Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to How was England formed? Original video: • How was England formed? Thanks for subscribing for more UK reactions!
Alfred - "the most privileged dude in the world". That is so funny. Alfred lived in a hut made of mud and cow dung and his most treasured possession was probably an old sword. Not much in the way of riches. He even spent some time living in the swamps of Wessex hiding from the Vikings.
He would normally have lived in a palace, but was forced to flee to the marshes of Somerset by the Danes. The legend is that he had to take refuge in a peasantwoman's hut, where she told him to watch the cakes on the fire while she was out. Preoccupied with how he was to to defeat the enemy, he let the cakes burn and was scolded...
Also worth saying Alfred was actually elected King; just not by universal suffrage. The Wessex Kings were chosen by a Parliament of Nobles called the Witan. Under todays inheritance laws Alfred would not have succeeded his brother as his brother had two sons. However these princes were children so the nobles chose Alfred instead. Athelstan's succession was controversial. Although he was his fathers eldest son, he was not favoured and sent to Mercia to be raised by his aunt. On his fathers death the Mercian's named Athelstan King, whilst the Wessex Witan named Athelstan's younger brother AElfweard King. This split between the two kingdoms could have lead to civil war and massively set back English unification. However within a month AElfweard died in unclear circumstances (aged about 21). A compromise was reached, Athelstan agreed never to marry or father children, so that his younger brothers could succeed him and only then did Wessex except him as King. Technically the Witan could chose any noble who claimed royal blood as their king. Prior to Alfred's grandfather there was more than a century of rulers who were not directly related, though each claimed to be descended from Cerdic, the legendary founder of Wessex. Its uncertain whether this claimed descent has any factual basis. The Cerdic legend makes little sense as its claimed he founded Wessex on the south coast of England having arrived from Saxony (Germany). Archelogy shows that Wessex formed on the upper Thames, whilst Cerdic is a Welsh name, making it unlikely to be the name of a Germanic invader from overseas.
@@KingOfSciliy actually, the United States didn't become the "United States" until 9th September 1776 prior to that date it was called the United Colonies.
3:17 fun fact! Some of these kingdom names are still reflected in UK place names to this day! The northernmost English County is called Northumberland. Kent and Essex are both still county names in mostly the same place but the borders moved slightly. East Anglia isn't officially a county name but the area is still called that, Sussex survived as the counties of West and East Sussex, and Wessex and Mercia still occasionally get referred to.
2:53 Essex, Sussex & Kent still exist today as english counties. My home county of Essex still uses three seax (ancient saxon knife weapon) on a red field for our county coat of arms.
You are neither stupid nor silly and not dumb. I like that your interested, curious and open-minded. The history of Great Britain is very unusual and not taught everywhere in Europe. As you might know the „America“ derives from Amerigo Vespucci aka Americus Vesputius.
that's one of the things i enjoy the most about this channel, going from comparing highway signs to aurora borealis and now the foundation of england !
The kings in those days led in battle. Aethelstan was one of our greatest kings. He stopped young children from being hanged. Essex is still here, where I live.
@@Brakdayton Hello! I was born in Kent, opposite Rochester castle apparently. I don't remember any of it though as my family moved away when I was a baby. I hope to come for a visit this summer, especially to see Canterbury, Sissinghurst and Dungeness.
Agreed. I quite like most individual Americans I've met, here and there but, they do tend to be a little gullible when swallowing their own propaganda?
We do cover the fall of Roman Britain to the Germanic tribes in high school history class and, of course, university courses will cover the details of English history. Remember, you're watching a person who doesn't seem to have paid much attention at school and probably wouldn't be learning now if he wasn't making reaction videos.
the fun thing about this map is that it's a modern map.. you can tell because it includes the Dtuch coastline... the Netherlands are there in their entirety, as they are today. Back when these events were happening, half the Netherlands were still underwater and had yet to be claimed by the Dutch..
It's an absolutely understandable mistake you made there, and it's a not a very good map, but you got fooled. It at least somewhat reflects the time the video plays in. First, you can see that it's not todays map by looking at 7:35 for example. The Ijslemeer (if you dont take the artificial dike into account) today is connected to the ocean over a length of roughly 30km. On this map it's an inland lake. So how does that make sense? Well additionally, you gotta know that the area we call the netherlands today actually used to be much larger. In prehistoric times, almost all of what is coverd by lakes today, used to be swamps/soil. The Romans called what is the Ijslemeer today Lake Flevo, because back then it was actually an inland freshwater lake. In the early middle ages then something we call the medieval warm period kicks in and the netherlands gradually started to get flooded due to rising sealevels, but it really took of roughly after the year 1000, so after all the events shown in the video. In 1282 a big flood then opens up the seaway into the Ijselmeer for big ships for the first time and gives rise to a small city which is called Amsterdam and which, lying at the end of the Ijselmeer, now suddenly has acess to the ocean. What the Dutch then do after the year 1300 is slowly reclaiming the land that was lost over the 300 years before. And they are also not even closely done yet. Compared to 800 (where the video plays) the Netherlands today still has a lot less area than back then.
My point was actually mostly that the geographic features of the map are static across the centuries described, which, per your own description, clearly isn't the case, at least for the Netherlands, Tar said I did make a very broad generalisation, my bad. Your description is of course much more accurate. I do remember a fair bit of the things you say from back in my school years (I'm actually Dutch but only spent primary school in the Netherlands before moving abroad). There's an interesting video that shows in a timelapse the map of the Netherlands across the centuries. CZcams won't allow me to link it but it does show a considerable flux in the years subject of this video. Anyway, good of you to nerd out about it🙂. This video's supposed to be a learning experience after all.
@@dehro yeah i didnt mean to offend you of course, I think 99.9% of people would say the same as you. Proven by the fact that 8 people already liked your comment ;) And you are right, there alwas was a river there, which basically widens up over time. My educated guess would be the map is from around 500, so roughly where the video starts, but I might be completely wrong. Maybe it's also just a really bad map. It's 100% not an accurate modern map though. And yes it got a little nerdy sorry haha
They might not teach it in America but you use it for TV shows. Vikings will take you from the Lidisfarne raid through to the Great Heathen Army. The Last Kingdom picks up not long after and takes you through Alfred, Edward and Æthelflæd. Both fictionalised of course but cover the history in broad strokes.
The most badass name I've ever heard: Eric Bloodax ! King Alfred (Alfred the Great) was truly a great King, centuries ahead of his time in his benevolent attitude to his people - he wanted them to be educated and to learn in English (rather than Latin) and wanted to improve the quality of their lives - he was clever, brave, wise and merciful.
@Neil Gayleard I'm English but that comment is so pathetically immature and cringey it's really embarrassing pal. Don't suppose you've a shit bulldog tattoo by any chance?
I recommend serie "The last Kingdom" it is not historicaly exact (many things we don't know) but it's realy cool with focus on this part of english history.
Eric Bloodaxe was the last Viking King of the Danelaw. His Death Ode (A sort of obituary) is about Odin waking to the sound of thunder, as though a great army approaches Valhalla. Odin is asked by the other warriors there who approaches, and explains "That is Eric Bloodaxe. In many a land he has reddened the blade." as the heroes and kings of Viking history cheer and drink their beers at his arrival through the doors of Valhalla. Odin explains that he only denies his children victory when he is in need of more warriors, for Ragnarok approaches, and the Great Wolf ever stalks the home of the gods. The doors to Valhalla finally close, as Odin cries "Hail Eric Bloodaxe, Last King of The Danelaw!" and the warriors arm themselves for the battle to come.
Just to add a bit of detail - the Anglo-Saxons were two tribes. The Angles, who settled the midlands and the north. And the Saxons who settled further south. Added to these were also the Jutes who settled parts of the south. The Saxons were from what is modern day north Germany and the Angles and Jutes were from what is now modern day Denmark.
You'll confuse people as the period concerned is well documented, if probably bias? Arthur, if he existed, would have been @ 400 years before this? A bit like saying Charles' I and III existed at the same time? Most Americans would believe that!
@@johnp8131 I shouldn't have mentioned King Arthur, who, you're right at this, most probably never existed (but you'll still have to leave your vehicle at "King Arthur's car park" when visiting Tintagel). You're also right, if you say that English history is pretty well documented (at least since the days of Alfred the Great). Still, the institutions of modern Britain were mostly formed after the Norman invasion. In that sense, the Anglo-Saxon times is a bit faded in formal history, but very much still relevant for English culture.
