12:39.720 But Arthur is remembered and is important in our history because of Arthurian romance,

01:12:45.720 which is a product of the high Middle Ages, very much, and the tradition of Romantic literature.

01:12:51.720 Much more like 11th, 12th century.

01:12:53.720 Yeah.

01:12:54.720 And later even.

01:12:55.720 I mean, even, like, in the 15th century, like, the Tudors...

01:13:00.720 Well, Henry Tudor had a big round, you know, at...

01:13:05.720 In the past, the large, you know, round table.

01:13:07.720 Windsor.

01:13:08.720 Windsor, yeah.

01:13:09.720 But the third was a massive Arthur fan, wasn't it?

01:13:11.720 It was the Star Wars or, like, Marvel of the time.

01:13:15.720 Right.

01:13:16.720 Everyone in...

01:13:17.720 Like, not just...

01:13:18.720 It's France is where it kicks off. 0.95

01:13:19.720 Like, Cartier de Troyes.

01:13:21.720 And, like, it's a huge thing.

01:13:22.720 Yeah, Cartier de Troyes is the main one, of course.

01:13:24.720 Yeah.

01:13:25.720 And Mallory is copying what he calls the French book.

01:13:28.720 The French book.

01:13:29.720 The...

01:13:30.720 And you've got Wolfram Von...

01:13:32.720 What's his name doing Parzival in Germany.

01:13:35.720 So, like, everyone in the whole of Europe is, like, obsessed with this canon of these legendary tales

01:13:42.720 set in a mythical age a thousand years earlier, pretty much.

01:13:45.720 It's not historical.

01:13:47.720 It's...

01:13:48.720 It can't be.

01:13:49.720 Also, he's not just the king of Britain.

01:13:51.720 He's like the king of Scandinavia in some versions.

01:13:53.720 Like, he's just...

01:13:54.720 He's just like Superman or Batman or something.

01:13:56.720 Or a Robin Hood figure.

01:13:58.720 At best, and a male groom of someone who may or may not have existed.

01:14:01.720 Yeah.

01:14:02.720 I mean, the Sword in the Stone...

01:14:03.720 Looking at that, really.

01:14:04.720 I think the Sword in the Stone comes out of Germanic myth.

01:14:07.720 Like, that's...

01:14:08.720 You've got that...

01:14:09.720 The barn stock in the Vrlsunga saga where the...

01:14:12.720 The Odinic hero has to pull the sword out of the tree to...

01:14:15.720 To...

01:14:16.720 To...

01:14:17.720 I think that's...

01:14:18.720 That...

01:14:19.720 There's lots of little bits taken from...

01:14:20.720 What is that, sorry?

01:14:21.720 That's a Germanic... 0.99

01:14:22.720 Well, the Vrlsunga saga is an Icelandic saga.

01:14:24.720 Icelandic.

01:14:25.720 Oh, okay.

01:14:26.720 So, it would have precedence in an ancient Germanic law.

01:14:29.720 You know, in Odin...

01:14:30.720 It's very Odinic.

01:14:31.720 Like, the Odinic hero has to pull the sword out of this tree, which is connected to Odin.

01:14:37.720 So, yeah.

01:14:38.720 I think...

01:14:40.720 This is a wonderful literary tradition.

01:14:42.720 It's very interesting.

01:14:43.720 And to study it...

01:14:44.720 I...

01:14:45.720 I only studied it as a literary tradition of the High Middle Ages.

01:14:48.720 And...

01:14:49.720 The...

01:14:50.720 I think trying to...

01:14:51.720 To connect that back to an actual figure who might have existed.

01:14:54.720 Kind of...

01:14:55.720 Removes...

01:14:56.720 The...

01:14:57.720 The value of that literature, which is something completely different.

01:14:59.720 I'm not saying, like...

01:15:00.720 There's no value in actually trying to figure out whether an Arthur exists.

01:15:03.720 Arturius or whatever.

01:15:04.720 Some...

01:15:05.720 Like, you know...

01:15:06.720 There were probably a few Roman generals kicking about who wanted to fight the Saxons.

01:15:11.720 But...

01:15:12.720 Obviously none of them were that significant because they weren't written about.

01:15:14.720 At all.

01:15:15.720 But...

01:15:16.720 Although we are right in that...

01:15:17.720 You know, if he were a real figure, we are right in that period when it's at its darkest.

01:15:22.720 Yeah.

01:15:23.720 Uh...

01:15:24.720 Yeah, I can't remember...

01:15:25.720 I think it's Gildas mentioned someone like that or...

01:15:27.720 Have you read Chrétien de Troyes?

01:15:28.720 Because I haven't.

01:15:29.720 No, I can't read...

01:15:30.720 I can't read French.

01:15:31.720 I can...

01:15:32.720 I've read Mallory's Mort d'Arthur.

01:15:33.720 Yeah, I've read Mallory.

01:15:34.720 But, um...

01:15:35.720 I...

01:15:36.720 I can read Middle English, I can say that.

01:15:37.720 Can you?

01:15:38.720 Yeah.

01:15:39.720 Okay, I can't.

01:15:40.720 It helps if you think of it in a West Country accent.

01:15:42.720 I find...

01:15:43.720 If you try and read it in a West Country accent, then it all falls into place.

01:15:45.720 We could get Chrétien de Troyes in translation, could we not?

01:15:48.720 I haven't.

01:15:49.720 I haven't.

01:15:50.720 I've never read it.

01:15:51.720 No, I've never read it.

01:15:52.720 But, okay.

01:15:53.720 All right.

01:15:54.720 Um...

01:15:55.720 I've read, um...

01:15:56.720 I've read, um...

01:15:57.720 The Green Knight.

01:15:58.720 The Green Knight is very good.

01:15:59.720 Uh...

01:16:00.720 That's the only other author in original text I've read in Middle English, yeah.

01:16:04.720 Is that like, uh...

01:16:05.720 More like...

01:16:06.720 Uh...

01:16:07.720 Is it Lancelot or Galahad that that's basically about?

01:16:10.720 Um...

01:16:11.720 Neither.

01:16:12.720 It's about, uh...

01:16:13.720 Is it Percival?

01:16:14.720 I can't remember now.

01:16:15.720 It's the one who was portrayed by an Indian actor in the recent adaptation.

01:16:19.720 Yeah.

01:16:20.720 But I can't...

01:16:21.720 Again, sure.

01:16:22.720 Why not? 0.96

01:16:23.720 Dark Britons. 0.99

01:16:24.720 Why not make it a woman? 1.00

01:16:25.720 A lesbian woman? 1.00

01:16:26.720 Yeah.

01:16:27.720 Who's disabled? 0.99

01:16:28.720 No.

