Category: Culture

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.

282 – How To Win Friends and Influence Jorvik

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AEthelstan had completed his annexation of Jorvik, and in doing so he had outperformed every last one of his predecessors, including his grandfather, Alfred the Great. But there were a few loose ends that he still needed to knot up. And as he watched the defenses of Jorvik burn and dolled out Jorvik’s wealth to his loyal men – two of those loose ends, namely his former rivals Guthfrith and Turfrid, slunk away with little more than their lives.

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280 – King AEthelstan’s Love Life

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What is a King’s most important duty?

Is it the defense of the realm? Or perhaps the growth of the kingdom’s borders? What about developing the economy? Fostering strong diplomatic alliances? Shepherding the souls of his subjects to Christ? How about just keeping his subjects happy and healthy?

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273 – I Do… Do I?

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Last episode we talked about the rapid growth of AEthelflaed’s power, Edward’s militarizing AEthelflaed’s borders, Edward visiting her at her capital city and bringing his army with him… the fact that she died shortly thereafter and Edward ordered his army to occupy the city… and then the signs of rebellion coming out of Northern Mercia, and Edwards eventual capture and disinheriting of his niece, AElfwynn Second Lady of Mercia.

Judging by your e-mails, you found that series of events as suspect as I did.

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264 – The Lost Rebellion

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In the year 909 we get an odd entry from the Chronicle. “This year St. Oswald’s body was removed from Bardney into Mercia.” It’s an weird entry that caps a very strange section of the Chronicle. In the seven year period from 902 to 909 we’ve got three blank years, two star gazing entries, one entry about Chester getting refurbished in 907 and then finally the discussion of what happened to the bones of Saint Oswald in 909. Even for the Chronicle, that’s pretty sparse.

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257 – Political Accommodation Within The Danelaw

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Things in Britain are changing rapidly. In Scotland the MacAlpin dynasty is rising, and with it comes the merging of the Scottish and Pictish cultures. A similar blending is happening in the Anglo Saxon regions. As we’ve see in the last few episodes – cities are changing, economies are emerging. And the sudden appearance of new placenames – some which are Danish and others that are a blend of Danish and Old English – tell us that cultures are changing too.

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256 – Scandinavian Settlement in England

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For the last few episodes we’ve been discussing the way life has been changing in Southern Britain. While the dramatic battles and political maneuvering dominated the story of the last season, you’re now learning of the many of the changes that were changing how lives were lived on the island, and some of them weren’t a direct result of the Northmen raiders. Instead, these changes were part of an overall shift in how the Anglo Saxons saw their place in the world. It was a cultural shift as much as it was anything else, and central to it were the changing attitudes towards land.

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255 – Londonwic to London

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London is a world unto itself, and it has been for most of its very, very long history. One of the weirdest things about the city is that it contains its own separate city – distinct from the rest of London. It has its own laws, its own government, its own walls. The City of London is a city within a city.

And it gets a lot of attention, not to mention money. Currently it houses the financial district which houses the most powerful banking institutions of not only the UK, but the entire world.

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254 – Worcester

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If you read of old Britain… even if you read of modern Britain… you’d be forgiven if you thought it was all London. And London does soak up a ton of the spotlight. It’s like the Stonehenge of the non-neolithic period. You can’t avoid it. And we won’t here, either. London will be covered regularly, because it has to be. But today, lets talk about a different town. Because while London is important, it’s not the only urban center on the island, and while we’ve been talking about the development of the economic landscape of the Anglo Saxon territories during the Viking Age… we haven’t yet talked about how these town specifically functioned and developed.

So today, let’s use Worcester as a non-London Anglo Saxon case study.

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253 – Anglo Saxon Market Towns in the Viking Age

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Cultures change all the time – yours is changing right now, in ways you may or may not realize. It’s a completely normal, everyday fact that has been with humanity since we began. Probably before we began. And yet, telling the story of how a culture changed is extremely challenging. Cultural shifts are messy, they’re chaotic, and they come with a boat load of caveats and exceptions. The entire theme of the BHP, right from the start, has been that people can’t be pigeon holed. They’re complicated, unique, and they never perfectly fit into a category.

And yet, even as we acknowledge that, we must recognize trends and norms and traditions – if for no other reason than they do actually change over time.

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