XD lol well hello relative Matt My family descends from alain le roux lineage so second cousin of William. I believe the youngest brother of alain le roux if I'm not mistaken.
The Bretons are a Celtic people and Conan is a Celtic name, at the time it would have been spelt Cynyn. A lot of Bretons served in Williams army, they're supposed to have been the source of the Anglo-Normans reviving interest in the King Arthur folklore and creating histories and romances about it all.
Interesting about the Arthurian legend aspect. Native French would have been largely of Celtic origin too - the Gauls were Celts. Obviously, they would have been mixed with the Germanic Franks, and speaking a Latinate language, so a bit of a mix.
Alain le roux was also descended from the Breton dukes as well as Rollo Duke of Normandy and was a second cousin to William the conquerer. So it's also family stuff for the Norman's in many cases most likely. The folklore of their Breton side. Lol sorry family history for me.
@@willmosse3684 authorial legend also has a bunch of parallels to other similarly kinds of Celt myths. The Irish have a version. Obviously the Welsh origins of some of the arthorian legends. Don't know as much about French history unfortunately but I wonder if they have a similar mythos.
I can't say I'm surprised. Even a large army settling down in a foreign area is going to be only a small portion of the population. Within a surprisingly small number of generations, they'll be only marginally different from the native population
Well I mean...the franks were just another germanic group themselves, same with the english. They wouldn't be very genetically different from the rest of france, especially the northern french.
It depends though. Ancient DNA studies, with DNA samples taken from ancient remains and compared to modern populations, shows that there are some invasions where the resulting changes are largely cultural, with relatively small population change, and others where there are almost complete population replacement events. One cannot assume one or the other in any particular situation.
@@willmosse3684 agree. And a lot of that will be down to the relative sizes of the populations. And when it's an area handed over, the "invaders" can be quite a small group. Can be. Also, how much the population mingles would make a huge difference
It'd be interesting to see how different the percentage of 'Viking' ancestry is for Harold Godwinson. Probably a lot harder though, due to cultural similarities between the Anglo-Saxon and Norse parts.
Harold's mother was Gytha Thorkelsdóttir from Denmark, so Harold was at most 50% English, probably less (but we don't have much data for his English lineage).
I agree. As a Swede I'd like to know more about for example the (mostly) Swedish vikings interactions with slavic Europe. But there are sadly much less surviving sources about it.
I think Norman ancestry is also very common in western and northern France. My ancestry goes back to William too via an aristocratic branch from Britanny.
Lmfao which branch? Cause my French side is Breton and Norman nobles. Specifically originating with Rollo down to the second cousins of William. Alain le roux Alan the black and Stephen The sons of odo of rennes. So we're probably also related on both sides of that lineage xD My Irish side goes way back to and has some connection. First Christian King of munster and the ancestral kings of munster and a few other parts of Ireland. If I'm not mistaken later generations were holding out against the Norman invasion of Ireland.
Yes it is an assumption that some of the female ancestors are 100% Scandinavian but it is also an assumption that those coming from the coast of the English channel are 100% French. Rollo wasn't the only guy who went a viking. The percentage errors probably balance each other out though.
no they forginer aka welsh...english are anglo-saxons hench the engle part toghter with saxons...why they diss juts idk...welsh just inhabbited the place before them known at the time as romano-britians @@robertpatter5509
There's the old quip that viking is a verb not a noun. Norsemen and whoever decided to tag along would go viking, you didn't need to be a "Viking" (noun) by blood to be viking (verb).
@@jamielondon6436 The noun of viking, in modern Swedish, is "vik", and means "bay". What the word "viking", a verb, implies is to travel by sea and explore bays. That the exploration wasn't always friendly in spirit isn't implied by the term, but history does have some records to that effect...
When I visited my cousins in Guernsey there were clearly norse names like Renouf (from ragnulf) still present on the channel islands. They said most of the islands were populated by Danes and sure enough mine and my male line cousins’ Y chromosomes were from Denmark. Love these vids you do on the Normans. Much love and respect from New England to you my distant cousin across the pond lol
Yes there are a few place names in the islands with Norse names, like Grosnez. Not so sure about family names though since even many of the oldest families can be traced back to Northern/North West France in the middle ages, although quite a few of the names will still be of Norse or Germanic origin.
In Dublin by 1170 when the (Norman) English invaded, the Dublin natives are known as 'Hiberno-Norse' which suggests they are seen by historians as a separate group from the 'Gaelic' groups outside Dublin. I don't know if they spoke Irish or some other language.
In 1066 Harald Hardrada led the last norse invasion of England. They lost at Stamford Bride 25th of september and the battle of Hastings was the 14th of october. So yeah the norse was still very much vikings. By this times most danes and norwegians were christians but there´s alot of historical event showing that the pillaging and looting continued still. So being a viking was a thing even after the christian conversion.
William I was my 27th great-grandfather. I haven’t looked much beyond that because I’ve been researching my Scottish and Irish ancestry. So this is useful, thank you! And hello cousin! 🙂
I took an ancestry DNA test and I am 5% Norwegian and 2% Sweden and Denmark. This is very interesting because my extended family came from England, Scotland, Wales, and Germany with 1 or 2 French Canadian ancestors. To have 7% Scandinavian means my great grandparents would have known a basically half or part Scandinavian. My mothers grandma insisted she was Welsh and English and said she knew of a French Canadian grandfather. My grandfather on my dads side said German and Scottish. Basically none of my ancestors back to 1800s were Scandinavian but I would guess many of them had some mix of Scandinavian without knowing it.
@@dambigfoot6844 Sort of, but it’s more complicated than that. Firstly you get 50% of your DNA from each parent, so straight away 50% of each parent’s DNA is missing, this is random, so your DNA test could give a different result from a full sibling as far as ancestry is concerned. That’s why they suggest asking parents and grandparents to test too if they are still around. It’ll give a more accurate picture. Secondly, results are based on the data available in the DNA database used, in your case Ancestry. They can only measure against the other people who have done a test, so the results are based on probability. Such data bases can give a good indication of your ancestry, but are actually more useful for finding other relatives, assuming they too have taken a test. Your 7% isn’t definitely 7% - they make that clear in the results - they give a range. Thought if you have Scottish and English ancestry then yes, it’s highly likely there’s some Scandinavian in there somewhere given the history of those countries.
@@ffotograffydd Yes it changed after a couple months from like 2% Swedish to 5% Norway and 2% Sweden and Denmark. Its broadly accurate and who knows how they determine England which has genetic DNA from various people Romans, Germanics, Britons, Celts, Normans.
@@dambigfoot6844 It will change as the database grows. People get confused and ask how their DNA can change, but it isn’t, it’s just the pool of data that’s growing. As far as being useful for knowing where our ancestors came from, it’s just a rough guide. For example, I know for a fact that one of my great-great-grandmothers was from County Clare in Ireland. The family talked about it and passed down the information for the past 160 years, I also have documents from the time, and she had an Irish surname that was typical for the area she was born, and yet Ireland doesn’t come up on my DNA profile. Possibly because the Irish bit wasn’t in the 50% of DNA I got from my Dad. That’s why DNA tests are most useful as a tool to find relatives who might be able to help with family tree research. I found a link to the early 19th century landed gentry via two DNA matches to distant cousins, that led to a link with the aristocracy, which in turn led to a link with King Edward I of England via his daughter Elizabeth, who was my 20th great-grandmother. It also led to links with both Scottish and Irish royalty. Without that initial DNA link to people who were deemed important enough to be written about I would never have known about those ancestors, because I’m from a long line of daughters and younger sons, so any wealth and titles disappeared a long time ago. That’s the true value of DNA tests, finding out our ethnicity not so much. I’ve heard people say they’re 100% English, for example, but that’s impossible to know given how DNA works. It does make me wonder why that’s so important to them. I think I’d be incredibly disappointed if my ancestry was so boring, it would mean nobody in my family line had any sense of adventure.
@@ffotograffyddI don't think the technology is there yet to tell people extremely deep information especially for under $100. The tests are mostly for Americans who are curious of the makeup of their European ancestors. I don't doubt that I am a North sea mixture of people but I would like to see deeper information of how much my English ancestry goes back to the Normans, Angles, Saxons, Celts, or Britons.
The genetic study was only of 98 men. A very sample to draw conclusions from 😅 Plus it doesn't really account for the "native" French population moving back into the area in the 1000+ years since the area was founded. So unless it was done a lot better, with a much bigger sample it can't be used for anything but a preliminary study.
Yes, it is making assumptions of zero population movement in the ensuing thousand years. It can maybe give some idea, but not very solid. We would need ancient DNA samples from the period in question really.
You also have an issue of some lines that would for sure have very strong genetic traces probably also won't have last names that would be give aways. Le Roux for example can be a strong indicator if their family goes far enough back with that name or any direct connection is proven to aristocracy. Few other examples. Plus those families moving out of France.
They went native quickly and in the tapestry, the Normans are never referred to by name only as the 'French'. It's sometimes framed as a final Viking Invasion of England, which is absolutely insane when they wiped out the Anglo-Danish aristocracy and removed England from the Scandinavian sphere of influence for good. Harold's brother, now he was a Viking...
also because it were invaded first by harald hardrade from norway that had a claim too which harald goodwinson won then lost against william straight after...anglo saxon was german and they could even understand us just like today thats why english is easier for us german speaking than french speakers cause they got more latin...english fake they speak latin as same reason the royal house went windsor during wws insted of their orignal saxa-gothia or something as they germans from beging.... same as america went anti germans and russians...
Matt's "very simple answer"? Depends on the context. Questions like this get very complicated. How do we define a "people"? Culture? Genetics? Ancestry?
Of course, from what I have heard. English people have mainly northern Spanish DNA. I believe we are all from Africa originally. But we are one big family or species.
Meanwhile, me, a Sicilian living in Denmark and making jokes with my Danish friends about how I have remote Norse ancestry through the Normans and that's why I moved to Denmark, neglecting everything and still wanting to believe those jokes.
I tend more and more towards the idea of "walks like a duck, talks like a duck"; cultural similarities and differences (real or perceived) count for more than genetics ever have and they less than political interests, so basically William the Conqueror was only as Norse as he behaved and felt it was politically useful to be, and that's it. Essentially an extremely liquid state, driven by pragmatism. I think it's fair to say that thinking about race and genetics in-period is pretty anachronistic and descent was really thought of more like inherited responsibilty for historic achievements, grudges and alliances, which might have repercussions person-to-person, dynasty-to-dynasty, or territory-to-territory. Edit: btw, more a ramble related to the premise, rather than a criticism of the content.
I wouldn't say it is entirely anachronistic, though the manner we do and talk about it today is not the same people had in different times and areas. As food for thought, see how many of the Egyptians and Romans rulers loved to claim they traced back to some deity, and how the elites tended to be quite incestuous when it ce.to making children to preserve the lineage pure (i.e. yes, modern day "identitarian" racists trace the origin of their bs mentality to people like ancient Egyptians, the bloody irony. I mention these two because they are re very levant to England and Christendom's attitudes and broader culture, albeit very diluted and already morphed. Generally speaking, that is the main difference between antiquity through to the enlightenment to modern care for what we call genetic lineage: the social elites were overly concerned, where the average joe gave more of a shit if you got along and knew how to coexist and had whatever in common culturally and socially. This shift after or during the enlightenment is no coincidence, but that ties into a much broader tangent about the development of modern democracies turning everyone into a political actor... But i digress already too much.
@@louisvictor3473 Yes, I certainly wouldn't want to suggest lineage wasn't important and have presumed a medieval European context, so mileage may vary, in other periods. I think where I draw a distinction is between personal ancestry, which has always been important, from geographic ancestry, which seems much more modern; the interest in having ancestry/DNA from different places is quite a modern thing and is separable from the sort of dynastic ancestry which interested people historically, largely because it governed inheritance of lands, titles and maybe reputations too. I'd reach for an example like the Plantegent Kings of England, in that their interest in lands and titles they inherit dynastically from French ancestry could be separate from how "French" they'd like to behave, or consider themselves to be. I hadn't thought too much about ideas of blood-purity, tbh. I've heard about it in ancient Rome and Egypt before, but it's never seemed relevant to the Anglo-Saxon period - after all, Edward the Confessor was Anglo-Norman, Harold Godwinson was Anglo-Danish and the early Wessex dynasty appears to have intermarried with the British, given names like that of the bretwalda king, Ceawlin.