@@mina_en_suiza Agreed. Know the car park too. Went there a couple of years ago. Rotten weather so we had to spend hours in the Tintagel brewery's pub! It was hell?
@@johnp8131 When we went there, we had the most lovely sunshine, you can imagine on the English seaside. Spending a couple of hours in a pub can be nice, too (unless the little one are bored).
@@johnp8131 from what I know, the legend of king Artur is a Christianized version of a collection of legends from cleric mythology which was actually first published in France and bought over into England by the ruling French nobility. It then attained greater popularity in England than it ever did in France, but I think it's safe to assume that the king Arthur of legend never actually existed.
He ended the lesson a bit too early. Edgar's oldest son Edward became king in 975, but was murdered in 978 by servants of his stepmother Aethelflaed (he was allegedly the son of Edgar's mistress Wulfthryth, who was also the mother of his sister Edith and became later known as Holy Wulfthryth, the abbess of Wilton). He was succeeded by his younger stepbrother Aethelred the Unready, who lost the kingdom in 2013 to Sven Forkbeard, the King of Denmark and Norway (who had dethroned his father Harald Bluetooth). Sven however died in 1014, and Aethelred won back the throne only to die himself in 1016. His son Edmund Ironside only reigned for about 7 months before he died also. At the same time Sven's son Cnut tried to reconquer England since 1015; he became king of England in 1016 as well as after the death of his brother Harald II King of Denmark in 1019 (which included southern Sweden at that time) and King of Norway in 1028; he is also known as Cnut the Great. He married Aethelred's widow Emma of Normandy (daughter of Duke Richard I the Fearless of Normandy). After his death in 1035 his son Harald I Harefoot became King of England, but died in 1840, and his younger half-brother Harthacnut, already King of Denmark, seized the throne. Harthacnut invited his half-brother Edward the Confessor (7th son of Aethelred and 1st of Emma) to come back from his exile in Normandy. As Harthacnut died in 1042 while attending a wedding and drinking to much, Edward claimed to be the designated heir, won the support of the local nobility and was crowned in 1043. In 1050 his father-in-law Earl Godwin Wulfnothson of Wessex led a rebellion of anglo-saxon (and viking) nobles against Edward and his Norman connections, but was defeated. Edward died childless in 1066, after designating his younger brother-in-law Harald Godwinson as successor. Duke William of Normandy, the son of Edward's cousin Robert I, however claimed the throne. After his victory in the battle of Hastings he became known as William the Conqueror.
And William the Conqueror was Norman = nordmann = of Viking ancestry. Rollos descendants also ruled in places like Sicily. (During the crusades, a Norwegian king ruled Majorca for a few months. Icelandic Vikings were in L'Anse aux Meadows in North America. Baltic-side Vikings founded the Kievan Rus' (the origin of Russia - in the Ukraine). They seem to have been just about everywhere, except in South America, the Far East, Oceania and the Antarctic.
Understanding the early history of England is the foundation of why there are so many dialects. accents and unpronounceable place names that confuse modern day visitors to the UK. These comes from the merging of different cultures, and languages as invaders swept across the land and populations intermarried, especially in the north. It is also worth noting this happened after the Romans and the original Celtic Britons left their mark.
a saw one documentary video about origin of english language and verdict was, that over 70% of english is not anglo-saxon, but have nordic/scandinavian origin and root. and thanks this viking impact is more simple and unified than scotish and wales dialects
They don't even teach a lot of this in English schools. I remember being taught about Alfred the great but the other Saxon kings not so much, until you get to Edward the confessor. Pre 1066 i.e Norman invasion is taught in primary school ages 5-11 in broad chunks without much detail. Its only after the Normans in Secondary school that History gets taught in more detail.
Agreed. My sons are in their 30's now, however I was always disappointed in what they were taught in History compared to myself in the sixties and seventies?
@@johnp8131 I'm in my 30s and think what they are teaching in schools is less than what I was taught. When I was at University I heard the lecturers complain that every year A levels get worse and worse to the point that they had to create new modules for 1st years to tech the basics that used to be taught in A levels.
@@martingibbs1179 Know what you mean. I looked at one of my sons mock 'A' level physics papers around 15 years ago and I personally think it was mostly on a par with my old physics "O" level.
I love how you identified the peacemaker as the good guy, I wish your country could translate this in real life. It's interesting how everyone identifies the good guy in movies based on Hollywood standards but most can't seem to he able to apply this is real life. Pretty much like the gold digging dragon is of course the villain but Amazon's boss somehow isn't.
I live in a small coastal village in N.East England and a church on our cliffs has been there since before the vikings invaded. I'm about 30mins from York too. A lot of viking stuff up this way
Even though I am a 5th generation Australian my dna test revealed that 20% of my dna comes from Sweden, Denmark and Norway. This is probably because many of my ancestors were from Yorkshire.
Ryan, if you want to understand the Vikings, I highly recommend the UK TV series, Vikings! It’s blood thirsty but so were they. Fearless warriors intent on conquering as much land as possible and with no regard for religious beliefs, families or anything else. Pillage and plunder as far and wide as their ships would carry them!
These ancestors of ours are no doubt why we are known for being tough and enduring. We've been made from the blood of savages from all over Europe! 😂🤣😅 The typical "motto" for England is KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON and I think it's why people tend to think of us as pushovers....until they push too far! 😜 We ARE, very polite, courteous, helpful, eager, friendly, fun loving, and fairly chilled out, so I think that comes across as "sweet" or "weak" at times. The thing is, we don't have to brag or flex, because we know we can back ourselves. We don't want trouble of course! We want to go to the pub, dance, laugh and be around friends and family and our pets.... BUT, if trouble's what you want, we're happy to provide that too. 😂 When I get angry I'm suddenly channeling my Germanic Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother, Helga, who wore an armoured chest plate, a helmet, and took off the heads of opposition with one swing of her axe! Her sandals were permanently stained with the blood of her dead enemies and she was respected throughout the land. (Probably anyway...? Maybe...? Oh who cares if I made it up, it COULD be true! 😉) Helga is my inner warrior bitch, and we're all like that over here! 🤣 It's quite funny, although people probably think it's odd to laugh at such a thing, but then I never claimed we were sane! 🤪 But it MUST explain why we're still quite savage when we need to be, despite being perfectly lovely 99% of the time. Even Hitler had a (begrudgingly! 😂) huge respect for us as people, despite bombing the crap out of us we never stopped being determined to not give in. The worst bombing, The Blitz, relentless again and again over the East end of London was the most destructive. My parents, who were born and raised there, survived through all that as children. My Dad and his mates would go play in the bombed out buildings, picking over rubble and looking for lost treasures. England has been invaded and attacked from just about every angle....and speaking of "angles", the first Germanic invaders were from a German place called Angle. They were the Anglos, and the Saxons were largely from Gaul, which is now mostly the area we call France. The Germanic tribes named the land after their home town, Angle, and called it Angle Land....= Angleland....= England!!! Hence most of us descended from Anglo-Saxons, dark haired at least, with blondes largely descended from the Scandinavian Vikings. Mixing with the Britons who were already here it formed a super strong bloodline. Sometimes, at night, I can hear a warrior roar coming from the wind in the distant hills, and imagine that's Helga out there, still causing a riot and swinging her axe throughout Sussex in the afterlife! ⛏️ 😜😜😜 Probably.....😘
Communications and trade between these nations/regions was still possible back then, even if if was slower than today. For thousands of years before the Romans into "pre-history" people have been trading goods between neighbouring regions, and trading information at the same time. "Diplomats" and envoys from one ruler to another were also often sent out, and whilst it would take from weeks to months to years for them to go and come back they would mostly come back with information and news about neighbouring countries. So whilst they didn't have an idea that the Vikings would show up on x date so they could get some troops there to defend the land, they did know from their neighbours that the Vikings were invading places like Normandy and the Shetland Isles and Ireland and the North of Scotland etc, and they knew they'd be coming at some point.
In the cool name stakes my name conall (it's Irish) means strong wolf. My surname mclaughlin means son of norseman/viking. History is still here in lots of peoples names and place names
3.20 Just so you know ... the Vikings that raided Lindisfarne, settled in Britain and established the Danelaw were (surprise!) Danes. They didn't come from Norway as the arrow indicates.
