Albeit Anglo Saxon, Celtic, Norse or what not, why do you wear your jewelry and what is your preferred piece?

Broch locations.

On the right is a high status male furnished grave (122) from the 6th century in Essex. Included is pottery, a shield boss at his feet and flanked by spear head and sword. No correct answer I think, we don't know. I'm of course biased and I think he looked more like this, I chose him for a good reason ;)

The old paper is here:

https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1075294

Bonamy - ᛒᚩᚾᚪᛗᛁ

I know it isnt a word but was hoping someone could help me out if im on the right track.

Any specialist in Languages ever read this one?:

https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/6/1/article-p1_1.xml

Whats your opinion on their claim? Word for word from their paper.

In the book, we show that both synchronically and historically, Middle (and Modern) English is unmistakably North Germanic and not West Germanic. (Uncontroversially, Old English, just like Dutch and German, is West Germanic.) That is, Middle English did not develop from Old English. Old English is the language of mainly West Saxon texts, of which the last exemplars are widely taken to be the earlier Peterborough Chronicles through 1121 (Freeborn, 1998: 82). We claim that Middle and Modern English are instead direct descendants of the language spoken by Scandinavians who had relocated to England over more than two centuries prior to the Norman Conquest.

Pack it up boys (and girls) we are all Vikings again, it looks like a rare L inflicted on frankly dominant 'southern' modes of speaking.

Jokes aside within the nuances there is something very interesting:

Although the majority of the non-cognate Germanic words may be from Old English (perhaps 2/3 of them), the Norse words are typically daily-life words, words for objects and concepts that Old English also must have had. We mention just a few typical examples out of hundreds: bag, birth, both, call, crook, die, dirt, dike, egg, fellow, get, give, guess, likely, link, low, nag, odd, root, rotten, sack, same, scrape, sister, skin, skirt, sky, take, though, ugly, want, wing, etc. It is essentially unheard of that a living language on its own territory borrows huge numbers of daily-life terms from an immigrant population whose language dies out, yet that is what the traditional scenario is forced to claim about Middle English. Burnley (1992), in fact, concludes that about half the common Germanic words of English are not of English origin, and very few of these, relatively speaking, have any source other than Scandinavian.

This is absolutely stunning to me. Remember the Gretzinger 2022 paper does highlight a large migration from scandinavia in the viking age, but to have such an influence on daily-life words is suprising, or perhaps it shouldn't be, if we have been paying attention to language change in our period.

Edit: Looks like there is a compelling retort to this, and the above is contested. https://www.reddit.com/r/anglosaxon/s/wcpJePnfWP

nice find u/potverdorie

The Wessex Regionalists are a political party advocating for devolution in the South and South-West of England.

They define Wessex (along with the Wessex Society) as the eight historical counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Dorset and Devon.

Obviously, modern factors have been taken into account in creating this definition - but from a historical perspective, how legitimate is this definition of Wessex?

I'm reading Dunstan by Conn Iggledun and much of the plot takes place in 10th century Winchester, London and York. He describes urban scenes (market stalls, town/three storey town buildings, cobbled streets etc, workshops etc). How much did the Anglo Saxons build urban infrastructure themselves like townhouses, roads etc rather than just rehashing the old Roman structures?

What If I told you the Father of the Nation of Great Britain was a Spaniard called Maximus? Magnus Maximus is a figure in Welsh legend, often rendered as Macsen Wledig. He was an Usurper Roman Emperor who took the legions of Britian to make his claim on the continent.

When Bede writes his history, he interprets Vortigern to be Gildas' "Superbus tyrannus" who invites the Saxons to protect Britian. Vortigern literally means "Great King" which you could translate to superb tyrant (lol). There is a good reason why Vortigern's existence is contested.

Bede is but one heroic man trying to piece together what happened 200 years before his birth, trying to decode Gildas' work. Halsall with all his experience and sources modern history provides, explains in compelling fashion, Gildas' unnamed tyrants like the "Superbus tyrannus" and the "unlucky tyrant" (when the Usurper gets killed) are just references to the first mentioned tyrant in Gildas' work, Magnus Maximus.

So how does the old story change? The Superbus Tyrannus heads a council who decide to invite the Saxons to defend Britian. If this tyrant was Magnus Maximus, it is likely this is part of his military reforms of Britian. These reforms include pulling the Roman legions to the British lowlands (where the anglo-saxon settlement initially occurs) and the highlands are given to Welsh kings. Many Welsh kingdoms will derive their authority from this move and Macsen Wledig will go into legend. Also, you can read how it is likely Magnus Maximus is responsible for the first Irish (Scotti) federate settlement in Britian.

In the Welsh Legends Maximus leads his band of Welsh heros on an attack on Rome. This fails and after some time the Saxons rebel but are defeated by Ambrosius Aurelianus, this is probably all very familiar with Badon coming next and years of sin and civil war.

So in the end, Magnus Maximus is arguably responsible for English, Welsh and Irish(Scottish Gaelic) language and culture that is recognisable in the nations of Britain today. Perhaps it would be right to recognise him outside of just Welsh tradition as a true father of the Britian nation.

I posted a few days ago about size of kingdoms. i found this and wanted to share.

I know of Hereward the Wake, reading Marc Morris currently but he mostly ends at the Conquest.

I struggled through the Gesta Herewardi and read Hereward by Peter Rex. They all only really mention Eadric the Wild and Hereward.

Does anyone know of the fate of Thegns in Norman England, were they simply disinherited and fled overseas to the Varangian Guard etc, did they assimilate into the new social order?

Interested if anyone can suggest further reading on the topic.

Edit: I appreciate they wouldn't have all done the same thing, just interested to hear any evidence.

Cheers

I am making a list for my own notes.

so far

-BlackSmith -Tanner -Soldiers -Traders -Baker -Inn -Clothier

Wikipedia has the IPA as “le͜oːf” but I don’t know how to figure that out.

The reason I want to pronounce it correctly is that my girlfriend (my first girlfriend, as a late bloomer sapphic at age 35) is an academic with a focus in English literature from that time period and I want to call her lēof and surprise her by pronouncing it correctly. Please help me be cute and gay!

The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm contains a legend about Aschanes, mythical first king of the continental Saxons, who was said to have been formed from stone somewhere in the Harz mountains. I have never seen any reference to Aschanes in any other source. Does anyone know if the English Saxons retained this origin myth, or did their origin stories go back no further than the first English settlements, Cerdic et al?

Must be plausibly real of course. So no, Woden does not count.

Edit: Edit now works it seems. Best Ansewr, imo is Eadwacer