@@waelisc The blood purity is more to do with their own family lineage and also remaining "noble blooded", the ol' "blue blood" schtick (think Harry Potter pure-blood, muggle born and half-blood "logic", on that level). Of course that is the "nice" facade of it and just a part. It is also about concentrating social power and geopolitical influence. When people of XYZ noble lineage of WhoCaresLand only marry among themselves, nobility and all social priviledges that come with it remains in the family. Marry/make heirs outside of nobility, and you're fundamentally destroying social power save some very rare situation. Marry/Make heirs into a lower noble class, and you elevate them and dimish your own, or vice versa if you marry up (if you ever heard the term "hypergamy", here it is kinda real, but for families). Marry/Make heirs into a noble family on the same tier, and you're basically fusing both; could elevate both by consolidatnig power into one family-entity-enterprise (think Saudi Arabia), could be irrelevant, but it does the "issue" of having also to share your niche with them. So that is were the Anglod-Danish, Anglo-Norman, etc. come in. Those are power consolidations. And that is also where gender roles and even "child order" roles among nobility comes into play too, it adds a bit of flexibility and leeway (it is entirely different if the official #1 boy child does the marriage, a daugther or another male child that is not the #1).
-"Bow to me, peasants, for I am your king!" -"Wha'!?" -"I said _bow_ to me, peasants, for _I_ am your king!" -"Wha'!?" -"I am William, Duke of Normandy, and shall henceforth be known as William the Conqueror!" -"Wha', you're Willy the Water'ed-Down Viking, and now you just show up to tell us we 'ave to pay turnip taxes to you?" -"Uh, that's not exactly what I wa..." -"Ya' that's not really a sustainable form of guv'ment, is it?" -"Well I..." -"You might as well 'ave claimed sovereignty because some watery tart threw a scimitar at you, lot's o' that going around these days..."
Simple answer: "partly." Mixed ethnicity. So the operative question, as with any mixed race or ethnicity, did *they* think if themselves as a member of the group. (In the case of the Normans, I think you can easily argue "usually not.")
Some ancient people only considered their father's ethnic lineage as their lineage, their were Chinese emperors for example that had Turkic/Khitan mothers with Turkic/Khitan wives who considered themselves and their families as pure Han Chinese and only identified as such. Not sure how Normans/French aristocrats would have viewed their ethnic lineage
My childhood friends Dad is from Mauritius and his mother from Wales. He’s as black as a human gets. There’s four kids. The older three are shades of coffee with milk. Little Steven the youngest, looks straight white like his mum. My point is our ethnicity is not always visible. And you can look like either of your parents and sometimes neither.
@@Oooo-bi7bi Know totally. Mixed myself. (Filipino-Ukrainian. And yeah, students at one school I taught were *convinced* I was brothers with another instructor, who was Lebanese-Norwegian. So, mixed yes, but not even close in the components. 😏)
In a discussion about ethnicity, I would like to quibble about the "Frenchness" of Brittany, and Normandy for that matter. Roughly about a century before Willalme li Conquereor, Normandy would have been ethnically Briton and would have spoken brezhoneg. The Duchy of Brittany was not francisé until much later. Kind of like saying that the Welsh are English.
That's the problem with ethnicity. It depends on where in history you decide to conveniently draw the line. 100 years? 500? 1000? 10000? It takes quite a while for a population of people to become ethnically(genetically) unique(which in an of itself is subjective). Aside from unusual circumstances(genoicdial conquests, replacements due to disease or changing climate etc), a few centuries isn't going to be enough in my opinion.
@@sylvainjacquin2347 Hi, the maximum extant of the Kingdom of Brittany included parts of Normandy, Maine & Anjou in the 9th century, just before the Norse 'migration'. The people probably did not speak any of the Brythonic Breton languages outside of what we call Brittany today but, for a short time, the court certainly (probably) did.
@@MrBottlecapBill Hi, that is normally true but there are some exceptions - the creation of Brittany was a wholesale migration of brythonic celts fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invaders. They displaced or commingled with the gallic peoples and firmly established the dominance of Breton in a very short time. A hint would be the brythonic place names littered all over the armorican peninsula.
@@MrBottlecapBill I think you are onto something just in the wrong direction. Would not the problem be that everyone in Europe shares massive amounts of common ancestors so unless they have managed to keep clear and marry within the group no one is going to have that clear a dna sample.
15:51 Gunnr/Gunr (with different spelling through history and within regions), was one of the Valkyrie (a female psychopomp) in Northern mythology. It's still a common name, at least in Sweden, but now usually spelled Gunn or Gun. The name means battle or blow (as in other names, e.g. Gunnhild, means battle maid, Gunnar likely means the commander in a battle, or possibly just someone who killed someone with a mighty blow). We know the names several Valkyries (from different sources), and they all had names reflecting their role on the battlefield, as they often also intervened in battles (and not only collected worthy warrior souls), and changed the battle outcome according to the will of Odin; e.g. the valkyrie Mist did it as a thick fog over the battlefield. 17:17 "Sprotta", is a Geatish dialect word for sprout ("grodd" in Literary/Radio/TV Swedish). I have no idea of the origin of the word (Geatish incorporated a lot of loan words from English, Dutch, Italian and French immigrants during the 17th to early 20th century, considerably more so than other Swedish dialects, and also had close historic cultural ties to Norway). 20:45 I don't understand your math: (25%)/2 + (100%)/2 = 62,5%, not 12,5%. Think of it as a solution of liquids, e.g. you don't get a weaker vinegar, by mixing it half and half, with 100% acetic acid. 21:52 No, you have not done your math right.
"Sprotta" is almost certainly a cognate of "sprout", and probably the name of a bastard child of a norse mother. Or just the result of a norse father with really poor naming sense who was enthused by her peeing when he first held her, in which case it would be cognate with "spout" instead. The modern equivalent of Gunnor is either Gunn/Gun or Gunvor, neither of whom isn't exactly uncommon. His inheritance math is fine, his assumptions are a bit weird, and his idea that genetics have fuck-all to do with being a norseman a bit daft. We've never really worked that way. If you look very, very Chinese, but you open your mouth and I hear modern-day west-geatish coming out, you're Swedish, not Chinese, to me. If it's scanian coming out, then you're scanian, but that's your problem. Norsemen who went viking were among the most well-travelled people of their time. The odds of them not befriending and marrying people of different genetic heritage is zero, and the children of such a union would have been considered norse, as long as they were brought up in the norse tradition. What would have been more interesting than looking at genetics would have been to look at how the children were raised - were they raised by their fathers, their mothers, or guardians? What guardians were chosen? The son of Rollo, William Longsword, WAS a norseman who went viking, born and raised as such before his father became a French Count. William Longsword's son, Richard I, was born to a war-won concubine. In all likelihood, in spite of him meeting his father only a few times (once?) and with a Breton mother, he was raised within the norse tradition, maybe with some influence from his mother. Richard I's son, Richard II, is where things start to break down. He was a deeply religious Christian and had a strong personal connection with the French king. It is fair to say that his children by a French noblewoman were not raised into the norse tradition Richard II's son, Robert I, was in my opinion basically a Christian French ruler born into a family tradition of conquest. Robert I's son, William I, on the other hand, is a tricky case. His upbringing was nothing but pure chaos, as he inherited his father as an illegitimate heir at age seven. He was treated as a prize to be won or an obstacle to overcome and changed guardians many times, at times hiding among peasants. In the end, he received the backing of the French king to assume his place as Duke, but it's quite likely he was closer to modern French (mixture of various regional cultures) than any of his ancestors and most of his contemporaries - but with a rather big chip on his shoulder, and something to prove.
A family tree of the Flagg family ( my ancestors ) done by a historian of the Librarian of Congress is the early 20th Century says that the first Flagg in England came over during the Norman Conquest in 1066. His name was Flegg, which later became Flagg. One of his ancestors, Thomas Flagg, landed in Boston Harbor at the age of 16 in 1639 and was the first Flagg in America, according to the historian’s research. He had some 11 children, some of whom were killed in Indian attacks. My name is also Thomas Flagg, which has made me think these were my ancestors, and because they were from Normandy and therefore possibly of Viking descent. There may or may not be any connection, but it has pleased me think that there is. I have told people for years that my people were standing on Plymouth Rock waving when the Pilgrims arrived. This could well be a pleasant fantasy, but I intend to stick with it.
Normans also conquered Sicilly and large parts of southern Italy ( kingdom of Naples), so when in Hohenstaufen era, this german dynasty got kingdom of Naples by marriage, also local nobles had germannic ancestry.
As always a great vid and very entertaining i just love the fact that even tho the saxons defeated harald hadrada and *ended* the viking era he still ultimately found his end at the hands (bow?) Of the ancestors (all be it very diluted) of the norse
I don't know if it's the backdrop, or the clean shaven head, but Matt looks like a vampire in this video. Lol. Explains why he knows so much about Norman history... He was there!
Long time fan of the channel from America, huge history and genealogy buff who shares a similar William related ancestry. Traced my family line back to the migration that was part of the invasion of England by William. Matched my Y chromosome to distant English cousins who've had one of our namesakes remains from the 1500's dna tested (who also has the same Y variant) from the branch of the I-haplogroup which hits peak modern numbers in the regions between Denmark/Gotland/Sweden, which seems to support the genealogical narrative. Fascinating stuff
I remember there was a news article back in 2016 that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were both descended from Edward III. And I thought to myself, well duh. Tens of millions of people of English ancestry are descended from him or in some way genetically connected to him. The odd bird would be a person of English ancestry that is not related to several monarchs including William I. As for William and the Normans of 1066, they were probably as culturally similar to the Viking age as our culture is similar to that of the 18th-19th century. Lots of stuff familiar and lots of stuff alien.
@@a.g.r.v.3144 because it’s similar in my mind. An American did my mums families tree. The only famous person in our family was a Cumbrian wrestler. We have a photo of a Victorian relative as he was servant in a house where the master was a keen photographer. I find it difficult to believe that so many people. Even in the comments under this video are related to Royals. It sounds like something that is exaggerated for the paying customer so they feel they got their money’s worth. So I’m thinking why are there so many royals but not that many peasants. Soothsaying.
@@Oooo-bi7bi Aren't we **all** at least 50th cousins with everybody else though? Also, being related to royals and peasants is not a mutually exclusive thing, obviously, most people have a LOT more peasants relatives than royals relatives, but naturally they are not going to care about the former lol
@@a.g.r.v.3144 it just sounds like bs . You know like all these people that were Cleopatra in a former life. The majority of people didn’t go to school so couldn’t read until 1870. It just sounds like blarney . I’m trying to think of polite way of saying it. But I’m sceptical and find it interesting that people don’t see the same. Some Americans have a lot of money. The tourist industry of these islands they descended from doesn’t. Or is run by greedy people. Even if your not the eldest son you would have a title or a share of inheritance. It’s so easy to manipulate information from the illiterate unrecorded times.
I wonder how accurate studies of family history can actually be? False paternity rates are surprisingly high today and I presume they were higher than we might expect back then too.
Can you do a video thats discusses the different types of weapons. armor used by Charlemagne vs the saxons? Despite how famous Charlemagne is, you;'d be surprised there very few good quality you tube videos on him!
Off topic thought - it seems quite interesting to me that we have some fairly common forenames like Norman, Frank, and Brett (from Bretton) but not as far as I know Gaul, Celt or Angle.
'Gunnor' seems very close to the Norse feminine name 'Gunnvor', which is still in use, btw. According to Snorri Sturluson, "Rollo" was Norwegian, his real name was Hrolfr, and he was called "Gongu-Hrolfr". I think we can all appreciate how the pronunciation of 'Hrolfr' might've been unintentionally simplified by non-Norse tongues, and turn into 'Rol', which then might take the suffix '-o'. The epithet 'gongu' means "walker", and was supposedly given because he was so large that horses wouldn't carry him. Rolf's (even modern keyboards simplify that name) grandfather was banished by the king (Harald Fairhair), for the trifling offense of a bit of domestic plundering. Rolf's brother was killed, but that was in service to the king, not by the king. The weakness of Snorri as a source is that he based his history on centuries old oral records, and had some political bias. Oral records are, of course, subject to gradual alterations. The mitigating factors is that the oral records were fortified by skaldic poetry (poetry being easier to remember and harder to alter), that retelling was frequently to an audience that already knew the story, and would correct mistakes, and that Snorri's political bias is well known, and can be corrected for. The strength is that oral stories are "democratic", and very resistant to propaganda and _deliberate_ alterations. Initially, the stories were told to audiences that not only knew the story, but may very well have been present at the events; there's a limit to how much bullshit you can get away with, then. The final version of a story, the _saga,_ would be the result of organic splicing of multiple sources, discarding elements that near-contemporaries simply found non-credible, and keeping elements that were shared by a majority of versions. Basically, a saga is more prone to additive errors, but less prone to deliberate lying and individual ignorance.
