In England, how long did Saxon nationalism survive after the Norman Conquest?

[BrainGlutton]

I know there were rebellions during William's reign, unsuprisingly . . . But, in Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott has Saxons plotting to put a Saxon prince on the throne as late as the reign of Richard the Lionhearted, which seems as hard to credit as Robin Hood's role in the story. When did Saxons and Normans stop thinking of each other as different nationalities?

[BrainGlutton]

bump

[blood63]

This is a great question.

I think I remember hearing that it took a few years to quell sporadic unrest after the invasion. Perhaps it was much longer than that. I can't imagine that a French speaking royalty would be very popular.

I'm looking forward to hearing a more educated answer.

[Capt Kirk]

A very complicated question, but IMHO The Hundred Years War really resolved the issue. At the beginning English Royalty spoke French and had land holdings in France at the end they spoke English and their French land holdings were gone. Now this is of course a gross oversimplification but I think it nails the gist or the matter. I have read about this quite a bit as you are seeing not only the rise of a cohesive English nation but of France and Spain as well. Now dopers poke holes I know they are coming

[carnivorousplant]

I've read criticism of Ivanhoe concerning that point.
I thought the Hundred Years War was long after Richard.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

I think the persistence of Saxon nationalism can be seen being expressed in the continuing levels of Saxon violence on TV, in the movies, and on the internet.



_{Sorry. Sorry!!}

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

I know there were rebellions during William's reign, unsuprisingly . . . But, in Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott has Saxons plotting to put a Saxon prince on the throne as late as the reign of Richard the Lionhearted, which seems as hard to credit as Robin Hood's role in the story?

England in Richard's time was just part of the larger Plantagenet Empire, and Richard spent most of his time and energy (when he wasn't crusading) on the French bits, so it isn't really odd that Saxon nationalists didn't consider the King "one of them".

After John lost the empire the its court became more "English" since that was where their remaining lands and subjects were.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Simplicio

England in Richard's time was just part of the larger Plantagenet Empire, and Richard spent most of his time and energy (when he wasn't crusading) on the French bits, so it isn't really odd that Saxon nationalists didn't consider the King "one of them".

But, to the point of plotting rebellion or some kind of Saxon restoration?

(BTW, in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, young Wart/Arthur encounters "Robin Wood" (who is Robin Hood, only the tendency of the lower classes to drop both initial h's and w's and to pronounce the name "Robin 'Ood" led to confusion), who is described as a "Saxon partizan." Of course, this is all set in an alternate/fantasy history where the Pendragons are Normans, Richard Coeur de Lion is a non-historical "legendary" figure, and the whole story happens around the time of what would be the Wars of the Roses in OTL.)

[Kizarvexius]

No cite, but my reading on the subject supports what carnivorousplant said. Walter Scott played up the hostilities between Norman and Saxon as an important source of conflict in Ivanhoe (set during Richard's captivity in Austria). Folks have pretty much accepted it as fact ever since.

[Lemur866]

It seems to me this idea of "nationalism" is highly anachronistic.

The ethnicity of your liege lord and your liege's liege, and of your retainers and your retainers' retainers was irrelevant under the feudal system.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

It seems to me this idea of "nationalism" is highly anachronistic.

The ethnicity of your liege lord and your liege's liege, and of your retainers and your retainers' retainers was irrelevant under the feudal system.

Well, whatever word you use, apparently the English under William's rule harbored a special resentment at being ruled by a king and nobility who spoke a different language.

Welsh, Scottish, and Irish restiveness under English rule are also much older than the word "nationalism."

[Capt Kirk]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Well, whatever word you use, apparently the English under William's rule harbored a special resentment at being ruled by a king and nobility who spoke a different language.

Welsh, Scottish, and Irish restiveness under English rule are also much older than the word "nationalism."

My point exactly, thank you

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

It seems to me this idea of "nationalism" is highly anachronistic.

The ethnicity of your liege lord and your liege's liege, and of your retainers and your retainers' retainers was irrelevant under the feudal system.