01:16:29.720 Um...

01:16:30.720 But this is Christian... 0.98

01:16:31.720 This is Christian literature that's intended to impart the Christian morality...

01:16:40.720 Not of the Dark Ages, but the Christian morality of the High Middle Ages.

01:16:43.720 Right.

01:16:44.720 And the ideals of the perfect king according to people in the 13th and 14th century.

01:16:49.720 Right.

01:16:50.720 I hope you understand the culture of the Dark Ages, you know, the 5th century.

01:16:54.720 I don't think it's useful.

01:16:56.720 Arthur...

01:16:57.720 I don't know.

01:16:58.720 Like, uh...

01:16:59.720 Maybe he existed, maybe he didn't.

01:17:01.720 Uh...

01:17:02.720 Fair enough.

01:17:03.720 I don't know.

01:17:04.720 Fair enough.

01:17:05.720 Fair enough.

01:17:06.720 I remember just one tiny anecdote.

01:17:07.720 I remember once, years ago, when I used to work in banks, someone said something or

01:17:12.720 other to me, and they'd mixed up Alfred the Great and Arthur.

01:17:16.720 Yeah.

01:17:17.720 And I just said, I think you've mixed up Alfred the Great and Arthur.

01:17:20.720 And they're like, oh, really?

01:17:22.720 And I said, yeah, good.

01:17:23.720 And they were just confused.

01:17:24.720 They didn't know what they were talking about sort of thing.

01:17:27.720 No judgement.

01:17:28.720 I actually think that might be a deliberate consequence of the Norman Conquest.

01:17:32.720 Because they tried to downplay anything Anglo-Saxon after 1066.

01:17:37.720 And it was one of the reasons why they were happy to celebrate the Celtic heritage of Britain.

01:17:42.720 Because to them it was less threatening than the English heritage.

01:17:45.720 So you'd see a period where Alfred isn't celebrated anymore.

01:17:48.720 Well, I remember saying to the same guy, he was a middle-aged guy or older, near retirement.

01:17:52.720 I said, well, Alfred the Great is almost certainly, well, he is a historical figure.

01:17:58.720 And Arthur's almost certainly fictional.

01:18:00.720 And he was like, what?

01:18:01.720 Arthur isn't real?

01:18:02.720 And I was like, yeah, no, almost certainly not.

01:18:04.720 And he was like, what?

01:18:05.720 Really?

01:18:06.720 And he was like genuinely...

01:18:07.720 Start crying.

01:18:08.720 He was genuinely gutted, it seemed.

01:18:10.720 And he just wasn't aware that that was a possibility.

01:18:15.720 He'd grown up with stories, I guess, since he was a small boy.

01:18:19.720 And to have this sort of rug pulled out for him, he didn't.

01:18:21.720 Anyway.

01:18:22.720 It's like Robin Hood as well.

01:18:23.720 Oh, yeah.

01:18:24.720 Is Robin Hood a real guy?

01:18:25.720 I think not as important as Robin Hood.

01:18:28.720 What's real is the stories of Robin Hood.

01:18:30.720 Those are real and they've been important for our people for a long time.

01:18:34.720 So in that sense, Arthur is real because that literature for the least 800 years has been really important for British people.

01:18:41.720 And that's undeniably a real part of our history.

01:18:44.720 Right.

01:18:45.720 So, and I think like getting too hung up on whether that was based on a real person denies the 800 years or so of very important history that is real of us enjoying Arthurian stories.

01:18:58.720 I've been reading...

01:18:59.720 Interesting you should bring up.

01:19:00.720 I've been reading on and off about Robin Hood for a couple of years now.

01:19:05.720 And yeah, it's just...

01:19:07.720 It's an amount.

01:19:08.720 The idea of an outlaw in the forest called Robber Hood.

01:19:15.720 It's just like...

01:19:16.720 Yeah.

01:19:17.720 Well, I noticed once...

01:19:18.720 I was reading an ancient Indian text a few years back and then I was like, this story is in Robin Hood.

01:19:27.720 And then I checked it out.

01:19:28.720 I was like, oh yeah, the archery contest.

01:19:30.720 That is an ancient Indo-European story.

01:19:32.720 It definitely was not real.

01:19:34.720 Like, you know, a disguised archer, a guy comes in disguised to an archery contest and wins.

01:19:39.720 That's not...

01:19:40.720 That didn't happen.

01:19:41.720 I mean, if it happened, it happened thousands of years ago because it's like found in India as far away as like...

01:19:47.720 Yeah, I don't know what the origin is, but definitely, you know, as you say, it's an amalgam of stories that just are cool stories.

01:19:53.720 Like the guy who wins the contest while disguised and wins the maiden is great.

01:19:58.720 And they...

01:19:59.720 I mean, even get like...

01:20:01.720 Now it's supposed to be set in the age of John, but that wasn't even established particularly for...

01:20:06.720 Like in the 14th century, they're already telling each other stories about Robin Hood.

01:20:13.720 It's interesting that Friar Tuck seems to have been quite firmly a real figure.

01:20:19.720 Whether he...

01:20:20.720 Is he real?

01:20:21.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:22.720 Seems to have been...

01:20:23.720 He seems so much like an archetype now. 0.99

01:20:24.720 Like this fat, jolly drunk monk. 0.96

01:20:26.720 I think there were quite a lot of outlawed, drunken monks. 0.96

01:20:30.720 But there's one particular who actually went by the name Friar Tuck.

01:20:34.720 And he was... 0.97

01:20:35.720 He was a nutty. 1.00

01:20:36.720 He was like he was a murderer. 1.00

01:20:37.720 He was a killer. 0.99

01:20:39.720 Anyway. 0.95

01:20:40.720 Anyway, we're not talking about Robin Hood.

01:20:41.720 Another time.

01:20:42.720 So again, we'll have to pass over these things relatively quickly.

01:20:45.720 But there's the period of...

01:20:47.720 A few words about the Heptarchy, or the period of sort of seven kingdoms, the period before Alfred, Afustan.

01:20:57.720 That sort of...

01:20:59.720 How does that sort of exist in your mind?

01:21:02.720 Well, okay.

01:21:03.720 This is where I get my knowledge is not as great.

01:21:07.720 But basically, you start off with a system of hide...

01:21:10.720 The Heidel system.

01:21:12.720 And a hide is basically like what amount of land five...

01:21:17.720 That one family can live on for a year.

01:21:20.720 And then they start...

01:21:21.720 The Heptarchy comes out with like the establishment of these different kingdoms.

01:21:27.720 That...

01:21:30.720 Of varying numbers of Heidel...

01:21:33.720 Heidel...

01:21:34.720 Burgage, is it called?

01:21:36.720 Or the Burgages when Alfred's got the...