As a 70 yo Briton I had to smile at a naive American viewpoint in the video but the more I watched the more I realised how naive I am myself - it's all just a matter of degree and I learned some things from this. I certainly found Ryan interesting as he imagined the goings on in the past. The thing is even the shape of 'England' wasn't there a few thousand years ago. You could walk to what is now Denmark from what is now England - maybe even stop and get married in the settlements that now lie at the bottom of the North Sea; trawlers regularly fish up relics of a human past. But back to naivety - most Britons don't even know the name of their country! At least they are unlikely to be able to name it at a first guess. Our Counties name is eight words long and is on the front of all Britons passport. Another amazing thing- most would not know which, out of the US, Australia or the UK, became a 'country/nation' first. You may be surprised yourself.. It's not the UK.
Ryan, you may not know it but you have a very english quality to all your vids, one i find rare for americans of the USA, you have our Sarcasem as humour, its refreshing to hear.
It's great that you're looking into all this. Your taking the opportunity to educate yourself. I'm sure I heard but if this school, but not in great detail. Have been doing the same myself recently. Just to say the conquering of England doesn't stop with Edgar the peaceful. There's still more Viking invasions to come, including Viking Kings but before that, we have the Norman (from Normandy at the top of France) invasion by William the Conqueror. This is basically part 1 of the story. Also yes these areas weren't countries, they weren't even really counties as we know them today, they were simply more areas of land that were held by specific people groups. If you look at the rise of the Roman Empire you'll see the same thing is true of Italy. Italy didn't start out as a United nation. It was made of lots of people groups on different areas of what we now know as Italy. Rome itself was just a group of settlements first. It took a long time before Italy became united/under the control of the power of Rome. The 2 Continents of Europe and Asia are in fact exactly the same. There are a lot of videos on this that I think would really help you understand this much better. A good video to help you really understand things better would be a video by the newish Channel History Box. They have a really good video covering all the King's and queens of England. (should really be of England and then the UK, but hey that would be an even longer video title) It covers the info shown here but continues right up to the Queen Elizabeth II. They're also working on shortish individual videos about each King or Queen with how they came to reign and how their reign ended. It makes for really interesting viewing.
william the bastard was infact Norse, they come from the line of Rollo Long Legs , a norse line that assimilated with the Franks, all but cornwall and wales are basicaly of Germanic decent, we are saxon, friesian and jute, dane and scandinavian, the dane law still exists as the north south divide
@@diaxus388 Yeah, I did know about the Scandinavian roots of William. I've been learning about the history of the whole or the UK and and of Williams backstory, as well as Europe through some incredible videos on the numerous historical channels here on CZcams. Just thought my comment was already long enough. Though I'm Scottish, I'm interested to learn much more of history of the rest of UK. The main things we covered in school was the Second World War and the Jacobite rebellion. The history we did in Primary school was much more world wide and taught in a much more interesting way. Always wished we'd got more of an overview of history of both the UK as well as as the rest of the World. Same goes with geography. So I'm plugging the gaps now that school is quite a long time ago. It's amazing how much more I'm learning and understanding when the information is given in a more visual way. Even watched videos of the the different battles that give the strategy of each side.
13:45 not necessarily. Usually times of war bring with them rapid technological innovation as each side tries to outshoot or outsmart the other. Just look at the huge leaps in computing, aviation and rocketry during WW2 or the development of space travel during the cold war, which actually stalled for a quarter century after the collapse of the Soviet Union. p.s. I wonder how the world would look today if the Danes won instead of Wessex.
Origins of England and UK is a very epic story. I was told that George RR Martin was inspired by the old History and the ancient geography of UK for his saga Game of thrones.
I learnt about the Scots / Irish and Picts from "1066 and All That" and to quote this source they said: “The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).” I was born in an area of England which was in the Danelaw (Viking controlled England) and the place names of the area told you a lot. I lived on a road between two "settlements" - now areas of the town but had been separate villages. On the top of the hill was Fixby - a Viking name and down by the river in the valley was Bradley - an Anglo-Saxon name.
Small correction.. Scotland was called Kingdom of Alba, not Alaba. A shame the other youtuber didn't include Harald Hardrada, Harold Godwinson, William the Conqueror and the events of 1066.
4:50 don't feel too sorry for him, history remembers him as Alfred the Great and he still has statues around to this day, including in America, it turns out.
Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in English, rather than Latin, and improving the legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" in the 16th century and is only one of two English monarchs, alongside Cnut the Great, to be labelled as such. Is Queen Elizabeth related to King Alfred? Queen Elizabeth II is related to Alfred the Great. Queen Elizabeth is the thirty-second great granddaughter of the once great king. What is King Alfred most known for? Why is King Alfred famous? Alfred the Great (849-899) was the most famous of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Despite overwhelming odds he successfully defended his kingdom, Wessex, against the Vikings. He also introduced wide-ranging reforms including defence measures, reform of the law and of coinage. Google/Wikipedia so may or not be accurate.
@3:58 Love how they point from Norway to England, and then talk about Danish Vikings. Well it was danish vikings, but they came from Denmark. Two Fun facts: 85% of the original british gene pool was eradicated and replaced by danish genes. No wonder they look a lot like us. England in danish means meadow land.
He forgets the prehistoric times, during the last ice age, when you could simply walk from east to west, across the then dry ‘North Sea’, aka Doggerland.
He spoke about how it was back then but it is still like this now around the world. This video showed over 200 years of history. If you look at the world for the past 200 years we have had many countries alter with some being either destroyed, created or merged in the 21st century within the last 20 years. This is a process which always happen and the fact he does not know this just shows that he is definitely an American
Anglo Saxon kings were elected. Not by 'the people', but by a council of noblemen (which is as democratic as things got in those days). Also, one of the things to remember, when they're talking about the 'unity' of England, and 'the English' feeling part of one nation... Not so much, at least in the remoter reaches. People in Cumbria and Northumbria (which are still the old names of the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland) were never really fully under control of the English kings, but well into the 16th century, persisted in being a law unto themsleves. The border countries between Scotland and England were described as 'the most dangerous place on earth'. Probably the best modernish anaogy is the Wild West. They were the medieval and early modern wild west.
Pity it stopped just shy of the most important moment in english history! If you ever wondered why it's "pig", but if you eat it, it's "pork" or "cow", but "beef" or "deer", but "venison" while it's still "chicken" and ... well ... "chicken", check out what happened in 1066. 😉😊
intresting fact for those who don't know. the Saxons who invated England back then wheren't from what is now Saxonia in German. They saxons and angles came from what is now lower Saxonia, the north of it, and the angles form what is now Schleswig Holstein. So in Geran england or englisch stuff is still called : Angelsachsen (Anglo-Saxons). if not called englsih or british. but mostly refering to the language. Mostly if english words invated german, they called: anglizismen
This is A game of Thrones made real. As stated, very few record survive from this period between the Romans leaving and the Normans arriving giving rise to the term, The Dark Ages, with the word Dark referring to 'Unknown' rather than a period of strife. I live in an area subject to Danelaw, carry a Nordic surname name and have place names here about that have a Nordic root to them.
Ethelflead was a very ruthless Queen so much so the Vikings actually highly respected her, A group of Vikings were in a wood and refused to surrender to her so she had the whole of those woods burned along with those Vikings such was her ruthlessness, She was known as “The Lady of the Mercians” , After her death there were attempts to write her out of history because she was a woman and not a king, Those counties still exist today, I for instance live in Mercia, Sussex , Kent and all the others are still very much part of England.
Only Northumbria is a county ( and Kent). Wessex is North Somerset, South Somerset, Devon etc. And East Anglia is a region made up of Suffolk, Norfolk etc.
I'm not sure borders are quite as stable as you think. In the last 100 years Alaska and Hawaii joined the US. Germany broke up and was reunited. The Soviet Union collapsed and the former Soviet Union countries further fractured and merged several times. Empires were dismantled. Sudan split into two countries. China and Taiwan split up. Israel became a country. And there were probably several more major border changes.
I guess that at those times when most of Europe was like this, separated on so many small tribes and kingdoms it was politicaly farseeing move to conquer your neighbours and to establish stronger place for your family and your people. AFAIU its good to have more power and more land to care for your own against any invader. Conquering was important as at this time only land and yet more land would give u strenght becouse there was no banks, industry, high-tech, science, or huge navy, only thing to give u strenght was agriculture and this needs more land :) To conquer more land sometimes means that your people wont be hungry at winter and so they wont rebel against u :)
it has come to my attention lately that a lot of Americans don't know or understand that the king is not just the king of the UK but of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and loads of other little places that make up the overseas dependences.
