Anglo-saxon Society Had Apartheid

[RedAnarchist]

An apartheid society existed in early Anglo-Saxon Britain, research suggests.
Scientists believe a small population of migrants from Germany, Holland and Denmark established a segregated society when they arrived in England.

The researchers think the incomers changed the local gene pool by using their economic advantage to out-breed the native population.

The team tells a Royal Society journal that this may explain the abundance of Germanic genes in England today.

There are a very high number of Germanic male-line ancestors in England's current population. Genetic research has revealed the country's gene pool contains between 50 and 100% Germanic Y-chromosomes.

But this Anglo-Saxon genetic dominance has puzzled experts because some archaeological and historical evidence points to only a relatively small number of Anglo-Saxon migrants.

Estimates range between 10,000 and 200,000 Anglo-Saxons migrating into England between 5th and 7th Century AD, compared with a native population of about two million.

To understand what might have happened all of those years ago, UK scientists used computer simulations to model the gene pool changes that would have occurred with the arrival of such small numbers of migrants.

The team used historical evidence that suggested native Britons were at a substantial economic and social disadvantage compared to the Anglo-Saxon settlers.

The researchers believe this may have led to a reproductive imbalance giving rise to an ethnic divide.

Ancient texts, such as the laws of Ine, reveal that the life of an Anglo-Saxon was valued more than that of a native's.

Dr Mark Thomas, an author on the research and an evolutionary biologist from University College London (UCL), said: "By testing a number of different combinations of ethnic intermarriage rates and the reproductive advantage of being Anglo-Saxon, we found that under a very wide range of different combinations of these factors we would get the genetic and linguistic patterns we see today.

"The native Britons were genetically and culturally absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons over a period of as little as a few hundred years," Dr Thomas added.

"An initially small invading Anglo-Saxon elite could have quickly established themselves by having more children who survived to adulthood, thanks to their military power and economic advantage.

"We believe that they also prevented the native British genes getting into the Anglo-Saxon population by restricting intermarriage in a system of apartheid that left the country culturally and genetically Germanised.

"This is exactly what we see today - a population of largely Germanic genetic origin, speaking a principally German language."

The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5192634.stm


I'm curious as to what people make of this research. One thing to point out - English is not a principally German language. It is more influenced by Latin adn Old French than it is by German.

[afrikaNOW]

He said principally German language. Not vocabulary or lexical items, but grammar,syntax and such. Like no matter how much Swahili is/was influenced by Arabic, it is still a Bantu(African) Language.

[RedAnarchist]

I think the Romans were right to call these people barbarians. The Romans didnt see skin colour and race, whilst the Anglo-Saxons were creating a rascist, hierarchical society, although we shouldnt put our modrn views on ancient peoples.

[LSD]

I think the Romans were right to call these people barbarians.

"Barbarian" is a rather pejorative term.

There can be no doubt that the Anglo-Saxons were less developed than Imperial Rome, but then Rome was less developed than contemporary China.

Approaching history from a "good guys"/"bad guys" paradigm is always a mistake. Every society has had its advantages and disadvantages. The Romans may have been evolved in 100 AD, but 1800 years later, they would invent modern fascism.

The British meanwhile, would spearhead modern western democracy.

That's what makes history so much fun. ;)

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by LSD
The British meanwhile, would spearhead modern western democracy.

I believe you mean the French.



The Romans may have been evolved in 100 AD, but 1800 years later, they would invent modern fascism.


The Italian state was very different from ancient Rome, not only culturally but also ethnically, economically, and politically.

It is absurd the compare the two and say "the Romans invented Fascism 1800 years later". The Roman state as it was had disappeared long ago.

[Janus]

Apartheid generally resulted in many societies in which native populations had been invaded by outsiders.

Apartheid isn't surprising at all in this case. I believe that the Anglo-Saxons called the natives Celts or "foreigners" or "outsiders" (I think that this is the term).

[RedAnarchist]

Wales itself means "land of foriegners". The Welsh for Wales is Cymru (cum-ri).

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 03:35 AM
There can be no doubt that the Anglo-Saxons were less developed than Imperial Rome, but then Rome was less developed than contemporary China.
I wouldn't even agree with that. The relations of production in "barbarian" socieites, with their emphasis on free labour, were actually more advanced than the slave based Roman economy.