Legally irrelevant, maybe, but it still mattered to people. Henry III (John's successor), for example, angered the English barons and his subjects by using his foreign relatives as ministers, to the point where the issue is usually cited as one of the primary causes of the revolt against Henry.

[Loach]

Originally Posted by Qadgop the Mercotan

I think the persistence of Saxon nationalism can be seen being expressed in the continuing levels of Saxon violence on TV, in the movies, and on the internet.



_{Sorry. Sorry!!}

Ouch

[BrainGlutton]

Even as late as the 19th Century, Tennyson could write something like, "Kind hearts are more than coronets, / And simple faith than Norman blood," and everybody knew what he meant. (Especially Alec Guiness.)

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

But, to the point of plotting rebellion or some kind of Saxon restoration?

I've read Ivanhoe four or five times. I believe Cedric was only interested in keeping the Saxon royal line intact by marrying his ward Roweena (who had the hots for Ivanhoe) to Athelstane, the drunken gourmand. There was no plan for a revolt and Saxon restoration.

[Askance]

I just last night listened to episode 7 of the Norman Centuries podcast, which deals with the Norman Conquest and its immediate aftermath, up to the death of William over 20 years later. It doesn't speak to long term resistance or resentment, but it does say that organised resistance was sporadic and ineffective after the first 5 years or so. The whole of the Saxon nobility and royal family were dispossessed or killed, and the Saxon cause had no effective leader - had there been one (instead of a boy-king) after Hastings, the Normans may still have been fended off or starved out of the country.

I know the above doesn't directly address the extent of continued Anglo-Saxon identity (which I take to be the core of the OP), but may help explain why it was low-level at best.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

I've read Ivanhoe four or five times. I believe Cedric was only interested in keeping the Saxon royal line intact by marrying his ward Roweena (who had the hots for Ivanhoe) to Athelstane, the drunken gourmand. There was no plan for a revolt and Saxon restoration.

Even so, the mere existence of a living Saxon claimant at that period seems implausible. For that matter, the mere existence of a landed Saxon nobleman at that period seems implausible -- didn't the Conqueror punish one of the English rebellions by dispossessing all the native nobility and replacing them with Normans?

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

But, to the point of plotting rebellion or some kind of Saxon restoration?

I don't think Saxon particularism per se had much of a half-life. William the Bastard did a pretty thorough job of de-fanging the sources of native disaffection in the 1060's and 1070's. Largely by the process of elimination, as it were. Where native nobility survived in power ( such as the minor Saxon family in Staindrop that would become the House of Neville ), they did so by judicious knuckling under - in that case going so far as to adopt a matrilineal Norman surname. There doesn't seem to be any sign of serious Saxon resistance that could have risen to the level of a revolt after William I's death in 1087. In twenty years or less he pretty much brought the country to heel. There was still plenty of disaffection in general of course. But it was of French-origined nobility against their French-origined king, not any sort of native particularism or proto-nationalism.

At any rate assimilation seems to have proceeded at a pretty steady clip from the bottom up. Not all that surprisingly it was the royal house(s ) and the court where French language and orientation lingered latest, probably through the reign of Henry III. Otherwise the farther down the chain you go the faster local nobility assimilated into the much deeper Anglo-Saxon strata. Already by the time of the first William Marshall's posthumous biography ( post-1219, probably 1220's ) we see tantalizing hints of an emerging "English" particularism by the nobility vis-a-vis the continent that speaks to the new blended culture. By the late 12th century it is highly likely that just about any local nobility in England spoke English fluently and the number of families with holdings in both France and England had shrunk considerably from the early post-Conquest days. The idea of a Saxon "Robin of Loxley" struggling against 13th century Norman oppressors is a 19th century invention.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

The idea of a Saxon "Robin of Loxley" struggling against 13th century Norman oppressors is a 19th century invention.