It stopped when came the invasion from the normands with William the conqueror, after that, aristocraty of england will speak french for 3 hundred years, changing the english language. As a result, on the english passport you find the sentences in french: "dieu et mon droit" ( god and my right) and "honi soit qui mal y pense" (shamed be who thinks ill of it) or "Le roy le veult"/"la reyne le veult" ( the king/queen want it) in the british parlement for the royal assent of a law.
My understanding is that the Jutes (part of now Denmark) were invited in by Vortigan to defend his territory in Northumberland and were given Kent but they didn't stick to the plan and took over what is now South Hampshire and also the Isle of Wight. Though with the Saxons arriving they seem to have lost Hampshire though in some remained on the Island. The last place in England to go back to Christianity. As the history was written by Angles and Saxon Monks years if not lifetimes later it seemed like the Jutes disappeared. Though I expect like the Ancient/ Roman Britain just merged with the Angles and Saxons as is shown in English DNA about 60% plus British and 20% plus Angle and Saxon. With others and changes as you travel North.
If you're interested in Anglo-Saxon England etc.....You may like to take a look at "The Last Kingdom" television series. You can get an idea looking a clips on CZcams. Most of the major events and characters are factual with quite a bit of artistic licence? Very good though.
@@jga5431 Only bothered to read the first one as the BBC series began just after I finished it. Read the majority of his stuff, including: Redcoat; Harlequin etc....... Half way through "Sharpe’s Assassin" currently. And another due this year?
we Britons were here before the Romans for 10000's too. We could walk across to the Netherlands from east Anglia before the channel flooded. There's a whole civilisation buried under the sea.
Aethelflead & Edward aka Edward the Elder were 2 of Alfred aka Alfred the Great's children. Aethelflead married Aethelred of Mercia & after his death in 911, Aethelflead became Queen of Mercia & Edward was King of Wessex after his father died in 899. Alfwynn was Queen for a short while like 6 - 18 months after Aethelflead died in 918 until Edward took the throne because Aelfwynn was deposed. The show The Last Kingdom is based on Alfred & his family though only 2 of his children appear in it & it is the most historically accurate then the sequel movie Seven Kings Must Die is historically based on how England was formed. The narrarator is mispronouncing the old name for Scotland which is Alba not Alaba.
It is a very partial approach to the history of England, but correct when it comes to the initial formation of the kingdom of England. If we date the borders of present-day England to Edgar the Pacific around 960, the Anglo-Saxon house of Wessex ruled only 55 years until the king of Denmark took control of the country, then about 25 years after the restoration of Edward the Confessor until the conquest of the Kingdom by the Normans of William the Conqueror in 1066. Since then, no family of Anglo-Saxon origin has ruled England. For the next 100 years, the reigning family is that of the House of Normandy (who speaks French), then for the next 220 years, it is the House of Plantagenêt, of Angevine origin (and who also speaks French), including with its younger branches Lancaster and York (War of the Roses). Then for 120 years, it was the Tudor house, Welsh family claiming to be descendants of the kings of Armorican Brittany, then for 100 years (except during the Cromwell interregnum), the Stuarts, Scottish family also of Breton origin. From 1707, the kings of England became kings of Great Britain (with Scotland) and the United Kingdom (with Northern Ireland), and these are families of German origin who have reigned ever since with first the House of Hanover, then the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha which renamed itself House of Windsor during the First World War because of anti-German sentiment in the UK at that time.
Ryan, where did your ancestors come from originally. In the 1980 census 49,598,035 Americans cited that they were of English ancestry, I’m Aussie and my family history is from the UK and 2% Viking. We learned British history at school and more watching documentaries on tv and private reading.
From before the founding of the US until today English has remained the largest group in the entire US, there are arround 46.6 Million American are of English descent in the United States and it still rank as the largest ethnic group as well as the most common ancestor in the US even greater than the English descendants in the British Isles themselves, especially England. www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/10/2020-census-dhc-a-white-population.html en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Americans
Of course there is history prior to the period of this video including the roman occupation. Also a video after this which includes the Norman occupation
Watched Game of Thrones? The 7 Kingdoms? The Wall in the North? And lots of the little stories (blooody wedding...) were from UK or european history, too. Not the dragons though....
We need to explain something important in our view of history - its one of those things which I guess today most people mistake easily. The political systems are like on the spectrum and there is no such thing as only two extremes, like democracy and tyrrany. These are two extremes on the spectrum. Actualy democracy should also be a understood as tyrrany (dictatorship) - its the dictatorship of majority, how majority votes, that is established. There are some different kinds of dictatorships (like theocracy, where the dictatorial group is clergy - like in old Bhutan and Tibet and Vatican), and the most ultimate of dictatorships is 'tyrrany'. Dictatorship of one person is "classical" tyrrany. (Like in Greek "polis") But we must understand that every tyrrany is dictatorship but not every dictatorship is tyrrany, and not every tyrrany is a kingship (for example we got Venice, where we got no kings but a person elected from the group of oligarchy of the richest tradesmen - that also was a dictatorship of one person even though he had to listen to the oligarchy which voted for him, so it was no tyrrany as they always could remove their support for Doge), and not every kingship is tyrrany (usualy when a king was elected from group of aristocracy, like it was done in Ireland at the times this video speaks of, and in Poland some 6 centuries later, it was not a tyrrany). Kingship can be more or less tyrranical - with one dictator or with one family or with much bigger "elite class" whos job is to rule alongside the king. In some cases like in 15 - 17 c. Poland sometimes the kings got actualy less to say about the politics than the oligarchy of richest aristocrats which voted for kings.
The industrial revolution wasn't until 700 years later. A lot happened between the peace in the 10th century and 1750! Not least was the Magna Carta in 1215 after which the American Constitution was written 500 years later.
Alfred - "the most privileged dude in the world". That is so funny. Alfred lived in a hut made of mud and cow dung and his most treasured possession was probably an old sword. Not much in the way of riches. He even spent some time living in the swamps of Wessex hiding from the Vikings.
Burning cakes.
He would normally have lived in a palace, but was forced to flee to the marshes of Somerset by the Danes. The legend is that he had to take refuge in a peasantwoman's hut, where she told him to watch the cakes on the fire while she was out. Preoccupied with how he was to to defeat the enemy, he let the cakes burn and was scolded...
Also worth saying Alfred was actually elected King; just not by universal suffrage. The Wessex Kings were chosen by a Parliament of Nobles called the Witan. Under todays inheritance laws Alfred would not have succeeded his brother as his brother had two sons. However these princes were children so the nobles chose Alfred instead.
Athelstan's succession was controversial. Although he was his fathers eldest son, he was not favoured and sent to Mercia to be raised by his aunt. On his fathers death the Mercian's named Athelstan King, whilst the Wessex Witan named Athelstan's younger brother AElfweard King. This split between the two kingdoms could have lead to civil war and massively set back English unification. However within a month AElfweard died in unclear circumstances (aged about 21). A compromise was reached, Athelstan agreed never to marry or father children, so that his younger brothers could succeed him and only then did Wessex except him as King.
Technically the Witan could chose any noble who claimed royal blood as their king. Prior to Alfred's grandfather there was more than a century of rulers who were not directly related, though each claimed to be descended from Cerdic, the legendary founder of Wessex. Its uncertain whether this claimed descent has any factual basis. The Cerdic legend makes little sense as its claimed he founded Wessex on the south coast of England having arrived from Saxony (Germany). Archelogy shows that Wessex formed on the upper Thames, whilst Cerdic is a Welsh name, making it unlikely to be the name of a Germanic invader from overseas.
that's a legend, we don't know that but he was absolutely not poor at all. If he ever slept in a hut it was on campaign
The look on an Americans face as they try to comprehend something being around since 927ad 😆
"History began on July 4th, 1776. Everything before that was a mistake."
- Ron Swanson, "Parks and Recreation"
@@KingOfSciliy Al Murray on the American war of independence -
"They see that as a win, we see that as a lucky f***ing escape"
😂😂😂
@@davebirch1976 Keep believing that lie!😉🤣
@@timothyreel716 what lie? That us Brits were glad to see the back of the United Colonies as it was called back then 😆
@@KingOfSciliy actually, the United States didn't become the "United States" until 9th September 1776 prior to that date it was called the United Colonies.
3:17 fun fact! Some of these kingdom names are still reflected in UK place names to this day! The northernmost English County is called Northumberland. Kent and Essex are both still county names in mostly the same place but the borders moved slightly. East Anglia isn't officially a county name but the area is still called that, Sussex survived as the counties of West and East Sussex, and Wessex and Mercia still occasionally get referred to.
We also refer to the police as west Mercia police in some areas
Prince Edward, the youngest brother of King Charles is the current Earl of Wessex.
Mercia is still one of the 12 UK NUTS regions. Its population is somewhat larger than Scotland's.
Also another fun fact. Polish call England to this day with old name Anglia
2:53 Essex, Sussex & Kent still exist today as english counties. My home county of Essex still uses three seax (ancient saxon knife weapon) on a red field for our county coat of arms.
I’m Essex born too …but London invaded 😕
I was Born in east Anglia. Although not a County, the counties in the area still call it east Anglia.
You are neither stupid nor silly and not dumb. I like that your interested, curious and open-minded. The history of Great Britain is very unusual and not taught everywhere in Europe. As you might know the „America“ derives from Amerigo Vespucci aka Americus Vesputius.
that's one of the things i enjoy the most about this channel, going from comparing highway signs to aurora borealis and now the foundation of england !
The kings in those days led in battle. Aethelstan was one of our greatest kings. He stopped young children from being hanged. Essex is still here, where I live.
Yep. I live in Kent.
@@Brakdayton Hello! I was born in Kent, opposite Rochester castle apparently. I don't remember any of it though as my family moved away when I was a baby. I hope to come for a visit this summer, especially to see Canterbury, Sissinghurst and Dungeness.
Æthelstan was the first High King of All England, including for a while Scotland. But as usual the Scotch changed their minds later.
the ROmans left about 410 ad, vid seemd to say it was 200 yrs latter.
"Ruling by conquest". Was quite common in these days, happened all the time, and went on for centuries.
"they don't teach this here"
Well no, if it's not related to how brilliant America and Americans are they won't teach it 😆
best comment x
Agreed. I quite like most individual Americans I've met, here and there but, they do tend to be a little gullible when swallowing their own propaganda?
We do cover the fall of Roman Britain to the Germanic tribes in high school history class and, of course, university courses will cover the details of English history. Remember, you're watching a person who doesn't seem to have paid much attention at school and probably wouldn't be learning now if he wasn't making reaction videos.
@@patrickw123 Better late than never! I'm in my fifties and still learning loads all the time.
@@patrickw123 Ouch!
the fun thing about this map is that it's a modern map.. you can tell because it includes the Dtuch coastline... the Netherlands are there in their entirety, as they are today. Back when these events were happening, half the Netherlands were still underwater and had yet to be claimed by the Dutch..
also the Fens are dry
It's an absolutely understandable mistake you made there, and it's a not a very good map, but you got fooled. It at least somewhat reflects the time the video plays in.
First, you can see that it's not todays map by looking at 7:35 for example. The Ijslemeer (if you dont take the artificial dike into account) today is connected to the ocean over a length of roughly 30km. On this map it's an inland lake. So how does that make sense?
Well additionally, you gotta know that the area we call the netherlands today actually used to be much larger. In prehistoric times, almost all of what is coverd by lakes today, used to be swamps/soil. The Romans called what is the Ijslemeer today Lake Flevo, because back then it was actually an inland freshwater lake.
In the early middle ages then something we call the medieval warm period kicks in and the netherlands gradually started to get flooded due to rising sealevels, but it really took of roughly after the year 1000, so after all the events shown in the video. In 1282 a big flood then opens up the seaway into the Ijselmeer for big ships for the first time and gives rise to a small city which is called Amsterdam and which, lying at the end of the Ijselmeer, now suddenly has acess to the ocean.
What the Dutch then do after the year 1300 is slowly reclaiming the land that was lost over the 300 years before. And they are also not even closely done yet. Compared to 800 (where the video plays) the Netherlands today still has a lot less area than back then.
My point was actually mostly that the geographic features of the map are static across the centuries described, which, per your own description, clearly isn't the case, at least for the Netherlands,
Tar said I did make a very broad generalisation, my bad. Your description is of course much more accurate.
I do remember a fair bit of the things you say from back in my school years (I'm actually Dutch but only spent primary school in the Netherlands before moving abroad). There's an interesting video that shows in a timelapse the map of the Netherlands across the centuries. CZcams won't allow me to link it but it does show a considerable flux in the years subject of this video.
Anyway, good of you to nerd out about it🙂. This video's supposed to be a learning experience after all.
@@dehro yeah i didnt mean to offend you of course, I think 99.9% of people would say the same as you. Proven by the fact that 8 people already liked your comment ;)
And you are right, there alwas was a river there, which basically widens up over time. My educated guess would be the map is from around 500, so roughly where the video starts, but I might be completely wrong. Maybe it's also just a really bad map. It's 100% not an accurate modern map though.
And yes it got a little nerdy sorry haha
@@Feeber2 no offense taken whatsoever. As I said, it's a learning experience 🙂
They might not teach it in America but you use it for TV shows. Vikings will take you from the Lidisfarne raid through to the Great Heathen Army. The Last Kingdom picks up not long after and takes you through Alfred, Edward and Æthelflæd. Both fictionalised of course but cover the history in broad strokes.
Game of Thrones is also partly based around the history.
Yeah, but Vikings is a Canadian production
@@susanpearson-creativefibro I think GOT is more based on the Wars of The Roses in the 15th century than the Anglo-Saxon/Viking era
The most badass name I've ever heard: Eric Bloodax ! King Alfred (Alfred the Great) was truly a great King, centuries ahead of his time in his benevolent attitude to his people - he wanted them to be educated and to learn in English (rather than Latin) and wanted to improve the quality of their lives - he was clever, brave, wise and merciful.
Eric Blood Axe was even feared by other Vikings
I can confirm English people were and still are as hard as nails.
Open to debate
@Neil Gayleard I'm English but that comment is so pathetically immature and cringey it's really embarrassing pal. Don't suppose you've a shit bulldog tattoo by any chance?
I recommend serie "The last Kingdom" it is not historicaly exact (many things we don't know) but it's realy cool with focus on this part of english history.
Eric Bloodaxe was the last Viking King of the Danelaw. His Death Ode (A sort of obituary) is about Odin waking to the sound of thunder, as though a great army approaches Valhalla. Odin is asked by the other warriors there who approaches, and explains "That is Eric Bloodaxe. In many a land he has reddened the blade." as the heroes and kings of Viking history cheer and drink their beers at his arrival through the doors of Valhalla. Odin explains that he only denies his children victory when he is in need of more warriors, for Ragnarok approaches, and the Great Wolf ever stalks the home of the gods. The doors to Valhalla finally close, as Odin cries "Hail Eric Bloodaxe, Last King of The Danelaw!" and the warriors arm themselves for the battle to come.
Just to add a bit of detail - the Anglo-Saxons were two tribes. The Angles, who settled the midlands and the north. And the Saxons who settled further south. Added to these were also the Jutes who settled parts of the south. The Saxons were from what is modern day north Germany and the Angles and Jutes were from what is now modern day Denmark.
I especially love the history of England between the Romans leaving and the Norman invasion. That's the time of the legends, like from King Arthur.
You'll confuse people as the period concerned is well documented, if probably bias? Arthur, if he existed, would have been @ 400 years before this? A bit like saying Charles' I and III existed at the same time? Most Americans would believe that!
@@johnp8131 I shouldn't have mentioned King Arthur, who, you're right at this, most probably never existed (but you'll still have to leave your vehicle at "King Arthur's car park" when visiting Tintagel).
You're also right, if you say that English history is pretty well documented (at least since the days of Alfred the Great).
Still, the institutions of modern Britain were mostly formed after the Norman invasion. In that sense, the Anglo-Saxon times is a bit faded in formal history, but very much still relevant for English culture.
@@mina_en_suiza Agreed. Know the car park too. Went there a couple of years ago. Rotten weather so we had to spend hours in the Tintagel brewery's pub! It was hell?
@@johnp8131 When we went there, we had the most lovely sunshine, you can imagine on the English seaside.
Spending a couple of hours in a pub can be nice, too (unless the little one are bored).
@@johnp8131 from what I know, the legend of king Artur is a Christianized version of a collection of legends from cleric mythology which was actually first published in France and bought over into England by the ruling French nobility. It then attained greater popularity in England than it ever did in France, but I think it's safe to assume that the king Arthur of legend never actually existed.
