Another great video but I have some questions. Firstly, you didn’t give an approximate date for East Anglian settlement nor its formation as a kingdom so can you let us know when those happened? Also, why are your sources so old (1950s and 1980s)? Shouldn’t there be more updates sources, archeological findings, etc about this? You can also look into a collab or getting sources from the TH-cam channels History with Hilbert (He’s in the ASNAC programme) and History Time.
@@overdose8329 @Overdose Sure. The sources used were primarily selected as they were both available (using university resources), and when compared with other sources offered much of the same and valid information. The age of the sources doesn't negate their accuracy or validity, and while of course we are open and searching for better sources with more information, the ones used provided the information required for the depth of investigation we needed to conduct for this video. While of course newer sources may offer further insight, the insights they do offer didn't seem to offer too much with regard to the narrative we told Of course though, realities do affect just which sources we have available. Sadly not every source is available for whatever reason, yet the ones we used I personally feel offered enough information and, given what was read and compared with the other background reading we conducted, seemed wholly acceptable.
I would love to know where you found the landowner register. History and genetics are subjects that I research a lot & no matter how well you Google sometimes you are always at the mercy of an algorithm. Finding information in today's world is getting harder and harder because it should be posted online for everyone to see but it is constantly being blocked somehow or censored. Anytime I can find a reliable source for firsthand information I jump at that chance
Funny how people comment that Britain now has a German monarch, but don’t say much how they used to have a French one. They’ve just returned to their roots.
Mhm. Not only that but the current Monarch isn't even that German. Useful Charts broke down the ancestry of the British Monarchy. (Although given Prince Phillip belonged to a German noble house, I suppose Charles will be much more German than the Queen was)
@@kevin6293Correct, but more germanic than every monarch before the Hanoverians and their descendents took over England/Britain in the 18th century from the norman-scottish Stuarts
It's interesting, because watching History with Hilbert a few years ago. Apparently, British universities were doing away with any history courses studying Anglo-Saxon events, because it was a misleading and racist term.
A very interesting time to me! At school we were told about the Romans invading southern Britain in the First Century AD and then the Norman invasion in the Eleventh Century AD. That millennium in between was written off as just the Dark Ages and was in fact two very interesting eras, Roman Britain and then Pre-Conquest Britain. This channel is educating us about Pre-Conquest Britain.
Using these for a subject I have at university (anglo-saxon history and culture) as a way to better understand and remember! Loved all your videos so far! Hoping these will continue! Thank you for making these! :)
Yeah not sure how anyone could say that with any certainty. It's a bit like hengist and horsa, maybe they didn't exist, but i don't see any reason to invent them if they didn't. Surely they will have had some leaders over them so why not them? And obviously the Britons also had a king/leader and until someone can give you us a better idea of who he was then vortigern seems as good as another imo.
I personally think the Bernicians were descendants of the Frisians, explaining a extremely early Roman Period settlement as Frisian mercenaries were known to live in the region by Rome. Romans left behind a Brythonic kingdom who mingled with the Frisic cultures.
Great video! I had heard or learned somewhere that the word "sheriff" is from the Arabic "sharif" and it was borrowed by English speakers during the Crusades. Interesting to hear about "shire reeve" (and the internet seems to support that as the basis for the word "sheriff"). Just goes to show that we cannot always rely on things we heard or learned in the past and must always be open to new information.
@78cunobelin -The word Sheriff is from the English word 'Shire Reive' which predates the crusades. The Arabs didn't invent the word 'Shire' but the Persian/Hindi word 'Shahir' is very close. Shahir = City. Hebrew and Syrian for City is Ir (Iraq) (Iran) sounds like 'eer'. Maybe Shahir comes from Shah ir. (Royal City) Still working on it The Arabic word Sharif is from the Hebrew word Seraph which means burning snake. Took me years to find this out. The similarity of the names is a bummer
@@78cunobelin - it's fascinating stuff. I like languages and keep stumbling over words thinking ''how did that get there ?" I knew the word for " keep quiet " in ancient Hebrew was HUSH ! But just the other day I find out the word for 'dumb' is DUMA. [Isaiah 4:6] נִדְמ֥וּ n damu.
@@RyanMatthewCampbell I don't agree, since there was clearly human settlement in that area before the Celts came to Britain. Even in Ireland there are pre-Celtic place names that have survived to the present.
@@seaghanobuadhaigh8240 huh? What does that have to do with the Kingdom of Wessex' founders have Celtic personal names? Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, not Celtic or pre-Celtic.
Such a breath of fresh air to see an unbiased historical channel such as this one. Was recommended this channel after watching Kings and Generals, which wreaks of subtle anti-Christian and pro-Muslim bias.
An excellent idea. Sadly our knowledge on such topics is considerably less, but I'm sure we can start research into it. Perhaps the Kingdoms of early Medieval Wales.
Many historians reckon this Anglo-Saxon thing was largely made up by monks, isolated in their abbeys. For instance, an Anglo-Saxon burial ground near Updown, in Kent, was found to contain the grave of a African descended child. See: Daily Mail Updown.
Yes...I can believe this...as lot of English people look...Anglo-Saxon...red hair, blue eyes...brown and blonde hair..still have that look...noticed when on holiday there...recently...attractive looking...and tall...
It’s really interesting that nobles eventually decided only nobles should have weapons-the relationships between egalitarianism and the ownership of weapons. Underrated concept that the video does well to bring up!
Grammar note: I have always heard Cerdic pronounced with a hard C, like Celtic. Kerdic, then. I am not arguing, nor saying Serdic is an incorrect pronunciation. I just wanted to point out the soft C tradition in English is very young for how dominant it is. There are lots of hard Cs in old words. Also, in a completely unrelated note, when reading Pr. Tolkien, Every C before an E (at the start of a name) is hard. Celeborn, Celebrant would be Keleborn and Kelebrant.
He was pronouncing it Ch not Se tbh mate. The Ch sound was used because the Anglo-Saxons were an Ingaevonic People, just like the Frisians, who also used the Ch Sound instead of the Hard K Sound. A lot of the Hard K Pronunciation of Anglo-Saxon words, that are still in Today’s English, came into English from Norse and Danish Influence…
He's got an accent of some sort which may be affecting it. He say "myff" in place of "myth" and "fought" in place of "thought" and "brovers" in place of "brothers". See 3:34.
