Wasn’t it Muammar Gaddafi who said Islam will conquer Europe without firing a shot. They are certainly on their way. They have no idea what’s happening to them…William the Conqueror should have gone to North Africa
Wasn’t it Muammar Gaddafi who said Islam will conquer Europe without firing a shot. They are certainly on their way. They have no idea what’s happening to them…William the Conqueror should have gone to North Africa
William the Conqueror had a dynastic claim to the English throne, tenuous, but no more so than any other claimant. Edward's claim to Canute's throne was tenuous also. William had no such claims in northern Africa.
I’ve always been intrigued by the sheer aggressive energy manifested by the Normans in everything they did, and especially in matters military, political, religious, and cultural. I find just reading about their exploits exhausting - exploits all the more impressive for being generally conducted by relatively small groups of adventurers. It’s like they were on uppers all the time. I guess it must be the Viking genes.
They were Vikings at heart, and their conquers a few generations before were literal Vikings. Many of them were of literal Viking blood. (Rollo and all, if you are into that.)
Vikings with a veneer of Latin civilization. Conquering barbarians often tend that way for a few generations, absorbed by the culture of the conquered, which can prove useful as well as comfortable.
By the dynastic laws of the time, he did. Of course from a post-1776 perspective, we emotionally tend to view Harold as "the choice of the people," which, in a limited sense, he was. A large part of the population didn't have any voice in that choice though. The Celtic population were thralls of the Saxon overlords, who had a sense of their own freedom. The thralls had by and large absorbed Saxon culture though, which made them all "Saxon dogs" to the Norman ruling class.
Neither William nor Harold had any blood kinship to the English throne through the House of Wessex (or of Cerdic), unless the tale that the Godwins were descended in the male line from Alfred the Great's elder brother and predecessor, Ethelred, which most historians think to be unlikely. So IMO the claims of both men were equally dubious.
Wasn’t it Muammar Gaddafi who said Islam will conquer Europe without firing a shot. They are certainly on their way. They have no idea what’s happening to them…William the Conqueror should have gone to North Africa
William the Conqueror had a dynastic claim to the English throne, tenuous, but no more so than any other claimant. Edward's claim to Canute's throne was tenuous also. William had no such claims in northern Africa.
There was a Norman Kingdom of Africa for a while, though, covering modern Tunisia, more or less.
I’ve always been intrigued by the sheer aggressive energy manifested by the Normans in everything they did, and especially in matters military, political, religious, and cultural. I find just reading about their exploits exhausting - exploits all the more impressive for being generally conducted by relatively small groups of adventurers. It’s like they were on uppers all the time. I guess it must be the Viking genes.
They were Vikings at heart, and their conquers a few generations before were literal Vikings. Many of them were of literal Viking blood. (Rollo and all, if you are into that.)
Vikings with a veneer of Latin civilization. Conquering barbarians often tend that way for a few generations, absorbed by the culture of the conquered, which can prove useful as well as comfortable.
If I recall correctly, Viking ancestors had "berserkers" as warriors. Following that thread through history and literature is quite fascinating.
Not to mention the genetics--redheads in Sicily.
Yes, but the Normans were a far-flung collection of more or less closely or distantly related people, and William had no claim to that throne.
As much as I wish that Harold had won at Hastings, William had a better claim to the throne.
By the dynastic laws of the time, he did. Of course from a post-1776 perspective, we emotionally tend to view Harold as "the choice of the people," which, in a limited sense, he was. A large part of the population didn't have any voice in that choice though. The Celtic population were thralls of the Saxon overlords, who had a sense of their own freedom. The thralls had by and large absorbed Saxon culture though, which made them all "Saxon dogs" to the Norman ruling class.
Neither William nor Harold had any blood kinship to the English throne through the House of Wessex (or of Cerdic), unless the tale that the Godwins were descended in the male line from Alfred the Great's elder brother and predecessor, Ethelred, which most historians think to be unlikely. So IMO the claims of both men were equally dubious.