I agree that whomever was in "England" assimilated invaders; I.E., the girls were pretty.
One of the Ivanhoe remakes places it at 11x6. William died in 1199. Perhaps Robin was 13th century and Scott takes literary license with dates.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Even so, the mere existence of a living Saxon claimant at that period seems implausible. For that matter, the mere existence of a landed Saxon nobleman at that period seems implausible -- didn't the Conqueror punish one of the English rebellions by dispossessing all the native nobility and replacing them with Normans?

Hell if I know.
If I must continue fan wanking Sir Walter Scott, perhaps Rowena and Athelstane were the closest beings living to Saxon royalty.

Upon re reading your post, why was Cedric a landholder?
He was a mean son of a bitch.
He fights one guy in the movie while Ivanhoe stabs the guy in the back.

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

William died in 1199.

Richard I you mean? Walter Scott's version is of course pretty much all invention, but I guess you are correct it is technically set in the late 12th century . I was thinking of the very heavily Scott-influenced movie The Adventures of Robin Hood w/ Errol Flynn ( which is what I always think of first - a favorite when I was young ), which is also de facto set in the 1190's. The recent movie version of course is mostly set in the 1200's, though pretty murkily so.

[WarmNPrickly]

As these strategic plans show, it lasted well into the eighties.

[Captain Amazing]

Originally Posted by Simplicio

Legally irrelevant, maybe, but it still mattered to people. Henry III (John's successor), for example, angered the English barons and his subjects by using his foreign relatives as ministers, to the point where the issue is usually cited as one of the primary causes of the revolt against Henry.

Well, those English barons that objected to Henry's appointments were Normans, themselves, remember. And their objection to the foreign appointments weren't that they were foreigners, per se. It was "He's naming foreigners instead of us." The appointment of the "foreigners" meant that Henry wasn't appointing the English barons to positions of power, and that's what they objected to.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

I agree that whomever was in "England" assimilated invaders; I.E., the girls were pretty.

As either Stanley G. Weinbaum or H. Beam Piper, I forget which, once pointed out, "English is the result of Norman knights trying to make dates with Saxon barmaids." (The point being that any obsession with linguistic purity is utterly pointless for an English-speaker -- mash up Greek roots with Latin suffixes or vice-versa, so what, it's all good English.)

[BrainGlutton]

This was on my mind, BTW, because I recently saw Becket (1964; Richard Burton as Becket, Peter O'Toole as Henry II), which portrays Saxon resentment simmering bitterly as late as the reign of Henry II. (I also started a CS thread on the nitpick that Becket was, in fact, a Norman, not a Saxon.)

[BrainGlutton]

BTW, the earliest Robin Hood ballads are set in the reign of a King "Edward" (number not specified, so what, when yer King of England ye've got more important things to remember than yer bloody number). His association with Richard I is a 16th-Century addition.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

The recent movie version of course is mostly set in the 1200's, though pretty murkily so.

Murkily indeed! ("Royal Folio Depository"?!)

[Northern Piper]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Even so, the mere existence of a living Saxon claimant at that period seems implausible.

There was a living Saxon claimant at that time: Richard I!

Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, married Matilda, daughter of Margaret of Scotland who was the granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside. Margaret had a brother, Edgar Athling, who was briefly proclaimed King of England after the Battle of Hastings, but abandoned his claim and had no legitimate issue. Her sister Cristina went into a nunnery and also died without issue.

Margaret of Scotland was thus the sole source for lineage for the Saxon royal house. The Kings of Scots descended from her also had Saxon blood, of course, but since Margaret's daughter Matilda had married the King of England, their issue's claim was arguably stronger.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by WarmNPrickly

As these strategic plans show, it lasted well into the eighties.

But, surprisingly, it can only be traced back to 1846.

[Roderick Femm]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

(BTW, in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, young Wart/Arthur encounters "Robin Wood" (who is Robin Hood, only the tendency of the lower classes to drop both initial h's and w's and to pronounce the name "Robin 'Ood" led to confusion), who is described as a "Saxon partizan." Of course, this is all set in an alternate/fantasy history where the Pendragons are Normans, Richard Coeur de Lion is a non-historical "legendary" figure, and the whole story happens around the time of what would be the Wars of the Roses in OTL.)