01:21:40.720 That's later with Alfred, I think.

01:21:43.720 I can't actually tell you when the Heptarchy was established.

01:21:47.720 Just...

01:21:48.720 Well, it's a process.

01:21:49.720 Yeah.

01:21:50.720 The period that if we...

01:21:51.720 In the age of sort of Ragwald, we didn't really have it.

01:21:54.720 No, that's not there yet.

01:21:55.720 By the age of Alfred, or Afustan, let's say.

01:22:00.720 Yeah, you're looking at like one continuous kingdom.

01:22:04.720 Or the supremacy of Wessex.

01:22:07.720 It was...

01:22:08.720 Mercia was sort of preeminent for a while, but in the end...

01:22:12.720 So it's a relatively small period of time, still a century or more,

01:22:16.720 where there's these seven kingdoms.

01:22:18.720 Mm.

01:22:19.720 Um...

01:22:20.720 And they eventually become England.

01:22:21.720 Yeah.

01:22:22.720 Yeah.

01:22:23.720 So it's like a stepping stone process from like, more petty kingdoms,

01:22:27.720 consolidating into seven, and then from that seven to one.

01:22:30.720 Yeah.

01:22:31.720 But yeah, I can't give you a lot of timeline off by the top of my head,

01:22:35.720 of when that was established.

01:22:37.720 But yeah.

01:22:38.720 We're talking like, it's the eighth century, basically.

01:22:41.720 Mm-hmm.

01:22:42.720 So definitely the Viking invasions are a catalyst for unification 0.99

01:22:48.720 and cooperation between kingdoms.

01:22:50.720 Yeah.

01:22:51.720 I definitely think that having a common enemy of the Vikings

01:22:53.720 is what basically ensured that England existed as a nation.

01:22:57.720 Right.

01:22:58.720 We were all needed to have a unified system where we were able

01:23:03.720 to have like these bergs or whatever, like these fortified areas

01:23:07.720 that are a set distance from each other.

01:23:09.720 And Alfred established that.

01:23:11.720 And that led the way later for his grandson to make a single.

01:23:15.720 Well, so I was going to say that.

01:23:16.720 So Alfred is an extremely pivotal figure, again, to the point,

01:23:21.720 almost a cliche, to the point where any small British child

01:23:24.720 should probably be taught about him.

01:23:26.720 Yes, definitely.

01:23:28.720 And so that's among one of the many, many, many things he's famous for,

01:23:33.720 I would say, is this idea of having some sort of permanent,

01:23:38.720 what we might call, I suppose, maybe a fast reaction force

01:23:42.720 to invasion from the east or from the sea.

01:23:48.720 So it's going back to what hadn't existed in England since the Roman times.

01:23:53.720 Right.

01:23:54.720 Which is actually a military, a competent form of military defense

01:23:58.720 from outside invasion.

01:23:59.720 And we're talking like three centuries ago.

01:24:01.720 Yeah.

01:24:02.720 Right.

01:24:03.720 It's a long, that's quite a long period to just be completely

01:24:07.720 at the mercy of marauders.

01:24:08.720 Yeah.

01:24:09.720 Or, yeah.

01:24:11.720 Or at least a partial, I think there weren't so many,

01:24:15.720 there hadn't been any marauders except the English.

01:24:18.720 Because the Anglo-Saxons were the marauders initially. 0.84

01:24:20.720 Right.

01:24:21.720 And then once they're there, they didn't think the need to, like,

01:24:24.720 defend the coasts from other marauders until they were so distinct

01:24:29.720 from the Germanic peoples of, you know, the regions not far from where

01:24:34.720 they came from initially, that suddenly those people represented an enemy.

01:24:39.720 But they would have still been able to talk to Norsemen without a translator.

01:24:45.720 Anglo-Saxon and Norse are similar enough that they would be able to get the gist

01:24:50.720 of each other.

01:24:51.720 And we know for sure, like, in Egil's saga, one of the Icelandic sagas,

01:24:54.720 Egil is a poet, an Odinic poet, a pagan.

01:24:58.720 And he just goes and goes on a jolly to England and serves in the court of King Adelstan for a while,

01:25:04.720 initially as a soldier fighting in the Battle of Brunberg against the Norse-Gaelic alliance.

01:25:10.720 But also he composes poems in the court, presumably because the English court could understand the Icelandic poet at that time,

01:25:21.720 enough at least to enjoy a poem.

01:25:23.720 So, yeah, they were alien, the Norse, but they were also not. 0.91

01:25:29.720 There are times when the Norse allied with, like, I mean, the Cornish allied with the Vikings once to try and fight the English.

01:25:36.720 Didn't work out.

01:25:37.720 But, like, the English used Viking mercenaries to fight against other kinds of Vikings and stuff like that.

01:25:43.720 So it wasn't like this clear cut English versus Viking all the time.

01:25:46.720 But, yeah, the main problem was that they were pagan and England wasn't. 0.79

01:25:52.720 So that made them foreign. 0.99

01:25:53.720 And then we needed to have defences, but we also needed to construct another other.

01:26:01.720 We already had the Celtic Christian other.

01:26:03.720 We are not Celtic Christians.

01:26:05.720 We are the English who are also Christian.

01:26:08.720 But then we have another other, which is Germanic people coming in.

01:26:11.720 Like, we're not like those Germanic people either because they're heathen. 1.00

01:26:15.720 So we have, like, a very clearly defined Englishness.

01:26:19.720 There's neither Welsh nor Danish.

01:26:22.720 It's something in between.

01:26:23.720 Right.

01:26:24.720 Yeah, yeah.

01:26:25.720 Not sort of the ancient Britons.

01:26:28.720 Not Welsh. 0.99

01:26:29.720 Welsh. 0.63

01:26:30.720 Not Irish. 1.00

01:26:31.720 They would have called them Britons. 0.98

01:26:32.720 Yeah.

01:26:33.720 Sorry.

01:26:34.720 Yeah.

01:26:35.720 And their Christianity is Roman. 0.99

01:26:37.720 I mean, again, not ancient Rome, but just the Pope sitting in Rome.

01:26:41.720 Yeah, I think the Archbishop of Canterbury.

01:26:44.720 I think the best way to think of it is...

01:26:45.720 You've got Archbishop of Canterbury, right?

01:26:47.720 I don't think they define themselves against the Celts according to religious...

01:26:52.720 I think they define themselves against the Vikings according to religious differences.

01:26:55.720 Because the Vikings were a different religion.

01:26:57.720 Okay.

01:26:58.720 But they define themselves against the Celts according to ethnic differences.

01:27:01.720 But I think they believed that they had the same religion as the Celts.

01:27:04.720 Oh, yeah.

