The British History Podcast

Here's the first full length pub quiz! Don't forget, they release on the last friday of every month. I hope you have fun! :)

We’re now at the point where Rome has withdrawn from Britannia (and more important to our story, from Wales), and today we’re going to talk about the impact that had upon the people. I can guess what you’re thinking. Who cares that Rome withdrew? Their legacy was violence and subjugation, their accomplishments were a pale reflection of the Greeks from whom they imitated, and they were largely devoid of any serious innovation. And to that I say, preach on. However, with the benefit of hindsight we can look at the withdrawal of Rome and say “don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out” but at the time, this was pretty catastrophic. After all, Rome had been working for centuries to destroy the Welsh sense of self and replace it with Roman cultures and beliefs. And they did a pretty good job at it. And much like how Africa found itself in a bit of a rough spot following the European colonial conquests, the period after the Roman colonial conquest of Wales also was pretty rough. So lets chat about what we know of what happened. But as always, let me remind you that this story is a bit of a mess because our sources aren’t consistent, some of them are pretty nutty, and others are secondary at best. So just keep that in mind. Now I’m probably not telling you anything you haven’t already figured out while we’ve discussed this period, but the couple hundred years stretch of the sub-roman period is a critical time for Britain. This is where the cultures that will grow to define the island really begin to take root. It is also the moment where the division between England and Wales emerges, and that division still survives to this day. The collapse of Roman power in Britannia meant different things for different regions and also for different class levels. In the East we start to see a shift over time towards a Germanic way of life and a steady encroachment of the Germanic kingdoms into their neighboring British communities. But that wasn’t consistent throughout Britain, and things in Wales were quite different.

We’re now at the point where Rome has withdrawn from Britannia (and more important to our story, from Wales), and today we’re going to talk about the impact that had upon the people. Support the Show

89 – WelshCast Part Two: All The Comforts of Rome (well… some of them)

Ever since I did the Scotcast I’ve been receiving messages on facebook, on twitter, on the forums, and I’ve even been getting personal emails asking for more about Wales. And my response has always been the same, I’ll do it but not yet. Well, I think that right now will be the best time to get that ball rolling. Why? Because the Germanic East and the Celtic West are about to come into direct conflict. Sure, things have never been all that friendly, but it’s going to get a lot worse thanks to an old man thinking a slave boy was cute as a button. Seriously, when you get right down to it, that’s basically what started this mess. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. First, lets talk about Wales and what makes it special and unique. After all, Wales has been on a very different track of development from the Anglo Saxon communities that we’ve been discussing. But, unlike the Scotcast, we wont be covering the early history in heavy detail because we’ve already covered quite a lot of Welsh history in the show to date. So my thought is that I can largely remind you of the story with an attention to how it was affecting the Welsh, and if you want more detail you can double back and listen to some of those earlier shows... and that will let us quickly get to that fun, sub-Roman period and those people who were really irritating Gildas.

88 – WelshCast Part One: From the Stone Ages to the Withdrawal of Rome

Ever since I did the Scotcast I’ve been receiving messages on facebook, on twitter, on the forums, and I’ve even been getting personal emails asking for more about Wales. And my response has always been the same, I’ll do it but not yet. Support the Show

87 – Concubinage and Apartheid in Anglo Saxon England

Ok, so last episode we ended at 597. For those of you who are really into Anglo Saxon history, you might recognize that date as the date that Christianity gets reintroduced to Anglo Saxon Britain. It’s a big deal. A huge deal, in fact. It will bring war, it will bring chaos, and it will bring all manner of changes in the lives of the people in what will eventually become England. And one of the big changes has to do with sex. Support the Show

