The History of England (part-2)
And it's not just war your mercenaries coming over anymore
It's women and children and that means they're seeing adding on to this it's entirely likely that the
Anglo-Saxons and other North germanic Peoples had already been living on the island for a while before all these incidents
Unfortunately though after the pics are dealt with the britons discover that the saxons aren't very good neighbors. They're pagans. They're considerably different
They don't see eye to eye on the worst things and eventually the whole thing backfires on the britons and the saxons invade them
Conflict erupts and the British are led by a leader named
Ambrosius or le honest a romana Briton considered to be one of the last?
Romans and so the two sides go to war over what will become?
England eventually after a sustained war the two sides meet at the battle of mom's bed oconus around the year
500 probably near the Modern City of Bath, this is a very important battle
It's here that the britons finally defeat the saxons and secure their existence against total domination
Following this battle the sections are left
With the east of England where they develop around 30 kingdoms to the west though the britons actually keep on living their land is named
Saxon word for foreigner wales is during this conflict also that we begin to hear legends of King arthur and in fact
It's said that a figure known as arthur was responsible for the British Victory at the battle of mons Batiatus and
Also for the long period of peace with the Saxons which followed how much of this legend is true well?
What really happened in detail is pretty unclear obviously these major events and
Territorial changes and battles and such things really did happen
But it probably wasn't as much of a solidifying clean cut and division between britons and saxons as
Tales tend to tell in fact probably a lot of britons
Just
Assimilated into saxon culture as they were invaded in more saxons emigrated to the new lands king arthur may have been real he may
Represent an actual figure again, though the truth remains unfortunately unclear
But historians are emphasizing that following his conflict and such it wasn't as much of a saxon invasion as it was a saxon
Migration there's Evidence in fact with Saxons and Britons living together in
Circumstances and just eventually the britons who did not go to wales just kind of adapted to the dominant Saxon culture and language and
Traditions and things like that the angles and the saxons were just two of the North germanic peoples to settle England
They were also primarily joined by the jews and some dna evidence suggested the Friesians from Modern-Day
Holland join them as well these tribes followed very similar religions and very lightly spoke very similar languages and in fact they had little difficulty
Communicating with each other through
Time these dramatic tribes would cease to think of themselves as different from each other and reach a point of integration at which point
They would simply prefer to call themselves the anglo-Saxons or in their anglo-Saxon language
Anglican why not sexist or sex when considering the Great importance of the Saxon Tribe?
Well again the gradual integration made a distinction less important
Interesting to note though even today in many celtic languages the name for England is still based off the saxon people
Shoshanna for example in Modern Irish the four hundred or so years following the roman Empire's fall is a period marked by very large
Migrations of people across Europe in general and England continued to absorb immigrants from Northern Germany anglo-Saxon
England through the 500 to the 880 was ruled by scores of in a very turbulent and admittedly confusing landscape that in fact
It's not just confusing to us today
There's reports of foreigners from the mainland being confused by it the names of some kingdoms in fact are lost to history
But the major ones included one such as kent wessex Sussex, Mercia and Northumbria
Throughout the Seventh Century idea the Anglo Saxon people began to convert to
Christianity the remnants of this
Conversion lasts to this day
Though the Roman Empire had fallen to pagan invaders the descendants of these pagans across Europe did in fact end up obviously
Converting to Christianity and pressures from the mainland wales and also Ireland which had already been to birth Christianity
Led to the
Anglo-Saxons adopting the religion as well and through Christianity they connected themselves to the larger European
Picture in a critical time when post Roman Europe was forming
Despite conflicts and lack of political unity among the early English this was a time of economic stability and prosperity
There was a time period In which anglo-saxon language religion culture society and such things could begin to take root
Unfortunately at the same time that the
Anglo-Saxons were taking root in England another force not far from their island was beginning to take flight a force which due to
Geography the English would bear the full brunt
Oh, and this forest would permanently alter the course of English development this force developing in Modern-day, Denmark
Sweden and Norway we know stay as the vikings to elaborate a little bit here the word
Viking more correctly refers not to the norse people
But to the North's raiders and explorers who wreaked Havoc on Europe for over 250 years a period known as
The Viking age and
England would be forever changed by it and in fact the viking age would begin in England off the coast of Northumbria on an Island
Known as
Lindisfarne now
We've already talked about the vikings on this channel before so I won't go, too
Into depth on their origins if you're interested in that I have videos on my channel already
I made a mistake of breaking them into like five separate videos
But you know it's the same content essentially so these vikings arrived out of scandinavia - as I said the island of lindisfarne
Lindisfarne was a small island home to an Abbey of monks who are living there?