01:27:05.720 But I mean, so...

01:27:06.720 Let me ask you this, then, straight up.

01:27:08.720 Did all the Celtic Christians recognise the Pope?

01:27:13.720 Yes.

01:27:14.720 As far as I know, they all did.

01:27:15.720 There was no Protestantism.

01:27:16.720 No, no.

01:27:17.720 It's...

01:27:18.720 I think you get a lot...

01:27:19.720 I mean, we don't have...

01:27:20.720 They were orthodox in that sense.

01:27:21.720 Yeah.

01:27:22.720 There were...

01:27:23.720 It's not like the, you know, Albigensian Crusade.

01:27:27.720 You know, when the Cathars, you've got genuine, like...

01:27:30.720 And, like, earlier you have the Aryan heresy, which the Goths adopted. 0.94

01:27:37.720 There's a genuine heretical difference, like, that would cause the Catholic Church to oppose

01:27:42.720 them.

01:27:43.720 There's nothing like that for the Catholic... 1.00

01:27:45.720 Rome never says it needs to, like, purge.

01:27:47.720 You know, they literally genocided the people in Languedoc, like, in the Middle Ages. 0.74

01:27:52.720 Like, they completely destroyed an entire race of people from history because they had 0.98

01:27:58.720 a schism...

01:27:59.720 A schismatic version of Christianity. 0.98

01:28:00.720 That...

01:28:01.720 Nothing like that was ever done against Celts.

01:28:02.720 I don't think there was anything in...

01:28:04.720 In Ireland that threatened the Pope.

01:28:06.720 I don't think they were worried about Irish Christianity or...

01:28:08.720 At all.

01:28:09.720 Because I don't see any...

01:28:10.720 I've never seen any evidence for it or...

01:28:12.720 Yeah, fair enough.

01:28:13.720 I don't know why we keep the terms out.

01:28:14.720 I'm not particularly interested in this.

01:28:15.720 Just...

01:28:16.720 Just...

01:28:17.720 It's just a really popular thing that people want to think.

01:28:18.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:28:19.720 Another one is that...

01:28:20.720 I think it's for the same reason people call the knotwork Celtic knotwork.

01:28:22.720 They want to say there was a Celtic Christianity and there's Celtic knotwork and they want to call

01:28:26.720 Celtic... 0.89

01:28:27.720 Tolkien said, Celtic is a magic hat and you can put anything in it and take anything out of

01:28:31.720 it.

01:28:32.720 It's completely made up what Celtic means even.

01:28:33.720 Like, if people have a Roman religion and speak a Germanic language, why do you call

01:28:39.720 them Celtic?

01:28:40.720 Right?

01:28:41.720 It's like...

01:28:42.720 It's just...

01:28:43.720 It doesn't have very much...

01:28:44.720 Was there not...

01:28:45.720 And this will be the last thing on it.

01:28:46.720 Was there not...

01:28:47.720 Were they not...

01:28:48.720 Were they would be bishops?

01:28:50.720 I don't know about that.

01:28:51.720 No, no, no.

01:28:52.720 Who didn't accept the authority of Canterbury and therefore Rome.

01:28:57.720 They just didn't accept them as a legit...

01:28:59.720 That might be true.

01:29:00.720 I can't tell you.

01:29:01.720 Okay.

01:29:02.720 I can't tell you.

01:29:03.720 Forget it.

01:29:04.720 Forget it.

01:29:05.720 All right.

01:29:06.720 So, Alfred and Athenstan then.

01:29:07.720 So, the Viking invasions are in full swing now. 0.96

01:29:12.720 So, it was what...

01:29:13.720 The earliest stuff is at...

01:29:14.720 What is it?

01:29:15.720 Lindisfarne?

01:29:16.720 793, I think, is the first hit on Lindisfarne.

01:29:19.720 Right.

01:29:20.720 Okay.

01:29:21.720 So...

01:29:22.720 So, the end of the...

01:29:23.720 It's still quite early, really, isn't it?

01:29:24.720 I suppose.

01:29:25.720 It depends how you measure it, but...

01:29:26.720 Well, if you think, like, the last...

01:29:28.720 The very last pagan kingdoms are done, like... 0.96

01:29:32.720 Are, like, converting in the beginning of the 8th century.

01:29:35.720 And at the end of the 8th century, you've got pagan invaders. 0.96

01:29:37.720 There's not a very long period of, like, the security of English Christianity.

01:29:42.720 Like, it's only just...

01:29:44.720 Within living memory, almost, got rid of the last native English pagans.

01:29:48.720 When...

01:29:49.720 Then foreign pagans turn up again. 0.60

01:29:50.720 Right.

01:29:51.720 So...

01:29:52.720 Right.

01:29:53.720 Um...

01:29:54.720 And so, the...

01:29:55.720 The incursions by the...

01:29:57.720 The men of the North...

01:29:58.720 Yeah.

01:29:59.720 Are, um...

01:30:00.720 Eventually...

01:30:01.720 Well, getting ahead of ourselves, but...

01:30:02.720 Okay.

01:30:03.720 So, beginning with, let's say, in, like, the 8th century...

01:30:05.720 8th and 9th century, they do seem to get progressively...

01:30:09.720 Worse.

01:30:10.720 Worse.

01:30:11.720 Yeah.

01:30:12.720 It's, like, it's pretty bad, right?

01:30:13.720 Yeah.

01:30:14.720 I mean, at the height of it...

01:30:15.720 I mean, we end up with...

01:30:16.720 Canute and stuff, but before that...

01:30:18.720 It's pretty...

01:30:20.720 Bad and brutal.

01:30:21.720 Mmm.

01:30:22.720 So, I think there was this idea that the Vikings are terrible rapers and pillagers and...

01:30:26.720 Da-da-da-da-da. 0.90

01:30:27.720 And then, at some point in, like, the...

01:30:28.720 Probably the bloody 20th century, they were like, oh, no, it wasn't all that bad.

01:30:32.720 Yeah.

01:30:33.720 They weren't all that bad.

01:30:34.720 It's like, yeah, they have women and children, and they looked after their animals.

01:30:38.720 Yeah.

01:30:39.720 I think it still was pretty bad, though.

01:30:40.720 Still, they did... 0.77

01:30:41.720 They definitely did come and just, like, kill a bunch of people.

01:30:43.720 From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, it seems...

01:30:45.720 Yeah.

01:30:46.720 It was...

01:30:47.720 They were...

01:30:48.720 They had a tradition of raiding, and also, even if you ignored all the French and Scottish 0.99

01:30:53.720 and Irish and English sources on the Vikings, and just looked at their own sources,

01:30:57.720 Well, they describe each other killing each other, going to each other, raiding the coastal

01:31:01.720 towns.

01:31:02.720 Like, even...

01:31:03.720 Not even just, like, Swedes raiding Danes.

01:31:04.720 I mean, even in, like, small Iceland, like, there's just this one saga where there's this

01:31:08.720 guy who just decides to, instead of farming like everyone else, he just decides to, like,

01:31:13.720 get a bunch of big guys in a boat, and just sail around to other people's farms, kill

01:31:18.720 them, and steal everything, and then go back.

01:31:20.720 And, like, until a bunch of different farmers form, like, a posse, and then march up to 0.99

01:31:25.720 him and just say, you've got to stop doing this, or we're going to kill you. 0.95

01:31:28.720 And then they make a struggle deal, and he says he'll go away and not come back instead.

01:31:31.720 But, yeah, it's like, that was something they did, even at home.

01:31:35.720 So, it wasn't like...

01:31:36.720 Right.

01:31:37.720 I don't buy this idea, like, some people want to, like, try and say it was a retaliation

01:31:41.720 for encroachments, Christian encroachments on Scandinavia. 1.00

01:31:44.720 Well, that doesn't make sense, because they always did this.

01:31:47.720 Like, it's an ancient part of their culture.

01:31:49.720 It probably goes back to the first time they had boats.

01:31:52.720 Like, they used...

01:31:53.720 And, in fact, it's an ancient Indo-European thing to raid enemies.

01:31:56.720 And, also, Gaelic Christians were doing it anyway. 0.99

01:31:59.720 Like, everything the Vikings did that's bad, raiding people, slaving, killing, that's all 0.99

01:32:05.720 stuff that everyone else was doing in Europe as well.

01:32:08.720 Like, the Celtic people did that too, all those things.

01:32:10.720 So, it's like, the only thing that was unique about them is that they had boats that went

01:32:14.720 further, and they could go along crossing across the sea.

01:32:17.720 And no one had done, like, a North Sea crossing from Norway to, you know, North England before.

01:32:22.720 So, previously, people had traveled that route by going south to Denmark, then, you know,

01:32:28.720 along Holland, and then make the short crossing.

01:32:31.720 But being able to just go straight across the sea like that and hit Scotland or the north of England

01:32:36.720 was completely unexpected.

01:32:38.720 And that's, like, I think that's why people...

01:32:40.720 No one thought that Lindisfarne was going to get hit from the east.

01:32:42.720 Like, it was just not known that that was something that could happen.

01:32:45.720 It's mad when you look at the size of the vessels they were using and how rough those seas are.

01:32:50.720 And those seas, like, it's remarkable.

01:32:54.720 Again, I find it sort of quite a remarkable feat of seafaring.

01:32:58.720 Incredible.

01:32:59.720 I'd be scared to cross that bit of sea in bad weather in a modern ship.

01:33:06.720 Yeah.

01:33:07.720 It'd be a bit hairy.

01:33:08.720 Yeah.

01:33:09.720 They probably had the best ships in the world at that time.

01:33:11.720 They're probably the best seafarers in the world at that time.

01:33:14.720 But they're not that deep.

01:33:15.720 Is it the draft?

01:33:16.720 They're not...

01:33:17.720 No.

01:33:18.720 They had several different kinds of ship.

01:33:20.720 I think one's called Knoll or something like that, which is a wide one for transporting cargo.

01:33:26.720 Even that doesn't sit that low in the water because it's got this really wide sort of belly.

01:33:31.720 I don't know what all the nautical terms are.

01:33:33.720 But...

01:33:34.720 And they had a small one called a farrowing or something like that, which is for...

01:33:39.720 Like, you know, it's a small boat for, like, small crossings.

01:33:42.720 But the long ship, the big one, which is, like, puts a whole warband on it.

01:33:47.720 Like, it's big.

01:33:48.720 And some of them are really impressive.

01:33:50.720 You could see in Oslo's ship museum.

01:33:53.720 On some...

01:33:54.720 The ones in...

01:33:55.720 Denmark has a ship museum as well, which is...

01:33:57.720 All the ships there are just from ships that they deliberately sunk to make a barrier for the bay to, like...

01:34:04.720 So they're just...

01:34:05.720 They're not, like, you know, impressive warships.

01:34:07.720 But the ones from, like, an Oslo museum are ones like Sutton Hoo that are taken from Barrows.

01:34:12.720 So these were prestige ships and they're just beautifully made and exquisitely crafted vessels.

01:34:19.720 So, yeah, the ones that came to England probably could have been a little bit not as nice as that, but they're probably pretty impressive as well.

01:34:26.720 I mean, not that I think the Viking attacks were particularly any more brutal than stuff that's been going on since time immemorial, since the Sea Peoples or whatever.

01:34:39.720 Yeah, yeah.

01:34:40.720 But nonetheless, nonetheless, still brutal if he's on the receiving end of it, I think this idea, this revisionism, that it wasn't all that bad and it's exaggerated and it was all Anglo-Saxon propaganda.

01:34:49.720 I just don't particularly buy that.

01:34:51.720 Well, it is propaganda.

01:34:52.720 Yeah.

01:34:53.720 Or at least it's politicized.

01:34:54.720 It's not necessarily propaganda, but it's a politicized view of history that doesn't help you understand things that well.

01:34:59.720 As you say, from their own accounts, though.

01:35:02.720 Yeah, they did this stuff.

01:35:03.720 They did this all the time.

01:35:04.720 To each other.

01:35:05.720 To each other. 0.99

01:35:06.720 They're bragging about that they bounced over, butchered everyone, raped a load of women, got everything they could get their hands on and came back. 0.99

01:35:14.720 Yeah. 0.99

01:35:15.720 They're bragging about it.

01:35:16.720 If you win, like they did, before the Viking Age even starts, there's in Estonia a failed Viking raid.

01:35:25.720 But like the thing is that there's actually no such thing as the Viking Age from the perspective of Scandinavian history.

01:35:30.720 It's useless to even have that term because it's only relevant from us because that's when we start having the problem of Vikings. 0.77

01:35:37.720 So that is a useful term.

01:35:38.720 They weren't doing anything different.

01:35:39.720 For them it was the same business as normal.

01:35:41.720 And previously there were more, the Swedes particularly were hitting Estonia. 0.98

01:35:44.720 And they basically, a bunch of Swedes had this really like, well, a big war band of Swedes hit Estonia but hit the wrong part and got their asses handed to them basically. 0.85

01:35:54.720 And had to do a very quick impromptu funeral for a lot of Swedish guys near the beach in Estonia before running.

01:36:02.720 And yeah, that's what's been discovered in 2008, this huge burial.

01:36:06.720 I don't know anything about this.

