Why This Continuing Loony Infatuation By The British With Di
Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper
-
D. Spencer Hines
Why This Continuing Loony Infatuation By The British With Di
Why do the Brits still have this loony, continuing fascination with Diana,
Princess of Wales?
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Princess of Wales?
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
-
Fred
Re: Why This Continuing Loony Infatuation By The British Wit
D. Spencer Hines wrote:
In 3-5 billion years when the earth is about to be roasted to a
cinder by the dying sun and all life extinguished, those last few humans
will be heatedly debating what "really" happened to the saintly Diana.
Some will no doubt reflect that her death was the greatest tragedy to
afflict mankind!
Why do the Brits still have this loony, continuing fascination with Diana,
Princess of Wales?
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
In 3-5 billion years when the earth is about to be roasted to a
cinder by the dying sun and all life extinguished, those last few humans
will be heatedly debating what "really" happened to the saintly Diana.
Some will no doubt reflect that her death was the greatest tragedy to
afflict mankind!
-
AGw. (Usenet)
Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Infatu
D. Spencer Hines wrote:
I don't know where you got this bizarre notion from, since most people
in Britain have no opinion at all on the Normans. Why should they? All
we have to show for the Norman Conquest these days is perhaps a
different royal family than we might otherwise have had, a heavy influx
of French vocabulary in our language that most people don't even think
twice about, and some picturesque ruined castles.
--
AGw.
address in header goes nowhere; replace "bottomless_pit" with "devnull"
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
I don't know where you got this bizarre notion from, since most people
in Britain have no opinion at all on the Normans. Why should they? All
we have to show for the Norman Conquest these days is perhaps a
different royal family than we might otherwise have had, a heavy influx
of French vocabulary in our language that most people don't even think
twice about, and some picturesque ruined castles.
--
AGw.
address in header goes nowhere; replace "bottomless_pit" with "devnull"
-
AGw. (Usenet)
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
Turenne wrote:
What utter rot! The English already had a national identity, forged in
no small part by the various Norse incursions. And if you're seriously
claiming that the English were incapable of generating wealth or peace
without Norman intervention... words fail me!
--
AGw.
address in header goes nowhere; replace "bottomless_pit" with "devnull"
On 6 Sep, 19:56, "AGw. (Usenet)" <bottomless_...@southernskies.co.uk
wrote:
D. Spencer Hines wrote:
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
I don't know where you got this bizarre notion from, since most people
in Britain have no opinion at all on the Normans. Why should they? All
we have to show for the Norman Conquest these days is perhaps a
different royal family than we might otherwise have had, a heavy influx
of French vocabulary in our language that most people don't even think
twice about, and some picturesque ruined castles.
Also wealth, peace, and a national identity.
What utter rot! The English already had a national identity, forged in
no small part by the various Norse incursions. And if you're seriously
claiming that the English were incapable of generating wealth or peace
without Norman intervention... words fail me!
--
AGw.
address in header goes nowhere; replace "bottomless_pit" with "devnull"
-
Gjest
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 6, 11:56 am, "AGw. (Usenet)"
<bottomless_...@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
Don't forget the Chunnel.
<bottomless_...@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
D. Spencer Hines wrote:
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
I don't know where you got this bizarre notion from, since most people
in Britain have no opinion at all on the Normans. Why should they? All
we have to show for the Norman Conquest these days is perhaps a
different royal family than we might otherwise have had, a heavy influx
of French vocabulary in our language that most people don't even think
twice about, and some picturesque ruined castles.
--
AGw.
address in header goes nowhere; replace "bottomless_pit" with "devnull"
Don't forget the Chunnel.
-
Gjest
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 6, 12:58 pm, "AGw. (Usenet)"
<bottomless_...@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
<bottomless_...@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
Turenne wrote:
On 6 Sep, 19:56, "AGw. (Usenet)" <bottomless_...@southernskies.co.uk
wrote:
D. Spencer Hines wrote:
And why do many Brits still hate the Normans and their allies for winning
the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
I don't know where you got this bizarre notion from, since most people
in Britain have no opinion at all on the Normans. Why should they? All
we have to show for the Norman Conquest these days is perhaps a
different royal family than we might otherwise have had, a heavy influx
of French vocabulary in our language that most people don't even think
twice about, and some picturesque ruined castles.
Also wealth, peace, and a national identity.
What utter rot! The English already had a national identity, forged in
no small part by the various Norse incursions. And if you're seriously
claiming that the English were incapable of generating wealth or peace
without Norman intervention... words fail me!
--
AGw.
address in header goes nowhere; replace "bottomless_pit" with "devnull"- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
-
Gjest
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 7, 12:30 am, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
The Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland in the 12th century was indeed a
centuries-long process leading to English control. The earliest wave
of Anglo-Norman invaders, after conquering fiefs for themselves,
tended to become independent lords, especially if located in remoter
areas. The "Pale" around Dublin was where English law and culture was
most noticeable. In the rest of Ireland the great Anglo-Norman
families tended to blend their culture and tradition with the native
Celtic aristocracy and carve out territories for themselves loyal to
the English Crown in name, but in reality a law unto themselves.
Centuries later when the English government attempted to exert legal
and military control, the early Anglo-Norman families, thoroughly
blended with the Celts, (including the Fitzgeralds of Desmond and
Kildare, the Butlers of Ormond, among many others) were among the
leaders of rebellions in Elizabethan times. It wasn't until the
plantations with English and Scottish settlers that English control
(and English law, culture and language) became established.
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
The Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland in the 12th century was indeed a
centuries-long process leading to English control. The earliest wave
of Anglo-Norman invaders, after conquering fiefs for themselves,
tended to become independent lords, especially if located in remoter
areas. The "Pale" around Dublin was where English law and culture was
most noticeable. In the rest of Ireland the great Anglo-Norman
families tended to blend their culture and tradition with the native
Celtic aristocracy and carve out territories for themselves loyal to
the English Crown in name, but in reality a law unto themselves.
Centuries later when the English government attempted to exert legal
and military control, the early Anglo-Norman families, thoroughly
blended with the Celts, (including the Fitzgeralds of Desmond and
Kildare, the Butlers of Ormond, among many others) were among the
leaders of rebellions in Elizabethan times. It wasn't until the
plantations with English and Scottish settlers that English control
(and English law, culture and language) became established.
-
Julian Richards
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote:
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one band
of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
http://www.richardsuk.f9.co.uk
Website of "Robot Wars" middleweight "Broadsword IV"
THIS MESSAGE WAS POSTED FROM SOC.HISTORY.MEDIEVAL
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one band
of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
http://www.richardsuk.f9.co.uk
Website of "Robot Wars" middleweight "Broadsword IV"
THIS MESSAGE WAS POSTED FROM SOC.HISTORY.MEDIEVAL
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Julian Richards <jul...@spam-me-not.co.uk> wrote:
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one band
of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
-
Tron
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
Hi,
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> skrev i melding
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
The Saxons not, but the Angles ...?
AFAIR, people from England, via Frisia and Denmark, to Norway could converse
in much the same language as late as 1000 CE. So, geographically, were is
the fine
line to the Norse?
T
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> skrev i melding
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
The Saxons not, but the Angles ...?
AFAIR, people from England, via Frisia and Denmark, to Norway could converse
in much the same language as late as 1000 CE. So, geographically, were is
the fine
line to the Norse?
T
-
Soren Larsen
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
David wrote:
Tha would have been the norwegian lot.
The danish lot otoh:
"A.D. 1069. This year died Aldred, Archbishop of York; and he is
there buried, at his see. He died on the day of Protus and
Hyacinthus, having held the see with much dignity ten years
wanting only fifteen weeks. Soon after this came from Denmark
three of the sons of King Sweyne with two hundred and forty
ships, together with Earl Esborn and Earl Thurkill, into the
Humber; where they were met by the child Edgar, and Earl
Waltheof, and Merle-Sweyne, and Earl Gospatric with the
Northumbrians, and all the landsmen; riding and marching full
merrily with an immense army: and so all unanimously advanced to
York; where they stormed and demolished the castle, and won
innumerable treasures therein; slew there many hundreds of
Frenchmen, and led many with them to the ships; but, ere that the
shipmen came thither, the Frenchmen had burned the city, and also
the holy minster of St. Peter had they entirely plundered, and
destroyed with fire. When the king heard this, then went he
northward with all the force that he could collect, despoiling
and laying waste the shire withal; whilst the fleet lay all the
winter in the Humber, where the king could not come at them. "
"A.D. 1085. In this year men reported, and of a truth asserted,
that Cnute, King of Denmark, son of King Sweyne, was coming
hitherward, and was resolved to win this land, with the
assistance of Robert, Earl of Flanders; (106) for Cnute had
Robert's daughter. When William, King of England, who was then
resident in Normandy (for he had both England and Normandy),
understood this, he went into England with so large an army of
horse and foot, from France and Brittany, as never before sought
this land; so that men wondered how this land could feed all that
force. But the king left the army to shift for themselves
through all this land amongst his subjects, who fed them, each
according to his quota of land. Men suffered much distress this
year; and the king caused the land to be laid waste about the sea
coast; that, if his foes came up, they might not have anything on
which they could very readily seize."
Soren Larsen
--
History is not what it used to be.
On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Julian Richards <jul...@spam-me-not.co.uk> wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more
banging on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were
immediately concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on
England was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as
Harold II might have been able to fashion, would have been as much
of a threat to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence
as the Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one band
of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards.
Tha would have been the norwegian lot.
The danish lot otoh:
"A.D. 1069. This year died Aldred, Archbishop of York; and he is
there buried, at his see. He died on the day of Protus and
Hyacinthus, having held the see with much dignity ten years
wanting only fifteen weeks. Soon after this came from Denmark
three of the sons of King Sweyne with two hundred and forty
ships, together with Earl Esborn and Earl Thurkill, into the
Humber; where they were met by the child Edgar, and Earl
Waltheof, and Merle-Sweyne, and Earl Gospatric with the
Northumbrians, and all the landsmen; riding and marching full
merrily with an immense army: and so all unanimously advanced to
York; where they stormed and demolished the castle, and won
innumerable treasures therein; slew there many hundreds of
Frenchmen, and led many with them to the ships; but, ere that the
shipmen came thither, the Frenchmen had burned the city, and also
the holy minster of St. Peter had they entirely plundered, and
destroyed with fire. When the king heard this, then went he
northward with all the force that he could collect, despoiling
and laying waste the shire withal; whilst the fleet lay all the
winter in the Humber, where the king could not come at them. "
"A.D. 1085. In this year men reported, and of a truth asserted,
that Cnute, King of Denmark, son of King Sweyne, was coming
hitherward, and was resolved to win this land, with the
assistance of Robert, Earl of Flanders; (106) for Cnute had
Robert's daughter. When William, King of England, who was then
resident in Normandy (for he had both England and Normandy),
understood this, he went into England with so large an army of
horse and foot, from France and Brittany, as never before sought
this land; so that men wondered how this land could feed all that
force. But the king left the army to shift for themselves
through all this land amongst his subjects, who fed them, each
according to his quota of land. Men suffered much distress this
year; and the king caused the land to be laid waste about the sea
coast; that, if his foes came up, they might not have anything on
which they could very readily seize."
The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
Soren Larsen
--
History is not what it used to be.
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 8, 4:07 am, "Tron" <tronf...@frizurf.no> wrote:
I have also heard the claim that Old English and Old Norse were
mutually intelligible at the time of the Viking invasions, but a study
of both languages and their histories convinces me that that
characterization cannot be true. Certainly the speakers of the two
languages could have recognized many words in each other's
vocabularies, and it would have been easier for an Englishman to pick
up "Dansk" than, say, Old French; but he could hardly have understood
the language without extended study. In phonetics, and in many other
ways, the two languages were at least as unlike as, say, Modern
English and Modern Dutch (whose linguistic ancestor, btw, very
probably *was* intelligible to the English at that period). In terms
of language, there was, not a fine line, but a very bold one,
separating Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and other Scandinavian dialects
on the one hand, from Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon and other
low Germanic languages on the other hand. Culturally they were also
quite different.
The Saxons not, but the Angles ...?
AFAIR, people from England, via Frisia and Denmark, to Norway could converse
in much the same language as late as 1000 CE. So, geographically, were is
the fine
line to the Norse?
I have also heard the claim that Old English and Old Norse were
mutually intelligible at the time of the Viking invasions, but a study
of both languages and their histories convinces me that that
characterization cannot be true. Certainly the speakers of the two
languages could have recognized many words in each other's
vocabularies, and it would have been easier for an Englishman to pick
up "Dansk" than, say, Old French; but he could hardly have understood
the language without extended study. In phonetics, and in many other
ways, the two languages were at least as unlike as, say, Modern
English and Modern Dutch (whose linguistic ancestor, btw, very
probably *was* intelligible to the English at that period). In terms
of language, there was, not a fine line, but a very bold one,
separating Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and other Scandinavian dialects
on the one hand, from Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon and other
low Germanic languages on the other hand. Culturally they were also
quite different.
-
Martin
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Hmmm, probably beaten by an army comprised of quite a large percentage of
Norse gangsters who had gone native, or the offspring of them. Said
offspring would be a bunch of mongrels as the 'English' have been since
Roman times, a mixture of people from all across the Roman Empire, Celts,
Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts and whatever else you can think of. The
Normans (a belligerant bunch of expat vikings, who went native in France)
merely added their blood to the melting pot, and of course their talent for
'administration'.
There are still many fools who claim to be "English through and through",
little realising that there has never, ever been anyone of 'pure English
blood'. Wearing Union Jack shorts and throwing lager bottles at foreign
policemen will never change this fact, no matter how short the hair is
cropped!
A look at the portraits of famous English people throughout history, and an
analysis of physical descriptions of English men and women through the ages,
will show a remarkable diversity in hair and eye colour, stature, complexion
and everything else - there is no "typical Englishman or woman" other than
in behaviour, something best not thought about.
Cheers
Martin
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Julian Richards <jul...@spam-me-not.co.uk> wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one band
of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
Hmmm, probably beaten by an army comprised of quite a large percentage of
Norse gangsters who had gone native, or the offspring of them. Said
offspring would be a bunch of mongrels as the 'English' have been since
Roman times, a mixture of people from all across the Roman Empire, Celts,
Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts and whatever else you can think of. The
Normans (a belligerant bunch of expat vikings, who went native in France)
merely added their blood to the melting pot, and of course their talent for
'administration'.
There are still many fools who claim to be "English through and through",
little realising that there has never, ever been anyone of 'pure English
blood'. Wearing Union Jack shorts and throwing lager bottles at foreign
policemen will never change this fact, no matter how short the hair is
cropped!
A look at the portraits of famous English people throughout history, and an
analysis of physical descriptions of English men and women through the ages,
will show a remarkable diversity in hair and eye colour, stature, complexion
and everything else - there is no "typical Englishman or woman" other than
in behaviour, something best not thought about.
Cheers
Martin
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 8, 6:41 pm, "Martin" <martin1471spam...@outgun.com> wrote:
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a Celt-Angle-Danish
mixture.
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground; there
was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to Gallo-
Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin. The evidence
of early Latin loanwords in Welsh and other Brythonic languages shows
that Latin in Britain was very "schoolbooky", not taken from a native
dialect; and so comparable to the Irish borrowings, where of course
direct contact with Latin speakers must have been very rare. Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and
administrators rotated in and out, and where the local territorial
gentry learned Latin as an artificial language, disconnected from
native usage -- much the way that the English gentry of Chaucer's time
learned French.
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Julian Richards <jul...@spam-me-not.co.uk> wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more banging
on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were immediately
concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their successors
from other parts of France, drastically affected all the other parts
of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans had
lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across the
English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on England
was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as Harold II
might have been able to fashion, would have been as much of a threat
to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and independence as the
Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one band
of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
Hmmm, probably beaten by an army comprised of quite a large percentage of
Norse gangsters who had gone native, or the offspring of them. Said
offspring would be a bunch of mongrels as the 'English' have been since
Roman times, a mixture of people from all across the Roman Empire, Celts,
Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts and whatever else you can think of.
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a Celt-Angle-Danish
mixture.