Last episode we ended at 597. For those of you who are really into Anglo Saxon history, you might recognize that date as the date that Christianity gets reintroduced to Anglo Saxon Britain. It’s a big deal. A huge deal, in fact. It will bring war, it will bring chaos, and it will bring all manner of changes in the lives of the people in what will eventually become England. And one of the big changes has to do with sex. Now the truth of it is that all too often historians and narrators tend to devolve into a giggle fit over sex and try to dodge the issue with silliness or even just outright avoid it. And you might be expecting me to do the same, since I am rather fond of silly statements. But this stuff is actually vitally important and is something that is almost never discussed. So today’s episode might be a little more sober than usual, but I think you’ll find it rather fascinating. And it will bring to light a massive shift in culture that accompanied the reintroduction of Christianity. You might be wondering how you go about studying a subject like this since the Anglo Saxons weren’t writing down very much, and generally it was the Monks who were doing the writing (and they weren’t too inclined to record these matters). Well, some of it comes from studies on genetics, which is a pretty new area of investigation. So what do we know? Well, recent studies into Y-Chromosome variations (which, with very few exceptions, are chromosomes that only men have) found that men in Central England had strikingly similar variations on their Y Chromosomes as those from the Anglo Saxon homelands. Basically, guys in Central england had a lot of the same markers as guys from the Danish peninsula. And interestingly, that isn’t the case for men in North Wales. I won’t get into all the math and genetics of the study, but the end result is that to accomplish such a dramatic shift in the genetic makeup of Central England it would have required a migration of over half a million men. And keep in mind that the entire population of Britain at this point is estimated by some to have been scarcely over two million people. To put that in perspective, that would be like the population of Portland packing up their food carts, loading their cattle dogs into their subarus and invading New Mexico. But even that is an imperfect example, because it would have to be a population the size of Portland that was entirely comprised of men.

86 – The Fall of Ceawlin… and others

Ok, from the title you might have gathered that we’re going to be talking about Ceawlin today. Now from all this discussion of various anglo saxon leaders, you might have noticed that while I've been saying Cynric, Cerdic, and Ceawlin... with C being a CH sound... we also have this Cutha fellow in Wessex, and Creoda in Mercia. And there the C is being pronounced with a hard C sound rather than a CH. So what's the deal there? Support the Show

Ok, from the title you might have gathered that we’re going to be talking about Ceawlin today.  Now from all this discussion of various anglo saxon leaders, you might have noticed that while I've been saying Cynric, Cerdic, and Ceawlin... with C being a CH sound... we also have this Cutha fellow in Wessex, and Creoda in Mercia.  And there the C is being pronounced with a hard C sound rather than a CH.  So what's the deal there? I mean, if you’re a member and are reading the rough transcripts, you’re probably expecting me to say chutha and chreoda. But no.  From my reading, it’s Cutha.  And now you might be wondering why there is that shift.  And a linguist might be able to give you a more complete answer, but as far as I can tell Old English approaches spelling the same way modern English does.

Ok, today we’re going to talk about defensive equipment. What is the point of all that training if you’re going to die right away in battle. So we’ll need a way to keep you alive and healthy for as long as possible. As you might imagine, the shield, or bord in Old English, is a key piece of equipment in Anglo Saxon warfare. And unsurprisingly, the shield is one of the most common items of found in graves from the pagan period. Though that is probably not a surprise for you, since we’ve already discussed the most widely known Anglo Saxon battle tactic: the shieldwall. But the funny thing is that you might not be aware of how the Anglo Saxon shields actually worked. I mean, sure, they worked by blocking an attacker. And they were made up, primarily, of lathes of hardwood with a metal or leather rim. So you probably DO understand the basic bit. But it’s common to imagine shields, especially large shields, with an arm band and a handle set off-center. Like a riot shield. And that makes sense because it gives you better leverage and control. But that’s not the way Anglo Saxon shields worked. Rather, they just had a handle in the middle.

Remember the Romans? God I hope you answered yes. So those Romans and their approach to weaponry was surprisingly utilitarian. The weapons were issued by your superiors, and then returned after use. They were a tool and nothing more. It wasn’t even like the famous speech in Full Metal Jacket. “This is my rifle. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.” Nope, it was just a weapon of war. “Here’s your gladius, Paulus. Try to stick the pointy end in that German, please.” Now contrast that with the culture that’s growing in Britain. Your weapon isn’t just an anonymous tool. It was special. It was unique. It had a story and weorth of it’s own and was probably handed down to you from your forebears or your lord, and you were probably aware of the great deeds that were accomplished with it. Your weapon was probably quite decorated and named, and often, the name will use a combination of old english words to identify it. And I wont run you through a full vocabulary of words and their translations, but members I have put up a list of some old english words of war (and their translations) on the members section of the forums if you’re interested. And the great part about these names is the fact that they’re rather poetic and descriptive... for example, beaduleoma... which is translated to “battle-light.” It makes you think that it might have been heavily decorated with garnet and filigree, and thus it sparkled (not unlike a vampire) in battle. These weapons, at least the more elite weapons, had stories of their own. Think about it, not in terms of the sword Maximus uses in Gladiator... think about it more like Excalibur. King Arthur is important, sure. But Excalibur is an important weapon in its own right, and that extends beyond it’s use by Arthur. I mean, it even has a sexy backstory with a water goddess.