It was not a well defended area and that was actually kind of
As i've said the politics in England at this time were very turbulent and unstable you've had kings and kingdoms being the victims of and
The propagators of these plots and conflicts that seem to continue without cessation so churches essentially just kind of wanted to be in isolation
Away from all that now the attack on Lindisfarne
In which these vikings just showed up and essentially slaughtered or enslaved all of these defenses monks was not the first viking raid on the
British isles not even really the first raid technically on England
But it was the first specifically recorded major incident is recorded in what are called the anglo-Saxon chronicles?
And that's why it marks the beginning of the viking age for the next 60 years England will be plagued by viking raids now
It's not as if the English kings did nothing about this eventually it did wise up and prepare defenses against the Vikings which were
Effective in fact many viking raiders just kind of gave up on England
I started going to weaker Scotland and Ireland
But the lack of political unity in England prevented any united response against the viking raids in the beginning now
I said
60 years I don't mean to mislead you to think that after these 60 years the things got better on the contrary they got worse
The Vikings say instead of raiding England let's just go and take it over and so in the year
865 a few viking leaders actually assemble an army to go and do this. It's not clear
How large the army was it might have been about a thousand warriors it might have been over a thousand it might have been even
Less than a thousand so not a magnificently large army keep in mind
There was no single norse nation at the time to raise such an army
It was more like a
Coalition of a bunch of different viking groups coming together out of a mutual interest who would and all Likelihood not
Associate much after England had been conquered it was a small army, but it was a considerably devastating one
So here is England at the time as you can see there are fewer kingdoms here than was the case in the seventh century
It's mostly dominated by this time by Murcia, Northumbria
And wessex what the celts to the west and north and some other anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the east here?
So the vikings land in the territory of one of these smaller Eastern
Saxon Kingdoms East Anglia the East Anglian
Centrally put up much of a fight at first they sort of just surrounded and like let the vikings pass through their land and aged
66 they moved to attack nor some bria
They took the city of york and the northumbrian essentially surrendered - and the vikings put a puppet king on the
Northumbrian throne he saying leo later rejects his viking domination and stands against them of their crushed and her leader king Edmund was killed
So by now as you can see the vikings have made very significant progress into england with actually very little conflict now
They move to invade the kingdom of mercia the mersey ins put up quite a fight and they call an
Assistance in the kingdom of wessex to do so in the year aged 70 a viking named bags egg brings
Reinforcements called a great summer army with a viking army now strengthens they begin to pillage England and move toward the kingdom of wessex
The king of Wessex at this time the king named
Ethelred and he leads an army along with his younger brother
Alfred only 22 at the time to take on the vikings. They were at first not very successful
But eventually they met at what is remembered as a battle of ashdown
Ethelred and alfred split their forces into two the vikings began to advance across the field but ethelred
Insisted on praying before advancing to meet them alfred on the other hand felt that there was no time for prayer
And he charged toward the vikings with his half of the army and what the help of his brother who later did join him?
He was victorious and the vikings retreated back to the land which they had conquered in England referred to as the danelaw Shown here.
Ethelred actually died that same year and alfred rises to become king the vikings though defeated at his val were definitely not done
And they continue to threaten Mercia and wessex alfred at first paid them off, but eventually in the year
1840 of back to the Danelaw
And it was clear that England would remain
Accordingly alfred gets two very important titles placed to him in history the first is the great
He is only one of two
Monarchs in English history to be called the great the
Second is that he goes from being called King of the west saxons
Which is wessex - king of the anglo-saxons this idea of anglo-Saxon unity begins to take root here?
And it continues on with his successors in the year nine
Ten Alfred's son took the even greater limits he conquered the vikings shown here in east Anglia and the Vikings here in Murcia as well
And began moving northward eventually capturing you.
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