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground; there
was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to Gallo-
Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin. The evidence
of early Latin loanwords in Welsh and other Brythonic languages shows
that Latin in Britain was very "schoolbooky", not taken from a native
dialect; and so comparable to the Irish borrowings, where of course
direct contact with Latin speakers must have been very rare. Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and
administrators rotated in and out, and where the local territorial
gentry learned Latin as an artificial language, disconnected from
native usage -- much the way that the English gentry of Chaucer's time
learned French.
-
Christopher Ingham
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 8, 9:52 pm, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
Not to mention the pre-Celtic substratum.
Hardly any of the Roman soldiers ever spoke Latin, as they were
drafted from the provinces. Especially during the later empire the
administrators too were more likely to be speakers of Germanic
dialects.
Christopher Ingham
On Sep 8, 6:41 pm, "Martin" <martin1471spam...@outgun.com> wrote:
[T]he 'English' have been since
Roman times, a mixture of people from all across the Roman Empire, Celts,
Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts and whatever else you can think of.
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a Celt-Angle-Danish
mixture.
Not to mention the pre-Celtic substratum.
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground; there
was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to Gallo-
Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin....Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and administrators....
Hardly any of the Roman soldiers ever spoke Latin, as they were
drafted from the provinces. Especially during the later empire the
administrators too were more likely to be speakers of Germanic
dialects.
Christopher Ingham
-
John Briggs
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
David wrote:
We can't be sure of that. And there is one piece of evidence (an inscribed
thing from Bath). One linguist has suggested that Latin was spoken over
the whole of Lowland Britain. The Romance languages separate from Latin
very late - long after the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
Or taken from Latin-speaking refugees, of course.
That's from Latin-speaking missionaries, of course. Curiously, there seem
to be more borrowings int Old English from Irish than from Brittyhonic.
Not necessarily - Lowland Britain may have been extremely similar to Gaul -
where thay still speak a form of Latin, of course.
--
John Briggs
On Sep 8, 6:41 pm, "Martin" <martin1471spam...@outgun.com> wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Julian Richards <jul...@spam-me-not.co.uk> wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <ds...@softhome.net
wrote:
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more
banging on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were
immediately concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their
successors from other parts of France, drastically affected all
the other parts of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a centuries-long
process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans
had lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across
the English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence on
England was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such as
Harold II might have been able to fashion, would have been as
much of a threat to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and
independence as the Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one
band of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
Hmmm, probably beaten by an army comprised of quite a large
percentage of Norse gangsters who had gone native, or the offspring
of them. Said offspring would be a bunch of mongrels as the
'English' have been since Roman times, a mixture of people from all
across the Roman Empire, Celts, Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts
and whatever else you can think of.
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a Celt-Angle-Danish
mixture.
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground; there
was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to Gallo-
Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin.
We can't be sure of that. And there is one piece of evidence (an inscribed
thing from Bath). One linguist has suggested that Latin was spoken over
the whole of Lowland Britain. The Romance languages separate from Latin
very late - long after the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
The evidence
of early Latin loanwords in Welsh and other Brythonic languages shows
that Latin in Britain was very "schoolbooky", not taken from a native
dialect;
Or taken from Latin-speaking refugees, of course.
and so comparable to the Irish borrowings, where of course
direct contact with Latin speakers must have been very rare.
That's from Latin-speaking missionaries, of course. Curiously, there seem
to be more borrowings int Old English from Irish than from Brittyhonic.
Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and
administrators rotated in and out, and where the local territorial
gentry learned Latin as an artificial language, disconnected from
native usage -- much the way that the English gentry of Chaucer's time
learned French.
Not necessarily - Lowland Britain may have been extremely similar to Gaul -
where thay still speak a form of Latin, of course.
--
John Briggs
-
John Briggs
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
Christopher Ingham wrote:
Let's not mention it
That's probably completely untrue - the 'lingua franca' would have been
Latin (except in the Eastern Empire, where everyone spoke Greek - including
Pontius Pilate, but that's another argument...)
--
John Briggs
On Sep 8, 9:52 pm, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
On Sep 8, 6:41 pm, "Martin" <martin1471spam...@outgun.com> wrote:
[T]he 'English' have been since
Roman times, a mixture of people from all across the Roman Empire,
Celts, Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts and whatever else you
can think of.
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a
Celt-Angle-Danish mixture.
Not to mention the pre-Celtic substratum.
Let's not mention it
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground; there
was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to Gallo-
Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin....Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and
administrators....
Hardly any of the Roman soldiers ever spoke Latin, as they were
drafted from the provinces. Especially during the later empire the
administrators too were more likely to be speakers of Germanic
dialects.
That's probably completely untrue - the 'lingua franca' would have been
Latin (except in the Eastern Empire, where everyone spoke Greek - including
Pontius Pilate, but that's another argument...)
--
John Briggs
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 9, 12:23 pm, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
I'm not sure what inscription you're referring to -- there are, of
course, Latin inscriptions all over Britain, but that by no means
necessitates the existence of a local vernacular form of Latin --
Latin is still used in inscriptions to this day, but nobody suggests
that Latin is a vernacular of the U.K.! Such an inscription, to be
linguistically informative, would need to show some distinctive
dialectal features -- and then we'd need to know that the inscriber
was actually a Latin-speaking Briton, trying to represent his (or her)
own pronunciation.
The point at which one distinguishes Latin from Romance is a very
touchy question among Romance linguists, and one which largely
revolves around the very unsatisfactory definitions of "language" and
"dialect". Regardless of what you call it, it's demonstrable from a
variety of sources that the Latin of the 5th century was not the same
as the Latin of the 1st century, and had begun to show many
characteristics that were later typical of the Romance languages
(sound changes and simplification of the case structure, for
instance). Borrowings in the Brythonic languages don't show evidence
of such changes, however.
We can't be sure of that. And there is one piece of evidence (an inscribed
thing from Bath). One linguist has suggested that Latin was spoken over
the whole of Lowland Britain. The Romance languages separate from Latin
very late - long after the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
I'm not sure what inscription you're referring to -- there are, of
course, Latin inscriptions all over Britain, but that by no means
necessitates the existence of a local vernacular form of Latin --
Latin is still used in inscriptions to this day, but nobody suggests
that Latin is a vernacular of the U.K.! Such an inscription, to be
linguistically informative, would need to show some distinctive
dialectal features -- and then we'd need to know that the inscriber
was actually a Latin-speaking Briton, trying to represent his (or her)
own pronunciation.
The point at which one distinguishes Latin from Romance is a very
touchy question among Romance linguists, and one which largely
revolves around the very unsatisfactory definitions of "language" and
"dialect". Regardless of what you call it, it's demonstrable from a
variety of sources that the Latin of the 5th century was not the same
as the Latin of the 1st century, and had begun to show many
characteristics that were later typical of the Romance languages
(sound changes and simplification of the case structure, for
instance). Borrowings in the Brythonic languages don't show evidence
of such changes, however.
-
John Briggs
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
David wrote:
The answer to that (this isn't my theory) is that it wasn't Brythonic that
was spoken in Lowland Britain, but Gaulish (or similar). Brythonic was
spoken in Highland areas, where they didn't speak Latin.
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
John Briggs
On Sep 9, 12:23 pm, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
David wrote:
On Sep 8, 6:41 pm, "Martin" <martin1471spam...@outgun.com> wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Julian Richards <jul...@spam-me-not.co.uk
wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:30:28 -0700, David <ds...@softhome.net
wrote:
On Sep 6, 8:23 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
The Brits had several national identities with one or two more
banging on the door to get in.
There were no "British" in 1066, and only the English were
immediately concerned in the Battle of Hastings.
On the other hand, it is true that the Normans, and their
successors from other parts of France, drastically affected all
the other parts of the British isles:
* Conquering the southern half of Wales, and setting up Marcher
lordships;
* Indirectly bringing out a social and religious revolution in
Scotland;
* Invading Ireland in the 12th century, beginning a
centuries-long process leading to English control of Ireland.
So there are quite a few people who might wish that the Normans
had lost.
However, Normandy and France were always going to be just across
the English Channel, and a degree of French cultural influence
on England was inevitable; while a united English kingdom, such
as Harold II might have been able to fashion, would have been as
much of a threat to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish culture and
independence as the Normanized kingdom was.
The Norman Conquest could be regarded as the replacement of one
band of Norse gangsters with another.