@@Excommunicated-ei1ep I believe that the letter C was pronounced as "k" in Old English. In Welsh and Irish the letter C is always "hard" like K and those languages don't need the letter K in their spelling for that reason. In English the "soft c" convention where "c" becomes "s" if it directly followed by "e, i or y" seems to be a later medieval invention and why Middle and Modern English need to use the letter K . In Old English there was a letter called "yogh" which looked like a "Z" or a "3" and represented a guttural sound, perhaps the Gaelic "ch' sound as in "loch" OR perhaps the "Dutch G" sound, OR perhaps both.
@@michaelhalsall5684 Sometimes is was Pronounced as a Hard K Sound and sometimes it was Pronounced with a Ch Sound, depending on Dialect or Grammar. The Ch Sound, as in Cheese or Church, which is similar in sound to todays Frisian, which has the Ts Sound, similar to Ch. Ch: Cheese/Ts: Tsiis. Because of this Ch/Ts Sound and other reasons, Anglo-Saxon and Old Frisian, are often called “Anglo-Frisian”. Because we both make up “Ingaevonic”…which is 1 of the 3 Main Branches of West Germanic.
The star on your map at 3:46-3:51 and marked "Ebbsfleet", which you say is near where Ramsgate is now, is near enough to where Ramsgate is now . . . but Ebbsfleet is 50 miles west, quite a long way up the Thames. So where did they land?
I think the mark of really good short-form history content on TH-cam is being able to be both concise and informative, as well as being clear about what is merely conjecture and what is backed up by compelling evidence. You seem to have mastered all those skills and this is a great video. Of course, there's always a point for debate when it comes to this period of history (or any period for that matter) and I would have to take issue with the suggestion here that Augustine "reintroduced" Christianity to Britain and that the Anglo-Saxons were "strictly pagan" before his mission. Whilst there may not have been any 'officially' Christian Anglo-Saxon territories or rulers, there were certainly Anglo-Saxon Christians prior to Augustine, having been converted by Irish missionaries. Indeed, it was partly the spread of 'Celtic' Christianity from Ireland that prompted Rome to dispatch Augustine in the first place. Otherwise, thank you for this great content. I've just subscribed and can't wait to get stuck in to more of your videos.
Interesting you mention this - the Canter is named after Canterbury! Canterbury was the holiest christian site in England, and one of the holiest in all of Europe. Saint Thomas Beckett was murdered there on the orders of King Henry, and a cult developed around him which consumed England. Going to Canterbury was something many people would try to do. Many people took horses of course, and would take a relaxed riding pace known as a Canterbury Gallop, a Gallop to the City of Canterbury. Fast forward a few hundred years, Canterbury Gallop is reduced to Canter.
it's real however! Only recent decades of Neo-Marxism and Neo-Liberalism under weird agendas are denying it and saying it's not true! Clearly political motivation.
@@seaghanobuadhaigh8240 Well supposedly King Henry was pissed off, and well was just shutting having a bit of a hissy fit, and you know shouting the ole' "I could bloody murder him!" as he was staying in Saltwood castle and well a group of four knights overhead and then travelled to canterbury and Sainted Thomas Becket in a rather bloody manner.
Fascinating! Please carry on 🙏. I was struck by that list of landowners from Mercia... And your translation to 'border' . Does that make Marcomanni border people too?( Even though in another context)
Yes they are (same context) they were living in a march (borderland) situation with the celtic rhaetians and later romans just like the mercians with the welsh or the use if Mark in German when referring to Brandenburg and its people Aswell as Denmark
Thank you, I wondered what that meant my 13th or 14th great grandfather had that sheriff designation and I didn't know what that meant. I saw an oil painting of him and his kilt was way too low. There's another painting of him in armor. I gathered we were from his spare.
i'd recommend the British History Podcast if you want to bring more light to this period. it's a very detailed and fascinating account of all of recorded british history in chronological order, which has only recently reached Hastings.
Cerdic, is a Briton name, so while Cerdic may have been an invader, I think it is more likely that Cerdic hired Saxons to conquer a swathe of land in exchange for marrying into the Saxon tribal system as a chief, using the Old Saxon language instead of British Latin or Old Brytonnic. Cerdic could also be a mistranslations of the Briton name, "Caradog" as Cerdic could have been pronounced as Kerdig.
DNA evidence continues to demonstrate that, contrary to old concepts of ethnic cleansing, Celtic and Germanic peoples merged pretty early on to begin to create an English culture and ethnicity. Many other cultures have adopted the language of other cultures (the Irish, Welsh, and Scots as a pretty notable example!) and these kinds of transitions frequently take a good length of time. On top of this, it probably didn’t hurt when Augustine of Canterbury converted Aethelberht to Christianity, thereby allowing Christian concepts to be, more or less, disseminated by way of the English language and thoroughly endorsed by the Vatican. A little while later the Synod of Whitby more completely aligned the Church in eastern England with Rome. Consequently, the Celtic Church (and languages?) in the rest of England was on the ‘wrong’ side of favor and, ultimately, history. From that point onward, the hegemony of the English language became inevitable in the British Isles.
To my knowledge , the term sheriff derives from Shire Reeve. Shire from old English , meaning bright and sparkling stream / beck , which were natural borders between administrative areas, and Reeve, the king' s man in the shire responsible for collecting the King' s taxes.
A side note - The name "shire" (pronounced "shyer") has been revived in Australia to mean a Local Government Area particularly in rural areas area. An old Saxon name put back into modern usage.
The Anglo Saxons were not known much for cavalry, of which they had very little at Hastings in 1066. However the Kingdom of Northumbria does seem to have had cavalry at the Battle of Dun Neachtain in 685, based on the Aberlemno stone nearby
I am a bit disappointed now that there were no Northern Saxons - only Western, Southern and Eastern Saxons in Wessex, Sussex and Essex respectively - , because Nossex would have been hilarious to have as region of England 😂
While your etymological explanation of the name Mercia might be correct, the comparisons you give are a bit confusing, since 'mark', at least in its modern meaning, is synonymous with 'land', and not 'border' in the Nordic languages. Meaning land of the Danes and land of the Finns, not borderlands (in Norwegian, Finn is also the name of the Saami who inhabit the region, so it's not a reference to the Finns of Finland). I'm being picky. It was a good video. Very well done!
