A Chronological History of Britain
Episodes of The British History Podcast that include cultural history matters. You’ll learn about the diets, economics, and all the other aspects of daily life for the Celts, Romano-British, Britons, Anglo Saxons, and more.
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When we left off last time we discussed the viking raids of Paris and Hamburg… though they were far more than the raids we’d seen in the last 40-50 years. Now we’re looking at fleets that number in the hundreds and we’re seeing the nobility on the continent, especially the Frankish nobility, hiring many of these men as mercenaries to fight against their local rivals.
Western Europe is unravelling.
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Ok, when we left off, a fleet of 120 ships set sail from Scandinavia. And at their head, according to legend, was Ragnar Lodbrok. Ragnar Hairy Breeches.
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When we left off last week, the Vikingrs had established fortified bases in Ireland… Not only that, but after building the bases they decided to hang out there for the winter, choosing to stay in the relatively warmer climes of the British isles rather than return home to freeze in the long northern nights.
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When we last left off we were talking about what a big deal King Egbert of Wessex was. And for good reason. In 829, King Egbert of Wessex held virtually all of the south and even demanded the submission of Northumbria after a battle at the River Dore, an event that earned King Egbert the incredibly rare title of Bretwalda… Britain ruler. This is how rare it was… there were only nine recorded Bretwaldas in all of British history. Just /nine/ times. His conquests also gained him a tremendous amount of money because, he had seized the mint of London and began issuing coins in his own name as the King of Mercia. King Egbert’s dramatic rise in power from 825 to 829 was meteoric and he absolutely earned his title of Britain ruler. At least from 825 to 829
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Last episode I gave you a forest view of where we are going and, roughly, who these Viking raiders were as well as the scale of the impact that they will have upon Europe. And it really is something to behold. The Viking Age isn’t very long, but Europe hadn’t seen this level of rapid cultural, economic, and political change since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Not even Charlemagne had the kind of far reaching impact as the Northern kingdoms and raiders.
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We start today with a few bare statements in the record. They’re easy to overlook, and most people do, but they hint at a very important aspect of Pictland in the 700s. The absolutely enormous amount of political wrangling.
Here’s what we know.
In 725, King Nechtan stepped down from the throne of Pictland and entered a monastery. The throne went to a new king named Drest, and on that same year Simul son of Drest was imprisoned.
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I’m continuing my quest to organize and bring all the stories back together and so today we’re going to move the timeline forward (to get us closer to the Vikings) and we will also be talking more about the kingdoms that were active in the region that would later become scotland. There were several of these kingdoms and they’re rearely discussed despite being extremely interesting. We’ll be focusing our story today on the two largest and most influential kingdoms, Dalriada and Fortriu.
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When we left off last time, we were talking about how we have a limited understanding of this area of history due to a combination of scarce resources and the victorians building a mythology of englishness. We also covered the early middle ages and the turn that was occurring in Southern Britain in the 6th century, where the Anglo Saxons (especially the West Saxons) had rebounded from their early losses and now were defeating the Britons in battle and steadily advancing towards the Severn.
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It’s been two years since we checked in with the Britons of the West, and last time we spoke, a big part of our discussion was focused upon the people that Gildas hated. Which was pretty much everyone.
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This season we’ve seen the Anglo Saxons come incredibly close to forming an early unified English Kingdom… in fact they will continue their attempts in this episode.
Though we can guess how that will go because we have seen their culture and governmental structure hamstring their previous attempts at unity. From our vantage point of over 1000 years later, we can see the broad strokes of their societies. We can look at generations and spot flaws that would have been nearly invisible to them.
We can also see the future. For example, we know we are on the cusp of a major invasion. We also know about the famed House of Wessex.