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 04:18 AM
I think the Romans were right to call these people barbarians. The Romans didnt see skin colour and race, whilst the Anglo-Saxons were creating a rascist, hierarchical society, although we shouldnt put our modrn views on ancient peoples.
The Romans called everyone barbarians. Besides, the Celts were the people subjugated by Roman rule, not the Anglo Saxons who invaded the British Isles several centuries later.

Regardless, the real barbaric power in the western world at that time was the Roman Empire itself, genocidally slaughtering anyone who resisted and enslaving those who did not.

[The Living Red]

It's a case of pirates and emperors, really. Both the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons invaded and raided countries, but the Romans did this on a much larger scale.

The Romans were civilised in the sense that they were organized (in battle etc.), but it is hard to call those who committed acts such as those described by Citizen Zero, a civilised force.

I think there's a tendency to think of the Saxons as 'barbarians' because their society was just fundamentally different from our own modern society. People can see more similarities between how some Romans lived (I mean, they even had central heating!) than how the Saxons lived.

In my view, this kind of thinking has affected the generalised view of many periods in history. Personally, as a child i used to think of the Red Indians as 'bad' and the cowboys as 'good'. I now realise that I was of course wrong, but I think I understand why I thought this. The Native Americans weren't bad or barbarous, their culture was simply different.

[RevolverNo9]

ThisAnarchistKillsNazis


One thing to point out - English is not a principally German language. It is more influenced by Latin adn Old French than it is by German.

Actually that's totally incorrect. English is in the West-Germanic language family, descended from High Germanic. The Anglo-Saxon language was indisputably Germanic. After 1066, the Norman French language of England's new rulers and the use of Latin in governmental script (previously, Anglo-Saxon society was unique in Western Europe in its use of the vernacular in written law) caused the massive influx of Romance vocabulary into the English language that remains today. Due to its ruling-class provenance, note that in English Latin diction is used for 'higher' language ('government', 'disposition', 'amorousness', 'academia'...) and the Old English makes up 'everyday' speech ('big', 'hill', 'shit', 'gift', 'love'...). Take the Old English-derived word 'cow' and the French-derived word 'beef' - it is quite clear how class divisions shaped the nature of our vocabulary (who worked with cattle and who dined at the table on expensive meats?).

Actually this raises some interesting points (not irrelevent to Rosa L's argument of the role of diction to mystify ruling-class ideology...) and perhaps explains why so much Latin-derived language in English is riddled with ambiguity and impresicion. Even today writers shy away from using (or should I say 'utilising'! :lol: ) Anglo-Saxon diction, despite its clarity and directness (as Orwell argues in one of his essays) - it is still tainted by its association with the lower-classes and their practical, empirical code.

Wow! That was a bit of a tangent!


I think the Romans were right to call these people barbarians. The Romans didnt see skin colour and race, whilst the Anglo-Saxons were creating a rascist, hierarchical society, although we shouldnt put our modrn views on ancient peoples.

Er... and the Romans didn't discriminate against other races? Wonder where all that slavery and racial superiority stuff came from then... indeed in Latin and Greek 'barbarus' means 'foreign' and what would we term 'barbarian' - for them the two concepts were synonymous, or, more accurately, indistinguishable.

(As an aside, how is such possible for the Romans to have even said this? Their empire ahd disintegrated long before the Germanic invasions of Britain...)

Anyway, this is by the by rather - your anachronistic value-judgements are gravely anti-historical. As soon as we loose the drive to understand in the face of the sentiment to judge we enter deeply irrational territory - tantamount to branding the rock that trips your friend up as 'evil'.


Wales itself means "land of foriegners". The Welsh for Wales is Cymru (cum-ri).

Yeah I've heard that... also the 'wall' in Cornwall is of the same derivation I believe.

Massoud



(LSD)
The British meanwhile, would spearhead modern western democracy.

I believe you mean the French.

No, he means the British.


It is absurd the compare the two and say "the Romans invented Fascism 1800 years later". The Roman state as it was had disappeared long ago.

You are missing LSD's point, the most important one to be made here - history is the development of unfolding and changing social dynamics and to lay blame or judgement on a particular society is meaningless. (And irrational.)

A lot of people on this site need to realise this...

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by RevolverNo9
No, he means the British.


Then he is wrong.


You are missing LSD's point, the most important one to be made here - history is the development of unfolding and changing social dynamics and to lay blame or judgement on a particular society is meaningless.

I didn't miss his point, I took note of it and corrected his historically inaccurate statement.

You missed my point.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 03:35 AM
The British meanwhile, would spearhead modern western democracy.

That's what makes history so much fun. ;)
We're talking about the Anglo-Saxons, not the British. British refers to one branch of the Celtic family tree of languages, including Welsh and Breton.

You're making the argument that the Anglo-Saxons weren't barbarians... um, they helped destroy Rome and cause the Dark Ages. They still have a monarchy today. I mean, who has an effin monarch today??!!

The research about their racial seperatism isn't too shocking. We know from massive indirect evidence that the invading Saxons killed all the native Britons they came in contact with, causing the massive migration to Gaul that created Brittany (a nation that still exists today). Shockingly, there aren't even loan words from British Celtic into Anglo-Saxon from that period.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 10:29 PM

I think the Romans were right to call these people barbarians. The Romans didnt see skin colour and race, whilst the Anglo-Saxons were creating a rascist, hierarchical society, although we shouldnt put our modrn views on ancient peoples.

Er... and the Romans didn't discriminate against other races? Wonder where all that slavery and racial superiority stuff came from then...
The Romans were the first multi-cultural society of the west.

The Saxons couldn't even stand to live next to culturally very similar people.

It's an interesting contrast.

[Amusing Scrotum]

That's rather interesting, in my opinion at least. It certainly makes the arguments of British Nationalists even more amusing. After all, the "natives" have been "Germanised". Horrors! :lol:

Funnily enough, legend has it that Welsh people, originally, were rather dark....rather than the kinda' "pasty" complexion most people have now. And, correct me if I'm wrong, this article would back up that theory....and that makes the Nationalist arguments even more amusing.

Additionally, there's some evidence that suggests that "Viking genes" are widespread in Britain....particuarly along the East Coast. This, of course, means that the Vikings settled which destroys a lot of popular myths about them. Though, unfortunately, the cool bits of Scandinavian culture, like Reindeer burgers, don't seem to have taken hold over here. :(


Originally posted by Massoud+--> (Massoud)I believe you mean the French.[/b]

Unless I'm mistaken, the common "birth date" given to Parliamentary democracy, is 1650 or thereabouts....the date being, of course, the conclusion of the English Civil War.


Originally posted by ThisAnarchistKillsNazis+--> (ThisAnarchistKillsNazis)Wales itself means "land of foriegners".[/b]

I could think of better phrases myself. <_<

The best one though, has to be the description of Swansea that is mentioned in the film Twin Town....Swansea&#39;s described as a Pretty Shitty City. Now that is what they should put outside the Train Station. :D


The Living [email protected]
I mean, they even had central heating&#33;

The Egyptians were better though, they had lead pipework and shit.


PRC&#045;UTE
They still have a monarchy today.

Surely that would be attributed to the Norman Conquest?

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism
Unless I&#39;m mistaken, the common "birth date" given to Parliamentary democracy, is 1650 or thereabouts....the date being, of course, the conclusion of the English Civil War.


Parliamentary democracy, 1650, Britain?

You do know the British empire was a dictatorial monarchy until the end of the 19th century, right?

When I said the French I was referring to the modern bourgeois republic which was formed after the demise of Napoleon.

EDIT: actually you are right, I remember watching a documentary on the British civil war between the royalists and parliamentarians. The parliamentarians won and the power of the monarch was drastically cut, so that it became a mere ceremonial position.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Massoud
EDIT: actually you are right....

I know. <_<

As it happens though, in a sense, you&#39;re right. That is, the Revolutionary Government in France is probably the first fully formed example of Republican democracy....and, for that matter, overall bourgeois rule. The reason for that is that Britain&#39;s transition was rather muddled....so whilst Britain was the pioneer of modern day Parliamentary democracy, it wasn&#39;t all that good. There&#39;s all the stuff about "rotten boroughs", the veto of the Monarchy and so on.

But, effectively, the birth of Parliamentary democracy was when the English Civil War ended and some Law passed which gave Parliament power over the Monarchy. I&#39;ve actually got a rather good pamphlet on this, called How We Should Rule Ourselves....if you ever see it, pick it up. It&#39;s cheap and quite interesting....and best of all, really short. <_<

As for the republic bit, I think it&#39;s Austria (?) that gets the award for being the pioneer of the modern Nation State. Back in 1680 or thereabouts....with the signing of the Westphalien Treaty (?). Though, Revolutionary France was really the first place to combine all these things in an effective way.

[Janus]

Wales itself means "land of foriegners". The Welsh for Wales is Cymru (cum-ri).
Right, my mistake. I meant Welsh rather than Celt.

[Marukusu]

Though, unfortunately, the cool bits of Scandinavian culture, like Reindeer burgers, don&#39;t seem to have taken hold over here.

????????

[RevolverNo9]

Massoud


I didn&#39;t miss his point, I took note of it and corrected his historically inaccurate statement.

Well, without trying to pontificate on LSD&#39;s mind here, I imagine that that is his point and that though there are both lineages and continuities in polities (as there are between Italy and the old Roman world) and great ruptures (as you correctly note) the ultimate point is that it is meaningless and irrational to pass our own value-judgement onto material, historical phenomena.


You do know the British empire was a dictatorial monarchy until the end of the 19th century, right?

:blink: Could that be more wrong? An excerpt from Christopher Hill&#39;s The Century of Revolution:

&#39;James succeeded by hereditary right, confirmed by Elizabeth&#39;s nomination; in 1714 George I owed his throne to an act of parliament which passed over many persons with a better hereditary claim. James, like the Tudors before him, chose ministers and favourites as seemed best to him; by the early eighteenth century ministers could not govern without a pariliamentary majority&#39;

George I particularly sped up the process because he couldn&#39;t speak English&#33; This forced parliament to act with even greater autonomy.

Armchair Socialism


Additionally, there&#39;s some evidence that suggests that "Viking genes" are widespread in Britain....particuarly along the East Coast. This, of course, means that the Vikings settled which destroys a lot of popular myths about them.

Yeah that&#39;s common knowledge - the region was called the &#39;Danelaw&#39; and it kept many of the Vikings&#39; customs for some time (and of course spawned everyone&#39;s favourite accent&#33;) English was also influenced by the Norse language somewhat.

PRC-UTE

Er... one might hazard that you&#39;re conflating current political struggle with historiography... it&#39;s not a good idea.


We&#39;re talking about the Anglo-Saxons, not the British. British refers to one branch of the Celtic family tree of languages, including Welsh and Breton.

Er, as I&#39;m sure you know really &#39;British&#39; also refers to the political unit extended over the British Isles by the English...


You&#39;re making the argument that the Anglo-Saxons weren&#39;t barbarians... um, they helped destroy Rome and cause the Dark Ages.

No they didn&#39;t. The Romans had already left Britain. The point is &#39;barbarian&#39; isn&#39;t a helpful term because as it carries connotations of a value-judgement. The Saxons were of course at a much lower stage of social development than the Romans but, it would seem, &#39;higher&#39; than the Celts. Many historians have long aruged that the eradication of Britonic culture was due to Celtic aspiration to Germanic culture. (The most radical even claim that the Germanic invasions never occurred&#33; A quashed claim in the face of recent genetic evidence.)


They still have a monarchy today. I mean, who has an effin monarch today??&#33;&#33;

The Danes... who also, for that matter, have a penguin as one of their highest ranking generals&#33; :lol: Lots of people actually but anyway, how you can explain the still limping existence of British monarchy by reference to Germanic invasions over a thousand years ago I&#39;d like to hear&#33; (The word &#39;anachronism&#39; comes to mind.)


We know from massive indirect evidence that the invading Saxons killed all the native Britons they came in contact with, causing the massive migration to Gaul that created Brittany (a nation that still exists today).

Yes. That&#39;s the story of all tribal movements throughout history. The Celts were no different when they entered the British Isles nor were the Huns, Teutons or Mongols. That&#39;s just the nature of that particular historical dynamic.


Shockingly, there aren&#39;t even loan words from British Celtic into Anglo-Saxon from that period.

Shockingly?


The Romans were the first multi-cultural society of the west.

The Saxons couldn&#39;t even stand to live next to culturally very similar people.

The Romans were far more socially sophisticated... it&#39;s not an interesting contrast to make at all as the social conditions are so completely at odds with each other. And Celtic and Germanic society was culturally very different.

Anyway the Anglo-Saxons went onto to develop Medieval Europe&#39;s most sophisticated and precocious administrative system. (Nowhere else could Domesday Book have been produced.) And many elements of their culture and society too gave way with the movements of Latin European expansion and the &#39;Aristocratic Diaspora&#39;, taking the form of the Norman Conquest in England. It was this dynamic that lay claims over the rest of the British Isles. Interestingly, and instructively, the Irish - despite their longstanding and influential tradition of Christianity - were often reffered to as &#39;pagans&#39;&#33; Why? Because their (non-Latin) Christianity and social model was deviant to the European, feudal form. Colonisation, just as in England, was inevitable.

I hope this illustrates the complexities of such dynamics and social movements in history. Always be most wary of passing judgement.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 12:24 PM
PRC-UTE

Er... one might hazard that you&#39;re conflating current political struggle with historiography... it&#39;s not a good idea.
You could be easily accused of the same, though it&#39;s pointless - it makes neither one of us any more right or wrong.



We&#39;re talking about the Anglo-Saxons, not the British. British refers to one branch of the Celtic family tree of languages, including Welsh and Breton.

Er, as I&#39;m sure you know really &#39;British&#39; also refers to the political unit extended over the British Isles by the English...

In modern times it does, not in centuries ago; the topic was Anglo-Saxon society and I was responding in that context.


No they didn&#39;t. The Romans had already left Britain. The point is &#39;barbarian&#39; isn&#39;t a helpful term because as it carries connotations of a value-judgement.

I&#39;m not sure which script you&#39;re reading from, but it sounds oddly post-modernist. Of course we do use value-judgements, just as when Engels learnt Irish to study the Brehon (Celtic) laws and remarked upon how civilised they seemed to him.(&#33;)


The Saxons were of course at a much lower stage of social development than the Romans but, it would seem, &#39;higher&#39; than the Celts.

No, not in that time period, from what I&#39;ve read. They weren&#39;t even literate until missionaries, including Irish, brought it to their land later on. It appears from much of the evidence available that the Saxons were really the lowest of the low in ancient Europe, savages who lived by plunder.


Many historians have long aruged that the eradication of Britonic culture was due to Celtic aspiration to Germanic culture. (The most radical even claim that the Germanic invasions never occurred&#33; A quashed claim in the face of recent genetic evidence.)


Yes, that&#39;s nothing new, but actually examples of imperialist apologia - some historians would claim that Ireland had no civilisation to speak of, and Scottish culture was fictional.

All were claims without merit, of course.

It&#39;s ludicrous to claim the British natives wanted to be like the illiterate, uncultured invading German mercenaries, especially as we know they fought them with such ferocity (coming close to victory once, only to be murdered during a truce). More pointedly, so many Britons fled their conquest to the Armorican penninsula (now Brittany).

You may praise medieval England&#39;s cultural achievements all you like - I find it more noteworthy that the sole famous philosopher of the Dark Ages was a Gael, and most of the great cultural milestones (such as monastic culture throughout Europe, paving the way for future learning and cities) were Gaelic-made. Or that more medical literature was written in Irish than any other langauge unti the 19th century&#33; It&#39;s also instructive that the early English themselves regarded the Irish language in much the same way as scholars would treat Latin - as a language of the educated.


Lots of people actually but anyway, how you can explain the still limping existence of British monarchy by reference to Germanic invasions over a thousand years ago I&#39;d like to hear&#33; (The word &#39;anachronism&#39; comes to mind.)

It was meant in jest, which I thought was obvious.



We know from massive indirect evidence that the invading Saxons killed all the native Britons they came in contact with, causing the massive migration to Gaul that created Brittany (a nation that still exists today).

Yes. That&#39;s the story of all tribal movements throughout history. The Celts were no different when they entered the British Isles nor were the Huns, Teutons or Mongols. That&#39;s just the nature of that particular historical dynamic.

No, it&#39;s not the story of &#39;all tribal movements throughout history&#39;. As a matter of fact, the Gaels of Ireland and the British Celts of Wales were a mix of many tribes, united by culture, but genetically quite diverse. Certain rare blood types are found in Europe in any number only in the Basque country, parts of Wales and southwest Ireland. Because this blood type is more common amongst the Basque folk, and they were pre-indoeuropean, the theory is that the invading Celts of Wales and Ireland intermarried with the natives. This is also thought to explain the strange differences in body types and colours Engels remarked upon in his unfinished History of Ireland, as well as for the matrilineal patterns of the Gaelic Picts.

Which leads to the fact that -



Shockingly, there aren&#39;t even loan words from British Celtic into Anglo-Saxon from that period.

Shockingly?

Shockingly, because Irish for example is full of loan words, whereas the invading Anglo-Saxons picked up none in that period, implying strongly that there was no intermarriage or side-by-side settlement with the still largely Celtic-speaking natives. By contrast, French is full of hundreds of acknowledged and unacknowledged Celtic words the Franks picked up as they settled Gaul.



The Romans were the first multi-cultural society of the west.

The Saxons couldn&#39;t even stand to live next to culturally very similar people.

The Romans were far more socially sophisticated... it&#39;s not an interesting contrast to make at all as the social conditions are so completely at odds with each other. And Celtic and Germanic society was culturally very different.

Quite so, hence the word &#39;barbarian&#39;, or as Marx would say, savage.


Interestingly, and instructively, the Irish - despite their longstanding and influential tradition of Christianity - were often reffered to as &#39;pagans&#39;&#33; Why? Because their (non-Latin) Christianity and social model was deviant to the European, feudal form. Colonisation, just as in England, was inevitable.


You&#39;ve got the facts correct, but a bit of the narrative wrong.

It was a delegation of Irish clerics that urged Ireland be invaded, so that the church could own land. As the land-grabbing of powerful clan chiefs like Brian Boru demonstrate, Ireland was heading for fuedel relations (just as Gaul had without colonisation). Had a clique of Irish clerics not successfully schemed to become as well-propertied as their European colleagues, Irish history may have been very different.


I hope this illustrates the complexities of such dynamics and social movements in history. Always be most wary of passing judgement.

It does illustrate the fact that pro-English imperial sentiment still operates under the banner of neutral, value-free interpretation.

[Invader Zim]

You are missing LSD&#39;s point, the most important one to be made here - history is the development of unfolding and changing social dynamics and to lay blame or judgement on a particular society is meaningless. (And irrational.)

Quite, attempting to judge ancient society using a perspective of modern ethics will give you the same horrifing result everytime and is no real reflection on the society. To objectively consider a society you look at how contemporary societies behaved and contrast that to the society you are studing.


I find it more noteworthy that the sole famous philosopher of the Dark Ages was a Gael,

Just because you have never heard of any other famous Dark Age philosophers does not mean that they did not exist. And if we look further afield than Europe, at the Middle east and Northen Africa for example, society was not illiterate and was certainly more culturally advanced than any European people. So what exactly is it you are attempting to achieve, are you trying to impress upon English people that their ancestors were in some way inferior to their Irish counter parts, in some kind of national ego massaging frenzy?

For the record this link notes two other such philosophers: -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_philosophy

But it is unsupprising that that there were few philosophers because the term dark ages reffers to the fact that society had become considerably less literate. What is significantly more noteworthy is that rise of Chivalry was a largely European development. But in terms of the British Isles it was the Welsh who created the most famous chivalric hero and were making note of him in the 8th and 9th century.

Does this make the medieval Welsh a better people than the medieval Gaels?

[RevolverNo9]

PRC-UTE


It does illustrate the fact that pro-English imperial sentiment still operates under the banner of neutral, value-free interpretation.

That&#39;s ridiculous&#33; What exactly is it that I&#39;ve written that constitutes &#39;pro-English imperial sentiments&#39;&#33;? I&#39;m just challanging your rather idealist conception of history that seems to imply that different social associations have a kind of Volksgeist - I have no such interest in doing such a thing. If I make an error in what I say it is in trying to understand the objective development of societies, rather than imposing a foreshadow of British imperialism onto a period of over a thousand years ago.


In modern times it does, not in centuries ago; the topic was Anglo-Saxon society and I was responding in that context.

Yes but LSD was referring to the 17th and 18th centuries...


I&#39;m not sure which script you&#39;re reading from, but it sounds oddly post-modernist. Of course we do use value-judgements, just as when Engels learnt Irish to study the Brehon (Celtic) laws and remarked upon how civilised they seemed to him.(&#33;)

? My approach is decidedely and actively anti-postmodern&#33; I am asserting that some form of objective analysis of the past is possible while the postmodernist &#39;historian&#39; would argue for the equal validity of any historical narrative, which of course includes the influence of any corruptive value-judgements (such as those held by you and Herr Engels).


No, not in that time period, from what I&#39;ve read. They weren&#39;t even literate until missionaries, including Irish, brought it to their land later on.

You&#39;re right, very few Saxons were literate - neither were the Britons or the Irish. Irish missionaries did indeed teach English monks Latin literacy in the seventh/eighth century, as did other missionaries from the continent. It&#39;s what missionaries did.


It appears from much of the evidence available that the Saxons were really the lowest of the low in ancient Europe, savages who lived by plunder.

What evidence? I&#39;m not sure I can really comment but given the fact that continental European society was on the verge of becoming a Germanic phenomenon I find it unlikely that they would assess the Celts higher than the Saxons. I could be wrong though.

As for a tribal society living on plunder? Man, that&#39;s unusual&#33; These Saxons almost sound as bad as the Vikings (heaven-forbid)&#33; It&#39;s worth remembering that when the Romans withdrew from Britain the first invaders and pirates were Irish and Pictish. In fact, it was arranged by agreement that initial Saxon invaders should form &#39;buffer-settlements&#39; in the North and West in order to relieve the Britons of the pressure. As it happened they went on to conquor the East of England more successfully.


Yes, that&#39;s nothing new, but actually examples of imperialist apologia - some historians would claim that Ireland had no civilisation to speak of, and Scottish culture was fictional.

All were claims without merit, of course.

As I indicated I don&#39;t agree with such theories in their extreme. But I can&#39;t dismiss the possibility of an element of Germanic aspiration on the part of the Celts simply because I haven&#39;t read any of the material.


You may praise medieval England&#39;s cultural achievements all you like

Did I even do such a thing? This whole theory that I&#39;m an &#39;Imperialist Apologist&#39; seems pretty thin... I&#39;m not even &#39;English&#39; (which shouldn&#39;t matter but I suspect you feel otherwise...)

If you&#39;re referring to my statement about the Early Medieval English government being the most precocious in Europe (which isn&#39;t a cultural achievement I think you&#39;ll find...) I said that because it is a fact, backed-up by evidence. I didn&#39;t say that to promote some notion of English superiority but simply to demonstrate that a people who were a few hundred years ago a comparatively primitive tribal people can go on to construct something very sophisticated. You want to imply that some sort of &#39;mythical national character&#39; exists, which is presumably why the raving Mongols are now pacifist Buddhists.


I find it more noteworthy that the sole famous philosopher of the Dark Ages was a Gael

Why? Do you find petty nationalism appealing? Anyway that&#39;s not even true (for example King Alfred was the first literate European king since Marcus Aurelius and a fine scholar - maybe he was actually Irish and just &#39;pretending&#39; to be a savage, barbarian Saxon)...


and most of the great cultural milestones (such as monastic culture throughout Europe, paving the way for future learning and cities) were Gaelic-made.

... and that&#39;s close to bollocks. &#39;Most of the great cultural milestones&#39;? Like what. As for Irish monasticism, you have a point but it&#39;s been exagerated ten-fold. I&#39;ll say what I can.

Irish Christianity was remarkable because it was the sole case in Europe of Christianity growing up outside the Romanised world (though of course that was its provenance, and a considerable amount of cultural osmosis occurred). The case was amplified because of the nature of Ireland&#39;s early social structures - around 80 - 100 warring kingdons and no towns existed. As a result there was no way the European episcopal system could operate effectively. Therefore monasticism became an ideal institution to organise religious observance and it would seem that these monasteries became the first great ecclesiastical land-owners. Monasticism, originated, of course from Egypt and the Near-East and - again because of a lack of urban society - Irish monasteries very closesly reflected this original form rather than the later houses founded in Europe.

Of course the Christian tradition was written in Latin which was initially out of reach for the Irish monks. As a result they were particularly energetic in learning Latin and discovering the texts hitherto unavalaible. It was this need for knowledge combined with the stimulus of monastic revival in Francia (and certain ascetic practices of self-exile) that brought such a number of Irish monks to the continent (and elsewhere, such as on Iona). It is true that great figures such as Columbanus founded houses on the continent and brought attention to hitherto unread texts. Yet the old romantic notion of Ireland as some sort of bearer of light throughout has long been discredited. Monastic revival was an already happening phenomenon - in the seventh century over 200 monasteries were founded in Western Francia, very few can be connected to Irish influence, and the tradition that these houses continued in was a Latin one.


It&#39;s also instructive that the early English themselves regarded the Irish language in much the same way as scholars would treat Latin - as a language of the educated.

When and what&#39;s the evidence? I&#39;m not saying you&#39;re wrong - I&#39;d just be interested to know that&#39;s all.


As a matter of fact, the Gaels of Ireland and the British Celts of Wales were a mix of many tribes, united by culture, but genetically quite diverse.

United by culture, is surely the key phrase? But weren&#39;t the Cruthin pushed out of Ireland? And the Picts suffered did they not? And of course the first invaders and pillagers of Britain after the Romans left weren&#39;t the Saxons - they were Pictish and Irish&#33;

You&#39;re right though, a lot of evidence suggests that Saxon invasions were much more segregating (although there is conflicitng evidence - did you know that for hundreds of years the West Saxon kings all took Celtic names?).


Shockingly, because...

I know what you mean... I just felt that was again something of a value-judgement.


It was a delegation of Irish clerics that urged Ireland be invaded, so that the church could own land. As the land-grabbing of powerful clan chiefs like Brian Boru demonstrate, Ireland was heading for fuedel relations (just as Gaul had without colonisation). Had a clique of Irish clerics not successfully schemed to become as well-propertied as their European colleagues, Irish history may have been very different.

As I understand it it was the king of Dublin, Dermot, who had been deposed by other local kings and warlords and called upon the Anglo-Norman aristocracy for aid. Henry II was reluctant, attending to more pressing concerns in the Angenvin polity but many Norman and French aristocrats could not resist the chance to plunder Ireland, as such people had done in Sicily, Pomerania, Syria, Denmark, Southern Spain, Cyprus, Poland and elsewhere. There had been talk of England of an invasion or Ireland since William the Conqeror. I&#39;d dispute your implication that the &#39;chance of events&#39; caused Ireland&#39;s invasion. It was the inevitable result of the expansion of the Latin-Christian social-dynamic of the times.

I&#39;d also heavily dispute your claim that Gaul was entering into feudal reletionship before the Roman conquest&#33; That seems very implausable, although, a definition of feudalism is very hard to come by.

Enigma:


QUOTE
You are missing LSD&#39;s point, the most important one to be made here - history is the development of unfolding and changing social dynamics and to lay blame or judgement on a particular society is meaningless. (And irrational.)

Quite, attempting to judge ancient society using a perspective of modern ethics will give you the same horrifing result everytime and is no real reflection on the society. To objectively consider a society you look at how contemporary societies behaved and contrast that to the society you are studing.

Exactly, that is the point.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 01:59 PM

I find it more noteworthy that the sole famous philosopher of the Dark Ages was a Gael,

Just because you have never heard of any other famous Dark Age philosophers does not mean that they did not exist. And if we look further afield than Europe, at the Middle east and Northen Africa for example, society was not illiterate and was certainly more culturally advanced than any European people.
For the record this link notes two other such philosophers: -
Well it&#39;s kind of obvious, but those outside Europe weren&#39;t in the Dark Ages, were they, just like Ireland wasn&#39;t.


So what exactly is it you are attempting to achieve, are you trying to impress upon English people that their ancestors were in some way inferior to their Irish counter parts, in some kind of national ego massaging frenzy?


English people often assume, and English historians often assert that there were no great achievements in the Celtic countries - that they were always backwards relative to England. That seemed to be what Revolver9 believed as well, in claiming that the conquest of Ireland was inevitable. I was only offering balance.

Notice I never said England didn&#39;t achieve anything great at any point in time, or that there is anything inherently good or bad about the Irish or English. You&#39;re taking one thing I said in a specific historical context and applying it generally to have a go at me. Which is not exactly surprising, considering some of the things you&#39;ve said to me before b/c I&#39;m Irish.



But it is unsupprising that that there were few philosophers because the term dark ages reffers to the fact that society had become considerably less literate.

Yeah, that Ireland wasn&#39;t in the Dark Ages and contributed significantly to cultural and social progress. That this benefited what would become England is an ironic bit of history.



What is significantly more noteworthy is that rise of Chivalry was a largely European development. But in terms of the British Isles it was the Welsh who created the most famous chivalric hero and were making note of him in the 8th and 9th century.

If you say so.

I&#39;m no expert on this, but I thought the Welsh didn&#39;t add the Chivalry and that was a Norman French thing when they got the literature from the Bretons. I think it was also the French who added the roundtable.


Does this make the medieval Welsh a better people than the medieval Gaels?

Dunno, I&#39;ll get back to you on that. I haven&#39;t said any people were better than any other, only that the Saxons seemed pretty barbaric at the time.
_____________

Revolver9, I enjoyed reading your responses, some of which were interesting. I could only skim now as I&#39;m very busy, but I will try to read it fully and respond shortly.