--
Julian Richards
Well, yes, but the other band of Norse gangsters was defeated
decisively at Stamford Bridge, and never threatened England
afterwards. The Angles and Saxons themselves might have been
gangsters (at one time), but they were certainly not Norse.
Hmmm, probably beaten by an army comprised of quite a large
percentage of Norse gangsters who had gone native, or the offspring
of them. Said offspring would be a bunch of mongrels as the
'English' have been since Roman times, a mixture of people from all
across the Roman Empire, Celts, Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts
and whatever else you can think of.
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a
Celt-Angle-Danish mixture.
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground;
there was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to
Gallo- Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin.
We can't be sure of that. And there is one piece of evidence (an
inscribed thing from Bath). One linguist has suggested that Latin
was spoken over the whole of Lowland Britain. The Romance languages
separate from Latin very late - long after the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
The evidence
of early Latin loanwords in Welsh and other Brythonic languages
shows that Latin in Britain was very "schoolbooky", not taken from
a native dialect;
Or taken from Latin-speaking refugees, of course.
and so comparable to the Irish borrowings, where of course
direct contact with Latin speakers must have been very rare.
That's from Latin-speaking missionaries, of course. Curiously,
there seem to be more borrowings int Old English from Irish than
from Brittyhonic.
Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and
administrators rotated in and out, and where the local territorial
gentry learned Latin as an artificial language, disconnected from
native usage -- much the way that the English gentry of Chaucer's
time learned French.
Not necessarily - Lowland Britain may have been extremely similar to
Gaul - where thay still speak a form of Latin, of course.
That's the point, though -- the Latin loanwords into British Celtic
*don't* show the characteristic sound changes that Gallic Latin (and
indeed most of Western Romance) had already undergone by the 5th
century, things like t -> ts before i (as a glide). Either Britanno-
Latin was a isolated dialect that wasn't influenced by Gallic Latin,
its closest neighbor -- or Britanno-Latin didn't exist as a
vernacular, and the Britons were learning an archaic, non-vernacular
type of Latin. The latter strikes me as more probable.
The answer to that (this isn't my theory) is that it wasn't Brythonic that
was spoken in Lowland Britain, but Gaulish (or similar). Brythonic was
spoken in Highland areas, where they didn't speak Latin.
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
John Briggs
-
Christopher Ingham
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 9, 1:23 pm, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Still....Britain was inhabited by peoples before the Celtic
settlements of c.500 BC. The names of the rivers Itchen, Soar, Tamar
and Wey probably derive from the language(s) of these remote
ancestors.
The lingua franca was always an artificial apparatus of an imported
administrative superstructure, and, while it remained important in law
and trade (not to mention the Church) even in post-Roman Britain, it
was never a living language among the natives or the soldiers, the
latter who, in a process accelerated by Constantine, were by the end
of the fourth century members of a thoroughly "barbarized" army. (In
the east, the only speakers of Greek, other than the Greeks
themselves, were the elites.)
At the start of the medieval period, the spoken languages in the
British archipelago were largely two varieties of Celtic: Brythonic
and Gaelic. The former was articulated in dialects such as Welsh,
Cornish, Cambric and Pictish, evolved forms of the same language of
the pre-Roman inhabitants. How the Germanic language of the Anglo-
Saxon elites, who had initially established themselves on the eastern
seaboard, diffused and supplanted Brythonic, is much disputed, but it
was a fait accompli by about 750. A parallel process occurred in the
area of the later Scottish kingdoms (eradicating Cambric and Pictish),
where the Gaelic of the Irish, who first settled in Dalriada, came to
predominate.
Christopher Ingham
Christopher Ingham wrote:
On Sep 8, 9:52 pm, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
[T]he 'English' have been since
Roman times, a mixture of people from all across the Roman Empire,
Celts, Saxons, Francs, Belgae, Huns, Picts and whatever else you
can think of.
Probably not a whole lot of Huns. Probably mostly a
Celt-Angle-Danish mixture.
Not to mention the pre-Celtic substratum.
Let's not mention it
Still....Britain was inhabited by peoples before the Celtic
settlements of c.500 BC. The names of the rivers Itchen, Soar, Tamar
and Wey probably derive from the language(s) of these remote
ancestors.
The Roman element can never have been very thick on the ground; there
was never a native "Britanno-Romance" language comparable to Gallo-
Romance, Ibero-Romance and other dialects of late Latin....Roman
Britain would have been a place where the vast majority of people
spoke British Celtic, with a few Latin-speaking soldiers and
administrators....
Hardly any of the Roman soldiers ever spoke Latin, as they were
drafted from the provinces. Especially during the later empire the
administrators too were more likely to be speakers of Germanic
dialects.
That's probably completely untrue - the 'lingua franca' would have been
Latin (except in the Eastern Empire, where everyone spoke Greek - including
Pontius Pilate, but that's another argument...)
The lingua franca was always an artificial apparatus of an imported
administrative superstructure, and, while it remained important in law
and trade (not to mention the Church) even in post-Roman Britain, it
was never a living language among the natives or the soldiers, the
latter who, in a process accelerated by Constantine, were by the end
of the fourth century members of a thoroughly "barbarized" army. (In
the east, the only speakers of Greek, other than the Greeks
themselves, were the elites.)
At the start of the medieval period, the spoken languages in the
British archipelago were largely two varieties of Celtic: Brythonic
and Gaelic. The former was articulated in dialects such as Welsh,
Cornish, Cambric and Pictish, evolved forms of the same language of
the pre-Roman inhabitants. How the Germanic language of the Anglo-
Saxon elites, who had initially established themselves on the eastern
seaboard, diffused and supplanted Brythonic, is much disputed, but it
was a fait accompli by about 750. A parallel process occurred in the
area of the later Scottish kingdoms (eradicating Cambric and Pictish),
where the Gaelic of the Irish, who first settled in Dalriada, came to
predominate.
Christopher Ingham
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 9, 5:26 pm, Christopher Ingham <christophering...@comcast.net>
wrote:
I think it's unwise to underestimate the penetration of Latin as a
second language, even among the Germanic-speakers, whose language was
becoming thoroughly populated with Latin loanwords -- even in the more
distant and barbarous districts. Along the borders of the Roman
Empire, bilingualism would have been routine. Germans who worked in
Roman administration (people like Stilicho) were separated from their
tribal background and thoroughly Romanized.
Latin was spoken all along the European border or _limes_, from the
North Sea to the Black Sea; throughout Gaul and all the districts
south of the Danube, even in the Balkans, excluding Greece itself; and
also in Spain, Illyria, and the western North African towns (the
African hinterlands spoke various Berber dialects and a surviving form
of Punic). Many of these provinces, notably Spain and Illyria, were
traditional recruiting grounds for legionary soldiers. Moreover, a
large part of the later Roman Imperial army was a sedentary fort army
camped out along the various borders, intermarrying with the locals;
along the European _limes_, where most of the legionary forts were, it
was certainly Latin-speaking. Britain, however, had only two such
legionary camps -- at York and Caerleon (another had formerly existed
at Chester). There were *some* people of Roman birth of importance at
the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions; Gildas, in his _de Excidio_
(written, n.b., in Latin -- lengthy texts in British Celtic do not
exist for this time), mentions an Ambrosius Aurelianus, of whom a
distorted memory lingers in some versions of the Arthurian legend, as
a war leader from this period, of Roman ancestry.
In the east, it's true that only Greeks spoke Greek, for appropriately
large values of "Greek". In fact many originally non-Greek peoples,
particularly in Asia Minor, had been Hellenized hundreds of years
earlier and were now Greek speaking. This included many Jews, who
were never part of the "elite". Paul of Tarsus was wholly at home in
Greek (which he wrote idiosyncratically, but by no means exceptionally
so), and may well have been better at Greek than Aramaic, which he
displays little knowledge of. The primary non-Greek languages of the
East were Aramaic, spoken throughout the Levant, and also in Persian-
controlled Mesopotamia; and, in Egypt, Coptic, spoken by practically
everyone once you got out of Alexandria. In the dubious border
districts in the ast of Asia Minor Armenian was spoken. Elsewhere,
Greek had largely supplanted the medley of languages formerly spoken
in Anatolia, Hittite and Luwian and Lycian and Lydian and Carian and
Mysian et al., as well as some later comers like the Celtic language
spoken in Galatia.
wrote:
The lingua franca was always an artificial apparatus of an imported
administrative superstructure, and, while it remained important in law
and trade (not to mention the Church) even in post-Roman Britain, it
was never a living language among the natives or the soldiers, the
latter who, in a process accelerated by Constantine, were by the end
of the fourth century members of a thoroughly "barbarized" army. (In
the east, the only speakers of Greek, other than the Greeks
themselves, were the elites.)