01:36:07.720 That was discovered in 2008 or 2009, the excavations.

01:36:10.720 And it's before we officially have a Viking Age.

01:36:13.720 But you know, those, they probably didn't hit that place again because it didn't go to plan.

01:36:17.720 But Lindisfarne went very well.

01:36:19.720 So everyone was like, this is a good place to do this.

01:36:22.720 So they keep doing it again, especially if you've got like, in the winter is like, not much to do except like huddle around the fire and plan the next summer because they only raided in summer.

01:36:30.720 So the summer, the summer is like your raiding time.

01:36:33.720 And they get ready every spring, like start kitting out the vessels, like how many people, who's the best guys, who's going to come on this raid.

01:36:39.720 And then if you come back, you can be a big shot in town because you came back with a bunch of gold and you give it to the king and the king gives back to you.

01:36:47.720 And you're like, your social position is in their culture is based on like, you know, your performance in these kind of things like fighting abroad is brave.

01:36:55.720 That is all pretty much exactly what the monks in England describe it as.

01:37:01.720 It's like you're getting hit by a sort of semi professional military force.

01:37:06.720 Like they're not like proper soldiers because they're probably farmers half the year, but they're certainly better trained than monks fighting. 0.73

01:37:14.720 And they will burn and destroy everything.

01:37:17.720 So it's terrible if you get hit.

01:37:20.720 But it's probably not that different to what Angus Saxon were doing not long before.

01:37:24.720 Right. Yeah. Yeah.

01:37:25.720 And men have always sort of done more or less.

01:37:29.720 The difference is, I guess, like if when Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were warring with each other or they would not hit monasteries because they would have some kind of respect for the same religious taboos.

01:37:41.720 Just like when pagan heathen Germanic groups were warring against each other, they didn't touch the temple.

01:37:47.720 They don't want to be incur the wrath of the gods.

01:37:50.720 But when you have two different religions, then suddenly there's no more. 0.82

01:37:53.720 There's a lot less respect for each other.

01:37:56.720 Right. So to the Vikings, the gold in a church or a monastery is just up for grabs.

01:38:02.720 It has no religious sacred value. It's just there to take.

01:38:05.720 Hmm. So I suppose if we unfortunately, God, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours.

01:38:11.720 I thought you've got to start joining it to close. But so there's a few things I want to.

01:38:15.720 OK, so if we start talking about the end, basically, if we if we're dating Hastings as the end.

01:38:21.720 Yeah, that's traditionally the day that Stamford Hill is the last defeat of the Vikings and Stamford Bridge.

01:38:27.720 Stamford Bridge. Yeah. Yeah.

01:38:29.720 Yeah. The, you know, after before the Saxons get beaten by William the Conqueror.

01:38:36.720 But there are other Scandinavian raids on British soil after that time.

01:38:40.720 I think Henry the Second had a scare.

01:38:43.720 That's another couple of hundred years.

01:38:45.720 Yeah, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

01:38:47.720 150 odd years.

01:38:48.720 I think it's in the High Middle Ages there was.

01:38:51.720 But is that Viking?

01:38:53.720 It's like, what what is a Viking?

01:38:55.720 Isn't Viking a verb?

01:38:57.720 To go a Viking. 0.80

01:38:59.720 That is true in the Norse language.

01:39:01.720 So there's a kind of Reddit truism where people like Viking is a type of.

01:39:05.720 It's something you do.

01:39:06.720 It's not who you are.

01:39:07.720 Well, yeah. 0.61

01:39:08.720 But the English people, when they said white, white, white, Viking or Viking, W I C I N G.

01:39:14.720 That means pirate.

01:39:15.720 They're specifically talking about Danes and they're using it as a synonym for Danes.

01:39:19.720 Right.

01:39:20.720 So when we see like Somalians now in, we don't call them Vikings because they're, you know, pirates. 1.00

01:39:26.720 Like we say pirate.

01:39:27.720 Yeah.

01:39:28.720 So it's a bit annoying.

01:39:29.720 It's a bit annoying when people do that.

01:39:30.720 Like it is possible for a word to change meaning.

01:39:32.720 Sure.

01:39:33.720 Right.

01:39:34.720 Yeah. Yeah.

01:39:35.720 If the people used it a certain way, they used it as a noun or proper noun.

01:39:38.720 Yeah.

01:39:39.720 For centuries or millennia, then it's okay.

01:39:41.720 You can still do that.

01:39:42.720 You can do it.

01:39:43.720 So when people say to me, how can you say you're pagan when that first, when that means

01:39:46.720 redneck?

01:39:47.720 I was like, well, it meant that 2000 years ago, but words don't have the same meaning.

01:39:52.720 Like that's not how words mean.

01:39:53.720 Like skirt and shirt are actually the same word originally.

01:39:57.720 Like skirt comes from the Norse into English and shirt comes from Anglo-Saxon into English

01:40:02.720 and both from the same proto Germanic thing, but you can't think a shirt and a skirt mean

01:40:05.720 the same thing.

01:40:06.720 Right.

01:40:07.720 Right.

01:40:08.720 It's not how language works.

01:40:09.720 I've got this one take.

01:40:11.720 I wonder if, if you agree with it or not.

01:40:13.720 And it's this, that lots of people say again, in something like history of the English speaking

01:40:18.720 people by Churchill, something like that, or a modern book, they will say that the Anglo-Saxon

01:40:25.720 world died on that day in Hastings.

01:40:30.720 And although it won't be a hundred percent, but still nonetheless, broadly speaking, that's,

01:40:35.720 that's a thing.

01:40:37.720 The cream of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was killed that day, or certainly over the next

01:40:42.720 small handful number of years were replaced. 0.90

01:40:45.720 By the time you've got the sons and grandsons of William the bastard, it's, it's a, it's 0.95

01:40:51.720 a Norman world. 0.85

01:40:52.720 I mean, we can disagree over the degree of that being sure or not, but my take would be

01:40:58.720 this, is that, that whole thing of Edward the Confessor, Godwine, and Harold Godwinson,

01:41:09.720 that was like a, a swan song.

01:41:13.720 The original ones were killed by Fulkbeard and Canoe, like another 50, 60 years before

01:41:23.720 that.

01:41:24.720 You know, you've got like the St. Bryce's Day massacre right at the beginning of the

01:41:27.720 11th century and Fulkbeard comes over and wins and, but then dies quite quickly and Canoe

01:41:33.720 takes over and like Canoe's a man of the North, right?

01:41:38.720 He's a, he is a Viking.

01:41:40.720 Yes, a Christian.

01:41:41.720 A Christian Viking, but nonetheless, he's a, he's a Viking.