He ended the lesson a bit too early. Edgar's oldest son Edward became king in 975, but was murdered in 978 by servants of his stepmother Aethelflaed (he was allegedly the son of Edgar's mistress Wulfthryth, who was also the mother of his sister Edith and became later known as Holy Wulfthryth, the abbess of Wilton). He was succeeded by his younger stepbrother Aethelred the Unready, who lost the kingdom in 2013 to Sven Forkbeard, the King of Denmark and Norway (who had dethroned his father Harald Bluetooth). Sven however died in 1014, and Aethelred won back the throne only to die himself in 1016. His son Edmund Ironside only reigned for about 7 months before he died also. At the same time Sven's son Cnut tried to reconquer England since 1015; he became king of England in 1016 as well as after the death of his brother Harald II King of Denmark in 1019 (which included southern Sweden at that time) and King of Norway in 1028; he is also known as Cnut the Great. He married Aethelred's widow Emma of Normandy (daughter of Duke Richard I the Fearless of Normandy). After his death in 1035 his son Harald I Harefoot became King of England, but died in 1840, and his younger half-brother Harthacnut, already King of Denmark, seized the throne. Harthacnut invited his half-brother Edward the Confessor (7th son of Aethelred and 1st of Emma) to come back from his exile in Normandy. As Harthacnut died in 1042 while attending a wedding and drinking to much, Edward claimed to be the designated heir, won the support of the local nobility and was crowned in 1043.
In 1050 his father-in-law Earl Godwin Wulfnothson of Wessex led a rebellion of anglo-saxon (and viking) nobles against Edward and his Norman connections, but was defeated. Edward died childless in 1066, after designating his younger brother-in-law Harald Godwinson as successor. Duke William of Normandy, the son of Edward's cousin Robert I, however claimed the throne. After his victory in the battle of Hastings he became known as William the Conqueror.
And then there’s Boudicca …!!!
@@14caz68 Boudica was around in the early Roman times.
And William the Conqueror was Norman = nordmann = of Viking ancestry.
Rollos descendants also ruled in places like Sicily.
(During the crusades, a Norwegian king ruled Majorca for a few months.
Icelandic Vikings were in L'Anse aux Meadows in North America.
Baltic-side Vikings founded the Kievan Rus' (the origin of Russia - in the Ukraine).
They seem to have been just about everywhere, except in South America,
the Far East, Oceania and the Antarctic.
Understanding the early history of England is the foundation of why there are so many dialects. accents and unpronounceable place names that confuse modern day visitors to the UK. These comes from the merging of different cultures, and languages as invaders swept across the land and populations intermarried, especially in the north. It is also worth noting this happened after the Romans and the original Celtic Britons left their mark.
a saw one documentary video about origin of english language and verdict was, that over 70% of english is not anglo-saxon, but have nordic/scandinavian origin and root. and thanks this viking impact is more simple and unified than scotish and wales dialects
@bilcorp1 I don't think that's true at all. Most of the common modern English words are of anglo saxon origin. The rest are Latin or French origin.
They don't even teach a lot of this in English schools. I remember being taught about Alfred the great but the other Saxon kings not so much, until you get to Edward the confessor. Pre 1066 i.e Norman invasion is taught in primary school ages 5-11 in broad chunks without much detail. Its only after the Normans in Secondary school that History gets taught in more detail.
Agreed. My sons are in their 30's now, however I was always disappointed in what they were taught in History compared to myself in the sixties and seventies?
@@johnp8131 I'm in my 30s and think what they are teaching in schools is less than what I was taught. When I was at University I heard the lecturers complain that every year A levels get worse and worse to the point that they had to create new modules for 1st years to tech the basics that used to be taught in A levels.
@@martingibbs1179 Know what you mean. I looked at one of my sons mock 'A' level physics papers around 15 years ago and I personally think it was mostly on a par with my old physics "O" level.
I love how you identified the peacemaker as the good guy, I wish your country could translate this in real life. It's interesting how everyone identifies the good guy in movies based on Hollywood standards but most can't seem to he able to apply this is real life. Pretty much like the gold digging dragon is of course the villain but Amazon's boss somehow isn't.
That was a great vid Ryan. Thanks. 👍
The King's of England were elected, by the Witan. Now they are called the privi Council, which is still in existence. A group of noblemen.
That was fantastic! Thank you and more please! 😁
Back in the 10th century, leaders fought from the front, Ryan...!
so who is gonna tell him that war is the biggest drive behind technologically advancement
I live in a small coastal village in N.East England and a church on our cliffs has been there since before the vikings invaded. I'm about 30mins from York too. A lot of viking stuff up this way
Even though I am a 5th generation Australian my dna test revealed that 20% of my dna comes from Sweden, Denmark and Norway. This is probably because many of my ancestors were from Yorkshire.
@@ros2456 or Northum(bria/land)
I absolutely love your conclusion. Who is the good guy? The good guy is the person who is powerful enough to bring peace to the land.
Ryan, if you want to understand the Vikings, I highly recommend the UK TV series, Vikings! It’s blood thirsty but so were they. Fearless warriors intent on conquering as much land as possible and with no regard for religious beliefs, families or anything else. Pillage and plunder as far and wide as their ships would carry them!
I learned a lot of interesting stuff today. Thanks!
These ancestors of ours are no doubt why we are known for being tough and enduring. We've been made from the blood of savages from all over Europe! 😂🤣😅
The typical "motto" for England is KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON and I think it's why people tend to think of us as pushovers....until they push too far! 😜
We ARE, very polite, courteous, helpful, eager, friendly, fun loving, and fairly chilled out, so I think that comes across as "sweet" or "weak" at times.
The thing is, we don't have to brag or flex, because we know we can back ourselves. We don't want trouble of course! We want to go to the pub, dance, laugh and be around friends and family and our pets....
BUT, if trouble's what you want, we're happy to provide that too. 😂
When I get angry I'm suddenly channeling my Germanic Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother, Helga, who wore an armoured chest plate, a helmet, and took off the heads of opposition with one swing of her axe! Her sandals were permanently stained with the blood of her dead enemies and she was respected throughout the land.
(Probably anyway...? Maybe...? Oh who cares if I made it up, it COULD be true! 😉)
Helga is my inner warrior bitch, and we're all like that over here! 🤣
It's quite funny, although people probably think it's odd to laugh at such a thing, but then I never claimed we were sane! 🤪
But it MUST explain why we're still quite savage when we need to be, despite being perfectly lovely 99% of the time.
Even Hitler had a (begrudgingly! 😂) huge respect for us as people, despite bombing the crap out of us we never stopped being determined to not give in. The worst bombing, The Blitz, relentless again and again over the East end of London was the most destructive. My parents, who were born and raised there, survived through all that as children. My Dad and his mates would go play in the bombed out buildings, picking over rubble and looking for lost treasures.
England has been invaded and attacked from just about every angle....and speaking of "angles", the first Germanic invaders were from a German place called Angle. They were the Anglos, and the Saxons were largely from Gaul, which is now mostly the area we call France.
The Germanic tribes named the land after their home town, Angle, and called it Angle Land....= Angleland....= England!!!
Hence most of us descended from Anglo-Saxons, dark haired at least, with blondes largely descended from the Scandinavian Vikings. Mixing with the Britons who were already here it formed a super strong bloodline.
Sometimes, at night, I can hear a warrior roar coming from the wind in the distant hills, and imagine that's Helga out there, still causing a riot and swinging her axe throughout Sussex in the afterlife! ⛏️ 😜😜😜
Probably.....😘
I would say that is pretty much everyone in the English speaking world
most of the areas/counties still exist by these names today i'm from essex
Communications and trade between these nations/regions was still possible back then, even if if was slower than today. For thousands of years before the Romans into "pre-history" people have been trading goods between neighbouring regions, and trading information at the same time. "Diplomats" and envoys from one ruler to another were also often sent out, and whilst it would take from weeks to months to years for them to go and come back they would mostly come back with information and news about neighbouring countries.
So whilst they didn't have an idea that the Vikings would show up on x date so they could get some troops there to defend the land, they did know from their neighbours that the Vikings were invading places like Normandy and the Shetland Isles and Ireland and the North of Scotland etc, and they knew they'd be coming at some point.
Scotland is still sometimes known as Alba, which is pronounced as a shortened "all-ba" rather than "all-a-ba".
His mispronunciation irked me... Plus we also have BBC ALBA (a Scottish TV Channel).
@@stewedfishproductions7959 yes , he doesn’t seem too bright 😮
I hail from Essex ... Peace 2 all
They seem to be so strong willed. My family is Scot-Irish. They left England due to no food, etc.
In the cool name stakes my name conall (it's Irish) means strong wolf. My surname mclaughlin means son of norseman/viking. History is still here in lots of peoples names and place names
3.20 Just so you know ... the Vikings that raided Lindisfarne, settled in Britain and established the Danelaw were (surprise!) Danes. They didn't come from Norway as the arrow indicates.