I think it's unwise to underestimate the penetration of Latin as a
second language, even among the Germanic-speakers, whose language was
becoming thoroughly populated with Latin loanwords -- even in the more
distant and barbarous districts. Along the borders of the Roman
Empire, bilingualism would have been routine. Germans who worked in
Roman administration (people like Stilicho) were separated from their
tribal background and thoroughly Romanized.
Latin was spoken all along the European border or _limes_, from the
North Sea to the Black Sea; throughout Gaul and all the districts
south of the Danube, even in the Balkans, excluding Greece itself; and
also in Spain, Illyria, and the western North African towns (the
African hinterlands spoke various Berber dialects and a surviving form
of Punic). Many of these provinces, notably Spain and Illyria, were
traditional recruiting grounds for legionary soldiers. Moreover, a
large part of the later Roman Imperial army was a sedentary fort army
camped out along the various borders, intermarrying with the locals;
along the European _limes_, where most of the legionary forts were, it
was certainly Latin-speaking. Britain, however, had only two such
legionary camps -- at York and Caerleon (another had formerly existed
at Chester). There were *some* people of Roman birth of importance at
the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions; Gildas, in his _de Excidio_
(written, n.b., in Latin -- lengthy texts in British Celtic do not
exist for this time), mentions an Ambrosius Aurelianus, of whom a
distorted memory lingers in some versions of the Arthurian legend, as
a war leader from this period, of Roman ancestry.
In the east, it's true that only Greeks spoke Greek, for appropriately
large values of "Greek". In fact many originally non-Greek peoples,
particularly in Asia Minor, had been Hellenized hundreds of years
earlier and were now Greek speaking. This included many Jews, who
were never part of the "elite". Paul of Tarsus was wholly at home in
Greek (which he wrote idiosyncratically, but by no means exceptionally
so), and may well have been better at Greek than Aramaic, which he
displays little knowledge of. The primary non-Greek languages of the
East were Aramaic, spoken throughout the Levant, and also in Persian-
controlled Mesopotamia; and, in Egypt, Coptic, spoken by practically
everyone once you got out of Alexandria. In the dubious border
districts in the ast of Asia Minor Armenian was spoken. Elsewhere,
Greek had largely supplanted the medley of languages formerly spoken
in Anatolia, Hittite and Luwian and Lycian and Lydian and Carian and
Mysian et al., as well as some later comers like the Celtic language
spoken in Galatia.
-
Christopher Ingham
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 9, 10:22 pm, David <ds...@softhome.net> wrote:
The modern Romance languages of course attest to the survival of some
of the Latin dialects which took hold in many western provinces.
Latin loanwords, too, are amply evidenced in the lexicons of Germanic
languages, especially English. But I am not aware that Latin affected
changes in Germanic morphology (phonology and grammar). English
pronominal and prepositional forms, for example, show little
relationship to those of Latin (except indirectly, as subfamilies of
Indo-European).
My reference to "barbarians" was meant to be understood in the sense
applied by the Romans, not to all German speakers, such as those who
had been settled for some time within the empire, or to
certain_foederati_ who had coexisted peaceably in some border regions;
but to those who lived outside the immediate sphere of the Roman
world. These outsiders were in fact being regularly drafted
(subcontracted) en masse into the army of the later empire. Outside
the loanwords which may have filtered out to them, the influence of
Latin was negligible. The military settlements of which you speak are
well-documented; but the political situation in this era was often in
flux, so that their long-term stability requires assessment on an
almost case by case basis.
Western Asia Minor was colonized by the Greeks beginning in the eighth
century BC, and continued to be Greek-speaking throughout classical
antiquity.
Your preceding excursus is an antidote to those like myself who have a
tendency to speak in overly broad terms.
Christopher Ingham
On Sep 9, 5:26 pm, Christopher Ingham <christophering...@comcast.net
wrote:
The lingua franca was always an artificial apparatus of an imported
administrative superstructure, and, while it remained important in law
and trade (not to mention the Church) even in post-Roman Britain, it
was never a living language among the natives or the soldiers, the
latter who, in a process accelerated by Constantine, were by the end
of the fourth century members of a thoroughly "barbarized" army. (In
the east, the only speakers of Greek, other than the Greeks
themselves, were the elites.)
I think it's unwise to underestimate the penetration of Latin as a
second language, even among the Germanic-speakers, whose language was
becoming thoroughly populated with Latin loanwords -- even in the more
distant and barbarous districts. Along the borders of the Roman
Empire, bilingualism would have been routine. Germans who worked in
Roman administration (people like Stilicho) were separated from their
tribal background and thoroughly Romanized.
Latin was spoken all along the European border or _limes_, from the
North Sea to the Black Sea; throughout Gaul and all the districts
south of the Danube, even in the Balkans, excluding Greece itself; and
also in Spain, Illyria, and the western North African towns (the
African hinterlands spoke various Berber dialects and a surviving form
of Punic). Many of these provinces, notably Spain and Illyria, were
traditional recruiting grounds for legionary soldiers. Moreover, a
large part of the later Roman Imperial army was a sedentary fort army
camped out along the various borders, intermarrying with the locals;
along the European _limes_, where most of the legionary forts were, it
was certainly Latin-speaking. Britain, however, had only two such
legionary camps -- at York and Caerleon (another had formerly existed
at Chester). There were *some* people of Roman birth of importance at
the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions; Gildas, in his _de Excidio_
(written, n.b., in Latin -- lengthy texts in British Celtic do not
exist for this time), mentions an Ambrosius Aurelianus, of whom a
distorted memory lingers in some versions of the Arthurian legend, as
a war leader from this period, of Roman ancestry.
In the east, it's true that only Greeks spoke Greek, for appropriately
large values of "Greek". In fact many originally non-Greek peoples,
particularly in Asia Minor, had been Hellenized hundreds of years
earlier and were now Greek speaking. This included many Jews, who
were never part of the "elite". Paul of Tarsus was wholly at home in
Greek (which he wrote idiosyncratically, but by no means exceptionally
so), and may well have been better at Greek than Aramaic, which he
displays little knowledge of. The primary non-Greek languages of the
East were Aramaic, spoken throughout the Levant, and also in Persian-
controlled Mesopotamia; and, in Egypt, Coptic, spoken by practically
everyone once you got out of Alexandria. In the dubious border
districts in the ast of Asia Minor Armenian was spoken. Elsewhere,
Greek had largely supplanted the medley of languages formerly spoken
in Anatolia, Hittite and Luwian and Lycian and Lydian and Carian and
Mysian et al., as well as some later comers like the Celtic language
spoken in Galatia.
The modern Romance languages of course attest to the survival of some
of the Latin dialects which took hold in many western provinces.
Latin loanwords, too, are amply evidenced in the lexicons of Germanic
languages, especially English. But I am not aware that Latin affected
changes in Germanic morphology (phonology and grammar). English
pronominal and prepositional forms, for example, show little
relationship to those of Latin (except indirectly, as subfamilies of
Indo-European).
My reference to "barbarians" was meant to be understood in the sense
applied by the Romans, not to all German speakers, such as those who
had been settled for some time within the empire, or to
certain_foederati_ who had coexisted peaceably in some border regions;
but to those who lived outside the immediate sphere of the Roman
world. These outsiders were in fact being regularly drafted
(subcontracted) en masse into the army of the later empire. Outside
the loanwords which may have filtered out to them, the influence of
Latin was negligible. The military settlements of which you speak are
well-documented; but the political situation in this era was often in
flux, so that their long-term stability requires assessment on an
almost case by case basis.
Western Asia Minor was colonized by the Greeks beginning in the eighth
century BC, and continued to be Greek-speaking throughout classical
antiquity.
Your preceding excursus is an antidote to those like myself who have a
tendency to speak in overly broad terms.