I'm sorry but the research done and even a quick Wiktionary search shows this isn't the case. March / Mark did mean, and continues to mean "Borderlands" in both English and German. I'm unsure if the word has evolved somewhat in Nordic languages, but the meaning when Denmark was named it definitely meant "Borderlands (Mork in Old Norse) of the Danes. While Mark does in some form mean "land", it's just not any land. It's specifically land that borders a border. You can reduce that to simply refer to the borderlands as "the border" When we said 'border' we didn't solely mean the invisible line dividing two countries but the general region of that. You are correct about the Saami though. I'm surprised you still refer to Saami as Finn's. We use to call them Lapps in English, but this term is regarded as offensive now.
@@calum5975 As I said, I'm not questioning the meaning of the word in English (or German), only the comparison to the names in Danish and Norwegian, where the word has indeed evolved to mean 'land' rather than 'borderland'. You can read about that on Wiktionary as well. It makes sense, since Denmark is THE LAND of the Danes, not the borderlands. Same goes for Finnmark. I am Swedish btw. We used to call the Saami Lappar (pl.) but not any longer. The area is still referred to as Lappland though, but also Sapmi if you want to be PC 🙂
@@seethrough_treeshrew Yes, the point is though, the name of Denmark is older than the modern Danish language. It's from old Norse, and in old Norse the name means "March (borderland) of the Danes". The modern Danish words that evolved from those older Norse words don't specifically matter. The Old English words were much firmer cognates of old Norse "Mork" (from which Denmark evolved) than the modern Norse forms. The modern meaning of Mark doesn't matter - it's like using the modern definition of a word to define a word from the 500s. It's an anachronism. Therefore, Mercia and (Den)mark are cognates. They've both evolved considerably (Mercia being a Latinised form of Meirce and Denmark a slow evolution from the old Norse name) English has strangely and interestingly retained the old Germanic meaning much firmer than Danish or Swedish, it appears.
@@calum5975 I get you. I did not know the 'mark' in Denmark originally referred to the southern borderlands, but thought it was simply the land. I found the Wikipedia article about it. The etymology of Finnmark seems to be not as easy to find.
For you and all others everywhere where mark marc or some other derivitive of it is present, it represents germanic speaking borderlands with non germanic cultures such as Sorbs, Celtic or Finnic or in Denmarks case the North/West Germanic devide, have a nice day y'all
The Englisch language ist based on old englisch, whats near the old saxon language. In northern germany some people can talk old saxon until today and in some words its really near the modern englisch. Look at the weekdays in englisch language, how near it is to the old northern kulture. Wednesday = wodans day (wodan is german for odin the godfather). Thursday = thors day (the god thor). Friday = freyas day (the wife of odin). The angels (engels) and saxons migrated aroud 450 a.d. to britannia.
Interestingly, Sussex was the last region to be Christianised even though it was next to Kent. Maybe the Sussaxons and Kentish people didn’t like each other much for a while. Sussex and Kent have county cricket teams to this day. Sussex is the oldest county club in the world and also the oldest professional sports team.
Cool video. My comment is unrelated to the content of the documentary but rather the title of the video. Hewt is the Kurdish word we use for the number seven. Hewt = Hept. I thought that was interesting. First time I'm hearing of a Heptarchy.
Kurdish and Latin (where Hept comes from) are related languages! It's very interesting to see such similar words in such distant languages! It's an amazing way of seeing a common ancient heritage between vastly different modern groups!
@@KnowHistory yes, indeed... The numbers in Iranic languages are most similar to those in Slavic, but they also have cognates in Germanic and Latin etc. Some similar numbers to English are Chor = four, hesht = eight etc, also the word for horse which is ostor is exactly the same as the equivalent word used in Icelandic.
It's funny, the Saxon kingdoms were Sussex -land of the south Saxons; Wessex -land of the west Saxons; Essex -land of the east Saxons; and of course, later we had right in the centre of these Middlesex. But I always imagine the Saxons to the north settling into their new home and holding a big meeting to name their new home, someone steps forward and says: Our new land will be called Nossex, whack! A sudden battle-axe to the head and the whole Moot votes to keep the old Romano-Celtic name for the land: Mercia.
Great video, except it might be confusing for some people watching this to say "Germanic peoples settled across England and lowland Scotland" and later "Most of England has been settled by the Anglo-Saxons". It doesn't make sense. Neither of of those countries existed then; and England was named after the Angles - they didn't come to England, they created it.
if folk want to create their own calendars (this bce ce thing) please find your own point of reference, rather than appropriating the christian calendar
Strange how he accepts that Wuffa and Cerdic probably existed, but Vortigern definitely didn't. If he didn't, where did Bede dream him up from? And wasn't someone like him mentioned by Gildas in his cryptic way? His name could mean Great King, in which case, he would have had another name. He could have been Eliasus whom St. Germanus encountered. Or someone called Vitalinus, who married the daughter of Magnus Maximus, who definitely did exist, and they had at least 5 children.
I always thought that the films did Mknas Tirith a disservice. Its supposed to be a green and fertile land, but it looks scrubby and abandoned past in the surrounding countryside. Also, the first encircling wall wasn't black
Where, precisely is the Umber? Is that the right name? This video made it seem that it was the Northern border of Mercia. I thought it North of that. Am I wrong?
Do you mean the river "Humber" ? If so It's the large estuary that separates Mercia and Northumbria and even today is the border of both Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and hence northern England and The east Midlands. It's the estuary in the north eastern part of the map
The spread of Christianity is interesting on this island nation. Another large island nation is Madagascar. There was a queen around 1850 or so who was given the name of Bloody. She killed the missionaries from England because she was concerned they would try to take over the country. She was right. Of course it is important to note my wife is a descendent of the monarchy in Madagagascar.
Favorite period of English history 😢what were+the scots 😢doing back then?😊all the best cities 🌆 r in the south😊I always thought Northumbria is territorial larger than Mercia .😊
when the Romans left in the 4th century, the border between Scotland and todays England was close to Hardrians Wall why you keep showing Northumbria as close to Edinburgh? also Northumbria was also controlled by the Scots in the 13th century right?