Slight hijack: I have to argue with this, although it's been many years since I read it. Even according to your link, it is in Merlin's backwards memories (i.e. of the future) that these figures are mentioned. I don't believe the dates of the events are significantly different from Malory's dates, i.e. after Roman occupation had ended, before Saxon rule was solidified.

Again, sorry for the hijack; I don't have anything to add about the endurance of Saxon resistance.


Roddy

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Roderick Femm

Slight hijack: I have to argue with this, although it's been many years since I read it. Even according to your link, it is in Merlin's backwards memories (i.e. of the future) that these figures are mentioned. I don't believe the dates of the events are significantly different from Malory's dates, i.e. after Roman occupation had ended, before Saxon rule was solidified.

But, when the newly-crowned Arthur's forces are preparing to put down the rebellion of King Lot of Orkney, Merlin calls Kaye a "Norman gentleman" to his face without contradiction. And, when asked by Arthur to explain the historical background to the rebellion, Merlin goes through what amounts to a fairly accurate summary of the past waves of invasion of Britain, including the Celts (represented, now, by Lot, or at least by his soldiers), and the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Norman Conquest (perpetrated by Arthur's father Uther Pendragon -- time-scale is seriously compressed, here). And the recit (as distinct from dialogue) also makes references to "the Coeur de Lion of the legends" (i.e., in this universe Arthur is real and Richard is the ahistorical legend), and so forth. And the setting is very definitely "High Middle Ages" (White actually uses the phrase) rather than Dark Ages. And Mordred's rebellion is marked by his unprecedented atrocity of using cannon on people, which clearly evokes a WOTR-period setting or not long before.

I haven't read it for a long time either, but I'm sure of every bit of the above, it was one of my faves.

[md2000]

Yeah, I remember trying to read the Once and Future book and being totally turned off by the bizzarre timeline. By now, any adult interested in history knows the approximate (alleged) timelines of Arthur, Wlliam the Conqueror, Richard and Robin Hood, etc. Only in a child's mind would it all blur together. It's almost as jarring a if a yo-ho-ho Carribean pirate showed up in the middle too... or the anachronistic stuff in the recent Sherlock Holmes stupidity. Or those westerns where the hand-cranked machine gun shows up all the time...

IIRC, the Norman Conquest was the side effect of a dispute over succession; William (allegedly) was promised the crown then Harold reneged on agreeing to this (William's version, of course). Harold says he was promised it. Edward was half Normans and spent quite a while in Normandy. SO it's not as if the change of leaders was unexpected or too foreign. It seem to me the replacement of the upper aristocracy was a side effect of them failing to accept the change at the top. If you fight the new king, don't be surprised if he takes your lands and gives them to someone else who is a friend and helped in the fight.

[Scumpup]

Originally Posted by md2000

Or those westerns where the hand-cranked machine gun shows up all the time...

The Gatling gun is a product of the 1860's. If your point is that the movies make them appear to be in more common use than they actually were, you may have a point. If you meant that there were no "hand-cranked machine guns," you are in error.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Scumpup

The Gatling gun is a product of the 1860's. If your point is that the movies make them appear to be in more common use than they actually were, you may have a point. If you meant that there were no "hand-cranked machine guns," you are in error.

Heck, they had a lot of tech then you wouldn't expect!

[Ludovic]

Originally Posted by md2000

Only in a child's mind would it all blur together. It's almost as jarring a if a yo-ho-ho Carribean pirate showed up in the middle too... or the anachronistic stuff in the recent Sherlock Holmes stupidity.

Obligatory xkcd.

[md2000]

Originally Posted by Scumpup

The Gatling gun is a product of the 1860's. If your point is that the movies make them appear to be in more common use than they actually were, you may have a point. If you meant that there were no "hand-cranked machine guns," you are in error.

Yeah, I thought I read somewhere how few were actually produced. But then, every western seemed to have one. Plus - how much ammo would you need to lug around in the days when horsecart was the pinnacle of load hauling?

[Acsenray]

And don't forget the Harrying of the North, during which William essentially committed genocide against the north of England, depopulating it, and making way for his barons to take over.

[Sailboat]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

As either Stanley G. Weinbaum or H. Beam Piper, I forget which, once pointed out, "English is the result of Norman knights trying to make dates with Saxon barmaids." (The point being that any obsession with linguistic purity is utterly pointless for an English-speaker -- mash up Greek roots with Latin suffixes or vice-versa, so what, it's all good English.)

Looks like it got slightly garbled somewhere.

wikiquote

English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.
--Fuzzy Sapiens (1964)

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Sailboat

Looks like it got slightly garbled somewhere.

wikiquote

That's it! Piper! Thanx!

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Acsenray

And don't forget the Harrying of the North, during which William essentially committed genocide against the north of England, depopulating it, and making way for his barons to take over.

Did Harry object?

[Acsenray]

Harry was busy eating his neighbor after the Conquerer salted the field.

[robert_columbia]

Originally Posted by Qadgop the Mercotan

I think the persistence of Saxon nationalism can be seen being expressed in the continuing levels of Saxon violence on TV, in the movies, and on the internet.



_{Sorry. Sorry!!}

My girlfriend didn't like the Saxon Violets I tried to give her, so I recommended a vacation to "Saxon, The Beach", but that didn't help.

[BrainGlutton]

Found my copy!

From The Once and Future King, Book II, "The Queen of Air and Darkness":

"About three thousand years ago," [Merlin] said [to Arthur], "the country you are riding through belonged to a Gaelic race who fought with copper hatchets. Two thousand years ago they were hunted west by another Gaelic race with bronze swords. A thousand years ago there was a Teuton invasion by people who had iron weapons, but it didn't reach the whole of the [British] Isles because the Romans arrived in the middle and got mixed up with it. The Romans went away about eight hundred years ago, and then another Teuton invasion -- of people mainly called Saxons -- drove the whole rag-bag west as usual. The Saxons were just beginning to settle down when your father the Conqueror arrived with his pack of Normans, and that is where we are today. Robin Wood was a Saxon partizan."

<snip>

"Uther," he said at length, "your lamented father, was an aggressor. So were his predecessors the Saxons. But if we go on living backward like that, we shall never come to the end of it. The Old Ones themselves were aggressors, against the earlier race of copper hatchets, and even the hatchet fellows were aggressors, against some earlier crew of esquimaux who lived on shells. You simply go on and on, until you come to Cain and Abel. But the point is that the Saxon Conquest did suceed, and so did the Norman Conquest of the Saxons. Your father settled the unfortunate Saxons long ago, however brutally he did it, and when a great many years have passed one ought to be ready to accept a status quo. Also I would like to point out that the Norman Conquest was a process of welding small units into bigger ones -- while the present revolt of the Gaelic Confederation is a process of disintegration. They want to smash up what we may call the United Kingdom into a lot of piffling little kingdoms of their own. That is wny their reason is not what you might call a good one."

He scrathed his chin again, and became wrathful.

"I never could stomach these nationalists," he exclaimed. "The destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees."

(Irish Dopers take note! It's really the Irish whom White is talking about here, of course.)

[Martin Hyde]

I do think Saxon nationalism is anachronistic. I just don't believe non-nobility had any sort of shared identity like that. In the time period in question most people lived and died within 20 miles of where they were born. Most rebellions started in response to anger at a local lord, and had nothing to do with larger national issues (there really weren't national issues.)

So what you really had were nobles who fought against the new King, but I don't even know that that is evidence of any Saxon nationalism. In the feudal era the top-level liege lord of a region changed all the time, and was like as not to have the same language and culture as you. One of the key tenets of feudalism is it was very common to fight against someone you had sworn fealty to--regardless of whether or not they had the same cultural background as you. Brothers and fathers went to war against each other all the time, that was just the way it was.

If there was anything akin to Saxon nationalism I think it was just that it gave nobles a "good excuse" to try and topple the King. If you look at history of feudal Europe people were big on advancing claims and justifications for doing their warring, be it based on random invented (or real) ancient claims or deeds, disputed lineages or etc. A Saxon who wanted to try and become King had a powerful tool in that he could go to other Saxon nobles and use the current King's "nationality" against him to help recruit co-conspirators. But I don't think it was truly anything like nationalism in the present sense. It was more about personal avarice and desire for power, not an idealistic or emotional connection to some vague sense of "tribe."

[md2000]

Originally Posted by Martin Hyde

...

If there was anything akin to Saxon nationalism I think it was just that it gave nobles a "good excuse" to try and topple the King.

...

As I understand it, this also gave William the reason to wipe a lot of them out and therefore reward his friends, the one who helped him get to be king, who also happened to speak French - as the new nobles over the land. If you insist on fighting the new king, don't be surprised if he wins and your family is dead.

[Scumpup]

Originally Posted by md2000

Yeah, I thought I read somewhere how few were actually produced. But then, every western seemed to have one. Plus - how much ammo would you need to lug around in the days when horsecart was the pinnacle of load hauling?

In an era of single shot breechloading rifles, they did consume what would have seemed like an awful lot of ammo. Compared to the recoil-operated, belt fed designs that came on the scene in the closing years of the 19th century, they were actually pretty leisurely in their rate of fire and anorexic in their ammo consumption. They couldn't fire any faster than the operator could turn the crank. That guy's arm muscles had to make everything mechanical about the gun work. No energy was harvested from the cartridges for any part of the feeding or extracting cycles. The main reasons they never saw much use were:
1. Weight. They weighed as much as an artillery piece and were mounted on similar carriages. In an era where much of US military activity consisted of chasing Indians, they were rather too clumsy to drag along a great deal of the time. IIRC, Custer had at least one, and elected to leave them behind.
2. Nobody had any real idea how to make good use of them in battle. The French had the conceptually similar Mitrailleuse and it's failure as a battlefield weapon illustrates what I am talking about. Since the early "machine guns" looked kind of like artillery, there was tendency to try to use them like artillery. Machine gunnery really got figured out just in time for WWI.
OTOH, the Gatling and its kin did see a fair amount of use by various navies around the world. Apparently, mounted on a boat they must have been pretty useful for hosing down folks who still thought largely in terms of spears.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by Scumpup

Custer had at least one, and elected to leave them behind.

As the guy said in the movie, "Custer was a pussy."

[BrainGlutton]

By Rudyard Kipling (and long out of copyright, Mods):

Norman and Saxon

"My son," said the Norman Baron, "I am dying, and you will be heir
To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for my share
When we conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little handful it is.
But before you go over to rule it I want you to understand this:—

"The Saxon is not like us Normans, His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, "This isn't fair dealings," my son, leave the Saxon alone.

"You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears,
But don't try that game on the Saxon; you'll have the whole brood round your ears.
From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field,
They'll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield.

"But first you must master their language, their dialect, proverbs and songs.
Don't trust any clerk to interpret when they come with the tale of their wrongs.
Let them know that you know what they're saying; let them feel that you know what to say.
Yes, even when you want to go hunting, hear 'em out if it takes you all day.

"They'll drink every hour of the daylight and poach every hour of the dark,
It's the sport not the rabbits they 're after (we 've plenty of game in the park).
Don't hang them or cut off their fingers. That's wasteful as well as unkind,
For a hard-bitten, South-country poacher makes the best man-at-arms you can find.

"Appear with your wife and the children at their weddings and funerals and feasts.
Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all poor parish priests.
Say 'we,' 'us' and 'ours' when you're talking instead of 'you fellows' and 'I.'
Don't ride over seeds; keep your temper; and never you tell 'em a lie!"