Christopher Ingham
-
a.spencer3
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"John Briggs" <john.briggs4@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
-
a.spencer3
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"Jan Böhme" <jan.bohme@sh.se> wrote in message
news:1189365907.256579.69660@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
On 9 Sep, 21:08, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Well, other than geographic names, that is. We know that a
considerable portion of them fled to Armoricia, turning this province
into Brittany, where the Celtic language, to this very day, is
distinctly Brythonic, and definitely not Gaulish. Others most
certainly fled west, to Wales, Cumberland (which was partially Celtic-
speeking till at least the tenth century) and the Devonshire/Cornwall
area.
It's all very possible that the areas which were first penetrated by
the Angles and Saxons - such as East Anglia and Kent - were more
Romanized than the rest of of Britannia. But there is no evidence of
any more widespread Romanization of Britain ever, and a fair amount of
evidence against.
Yep. Today's Welsh speakers can quite easily converse with Bretons.
Surreyman
news:1189365907.256579.69660@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
On 9 Sep, 21:08, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
Well, other than geographic names, that is. We know that a
considerable portion of them fled to Armoricia, turning this province
into Brittany, where the Celtic language, to this very day, is
distinctly Brythonic, and definitely not Gaulish. Others most
certainly fled west, to Wales, Cumberland (which was partially Celtic-
speeking till at least the tenth century) and the Devonshire/Cornwall
area.
It's all very possible that the areas which were first penetrated by
the Angles and Saxons - such as East Anglia and Kent - were more
Romanized than the rest of of Britannia. But there is no evidence of
any more widespread Romanization of Britain ever, and a fair amount of
evidence against.
Yep. Today's Welsh speakers can quite easily converse with Bretons.
Surreyman
-
a.spencer3
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189364419.634851.153250@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
Even the Italians seem to have largely lost their classic Latin!
)
Surreyman
news:1189364419.634851.153250@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 9, 12:23 pm, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
We can't be sure of that. And there is one piece of evidence (an
inscribed
thing from Bath). One linguist has suggested that Latin was spoken
over
the whole of Lowland Britain. The Romance languages separate from Latin
very late - long after the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
I'm not sure what inscription you're referring to -- there are, of
course, Latin inscriptions all over Britain, but that by no means
necessitates the existence of a local vernacular form of Latin --
Latin is still used in inscriptions to this day, but nobody suggests
that Latin is a vernacular of the U.K.! Such an inscription, to be
linguistically informative, would need to show some distinctive
dialectal features -- and then we'd need to know that the inscriber
was actually a Latin-speaking Briton, trying to represent his (or her)
own pronunciation.
The point at which one distinguishes Latin from Romance is a very
touchy question among Romance linguists, and one which largely
revolves around the very unsatisfactory definitions of "language" and
"dialect". Regardless of what you call it, it's demonstrable from a
variety of sources that the Latin of the 5th century was not the same
as the Latin of the 1st century, and had begun to show many
characteristics that were later typical of the Romance languages
(sound changes and simplification of the case structure, for
instance). Borrowings in the Brythonic languages don't show evidence
of such changes, however.
Even the Italians seem to have largely lost their classic Latin!
Surreyman
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
-
a.spencer3
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
But it's all supposition, isn't it?
No records, even legend or hearsay, of the entire Romano-Celtic 'England'
area being so massively destroyed, replaced or subjugated, nor of colossal
emigration.
None of these seem sensible due to 'bands', and certainly there are no
reports of wholesale armies.
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
And even the Normans didn't likewise destroy the A-S culture or language.
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Surreyman
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or
assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
But it's all supposition, isn't it?
No records, even legend or hearsay, of the entire Romano-Celtic 'England'
area being so massively destroyed, replaced or subjugated, nor of colossal
emigration.
None of these seem sensible due to 'bands', and certainly there are no
reports of wholesale armies.
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
And even the Normans didn't likewise destroy the A-S culture or language.
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Surreyman
-
Paul J Gans
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
In alt.history.british David <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote:
I'm sure others with more knowlege will add to this, but
as far as I know, there is little or no evidence of the
destruction of any major towns or large villages.
Indeed, the entire Saxon occupation period is cloudy with
neither written nor archaeological materials adding much
other than confusion.
The situation is made worse by the few surviving writings.
These were invariably done by clerics with a clear agenda.
And that was to show that current (or recent) woes were
the result of accumulated sin and failure to follow a pure
Christian life-style. The resultant incontrovertable pain
suffered by the Christians was both proof that God existed
and that His punishment was inevitable and irresistable.
The notion of providing a totally objective and factual
account of events was alien to these chroniclers and would
remain so for many centuries. Indeed, the use of inflammatory
images was essentially madatory for the edification of those
living in a state of sin.
Gildas clearly falls into this category and is to be read
with extreme care.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
I'm sure others with more knowlege will add to this, but
as far as I know, there is little or no evidence of the
destruction of any major towns or large villages.
Indeed, the entire Saxon occupation period is cloudy with
neither written nor archaeological materials adding much
other than confusion.
The situation is made worse by the few surviving writings.
These were invariably done by clerics with a clear agenda.
And that was to show that current (or recent) woes were
the result of accumulated sin and failure to follow a pure
Christian life-style. The resultant incontrovertable pain
suffered by the Christians was both proof that God existed
and that His punishment was inevitable and irresistable.
The notion of providing a totally objective and factual
account of events was alien to these chroniclers and would
remain so for many centuries. Indeed, the use of inflammatory
images was essentially madatory for the edification of those
living in a state of sin.
Gildas clearly falls into this category and is to be read
with extreme care.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
-
D. Spencer Hines
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
Trotted out on cue by a dedicated academic atheist, secular progressive and
self-described non-practicing Jew -- with a clear agenda of his own.
Par For The Course...
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"Paul J Gans" <gans@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fc3pjq$oa1$1@reader1.panix.com...
self-described non-practicing Jew -- with a clear agenda of his own.
Par For The Course...
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"Paul J Gans" <gans@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fc3pjq$oa1$1@reader1.panix.com...
In alt.history.british David <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote:
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
I'm sure others with more knowlege [sic] will add to this, but
as far as I know, there is little or no evidence of the
destruction of any major towns or large villages.
Indeed, the entire Saxon occupation period is cloudy with
neither written nor archaeological materials adding much
other than confusion.
The situation is made worse by the few surviving writings.
These were invariably done by clerics with a clear agenda.
And that was to show that current (or recent) woes were
the result of accumulated sin and failure to follow a pure
Christian life-style. The resultant incontrovertable [sic] pain
suffered by the Christians was both proof that God existed
and that His punishment was inevitable and irresistable [sic].
The notion of providing a totally objective and factual
account of events was alien to these chroniclers and would
remain so for many centuries. Indeed, the use of inflammatory
images was essentially madatory [sic] for the edification of those
living in a state of sin.
Gildas clearly falls into this category and is to be read
with extreme care.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
-
D. Spencer Hines
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Any theories of your own, as an Englishman, who has strands of all these
migrators and invaders in his genealogical makeup and that of his wife?
DSH
"a.spencer3" <a.spencer3@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:HyeFi.29252$Db6.14712@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
But it's all supposition, isn't it?
No records, even legend or hearsay, of the entire Romano-Celtic 'England'
area being so massively destroyed, replaced or subjugated, nor of colossal
emigration.
None of these seem sensible due to 'bands', and certainly there are no
reports of wholesale armies.
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
And even the Normans didn't likewise destroy the A-S culture or language.
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Surreyman
-
William Black
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
No evidence of any of that at all.
What's more there a great deal of evidence of the peaceful settlement of
Saxons before the Romans left.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
No evidence of any of that at all.
What's more there a great deal of evidence of the peaceful settlement of
Saxons before the Romans left.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
-
William Black
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"D. Spencer Hines" <panther@excelsior.com> wrote in message
news:chfFi.87$DU5.319@eagle.america.net...
Your problem here is, of course, that he's right.
Your lack of any alternative is noted.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
news:chfFi.87$DU5.319@eagle.america.net...
Trotted out on cue by a dedicated academic atheist, secular progressive
and
self-described non-practicing Jew -- with a clear agenda of his own.
Your problem here is, of course, that he's right.