This is because the Northumbrians - who were Angles - either subjugated or politically dominated the land up the the Firth of Forth. Their claims on this territory were lost when Northumbria was overrun by the Danes. In a similar fashion the Scots dominated what is now known as Northumberland through political means - The Scottish King held the title Duke of Northumberland (although it was still considered as an English title, and in this particular case the Scottish King would have the English monarch as overlord) which had been granted through marriage, however due to the political vacuum in Northern England caused by the Anarchy, the ability of the English monarch to exercise their rights as overlord of the Duke of Northumberland faded and as Stephen and Matilda were knocking several bells out of each other and ruining England in the process, the political will and military might to enforce that was not present. So Northumberland slipped into the Scottish orbit by default. Once the line of succession was settled and the English King felt strong enough, he asked for it back and in 1237 The Treaty of York was an agreed between the kings Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland and the Anglo-Scottish border moved to where it is know (broadly speaking).
In the images of the various rulers you have many of them in crowns which is historically inaccurate as crowns were not worn by Anglo-Saxon rulers (including Alfred the Great) until Athelstan, Alfred's grandson. he was the first to wear one. Think more them wearing the equivalent of the famous Sutton Hoo helmet, which very probably belonged to Raedwald.
Tall, Thick set ,wide shouldered Jutts, who are now known as Kents who love farming and animal breeding seems a plausible case to me. I'll put money on it.
Kent was first kingdom in world was held in high court Mt Olympus to be just that with an order of first five commandments by the emperor of Rome along with its statesman. Held in high court by the highest of Roman empire and God .
Jutz didn't come til counterfeit 2nd kingdom arose by not having authentic statesman or churches which was London England kents neighbor. When that happen the pix was invading so the king of England thought he could call for some help and sent an order to a legit statesman of Kent which made it to high court as statesman put order thru to Roman empire and was held in there high court Mt Olympus and when vortigan did so he exposed all his counterfeit doings with his requesting an order of mercenary s to help defend and exposing how he went about being a copy cat mocking God order of Kent and did not have blessing so doing so he exposed himself to be counterfeit to God in God's name In high court that day . Also Hengist and Horsa was summoned and God told his sons will give Vortigan what he requested and also I want him also served and order to vacate that stated this my Son's of Wihtgisl, Sons of Witta , Sons of Wecta, Sons of Wodan arose of and are the only Royal tender and of south Abrams. God told his boys to serve that order and make London one with Kent as it's an order to get mercenary s aka jutz and along the way home to rally the ANGLO SAXONS COBURG GOTHA letting any willing man that wants to fight ride along with the order . Vortigan thought it was a big laugh til he was invited to a Feist and all but one other than vortigan survived. vortigan left London high and dry never to return to England murdered by his own corrupt Welsh son counterfeit King Author of Welsh .
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Another great video but I have some questions. Firstly, you didn’t give an approximate date for East Anglian settlement nor its formation as a kingdom so can you let us know when those happened? Also, why are your sources so old (1950s and 1980s)? Shouldn’t there be more updates sources, archeological findings, etc about this? You can also look into a collab or getting sources from the TH-cam channels History with Hilbert (He’s in the ASNAC programme) and History Time.
@@overdose8329 @Overdose Sure. The sources used were primarily selected as they were both available (using university resources), and when compared with other sources offered much of the same and valid information. The age of the sources doesn't negate their accuracy or validity, and while of course we are open and searching for better sources with more information, the ones used provided the information required for the depth of investigation we needed to conduct for this video. While of course newer sources may offer further insight, the insights they do offer didn't seem to offer too much with regard to the narrative we told
Of course though, realities do affect just which sources we have available. Sadly not every source is available for whatever reason, yet the ones we used I personally feel offered enough information and, given what was read and compared with the other background reading we conducted, seemed wholly acceptable.
I would love to know where you found the landowner register. History and genetics are subjects that I research a lot & no matter how well you Google sometimes you are always at the mercy of an algorithm. Finding information in today's world is getting harder and harder because it should be posted online for everyone to see but it is constantly being blocked somehow or censored. Anytime I can find a reliable source for firsthand information I jump at that chance
@@calum5975good explanation. And love that name Wuffa.
Funny how people comment that Britain now has a German monarch, but don’t say much how they used to have a French one. They’ve just returned to their roots.
Mhm. Not only that but the current Monarch isn't even that German. Useful Charts broke down the ancestry of the British Monarchy. (Although given Prince Phillip belonged to a German noble house, I suppose Charles will be much more German than the Queen was)
Perhaps because the Normans didn’t even think of themselves as French?
Huh?
@@kevin6293Correct, but more germanic than every monarch before the Hanoverians and their descendents took over England/Britain in the 18th century from the norman-scottish Stuarts
William III?
Great video! Anglo-Saxon history is a very interesting time period
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!!
It's interesting, because watching History with Hilbert a few years ago. Apparently, British universities were doing away with any history courses studying Anglo-Saxon events, because it was a misleading and racist term.
A very interesting time to me! At school we were told about the Romans invading southern Britain in the First Century AD and then the Norman invasion in the Eleventh Century AD. That millennium in between was written off as just the Dark Ages and was in fact two very interesting eras, Roman Britain and then Pre-Conquest Britain. This channel is educating us about Pre-Conquest Britain.
This is a great video on Anglo-Saxon history, which is an over-looked and underrated part of history.
Seriously the early middle ages are underrated and underappreciated
Know History liking your comment that is now 2 months old gives me hope
I am so glad these amazing history channels are appearing in my recommended
Thank you! :D
Next video when?
Using these for a subject I have at university (anglo-saxon history and culture) as a way to better understand and remember! Loved all your videos so far! Hoping these will continue! Thank you for making these! :)
Missed a golden opportunity to describe the East Anglian regions of Suffolk and Norfolk. AKA south folks and north folks.
"... there was no Vortigern" is a huge, highly contested POV
Indeed considering that Gildas, the only real source we have from the period, mentions him, if not by that name.
Yeah not sure how anyone could say that with any certainty. It's a bit like hengist and horsa, maybe they didn't exist, but i don't see any reason to invent them if they didn't. Surely they will have had some leaders over them so why not them? And obviously the Britons also had a king/leader and until someone can give you us a better idea of who he was then vortigern seems as good as another imo.
ikr
I personally think the Bernicians were descendants of the Frisians, explaining a extremely early Roman Period settlement as Frisian mercenaries were known to live in the region by Rome. Romans left behind a Brythonic kingdom who mingled with the Frisic cultures.