01:41:45.720 And they wiped out in that, at that point in the early 11th century, they wipe out the 0.89

01:41:52.720 Anglo-Saxon aristocracy mainly.

01:41:56.720 Do they?

01:41:57.720 Is that, is that not the case?

01:41:59.720 Uh, well, certainly not.

01:42:01.720 And he allows, he puts, Canoe puts in all his own men for like, cause his reign was quite

01:42:08.720 long, really long.

01:42:09.720 Mm.

01:42:10.720 And he puts in loads of Vikings, it's like the most senior men.

01:42:13.720 Mm.

01:42:14.720 They pass away or fall out of favor for whatever reason.

01:42:16.720 It replaces lots of them with a new.

01:42:19.720 Trunch of Anglo-Saxons.

01:42:21.720 Mm.

01:42:22.720 So like people like Godwine.

01:42:23.720 Mm.

01:42:24.720 They like, they, if they would never have been there otherwise.

01:42:28.720 Hmm.

01:42:29.720 Interesting theory.

01:42:30.720 Yeah.

01:42:31.720 Those, I don't, I'm not sure to what extent that they were completely replaced across the

01:42:34.720 country.

01:42:35.720 Um, uh, and also, you know, the way that aristocracy works in, in a Germanic culture, it's not like,

01:42:42.720 like there's lots of nobles, you know, like I said, there's a king and it's surrounded

01:42:47.720 by nobles, but like, uh, Tackett has said of the kings that their, their authority is not

01:42:52.720 absolute and they can always be replaced by another nobleman.

01:42:54.720 So it's like this, like if you're from that caste, if you will, you can always be an aristocrat.

01:43:01.720 You can always be like picked up by a king.

01:43:03.720 You can even be a king.

01:43:04.720 Uh, it's not like there's only one like royal bloodline and the way that the Royal genealities

01:43:10.720 worked for the Anglo-Saxons to show that they're like royal blood of Kings.

01:43:15.720 It's not like the same as now because all of them have like this tradition of being nine

01:43:20.720 removed from Woden.

01:43:21.720 So I'm nine generations away from Woden because nine is a sacred number of Woden.

01:43:26.720 And this is even when they're Christians, right? 1.00

01:43:28.720 So it's like, and even when it gets locked with the further and further away, they just,

01:43:32.720 just take people out.

01:43:33.720 So they have these genealogies.

01:43:34.720 Like it's more like you're noble and you know that because of your social position.

01:43:39.720 That's all required.

01:43:40.720 Secondly, you're popular with everyone.

01:43:42.720 And then you've got this like mythic genealogy.

01:43:46.720 That is what it takes to be a king really.

01:43:50.720 Uh, you, and it's not so much that there's like a limited number of, like a limited number

01:43:56.720 of families, but I think there's a lot more noble Anglo-Saxon nobles than perhaps you're

01:44:00.720 implying here because you know, there's not big families and things and like people from

01:44:07.720 these, uh, and, and these people that, um, were later installed were not like, you know,

01:44:13.720 they're not like thralls or something, are they?

01:44:15.720 They're going to be from that same noble class.

01:44:18.720 I suppose so.

01:44:19.720 Yeah.

01:44:20.720 I mean, well, to be honest, I don't think the, the Chronicle is clear enough one way or another,

01:44:25.720 um, to actually, to actually prove or disprove what I was saying there.

01:44:30.720 Uh, but it just seems like there was this whole, um, yeah, whether, I dunno, it just seems

01:44:36.720 like to me that during the age of Canute, um, there was a changing of the guard in some

01:44:43.720 ways on the Anglo-Saxon side of the scales.

01:44:45.720 Mm-hmm.

01:44:46.720 It just seems like there's a change of the guard.

01:44:48.720 Anglo-Danes maybe, but even they would have Anglo-Saxon blood and the Anglo, cause the Anglo-Saxon, 1.00

01:44:54.720 Anglo-Danes had mixed with them. 1.00

01:44:55.720 They weren't like pure.

01:44:56.720 Um, and I mean like, even like there's a guy in a preach, a guy preaching Christianity

01:45:03.720 in Scandinavia called Eskil.

01:45:05.720 And Eskil is not an Anglo-Saxon name.

01:45:07.720 It's a Norse name.

01:45:08.720 He's referred to everywhere as an Englishman and as English by the Norse people.

01:45:12.720 So I presume Eskil was, uh, or he came from York.

01:45:16.720 I presume he was a Norse of Norse origin, but as far as they're concerned in Scandinavia,

01:45:21.720 he's English.

01:45:22.720 They don't call him a Norseman.

01:45:24.720 Whereas the, uh, the Norse Gales as they're called now, like the Irish, the, the Norsemen

01:45:29.720 in Ireland who've mixed with Irish people and were of like half Irish blood, they're

01:45:35.720 not called Norse Gales by the Norsemen.

01:45:37.720 They're just called Norse people.

01:45:38.720 They're just Norse people from Ireland.

01:45:39.720 So where, so, whereas something happened with these Anglo-Danes where they're not Danes 1.00

01:45:44.720 anymore.

01:45:45.720 They're just English as far as the thing.

01:45:46.720 It's very interesting.

01:45:47.720 Okay.

01:45:48.720 I suppose this thing that spring to mind while you're talking there is, is, uh, Emma, Emma

01:45:53.720 of Normandy where she's, she's what she's the wife of, um, of, uh, if you read the unready

01:46:00.720 and then the wife of canoe. 0.55

01:46:02.720 Hmm.

01:46:03.720 And she's the mother.

01:46:04.720 Yeah.

01:46:05.720 Right.

01:46:06.720 The mother of the confessor and other, uh, uh, what is it?

01:46:11.720 Edmund Ironside?

01:46:12.720 Is it?

01:46:13.720 I can't remember.

01:46:14.720 But anyway, this mixture of not the Norse people and the Anglo-Saxons where it is becoming

01:46:21.720 on some level, a bit blurred.

01:46:23.720 Um, well, not blurred.

01:46:24.720 I think that was normal.

01:46:25.720 That's what just happened.

01:46:26.720 Yeah.

01:46:27.720 The leaders like have, you know, and also that the Norse genetics are not different from the

01:46:34.720 Anglo-Saxons anyway.

01:46:35.720 It's pretty much the same, but what happens after the Norman conquest is quite similar too,

01:46:41.720 because it's not like they just murdered all the aristocrats.

01:46:44.720 Some of the aristocratic, some of the Norman men deliberately married Anglo-Saxon noble women.

01:46:49.720 So they immediately within one generation have half Anglo-Saxon blood and noble blood as well.

01:46:54.720 So they can, that helps to legitimize their claims over the natives. 0.96

01:46:58.720 Uh, and also not all the noble families were eliminated on the paternal line either.

