#The Battle of Hastings

[theancientwise]

My honest and humble opinions(i don't mean to offend anyone) about the teaser trailer of "Vikings Valhalla Season 3"

Emma and Canute are the most brilliant and interesting as always. They steal every scene they are in, whether they are together or not.

Freydis is "Lagertha 2.0" more and more... and i don't mean it in a good way.

Well, Leif seems like becoming more interesting than he was in season 2. I hope they will do this character some justice.

Harald and Helena = Bjorn and Elsewith... Am i having a dejà-vu?

And the most important thing: No Harold Godwison, No Battle of Stamford Bridge, but above all, No Battle of Hastings and No William the Goddammit Conqueror.

I think this gif embodies perfectly my idea and feelings about it:

[kittynannygaming]

It seems I didn't post the art I've made with my little Tommy. So here it is! Painting: "The Battle of Hastings" by Francis William Wilkin.

[bestfluteninja]

diversity win! the normans invading your country and fundamentally transforming the future of your language are gay!

[vintagepromotions]

Travel poster for the East Sussex towns of Hastings and St. Leonards (c. 1920). Artwork by Elijah Albert Cox.

[oldschoolfrp]

From haircut to wrapped leggings, an accurate Norman knight circa 1066 (Jim Holloway, Dragon magazine 40, August 1980) -- OK the bearded axe is more "Viking," but maybe it's a battlefield trophy, or maybe it belonged to his grandfather.

[lykegenia]

So something has been bugging me for a while now about A and N’s backstories, and while I know not everyone will be as pedantic as me, as someone who loves history and has done a lot of writing, I feel that if you’re going to write a story about vampires and give them a specific time and date of origin, then there should be a certain level of research that goes into making that background authentic. I'm not saying that Mishka didn’t do any research. It just seems that in order to keep the vibe of a happy, mellow fantasy some of the less savoury aspects of A and N’s upbringings have been left out, and it's a shame. To be honest, it feels a bit disingenuous, and it feels like an opportunity got wasted.

Let me explain (long post got long, it's 2am)

Let's take A first, since the problem is simpler here.

A is the child of a Norman lord and an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, born in the first generation after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. A says that these were turbulent times but that their parents had a happy marriage. Which. While I’m sure a lot of unions in that time period made the best of it, I can’t help but feel this description strips away a lot of the context of what was going on at that point in history - and removes some of the complexity about A’s thoughts on love and relationships.

Basically, after he took control of the throne, William the Conqueror stripped many Anglo-Saxon lords of their lands and titles so he could give them to his Norman buddies instead - with the added bonus that it left the Anglo-Saxons without the means to raise armies against him. The sisters, daughters, and widows of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxons were then forced to marry these new Norman lords to legitimise their power, not infrequently after all of their male relatives had been slaughtered. It’s not as if Anglo-Saxon women weren’t used to being used as political chess pieces, but the years after the conquest were brutal. It’s why William had to build so many castles. The point that I’m trying to make is that even if A’s mother was content enough in her daily life, due to the power imbalance between her and her husband, it's very likely she had little choice in the matter. She may have seen a lot of her family killed for political reasons, with the knowledge that – in an age where women had very little protection outside of their paternal household – she might be next if she made too much of a fuss.

It would be fascinating to see what effect that tension has had on A 900 years later, or even to get an acknowledgement of how much times have changed, but we don’t. We don't see how their early years affected them, how they view relationships formed naturally instead of via political contracts. And I really, really wish we did. There is so much potential there.

But A is not the one keeping me up past 2 in the morning. It’s N, and the utter detachment their backstory seems to have from the period in history they lived in as a human. And it all stems from the fact that they came from the English nobility in the late 1600s.

See, the bulk of the problem is that English inheritance law at the time heavily favoured primogeniture, where a man’s wealth would go to his first-born son. Some dispensation was made for widows and other children, but the estates, assets, and most of the money had a very clear destination.

For one thing, this makes it kinda weird that N’s stepfather would have needed an heir before he could inherit, because except in extreme circumstances everything would have gone to him anyway. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst part of the problem, it’s just annoying when there are more plausible reasons for him marrying a woman already pregnant with another man’s child (old family friend wanting to save her from disgrace, needed the dowry to pay off gambling debts, there was a longstanding betrothal between them that would have been tricky to get out of, etc.).

No, the bigger problem with N’s backstory vs primogeniture is firstly that at the time the English aristocracy was racist af (still is tbh) and given his pretty obvious mixed-race heritage, no court would have agreed that Nate was a legitimate son (this is for a very special reason that we will be coming back to). I say Nate specifically here because primogeniture requires the eldest legitimate son. Nat wouldn’t have inherited at all, as women in that period passed from the guardianship of their father (or other male blood relative) into that of their husband after marriage, and only gained any kind of independence with widowhood. If N had been an only child, maybe they would have been treated as a special case, but unfortunately Milton exists: the eldest legitimate son who by law will inherit everything.

Now here’s the thing. Your average aristocrat in the 17th century is very obsessed with lineage and keeping the family line unbroken. He would not, therefore, send his legitimate heir to sea to be shot at or drowned before he can carry on the family name – that joy instead goes to any other sons who need their own profession, because again, they will get very little. Nat would have had a dowry, but would never have been expected to make her own living, so I'm going to focuson Nate for this next bit.

In Book 3, if you unlock his tragic backstory Nate tells you he joined the Royal Navy after Milton went missing so that he could go look for him. And, well. This is where his backstory as Mishka tells it completely falls apart. For two reasons:

1. Even in the modern day, you can’t ‘just’ join the Navy, and you certainly can’t just jump straight to being a lieutenant – it takes years of training and after a certain age they won’t take you because they won’t be able to mould you easily enough into a useful tool. For most of the Navy's history, the process was even more involved. It wasn’t an office job you could just rock up to and then quit if you felt like it, it was a lifetime commitment. Boys destined to be officers would be sent to sea as early as 12 to learn shipboard life, starting at the bottom and moving up the ranks. These were gained by passing exams and by purchasing a commission – which is why you generally had to come from wealth to be an officer at all. Once you get to lieutenant you're responsible for a lot of people, and might be tasked with commanding any captured ships alongside the daily running of yours - it was not an easy job.

2. Even as a lieutenant (one rank below Captain, with varying levels of seniority) it’s not like you can just go where you want. In the 1720s British colonies already existed in India, the Caribbean, and up the entire eastern seaboard of North America and into Canada, and the Navy was tasked with protecting merchant shipping along these seaways (and one trade in particular that we’ll be getting to, don’t worry). Nate could have ended up practically anywhere in the burgeoning empire. He would not have been able to choose whom he served under, and would not have been able to demand his superior officer go against orders from the admirality to chase down one lone vessel because he thinks another one of the admirals might be a bit dodgy. It could not have happened.

Besides these impracticalities, there’s a far easier way for the child of a wealthy man to get to a specific point on the far side of the globe to look for their lost sibling, which is the route I assume Nat took sine she couldn’t have joined the Navy (yes she could have snuck in but she’s specifically in a dress in the B2 mirror scene so). All they'd have to do would be to charter a ship and tell the captain where to go, which is the plot of Treasure Island. It's quicker, less fuss, with less chance of things going wrong. It's even possible in the age of mercantilism that the Sewells had some merchant vessels among their holdings that could be diverted for the task. Why go through the hassle of joining the Navy and potentially ending up on the wrong side of the world when you can just hire a ship directly?

If Nate does have to be in the Navy (and let’s face it, it’s worth it just for the uniform) then it's far more plausible is that, as the illegitimate son who would not inherit because of racism etc, he got sent to the Navy as a boy and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant. When he got news of Milton’s disappearance not far from where he was stationed, he begged his captain to go investigate in case whatever happened turned out to be the symptom of a bigger problem. Like pirates.

I like this version better not just because it makes more sense, or because it keeps Nate’s situation re: inheritance closer to Nat’s and therefore makes their stories more equal, but also because it adds a delicious amount of guilt to Nate’s need to find his brother. We know his entire crew died looking for answers, because he was selfish – that’s roughly 100-400 lives lost because of him, and we know that sort of thing eats at him.

So that's one side of the story, but if Milton wasn’t in the Navy, what was he doing on the other side of the Atlantic in the first place? Well, this is where we come to the biggest elephant in the room regarding N’s backstory as a member of the 17th century English aristocracy and potentially as a naval officer: the Atlantic Slave Trade. If you are wealthy in 17th century Britain it's more than likely that your wealth comes either from the trade itself, or from the products made with the labour of enslaved people. If you are wealthy, you want to protect your assets from attack by pirates or foreign powers so you don't become less wealthy, and that is what the Navy is for.

Regardless of N’s own views on slavery at the time – and any subsequent changes in opinion – it’s likely their family owned or had shares in slave plantations in the Americas. As distasteful as it is, it makes far more sense that Milton was on a trip to check the family’s holdings when his ship - specifically a merchant vessel - went missing. From a pirate perspective, a merchant ship would make a much better target than a Navy vessel, being slower, more likely to have valuable cargo, and less likely to have marines or a well-trained broadside.

It's not surprising that Mishka left out the subject of the slave trade given her tendency to skirt around darker subjects and general blindspot for racial politics, but it is nuance that, if it was there, would create a more grounded and coherent backstory for N that doesn’t have quite so many holes. Like with A being the child of an invader and his war bride, we could get some deeper thoughts from N about their place in the world - How do they feel to have grown up so privileged when others who looked like them were regarded as literal property? How did they feel being part of the system that made it happen? Did it inform their compassionate nature? Is it still a source of guilt or someithng they've tried to make up for?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of this. It's late, my sleep pattern is fucked. The tl;dr is that giving the vampires' backstories historical context would make them feel more multifaceted and would give opportunities for character growth that are instead missed because of a desire for a more sanitized version of the past.

[hran-rad]

My dealer: got some straight gas this strain is called "the battle of hastings" you'll be zonked out of your gourd

Me: Yeah whatever I don't feel shit

5 minutes later: dude I swear I just saw some normans off the coast

My buddy Ælfric pacing: the king is lying to us

[blueiscoool]

A Hoard of 122 Anglo-Saxon Coins Sells at Auction

A hoard of more than 100 Anglo-Saxon coins discovered by two metal detectorists in a field near Braintree, Essex, has been sold auction at Noonans Mayfair on February 21. Believed to have been buried in 1066 and owned by an individual who died during the Battle of Hastings. The collection of Anglo-Saxon pennies found by two metal detectorists have been sold for £325,560 ($411,000) at auction.

The coins were each worth 12 shillings, a considerable sum back in 11th century, leading Noonans’s coin expert Bradley Hopper to hypothesize that the reason they were abandoned was due “some great personal misfortune” such as the death of their owner in the conflict. Hopper added, though, that “it was perhaps quite common for people who had access neither to banks nor vaults to conceal their wealth in the ground, even in times of peace.” All bar two of the coins were minted within five years of 1066.

A small selection of coins from the hoard were bought by Colchester Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, following the protocol of the 1996 Treasure Act. The purchased coins include two 11th-century Byzantine coins.

The metal detectorists found the majority of the coins in 2019 over the course of a few days, all within a 100-foot radius, some just inches beneath ground’s surface. A further 70 coins were found when the site was revisited in 2020. The coins were minted in various southern English towns and cities, including London, Cambridge, Canterbury, and Hastings.

The coins date from the reigns of Edward the Confessor and Harold II, the last two Anglo-Saxon kings of England. Harold was killed during the 1066 Battle of Hastings, seen on the Bayeux Tapestry receiving a fatal arrow through the eye. His death marked the victory of William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England.

The detectorists have kept several coins, with 122 of the remaining relics headed to Noonans. The proceeds will be shared between the finders and the owner of the land on which the coins were discovered. Some coins included in the sale are exceedingly rare and could fetch £6,000 ($7,600) individually.

Hopper said that Noonans is “particularly fortunate that the auction catalogue contains not only the rarest and most academically interesting English coins from the Braintree Hoard, but also those pieces in the finest state of preservation.” He hopes that the auction will “promote further research into this wonderful coinage.”

By Verity Babbs.

[marklakshmanan]

Today is the 985th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings and my 71st birthday!

[illustratus]

The Battle of Hastings by Pierre Joubert

1982 Au temps des Vikings - Les Normands de Guillaume le Bâtard (1982 Viking Age - William the Bastard's Normans)

[professorbumface1246899]

Oyeeuhh oye oyeeee baka!!!! Oyeeee oye oye bakaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

😨😨😨😨😨😨😨 I know what you did in 1066 at the battle of hastings I will not forgive you

[vox-anglosphere]

The last invasion of Britain was the Battle of Hastings, 957 years ago

[tiffbaxter]

⚔️Bayeux Tape⚔️

New in store, washi tape based on the marginalia in the Bayeux Tapestry - illustrated by me. 

Also after MCM I am running low on a few prints especially the Tears of the Kingdom ones (completely out of A4 size and only a few A5 left) so get one now to avoid a wait for me to get them reprinted.

Etsy: tiffbaxtershop

[vampsvitae]

hi

ultimate puss-off: battle of vag

i think this is funny