Quite a number of my direct ancestors originate from Normandy and Brittany, including William I, Rollo and Conan I (and loads of others from all over Europe). As you mention, it's probably the same for a lot of folk, over that many generations. Some of the ancestors also have suffix's like ' the Dane' and actually are recorded as being from Denmark, although my DNA mainly shows up as English [which is a bit of a mix anyway], Scottish and a bit of Eastern European.
Before watching the whole video, here are my thoughts. The Normans had viking ancestry but where not vikings. While they started as vikings with Rollo, he and his men soon married into the nearby people, the French and Bretons. They got baptized, adopted much of the culture, language (French) and combat style of the French (mounted horse combat). Within a generation or two, they shared more similarities with the French then the Vikings. Outside of a few old warriors, they assimilated I to those around them. Except for a few lingering things from there past and one major culture difference. How to deal with inheritance. You see the French would split the inheritance between all or multiple sons, dividing up the power. In contrast the Normans gave the inheritance to only one son, meaning the others sons to find there own place, wealth and land somewhere else. This one reason why so many Normans went to Italy/Sicily as mercenaries, seeking fame, fortune and land. Sorry kind of a tangent there but important never the less. But quickly the Normans became far more French then viking. Language, fighting style, religion, and culture. Only truly holding on to one key aspect of the vikings, the love of war and raiding. Also I am generalize the term French sorry. Other people who maybe not quite French. But we're still more French then viking. But this is just my thoughts. If you found something wrong please correct me, or if you disagree you are welcome to say something. Now I am going to finish this video.
I could be wrong, but it seems like 11th century Norman elites were more prone to go on overseas adventures (England, Italy/Sicily, Dyrrachium, and they also made an important contribution to the first crusade) than elites from other Frankish duchies. I wonder if this tendency could be a last remnant of Norse culture, even while the the Norman elites looked, sounded, and acted French.
William the Conqueror was also the one who instituted the officials called Underforesters to police the wilderness of the royal forests, they were also the inspiration for the concept of the Ranger in fantasy
I think it would be an interesting thing to break Normandy down by the regional settlements. It's stated that Scandinavian settlement was heavy in the Cotentin Peninsula, the Pays de Caux, and central coastal region around Bayeux. Compared to the other less heavily settled interior regions of Normandy. I noticed you said that the particular study sourced was rather inconclusive and from 2016-17 so it's at least 5-6 years old by now. Has there been any more recent updates or data analysis? Particularly if a larger sample size has been given with men, if Norman women's DNA has been tested, or which regions they in particular have focused on.
Yes, this would be interesting! The Saire valley in Cotentin is crowded with Scandinavian place names, part of which indicate a "viking" owned a house there. There's a study of those names in French by a researcher from the university of Caen.
Something I'd be curious to find out more about: How *Frankish* were the northern French? We know that this is where France gets its name, and that Frankish nobility often lived in similar regions, near or in the Netherlands and the Dutch border with northern Germany. So an interesting question might be: The Danish part of the DNA aside, was the rest predominantly Frankish, or Gallo-Roman (Celtic)? Because if predominantly Frankish, their French branches marrying into non-Germanic families aside, there probably isn't much difference in the DNA between Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Danes. Also, most of the early Carolingian kings married either Swabian (German) women, or Burgundian women, the latter being descendants of the Burgundian Germanic tribe whose kingdom was later conquered by the Franks. The Burgundians themselves might have been heavily mixed with Gallo-Roman, but even if so, we don't have one Germanic DNA branch for Normans, but three or four: Dane, Frank, Burgundian, and Swabian/Alemannic. At the end of the day, all of these people had similar genetic markers a few centuries back, and they all at one time worshipped Odin and Thor like the rest.
I'm curious about that too, because what does being "French" mean here in this context "oh she wasn't Scandinavian, but French" like are we talking about Gallo-Roman heritage or Germanic heritage from the Low Countries? Both? In the south the former might be more obvious, but in northern France it gets a lot more tricky.
Bretons weren't exactly French. They, or at least the ruling classes were descended from colonists were refugees from Britain. They spoke a Brithonic Celtic language quite similar to Welsh and Cornish.. in fact, a minority still speak it. And parts of the duchy of Normandy were conquered from the Bretons.
Genetically, the population of Brittany are very distinct from the Welsh though. I suspect that yet again, we are talking about a small number of people making a big cultural impact. Like the Normans in England, or the British in India.
@@scholagladiatoria Although bretons are heavely mixed with french, from what I've read, the haplogroup R1b-L1 which is mostly associated with brittonic people, and very common in present day cornwall, wales, ireland and scotland, is much more present in Britanny (and to a lesser extent the rest of north-western France like normandy) than in the rest of Europe. To be fair it could be because of continuous relationship between those regions throughout history, but I think that the fact that it is most commonly found in the western part of the peninsula, where breton is still spoken, is not a coincidence.
One major thing with your analysis is that you heavily homogenize the definition of "French" as opposed to "Viking/Norse/Scandinavian". You almost touch on it when you use note the Gauls but then confuse it further by using Frankish and French as absolute synonyms, as well as folding the Bretons into being French. The Bretons were Brythonic Celts who migrated to Brittany at the end of the 4th century. Whether their rulers were still such given the number of political marriages is questionable, much as with William. Their culture and language were however quite distinct. The French themselves are at base a mixture of Celts, Romans, and Franks. The Franks were a West Germanic people, so distant cousins of the North Germanic Danes. Then there is everyone else who migrated through northern France or settled on the fringes, including minor Germanic tribes, major tribes who settled elsewhere like the Vandals, and even the Iranian Alans, who joined with the Vandals and Suebi in migrating through France before settling in Spain. At core, the "French" were just as much mutts as William was in regards to being a "viking", even among the nobility given all the political marriages and questionable heritage of concubines and the like.
Realize this was posted 2yrs ago but I am seeking advice related to this topic after being informed that my Big-Y DNA test results reveal I have a “rare “ and “close” common ancestry with Kilteasheen 22 found at Roscommon Ireland. I have tested with FTDNA, Relative Genetics, and 23andMe which all indicate my genetics are almost entirely Celtic. However, our surname is Payn(e) and, thanks to some very fortunate primary records, we have good genealogical reason to believe that while we can trace our family coming into East Anglia from Ireland by the early 14th century, property records beginning in 1274, then again from 15-17th-century , connect us to the Norman Payn family still surviving on the Isle of Jersey off the Normandy coast. That family is well-known to have been in the island by that surname since at least the 13th-century and earlier still if their relationship to the pre-Conquest Paynel family of Hambye and Les Moutiers Hubert is to be believed. Other records we’ve uncovered also appear to shed light on how the provenance of the Ellesmere Chaucer MS of The Canterbury Tales began with Henry Payne (d. 1568) of Nowton, Suffolk. Henry’s cousin had been John Payn (II) (d. 1402), who had been Chief Butler of England 1399-1402, and John had been a close friend and business associate of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. We also have records from the City of Southampton from the early 15th-century showing the Mayors John and Thomas Payne, associated with John and Richard Chaucer, the poets father and grandfather. When our family came out of Ireland, they first appear in North Kilworth Leicestershire between 1330-1370, associated with a Ralph Butler in records with John Payn the Chief Butlers father, Nicholas Payn (d. ca. 1373), Lord of Helhoughton Norfolk. The Butlers, of course, were hereditary Chief Butlers of Ireland, and the Payn’s of Norfolk are connected to that family through marriage between Thomas Payne of Itteringham with Elizabeth Boleyn. What does one do with so much history to take in? Documenting all of my research is painfully slow, particularly because I also wish to learn so much I cannot stop researching and adding more work for myself! Who else, if anyone, might be interested in verifying or perhaps helping to unravel the full story when even family doesn’t seem interested?
I am descendant from Alain le Roux (French) [Alain was my 27th great-grandfather] or Alan the Red (c. 1040 - 1093)), 1st Lord of Richmond, was a Norman nobleman from Redones, Normady, kinsman and companion of William the Conqueror. In the battle of Hastings, Alain le Roux led the left division of the Norman Army. Alain married in a Christian ceremony and stayed in England. Our family stayed in the other side of the channel, Normandy, and after 1,000 we are no longer Frankish, we are Texans.
I became your fan, Matt Easton. You are not arrogant. But it's easy to see you are a talented fencing athlete. And with an encyclopedic know how about ancient and not powder war weapons. Wow.
I think the more interesting comparison to the vikings is that normans, especially young nobles, tended to like going on extended military expeditions where they would raid or settle as the circumstances dictated, and sometimes even conquer a region and declare themselves kings.
I'm really confused by your way of calculating. Why didn't you start with Rollo and work downwards? It would give the same result you finally arrived at, so no real difference there, it just seems an easier way to do it. ;)
No one was called French at the time anyway. Not even the King of the Franks in Paris. However, they were all part of the French Medieval speaking World.
There is a theory that if a culture is established in an area all other cultures coming in will meld to what is there unless there is an overwhelming majority and a critical event. Based on that theory we have major areas of European culture in the new world although we have lost the history for the most part. I think it's likely that a fair amount of viking DNA might have been added during the initial invasion but it would have been a drop in a bucket over history. Other than some minor changes to local culture as a ruling class it's unlikely that much Norse would have remained.
Given ‘Viking’ is a job title, not a nationality or ethnicity, of course he wasn’t a Viking. But he did have a small amount of Scandinavian ancestry. Culturally he was Norman French.
Matt calls Bretons "French"? Maybe in terms of country, but not in ethnic way. Bretons, Basques and Corsicans are three ancient ethnic minorities of France (actually Corsicans dont live under French rule for long, the island became part of the France in the 18th century, but anyway they are still native to that land unlike Arabs and Berbers, for example, who arrived in France only in the 20 century) who still to this day keep their ethnic identity and languages. As I know most of them dont identify themselves as French in ethnic way. Unlike Normans or Burgundians - these ones indeed ethnically became French.
Curious to know what percentage of Scandinavian DNA is left in the British Isles from the Saxons, Jutes, etc. I've got about 10% in my own divided between Danish and Norwegian, but no recent ancestors from either location.
The 6% the previous commenter is referring to is actually Danish, not Saxon, Angle, or Jute. The Anglo-Saxon part seems to range from 20-50% depending on which area of England we're looking at. Those further east and along the coastlines facing Scandinavia are closer to 35-50%, with those further west being lower.
I normally wait till after the video to post anything, but this thought popped in and I need to get it out. Just hope Matt doesn't talk about it and I sound foolish. Am I the only one who had the thought that in a thousand years can you picture a version of the question where someone asks, "Was the United states English?" Instead of a ruling class that got absorbed by the subjects, the englishness was diluted by immigration by other groups. Comparing culture and language a historian in the future could make a good claim for America is English that could be argued easier than Norman is viking.
interesting video about the Normans/Scandinavians/French. The presence of Scandinavian DNA in Normandy is ONLY limited to Contentin and along the see to the Seine river, of course in High Normandy you can't find any trace.; I thing Erleve belonged to the (mix)Flemish population of today's French Flanders
Does Normandy have any other signs of Norse occupation, such as place names that have survived? That’s something that’s pretty common in the old ‘Danelaw’ regions of England, but I’ve never heard it talked about from other areas.
A lot of toponymic evidence, yes. For example, any town named X-fleur, X-hou, X-bec or X-vast has at least half its name originally in franco-norse language. Additionally, many place names use latin roots (often X-ville) but refer to individuals who were probably norse or had a norse name (e.g., Teurthéville probably refering to someone called Thorsten or something similar). Additionnally, there were many influences on the local dialect which was until the 20th century quite distinct from "classic french". Finally the Norse gave modern french a couple of hundred words, especially in the field of seafaring. Besides Normandy, there are dozens of places with toponymic evidence of Norse settlement, as one might expect mostly on the Atlantic coastline.
To add the comments concerning an army to settle in Normandy. I have ancestry that goes back to William I, he did have an army that was there. My relative(married into Williams family prior to William) and as well as a friend of mine, their relative were called back from Sicily to join William's campaign to sail to England. My friends relative as well as mine mirgrated to Scotland after the conquest. Majority of the men who went with William I migrated to England/Scotland/Wales and stayed in England, who were given land and some titles. So, majority of the group that were in Normandy left and migrated. So wouldn't it be better to test DNA from others in other parts of the world who are related to these people who migrated to England? My family migrated to the US in 1640. The records show that at the people of England were very upset at the take over of so much land and government were taken over by the Normans. The point is they left took their families or created new ones in England. So, there would not be very much left of the Vikings in Normandy. Comprend a vous?
You came up with the correct number based on your assumptions, but the way you described your math is a little confusing. It looks easier to me as: Rollo (100% norse) + Poppa (100% gallo-frankish?) = William Longsword (50% norse) William Longsword (50% norse) + Sprota (100% norse/saxon?) = Richard I D.Normandy (3/4 norse) Richard I (3/4 norse) + Gunnora (100% norse?) = Richard II D.Normandy (7/8 norse) Richard II (7/8 norse) + Judith (100% Gallo/Breton?) = Robert I D.Normandy (7/16 norse) Robert I (7/16 norse) + Herleva (100% gallo-frankish?) = William the Conqueror (7/32 norse) 7/32 = 21.875% if at least 1 of Herleva's 16 great-great grandparents was norse, then William would be 8/32 = 25% norse similarly, if at least 1 of Judith's 8 great-grandparents was Norse (a g-grandmother who was the daughter of a Norman/Norse noble married to a Breton noble, perhaps) would also make William 25% norse. Note that if Judith, as the daughter of the Duke of Brittany, is either 3/8 or 4/8 Breton (Breton father, gallo-frankish Angevin mother), then William is at least half as much Breton as he is Norse. This has a good chance, since the Breton migration from SW Britain was a full migration, with Bretons keeping a Gaelic language even into the 20th century.
But culturally the Normans where different, their ships look like viking ships, they liked to sail and fight in England, Italy, Ireland etc. Sailors, shipbuilders, conquerors, mercenaries. Kind of viking stuff? Did the other Francs have that predisposition?
Yep, that's the main point ignored or glossed over in this video. I think it's fair to say that they were Normans, which neither Viking (or Norse) nor French, but leans heavily on both heritages.
@@jamielondon6436 Sure but they also called themselves Franks. On the Bayeux tapestry for example. They were different in the same sense Northumbrians and Mercians were different from West Saxons. Or Angevins and Picards were different. The Franks themselves were still a lot more germanic in that period as well. Though the language was principle Gallo-Romance.
@@nutyyyy I'd say the differences were a bit more pronounced, considering their Norse and thus 'strange' heritage, but I think we're basically on the same page here, yes.
okay super simple what were they doing before christianity because we aren't actually asking if they were raiders were asking is that a place the Scandinavians settled after becoming Christian or were they there before that?
Got me thinking: how many 28th great grandparents does a person have? In theory, roughly a billion, right? (Except in practice far less, because of in-breeding among one's ancestral lines). But even so, it seems likely most people would at least have at least one famous person, if not a monarch, among their ancestors.
Not only likely, basically inevitable. I'd be willing to bet even a not-insignificant portion of the uncontacted peoples are descendants of Ramesses the Great, who had about 100 children back in the 13th century BC. If you stick to 28th great grandparents, we're at about the 12th to 14th century AD. When you say that, I hear "Genghis", who is the patrilineal ancestor of 0.5% of the male population of the world. His total number of descendants is unknown, but likely far larger, as even his own daughters would not have carried the Y-chromosome tracked in the studies. If we assume that half the children of each generation are female, and that the descendants of Genghis have about the same number of children as the rest of the world at the time, then that 0.5% would have been more or less constant throughout those 28 generations. Imagine 100 women and 100 men, one of whom (1 out of 200, 0.5%) carries a trait. They couple up, and each couple gets four children, two boys and two girls, where both boys of the carrier inherit the trait, while the girls don't. That means 2 out of 400, or 0.5%, of the children carry the trait, while 4 out of 400 are descendants of the original carrier. In the third generation, 4 out of 800, still 0.5%, would carry the trait, while 16 out of 800, 2 percent, would be descendants. In the ninth generation, assuming minimal inbreeding, every child born would be a descendant of the original carrier, while only the same 0.5% would carry the trait. In 28 generations, 100% of humanity could statistically be descendants of Genghis. Now, inbreeding invariably happens, and geographical distance slows spread, but it's probably not an overestimate to state that Genghis is an ancestor of half or more of humanity. TLDR; Howdy, cousin.
hi @scholagladiatora, I don't know if you can read this but the question I am more interested in is the cultural part. From my shallow knowledge base I know Norman culture had some viking traits, such as trial by combat and after the viking age ended, the Normans took on some of their behaviour, sailing and marauding all over europe, founding the kingdom of Sicily and causing all sorts of trouble.French in DNA pherhaps, but what can explain this behavioral commonality with the vikings?
I think the issue with talking genetics like this is that the amount of old dna tested is still relatively small. For example there are studies coming out asserting that the English have much more Anglo-Saxon DNA than previously believed because as they test more remains from the time period they are finding more similarities with the modern population.
As someone who's got Norman ancestry. Specifically actually descended from one of the Rollo lines. Norman's were just Christian vikings with some French cultural add ons. They were still very very viking in some regards but also very very different. But the cultural still consisted of a form of raiding cultural and the military kinda traditions that would've come with the old religion. And while christ was worshipped its pretty viable to argue there were probably cases of polytheism even by William the conquerers time or at least some old traditions still being carried on. It's also very apparent they were concerned with their roots via Rollo as their were histories on his origins and if he was Danish or not. So they didn't consider themselves vikings but they also probably did care about that origin of their culture. So I'd wager Christian vikings would be best description.
Yes: England has always welcomed free-spending invaders, but somehow the puzzled invaders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.
The Normans became, and still are, the basis of the British ruling class. 1066 was quite possibly the worst thing to happen to the British people. The Harrowing of the North never really stopped.
This might be further complicated by the fact that... Us modern danes probably don't show a lot of DNA-evidence of being "danes" the way we might think of in the 9th/10th century. Denmark is very much the "gateway" to Scandinavia, is landlocked with europe, and has been a large maritime trading-hub for ~800 years. That is all to say... We've had a lot different people come through. Without having studied genetics, just from looking at typical phenotype-traits, I'd definitely say that traditional "norse" markers like sand-blond hair and blue eyes, very fair skin, etc. - are a fair bit more prevalent in both Sweden and Norway.
I get William of Tancarville, rather than William the Bastard, and rather nicely Will de Tancarvile's family tree has him descended from Woden (Oden). So it may be a bit diluted by now, but the frenzy of the Norse gods still runs in my veins, and when the beer is flowing... 🙂
I think some Welsh speakers see Normandy as Norman-T. T being indicative that it is the homestead of the aforementioned Normans. Similar to how we might add ‘ia’ to name the place after the people there, like Russia, place of the Rus
This Video doesnt question if the rulers that were given the Normandy were Norse, but how much of the actual people living then and there were Norse. With Russia it's the same. While the Rulers were people with norse ancestry -> "the Rus", not all people under their rule had norse ancestry. How many of the actual people had norse ancestry in the Normandy is what this video discusses.
Researching those family roots can be a difficult thing. My family has an oral history but i can only confirm as far back as my ancestor Sir Johnathan Owens. Being as how welsh surnames work its really difficult to pin things down. Though its not much easier to trace the Scots-irish Nelson & Haggard lines either. I could find out more a lot faster if i was willing to part w/ my DNA but id rather nobody have that these days
Couple more interesting questions: - were Crusades Norman? The very first crusade was Norman conquest of Sicily from Arabs, and the Pope was under big Norman monks influence. So probably, yes. - were Knights Templar orders Norman idea? Pretty sure, yes. - Was it under Viking influence? Probably, resembling Jomsvikings pagan warrior order very much.
The name Herleva, if it was written that way, seems to be rather Nordic. Denmark has a town named Herlev. There is also the old Nordic name, male, of Herlef, the Icelandic version is Herluf, often the female version adds an a. The full name of Gunnora seems to be Gunnora Haraldsdóttir which is definitely Nordic. Somewhere I read a daughter of the Danish King Haraldur 1 Gormsson. Sprota I would also define as a Nordic name. It is still an Icelandic word meaning wand or twig. So if those three woman are Nordic, your percentage could be far of.
I'm descended from William the Conquerer via the Cecils (William Cecil exchequer for Elizabeth I) along with many kings of England and other European countries and prominant families.
it's funny how the french and british fought four centeries, and created one of the most famous rivalvry of the history of the western world, while being basically cousins in terms of heritage and culture... history is so fascinating
In 1066, Norman didn't really mean "of scandinavian descent" but more "coming from the Duchy of Normandy", regardless the genetics. Half of William's army was not made of Normans but Bretons, Flemish, etc... 155 years (5 generations) had passed since Rollo's time and the danish settlers quickly mingled with the local population, as soon as the first generation. William himself had a non-norman mother... Everybody spoke the regional version of French and, essentially, only some moral traits and practices remained of the viking heritage.
Awesome stuff, as usual. In my reading of the norman conquest (and i may me way off, its only a hobby not my profession by any means) but i believe the same is for England. The Normans came and took over ruling, but didn't displace the people. William put Normans in place of the Anglo Saxon leaders and ruled from afar? This i think can still be seen today as many upper class families bear french surnames. So its kinda like we still are under Norman control to a genetic degree? As i say, i'm obviously no expert, but its such an interesting subject, and to see how we were molded by history.
And the Angles and Saxons like didn't replace the previous peoples but contributed to their culture and so on. We draw rather arbitrary lines and call people by different names at certain points in the history, human beings mixing and mixing to until we draw another line no longer calling them homo sapiens.
@@paavohirn3728 yes there is the idea the germanic tribes invaded and replaced the Britons, either killing or driving them out, but while there was definitely some conflict between them, there was also conflict among them and there isn't any evidence for an invasion as such or wide spread battles between the two groups. The archeology and genetics seem to strongly imply the Britons didn't leave, but the prevailing culture became dominated by the germanic tribes.
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XD lol well hello relative Matt
My family descends from alain le roux lineage so second cousin of William. I believe the youngest brother of alain le roux if I'm not mistaken.
The Bretons are a Celtic people and Conan is a Celtic name, at the time it would have been spelt Cynyn. A lot of Bretons served in Williams army, they're supposed to have been the source of the Anglo-Normans reviving interest in the King Arthur folklore and creating histories and romances about it all.
Interesting about the Arthurian legend aspect. Native French would have been largely of Celtic origin too - the Gauls were Celts. Obviously, they would have been mixed with the Germanic Franks, and speaking a Latinate language, so a bit of a mix.
Absolutely true
Alain le roux was also descended from the Breton dukes as well as Rollo Duke of Normandy and was a second cousin to William the conquerer. So it's also family stuff for the Norman's in many cases most likely. The folklore of their Breton side.
Lol sorry family history for me.
@@willmosse3684 authorial legend also has a bunch of parallels to other similarly kinds of Celt myths. The Irish have a version. Obviously the Welsh origins of some of the arthorian legends.
Don't know as much about French history unfortunately but I wonder if they have a similar mythos.
yeah, Williams'sback
I can't say I'm surprised. Even a large army settling down in a foreign area is going to be only a small portion of the population. Within a surprisingly small number of generations, they'll be only marginally different from the native population
Well I mean...the franks were just another germanic group themselves, same with the english. They wouldn't be very genetically different from the rest of france, especially the northern french.
Hungary is a prime example of this. Culturally and linguistically distinct from their neighbours, genetically not so much despite what Orban believes.
It depends though. Ancient DNA studies, with DNA samples taken from ancient remains and compared to modern populations, shows that there are some invasions where the resulting changes are largely cultural, with relatively small population change, and others where there are almost complete population replacement events. One cannot assume one or the other in any particular situation.
@@willmosse3684 agree. And a lot of that will be down to the relative sizes of the populations. And when it's an area handed over, the "invaders" can be quite a small group. Can be. Also, how much the population mingles would make a huge difference
It'd be interesting to see how different the percentage of 'Viking' ancestry is for Harold Godwinson. Probably a lot harder though, due to cultural similarities between the Anglo-Saxon and Norse parts.
Harold's mother was Gytha Thorkelsdóttir from Denmark, so Harold was at most 50% English, probably less (but we don't have much data for his English lineage).
A lot of his reles were Viking also
@@scholagladiatoria and his younger most known brother was Tostig, scandinawian name.
Danish and Anglo Saxon DNA is indistinguishable. Norse however isnt.
I wish I could find someone who is so knowledgeable, and so elaborately speaks of Eastern and Southern European, Slavic matters
I agree. As a Swede I'd like to know more about for example the (mostly) Swedish vikings interactions with slavic Europe. But there are sadly much less surviving sources about it.
I think Norman ancestry is also very common in western and northern France. My ancestry goes back to William too via an aristocratic branch from Britanny.