As a 70 yo Briton I had to smile at a naive American viewpoint in the video but the more I watched the more I realised how naive I am myself - it's all just a matter of degree and I learned some things from this. I certainly found Ryan interesting as he imagined the goings on in the past. The thing is even the shape of 'England' wasn't there a few thousand years ago. You could walk to what is now Denmark from what is now England - maybe even stop and get married in the settlements that now lie at the bottom of the North Sea; trawlers regularly fish up relics of a human past. But back to naivety - most Britons don't even know the name of their country! At least they are unlikely to be able to name it at a first guess. Our Counties name is eight words long and is on the front of all Britons passport. Another amazing thing- most would not know which, out of the US, Australia or the UK, became a 'country/nation' first. You may be surprised yourself.. It's not the UK.
Ryan, you may not know it but you have a very english quality to all your vids, one i find rare for americans of the USA, you have our Sarcasem as humour, its refreshing to hear.
Kent has actually been in place since the Romans only they called it Cantium!
Yes and it's never been part Wessex.
It's great that you're looking into all this. Your taking the opportunity to educate yourself. I'm sure I heard but if this school, but not in great detail. Have been doing the same myself recently. Just to say the conquering of England doesn't stop with Edgar the peaceful. There's still more Viking invasions to come, including Viking Kings but before that, we have the Norman (from Normandy at the top of France) invasion by William the Conqueror. This is basically part 1 of the story.
Also yes these areas weren't countries, they weren't even really counties as we know them today, they were simply more areas of land that were held by specific people groups.
If you look at the rise of the Roman Empire you'll see the same thing is true of Italy. Italy didn't start out as a United nation. It was made of lots of people groups on different areas of what we now know as Italy. Rome itself was just a group of settlements first. It took a long time before Italy became united/under the control of the power of Rome.
The 2 Continents of Europe and Asia are in fact exactly the same. There are a lot of videos on this that I think would really help you understand this much better.
A good video to help you really understand things better would be a video by the newish Channel History Box. They have a really good video covering all the King's and queens of England. (should really be of England and then the UK, but hey that would be an even longer video title) It covers the info shown here but continues right up to the Queen Elizabeth II. They're also working on shortish individual videos about each King or Queen with how they came to reign and how their reign ended. It makes for really interesting viewing.
william the bastard was infact Norse, they come from the line of Rollo Long Legs , a norse line that assimilated with the Franks, all but cornwall and wales are basicaly of Germanic decent, we are saxon, friesian and jute, dane and scandinavian, the dane law still exists as the north south divide
@@diaxus388 Yeah, I did know about the Scandinavian roots of William. I've been learning about the history of the whole or the UK and and of Williams backstory, as well as Europe through some incredible videos on the numerous historical channels here on CZcams. Just thought my comment was already long enough.
Though I'm Scottish, I'm interested to learn much more of history of the rest of UK. The main things we covered in school was the Second World War and the Jacobite rebellion. The history we did in Primary school was much more world wide and taught in a much more interesting way. Always wished we'd got more of an overview of history of both the UK as well as as the rest of the World. Same goes with geography. So I'm plugging the gaps now that school is quite a long time ago. It's amazing how much more I'm learning and understanding when the information is given in a more visual way. Even watched videos of the the different battles that give the strategy of each side.
13:45 not necessarily. Usually times of war bring with them rapid technological innovation as each side tries to outshoot or outsmart the other. Just look at the huge leaps in computing, aviation and rocketry during WW2 or the development of space travel during the cold war, which actually stalled for a quarter century after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
p.s. I wonder how the world would look today if the Danes won instead of Wessex.
Great video.
Origins of England and UK is a very epic story. I was told that George RR Martin was inspired by the old History and the ancient geography of UK for his saga Game of thrones.
I learnt about the Scots / Irish and Picts from "1066 and All That" and to quote this source they said:
“The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).”
I was born in an area of England which was in the Danelaw (Viking controlled England) and the place names of the area told you a lot.
I lived on a road between two "settlements" - now areas of the town but had been separate villages.
On the top of the hill was Fixby - a Viking name and down by the river in the valley was Bradley - an Anglo-Saxon name.
'Poor Alfred', also known as Alfred the Great!
Small correction.. Scotland was called Kingdom of Alba, not Alaba.
A shame the other youtuber didn't include Harald Hardrada, Harold Godwinson, William the Conqueror and the events of 1066.
4:50 don't feel too sorry for him, history remembers him as Alfred the Great and he still has statues around to this day, including in America, it turns out.
Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in English, rather than Latin, and improving the legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" in the 16th century and is only one of two English monarchs, alongside Cnut the Great, to be labelled as such.
Is Queen Elizabeth related to King Alfred?
Queen Elizabeth II is related to Alfred the Great. Queen Elizabeth is the thirty-second great granddaughter of the once great king.
What is King Alfred most known for?
Why is King Alfred famous? Alfred the Great (849-899) was the most famous of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Despite overwhelming odds he successfully defended his kingdom, Wessex, against the Vikings. He also introduced wide-ranging reforms including defence measures, reform of the law and of coinage. Google/Wikipedia so may or not be accurate.
@3:58 Love how they point from Norway to England, and then talk about Danish Vikings. Well it was danish vikings, but they came from Denmark. Two Fun facts: 85% of the original british gene pool was eradicated and replaced by danish genes. No wonder they look a lot like us. England in danish means meadow land.
He forgets the prehistoric times, during the last ice age, when you could simply walk from east to west, across the then dry ‘North Sea’, aka Doggerland.
Is it just me or is Aelfynn a very beautiful name.
He spoke about how it was back then but it is still like this now around the world. This video showed over 200 years of history. If you look at the world for the past 200 years we have had many countries alter with some being either destroyed, created or merged in the 21st century within the last 20 years. This is a process which always happen and the fact he does not know this just shows that he is definitely an American
Anglo Saxon kings were elected. Not by 'the people', but by a council of noblemen (which is as democratic as things got in those days).
Also, one of the things to remember, when they're talking about the 'unity' of England, and 'the English' feeling part of one nation... Not so much, at least in the remoter reaches.
People in Cumbria and Northumbria (which are still the old names of the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland) were never really fully under control of the English kings, but well into the 16th century, persisted in being a law unto themsleves. The border countries between Scotland and England were described as 'the most dangerous place on earth'. Probably the best modernish anaogy is the Wild West. They were the medieval and early modern wild west.
What wasn‘t said is that anglo-saxons came from the north of germany. 😉
Yeh we’re more germanic and danish Scottish and Irish we’re completely fuckin ish to be honest the English
Jay Foreman - Map men. I think you'd enjoy that series.
I live in Northumberland well the bore east part of it lol ti's a beautiful place well some of it is lol
Pity it stopped just shy of the most important moment in english history!
If you ever wondered why it's "pig", but if you eat it, it's "pork" or "cow", but "beef" or "deer", but "venison" while it's still "chicken" and ... well ... "chicken", check out what happened in 1066. 😉😊
My family came to Australia from Sussex (well one portion of them, and they went to Sussex from Ireland originally)
intresting fact for those who don't know. the Saxons who invated England back then wheren't from what is now Saxonia in German. They saxons and angles came from what is now lower Saxonia, the north of it, and the angles form what is now Schleswig Holstein. So in Geran england or englisch stuff is still called : Angelsachsen (Anglo-Saxons). if not called englsih or british. but mostly refering to the language. Mostly if english words invated german, they called: anglizismen
I am not surprised as i get the idea there is no history being taught in the USA before around 1750.. 😂😂😂
It annoys me when they start the history of these islands with the Romans.
Satellite Weather Forecast for 793 - Cloudy, with a chance of Vikings.
This is A game of Thrones made real. As stated, very few record survive from this period between the Romans leaving and the Normans arriving giving rise to the term, The Dark Ages, with the word Dark referring to 'Unknown' rather than a period of strife.
I live in an area subject to Danelaw, carry a Nordic surname name and have place names here about that have a Nordic root to them.
Then William said, hold my beer.
Ethelflead was a very ruthless Queen so much so the Vikings actually highly respected her, A group of Vikings were in a wood and refused to surrender to her so she had the whole of those woods burned along with those Vikings such was her ruthlessness, She was known as “The Lady of the Mercians” , After her death there were attempts to write her out of history because she was a woman and not a king, Those counties still exist today, I for instance live in Mercia, Sussex , Kent and all the others are still very much part of England.