Your lack of any alternative is noted.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
-
D. Spencer Hines
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
<G>
Legends Track To Transmuted Facts.
DSH
"taf" <farmerie@interfold.com> wrote in message
news:1189447486.353275.75410@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Legends Track To Transmuted Facts.
DSH
"taf" <farmerie@interfold.com> wrote in message
news:1189447486.353275.75410@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 9:47 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
Except by that Arthur guy.
taf
-
William Black
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"D. Spencer Hines" <panther@excelsior.com> wrote in message
news:T1gFi.93$DU5.405@eagle.america.net...
Cite in this case please.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
news:T1gFi.93$DU5.405@eagle.america.net...
G
Legends Track To Transmuted Facts.
Cite in this case please.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 10, 11:47 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
I just mentioned some "legend or hearsay" -- from one or two
generations after the beginning of the conquest, while Angle-British
conflicts were still ongoing. Gildas' claims may be overblown, they
may be in the main untrue, they may be standard rhetorical tropes --
but they are still claims, and they do explain *some* of the
phenomena. And the fact that Gildas uses rhetorical tropes in no way
obliges us to assume that the rhetoric has no real referent.
There's a resistance to accepting genocidal invasions as a part of
history -- for the simple reason that they are uncomfortable to think
about, as well as being unaesthetically 'catastrophic', and
catastrophism always has a poor reputation in the chronological
sciences, in history as well as geology. People are much more
comfortable thinking in terms of inexorable trends; that's one of the
reasons (besides politics) that the original concept of a violent
invasion of the Indian subcontinent by early Indic-speaking peoples
has been muddled aside in favor of a more benign "infiltration",
gradual replacement, or even cultural conversion.
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or
assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
But it's all supposition, isn't it?
No records, even legend or hearsay, of the entire Romano-Celtic 'England'
area being so massively destroyed, replaced or subjugated, nor of colossal
emigration.
None of these seem sensible due to 'bands', and certainly there are no
reports of wholesale armies.
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
And even the Normans didn't likewise destroy the A-S culture or language.
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Surreyman
I just mentioned some "legend or hearsay" -- from one or two
generations after the beginning of the conquest, while Angle-British
conflicts were still ongoing. Gildas' claims may be overblown, they
may be in the main untrue, they may be standard rhetorical tropes --
but they are still claims, and they do explain *some* of the
phenomena. And the fact that Gildas uses rhetorical tropes in no way
obliges us to assume that the rhetoric has no real referent.
There's a resistance to accepting genocidal invasions as a part of
history -- for the simple reason that they are uncomfortable to think
about, as well as being unaesthetically 'catastrophic', and
catastrophism always has a poor reputation in the chronological
sciences, in history as well as geology. People are much more
comfortable thinking in terms of inexorable trends; that's one of the
reasons (besides politics) that the original concept of a violent
invasion of the Indian subcontinent by early Indic-speaking peoples
has been muddled aside in favor of a more benign "infiltration",
gradual replacement, or even cultural conversion.
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
-
William Black
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 10, 4:13 pm, "William Black" <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk>
wrote:
That's like saying that there were Danes in England before 865. It's
true, but from a demographic point of view, trivial. Various peoples,
including Saxons, invaded Roman Britain from the 4th century on; but
the vast majority of Angles and Saxons were later-comers, from about
the mid-5th century, after Britain's legions had left to get involved
in the general collapse of the Western Empire.
The nature of the argument escapes me anyway. It's hardly to be
doubted, in this age, that the Americans (of the United States)
practiced an effectively genocidal warfare against the American
Indians of North America from the early 19th century on, which
resulted, very quickly -- in less than a century -- in the wholesale
extermination of entire nations and the deportation of others to tiny
reservations. What sort of argument against that claim would it be to
point out that the Americans' ancestors had been occupying coastal
fortresses and towns, for two hundred years previously? Does the one
preclude the other? Of course not. The construction of Boston and
Philadelphia is one historical event, the near-annihilation of the
Plains Indians is another, and the former, while perhaps a
precondition for the latter, doesn't explain it. Just so, the
presence of Saxons (in small numbers) in Britain in the 4th century
doesn't explain the absolute overthrow and destruction of the urban
Romano-Celtic civilization in the 5th-6th centuries.
wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
That's like saying that there were Danes in England before 865. It's
true, but from a demographic point of view, trivial. Various peoples,
including Saxons, invaded Roman Britain from the 4th century on; but
the vast majority of Angles and Saxons were later-comers, from about
the mid-5th century, after Britain's legions had left to get involved
in the general collapse of the Western Empire.
The nature of the argument escapes me anyway. It's hardly to be
doubted, in this age, that the Americans (of the United States)
practiced an effectively genocidal warfare against the American
Indians of North America from the early 19th century on, which
resulted, very quickly -- in less than a century -- in the wholesale
extermination of entire nations and the deportation of others to tiny
reservations. What sort of argument against that claim would it be to
point out that the Americans' ancestors had been occupying coastal
fortresses and towns, for two hundred years previously? Does the one
preclude the other? Of course not. The construction of Boston and
Philadelphia is one historical event, the near-annihilation of the
Plains Indians is another, and the former, while perhaps a
precondition for the latter, doesn't explain it. Just so, the
presence of Saxons (in small numbers) in Britain in the 4th century
doesn't explain the absolute overthrow and destruction of the urban
Romano-Celtic civilization in the 5th-6th centuries.
-
David
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
On Sep 10, 4:13 pm, "William Black" <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk>
wrote:
I should add that, although I've adopted the most charitable
interpretation of your remarks, I do hope that you are not endorsing
the crackpot linguistic theories of Peter Forster and Stephen
Oppenheimer, which claim that a Germanic language was already widely
spoken in SE Britain during the Roman occupation -- this claim is
linguistically utterly untenable.
wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
I should add that, although I've adopted the most charitable
interpretation of your remarks, I do hope that you are not endorsing
the crackpot linguistic theories of Peter Forster and Stephen
Oppenheimer, which claim that a Germanic language was already widely
spoken in SE Britain during the Roman occupation -- this claim is
linguistically utterly untenable.
-
Paul J Gans
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
In alt.history.british a.spencer3 <a.spencer3@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Haven't you just given a wonderful example? Considering that
the Roman hand lay far more lightly on England than did the
Norman, why would we expect more Romanization?
--
--- Paul J. Gans
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or
assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
But it's all supposition, isn't it?
No records, even legend or hearsay, of the entire Romano-Celtic 'England'
area being so massively destroyed, replaced or subjugated, nor of colossal
emigration.
None of these seem sensible due to 'bands', and certainly there are no
reports of wholesale armies.
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
And even the Normans didn't likewise destroy the A-S culture or language.
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Haven't you just given a wonderful example? Considering that
the Roman hand lay far more lightly on England than did the
Norman, why would we expect more Romanization?
--
--- Paul J. Gans
-
Paul J Gans
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
In soc.history.medieval David <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote:
But the archealogical evidence does not support this.
Indeed, there seems to have been cultural continuity
in the excavated sites right through this time.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
On Sep 10, 4:13 pm, "William Black" <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk
wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
That's like saying that there were Danes in England before 865. It's
true, but from a demographic point of view, trivial. Various peoples,
including Saxons, invaded Roman Britain from the 4th century on; but
the vast majority of Angles and Saxons were later-comers, from about
the mid-5th century, after Britain's legions had left to get involved
in the general collapse of the Western Empire.
The nature of the argument escapes me anyway. It's hardly to be
doubted, in this age, that the Americans (of the United States)
practiced an effectively genocidal warfare against the American
Indians of North America from the early 19th century on, which
resulted, very quickly -- in less than a century -- in the wholesale
extermination of entire nations and the deportation of others to tiny
reservations. What sort of argument against that claim would it be to
point out that the Americans' ancestors had been occupying coastal
fortresses and towns, for two hundred years previously? Does the one
preclude the other? Of course not. The construction of Boston and
Philadelphia is one historical event, the near-annihilation of the
Plains Indians is another, and the former, while perhaps a
precondition for the latter, doesn't explain it. Just so, the
presence of Saxons (in small numbers) in Britain in the 4th century
doesn't explain the absolute overthrow and destruction of the urban
Romano-Celtic civilization in the 5th-6th centuries.