Hi cousin ;-)
@@scholagladiatoria Haha, I haven't seen grandad Billy in a while. I hope his trip to Mantes went well ... 🤔😁
Thanks for the info
Lmfao which branch?
Cause my French side is Breton and Norman nobles. Specifically originating with Rollo down to the second cousins of William. Alain le roux Alan the black and Stephen
The sons of odo of rennes.
So we're probably also related on both sides of that lineage xD
My Irish side goes way back to and has some connection. First Christian King of munster and the ancestral kings of munster and a few other parts of Ireland. If I'm not mistaken later generations were holding out against the Norman invasion of Ireland.
Yes it is an assumption that some of the female ancestors are 100% Scandinavian but it is also an assumption that those coming from the coast of the English channel are 100% French. Rollo wasn't the only guy who went a viking. The percentage errors probably balance each other out though.
ahhh matt !!! calling Bretons French is like calling welsh, English fun at the time. but torches and pitchfork's crowds gather fast..
yeah, true, but in modern nationalities boundaries id does, although hurts a little.
Plot twist: The Welsh are the real English.
no they forginer aka welsh...english are anglo-saxons hench the engle part toghter with saxons...why they diss juts idk...welsh just inhabbited the place before them known at the time as romano-britians @@robertpatter5509
the french are not a single ethnic group your com makes no sense
There's the old quip that viking is a verb not a noun. Norsemen and whoever decided to tag along would go viking, you didn't need to be a "Viking" (noun) by blood to be viking (verb).
You mean "to be vikinging". ;-)
Or are you implying that the verb actually is "to vike"?
I Vike therefore I beist
@@jamielondon6436 The noun of viking, in modern Swedish, is "vik", and means "bay". What the word "viking", a verb, implies is to travel by sea and explore bays. That the exploration wasn't always friendly in spirit isn't implied by the term, but history does have some records to that effect...
@@c99kfm Hence my post, yes. ;-)
Norse, Dane, Swede, Germanic (more so before Viking era) take your pick any one of those groups/countries could be considered a "Viking" lol
When I visited my cousins in Guernsey there were clearly norse names like Renouf (from ragnulf) still present on the channel islands. They said most of the islands were populated by Danes and sure enough mine and my male line cousins’ Y chromosomes were from Denmark. Love these vids you do on the Normans. Much love and respect from New England to you my distant cousin across the pond lol
Hmm, sounds more like those names were from (presumably earlier?) Viking journeys. The Normans mostly had French names …
Yes there are a few place names in the islands with Norse names, like Grosnez. Not so sure about family names though since even many of the oldest families can be traced back to Northern/North West France in the middle ages, although quite a few of the names will still be of Norse or Germanic origin.
@@fdsdh1 Grosnez (Gros nez) means big nose in modern French, so I doubt the name is Norse.
@@Ijusthopeitsquick Nes is old norse for headland, there are a lot of similarly named places in France like Gris-Nez for the same reason.
@@fdsdh1 To add to the confusion, a nose and a headland are both protrusions.
By the time period that we associate with the Normans (about 1000-1100), were the Vikings actually Vikings?
In Dublin by 1170 when the (Norman) English invaded, the Dublin natives are known as 'Hiberno-Norse' which suggests they are seen by historians as a separate group from the 'Gaelic' groups outside Dublin. I don't know if they spoke Irish or some other language.
In 1066 Harald Hardrada led the last norse invasion of England. They lost at Stamford Bride 25th of september and the battle of Hastings was the 14th of october. So yeah the norse was still very much vikings.
By this times most danes and norwegians were christians but there´s alot of historical event showing that the pillaging and looting continued still. So being a viking was a thing even after the christian conversion.
William I was my 27th great-grandfather. I haven’t looked much beyond that because I’ve been researching my Scottish and Irish ancestry. So this is useful, thank you!
And hello cousin! 🙂
I took an ancestry DNA test and I am 5% Norwegian and 2% Sweden and Denmark. This is very interesting because my extended family came from England, Scotland, Wales, and Germany with 1 or 2 French Canadian ancestors. To have 7% Scandinavian means my great grandparents would have known a basically half or part Scandinavian. My mothers grandma insisted she was Welsh and English and said she knew of a French Canadian grandfather. My grandfather on my dads side said German and Scottish. Basically none of my ancestors back to 1800s were Scandinavian but I would guess many of them had some mix of Scandinavian without knowing it.
@@dambigfoot6844 Sort of, but it’s more complicated than that. Firstly you get 50% of your DNA from each parent, so straight away 50% of each parent’s DNA is missing, this is random, so your DNA test could give a different result from a full sibling as far as ancestry is concerned. That’s why they suggest asking parents and grandparents to test too if they are still around. It’ll give a more accurate picture.
Secondly, results are based on the data available in the DNA database used, in your case Ancestry. They can only measure against the other people who have done a test, so the results are based on probability. Such data bases can give a good indication of your ancestry, but are actually more useful for finding other relatives, assuming they too have taken a test. Your 7% isn’t definitely 7% - they make that clear in the results - they give a range. Thought if you have Scottish and English ancestry then yes, it’s highly likely there’s some Scandinavian in there somewhere given the history of those countries.
@@ffotograffydd Yes it changed after a couple months from like 2% Swedish to 5% Norway and 2% Sweden and Denmark. Its broadly accurate and who knows how they determine England which has genetic DNA from various people Romans, Germanics, Britons, Celts, Normans.
@@dambigfoot6844 It will change as the database grows. People get confused and ask how their DNA can change, but it isn’t, it’s just the pool of data that’s growing.
As far as being useful for knowing where our ancestors came from, it’s just a rough guide. For example, I know for a fact that one of my great-great-grandmothers was from County Clare in Ireland. The family talked about it and passed down the information for the past 160 years, I also have documents from the time, and she had an Irish surname that was typical for the area she was born, and yet Ireland doesn’t come up on my DNA profile. Possibly because the Irish bit wasn’t in the 50% of DNA I got from my Dad.
That’s why DNA tests are most useful as a tool to find relatives who might be able to help with family tree research. I found a link to the early 19th century landed gentry via two DNA matches to distant cousins, that led to a link with the aristocracy, which in turn led to a link with King Edward I of England via his daughter Elizabeth, who was my 20th great-grandmother. It also led to links with both Scottish and Irish royalty. Without that initial DNA link to people who were deemed important enough to be written about I would never have known about those ancestors, because I’m from a long line of daughters and younger sons, so any wealth and titles disappeared a long time ago.
That’s the true value of DNA tests, finding out our ethnicity not so much. I’ve heard people say they’re 100% English, for example, but that’s impossible to know given how DNA works. It does make me wonder why that’s so important to them. I think I’d be incredibly disappointed if my ancestry was so boring, it would mean nobody in my family line had any sense of adventure.
@@ffotograffyddI don't think the technology is there yet to tell people extremely deep information especially for under $100. The tests are mostly for Americans who are curious of the makeup of their European ancestors. I don't doubt that I am a North sea mixture of people but I would like to see deeper information of how much my English ancestry goes back to the Normans, Angles, Saxons, Celts, or Britons.
The genetic study was only of 98 men. A very sample to draw conclusions from 😅 Plus it doesn't really account for the "native" French population moving back into the area in the 1000+ years since the area was founded.
So unless it was done a lot better, with a much bigger sample it can't be used for anything but a preliminary study.
Yes, it is making assumptions of zero population movement in the ensuing thousand years. It can maybe give some idea, but not very solid. We would need ancient DNA samples from the period in question really.
You also have an issue of some lines that would for sure have very strong genetic traces probably also won't have last names that would be give aways.
Le Roux for example can be a strong indicator if their family goes far enough back with that name or any direct connection is proven to aristocracy.
Few other examples. Plus those families moving out of France.
“Oh boy, sure am glad we finally beat back the Vikings once and for all. Take that, Harald Hardrada!”
*WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR HAS ENTERED THE CHAT*
They went native quickly and in the tapestry, the Normans are never referred to by name only as the 'French'. It's sometimes framed as a final Viking Invasion of England, which is absolutely insane when they wiped out the Anglo-Danish aristocracy and removed England from the Scandinavian sphere of influence for good. Harold's brother, now he was a Viking...
also because it were invaded first by harald hardrade from norway that had a claim too which harald goodwinson won then lost against william straight after...anglo saxon was german and they could even understand us just like today thats why english is easier for us german speaking than french speakers cause they got more latin...english fake they speak latin as same reason the royal house went windsor during wws insted of their orignal saxa-gothia or something as they germans from beging.... same as america went anti germans and russians...
What I really want to know is how you are a decendent of someone who appears to be the child of 'Henry 1 King" and someone called "Unknown Gay."
Matt's "very simple answer"? Depends on the context.
Questions like this get very complicated. How do we define a "people"? Culture? Genetics? Ancestry?
Of course, from what I have heard. English people have mainly northern Spanish DNA. I believe we are all from Africa originally. But we are one big family or species.
Woulnd’t genes and ancestry be the same?
@@filipaugustus1230 I’m not a human biologist but it sounds right.
Throughout history, men claimed mostly their father line, unless the mother’s was of some social or political importance.
Conan was quite a popular name. There was a earl Conan of Richmond North Yorkshire. A few streets named after him around town
@@shinobi-no-bueno yeah he worshipped a god called Crom if I remember rightly
Meanwhile, me, a Sicilian living in Denmark and making jokes with my Danish friends about how I have remote Norse ancestry through the Normans and that's why I moved to Denmark, neglecting everything and still wanting to believe those jokes.
I tend more and more towards the idea of "walks like a duck, talks like a duck"; cultural similarities and differences (real or perceived) count for more than genetics ever have and they less than political interests, so basically William the Conqueror was only as Norse as he behaved and felt it was politically useful to be, and that's it. Essentially an extremely liquid state, driven by pragmatism.
I think it's fair to say that thinking about race and genetics in-period is pretty anachronistic and descent was really thought of more like inherited responsibilty for historic achievements, grudges and alliances, which might have repercussions person-to-person, dynasty-to-dynasty, or territory-to-territory.
Edit: btw, more a ramble related to the premise, rather than a criticism of the content.
I wouldn't say it is entirely anachronistic, though the manner we do and talk about it today is not the same people had in different times and areas.
As food for thought, see how many of the Egyptians and Romans rulers loved to claim they traced back to some deity, and how the elites tended to be quite incestuous when it ce.to making children to preserve the lineage pure (i.e. yes, modern day "identitarian" racists trace the origin of their bs mentality to people like ancient Egyptians, the bloody irony. I mention these two because they are re very levant to England and Christendom's attitudes and broader culture, albeit very diluted and already morphed.
Generally speaking, that is the main difference between antiquity through to the enlightenment to modern care for what we call genetic lineage: the social elites were overly concerned, where the average joe gave more of a shit if you got along and knew how to coexist and had whatever in common culturally and socially. This shift after or during the enlightenment is no coincidence, but that ties into a much broader tangent about the development of modern democracies turning everyone into a political actor... But i digress already too much.
@@louisvictor3473 Yes, I certainly wouldn't want to suggest lineage wasn't important and have presumed a medieval European context, so mileage may vary, in other periods.
I think where I draw a distinction is between personal ancestry, which has always been important, from geographic ancestry, which seems much more modern; the interest in having ancestry/DNA from different places is quite a modern thing and is separable from the sort of dynastic ancestry which interested people historically, largely because it governed inheritance of lands, titles and maybe reputations too.
I'd reach for an example like the Plantegent Kings of England, in that their interest in lands and titles they inherit dynastically from French ancestry could be separate from how "French" they'd like to behave, or consider themselves to be.
I hadn't thought too much about ideas of blood-purity, tbh. I've heard about it in ancient Rome and Egypt before, but it's never seemed relevant to the Anglo-Saxon period - after all, Edward the Confessor was Anglo-Norman, Harold Godwinson was Anglo-Danish and the early Wessex dynasty appears to have intermarried with the British, given names like that of the bretwalda king, Ceawlin.
@@waelisc The blood purity is more to do with their own family lineage and also remaining "noble blooded", the ol' "blue blood" schtick (think Harry Potter pure-blood, muggle born and half-blood "logic", on that level).
Of course that is the "nice" facade of it and just a part. It is also about concentrating social power and geopolitical influence. When people of XYZ noble lineage of WhoCaresLand only marry among themselves, nobility and all social priviledges that come with it remains in the family. Marry/make heirs outside of nobility, and you're fundamentally destroying social power save some very rare situation. Marry/Make heirs into a lower noble class, and you elevate them and dimish your own, or vice versa if you marry up (if you ever heard the term "hypergamy", here it is kinda real, but for families). Marry/Make heirs into a noble family on the same tier, and you're basically fusing both; could elevate both by consolidatnig power into one family-entity-enterprise (think Saudi Arabia), could be irrelevant, but it does the "issue" of having also to share your niche with them. So that is were the Anglod-Danish, Anglo-Norman, etc. come in. Those are power consolidations.
And that is also where gender roles and even "child order" roles among nobility comes into play too, it adds a bit of flexibility and leeway (it is entirely different if the official #1 boy child does the marriage, a daugther or another male child that is not the #1).
-"Bow to me, peasants, for I am your king!"
-"Wha'!?"
-"I said _bow_ to me, peasants, for _I_ am your king!"
-"Wha'!?"
-"I am William, Duke of Normandy, and shall henceforth be known as William the Conqueror!"
-"Wha', you're Willy the Water'ed-Down Viking, and now you just show up to tell us we 'ave to pay turnip taxes to you?"
-"Uh, that's not exactly what I wa..."
-"Ya' that's not really a sustainable form of guv'ment, is it?"
-"Well I..."
-"You might as well 'ave claimed sovereignty because some watery tart threw a scimitar at you, lot's o' that going around these days..."
Simple answer: "partly." Mixed ethnicity. So the operative question, as with any mixed race or ethnicity, did *they* think if themselves as a member of the group. (In the case of the Normans, I think you can easily argue "usually not.")
Some ancient people only considered their father's ethnic lineage as their lineage, their were Chinese emperors for example that had Turkic/Khitan mothers with Turkic/Khitan wives who considered themselves and their families as pure Han Chinese and only identified as such. Not sure how Normans/French aristocrats would have viewed their ethnic lineage
No, because "viking" is not an ethnicity.
@@skjaldulfr well said
My childhood friends Dad is from Mauritius and his mother from Wales. He’s as black as a human gets. There’s four kids. The older three are shades of coffee with milk. Little Steven the youngest, looks straight white like his mum. My point is our ethnicity is not always visible. And you can look like either of your parents and sometimes neither.
@@Oooo-bi7bi Know totally. Mixed myself. (Filipino-Ukrainian. And yeah, students at one school I taught were *convinced* I was brothers with another instructor, who was Lebanese-Norwegian. So, mixed yes, but not even close in the components. 😏)
In a discussion about ethnicity, I would like to quibble about the "Frenchness" of Brittany, and Normandy for that matter. Roughly about a century before Willalme li Conquereor, Normandy would have been ethnically Briton and would have spoken brezhoneg. The Duchy of Brittany was not francisé until much later. Kind of like saying that the Welsh are English.
Not sure where you get your info about Normandy people being Briton and speaking brezhoneg. That's Brittany.
That's the problem with ethnicity. It depends on where in history you decide to conveniently draw the line. 100 years? 500? 1000? 10000? It takes quite a while for a population of people to become ethnically(genetically) unique(which in an of itself is subjective). Aside from unusual circumstances(genoicdial conquests, replacements due to disease or changing climate etc), a few centuries isn't going to be enough in my opinion.
@@sylvainjacquin2347 Hi, the maximum extant of the Kingdom of Brittany included parts of Normandy, Maine & Anjou in the 9th century, just before the Norse 'migration'. The people probably did not speak any of the Brythonic Breton languages outside of what we call Brittany today but, for a short time, the court certainly (probably) did.
@@MrBottlecapBill Hi, that is normally true but there are some exceptions - the creation of Brittany was a wholesale migration of brythonic celts fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invaders. They displaced or commingled with the gallic peoples and firmly established the dominance of Breton in a very short time. A hint would be the brythonic place names littered all over the armorican peninsula.
@@MrBottlecapBill I think you are onto something just in the wrong direction. Would not the problem be that everyone in Europe shares massive amounts of common ancestors so unless they have managed to keep clear and marry within the group no one is going to have that clear a dna sample.
15:51 Gunnr/Gunr (with different spelling through history and within regions), was one of the Valkyrie (a female psychopomp) in Northern mythology. It's still a common name, at least in Sweden, but now usually spelled Gunn or Gun. The name means battle or blow (as in other names, e.g. Gunnhild, means battle maid, Gunnar likely means the commander in a battle, or possibly just someone who killed someone with a mighty blow). We know the names several Valkyries (from different sources), and they all had names reflecting their role on the battlefield, as they often also intervened in battles (and not only collected worthy warrior souls), and changed the battle outcome according to the will of Odin; e.g. the valkyrie Mist did it as a thick fog over the battlefield.
17:17 "Sprotta", is a Geatish dialect word for sprout ("grodd" in Literary/Radio/TV Swedish). I have no idea of the origin of the word (Geatish incorporated a lot of loan words from English, Dutch, Italian and French immigrants during the 17th to early 20th century, considerably more so than other Swedish dialects, and also had close historic cultural ties to Norway).
20:45 I don't understand your math: (25%)/2 + (100%)/2 = 62,5%, not 12,5%. Think of it as a solution of liquids, e.g. you don't get a weaker vinegar, by mixing it half and half, with 100% acetic acid.
21:52 No, you have not done your math right.
Tbh, the whole % math thing is... Broken. That's just not how dna works.
"Sprotta" is almost certainly a cognate of "sprout", and probably the name of a bastard child of a norse mother. Or just the result of a norse father with really poor naming sense who was enthused by her peeing when he first held her, in which case it would be cognate with "spout" instead.
The modern equivalent of Gunnor is either Gunn/Gun or Gunvor, neither of whom isn't exactly uncommon.
His inheritance math is fine, his assumptions are a bit weird, and his idea that genetics have fuck-all to do with being a norseman a bit daft. We've never really worked that way. If you look very, very Chinese, but you open your mouth and I hear modern-day west-geatish coming out, you're Swedish, not Chinese, to me. If it's scanian coming out, then you're scanian, but that's your problem.
Norsemen who went viking were among the most well-travelled people of their time. The odds of them not befriending and marrying people of different genetic heritage is zero, and the children of such a union would have been considered norse, as long as they were brought up in the norse tradition.
What would have been more interesting than looking at genetics would have been to look at how the children were raised - were they raised by their fathers, their mothers, or guardians? What guardians were chosen?
The son of Rollo, William Longsword, WAS a norseman who went viking, born and raised as such before his father became a French Count.
William Longsword's son, Richard I, was born to a war-won concubine. In all likelihood, in spite of him meeting his father only a few times (once?) and with a Breton mother, he was raised within the norse tradition, maybe with some influence from his mother.
Richard I's son, Richard II, is where things start to break down. He was a deeply religious Christian and had a strong personal connection with the French king. It is fair to say that his children by a French noblewoman were not raised into the norse tradition
Richard II's son, Robert I, was in my opinion basically a Christian French ruler born into a family tradition of conquest.
Robert I's son, William I, on the other hand, is a tricky case. His upbringing was nothing but pure chaos, as he inherited his father as an illegitimate heir at age seven. He was treated as a prize to be won or an obstacle to overcome and changed guardians many times, at times hiding among peasants. In the end, he received the backing of the French king to assume his place as Duke, but it's quite likely he was closer to modern French (mixture of various regional cultures) than any of his ancestors and most of his contemporaries - but with a rather big chip on his shoulder, and something to prove.
A family tree of the Flagg family ( my ancestors ) done by a historian of the Librarian of Congress is the early 20th Century says that the first Flagg in England came over during the Norman Conquest in 1066. His name was Flegg, which later became Flagg. One of his ancestors, Thomas Flagg, landed in Boston Harbor at the age of 16 in 1639 and was the first Flagg in America, according to the historian’s research. He had some 11 children, some of whom were killed in Indian attacks. My name is also Thomas Flagg, which has made me think these were my ancestors, and because they were from Normandy and therefore possibly of Viking descent. There may or may not be any connection, but it has pleased me think that there is. I have told people for years that my people were standing on Plymouth Rock waving when the Pilgrims arrived. This could well be a pleasant fantasy, but I intend to stick with it.
Regarding that Sprota was mentioned as Breton and "Viking", it could be that she came from the courts of the Norse occupation of Bretagne.
This video is so nerdy it warms my heart.
Normans also conquered Sicilly and large parts of southern Italy ( kingdom of Naples), so when in Hohenstaufen era, this german dynasty got kingdom of Naples by marriage, also local nobles had germannic ancestry.
As always a great vid and very entertaining i just love the fact that even tho the saxons defeated harald hadrada and *ended* the viking era he still ultimately found his end at the hands (bow?) Of the ancestors (all be it very diluted) of the norse
William is also my 28th Great Grand Father. So hello cuz
Captain Darling : I'm as British as Queen Victoria!
Captain Blackadder : So your father's German, you're half German, and you married a German!
I don't know if it's the backdrop, or the clean shaven head, but Matt looks like a vampire in this video. Lol. Explains why he knows so much about Norman history... He was there!
Long time fan of the channel from America, huge history and genealogy buff who shares a similar William related ancestry. Traced my family line back to the migration that was part of the invasion of England by William. Matched my Y chromosome to distant English cousins who've had one of our namesakes remains from the 1500's dna tested (who also has the same Y variant) from the branch of the I-haplogroup which hits peak modern numbers in the regions between Denmark/Gotland/Sweden, which seems to support the genealogical narrative. Fascinating stuff
How can you trace your ancestry to one of the 3 Invasions via DNA when the genetical make up of all 3 invading groups was pretty much the same?
Great video, very interesting.
I remember there was a news article back in 2016 that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were both descended from Edward III. And I thought to myself, well duh. Tens of millions of people of English ancestry are descended from him or in some way genetically connected to him. The odd bird would be a person of English ancestry that is not related to several monarchs including William I. As for William and the Normans of 1066, they were probably as culturally similar to the Viking age as our culture is similar to that of the 18th-19th century. Lots of stuff familiar and lots of stuff alien.
It’s easy to manipulate. No one is ever a reincarnated toilet cleaner I’ve noticed.
@@Oooo-bi7bi why are you talking about reincarnation though?
@@a.g.r.v.3144 because it’s similar in my mind. An American did my mums families tree. The only famous person in our family was a Cumbrian wrestler. We have a photo of a Victorian relative as he was servant in a house where the master was a keen photographer. I find it difficult to believe that so many people. Even in the comments under this video are related to Royals. It sounds like something that is exaggerated for the paying customer so they feel they got their money’s worth. So I’m thinking why are there so many royals but not that many peasants. Soothsaying.
@@Oooo-bi7bi Aren't we **all** at least 50th cousins with everybody else though?
Also, being related to royals and peasants is not a mutually exclusive thing, obviously, most people have a LOT more peasants relatives than royals relatives, but naturally they are not going to care about the former lol
@@a.g.r.v.3144 it just sounds like bs . You know like all these people that were Cleopatra in a former life. The majority of people didn’t go to school so couldn’t read until 1870. It just sounds like blarney . I’m trying to think of polite way of saying it. But I’m sceptical and find it interesting that people don’t see the same. Some Americans have a lot of money. The tourist industry of these islands they descended from doesn’t. Or is run by greedy people. Even if your not the eldest son you would have a title or a share of inheritance. It’s so easy to manipulate information from the illiterate unrecorded times.
Phil Harding's Hat is probably the greatest archaeologist in the history of headwear.
I wonder how accurate studies of family history can actually be? False paternity rates are surprisingly high today and I presume they were higher than we might expect back then too.
Can you do a video thats discusses the different types of weapons. armor used by Charlemagne vs the saxons? Despite how famous Charlemagne is, you;'d be surprised there very few good quality you tube videos on him!
Off topic thought - it seems quite interesting to me that we have some fairly common forenames like Norman, Frank, and Brett (from Bretton) but not as far as I know Gaul, Celt or Angle.
Great research!
'Gunnor' seems very close to the Norse feminine name 'Gunnvor', which is still in use, btw.
According to Snorri Sturluson, "Rollo" was Norwegian, his real name was Hrolfr, and he was called "Gongu-Hrolfr". I think we can all appreciate how the pronunciation of 'Hrolfr' might've been unintentionally simplified by non-Norse tongues, and turn into 'Rol', which then might take the suffix '-o'. The epithet 'gongu' means "walker", and was supposedly given because he was so large that horses wouldn't carry him. Rolf's (even modern keyboards simplify that name) grandfather was banished by the king (Harald Fairhair), for the trifling offense of a bit of domestic plundering. Rolf's brother was killed, but that was in service to the king, not by the king.
The weakness of Snorri as a source is that he based his history on centuries old oral records, and had some political bias. Oral records are, of course, subject to gradual alterations. The mitigating factors is that the oral records were fortified by skaldic poetry (poetry being easier to remember and harder to alter), that retelling was frequently to an audience that already knew the story, and would correct mistakes, and that Snorri's political bias is well known, and can be corrected for. The strength is that oral stories are "democratic", and very resistant to propaganda and _deliberate_ alterations. Initially, the stories were told to audiences that not only knew the story, but may very well have been present at the events; there's a limit to how much bullshit you can get away with, then. The final version of a story, the _saga,_ would be the result of organic splicing of multiple sources, discarding elements that near-contemporaries simply found non-credible, and keeping elements that were shared by a majority of versions.
Basically, a saga is more prone to additive errors, but less prone to deliberate lying and individual ignorance.
Thank you for this explanation!:)
Quite a number of my direct ancestors originate from Normandy and Brittany, including William I, Rollo and Conan I (and loads of others from all over Europe). As you mention, it's probably the same for a lot of folk, over that many generations. Some of the ancestors also have suffix's like ' the Dane' and actually are recorded as being from Denmark, although my DNA mainly shows up as English [which is a bit of a mix anyway], Scottish and a bit of Eastern European.
and guess where the anglo-saxon came from..hint not england...germanic...
Before watching the whole video, here are my thoughts. The Normans had viking ancestry but where not vikings. While they started as vikings with Rollo, he and his men soon married into the nearby people, the French and Bretons. They got baptized, adopted much of the culture, language (French) and combat style of the French (mounted horse combat). Within a generation or two, they shared more similarities with the French then the Vikings. Outside of a few old warriors, they assimilated I to those around them. Except for a few lingering things from there past and one major culture difference. How to deal with inheritance. You see the French would split the inheritance between all or multiple sons, dividing up the power. In contrast the Normans gave the inheritance to only one son, meaning the others sons to find there own place, wealth and land somewhere else. This one reason why so many Normans went to Italy/Sicily as mercenaries, seeking fame, fortune and land. Sorry kind of a tangent there but important never the less. But quickly the Normans became far more French then viking. Language, fighting style, religion, and culture. Only truly holding on to one key aspect of the vikings, the love of war and raiding.
Also I am generalize the term French sorry. Other people who maybe not quite French. But we're still more French then viking.
But this is just my thoughts. If you found something wrong please correct me, or if you disagree you are welcome to say something. Now I am going to finish this video.
My ancestor Burd was a landowner in Shaston (Shaftesbury). He was a Saxon during the conquest of 1066.
@@Meevious
He lost all of his land holdings to the Normans…
I could be wrong, but it seems like 11th century Norman elites were more prone to go on overseas adventures (England, Italy/Sicily, Dyrrachium, and they also made an important contribution to the first crusade) than elites from other Frankish duchies. I wonder if this tendency could be a last remnant of Norse culture, even while the the Norman elites looked, sounded, and acted French.
William the Conqueror was also the one who instituted the officials called Underforesters to police the wilderness of the royal forests, they were also the inspiration for the concept of the Ranger in fantasy
I think it would be an interesting thing to break Normandy down by the regional settlements. It's stated that Scandinavian settlement was heavy in the Cotentin Peninsula, the Pays de Caux, and central coastal region around Bayeux. Compared to the other less heavily settled interior regions of Normandy. I noticed you said that the particular study sourced was rather inconclusive and from 2016-17 so it's at least 5-6 years old by now. Has there been any more recent updates or data analysis? Particularly if a larger sample size has been given with men, if Norman women's DNA has been tested, or which regions they in particular have focused on.
Yes, this would be interesting! The Saire valley in Cotentin is crowded with Scandinavian place names, part of which indicate a "viking" owned a house there. There's a study of those names in French by a researcher from the university of Caen.
Something I'd be curious to find out more about: How *Frankish* were the northern French? We know that this is where France gets its name, and that Frankish nobility often lived in similar regions, near or in the Netherlands and the Dutch border with northern Germany. So an interesting question might be: The Danish part of the DNA aside, was the rest predominantly Frankish, or Gallo-Roman (Celtic)? Because if predominantly Frankish, their French branches marrying into non-Germanic families aside, there probably isn't much difference in the DNA between Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Danes. Also, most of the early Carolingian kings married either Swabian (German) women, or Burgundian women, the latter being descendants of the Burgundian Germanic tribe whose kingdom was later conquered by the Franks. The Burgundians themselves might have been heavily mixed with Gallo-Roman, but even if so, we don't have one Germanic DNA branch for Normans, but three or four: Dane, Frank, Burgundian, and Swabian/Alemannic. At the end of the day, all of these people had similar genetic markers a few centuries back, and they all at one time worshipped Odin and Thor like the rest.
I'm curious about that too, because what does being "French" mean here in this context "oh she wasn't Scandinavian, but French" like are we talking about Gallo-Roman heritage or Germanic heritage from the Low Countries? Both? In the south the former might be more obvious, but in northern France it gets a lot more tricky.
Bretons weren't exactly French. They, or at least the ruling classes were descended from colonists were refugees from Britain. They spoke a Brithonic Celtic language quite similar to Welsh and Cornish.. in fact, a minority still speak it.
And parts of the duchy of Normandy were conquered from the Bretons.
Genetically, the population of Brittany are very distinct from the Welsh though. I suspect that yet again, we are talking about a small number of people making a big cultural impact. Like the Normans in England, or the British in India.
@@scholagladiatoria Although bretons are heavely mixed with french, from what I've read, the haplogroup R1b-L1 which is mostly associated with brittonic people, and very common in present day cornwall, wales, ireland and scotland, is much more present in Britanny (and to a lesser extent the rest of north-western France like normandy) than in the rest of Europe. To be fair it could be because of continuous relationship between those regions throughout history, but I think that the fact that it is most commonly found in the western part of the peninsula, where breton is still spoken, is not a coincidence.
I have a Québec friend whose paternal line goes to Normandy, his dna has mostly Celtic and a very good chunk of Danish.
Celtic and Quebec? Is he a Breton?
How much Danish? I have about 20 different Norman lines in my tree so far and I have 4% with no ancestor from Denmark down to the 1600's
One major thing with your analysis is that you heavily homogenize the definition of "French" as opposed to "Viking/Norse/Scandinavian". You almost touch on it when you use note the Gauls but then confuse it further by using Frankish and French as absolute synonyms, as well as folding the Bretons into being French.
The Bretons were Brythonic Celts who migrated to Brittany at the end of the 4th century. Whether their rulers were still such given the number of political marriages is questionable, much as with William. Their culture and language were however quite distinct.
The French themselves are at base a mixture of Celts, Romans, and Franks. The Franks were a West Germanic people, so distant cousins of the North Germanic Danes.
Then there is everyone else who migrated through northern France or settled on the fringes, including minor Germanic tribes, major tribes who settled elsewhere like the Vandals, and even the Iranian Alans, who joined with the Vandals and Suebi in migrating through France before settling in Spain.
At core, the "French" were just as much mutts as William was in regards to being a "viking", even among the nobility given all the political marriages and questionable heritage of concubines and the like.
Realize this was posted 2yrs ago but I am seeking advice related to this topic after being informed that my Big-Y DNA test results reveal I have a “rare “ and “close” common ancestry with Kilteasheen 22 found at Roscommon Ireland. I have tested with FTDNA, Relative Genetics, and 23andMe which all indicate my genetics are almost entirely Celtic.
However, our surname is Payn(e) and, thanks to some very fortunate primary records, we have good genealogical reason to believe that while we can trace our family coming into East Anglia from Ireland by the early 14th century, property records beginning in 1274, then again from 15-17th-century , connect us to the Norman Payn family still surviving on the Isle of Jersey off the Normandy coast. That family is well-known to have been in the island by that surname since at least the 13th-century and earlier still if their relationship to the pre-Conquest Paynel family of Hambye and Les Moutiers Hubert is to be believed.
Other records we’ve uncovered also appear to shed light on how the provenance of the Ellesmere Chaucer MS of The Canterbury Tales began with Henry Payne (d. 1568) of Nowton, Suffolk.
Henry’s cousin had been John Payn (II) (d. 1402), who had been Chief Butler of England 1399-1402, and John had been a close friend and business associate of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. We also have records from the City of Southampton from the early 15th-century showing the Mayors John and Thomas Payne, associated with John and Richard Chaucer, the poets father and grandfather.
When our family came out of Ireland, they first appear in North Kilworth Leicestershire between 1330-1370, associated with a Ralph Butler in records with John Payn the Chief Butlers father, Nicholas Payn (d. ca. 1373), Lord of Helhoughton Norfolk.
The Butlers, of course, were hereditary Chief Butlers of Ireland, and the Payn’s of Norfolk are connected to that family through marriage between Thomas Payne of Itteringham with Elizabeth Boleyn.
What does one do with so much history to take in? Documenting all of my research is painfully slow, particularly because I also wish to learn so much I cannot stop researching and adding more work for myself!
Who else, if anyone, might be interested in verifying or perhaps helping to unravel the full story when even family doesn’t seem interested?
That was very interesting thank you for posting it.
I am descendant from Alain le Roux (French) [Alain was my 27th great-grandfather] or Alan the Red (c. 1040 - 1093)), 1st Lord of Richmond, was a Norman nobleman from Redones, Normady, kinsman and companion of William the Conqueror. In the battle of Hastings, Alain le Roux led the left division of the Norman Army. Alain married in a Christian ceremony and stayed in England. Our family stayed in the other side of the channel, Normandy, and after 1,000 we are no longer Frankish, we are Texans.
I became your fan, Matt Easton.
You are not arrogant.
But it's easy to see you are a talented fencing athlete.
And with an encyclopedic know how about ancient and not powder war weapons.
Wow.
I think the more interesting comparison to the vikings is that normans, especially young nobles, tended to like going on extended military expeditions where they would raid or settle as the circumstances dictated, and sometimes even conquer a region and declare themselves kings.
I'm really confused by your way of calculating. Why didn't you start with Rollo and work downwards? It would give the same result you finally arrived at, so no real difference there, it just seems an easier way to do it. ;)
William is also my 27th/28th great grandfather depending on the line. I have a few noble lines leading to him.
Maybe interestingly, Roger of Sicily didn't even think of himself as Norman, just that that was his heritage on his dad's side.
Bretons at the time would probably not have appreciated being called French.
No one was called French at the time anyway. Not even the King of the Franks in Paris.
However, they were all part of the French Medieval speaking World.
Thanks Matt
Where can l find the information about the Haplogroups ?
There is a theory that if a culture is established in an area all other cultures coming in will meld to what is there unless there is an overwhelming majority and a critical event. Based on that theory we have major areas of European culture in the new world although we have lost the history for the most part. I think it's likely that a fair amount of viking DNA might have been added during the initial invasion but it would have been a drop in a bucket over history. Other than some minor changes to local culture as a ruling class it's unlikely that much Norse would have remained.
Given ‘Viking’ is a job title, not a nationality or ethnicity, of course he wasn’t a Viking. But he did have a small amount of Scandinavian ancestry. Culturally he was Norman French.
That pretty much sums up the video. :-)
@@jamielondon6436 Not entirely.
Matt calls Bretons "French"? Maybe in terms of country, but not in ethnic way. Bretons, Basques and Corsicans are three ancient ethnic minorities of France (actually Corsicans dont live under French rule for long, the island became part of the France in the 18th century, but anyway they are still native to that land unlike Arabs and Berbers, for example, who arrived in France only in the 20 century) who still to this day keep their ethnic identity and languages. As I know most of them dont identify themselves as French in ethnic way. Unlike Normans or Burgundians - these ones indeed ethnically became French.
@@jus_sanguinis Their passport still says France on it though. 😉
@@ffotograffydd But what about the passports from the 11th century? :-p
Curious to know what percentage of Scandinavian DNA is left in the British Isles from the Saxons, Jutes, etc. I've got about 10% in my own divided between Danish and Norwegian, but no recent ancestors from either location.
Its about 6%
The 6% the previous commenter is referring to is actually Danish, not Saxon, Angle, or Jute. The Anglo-Saxon part seems to range from 20-50% depending on which area of England we're looking at. Those further east and along the coastlines facing Scandinavia are closer to 35-50%, with those further west being lower.
I normally wait till after the video to post anything, but this thought popped in and I need to get it out. Just hope Matt doesn't talk about it and I sound foolish.
Am I the only one who had the thought that in a thousand years can you picture a version of the question where someone asks, "Was the United states English?"
Instead of a ruling class that got absorbed by the subjects, the englishness was diluted by immigration by other groups. Comparing culture and language a historian in the future could make a good claim for America is English that could be argued easier than Norman is viking.
I dont think the Bretons will take too kindly to being called French
Or Normans being called Bretons 😁.
interesting video about the Normans/Scandinavians/French. The presence of Scandinavian DNA in Normandy is ONLY limited to Contentin and along the see to the Seine river, of course in High Normandy you can't find any trace.; I thing Erleve belonged to the (mix)Flemish population of today's French Flanders
It makes sense that the Vikings would have married into the existing nobility to ensure that there was no uprisings against them.
Does Normandy have any other signs of Norse occupation, such as place names that have survived? That’s something that’s pretty common in the old ‘Danelaw’ regions of England, but I’ve never heard it talked about from other areas.
A lot of toponymic evidence, yes. For example, any town named X-fleur, X-hou, X-bec or X-vast has at least half its name originally in franco-norse language. Additionally, many place names use latin roots (often X-ville) but refer to individuals who were probably norse or had a norse name (e.g., Teurthéville probably refering to someone called Thorsten or something similar). Additionnally, there were many influences on the local dialect which was until the 20th century quite distinct from "classic french". Finally the Norse gave modern french a couple of hundred words, especially in the field of seafaring.
Besides Normandy, there are dozens of places with toponymic evidence of Norse settlement, as one might expect mostly on the Atlantic coastline.
To add the comments concerning an army to settle in Normandy. I have ancestry that goes back to William I, he did have an army that was there. My relative(married into Williams family prior to William) and as well as a friend of mine, their relative were called back from Sicily to join William's campaign to sail to England. My friends relative as well as mine mirgrated to Scotland after the conquest. Majority of the men who went with William I migrated to England/Scotland/Wales and stayed in England, who were given land and some titles. So, majority of the group that were in Normandy left and migrated. So wouldn't it be better to test DNA from others in other parts of the world who are related to these people who migrated to England? My family migrated to the US in 1640. The records show that at the people of England were very upset at the take over of so much land and government were taken over by the Normans. The point is they left took their families or created new ones in England. So, there would not be very much left of the Vikings in Normandy. Comprend a vous?
You came up with the correct number based on your assumptions, but the way you described your math is a little confusing. It looks easier to me as:
Rollo (100% norse) + Poppa (100% gallo-frankish?) = William Longsword (50% norse)
William Longsword (50% norse) + Sprota (100% norse/saxon?) = Richard I D.Normandy (3/4 norse)
Richard I (3/4 norse) + Gunnora (100% norse?) = Richard II D.Normandy (7/8 norse)
Richard II (7/8 norse) + Judith (100% Gallo/Breton?) = Robert I D.Normandy (7/16 norse)
Robert I (7/16 norse) + Herleva (100% gallo-frankish?) = William the Conqueror (7/32 norse)
7/32 = 21.875%
if at least 1 of Herleva's 16 great-great grandparents was norse, then William would be 8/32 = 25% norse
similarly, if at least 1 of Judith's 8 great-grandparents was Norse (a g-grandmother who was the daughter of a Norman/Norse noble married to a Breton noble, perhaps) would also make William 25% norse.
Note that if Judith, as the daughter of the Duke of Brittany, is either 3/8 or 4/8 Breton (Breton father, gallo-frankish Angevin mother), then William is at least half as much Breton as he is Norse. This has a good chance, since the Breton migration from SW Britain was a full migration, with Bretons keeping a Gaelic language even into the 20th century.
Say I wanted to acquire a conical helm like that one? Where would you point me?
But culturally the Normans where different, their ships look like viking ships, they liked to sail and fight in England, Italy, Ireland etc. Sailors, shipbuilders, conquerors, mercenaries. Kind of viking stuff? Did the other Francs have that predisposition?
Yep, that's the main point ignored or glossed over in this video.
I think it's fair to say that they were Normans, which neither Viking (or Norse) nor French, but leans heavily on both heritages.
@@jamielondon6436 Sure but they also called themselves Franks. On the Bayeux tapestry for example. They were different in the same sense Northumbrians and Mercians were different from West Saxons. Or Angevins and Picards were different. The Franks themselves were still a lot more germanic in that period as well. Though the language was principle Gallo-Romance.
@@nutyyyy I'd say the differences were a bit more pronounced, considering their Norse and thus 'strange' heritage, but I think we're basically on the same page here, yes.
@@nutyyyy On the Bayeux tapestry you see the typical Viking Ships and they (Or the English?) fly the Viking Raven Banner.
okay super simple what were they doing before christianity because we aren't actually asking if they were raiders were asking is that a place the Scandinavians settled after becoming Christian or were they there before that?
Got me thinking: how many 28th great grandparents does a person have? In theory, roughly a billion, right? (Except in practice far less, because of in-breeding among one's ancestral lines). But even so, it seems likely most people would at least have at least one famous person, if not a monarch, among their ancestors.
Not only likely, basically inevitable. I'd be willing to bet even a not-insignificant portion of the uncontacted peoples are descendants of Ramesses the Great, who had about 100 children back in the 13th century BC.
If you stick to 28th great grandparents, we're at about the 12th to 14th century AD. When you say that, I hear "Genghis", who is the patrilineal ancestor of 0.5% of the male population of the world.
His total number of descendants is unknown, but likely far larger, as even his own daughters would not have carried the Y-chromosome tracked in the studies. If we assume that half the children of each generation are female, and that the descendants of Genghis have about the same number of children as the rest of the world at the time, then that 0.5% would have been more or less constant throughout those 28 generations.
Imagine 100 women and 100 men, one of whom (1 out of 200, 0.5%) carries a trait. They couple up, and each couple gets four children, two boys and two girls, where both boys of the carrier inherit the trait, while the girls don't. That means 2 out of 400, or 0.5%, of the children carry the trait, while 4 out of 400 are descendants of the original carrier. In the third generation, 4 out of 800, still 0.5%, would carry the trait, while 16 out of 800, 2 percent, would be descendants. In the ninth generation, assuming minimal inbreeding, every child born would be a descendant of the original carrier, while only the same 0.5% would carry the trait.
In 28 generations, 100% of humanity could statistically be descendants of Genghis. Now, inbreeding invariably happens, and geographical distance slows spread, but it's probably not an overestimate to state that Genghis is an ancestor of half or more of humanity.
TLDR; Howdy, cousin.
hi @scholagladiatora, I don't know if you can read this but the question I am more interested in is the cultural part. From my shallow knowledge base I know Norman culture had some viking traits, such as trial by combat and after the viking age ended, the Normans took on some of their behaviour, sailing and marauding all over europe, founding the kingdom of Sicily and causing all sorts of trouble.French in DNA pherhaps, but what can explain this behavioral commonality with the vikings?
I think the issue with talking genetics like this is that the amount of old dna tested is still relatively small. For example there are studies coming out asserting that the English have much more Anglo-Saxon DNA than previously believed because as they test more remains from the time period they are finding more similarities with the modern population.
William Longsword? Is there a later relative, Billy Militarysaber?
As someone who's got Norman ancestry. Specifically actually descended from one of the Rollo lines. Norman's were just Christian vikings with some French cultural add ons. They were still very very viking in some regards but also very very different. But the cultural still consisted of a form of raiding cultural and the military kinda traditions that would've come with the old religion.
And while christ was worshipped its pretty viable to argue there were probably cases of polytheism even by William the conquerers time or at least some old traditions still being carried on.
It's also very apparent they were concerned with their roots via Rollo as their were histories on his origins and if he was Danish or not.
So they didn't consider themselves vikings but they also probably did care about that origin of their culture.
So I'd wager Christian vikings would be best description.
In 3 generations, one lines DNA could be so watered down it would not be easy to see. It has been more than 3 generations since the days of Rollo.
did the Normans ever become English?
Yes: England has always welcomed free-spending invaders, but somehow the puzzled invaders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.
The Normans became, and still are, the basis of the British ruling class. 1066 was quite possibly the worst thing to happen to the British people. The Harrowing of the North never really stopped.
@@BlackthornBushcraft Sir Terry would smile to see his words still used
This might be further complicated by the fact that... Us modern danes probably don't show a lot of DNA-evidence of being "danes" the way we might think of in the 9th/10th century. Denmark is very much the "gateway" to Scandinavia, is landlocked with europe, and has been a large maritime trading-hub for ~800 years. That is all to say... We've had a lot different people come through.
Without having studied genetics, just from looking at typical phenotype-traits, I'd definitely say that traditional "norse" markers like sand-blond hair and blue eyes, very fair skin, etc. - are a fair bit more prevalent in both Sweden and Norway.
I get William of Tancarville, rather than William the Bastard, and rather nicely Will de Tancarvile's family tree has him descended from Woden (Oden). So it may be a bit diluted by now, but the frenzy of the Norse gods still runs in my veins, and when the beer is flowing... 🙂
I think some Welsh speakers see Normandy as Norman-T.
T being indicative that it is the homestead of the aforementioned Normans. Similar to how we might add ‘ia’ to name the place after the people there, like Russia, place of the Rus
This Video doesnt question if the rulers that were given the Normandy were Norse, but how much of the actual people living then and there were Norse.
With Russia it's the same. While the Rulers were people with norse ancestry -> "the Rus", not all people under their rule had norse ancestry.
How many of the actual people had norse ancestry in the Normandy is what this video discusses.
And finally the family tree led to Matt the Contextualist
You got the calculations correct,.
I've followed my family line all the way back to Normandy in 1720 but can't find anything before that
Researching those family roots can be a difficult thing. My family has an oral history but i can only confirm as far back as my ancestor Sir Johnathan Owens. Being as how welsh surnames work its really difficult to pin things down. Though its not much easier to trace the Scots-irish Nelson & Haggard lines either. I could find out more a lot faster if i was willing to part w/ my DNA but id rather nobody have that these days
I am pretty sure Norman from Cheers was a viking of some type. The beernut type.
Couple more interesting questions:
- were Crusades Norman? The very first crusade was Norman conquest of Sicily from Arabs, and the Pope was under big Norman monks influence. So probably, yes.
- were Knights Templar orders Norman idea? Pretty sure, yes.
- Was it under Viking influence? Probably, resembling Jomsvikings pagan warrior order very much.
The name Herleva, if it was written that way, seems to be rather Nordic. Denmark has a town named Herlev. There is also the old Nordic name, male, of Herlef, the Icelandic version is Herluf, often the female version adds an a. The full name of Gunnora seems to be Gunnora Haraldsdóttir which is definitely Nordic. Somewhere I read a daughter of the Danish King Haraldur 1 Gormsson. Sprota I would also define as a Nordic name. It is still an Icelandic word meaning wand or twig. So if those three woman are Nordic, your percentage could be far of.
I'm descended from William the Conquerer via the Cecils (William Cecil exchequer for Elizabeth I) along with many kings of England and other European countries and prominant families.
it's funny how the french and british fought four centeries, and created one of the most famous rivalvry of the history of the western world, while being basically cousins in terms of heritage and culture... history is so fascinating
True. The Normans gave us so many poetry, architecture, cuisine, art, attire, and legal system. That brought us a close similarity with France.
Next up; "Is Matt Easton actually a VIKING! ?"😁
Of course not. His helmet doesn't have any horns on it. ;-)
I’ve never heard of the Normans, cool video
Thank you
In 1066, Norman didn't really mean "of scandinavian descent" but more "coming from the Duchy of Normandy", regardless the genetics. Half of William's army was not made of Normans but Bretons, Flemish, etc... 155 years (5 generations) had passed since Rollo's time and the danish settlers quickly mingled with the local population, as soon as the first generation. William himself had a non-norman mother... Everybody spoke the regional version of French and, essentially, only some moral traits and practices remained of the viking heritage.
Awesome stuff, as usual. In my reading of the norman conquest (and i may me way off, its only a hobby not my profession by any means) but i believe the same is for England. The Normans came and took over ruling, but didn't displace the people. William put Normans in place of the Anglo Saxon leaders and ruled from afar? This i think can still be seen today as many upper class families bear french surnames. So its kinda like we still are under Norman control to a genetic degree? As i say, i'm obviously no expert, but its such an interesting subject, and to see how we were molded by history.
And the Angles and Saxons like didn't replace the previous peoples but contributed to their culture and so on. We draw rather arbitrary lines and call people by different names at certain points in the history, human beings mixing and mixing to until we draw another line no longer calling them homo sapiens.
@@paavohirn3728 yes there is the idea the germanic tribes invaded and replaced the Britons, either killing or driving them out, but while there was definitely some conflict between them, there was also conflict among them and there isn't any evidence for an invasion as such or wide spread battles between the two groups. The archeology and genetics seem to strongly imply the Britons didn't leave, but the prevailing culture became dominated by the germanic tribes.
This is a great follow-up to the Viking Era sword video, just whom is it that is hacking my arm off?