Of those early land areas only Murcia no longer exists although much smaller Essex, East Anglia, Wessex and Northumbria are actual counties of England
Sorry i forgot Kent
Only Northumbria is a county ( and Kent). Wessex is North Somerset, South Somerset, Devon etc. And East Anglia is a region made up of Suffolk, Norfolk etc.
Plus Essex, sorry
That reminds me that i still haven't seen the last season of "The Last Kingdom" 🤔
Very interesting
There was a British pop duo in the 80s. And one of their favorite songs was:
"Everybody wants to rule the world".
They must have known 😁
Weren't they a "Scottish" group, the video was filmed in the Highlands!?
@@jenniferharrison8915 Well, they originated from the south-west of England.
British, as you know, can mean: Welsh, Scottish and English.
They are the "Tears for Fears". I love their songs!
@@jenniferharrison8915 The video, I asume, was made in a desertous area of California or perhaps in Nevada.
@@jenniferharrison8915 I never sayd that Nortern Ireland is part of Britain. 😉
May I ask where you live ?
I'm not sure borders are quite as stable as you think. In the last 100 years Alaska and Hawaii joined the US. Germany broke up and was reunited. The Soviet Union collapsed and the former Soviet Union countries further fractured and merged several times. Empires were dismantled. Sudan split into two countries. China and Taiwan split up. Israel became a country. And there were probably several more major border changes.
I guess that at those times when most of Europe was like this, separated on so many small tribes and kingdoms it was politicaly farseeing move to conquer your neighbours and to establish stronger place for your family and your people. AFAIU its good to have more power and more land to care for your own against any invader. Conquering was important as at this time only land and yet more land would give u strenght becouse there was no banks, industry, high-tech, science, or huge navy, only thing to give u strenght was agriculture and this needs more land :) To conquer more land sometimes means that your people wont be hungry at winter and so they wont rebel against u :)
it has come to my attention lately that a lot of Americans don't know or understand that the king is not just the king of the UK but of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and loads of other little places that make up the overseas dependences.
It stopped when came the invasion from the normands with William the conqueror, after that, aristocraty of england will speak french for 3 hundred years, changing the english language. As a result, on the english passport you find the sentences in french: "dieu et mon droit" ( god and my right) and "honi soit qui mal y pense" (shamed be who thinks ill of it) or "Le roy le veult"/"la reyne le veult" ( the king/queen want it) in the british parlement for the royal assent of a law.
even in germany this you get told in grade 9-10
My understanding is that the Jutes (part of now Denmark) were invited in by Vortigan to defend his territory in Northumberland and were given Kent but they didn't stick to the plan and took over what is now South Hampshire and also the Isle of Wight. Though with the Saxons arriving they seem to have lost Hampshire though in some remained on the Island. The last place in England to go back to Christianity. As the history was written by Angles and Saxon Monks years if not lifetimes later it seemed like the Jutes disappeared. Though I expect like the Ancient/ Roman Britain just merged with the Angles and Saxons as is shown in English DNA about 60% plus British and 20% plus Angle and Saxon. With others and changes as you travel North.
knock knock
william the conqueror :D
If you're interested in Anglo-Saxon England etc.....You may like to take a look at "The Last Kingdom" television series. You can get an idea looking a clips on CZcams. Most of the major events and characters are factual with quite a bit of artistic licence? Very good though.
Or you can read 'The Saxon Stories' by Bernard Cornwell which gives you much more information than the TV-show.
@@jga5431 Only bothered to read the first one as the BBC series began just after I finished it. Read the majority of his stuff, including: Redcoat; Harlequin etc....... Half way through "Sharpe’s Assassin" currently. And another due this year?
"are there even good people?"
awww that's cute
we Britons were here before the Romans for 10000's too. We could walk across to the Netherlands from east Anglia before the channel flooded. There's a whole civilisation buried under the sea.
Aethelflead & Edward aka Edward the Elder were 2 of Alfred aka Alfred the Great's children. Aethelflead married Aethelred of Mercia & after his death in 911, Aethelflead became Queen of Mercia & Edward was King of Wessex after his father died in 899. Alfwynn was Queen for a short while like 6 - 18 months after Aethelflead died in 918 until Edward took the throne because Aelfwynn was deposed. The show The Last Kingdom is based on Alfred & his family though only 2 of his children appear in it & it is the most historically accurate then the sequel movie Seven Kings Must Die is historically based on how England was formed. The narrarator is mispronouncing the old name for Scotland which is Alba not Alaba.
And then……..1066 and all that!
It is a very partial approach to the history of England, but correct when it comes to the initial formation of the kingdom of England.
If we date the borders of present-day England to Edgar the Pacific around 960, the Anglo-Saxon house of Wessex ruled only 55 years until the king of Denmark took control of the country, then about 25 years after the restoration of Edward the Confessor until the conquest of the Kingdom by the Normans of William the Conqueror in 1066.
Since then, no family of Anglo-Saxon origin has ruled England. For the next 100 years, the reigning family is that of the House of Normandy (who speaks French), then for the next 220 years, it is the House of Plantagenêt, of Angevine origin (and who also speaks French), including with its younger branches Lancaster and York (War of the Roses). Then for 120 years, it was the Tudor house, Welsh family claiming to be descendants of the kings of Armorican Brittany, then for 100 years (except during the Cromwell interregnum), the Stuarts, Scottish family also of Breton origin. From 1707, the kings of England became kings of Great Britain (with Scotland) and the United Kingdom (with Northern Ireland), and these are families of German origin who have reigned ever since with first the House of Hanover, then the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha which renamed itself House of Windsor during the First World War because of anti-German sentiment in the UK at that time.
A Scotsman watching from Ireland
There is also a good vid on how English counties got their names
Ryan, where did your ancestors come from originally. In the 1980 census 49,598,035 Americans cited that they were of English ancestry,
I’m Aussie and my family history is from the UK and 2% Viking. We learned British history at school and more watching documentaries on tv and private reading.
From before the founding of the US until today English has remained the largest group in the entire US, there are arround 46.6 Million American are of English descent in the United States and it still rank as the largest ethnic group as well as the most common ancestor in the US even greater than the English descendants in the British Isles themselves, especially England.
www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/10/2020-census-dhc-a-white-population.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Americans
They are called counties, like states in America.
Ryan please note that modern England is almost exactly the same size and shape as New York State.
11:49 The concept of nobility /monarchy...
A lot of the expansion and invading internally was an attempt to create security. As other kingdoms being invaded made it easy to invade via land
Of course there is history prior to the period of this video including the roman occupation. Also a video after this which includes the Norman occupation
Watched Game of Thrones? The 7 Kingdoms? The Wall in the North? And lots of the little stories (blooody wedding...) were from UK or european history, too. Not the dragons though....
Do "how was the kingdom of great britain formed" by the same channel next
We need to explain something important in our view of history - its one of those things which I guess today most people mistake easily. The political systems are like on the spectrum and there is no such thing as only two extremes, like democracy and tyrrany. These are two extremes on the spectrum. Actualy democracy should also be a understood as tyrrany (dictatorship) - its the dictatorship of majority, how majority votes, that is established. There are some different kinds of dictatorships (like theocracy, where the dictatorial group is clergy - like in old Bhutan and Tibet and Vatican), and the most ultimate of dictatorships is 'tyrrany'. Dictatorship of one person is "classical" tyrrany. (Like in Greek "polis") But we must understand that every tyrrany is dictatorship but not every dictatorship is tyrrany, and not every tyrrany is a kingship (for example we got Venice, where we got no kings but a person elected from the group of oligarchy of the richest tradesmen - that also was a dictatorship of one person even though he had to listen to the oligarchy which voted for him, so it was no tyrrany as they always could remove their support for Doge), and not every kingship is tyrrany (usualy when a king was elected from group of aristocracy, like it was done in Ireland at the times this video speaks of, and in Poland some 6 centuries later, it was not a tyrrany). Kingship can be more or less tyrranical - with one dictator or with one family or with much bigger "elite class" whos job is to rule alongside the king. In some cases like in 15 - 17 c. Poland sometimes the kings got actualy less to say about the politics than the oligarchy of richest aristocrats which voted for kings.
1:23 - that map of England is wrong. They haven't included the lake district!
Before 1200 or so, the idea of predictable royal succession hadn't been invented yet.
The industrial revolution wasn't until 700 years later. A lot happened between the peace in the 10th century and 1750! Not least was the Magna Carta in 1215 after which the American Constitution was written 500 years later.