But the archealogical evidence does not support this.
Indeed, there seems to have been cultural continuity
in the excavated sites right through this time.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
-
a.spencer3
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But still all your supposition.
Surreyman
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 11:47 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189434578.834004.280280@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 3:05 am, "a.spencer3" <a.spenc...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
"John Briggs" <john.brig...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:owXEi.61450$1G1.53265@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
That still leaves us with the main problem: what happened to all
the
Lowland
Celtic speakers? Because there are practically no loan words from
Brythonic
into Old English - nor from a Lowland Romance language, either.
--
Does that not remain the big unknown?
Either total emigration or total (such rapid) subjugation or
assimilation
both appear unlikely.
But what other reasons could there be?
Many Brythonic place names remain in the southern counties, of
course.
Surreyman
Gildas speaks of villages destroyed, populations murdered, walls and
towers overturned, towns burnt and desolate from coast to coast of
Britain. Gildas of course may be exaggerating for propagandistic
effect, but it seems well within the power of determined bands of
marauders to achieve; the urban infrastructure of Roman Britain must
have been a tenuous web, dependent not merely upon a legionary
soldiery (withdrawn before the invasions) but also upon trade and
imports with the rest of the Roman world, which would have collapsed
after 407. Even without the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Britain must have
been suffering a depression, burdened rather than blessed by a civic
infrastructure they had no means of maintaining. Highly mobile bands
of armed invaders could easily have captured and destroyed several
cities, creating a cascading refugee crisis as those fleeing from one
captured town doubled the already strained resource burden on their
neighbors. Eventually the intolerable conditions would provoke
resistance, and the invaders' advance would be halted (they being
overextended as well, until reinforcements arrived); but by that time
they'd have half the Green and Pleasant Land under their control.
Anglo-Saxon occupied England would be an attractive destination for
colonists from the Old Country, and if the area was more swiftly
repopulated by the Angles than by the British, the facts on the ground
would soon become irresistible; even repeated tactical victories on
the British side would not be able to root out a people who didn't
need or care for an elaborate civic infrastructure; and the Angles
would no more care about who had been tilling the soil 50 years
earlier than the Americans cared about the American Indians, after
they had possessed their land.
But it's all supposition, isn't it?
No records, even legend or hearsay, of the entire Romano-Celtic
'England'
area being so massively destroyed, replaced or subjugated, nor of
colossal
emigration.
None of these seem sensible due to 'bands', and certainly there are no
reports of wholesale armies.
No amazing defence reported, either, along the now-Welsh border.
And even the Normans didn't likewise destroy the A-S culture or
language.
To me, anyway, it's always been the supreme puzzle.
Surreyman
I just mentioned some "legend or hearsay" -- from one or two
generations after the beginning of the conquest, while Angle-British
conflicts were still ongoing. Gildas' claims may be overblown, they
may be in the main untrue, they may be standard rhetorical tropes --
but they are still claims, and they do explain *some* of the
phenomena. And the fact that Gildas uses rhetorical tropes in no way
obliges us to assume that the rhetoric has no real referent.
There's a resistance to accepting genocidal invasions as a part of
history -- for the simple reason that they are uncomfortable to think
about, as well as being unaesthetically 'catastrophic', and
catastrophism always has a poor reputation in the chronological
sciences, in history as well as geology. People are much more
comfortable thinking in terms of inexorable trends; that's one of the
reasons (besides politics) that the original concept of a violent
invasion of the Indian subcontinent by early Indic-speaking peoples
has been muddled aside in favor of a more benign "infiltration",
gradual replacement, or even cultural conversion.
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
But still all your supposition.
Surreyman
-
a.spencer3
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189474179.949851.99710@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
We know about the US story.
We don't know the British story.
Surreyman
news:1189474179.949851.99710@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 4:13 pm, "William Black" <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk
wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
That's like saying that there were Danes in England before 865. It's
true, but from a demographic point of view, trivial. Various peoples,
including Saxons, invaded Roman Britain from the 4th century on; but
the vast majority of Angles and Saxons were later-comers, from about
the mid-5th century, after Britain's legions had left to get involved
in the general collapse of the Western Empire.
The nature of the argument escapes me anyway. It's hardly to be
doubted, in this age, that the Americans (of the United States)
practiced an effectively genocidal warfare against the American
Indians of North America from the early 19th century on, which
resulted, very quickly -- in less than a century -- in the wholesale
extermination of entire nations and the deportation of others to tiny
reservations. What sort of argument against that claim would it be to
point out that the Americans' ancestors had been occupying coastal
fortresses and towns, for two hundred years previously? Does the one
preclude the other? Of course not. The construction of Boston and
Philadelphia is one historical event, the near-annihilation of the
Plains Indians is another, and the former, while perhaps a
precondition for the latter, doesn't explain it. Just so, the
presence of Saxons (in small numbers) in Britain in the 4th century
doesn't explain the absolute overthrow and destruction of the urban
Romano-Celtic civilization in the 5th-6th centuries.
We know about the US story.
We don't know the British story.
Surreyman
-
William Black
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"Paul J Gans" <gans@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fc4rds$rrg$2@reader1.panix.com...
Back at Sancton aren't we...
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
news:fc4rds$rrg$2@reader1.panix.com...
In soc.history.medieval David <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote:
On Sep 10, 4:13 pm, "William Black" <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk
wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
That's like saying that there were Danes in England before 865. It's
true, but from a demographic point of view, trivial. Various peoples,
including Saxons, invaded Roman Britain from the 4th century on; but
the vast majority of Angles and Saxons were later-comers, from about
the mid-5th century, after Britain's legions had left to get involved
in the general collapse of the Western Empire.
The nature of the argument escapes me anyway. It's hardly to be
doubted, in this age, that the Americans (of the United States)
practiced an effectively genocidal warfare against the American
Indians of North America from the early 19th century on, which
resulted, very quickly -- in less than a century -- in the wholesale
extermination of entire nations and the deportation of others to tiny
reservations. What sort of argument against that claim would it be to
point out that the Americans' ancestors had been occupying coastal
fortresses and towns, for two hundred years previously? Does the one
preclude the other? Of course not. The construction of Boston and
Philadelphia is one historical event, the near-annihilation of the
Plains Indians is another, and the former, while perhaps a
precondition for the latter, doesn't explain it. Just so, the
presence of Saxons (in small numbers) in Britain in the 4th century
doesn't explain the absolute overthrow and destruction of the urban
Romano-Celtic civilization in the 5th-6th centuries.
But the archealogical evidence does not support this.
Indeed, there seems to have been cultural continuity
in the excavated sites right through this time.
Back at Sancton aren't we...
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
-
William Black
Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony Inf
"David" <dsalo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189474767.945620.210720@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
Nope.
But there's no doubt that there was a Saxon presence in England at that
time, and that it was officially encouraged.
JNL Myres in 'The English Settlements' goes into some detail about this and
makes the case for a far more gentle Saxon invasion.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
news:1189474767.945620.210720@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 10, 4:13 pm, "William Black" <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk
wrote:
"David" <ds...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:1189457880.269982.163930@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
But catastrophes *do* occur, and genocides *do* happen, very
unhappily. One doesn't want to resort to them as the first
explanation of historical phenomena, and they are certainly not
extremely common; but they should never be ruled out. It would be
nice to say that the English crossed the North Sea just to shake hands
with the British, and the British welcomed them with open arms, and
then they all intermarried and just coincidentally happened to always
teach their children English, so that the British magically turned
into the English over one or two generations. It's a happy little
story without any tears, and the children can be tucked in safely
without nightmares. Its drawback, if we can call it that, is that
it's certainly not true.
It certainly isn't true.
For a start there were many Germanics here before the Romans left.
I should add that, although I've adopted the most charitable
interpretation of your remarks, I do hope that you are not endorsing
the crackpot linguistic theories of Peter Forster and Stephen
Oppenheimer, which claim that a Germanic language was already widely
spoken in SE Britain during the Roman occupation -- this claim is
linguistically utterly untenable.
Nope.
But there's no doubt that there was a Saxon presence in England at that
time, and that it was officially encouraged.
JNL Myres in 'The English Settlements' goes into some detail about this and
makes the case for a far more gentle Saxon invasion.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.