English vs Briton vs Welsh vs Urqh...

Bollocks.

The Normans come from my area in the NW part of Norway. The Leader "Gange-Rolf" (Walking Rolf, too big to ride a horse...) Was from the famous Giske clan. (as Indeed I am) Rolf or Rollo as he is known in Normandy, was made persona non grata in Norway after piracy in the Stavanger area. He settled in Normandy. In the Giske clan we find Olav the Black King of Man, his son Gunnar the man Clan Gunn in Scotland takes their name from and his brother that the MacLeod clan takes their name after. As for Rolfs decendants Wilhelm the Conquerer is perhaps the most famous.

 

And with one simple word, Jaeger proves himself an Englishman.
Like a stick of Norwegian rock, with the word 'Brittania' running through it.

~A

 

Cheers Von Poop.

Medals for everyone !!

 

But it does have to be a complete change. That never happened in Scotland, since the Normans were assimilated by the Scots and not the other way round.

 

Brittany has it's own kilt now !

Brittany, Normandy, Celts...

Glasgow, Dublin, Liverpool..

Are we all not wearers of the kilt gentelmen...

Apart from Mussolini, now he'd just look daft

Frenchman in a kilt.,,,,

 

But much the same can be said about the Norman conquest of Ireland or even Normandy. Indeed one of the traits of the Norse seamed to have been the willingness to adopt local customs.

 

As did the Romans at the time of their invasion. The custom of gas guzzling being the first they succumbed too that I am aware of. As can be seen from this picture of the Roman invasion of Pagan Wales.

 

The difference is they deliberately set out to conquer Ireland by military force from 1166, whereas they never bothered with Scotland. The soil was considered too poor for farming etc, and they didn't have enough men to even begin to think about conquering the Highlands. Saxon folk memories of armies being massacred by the Picts were probably enough to persuade the Normans not to be so daft.
Adopting local customs is assimiliation; forcing them to adopt yours is conquest.

 

But the Normans who established strongholds in Ireland were assimilated as quickly as did those who dwelt in Scotland. From what I recall reading Strongbow went over a few years before 1166, or is my memory playing tricks on me again.

 

Hey, I'll have you know that that's completely f...*sniff*...true!




YouTube - Hale & Pace - Northern Calypso

 

Britishness, Englishness welshness, Urqhness, you missed out Scottishness and Irishness..but it all boils down to a few mute points...

Some would say its in the water we drink.

I go for advertised version. We dont always need words. YouTube - New Hovis Advert In Full HD Stereo - Sept 2008

 

Cue Stefan's potted history of Britain as explained to school kids:

1. God knows when BC, Britain is inhabited by various stone age peoples who are mainly recognisible in the archaeological record by their use of specific types of pottery. They seem to have been trading with Europe at this stage but I'm afraid I don't know much more about it.

2. A little bit after then BC, the Celts turn up and start to replace the culture of the indigenous peoples, though the extent to which the original inhabitants were actually replaced is debatable, probably lost to history.

3. AD. 43. The Romans turn up in force and start to take over Britain and a bit of Scotland, they bring things like villas and roads, as well as a very efficient army. However, whilst many Britons start to emulate their new rulers the nation is never truly pacified, it constantly requires a garrison and Roman culture never quite permeates society in the same way it did on the continent.

4. AD. 400 ish, Romans decide it's best to leave the Britons to it. The thing is that various events in the east have caused 'barbarian' tribes to migrate west, pushing other tribes to the west in a sort of 'executive toy' effect. The Romans had already brought many Germanic mercenaries over to Britain and they had risen to take some senior military positions, when the Romans left they would have been in powerful roles in Romano-British society, other Saxons and Angles (Jutes too) came across and you see what is now believed to be a replacement of the ruling Romano-British elite with Saxons in much the same way that in Europe the Franks, Goths and so on were simply replacing the Romans and taking over the running of society without totally replacing the locals. However, as Roman culture was never quite as strong in Britain it didn't stick around quite so long and you don't see the same continuation of Roman law, technology and so on. This is why we call these the 'dark ages' despite the fact that culture did develop but people looking back and decided that it wasn't quite as good as in the old days, a tradition that continued to this day.

5. 600-800 AD. Angles and Saxons establish several major kingdoms and scrap amongst themselves, Christianity appears and not much changes there.

6. 9th Century AD. Vikings turn up and take over large parts of Northern and South Eastern England. They replace the ruling elite in the same way the Anglo-Saxons did and bring many warriors looking for plunder and land but leaving the population to do their own thing. Wessex is one of the last surviving kingdoms and so when they start to push the Vikings back you see the 'unification' of England.

7. 1066 the Normans turn up and once again the ruling elite is replaced. The bulk of the population are still speaking a mutated version of the language of the Angles and Saxons, this eventually evolves into English. Unlike the Angles and the Saxons the Normans don't bring large numbers of non-warrior types with them, thus the permeation of Norman culture throughout society is generally less than there was with the Germanic tribes before them.

8. 20th Century, the Welsh realise that with the mines gone they have nothing going for them and so start trying to make out that they are somehow 'native' to the UK, have been really badly treated by the English and start trying to make out they had a pivotal role in the forming of Britain. At the same time the Cornish realise nobody likes them and decide to make up their own language based loosely on the language of the early Britons. Strangely enough this doesn't make people like them.

 

I think you'll find they didn't, or both sides in Ireland wouldn't still have been fighting centuries later.
The Normans did not conquer Scotland militarily, politically or socially.

 

Its quite simple Stefan, Normans turn up at same time rabbits turn up, the rest is not really necessary after that apart from, Henry inventing lust, Good queen Bess inventing victorious Regina for all time hence, oh missed Longshanks inventing Scotland, Ctromwell inventing Ireland, Wales should I think have been left alone though...Victoria inventing empire, the spinning jenny, railways, steam engines, and canal improvements and proper roads..Whittle inventing jet engine, Englishman Flemming inventing medicine, Englishman Baird inventing the media and all comms linked as we have today including mobile phone miracle and thus the inetenet and leading on to ww2 forums.

Churchill invented speech and 2 finger salute, a common British greeting now and Bess the second invented us, somewhere along the line we invented gravity which keeps us all on these islands.

End of..

 

Broadly agree with that, Stefan, but:

1. Roughly 8-9000 BC. There wasn't any permanent occupation during the various Ice Ages.
2. There's no evidence of the Celts actually arriving from somewhere else, or that there was ever such a recognisable thing as a Celtic 'race'. The culture may just have been adopted from the Continent through trade and social contact..
4. Modern Scots Law is generally considered to be based on Roman law, as English law tends to be an amalgum of Saxon and Norman law..

 

They were both Scots, you rapscallion! And while Scot James Watt didn't actually invent the steam engine, he made a rather poor English invention workable.

 

According to the Aberdeen Uni. We base the Celts on their language. Q and P Celtic. As for a special race, no such thing.

 

Aye the battle between the Norse and Dane supported bands some 12 days after Brian Boru parked his slippers.

IIRC the Danes won it from the Norse. Rotten luck. Here's a pint for you Paddy

 

True, but we do the same for most of the Germanic tribes and other groups floating around Europe at the same time. Hence whilst they may not be a 'race' they are arguably a people who shared certain cultural traits.

If you want a decent history of pre-Roman Britain and how it declined can I recommend:

Asterix in Britain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia