Is The Viking Raven Banner REALLY On A COIN?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ค. 2024
- The Raven Banner is an iconic piece of Viking Age symbolism. It represents many things to many people, be they pagan, archaeologist, historian, or reenactor.
But where does this iconic triangular flag come from? Was it really hammered into a precious silver penny in York 1000 years ago? Does every one of the modern raven banners owe its existence to a single coin, minted by a Norse Gael from Dublin who died in a Christian monastery off Scotland?
Has Jimmy had a haircut but not a shave? All this and more in this week's video!
Grab a panad. It's Viking time! (I'm playing with catch phrases)
Fun article by J. Richards on Christianisation and other stuff: eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/755/
Coins: www.britishmuseum.org/collect...
www.britishmuseum.org/collect...
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"Heavily armed nutcases" 😂😂😂
"heavenly armed nut cases" is a great band name.
Love seeing the archeological evidence of co-habitation of Nordic Heathens and Christians - I'm particularly fond of the blacksmith mold that features both a mjolnir and Christian cross.
Yeah, don't use the word "heathens" anymore, its a very derogatory and discriminate word that only Christian hate groups use for any non-Christians they dislike
@@johan13135 Ok heathen
The Wolf-Cross in the Iceland National Museum is also really cool, mixing Christian and Pagan elements.
@@johan13135 hi, I'm one of the hosts of the Heathen Wyrdos podcast - I worship the old Nordic gods and the term for our religion is heathenry. 😂
Edit; I should also add, I call myself a Nordic Heathen as a result.
@@johan13135 Then why do I know several people who worship the old Norse gods and call themselves heathens? Not to mention a selection of atheists who lay claim to the label.
In the end, it shows the the universal nature of symbol across cultures more than anything else. Plus, as you said, there's no reason not to use the raven banner in reenactment, since we know the raven pops up in Old Norse paganism a bunch. Even if the accuracy is still up in the air, it can still be considered historically authentic.
Made some big pink pants of my own this week. Very comfy, five stars. I appreciate the inspiration.
I'm a big coin nerd and have a lot of replica early medieval coins for reenacting with, very happy to say I got to look at my own replicas while you showed the originals in the video! I also have my own mini raven banner that I'll be flying at Jorvik, looking forward to seeing yourself and all the wonderful folk there! I'll also be working the bellows at a blacksmithing stall on Parliament Street on thursday if anyone in York wants to pop by and say hi
I have a couple raven pennies but I don't yet have any banner pennies, I must look out for them in the markets this weekend
I’ll nip along and say hello!
@@TheWelshViking Hi, so for a few reasons I will no longer be at the stall on thursday but I will still be hanging around the markets on friday and the march on saturday!
I have so many preconceptions and misunderstandings about the knowing of these things so I love hearing you speak about them. It may be because my brain is too tired to research things only to come up against paywalls and misinformation. . . or because I am lazy. Either way, Thank you 😊
Two things: I saw the hand of God penny and want one, see price, may not this year! Saw paned and automatically got up and made one. Paned was one of my favourite words when I was in hospital.
YEAH! VIKINGS! BIRDS! COINS! I’ve wanted to get a Norse coin stamp, and this is some good information, and I want to make my own Viking banner. Also, social history is so cool
Ah, the walrus with the bucket! Hit me right in the nostalgia.
Thank you for another fascinating and entertaining video, Jimmy!
The LOLrus! "Noooo they be stealin' my bucket"
So much to learn! I would love to see that sword in a banner, to be honest.
Ohh, I was wearing my raven penny earrings yesterday! I adore ravens and crows. Almost as much as I love Jimmy. 🥰 Have a great time at the festival. Toot toot! 🚂
Of course you were! You’re such a good one, Wendy! ❤️
This guy is really really intelligent and he has a passion that is so magnanimous this guy needs like 1000 or 10,000 times the subscribers that he hasThis guy was a teacher when I was going to school I’d probably be been a straight a student
Well you’re just far too kind. What a lovely thing to say. Thank you very much indeed :)
I really want a replica of all of those coins. Old coins are just so cool!
The hand of god coin and/or banner *will* be making an appearance in my dnd campaign now. I've been trying to figure out what a good symbol for a recently-monotheistic nation would be and that's perfect.
Fascinating! It's interesting how different, unconnected cultures come up with visually similar icons. That's a cool birb!
So cool! Thanks for this video!
I wonder how Odin befriended Hugin and Munin. Did he give them little bits of walnut? Crows love walnuts, so I assume ravens like them too. Did Odin offer to crack the walnuts for them?
Somebody should write an epic poem about that!
I also want to know whether Hugin and Munin are a mated pair.
If they are anything like the ravens in Yellowknife maybe he offered them multi coloured golf balls? Ravens stole golf balls from people and made little colour sorted piles on top of one of the office buildings.
They also recognize trucks. They remember who fed them and will follow the truck and sit on it.
@@lenabreijer1311 Haha, lol, that's great! :D
In '21 my mom and I took a hike in a valley in Thuringia/Germany, near my parents' weekend cottage.
And there were ravens making sounds when we approached the end of the valley. Then we met another woman who walked her dog and the ravens came closer and "talked" to each other, so I said maybe they were talking about us and the dog.
Shortly after, mom and I gathered raspberries and one raven came flying and perched on the very top of a tree right opposite us where he made noise.
We concluded that this must be the forest inspector who was lecturing us about how to behave properly.
The ravens also flew over the cottage once or twice a day, often talking to each other. Not sure whether it was the same pair but it could very well be.
A purse full of these bad boys and you can shop anywhere in town! I love it! I also love the fact that you call out pseudoarchaeology when you find it Jimmy! Making suppositions is one thing but making suppositions and calling the fact is something entirely different... It's called lies.
Cannot express how excited I was to see this. Love studying historical coinage and the wild political shenanigans and messages they represented!
I like that Bernadette's video is helping Jimmy! I don't go to many Viking festivals (I am terminally American), but I think using the raven banner is a good thing, as it lets people learn more about why ravens were important to Vikings. The misinformation I'm less crazy about.
I've always wondered about the historical source for that particular raven. Thank you!
I was in the UK for the first time last April, and my PLAN was to stop in York for lunch and a bit of exploring (I flew into Leeds and was headed for Whitby). It was my first time diving on the left, so I was a bit anxious already, and shortly after leaving the car rental shop my rented GPS died, leaving me lost and map-less in a foreign land. Not a single petrol station I stopped at had maps for sale, so I was in a bad, bad way. By some miracle I eventually found M62 and saw signs for Hull, and knowing it was on the coast I knew I could make it to Whitby if I followed the coast north from Hull. Yes, it was an absolutely mad plan, but I had no other options. Sadly, I never did get to York, but after roughly seven hours I did reach Whitby (via Hull) without a map or GPS, and now I'm a cracking-good left-hand driver.
It's so nice and refreshing to hear about the less violent ways that people consilidated and held their power- I'm sure he was a badass too, but so often we get the impression that 'might is right' was the only way that rulers ruled historically. The subtle diplomacy and cultural knowledge it took to keep populations content is something that seems totally lost to history, we hear about all the conquests and great battles and it gives the impression that people of the past were more violent and less intelligent that they were.
Those transitional periods when one religion is supplanting others is really kind kind of fascinating when you look at the politics and dare I say branding of adapting belief systems.
So interesting, and so much more complex than it’s often made out to be
So crazy, I was reading about welsh Gael’s just this morning while reading more about my sons name ( which is Lochlain)
A day with Jimmys video in it is a good day
Jimmy: I'm going to steer clear of the windstorms of controversy and just say, that is one beautiful sweater you're wearing. (oh, and a wonderful video as well)
Loved this one! I worked with loads of Anglo Saxon coins at the Fitz a while ago with Rory Naismith on his project for MEC and these things were so fragile!! They got called ‘milk bottle tops’ because they’re that thin! Loved seeing all the variations in imagery on them, and it was a blast seeing you talk about this one here. Gutted I can’t make it to York but I’m demonstrating mail making at Butser for half term instead. Was hoping to run into someone who could make me some period-accurate clothing! Hopefully I’ll be able to make it another year. Thanks for all the joy and humour you bring to this era of history and it’s always a delight when you upload. Take care
History is more complicated than we usually think. Awesome video as always Jimmy!
Fascinating! I wrote a history novel set about the Norman conquest of Inishowen. I think that the years between 500 and 1200 were utterly fascinating in this part of the world. Especially the blood flowing back and forth in the Islands, Ireland, Iceland and Scotland. I'm a MacDonald of Skye, but one side of my ancestors were Glencoe refugees who settled in Tyrone and married into the O'Siadhails who were a medical clan in service to the O'Neills. That ancestor went to Dublin for work, married a Protestant girl and had to flee to his uncle in the States who was so famous that Tyrone has a museum for his work in helping the Irish Catholic cause in the States. But his daughter married a Swede and so again, mixed the blood, but her daughter married in the MacDonalds of Skye again (not knowing) and so my cousins play the pipes and participate in the Highland Games every year. I look more Norwegian than Welsh, although my father's family was part of a band of Welsh Baptists who fled King Charles and were secretly practicing in the States and intermarrying(!) until they lost their lands during the War between the States. But what's so fascinating is the Celtic slaves mingling into the Norse, and the Norse going native in Britain. Can you call you banner, the banner of Bran? I mean, since you're Welsh, Bran is your man! :D Wonderful video, Jimmy. I love it when you take us down these rabbit holes. Of course, I love the history, too!
I nearly brought two raven coins from Etsy for less than £3.50 but they wanted £8.50 post lol 🤣
I love how you used CK3 to explain a point. That game is awesome
I made a parade banner with appliqued and embroidered symbols almost 20 years ago for our guild AR RenFaire and it's still going strong. It was inspired by the banners I've seen in church pageant parades. I was looking at sprucing it up this year but I'm undecided on wether to mend or just make a new one. It's quite large about 3 feet wide by 4 feet tall and we quickly found out it wanted to be a sail. I ended up putting decorative holes on it to keep it from going airborne.
So before you decorate the banner take it out for a trial run.
For our banner I also have a cup on my belt take some of the weight. It has a cross piece on top and bottom with several brass bells sewn on the bottom as weights.
If I had it to do over again, I think I would use silk instead of the cotton twill I used but then it wouldn't hold up the stump work.
I saw the preview's small text and started laughing.
Have fun at the festival!
I remember reading somewhere (sorry I can't cite my sources) about how most of the animals associated with Odin were also seen as scavengers in battlefields, such as ravens, eagles, wolves, etc. Supposedly in the sagas if someone was followed by these animals, in addition to being seen as a sort of blessing by Odin, that it meant that they killed a lot of people with great regularity, and the animals followed them around for an east meal.
Really enjoyed this episode. First of all something new for me (up until now, i wasnt interested in coins at all) and secondly another proof for something that I (who is working as a psychologist) always tell to people: Human behaviour and society is *never* just black and white. People will *always* find a middle ground if left alone. Not always a fair one (honestly, I believe pretty much never a fair one), but always some kind of compromise. We are a social species and that is how social interaction works.
So there is no good/bad pagan/christian - there is people. Who try to find ways to compromise.
Thanks Jimmy and happy that the patreon thingy helps so much. It doesnt hurt me for sure, so why not?
I very much appreciate the way you unravel the details of the past and support it with examples.
It is easy to forget that a political mis-step could cost you your life back then, not just your position; leaders had to be quite savvy. The mixing of symbols on coinage makes sense.
That is so interesting how in the early medieval period rulers were so diplomatic as to make sure that everyone in the city of York could trade and do business. I've never been big into coins but I am definitely going to check out ethelred the Unready's hand of God coin (I wonder if it has Maradona on the otherside 🙄😂) thanks again Jimmy keep up the good work. I can't support you financially if I want to keep my own heating on but hopefully my silly little comment will show my support in some tiny way
Lovely to see your face and hear your voice Jimmy, but I can't follow most of your story because there are no subtitles on this one. 😔
That raven symbol already looked very familiar, and as soon as I heard 'casus belli' in relation to religion, my ck3-senses perked up. Always such a shame to lose the holy war option when you eventually convert. Then you feudalize, lose invade as well, and you'll actually have to start getting creative with claims, ugh.
Yeah, it’s so much harder being legal!
Huzzah, an actual reason to celebrate today! For Jimmy has bestowed upon us a new video!! Mayhaps it shall include some viking rants?
I hope everyone has a roaring time at Jorvik. Glad to see you posting again, Jimmy.
yay Jimmy !! Glad your feeling better ! thanks for these interesting historical bits !
Great video Jimmy, love your scholarship, the clash and meshing of paganism and Christianity is always intriguing ,
Wish I could visit York❗️
Every day that I wake up to a notification for a New Jimmy™ is a good day. Also Editing Jimmy is my not-so-secret fave.
He’s everyone’s long-suffering but good natured friend
@@TheWelshViking he's my inside voice yelling at me while I'm rambling
I could listen to you all day. Another interesting and funny video. Many thanks.
nice vid :)
i've been to the Jorvik festival a few times, always great fun! nothing quite like popping to the lav and coming back to find the pub is suddenly ram packed with a troop of viking spearmen hahahaha, not this year unfortunately, hope you have a great time!
So pleased to hear your thiughts! Always a delight to read clear arguments.Thankt you
This reminds me a little to the Merseburg charms. They are two pagan incantations (with the intent of healing) which have been written down by a Christian monk in the 10th century into a book containing Christian texts.
(Look it up in the Wikipedia. ... Btw. are links enabled in this comment section?)
When I visited the museum in Merseburg, I read there that this origin shows that pagan magic was seen as somewhat equal to Christian prayer. Or at least not as something devilish. Otherwise, they wouldn't have included those spells into a collection of Christian texts.
By *some* it was seen as just as useful. By *some* others it was punishable by torture/death.
But yeah, it’s a fascinating collection, isn’t it? :)
Lovely video! Thank you for the content! Your videos are always so interesting and i really appreciate the sources and advice.
Really interesting video as always, thank you again for clearing up misnomers!
I love the wording "didn't stop being very cross with them"! Have you been teaching primary age kids by any chance? (They'd be lucky kids if so).
I have!
Honestly the list of what goes on in a monastery at 5:22 is a pretty good to-do list for the day. Might start wistfully gazing around lunch time more often.
This was a really cool history/culture lesson. Thank you!
Having been born in a family with the name Poe, I have always used the Raven as my symbol. :)
You showed your mug, and my brain has spent far too much time with my toddler and immediately just answered CHOO CHOO!
Love the sass and thanks for a fun video, I didn't know anything about this!
Also few of those birds are on the runic stones in Norway and Sweden, my reenactment club also uses one of those as a banner, but we prefer to call it an eagle rather than a raven.) Still this is pure imagination to make our reenactment a little bit fuller then it is; we should never forget the difference between what we know 100% and presumptions made along the way.
It Was nice meeting you and fighting alongside ya bud. Oh and great video theres not enough videos looking at the development of kingdoms and the struggles of ruling two diffrent populations or coins there needs more coin vids.
Entertaining and educating as ever 😎
Fascinating bit of history. Thank you!
I could have sworn I was subscribed. I just noticed that I wasn't. How could I not be subscribed to Jimmy?
Welcome!
Great video! Coinage is always so interesting.
I’m calling it Jimmy’s Penny !
Definitely in the mood for cool professor Jimmy today 😄
I've read a few papers that claim that the norse raven was in fact a jackdaw and that the type of corvid that was venerated by the norse was lost in translation... only kidding, but I do wonder how they "know" that that bird on the coin wasn't a chaffinch or a dove?
As always love your content and thank you for sharing!
I’d love it to be a chaffinch!
@@TheWelshViking I can see that, a very handsome, intelligent bird...
Lol, I have looked up medieval imagery of animals one time and found a bird where I don't know whether it's supposed to be a corvid or some kind of bird of prey. It's black but the beak looks more hawk-like.
Probably the famed eagle crow.
History is complicated and that is so fascinating and makes me so happy to learn about!
Interesting video as usual. I watched it with The Raven track, by The Stranglers, playing in the background, which seemed to enhance it.
What a fascinating video !!!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 wonderful narrative and well communicated. Bravo!
Super interesting!! So excited for Jorvik!!
I always imagine that the little footnotes that pop up on the screen make you the costube equivalent of Deadpool. Or Terry Pratchett *.
*Or both. You never did see the two of them in the same room together.
Such honour you do me!
This is so interesting, coins can tell a lot about a time period in history. A ton of history all around a penny. Hope the festival was fun!
Good to see you looking well Jimmy. I'm unlikely to be in York any time soon but would be happy to see you if you make it back to Edinburgh. When you had those different coins (pagan / christian) I can't believe there was never any commerce between those groups and wonder what they exchange rate was.
This was a brilliant video, thank you!
Thank you!
Awesome vid, thanks!
"Wistful gazing" really tickled me.
Oh! Ooo! I have a contribution - maybe there's a video in it? If you want that specific banner shape with a bird on it, look at the weathervanes on the Norwegian stave churches. These are actual "vindfløyer" - what Eigil's mum told him to buy in that poem. They're from norse ships, used for navigation and later repurposed by or donated to the Church. They have many different decorations, but I remember seeing at least one with a bird (not a raven, though) in the Ringerike style.
My Viking Group used a banner of a dragon with interwoven grape vines, because Vineland.
Hah! Fun!
Always awesome stuff
loving the beard!
The bird symbol could be assosiated both ways, as christians also could see it as a symbol of the holy spirit (which usually would be a pigeon).
The raven banner looks good and is cool, so use it!
What I believe could be the main reason behind a ruler making your own coin is power policy and money policy, later on as a source of state development. You want people to use YOUR coin, and preferably your coin only.
