A Chronological History of Britain
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Ok, where were we?
With all this focus on culture, it’s been a little bit since we last talked about the political situation in Britain. So lets remind ourselves of where things were politically.
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This isn’t going to end well.
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Today, we’re going to wrap up this cultural series with a focus on my favorite group of people. The people who rarely, if ever, get talked about.
The commoners.
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When we left off, we were talking about Thegns. Specifically, we were talking about King’s Thegns and how they could wield degrees of power that could rival even the formidable Ealdormen.
At this point in this short series, the hope is that you have a sense of what incentives the economic structure created, the way that power flowed in this era, and what these titles meant in action.
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Ealdormen… Thegns… Ceorls.
These were the important cogs in the machine of government. They had powerful roles, and held powerful spaces within anglo saxon culture.
And it’s time we get to know these roles like the back of our hand.
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Links to material referenced in the show.
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Long ago there was a settlement that had been occupied and farmed by the British and the Anglo Saxons for centuries. In fact, by the time that the Scandinavians arrived on the island, this village known as Wharram Percy was already well established, and had been inhabited continually for centuries. And it held strong for centuries more, even though it was located perilously close to the Scandinavian stronghold of Jorvik, and even after the arrival of the Great Heathen Army. In fact, this little village could well have been part of the very same lands that were shared out by Halfdan himself. Wharram Percy survived it all.
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We have spoken a lot about the life of a handful of individuals – namely the rulers that have descended from the line of Alfred. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is the simple fact that by virtue of how limited literacy was during this era, these are the lives we know the most about. The other reason is that the formation of England is very much a story of politics. It was battles, and treaties, and allegiances.