Category: Chapter Two

82 – War. What Is It Good For?

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So the year is 586, and Ceawlin is the leader of the men of Wessex. Wessex has been expanding their holdings to the north and the west, and have been growing in power. Conversely, in the East are the men of Kent under the leadership of AEthelbehrt, who (we are told) has been ruling since he was 8 years old. But the dates are a bit dodgey. And now AEthelbert is 16 years old. Maybe? And he’s growing in power. We know this because Kent is growing in wealth and are of sufficiently high status for the King to be marrying the daughter of the King of Frankia. Furthermore, he is a member of the Oiscingas, the ruling family of Kent… said to have been descended from Hengest himself.

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81 – In Search of Unity: A Tale of Selective Memory

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Ok, we have a battle coming up but things are still changing rather rapidly and there’s some interesting stuff to cover regarding that, such as language, religion, culture, warfare, and that question that’s probably nagging you at the back of your head… if we have wealthy powerful kings in England, why don’t we have anything resembling a Roman empire… or at least a mini Roman empire?

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80 – Bloodletting

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Ok, when we left off, Ida had become king of Bernicia and we had the beginnings of regional cultural groups. These groups were the result of a whole host of influences including everything from geographical features, to political decisions, to things as simple as wealth and a sense of cool. But the point is that we have gone from an island that saw itself as essentially Roman, to post-Roman (or sub-Roman, depending on which terminology you choose to use) where the system had broken down and (while you had communities moving to hillforts) you still had a continuation of the local culture… then we went to the early migration period where you had a blend of different cultural groupings all over the eastern part of the island, and now finally we’re getting to the point where those disparate pockets were starting to take the shape of larger communities with cultures that were distinct and separate from the sub-Roman culture as well as the cultures of the Germanic tribes where the settlers would have come from.

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79 – Saint Patrick’s Day Special

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We begin our story in Bannaventa Berniae, a small town somewhere in the West of Britain, probably along the coast. This was probably a small typical Roman style settlement laid out on a grid with small Roman houses and a villa, or villas, for prominent families in the area. Though it’s doubtful it would have been too impressive of a Villa, especially when compared to those of Rome or even those of the major British cities. But for a small town in Britannia, it was probably fairly decent. Given the time period, we can assume it had some level of fortification, possibly a small turf wall or maybe even something larger with guard towers. After all, raids were rather common at this point.

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78 – It’s Only Natural

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I’m going to wrap up the discussion of the development of regional cultures with a talk on an omnipresent (yet often ignored) influence on all of human development. This subject is often ignored in most disciplines, and it is definitely undervalued (unfairly) in many treatises on history. I speak, of course, of Nature.

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77 – Cliques: How the In Crowd Created Our Culture

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Ok, when we last left off, we were talking about a new class of elites in sub-roman britain. A group of individuals we identify as anglo saxons and kings, and we also mentioned the class of nobles that was growing up around them. We also talked about how that change, the increase in social stratification, might have come about.

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75 – Cerdic and Cynric: A Story of… well… Probably Farmers

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Alright, so when we left off, Cerdic and his son had recently arrived on the island and the Battle of Mons Badonicus had just taken place. So that’s exciting. And Gildas says that it was followed by peace, and procopius tells us that Germans were fleeing from Britannia as late as about 30 years later. And from the archaeological record, and the scattered references in written texts, it doesn’t seem like there were a lot of military warbands invading… but rather, as we will discuss in this episode, this looks more like farmers who were migrating. And this might have been happening for quite some time, since we’re told the Saxons had been landing on British shores for at least 100 years.

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74 – When Neighbors Attack: A Story of “Kings”

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Right, so here we are right in the middle of all the drama and bloodshed that has been called the Anglo Saxon invasion. We have famous names such as Hengest and Aelle showing up.

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73 – And This Gives You Power Over Me?

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Ok, it’s been a while since we’ve spoken about the story. Instead, we’ve been chatting about the culture and the people, we’ve been speaking about digs and hoards, we’ve been discussed booze and horse dung. But we haven’t spoken too much about the politics of the time.

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