01:47:03.720 Cause you can see in the doomsday book, there are Anglo-Saxon family names, like high,

01:47:07.720 a land owning, like powerful families in England of Anglo-Saxon origin at doomsday books.

01:47:13.720 So it's not like they just eliminated all of every single part of England that existed

01:47:18.720 before.

01:47:19.720 It certainly was a catastrophe for the English people and they weren't as powerful as they 1.00

01:47:23.720 were.

01:47:24.720 And they had to share or like had to be subordinate to a French aristocracy for, and afterwards,

01:47:30.720 I think that for the entire middle ages after, after the normal conquest, France is the main 0.92

01:47:36.720 foreign country to which we look, uh, and probably has been ever since in many respects.

01:47:41.720 But, uh, but prior to that, it was not that case.

01:47:44.720 I think we had in the Anglo-Saxon period, a stronger tie to Germanic Europe than to France.

01:47:49.720 Uh, and even our ties to France were mainly to the Franks as in the Merovingian, the Germanic

01:47:54.720 Merovingian dynasty.

01:47:55.720 Um, so that's what changed.

01:47:57.720 Uh, and, and as a result, you know, our leader spoke French for a long time after the Normans

01:48:02.720 like the Plantagenets.

01:48:03.720 And, uh, also, uh, I was saying this before we started filming, like a lot of French DNA

01:48:09.720 can, is in England.

01:48:11.720 Your DNA test shows your part French.

01:48:13.720 And I saying that's probably from the high middle ages, because it's not that the Normans

01:48:19.720 changed the DNA.

01:48:20.720 The normal conquest might not have actually changed the genetics of the nation very much because

01:48:24.720 the Normans weren't that many and they're an elite and they can't have that big an impact

01:48:30.720 on the wider population.

01:48:31.720 But the process of being Frenchified over the following centuries allowed a lot more, uh, 0.66

01:48:40.720 travel back and forth from England and France.

01:48:43.720 So English DNA going in there and French DNA coming here.

01:48:47.720 And that is the consequence specific specifically in Northern France and South, Southeastern England.

01:48:53.720 There's just a lot of gene flow going back and forth there.

01:48:56.720 Yeah.

01:48:57.720 Yeah.

01:48:58.720 It's not just, yeah, it's not just like the, uh, Norman invasion of 1066, but then there's

01:49:02.720 all sorts of was still going on in Picardy, Normandy, the low countries all throughout the

01:49:09.720 Algerian empire times, Henry the fifth reinvades Normandy and Rouen.

01:49:14.720 And it's like, we got our eyes on France after that time in a way we didn't before.

01:49:21.720 It's like, there's this connection ever since then between England and France, love, hate 0.94

01:49:26.720 relationship, but it's still going on now.

01:49:28.720 Yeah.

01:49:29.720 Right.

01:49:30.720 Yeah.

01:49:31.720 It's like, uh, a brother you don't get on with.

01:49:33.720 Yeah.

01:49:34.720 But he's still your brother.

01:49:35.720 You wouldn't dream of really hurting him.

01:49:37.720 Yeah.

01:49:38.720 You might have a, you wouldn't dream of killing him, but you might have a punch up.

01:49:41.720 Yeah.

01:49:42.720 Often.

01:49:43.720 But he's your brother still.

01:49:44.720 Yeah.

01:49:45.720 Yeah.

01:49:46.720 Something like that.

01:49:47.720 It's hard for, it's hard for, it's the, it's the one country English people love to hate,

01:49:49.720 but also they don't really hate it that much.

01:49:50.720 It's like pretend to sometimes be fun.

01:49:53.720 Yeah.

01:49:54.720 Yeah.

01:49:55.720 Okay.

01:49:56.720 So unfortunately we do have to bring it to a close there because the, uh, the, uh,

01:50:00.720 producer dudes need a bit of time before they go home to do a few bits and bobs.

01:50:04.720 Uh, so unfortunately we've got to end it there, but, um, I, I love that cause it's,

01:50:08.720 God, there was so many little, um, avenues I would have liked to have gone down.

01:50:12.720 Sorry if I rambled too much.

01:50:14.720 Going all different ways.

01:50:15.720 Yeah.

01:50:16.720 No, I love picking the brain of someone who knows more than me about something.

01:50:19.720 I just love it.

01:50:20.720 I don't get people who've got a chip on their shoulder or resent someone who's knowledgeable.

01:50:24.720 You know, you must've come across.

01:50:25.720 I try and get the knowledge off them.

01:50:27.720 I try to get it off them if I can.

01:50:28.720 You must've come across that in your life though, where people just take a dislike to

01:50:31.720 you because you're knowledgeable about something.

01:50:33.720 I mean.

01:50:34.720 It's hard to tell cause there's too many, too many reasons why someone might take a dislike

01:50:37.720 to me.

01:50:38.720 So I can't tell which one.

01:50:39.720 No, I love it.

01:50:40.720 Um, so I'd love to have you back in again whenever you can, or we could do something

01:50:44.720 remotely or whatever.

01:50:45.720 There's a million and one things I'd love to pick your brain about.

01:50:48.720 It's always a pleasure to be here, Bo.

01:50:49.720 Oh no.

01:50:50.720 Thank you.

01:50:51.720 Well, very interesting.

01:50:52.720 Maybe one time we could talk about, um, in, in detail, the religious side of things.

01:50:57.720 So that's one of your big, I'm really interested in religion as how it changes the way people 0.99

01:51:02.720 think, how changes, mass changes in thinking occur because that's the story of history that

01:51:08.720 matters most.

01:51:09.720 I think like how masses of people change the way they think.

01:51:12.720 Deep into Norse mythology.

01:51:13.720 I take it, you know, Norse mythology.

01:51:15.720 Well, I know.

01:51:16.720 Yeah.

01:51:17.720 I know.

01:51:18.720 Intimately familiar with it.

01:51:19.720 Good.

01:51:20.720 See, cause I've got, I've got a working knowledge, but I'm by far, um, expert.

01:51:25.720 So that might be a cool one as well.

01:51:26.720 It'll be fun.

01:51:27.720 Yeah.

01:51:28.720 But okay.

01:51:29.720 Once again, thank you very much for your time.

01:51:30.720 My pleasure.

01:51:31.720 And, uh, out there.

01:51:32.720 I hope you guys liked that.

01:51:33.720 Um, until next time.

01:51:34.720 Take care.

01:51:35.720 To watch the full video, please become a premium member at LotusEaters.com.

01:51:49.720 After a couple of months, let's get this into a road.

01:52:01.720 Let's see.

01:52:03.720 Let's see.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 03, 2025

The Anglo Saxons ｜ Interview with Tom Rowsell

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript