[HN Gopher] The Viking Invasion of Leicestershire (2012)
___________________________________________________________________
The Viking Invasion of Leicestershire (2012)
Author : zeristor
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-02-21 09:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thiswasleicestershire.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thiswasleicestershire.co.uk)
| andrewgleave wrote:
| The Isle of Man has an interesting Viking history including
| monuments/ship burials as well as Viking artefacts and treasure
| including this one announced a few days ago:
|
| https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/02/viking-treasure-hoard-...
| simonh wrote:
| Between the TV shows Vikings and The Last Kingdom this period has
| had some welcome screen time in recent years. It's a fascinating
| era in British history and it's great to see it getting more
| popular attention.
| [deleted]
| phreeza wrote:
| People unfamiliar with the HN convention of tagging an article
| with the publication year might be somewhat confused by the
| title.
| capableweb wrote:
| If some people in 2020 believe that A) vikings existed in 2012
| and B) they would still invade places, then I'd say let them
| get confused, they'll be confused by anything.
| datenhorst wrote:
| My immediate thought was some sort of Viking LARP that went
| wrong
| vidarh wrote:
| There's been a number of reconstructions of viking
| ships[1], and some of them like e.g. this one [2] have been
| sailed, so that would have been an amusing possibility.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ship_replica
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draken_Harald_H%C3%A5rfagre
| Smithalicious wrote:
| It was only last month that someone dressed up as a viking
| occupied the US capitol
| elygre wrote:
| As a Norwegian, the title gave me great joy.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| I'm during my second play-through of Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
| So interesting to see this here. The game is not that
| historically accurate but the general feel and atmosphere is
| amazing.
| arethuza wrote:
| The village where I grew up in Scotland has a cliff-sided
| promontory reaching out into the sea called the Green Castle -
| archaeological digs in the 1970s found remains of iron age and
| Pictish forts there. One part is eroding away and you can quite
| clearly see a line of burnt wood particles - one of the theories
| being that the fort was burned down in a Viking seige:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Castle,_Portknockie
|
| Edit: There was at least one significant battle between the Scots
| and Vikings in the area, probably a good bit later:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bauds
|
| Edit2: "Legend has it that within the vicinity, a Scots, a Danish
| and a Norwegian King are buried" - which is why there is(was?) a
| Three Kings pub in Cullen:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cullen,_Moray
| peteretep wrote:
| Is it just the length of time that's passed that makes Vikings
| cool and the British Empire terrible?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| There seems to be certain period after which horrible things
| become less horrible, even fun.
|
| The London Dungeon tourist attraction has fun exhibits on
| medieval torture and Jack the Ripper (1888). I've often
| wondered when more modern serial killers, rapists and
| atrocities would be acceptable.
|
| [edit] in 'polite' society
| Chris2048 wrote:
| https://www.crimemuseum.org/about-us/
|
| http://www.museumofdeath.net/info
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_Museum
| DanBC wrote:
| People are a bit touchy about Jack the Ripper even today.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/29/jack-
| th...
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jack-
| ripper-...
|
| https://fyeahhistory.com/2020/09/08/jack-the-ripper-
| museum-r...
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-
| life/11926093/Jack-... https://web.archive.org/web/2017111705
| 5654/https://www.teleg...
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I had that conversation a while back about wars. We were
| discussing Napoleonic history, and then the conversation
| shifted to WW2. For the Brits (and most of the Germans) in
| the discussion it was all fine. But the Dutch, Danes and
| French were all "too soon".
|
| We were left wondering when it won't be "too soon"? 2045?
| When the last veteran dies? The last person alive at the
| time? It's interesting - when does this become acceptable?
| vidarh wrote:
| I'd imagine in this respect to WW2 the distinction has
| something to do with _being occupied_. My grandparents all
| lived through the nazi occupation of Norway, and so I grew
| up with first-hand stories about that, and so it feels
| fairly personal.
| DanBC wrote:
| Also, a lot of British discussion about the Second World
| War is pretty horrible. There's often a mix jingoism and
| ignorance of what happened, especially of some of the
| things Britain did.
| klelatti wrote:
| Whilst agreeing that much of the discussion of WW2 in the
| UK is unhealthy - especially in the tabloid press etc -
| not sure that the "ignorance of some of the things that
| Britain did " is valid. There has been and continues to
| be wide awareness of tactics like 'area bombing' and
| their consequences.
|
| The biggest criticism I think is that there is too much
| discussion of the war and that it overstates the UK's
| role.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I'm living in Berlin at the moment, and the whole subject
| is fascinating and also fraught with difficulties. It's a
| totally different perspective than British jingoism. The
| mixture of pride and shame is such a contrast. Berlin
| tends to focus on the Wall rather than the War and I can
| understand why.
|
| > tactics like 'area bombing' and their consequences
|
| My grandfather was in the RAF (not bomber command, but
| still). I visited Dresden recently, and felt a need to
| apologise to the city.
| klelatti wrote:
| I think that Britain's relationship with the war is
| complex and flawed in many ways. Germany has dealt with
| its role in the war in a much more healthy way.
|
| I suppose that it was the word 'jingoism' which prompted
| me to reply to the earlier post. I'm not sure that this
| really captures the prevalent attitude, which is more of
| being a plucky underdog that fought alone against the
| Nazi regime. This is obviously rubbish but has then been
| used as an excuse to gloss over some of the poorer
| aspects of Britain's behaviour (and not just in the war).
|
| I do think that the perception has changed (or been
| manipulated) over the years. The films and TV of the 60s
| and 70s played a big part in creating this myth and more
| recently the tabloids and certain politicians (who are
| jingoistic) have exploited it ruthlessly to further their
| own agendas.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| > Germany has dealt with its role in the war in a much
| more healthy way.
|
| For most of the population, this is probably true. But I
| think the mixture of shame and pride is feeding the far
| right in Germany - who then feel the pride without the
| shame. This is growing as it becomes more politically and
| socially acceptable to express anything but shame and
| apologies about the war.
| garmaine wrote:
| You ever watched CSI or Criminal Minds?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Good point, but they are fiction and those shows are based
| around catching the 'unsub'. I guess there are also 'real
| crime' shows that go over recent cases.
|
| But my point is that you could dress up as a Ghengis Khan
| or a Viking to a fancy dress party but a German WW2 SS
| soldier would be less acceptable. People go on Jack the
| Ripper tours in London as part of a fun tourist experience.
| But a more recent serial rapist/murderer tour wouldn't have
| the same pull.
| [deleted]
| watwut wrote:
| Vikings are cool for the same reason Sparta is cool - "badass"
| tough mythical society. They are manly men fighters who are
| seen as aspirational for some ideological groups. Other
| ideological groups don't care all that much about them, because
| they are far away in the past. The people who consider Vikings
| as myth cool are not the same as the people who dislike real
| history of British Empire.
|
| Also, the historical details over how their societies
| functioned are not important in popular imagination. For many
| people, Vikings that are cool are not real historical Vikings,
| it is more of safe imaginary fantasy setup - kind of like Lord
| of the Rings, Witcher or Star Wars. I mean, people do then
| project fantasy on real world history, but that is more of
| accidental thing.
| joveian wrote:
| I think (US perspective) mostly that along with Hagar the
| Horrible and a generic connection between vikings and
| Scandinavian ancestry (that is common in some parts of the
| northern US). Although many racists are really into the vikings
| so it isn't always seen as cool. For that matter, I think the
| British Empire is unfortunately often seen as cool also.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I wouldn't consider the British Empire to be 'cool' but I can
| appreciate that it was a phenomenal military and logistic
| machine. One tiny country conquered most of the world that
| was worth conquering. There's something impressive about
| that.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Worth conquering? Not really. Arguably there was a lot more
| to conquer, but the rest of the world might've fought back.
|
| So more like: "One country grabs a lot of land too
| underdeveloped to fight back."
|
| The only noteworthy resistance was mounted by other western
| powers.
|
| Whether one slave-master triumphing over another is
| something to be applauded, I'll leave to the reader to
| decide.
| vixen99 wrote:
| It was underdeveloped to start with. Later the British
| economy was actually dependent on India. Why? Because
| India became Britain's main market for her manufactured
| goods with 60% of British exports going to India by 1913.
| Employed Indians were buying that stuff! British
| investment in India totalled around PS400 million or 10%
| of overseas investments before WW1, Like it or not, the
| British modernized India during their rule. They built
| 40,000 miles of railway track plus postal and telegraph
| systems with employment of millions. It's an unpalatable
| truth for many that a significant number of Indians found
| benefit and were willing to accept the rule (at that time
| and in those circumstances) rather than rebel against the
| British presence. All this doesn't add up to a PR job for
| the British because we're all very well aware of the cons
| of British Rule but objectively we know that's not the
| whole story. In history we need to see that the past is a
| done deal which we should examine in all its aspects,
| pros and cons.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Modernized _some_ of their infrastructure, yes. But India
| 's economy was also destroyed. Whether India would have
| been able to modernize themselves with a functioning
| economy and under their own rule is another question.
|
| "There is no doubt that our grievances against the
| British Empire had a sound basis. As the painstaking
| statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus
| Maddison has shown, India's share of world income
| collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's
| share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952.
| Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th century, "the
| brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest
| country in the world in terms of per capita income."
|
| -- Manmohan Singh
|
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_India
|
| > They built 40,000 miles of railway track plus postal
| and telegraph systems with employment of millions.
|
| I mean, okay? How nice of them to share some technology
| progress that was made _during_ colonial rule. It 's not
| like India got a chance to built any of that under their
| own rule.
|
| I'd call developing the land you are ruling doing the
| bare-minimum. And we can't exactly say the British did a
| good job at that considering the state India was in at
| the end of colonial rule.
|
| After freeing a slave you just don't get to pat yourself
| on the back and say: "I've been feeding him for 25 years,
| given him clothing, and even work! What would he have
| done without me!"
| inglor_cz wrote:
| India does not strike me as particularly underdeveloped.
| chmod775 wrote:
| It was not at the time from a purely economical point of
| view, but it had other, political, problems that made it
| fall to the British (and other colonial powers) without
| resistance.
|
| Let's also not forget that British controlled a lot of
| that economy, which they pivoted into political control.
| arethuza wrote:
| Indeed, India represented about a quarter of the world's
| economy in 1700:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_economy_of_
| the...
| tadhgf wrote:
| From wiki: Trading rivalries among the seafaring European
| powers brought other European powers to India. The Dutch
| Republic, England, France, and Denmark-Norway all
| established trading posts in India in the early 17th
| century. As the Mughal Empire disintegrated in the early
| 18th century, and then as the Maratha Empire became
| weakened after the third battle of Panipat, many
| relatively weak and unstable Indian states which emerged
| were increasingly open to manipulation by the Europeans,
| through dependent Indian rulers.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Yes, India was unstable. That is not the same as
| underdeveloped.
|
| USA has had several peaks of instability during its
| existence, arguably is on such a peak right now, but is
| fairly developed, though very unequally so.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > Yes, India was unstable. That is not the same as
| underdeveloped.
|
| And it's valid to point that out. But at the end of the
| day for what reason India was unable to fight back
| against the western powers doesn't really matter.
|
| In India's case there still was no heroic conquering.
| Just bullying. And then bullies fighting against each
| other from relative safety with their colonies as pawns.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > One country grabs a lot of land too underdeveloped to
| fight back
|
| If they were just grabbing a lot of "land too
| underdeveloped to fight back" then why weren't other
| empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of
| underdeveloped lands? Do we really believe that other
| empires were simply too morally upright to exploit
| underdeveloped lands? Or is there a more interesting,
| nuanced explanation?
|
| In whichever case, I find it fascinating that the British
| Isles went from being an irrelevant archipelago at the
| end of the known world to being the dominant superpower
| and the largest empire in human history. One can
| simultaneously appreciate that historical narrative and
| also condemn the atrocities accumulated along the way.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up
| the same amount of underdeveloped lands?
|
| Except there were. There were dozens of conflicts and
| wars over the span of multiple centuries for control over
| territory.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I think you're mistaken. The British empire was the
| largest empire that has ever existed. That other empires
| existed (and had centuries-long conflicts/wars) does not
| refute this fact.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I tried to interpret your sentence in the only way it
| would have addressed your quote of myself in a coherent
| manner. I tried to be charitable.
|
| Okay. So let's interpret it as it was written instead.
|
| > If they were just grabbing a lot of "land too
| underdeveloped to fight back" then why weren't other
| empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of
| underdeveloped lands?
|
| Whether or not there were _other_ empires able or willing
| to grab up that same amount of land doesn 't affect the
| statement in the slightest. The sentence is nonsense.
|
| If you strike "same amount of" the sentence actually does
| make some sense, which is why I chose to respond to that
| when I wrote my first response.
|
| Whatever X may be, you will always find countries that
| did/have the _most_ X, which however doesn 't change the
| nature of X.
|
| "You are mistaken. China has the highest mountains and
| also a lot of them. Therefore mountains can't be made of
| stone!" doesn't make much sense, does it.
|
| Neither does: "Britain grabbed more land than everyone
| else. Therefore the land that everyone was grabbing can't
| have been underdeveloped!"
|
| And let's face reality here for a second: Open up a map
| of the British Empire and tell me straight to my face
| that the vast majority of that land wasn't
| underdeveloped.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > I tried to interpret your sentence in the only way it
| would have addressed your quote of myself in a coherent
| manner. I tried to be charitable. Okay. So let's
| interpret it as it was written instead.
|
| Neither of those "interpretations" are "as written". I'm
| not speaking in subtext here, so I don't know why you're
| trying to decipher instead of addressing the actual
| content. In whichever case, hopefully this post
| clarifies.
|
| > And let's face reality here for a second: Open up a map
| of the British Empire and tell me straight to my face
| that the vast majority of that land wasn't
| underdeveloped.
|
| No one suggested the territory of the British Empire was
| fully developed pre-conquest. The OP suggested that
| military and logistic achievements of the British Empire
| were impressive, and you argued the contrary "[they
| merely grabbed] a lot of land too underdeveloped to fight
| back". Of course, the British Empire profited
| fantastically from those conquests so they were clearly
| worthwhile and other empires were equally willing to
| conquer weaker nations so it isn't a question of scruples
| either. And if it's not a question of worth or scruples
| then surely it must be a question of ability, contrary to
| your implication.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Are you doing an efficient market hypothesis for
| imperialism?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Rejecting the notion that the British were uniquely evil
| is not the same as supporting any particular hypothesis.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| what makes it interesting is that for > 1000 years, the history
| of vikings has been written and documented by the victors.
|
| > Not until the 1890s did scholars outside Scandinavia begin to
| seriously reassess the achievements of the Vikings, recognizing
| their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship. --
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Medieval_perceptions
|
| while the Michael Hirst's _Vikings_ doesn 't stick to facts,
| makes use of viking folklore, songs and poems to tell the
| story, it did an incredibly authentic job putting the audience
| into a mindset that helps understand how they think and what
| they believed in. And I hope it makes kids interested in why
| they should be studied and are important.
| iguy wrote:
| They also aren't a useful rhetorical foil for any present-day
| arguments. In none of their former territory can you make
| political hay by deflecting present-day problems onto those
| particular earlier rulers. That's related to time, of course,
| but also very much related to what else has happened since, or
| has failed to happen.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Rest assured, plenty of hay gets made about how "progressive"
| vikings were with respect to gender (apparently there were
| female viking warriors) and sex (not so strict about
| monogamy) compared to those awful Anglo-Saxon Christians.
| Never mind of course that vikings weren't big on "consent" or
| that they're darlings of far right groups.
| hguant wrote:
| >apparently there were female viking warriors
|
| This is a MUCH more controversial idea than pop-history
| would have you believe. There have been Viking women found
| buried with weapons and armour; however, there are also men
| who weren't warriors found buried with arms and armour as
| well. Scholarship on the matter isn't really sure if the
| women found buried that way were warriors being honored as
| such, or rich/wealthy/politically powerful people who were
| buried in the trappings of a martial society. Also, the
| extrapolation of "a shockingly small number of women were
| buried with swords" to "the Vikings had gender equality and
| badass warrior women in every port" is great Netflix
| fodder, but not really backed up anywhere else.
|
| >Never mind of course that vikings weren't big on "consent"
| or that they're darlings of far right groups.
|
| Vikings also literally had a slave based economy; the only
| thing that got the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to unite
| was "hey, we don't want to be slaves/the main event of
| excruciatingly brutal human sacrifices."
|
| >compared to those awful Anglo-Saxon Christians
|
| Interestingly enough, almost all the Vikings converted
| peacefully to Christianity within a decade or two of
| settling in Britan.
| iguy wrote:
| Yes. The political point being made with this history is
| different too, it's one of pride, not shame. It's "Our
| great ancestors were nice social democrats, too! Unlike
| your cold-war army, grandpa, they let woman have front-
| line jobs!"
|
| Compare: "Those evil germanics who sailed up the Volga
| and subjugated our ancestors, you know how much silver
| they took home? And you've seen how wealthy Copenhagen is
| now? My buddy Igor ran the numbers, and compound interest
| explains it all!". That's not a speech which will improve
| your political career in Russia.
| mlvljr wrote:
| Funnily, Igor (Ingvar, originally, I think) is a
| Scandinavian name brought to Russia by the vikings :)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I don't doubt this, but for the record Scandanavians are
| not the people in my sphere who are doing a significant
| share of the Vikings-glorifying. It seems to be oriented
| on a political axis rather than a national axis.
| gumby wrote:
| The scale was different, but yes.
|
| People also now poke fun at Napoleon but in Europe until the
| 1940s he was the canonical supervillain (apparently before him
| it was "pharaoh"). You're identifying a general phenomenon.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| Probably an underdog thing. If I think of Vikings I see a bunch
| of wild, strong Uber-men who won't make compromises. When I
| think of British Empire I see a handlebar moustache with a pale
| guy attached to it wearing those puffy pants hitting Ben
| Kingsely with a stick.
| seanhunter wrote:
| One historical theory I read was that a lot of the negative
| stories about vikings were put about by disgruntled Britons who
| were unhappy because a lot of British women preferred to marry
| viking men because they used to wash once a week whereas the
| standard behaviour for British men was to wash once a year.
| > A later writing often credited to the Abbot of St. Albans
| > reports that "thanks to their habit of combing their hair
| > every day, of bathing every Saturday and regularly >
| changing their clothes, were able to undermine the virtue
| > of married women and even seduce the daughters of nobles
| > to be their mistresses."
|
| https://www.danishnet.com/vikings/cleanliness-did-vikings-ta...
| thorin wrote:
| Vikings killed loads to people and nicked stuff, British Empire
| killed loads of people and nicked stuff, American settlers
| killed loads of people and nicked stuff. Are you starting to
| see a pattern here?
|
| Now you have to enslave people by restricting their access to
| cheap mobile devices.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Not to forget the French (Norman) invasion and complete
| takeover of the British (Anglo Saxons) by William in 1066.
|
| The effects of that invasion are still with us as pointed out
| by Gregory Clark. Analysis of Norman Surnames and their
| predominance in elite families in Britain today, has shown
| that "Rich families stay rich and poor families stay poor,
| according to a new study that finds that English people whose
| ancestors were elite in the 1100s are still likely part of
| the upper crust today. The study echoes work in other
| countries that has found that social status budges little
| over generations, even in the face of massive social changes"
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Be honest, that's in a culture that holds the Nobility as a
| different kind of human being above everyone else. This
| worshipful attitude is a huge factor, not just economics.
|
| And not all the rich, stay rich. That's a mainstay for
| every British comedy ever. But the ones who do stay rich,
| are very often those that are held in higher regard than
| the 'common folk'.
| iguy wrote:
| Clark finds this pattern in most societies, IIRC Sweden
| and China have (in his data) almost identical rates of
| status persistence. It's not a quirk of English manners.
|
| What varies more is the degree to which ordinary people
| today descend from the nobility in (say) 1100. In some
| societies they had many more surviving children than
| average, e.g. it's easy for them to double every
| generation, within a basically static total population,
| implying that their offspring make up a high proportion
| of people after a few centuries. But in other societies,
| they did not.
|
| His books are pretty readable, BTW, interesting data.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Interesting choice - those two societies also have 1000
| years of respect for nobility? It seems to be a strong
| factor then.
| iguy wrote:
| I don't know about respect. The data is on persistence of
| status. They can do this in many countries, those are
| just two I remember (besides England).
|
| Direct records of ancestry are too scattered to piece
| together long timescales. What he (and collaborators) do
| is to find very rare surnames, in records at some distant
| time (e.g. Oxford graduation in 1600, high-status, or
| common criminals executed then, low-status) and then
| trace look for the same name in later data (e.g.
| Victorian wills, or today's tax data). Rare names give
| you a fairly targeted marker. One which the carriers are
| often unaware of.
| heraclius wrote:
| Well I suppose one could say we call the analogue of
| reparations the welfare state at which point that prospect
| doesn't sound quite so ludicrous after all.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > American settlers killed loads of people and nicked stuff
|
| The diseases brought by settlers did more ravage than actual
| confrontation.
| watwut wrote:
| The displacement of whole groups did actually quite a lot.
| The Indian Removal Act was an actual policy, not an
| accident. There was whole ideology and policies around who
| gets to have which rights in the states.
| Communitivity wrote:
| When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to indigenous
| peoples, I think that checked off both boxes.
|
| Curiously, the Viking are often portrayed as bloodthirsty
| brutes raping, pillaging, and burning their way through
| towns.
|
| The reality is different. There was brutality, but it was
| generally limited. Vikings were more likely to conquer and
| settle than to burn things down to the ground. They were
| vengeful though, so any killing of Viking captives or
| civilians could result in a disproportionate and brutal
| retaliation. For example, Aella, the King of Northumbria
| killed Viking King Ragnar Lothbrok not by combat, but by
| having him thrown into a pit of poisonous snakes. As a
| result, when Ragnar's son Ivar the Boneless sought revenge
| and captured Aella a quick death wasn't deemed appropriate.
| Instead, Ivar created the Blood Eagle ritual and used it on
| Aella. It was a gruesome and painful method of execution,
| but one the Viking probably felt justified in using giving
| the cowardly death Aella gave Ragnar.
|
| This is not to say they weren't brutal, but much of what we
| know about the Vikings comes from their enemies, which
| colors the history.
|
| Some links for more information, the first is a really good
| rundown by a history professor specializing in Vikings:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dzioe8/were
| _...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26431858
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/140926-v
| i...
|
| My own amateur research shows England and English-colonies
| had the most violent behavior (Norman raids, Irish
| subjugation, Botany Bay, violence against Indians, American
| violence against indigenous peoples (including trail or
| tears, smallpox blankets, etc.), etc.
|
| Essentially, any time a culture sets up a belief in itself
| as superior to all others a violence against those believed
| inferior often occurs, sometimes even in the name of
| helping those believed inferior. E.g., we'll take these
| poor children from them and give them to god-fearing
| Christian homes - I could be talking about events during
| colonial times with native americans, or I could be talking
| about separating of children at the detention centers.
| gsej wrote:
| I've always been curious about the pit of venomous
| snakes. We only have one venomous snake in the UK - the
| common adder. It's bite is nasty, but very rarely fatal.
| I wonder if the story is made up, based on foreign tales
| of poisonous snakes, or perhaps they used imported
| snakes.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The source for that is a Norse legendary saga written
| hundreds of years later, I doubt it's factual.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| > When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to
| indigenous peoples, I think that checked off both boxes.
|
| While this event has been documented, it wasn't an
| everyday occurence. "Normal" violence and raids were much
| more typical during the 400 years of the conquest of both
| Americas.
|
| The first infectious diseases were introduced onto the
| continent in early 16th century. At that time, neither
| Europeans nor Natives had much understanding about the
| root causes and applied magical thinking (witches, wrath
| of heaven, acts of God/Satan, punishment for sins).
|
| Western understanding of epidemics has been a mess,
| arguably until today - see contemporary Covid deniers
| etc. I have just read a report about a Slovak member of
| government (Labor Minister) wanting to open the churches
| and arguing with a 1710 wave of black plague in Trnava
| that was purportedly stopped by the citizens praying to
| the Holy Virgin. And this is a Central European EU member
| state in 2021! Now try 1521.
|
| And massive die-outs of native population was a cause for
| concern in the Spanish parts of the empire; the Spanish
| took two well-operated indigenous empires (Aztec and
| Incan) with all the infrastructure, resources and mines
| to get rich off, only to see their workforce melting
| away. They weren't happy about that - any more than
| today's Facebook would be about half of their users
| dying.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to
| indigenous peoples, I think that checked off both boxes
|
| That's certainly horrific, but the diseases that the
| colonists brought killed 90% of the indigenous population
| at the time, most of whom died without ever setting eyes
| on a European.
|
| As for "which people group was the most evil", that seems
| like an exercise in subjectivity and bias or worse, so I
| don't see what good could come from debating it, but I am
| a little surprised you don't locate it anywhere in the
| 20th century with its hundreds of millions of deaths
| between fascism and communism.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| This is incorrect and not really supported by the
| literature. Europeans were intimately involved with most
| regions that had high fatality rates and moreover,
| actively created conditions that made these diseases
| endemic. The "90%" numbers are also highly speculative
| and include all causes of mortality, including European
| warfare over a period of centuries. It's not just
| diseases.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Not according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Ame
| rican_disease_and_ep...
|
| > The loss of the population was so high that it was
| partially responsible for the myth of the Americas as
| "virgin wilderness." By the time significant European
| colonization was underway, native populations had already
| been reduced by 90%. This resulted in settlements
| vanishing and cultivated fields being abandoned. Since
| forests were recovering, the colonists had an impression
| of a land that was an untamed wilderness
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The page you've linked says as much (though it's quite
| misleading without background knowledge).
|
| > Many Native American tribes suffered high mortality and
| depopulation, averaging 25-50% of the tribes' members
| lost to disease.
|
| The line you've linked is discussing the Northeastern
| colonization and it links to Denevan, who isn't looking
| at the actual mechanics of depopulation, but rather the
| pristine myth.
|
| Luckily we can look at this with some simple modeling.
| Assuming persistent epidemics with constant 25% mortality
| every 10 years and no developed immunity (big
| assumptions), while maintaining a 2% growth rate in-
| between (this is low), over 2 centuries the population
| would shrink by 88%. At that point, the epidemics stop
| and populations begin to recover. Using the same numbers,
| it would recover to pre-epidemic levels in only 85 years.
| If the growth rate is merely 3%, population actually
| _grows_ the whole time.
|
| Let's pay closer attention to the Mexican population
| graph though. Notice the 3 waves of disease? Two of
| those, labeled "cocolizti", are thought to be (at least
| partially) Salmonella. You know, that disease of failing
| sanitation infrastructure? Hopefully it's clear why
| sanitation issues might have surfaced around then.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > The page you've linked says as much (though it's quite
| misleading without background knowledge). "Many Native
| American tribes suffered high mortality and depopulation,
| averaging 25-50% of the tribes' members lost to disease."
|
| I interpret that as "many tribes lost 25-50%" but that
| doesn't necessarily mean that this generalizes to all
| Native Americans, so I took the 90% figure which made the
| more precise (if inaccurate) claim.
|
| > The line you've linked is discussing the Northeastern
| colonization and it links to Denevan, who isn't looking
| at the actual mechanics of depopulation, but rather the
| pristine myth.
|
| Fair enough, I'm not a subject matter expert. I'm at the
| mercy of Wikipedia editors here.
|
| > Let's pay closer attention to the Mexican population
| graph though. Notice the 3 waves of disease? Two of
| those, labeled "cocolizti", are thought to be (at least
| partially) Salmonella. You know, that disease of failing
| sanitation infrastructure? Hopefully it's clear why
| sanitation issues might have surfaced around then.
|
| Assuming that cocolizti was directly caused by failing
| sanitation infrastructure, looking at the graph I would
| assume that the infrastructure failed due to the
| preceding smallpox-induced population crash. At least
| without more information there's nothing clearly pointing
| to Spanish violence, if that's your implication. Of
| course, the Spanish conquest was abhorrent and
| devastating, but I don't have any reason to believe that
| the Spanish military was more effective than disease at
| devastating the Mexican population. To answer the disease
| vs violence question, maybe we could find good points of
| comparison in the Old World Spanish conquests, where
| disease was presumably much less significant?
| koheripbal wrote:
| False equivalence.
| gumby wrote:
| How so? The author invited explanation of why they might or
| might not be the same. You simply asserted that they were
| not.
| Bayart wrote:
| There's a lot of ancestral fetishism, anti-christian sentiment
| and neo-paganism that plays into it.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| which is kinda interesting because the Vikings converted to
| Christianity before the end of the Viking Age. There were
| some interesting bits along the way, where being either pagan
| or christian could get you killed, but by 1100-ish everyone
| was converted (at least publicly).
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| When were the Vikings cool? Certainly interesting but the
| Viking invasion was multifaceted from robbing down to settling
|
| The problem with the British empire is that were still seeing a
| lot of its negative impact. I mean it officially ended only 24
| years ago
| ekianjo wrote:
| The collapse of the roman empire is still visible today as
| far as I know. Thats a pretty big event that has had a major
| impact on Europe as we know it, and the world at large.
| SEJeff wrote:
| In central london (London Wall is the name of the road),
| you can see 9-10 turrets from the original Roman city of
| "Londonium". I've walked this road and seen a handful of
| them. To be able to reach out and touch something that was
| built by Roman soldiers over a thousands of years ago is
| simply amazing to me.
|
| One of them is set in a garden behind a church and it is
| really beautiful. My wife and I had a picnic there and it
| was surreal.
| mncharity wrote:
| > One of them is set in a garden behind a church
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Roman_London_
| wal... (pictures)
|
| I thought these two also interesting:
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Roman_London_
| wal... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Roman_
| London_wal...
| SEJeff wrote:
| The first link is precisely the one I was speaking of. My
| employer's UK office is at 1 London Wall so it wasn't
| hard to explore and fine these.
|
| Really fun stuff
| jacquesm wrote:
| Monty Python.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| And the slavery aspect - at one time Dublin was the largest
| slave market in Europe.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Slavery was pretty widespread in Europe until the late
| Middle Ages, including Christians enslaving other
| Christians and selling them to slave traders. 10% of the
| census population of the Domesday Book were slaves, not
| serfs. This changed when a pope (I can't remember his name
| off the top of my head) was concerned that Christian slaves
| owned by Jewish and Muslim slave-owners would convert to
| their masters' religions. That was just a prohibition
| against enslaving fellow Christians and selling slaves to
| Jewish and Muslim slave-traders though.
| iguy wrote:
| Yes to slavery being widespread in Europe of the dark
| ages. The church had something to do with its demise but
| I'm not sure it's one papal edict. Economics too.
|
| But if "late Middle Ages" means say the time of the black
| death, and after, then at least in Western Europe that's
| much too late. By then slavery in England is long gone
| (or so rare as not to matter) and serfdom is in steep
| decline, and we are still several centuries away from
| European overseas slavery (no sugar islands before
| Columbus!)
|
| Slavery in the islamic world was (I think) pretty
| continuous from the beginning until the 20th C. (Perhaps
| with ups and downs? There were many violent changes of
| leadership, over the centuries.) In the middle ages this
| would have been the primary meaning of slavery to
| Europeans -- the risk of being caught in some coastal
| raid and sold for labor (or for ransom, if noble). This
| no doubt horrified the pope but he had little power to
| stop this.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, today?
|
| Why do you think there are so many viking TV shows.
| hcho wrote:
| Are they not making British Empire shows?
| dijit wrote:
| If they are then I haven't heard of them. Outside of
| monarchy specific things which operate in the same time
| period (but certainly are not the focus)
| phaemon wrote:
| The series "The Last Kingdom" is based on the books by
| Bernard Cornwell. He also wrote the "Sharpe" books, which
| were adapted to several TV films (starring Sean Bean).
| They're set around the Napoleonic Wars, with some of them
| in India.
| alexgmcm wrote:
| Hornblower is decent as well.
| garmaine wrote:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311113/
| arethuza wrote:
| There have been _loads_ of TV series made in the UK set
| in India, Kenya and other parts of the Empire. Funnily
| enough they tend to avoid mentioning the brutality of the
| British in dealing with the locals e.g.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising
|
| For some reason these shows aren't quite as popular as
| they used to be...
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I would watch the shit out of a TV show that really told
| the story of the British Raj, in all its racist,
| bloodthirsty, brutal "glory".
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| perhaps Indian arts can tell that story. it's not like
| they lack experience with making film. I'd be surprised
| if there isn't anything?
| [deleted]
| ralfd wrote:
| Relevant: The rant of David Mitchell about the Phrase 'Rape and
| Pillage'
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJqEKYbh-LU
| flexie wrote:
| I don't know if the Vikings were cool and if they were more
| brutal or ruthless than the Anglo Saxon.
|
| A newly christened society claims the enemy is ungodly,
| primitive and ruthless. Isn't it always like that? There was
| probably a good deal of PR already back then.
|
| I think we should be careful trusting the sources on Viking
| brutality all that much as they are almost exclusively from the
| Christian side.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > think we should be careful trusting the sources on Viking
| brutality all that much as they are almost exclusively from
| the Christian side.
|
| Why would Christians have lied about the ferocity of their
| invaders knowing that they actually ravaged and pilled the
| whole of Western Europe later on? If anything History has
| proven they were right.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| .. all those hunter gatherers don't know about rule of law
| and boundaries, all those ancients were tribal goat-fuckers
| with no perspective for greatness and size, all those roman
| emperors were vile, cruel, decadent mad-men. All romans were
| heathens, all christians were primitive religious nut-cases,
| all renaissance men were clueless, all people back then were
| imperialistic racists, all the ancestors were decadent,
| wasteful vandals, ruining a world the mindless thugs they
| were, worshipping the process that would kill them, because
| it allowed them to patch there blood-thirsty nature for the
| moment, all those hunter gatherers..
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I don't know why you're getting downvoted, you're right.
|
| The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the primary source for
| documentation of both the Saxon invasion of Roman Britain,
| and the Viking invasion of Saxon England (about 500 years
| apart).
|
| The Saxons were very much a similar culture - same use of
| (very similar) ships for raiding, same weaponry, same
| battlefield tactics, same civil organisation and even similar
| languages. The respective invasions were remarkably similar -
| raiding, mercenary work, followed by progressive occupation.
| The Viking invasion got complicated - the Danelaw failed and
| the Saxons beat them off, but then the Normans (Vikings who'd
| invaded France a couple generations ago) won.
|
| In the Chronicle the Saxon invasion is portrayed very much as
| a "we were invited here!". The Viking invasion as a brutal
| series of raids.
|
| No such thing as bad press I guess - Vikings are cool and
| Saxons are a bit uncool now ;)
| garmaine wrote:
| The British empire is still Viking-levels of awesome among
| people who like naval stories (e.g. Patrick O'Brian) or the
| late-19th, early-20th century era of exploration.
|
| It's just that the atrocities that come with empire building
| are recent enough in the case of the British Empire to still
| have emotional attachment among descendants of the victims.
|
| Outside of a place like HN which has a huge South Asian
| readership, I think the British Empire is still viewed to be a
| mix of good and bad by most people in the algosphere, and not
| outright vile.
| 7952 wrote:
| I think the Vikings tap into similar wish fulfillment ideas as
| zombie fiction. Chopping wood, hunting deer, being in charge,
| protecting your family. It is everything that bored middle aged
| suburbanites dream of! The empire is just more complex.
| kazen44 wrote:
| what about the roman empire? or Carthage? both are seen as cool
| as well, but we have many historical accounts of their
| brutality.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| And pirates!
| intrasight wrote:
| Why are Viking cool? The fashion and tattoos of course. Haven't
| you seen the TV series :)
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