Interesting. I think this theory is probably also supported linguistically
I think you're on to something Noah.
Great video! I had heard or learned somewhere that the word "sheriff" is from the Arabic "sharif" and it was borrowed by English speakers during the Crusades. Interesting to hear about "shire reeve" (and the internet seems to support that as the basis for the word "sheriff"). Just goes to show that we cannot always rely on things we heard or learned in the past and must always be open to new information.
@78cunobelin -The word Sheriff is from the English word 'Shire Reive' which predates the crusades.
The Arabs didn't invent the word 'Shire' but the Persian/Hindi word 'Shahir' is very close. Shahir = City.
Hebrew and Syrian for City is Ir (Iraq) (Iran) sounds like 'eer'.
Maybe Shahir comes from Shah ir.
(Royal City)
Still working on it
The Arabic word Sharif is from the Hebrew word Seraph which means burning snake.
Took me years to find this out.
The similarity of the names is a bummer
@@joedee1863 well, it is all proto-indo-european so perhaps it is all the same ;)
@@78cunobelin - it's fascinating stuff. I like languages and keep stumbling over words thinking ''how did that get there ?"
I knew the word for " keep quiet " in ancient Hebrew was HUSH !
But just the other day I find out the word for 'dumb' is DUMA. [Isaiah 4:6] נִדְמ֥וּ n damu.
@@78cunobelin - except for Semitic languages,
Shire Reeve
I wish the Celtic names of Wessex' supposed founders was mentioned. A Celtic elite adopting Germanic customs is an interesting tale indeed.
perhaps the Celtic names were adopted, just as Norman names were adopted after the Norman conquest.
@@puskascat Wessex wasn't conquered by Celts though.
@@RyanMatthewCampbell I don't agree, since there was clearly human settlement in that area before the Celts came to Britain. Even in Ireland there are pre-Celtic place names that have survived to the present.
@@seaghanobuadhaigh8240 huh? What does that have to do with the Kingdom of Wessex' founders have Celtic personal names? Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, not Celtic or pre-Celtic.
Such a breath of fresh air to see an unbiased historical channel such as this one.
Was recommended this channel after watching Kings and Generals, which wreaks of subtle anti-Christian and pro-Muslim bias.
Well done Know History. It would be great if you did the other cultural perspectives in the same timeline in Britannia.
An excellent idea. Sadly our knowledge on such topics is considerably less, but I'm sure we can start research into it. Perhaps the Kingdoms of early Medieval Wales.
Many historians reckon this Anglo-Saxon thing was largely made up by monks, isolated in their abbeys.
For instance, an Anglo-Saxon burial ground near Updown, in Kent, was found to contain the grave of a African descended child.
See: Daily Mail Updown.
@@johnpatrick5307 we wuz angelo saxenz
@johnpatrick5307 except the "Anglo-saxon" thing has been proven with genetics.
Great find in my feed. Your channel has tons of potential and keep up the great content!
I love early medieval history from the time of the fall of western Rome until the Norman invasion in 1066
Same, pre England history is so interesting, and the few years where house of Wessex ruled
Yes...I can believe this...as lot of English people look...Anglo-Saxon...red hair, blue eyes...brown and blonde hair..still have that look...noticed when on holiday there...recently...attractive looking...and tall...
I agree....as Saxon german from Westfalia....the old home of the westsaxons.....they are similar to us
It’s really interesting that nobles eventually decided only nobles should have weapons-the relationships between egalitarianism and the ownership of weapons.
Underrated concept that the video does well to bring up!
Nice Crusaders Kings 3 love the game.
AD>CE
Thank you - perfect
This channel is so underrated.
Brilliant analysis and thank you so much it's so useful❤
Grammar note: I have always heard Cerdic pronounced with a hard C, like Celtic. Kerdic, then.
I am not arguing, nor saying Serdic is an incorrect pronunciation. I just wanted to point out the soft C tradition in English is very young for how dominant it is. There are lots of hard Cs in old words.
Also, in a completely unrelated note, when reading Pr. Tolkien, Every C before an E (at the start of a name) is hard. Celeborn, Celebrant would be Keleborn and Kelebrant.
He was pronouncing it Ch not Se tbh mate. The Ch sound was used because the Anglo-Saxons were an Ingaevonic People, just like the Frisians, who also used the Ch Sound instead of the Hard K Sound.
A lot of the Hard K Pronunciation of Anglo-Saxon words, that are still in Today’s English, came into English from Norse and Danish Influence…
He's got an accent of some sort which may be affecting it.
He say "myff" in place of "myth" and "fought" in place of "thought" and "brovers" in place of "brothers".
See 3:34.
Tolkien was the foremost authority on Anglo Saxons and wrote the Oxford Dictionary, id trust his knowledge.
@@Excommunicated-ei1ep I believe that the letter C was pronounced as "k" in Old English. In Welsh and Irish the letter C is always "hard" like K and those languages don't need the letter K in their spelling for that reason. In English the "soft c" convention where "c" becomes "s" if it directly followed by "e, i or y" seems to be a later medieval invention and why Middle and Modern English need to use the letter K . In Old English there was a letter called "yogh" which looked like a "Z" or a "3" and represented a guttural sound, perhaps the Gaelic "ch' sound as in "loch" OR perhaps the "Dutch G" sound, OR perhaps both.
@@michaelhalsall5684
Sometimes is was Pronounced as a Hard K Sound and sometimes it was Pronounced with a Ch Sound, depending on Dialect or Grammar. The Ch Sound, as in Cheese or Church, which is similar in sound to todays Frisian, which has the Ts Sound, similar to Ch.
Ch: Cheese/Ts: Tsiis. Because
of this Ch/Ts Sound and other reasons, Anglo-Saxon and
Old Frisian, are often called
“Anglo-Frisian”. Because we
both make up “Ingaevonic”…which is 1 of the 3 Main Branches of West Germanic.
The star on your map at 3:46-3:51 and marked "Ebbsfleet", which you say is near where Ramsgate is now, is near enough to where Ramsgate is now . . . but Ebbsfleet is 50 miles west, quite a long way up the Thames. So where did they land?
Waiting for the next video, as explained at the end of the video! Great work!
I think the mark of really good short-form history content on TH-cam is being able to be both concise and informative, as well as being clear about what is merely conjecture and what is backed up by compelling evidence. You seem to have mastered all those skills and this is a great video.
Of course, there's always a point for debate when it comes to this period of history (or any period for that matter) and I would have to take issue with the suggestion here that Augustine "reintroduced" Christianity to Britain and that the Anglo-Saxons were "strictly pagan" before his mission. Whilst there may not have been any 'officially' Christian Anglo-Saxon territories or rulers, there were certainly Anglo-Saxon Christians prior to Augustine, having been converted by Irish missionaries. Indeed, it was partly the spread of 'Celtic' Christianity from Ireland that prompted Rome to dispatch Augustine in the first place.
Otherwise, thank you for this great content. I've just subscribed and can't wait to get stuck in to more of your videos.
Please do one the Celts in the British Isles, including their arrival and the society they developed, up until the period of Roman Britannia.
Yes, and one on the people before the Celts.
The two siblings, stallion and horse, settled in the city of canter 🤣 This is too good to be true
Interesting you mention this - the Canter is named after Canterbury!
Canterbury was the holiest christian site in England, and one of the holiest in all of Europe. Saint Thomas Beckett was murdered there on the orders of King Henry, and a cult developed around him which consumed England. Going to Canterbury was something many people would try to do. Many people took horses of course, and would take a relaxed riding pace known as a Canterbury Gallop, a Gallop to the City of Canterbury.
Fast forward a few hundred years, Canterbury Gallop is reduced to Canter.
it's real however! Only recent decades of Neo-Marxism and Neo-Liberalism under weird agendas are denying it and saying it's not true! Clearly political motivation.
@@noahtylerpritchett2682 What?
@@calum5975 Did Henry order his murder, or just "hint" that he'd be happy if someone were to do it?
@@seaghanobuadhaigh8240 Well supposedly King Henry was pissed off, and well was just shutting having a bit of a hissy fit, and you know shouting the ole' "I could bloody murder him!" as he was staying in Saltwood castle and well a group of four knights overhead and then travelled to canterbury and Sainted Thomas Becket in a rather bloody manner.
Fun Fact. The north Saxons died out as they followed the spirit of their land: Nossex
Southern Saxons on the other hand, were killed by imposotrs
@@Bln-f9u there was enough sex counties in England perhaps
That's good 😊
The ancient prehistoric people of Nossex, Homo Nonerectus also died out centuries earlier for two very obvious reasons.
your content is going to blow up.
Thank you! I hope you're right :')
Fascinating! Please carry on 🙏. I was struck by that list of landowners from Mercia... And your translation to 'border' . Does that make Marcomanni border people too?( Even though in another context)
Yes they are (same context) they were living in a march (borderland) situation with the celtic rhaetians and later romans just like the mercians with the welsh or the use if Mark in German when referring to Brandenburg and its people
Aswell as Denmark
Honestly, this was an amazing summary of these places - far more in depth (yet also shorter!) than any coverage I've come across before.
Even today if youre from east Kent youre a man of Kent, if you come from the west its a Kentish man
My name is Uhtred, son of Uhtred! Destiny is all!
thank you, illuminating a mysterious and fascinating period of England's gestation.
England's slimy spawning, you mean
Englands raucous conception in thy privy chambers.
@@cjthebeesknees was it a cross species union, with both the Lord Privy and the Great seals doing their bit? :)
im a little late to watching the full thing, but great video. i still love the linguistics stuff, keep it up
Thank you, I wondered what that meant my 13th or 14th great grandfather had that sheriff designation and I didn't know what that meant. I saw an oil painting of him and his kilt was way too low. There's another painting of him in armor. I gathered we were from his spare.
Is there a video about Vikings and the foundation of the Kingdom of England mentioned at the end? I'd love to see more on this topic.
not yet! perhaps this summer!
I know quite a bit about UK history, but the Anglo-Saxon times were rather "dark ages" for me. Thank you for the information.
i'd recommend the British History Podcast if you want to bring more light to this period. it's a very detailed and fascinating account of all of recorded british history in chronological order, which has only recently reached Hastings.
@@parkerprice6787 Thank you! Great idea!
Cerdic, is a Briton name, so while Cerdic may have been an invader, I think it is more likely that Cerdic hired Saxons to conquer a swathe of land in exchange for marrying into the Saxon tribal system as a chief, using the Old Saxon language instead of British Latin or Old Brytonnic. Cerdic could also be a mistranslations of the Briton name, "Caradog" as Cerdic could have been pronounced as Kerdig.
DNA evidence continues to demonstrate that, contrary to old concepts of ethnic cleansing, Celtic and Germanic peoples merged pretty early on to begin to create an English culture and ethnicity. Many other cultures have adopted the language of other cultures (the Irish, Welsh, and Scots as a pretty notable example!) and these kinds of transitions frequently take a good length of time. On top of this, it probably didn’t hurt when Augustine of Canterbury converted Aethelberht to Christianity, thereby allowing Christian concepts to be, more or less, disseminated by way of the English language and thoroughly endorsed by the Vatican. A little while later the Synod of Whitby more completely aligned the Church in eastern England with Rome. Consequently, the Celtic Church (and languages?) in the rest of England was on the ‘wrong’ side of favor and, ultimately, history. From that point onward, the hegemony of the English language became inevitable in the British Isles.
Wooo sponsor!!!!!!
AH! A WILD OLD NARRATOR APPEARS!
@@KnowHistory Moonie smells.
@@calum5975 moonie smells wonderfully
Another fantastic video!
How are your graphics created? Do you know which software your Graphic Artist uses? I really enjoy the story telling these images support!
Looks like most of it is from Crusader Kings 3
Thank you!! :D They're from a game called Crusader Kings 3!
To my knowledge , the term sheriff derives from Shire Reeve. Shire from old English , meaning bright and sparkling stream / beck , which were natural borders between administrative areas, and Reeve, the king' s man in the shire responsible for collecting the King' s taxes.
Love your video
Thank you so much!
Who narrates these ?? Sounds much like the kid who played "Pitt the Younger" in the Black Adder series....
Whoever it is, I like that voice
A side note - The name "shire" (pronounced "shyer") has been revived in Australia to mean a Local Government Area particularly in rural areas area. An old Saxon name put back into modern usage.
The Anglo Saxons were not known much for cavalry, of which they had very little at Hastings in 1066. However the Kingdom of Northumbria does seem to have had cavalry at the Battle of Dun Neachtain in 685, based on the Aberlemno stone nearby
Outstanding video, an oral history at its best.
I am a bit disappointed now that there were no Northern Saxons - only Western, Southern and Eastern Saxons in Wessex, Sussex and Essex respectively - , because Nossex would have been hilarious to have as region of England 😂
Middle Saxon I live in Middlesex although swallowed up by a lot of greater London its still used by the Post office lol
@@si4632 Great 😂
We even have town here in Denmark called Middelfart 😂🙄
Nice ive watched 3 of these anglo saxon vids and i think youve done a good job have a sub
Very good video series sir.
This was great!
Thank you! :D
Wonderful series - thank you.
While your etymological explanation of the name Mercia might be correct, the comparisons you give are a bit confusing, since 'mark', at least in its modern meaning, is synonymous with 'land', and not 'border' in the Nordic languages. Meaning land of the Danes and land of the Finns, not borderlands (in Norwegian, Finn is also the name of the Saami who inhabit the region, so it's not a reference to the Finns of Finland).
I'm being picky. It was a good video. Very well done!
I'm sorry but the research done and even a quick Wiktionary search shows this isn't the case. March / Mark did mean, and continues to mean "Borderlands" in both English and German. I'm unsure if the word has evolved somewhat in Nordic languages, but the meaning when Denmark was named it definitely meant "Borderlands (Mork in Old Norse) of the Danes.
While Mark does in some form mean "land", it's just not any land. It's specifically land that borders a border. You can reduce that to simply refer to the borderlands as "the border"
When we said 'border' we didn't solely mean the invisible line dividing two countries but the general region of that.
You are correct about the Saami though. I'm surprised you still refer to Saami as Finn's. We use to call them Lapps in English, but this term is regarded as offensive now.
@@calum5975 As I said, I'm not questioning the meaning of the word in English (or German), only the comparison to the names in Danish and Norwegian, where the word has indeed evolved to mean 'land' rather than 'borderland'. You can read about that on Wiktionary as well. It makes sense, since Denmark is THE LAND of the Danes, not the borderlands. Same goes for Finnmark.
I am Swedish btw. We used to call the Saami Lappar (pl.) but not any longer. The area is still referred to as Lappland though, but also Sapmi if you want to be PC 🙂
@@seethrough_treeshrew Yes, the point is though, the name of Denmark is older than the modern Danish language. It's from old Norse, and in old Norse the name means "March (borderland) of the Danes". The modern Danish words that evolved from those older Norse words don't specifically matter. The Old English words were much firmer cognates of old Norse "Mork" (from which Denmark evolved) than the modern Norse forms. The modern meaning of Mark doesn't matter - it's like using the modern definition of a word to define a word from the 500s. It's an anachronism.
Therefore, Mercia and (Den)mark are cognates. They've both evolved considerably (Mercia being a Latinised form of Meirce and Denmark a slow evolution from the old Norse name)
English has strangely and interestingly retained the old Germanic meaning much firmer than Danish or Swedish, it appears.
@@calum5975 I get you. I did not know the 'mark' in Denmark originally referred to the southern borderlands, but thought it was simply the land. I found the Wikipedia article about it. The etymology of Finnmark seems to be not as easy to find.
For you and all others everywhere where mark marc or some other derivitive of it is present, it represents germanic speaking borderlands with non germanic cultures such as Sorbs, Celtic or Finnic or in Denmarks case the North/West Germanic devide, have a nice day y'all
Just saw this video and the other Anglo Saxon one (just before this) earned a new sub!
Well done
The Englisch language ist based on old englisch, whats near the old saxon language. In northern germany some people can talk old saxon until today and in some words its really near the modern englisch. Look at the weekdays in englisch language, how near it is to the old northern kulture. Wednesday = wodans day (wodan is german for odin the godfather). Thursday = thors day (the god thor). Friday = freyas day (the wife of odin). The angels (engels) and saxons migrated aroud 450 a.d. to britannia.
Es mesmo de Portugal? o teu inglês é de loucos, sobretudo o sotaque!
Eu sou português sim ahah, mas o narrador é britânico mesmo ahah
@@KnowHistory ah, entendo...
Well done on this video.
Great content. But I wonder what Paradox thinks about you using their assets and art? 🤔 great content though!
Fds o teu sotaque é incrível!
E já agora, great content!
Interestingly, Sussex was the last region to be Christianised even though it was next to Kent. Maybe the Sussaxons and Kentish people didn’t like each other much for a while.
Sussex and Kent have county cricket teams to this day. Sussex is the oldest county club in the world and also the oldest professional sports team.
Sussex was based on the area the Regni tribe inhabited, so it’s an older region.
The weald had a lot to do with that. Sussex was a very remote place then in many ways
The weald was around 90 miles long and 30 miles deep in those days
Mount and blade footage at use? Or am I wrong
Crusader Kings 3
What graphical mod is this?
6:15 is this why there is a Princess Monaco of Kent?
Fuck sake. 😂 Gary Delaney won't ever live it down. 😂
@@louisbaker4362 good
Cool video. My comment is unrelated to the content of the documentary but rather the title of the video. Hewt is the Kurdish word we use for the number seven. Hewt = Hept. I thought that was interesting. First time I'm hearing of a Heptarchy.
Kurdish and Latin (where Hept comes from) are related languages! It's very interesting to see such similar words in such distant languages! It's an amazing way of seeing a common ancient heritage between vastly different modern groups!
@@KnowHistory yes, indeed... The numbers in Iranic languages are most similar to those in Slavic, but they also have cognates in Germanic and Latin etc. Some similar numbers to English are Chor = four, hesht = eight etc, also the word for horse which is ostor is exactly the same as the equivalent word used in Icelandic.
It's funny, the Saxon kingdoms were Sussex -land of the south Saxons; Wessex -land of the west Saxons; Essex -land of the east Saxons; and of course, later we had right in the centre of these Middlesex. But I always imagine the Saxons to the north settling into their new home and holding a big meeting to name their new home, someone steps forward and says: Our new land will be called Nossex, whack! A sudden battle-axe to the head and the whole Moot votes to keep the old Romano-Celtic name for the land: Mercia.
This much easier than reading David Hume's the whole history of England though Heptarchy only part of it.
Next episode when???
Great video, except it might be confusing for some people watching this to say "Germanic peoples settled across England and lowland Scotland" and later "Most of England has been settled by the Anglo-Saxons". It doesn't make sense. Neither of of those countries existed then; and England was named after the Angles - they didn't come to England, they created it.
You forgot about Middlesex, or do you count that area as part of the Essex Kingdom.
Heptarchy -- Literally the 7 kingdoms. Where else I heard that.
Vikings when? Fully addicted now lol
Good one.
if folk want to create their own calendars (this bce ce thing) please find your own point of reference, rather than appropriating the christian calendar
What the duck? Did you seriously said “CE” instead of AD? Thats honestly embarassing…
The greatest ancestors of them all
Have you done a welsh one?
Strange how he accepts that Wuffa and Cerdic probably existed, but Vortigern definitely didn't. If he didn't, where did Bede dream him up from? And wasn't someone like him mentioned by Gildas in his cryptic way? His name could mean Great King, in which case, he would have had another name. He could have been Eliasus whom St. Germanus encountered. Or someone called Vitalinus, who married the daughter of Magnus Maximus, who definitely did exist, and they had at least 5 children.
interesting overview
Thank you
Where is the next video?
not released yet, life has been extremely busy, but i plan to release it till the end of the year if everything goes smoothly
@@KnowHistory end of the year xD 😅
I always thought that the films did Mknas Tirith a disservice. Its supposed to be a green and fertile land, but it looks scrubby and abandoned past in the surrounding countryside. Also, the first encircling wall wasn't black
What about the movement was from England to Denmark and not the other way around. It gives more sense, at least for me.
Where, precisely is the Umber? Is that the right name? This video made it seem that it was the Northern border of Mercia. I thought it North of that.
Am I wrong?
Do you mean the river "Humber" ? If so It's the large estuary that separates Mercia and Northumbria and even today is the border of both Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and hence northern England and The east Midlands. It's the estuary in the north eastern part of the map
The spread of Christianity is interesting on this island nation. Another large island nation is Madagascar. There was a queen around 1850 or so who was given the name of Bloody. She killed the missionaries from England because she was concerned they would try to take over the country. She was right. Of course it is important to note my wife is a descendent of the monarchy in Madagagascar.
Uhtred, sword of Uhtred
Excellent historical video.
Thank you.
I'm just waiting to find out the who, when, and how my I-Z2541 got to the Island. ;)
hi,i think bret walda is suoper cool,thanks for this vid
@3:03 which American state?
New Hampshire
Mom can we buy Westeros®?
We already got one
Westeros at home:
Favorite period of English history 😢what were+the scots 😢doing back then?😊all the best cities 🌆 r in the south😊I always thought Northumbria is territorial larger than Mercia .😊
If Cedric, first king of Wessex, was leader of the tribe 'Gewissae', then, was he actually a British King of south east Wales?
What american stste is shire?
New Hampshire, I imagine.
when the Romans left in the 4th century, the border between Scotland and todays England was close to Hardrians Wall why you keep showing Northumbria as close to Edinburgh? also Northumbria was also controlled by the Scots in the 13th century right?
This is because the Northumbrians - who were Angles - either subjugated or politically dominated the land up the the Firth of Forth. Their claims on this territory were lost when Northumbria was overrun by the Danes.
In a similar fashion the Scots dominated what is now known as Northumberland through political means - The Scottish King held the title Duke of Northumberland (although it was still considered as an English title, and in this particular case the Scottish King would have the English monarch as overlord) which had been granted through marriage, however due to the political vacuum in Northern England caused by the Anarchy, the ability of the English monarch to exercise their rights as overlord of the Duke of Northumberland faded and as Stephen and Matilda were knocking several bells out of each other and ruining England in the process, the political will and military might to enforce that was not present. So Northumberland slipped into the Scottish orbit by default.
Once the line of succession was settled and the English King felt strong enough, he asked for it back and in 1237 The Treaty of York was an agreed between the kings Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland and the Anglo-Scottish border moved to where it is know (broadly speaking).
In the images of the various rulers you have many of them in crowns which is historically inaccurate as crowns were not worn by Anglo-Saxon rulers (including Alfred the Great) until Athelstan, Alfred's grandson. he was the first to wear one. Think more them wearing the equivalent of the famous Sutton Hoo helmet, which very probably belonged to Raedwald.
England could’ve been named Sexland. SMH missed opportunities.
Just a thought Kent was taken by the north Jutland people, like know Limfjorden major sea route (smaller boats) why England conquered?
Tall, Thick set ,wide shouldered Jutts, who are now known as Kents who love farming and animal breeding seems a plausible case to me. I'll put money on it.
Kent was first kingdom in world was held in high court Mt Olympus to be just that with an order of first five commandments by the emperor of Rome along with its statesman. Held in high court by the highest of Roman empire and God .
Jutz didn't come til counterfeit 2nd kingdom arose by not having authentic statesman or churches which was London England kents neighbor. When that happen the pix was invading so the king of England thought he could call for some help and sent an order to a legit statesman of Kent which made it to high court as statesman put order thru to Roman empire and was held in there high court Mt Olympus and when vortigan did so he exposed all his counterfeit doings with his requesting an order of mercenary s to help defend and exposing how he went about being a copy cat mocking God order of Kent and did not have blessing so doing so he exposed himself to be counterfeit to God in God's name In high court that day .
Also Hengist and Horsa was summoned and God told his sons will give Vortigan what he requested and also I want him also served and order to vacate that stated this my Son's of Wihtgisl,
Sons of Witta ,
Sons of Wecta,
Sons of Wodan arose of and are the only Royal tender and of south Abrams.
God told his boys to serve that order and make London one with Kent as it's an order to get mercenary s aka jutz and along the way home to rally the ANGLO SAXONS COBURG GOTHA letting any willing man that wants to fight ride along with the order . Vortigan thought it was a big laugh til he was invited to a Feist and all but one other than vortigan survived. vortigan left London high and dry never to return to England murdered by his own corrupt Welsh son counterfeit King Author of Welsh .
3/02 What American state is called SHIRE?
New Hampshire