An interesting note is that also the high clergy also made their own coin, like the medieval archbishops of Nidaros had their own mint smith. (this is excavated in Trondheim, the archbishops manor, Nidaros.
That was an enforced policy in 11th century Norway. Atleast from Harald Hardrade and following kings. My reference is Bagge et al. Dreyer 2012; chapter 4: Gullbekk, "Myntvesenet som kilde til statsutvikling 1050-1080" (The mint as a source of state development 1050-1080)
Great video and fascinating. I've never seen the banner penny - I had seen the quarter circle banner iconography but did not know its source.
As I recall, Harald Hardrada had a banner named "land waster," but it's not described other than its name, and Jarl Sigurd of the Orkney Isles had a banner with a bad reputation - I know there's a song that calls that banner the "Raven Banner," but I'm fairly sure it's never referred as such in _Njal's Saga._
Are there any Viking depictions of dragons that would look good on a banner if you’re making a banner for yourself? Y’know, given that you’re username is The _Welsh_ Viking and all; would be a nice little nod to that while still fitting in. 😉
Now, there are some VA dragons out there, and I may or may not have had this exact thought the other day! We shall see…
Yes! Dragons! When I draw ravens they look like chickens
I hope you will grace us with a nice video about the York viking festival, for those of use who can't make it.
Hey, Jimmy, how do you like your Valknuts; salted or unsalted?
Thanks for another great video.
So well said! This video is awesome! I love learning new things. Also, curious what the original coins were made of? They look bronze but im guessing thats age? Were they silver? Thanks!
god wouldnt it be tight as hell to get some idea of what the ravens looked like on the banners though. obviously the raven on the coin is cool, id not give it up for the world, but in the back of my mind theres always going to be that knowledge that images on coins are going to face some artistic difficulties
anyway, barely related but i wanna bring it up because i think its really funny - theres another good english coin from about a century before amlaíb was doing his thing, minted by offa of mercia. basically what was PROBABLY a moroccan coin somehow ended up on the shores of england and he was so taken with the arabic text on it he decided to ape it for his own mints, cluelessly inscribing "there is no god but god and mohammad is the prophet of god" alongside big letters saying offa rex. dude was like hell yeah this coin is awesome im gonna show everyone what a cool and powerful christian king i am by copying these squiggly lines here that probably dont mean anything
anyway, jimmy is probably fully aware of this himself, but ill take any opportunity to bring it up bc like. lmao
happy st valentimes everynyan
So cool. History is just the best!
Man, I’d love to find an image of an actual raven on an actual banner. Think Bayeux is the closest we have, birb for birb
I agree, given this period's love of decoration the coin design's minimalism, which appeals so much to our modern taste, has to be seen as a concession to the medium. I would suggest the raven from the Sutton Hoo shield for an idea of the density of elaboration, maybe updated with contemporary Borre-style interlacing.
@@TheWelshViking there are embroidered birds among the Oseberg finds but I am sorry to say they look like ducks and, being silk, probably come from somewhere else. (edit: forgive me, I looked them up, they are woven not embroidered)
Reminds me of the liturgical coat in the cathedral treasure of Halberstadt that has "God protect the Sultan" woven into it. 15th century, cloth imported from the orient.
Nice. I have always been fascinated by coins. It’s really amazing what has survived
Bow and arrow symbol is fascinating, since it is also symbol of my home region in eastern Finland. History of Savonian bow be traced at least to 16th century, but might be older.
I only WISH that I could make The Viking Festival in York: I haven’t even been able to visit the Renaissance Faire in my own home state in 19 years!😢
Yorkshire Tea is as close as I can get at the moment….oh, wait, I guess it’s not all bad.☕️
The more I watch your Viking Stuff, the more I'm certain that the most Viking thing we can do in the modern day is to mix a bunch of religious stuff.
Mòran taing! Fascinating stuff as always. This may sound weird, but any chance you could show us what the pictures on your wall are? Also, when in Jorvik please buy a mug from my friend Emma of Bogborn Crafts. She's with Hamish on the Pictavia stall.
I’ll go and have a look and say hello!
Sorry, pictures stay blurry unless I get permission :)
Amazing, absolutely flawless
No u
As a coin collector, I really enjoyed this video.
You had me at the Caw Caw in the title. 😁
a lot of cross-contamination back then. eh? what?
Wish I could be there at Jorvik! As it is, I'm busy finishing a (woefully-inaccurate) Skjoldehamn-style hood for a friend, while enjoying your top-tier Norse History and memes. Diolch yn fawr iawn, sir!
Diolch i chitha! I bet the hood is lovely :)
Hooray for learning and heating!
Looking good!