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.

252 – The Coming of the Anglo-Scandinavians

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At the start of 867, there were four major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Britain. By 874, three of the four – Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia – had lost their independence. That’s a timespan of only 7 years, and in that 7 years the political landscape of Britain had changed dramatically and permanently.

That’s insane. For scale, that’s just barely longer than Lost. Imagine being a free kingdom back when you thought something interesting was going on with Walt, and then being fully under the control of a foreign government by the time that you realized that everyone was just hanging out in a church with Hurley… for some reason.

And as an aside, what the hell was Lindelhoff thinking when he wrote that? It’s been over a decade and I’m still annoyed.

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249 – Kenneth MacAlpin and the Birth of Scotland

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We’ve reached the end of an era. It was late 899, and Alfred (who has been our central figure for dozens of episodes) was at last at rest. But with his death, there was a sudden opening at the top levels of West Saxon politics and Alfred’s son, Edward, was a top contender for that position.

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244 – Haesten’s Advance

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“Then came the king’s troops, and routed the enemy, broke down the work, took all that was therein money, women, and children and brought all to London. And all the ships they either broke to pieces, or burned, or brought to London or to Rochester.”

That’s what the Chronicle has to say about AEthelred’s siege of Hasten’s fortress at Banfleet. As we spoke about last week, we don’t know how many women and children came with fleet, but it’s clear from the Chronicle that they existed.

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239 – The Dying Time

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Today we’re going to cover 5 or 6 years, and we’re going to cover a fascinating theory that (if true) should color virtually everything we know about the life of Alfred the Great… and that’s because the Life of Alfred the Great might not have been written for Alfred.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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236 – A Return to Scholarship

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“I can not find anything better in man, than that he know, and nothing worse than that he be ignorant.”

That’s a quote from Alfred, and I think it’s my favorite quote. The nice thing about Alfred is that he’s a man for all seasons. There’s something in his reign for everyone. He’s got an excellent comeback story. He’s goes through a sort of Che Guevara phase. He’s got a period where he’s riding around with a cavalry strike force like King Arthur. He’s got a pious side. A scholarly side. A horny side. He has a keen mind for politics, for manipulation, and for tactics. Whatever your need… there’s an Alfred for that.

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235 – Alfred’s Educational Reforms

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One of the interesting things about piecing together the life of Alfred is that we find little windows into who he was in the strangest of places. Most kings of this era didn’t write much down for us to read… but Alfred did. In fact, he translated entire books (which we’re going to talk about today) and he didn’t just translate the books, he included his own thoughts on them as well. For example, in his translation of Pastoral Care by Pope Gregory the Great. Alfred tells us…

“[T]here were happy times then throughout England and… the kings, who had authority over this people, obeyed God and his messengers; and how they not only maintained their peace, morality and authority at home but also extended their territory outside; and how they succeeded both in wisdom and in warfare.”

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231 – Anglo Saxon Economics and Money with Professor Rory Naismith

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Follow Rory on Twitter @Rory_Naismith and make sure to follow him at his Academic page at Kings College London as well as on Academia.edu.

This episode covers how the economy transitioned from food rent to coinage, how currency was a reflection of the soul, why King Offa had such funky hair, and much more.

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226 – Alfred and Legitimacy: The First Steps to War

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Today, we are going to talk about the early steps of Alfred’s guerrilla war against King Guthrum. We will talk about the elements of this sort of war, the circumstances of the West Saxons under Guthrum’s rule, and the resulting fallout within Wessex.

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222 – Viking Kings and The Black Pool

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At some point early in the Viking Age, a group of Northmen came across a natural harbor on the western side of the Irish Sea. Being that they were a seafaring people, having places in foreign lands where they could safely make port was a significant advantage. Orkney was already showing its usefulness, and now they needed another waypoint further south. The life of a northman, even the life of a Vikingr, involved a lot more travelling and trading than it did actual raiding. So having friendly trading spots along their route wasn’t just convenient, it was good business.

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