Were Normans really Vikings? does it mean that Vikings managed to defeat the UK?

Were Normans really Vikings? does it mean that Vikings managed to defeat the UK?

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No
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>sneaky (anti)Viking bait thread?

Descendant of Vikings
Not The Vikings

By the time they were fighting the Saxons (kek, not the UK) they intermarried with the locals, were speaking a version of French and lost most of their traditions.

Vikings already managed to defeat the UK many times before the Normans

No, it had been almost 6 generations since the Vikings first ruled over Normandy, and the original Vikings assimilated to French culture reasonably well to begin with. Although Normans kept some Viking traditions, such as bastard children inherited before legitimate kids, they had French names, French culture, French armies and French language.

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They weren't vikings , a group who had already conquered all of England once ((Cnut the great)) and almost all once before their armies got torn down by constant conquest ((The great Heathen army))
Instead they were Frenchmen that would start a French rule of England that lasted till the hundred years war ((A French civil war of sorts))

>Were Normans really Vikings?
They were originally, but by the time Edward the Confessor died they were more French than anything else.
>does it mean that Vikings managed to defeat the UK?
Can't really call it the UK when it wasn't united yet, but even if you discount the Normans, they had already taken large quantities of England before.

Were Germanics really Vikings? does it mean that Vikings manged to defeat the EU?

Why are brits so butthurt over vikings anyway?

No, actually that's quite interesting.

England was a fairly big prize for the vikings because it was around as big as Scandinavia but with better climate and more arable land so Danes had been trying to colonize England since the 9th century. And I do mean colonize, they stopped simply raiding, pillaging and sailing off with the loot they actually started settling in England, founding their own communities and taking over Anglo-Saxon communities and imposing their own laws and customs over, at the peak, all of northern and eastern England.

The Anglo-Saxons spent most of the 9th, 10th and early 11th century fighting off against the vikings, generally losing badly (at one point Wessex was the only independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom left) though the tide turned for and against them. King Alfred the Great managed to unite most of England in late 9th century and then again England got united in early 10th century but the Danish attacks persisted. Danish power was arguably the highest during the Cnut's Empire or the North Sea Empire that was ruled by a Danish king called Cnut the Great and he ruled over England, Denmark and what was then Norway and Sweden. That's also roughly when Hamlet takes place, btw. But, shortly after his death his empire breaks apart and Anglo-Saxon lords reassert their independence this time in unified England.

Meanwhile while all this is happening England isn't the only place vikings are attacking. Generally there were three groups of vikings: Danish vikings, Norwegian vikings and Swedish vikings. Danish and Norwegian vikings were the ones that primarily raided England, France and Germany while Swedish vikings primarily raided the Baltic coast (Poles and Balts) and they also tended to be the ones to do the trip over all of Russia to reach Constantinople (they used river systems for most of the way but they also spent days dragging their boats over dry land) to trade. Eventually, because he got tired of being raided and medieval...

We are? I've never been too bothered about it, but then again I'm from right on the coast of danelaw territory and three quarters of my family tree has snownigger surnames.

If Normans were French then you also have to concede that African immigrants in France are also ethnically French. You can't really have it any other way.

...kingdoms were fundamentally vulnerable against viking attacks because of how they were set up (there were no standing armies, all armies were groups of peasants and lords and you just couldn't force either to stand around and wait for an attack that may or may not happen because the society would literally collapse) and because it was shortly after the breakup of Charlemagne's empire and West Francia was fairly weak the King of West Francia gave the Norwegian vikings a duchy in the north of France that would become the Duchy of Normandy and the Norwegian vikings that settled there would become the Normans, name derived from Northmen. The King of West Francia also forced them to swear oath of allegiance to him thus making them his vassals. The Norwegians assimilated quickly abandoning their culture and language and adapting French culture, customs and language and only retaining their Norwegian genes.

Eventually, there would be a guy called William the Bastard who was the bastard son of the previous ruler of the Duchy and who wanted to prove himself. Instead of attacking France or trying to engage in medieval politics he used the weakness of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England and the last Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson and the fact that a Norwegian king Harold Hardrada was invading Northumbria in the north of England. Harold Godwinson rushed north to meet Harold Hardrada while William the Bastard invaded from the south, Godwinson won against the Norwegians in the north but lost against the Norwegians in the south and William the Bastard became William the Conqueror. He replaced all Anglo-Saxon institutions with Norman institutions modeled on the French ones, he introduced continental Frankish style of feudalism, he made French the sole official language of the nobility and for centuries in England the peasantry would talk in English while the nobility would talk in French, all the way up until the 14th century. It's also the reason why in English...

Ayo hol up... *raids monastery* so you be sayin...

And what happens when they've spent generations mixing with locals and have almost entirely assimilated into France's culture? They're obviously not entirely French, but they're far closer to it than any African culture or ethnic group.

French versions of the words are always the fancy version of the word (chambre is just room in French but in English you'd never refer to your room as a chamber unless you lived in a castle and similar).

The really interesting part is that Normans, Norwegians that assimilated to French culture that conquered England and forced French culture on the English, is that they forever changed the nature of the England and the English language. They're the reason English is a Germanic language unlike all others with weird grammar and mostly French vocabulary, and the Normans definitely expanded the English vocabulary especially when it came to ruling, law, throne, court and other noble pursuits.

Also, had the Danes successfully colonized and conquered and held England instead of the French English would be very different today because not only would Old English have been preserved (and Old English was fairly close to Old Norse) but they would have added to it and English likely would be mutually mutually intelligible with Danish and/or Norwegian like how the Scandinavian languages are today.

Also, equally important, England would have been drawn into the Scandinavian cultural and political sphere rather than Western European one so England would likely become participant in Scandinavian politics, likely would have been a part of the Kalmar Union and the English would consider themselves Northern European and part of the Northern European world rather than Western European and part of the Western European world.

what is this obsession about fucking genes all about anyways? Of course the normans can be considered french as soon as their way of living is assimilated, same goes for african imirants nowadays.

>Were Normans really Vikings?
By 1066, they were more French than Vikings, both genetically and culturally

>does it mean that Vikings managed to defeat the UK?
The UK didnt exist, it was England
And the vikings cucked England for centuries way before the Norman thing (Danelaw)

Btw, troll or American?

>If Normans were French then you also have to concede that African immigrants in France are also ethnically French.
1) Normans actually assimilated and they assimilated very quickly

2) Normans didn't stand out by being coal dark

3) Normans were actually people

>French versions of the words are always the fancy version of the word (chambre is just room in French but in English you'd never refer to your room as a chamber unless you lived in a castle and similar).

That's wrong though
Only people non-educated about English language think that French words are limited to stuff like "chambre", "cuisine" or "rendez-vous".

Actually, English language is full of very common French words used in normal speech (people, country, city, forest, river, mountain, use, point, person, place....etc)
French words are so widespreard in English that you can hardly find any sentence in a post on this board (and other boards) without any

A better comparison would be current American citizens descended from Germans and Irish who moved to the US in the late 19th century

yes

William was like 1/4 Viking and 3/4 French who lived in France and spoke a dialect of French. Calling him a Viking would be like Barack Obama's daughter claiming to be Irish.

'Viking' was a profession/lifestyle, not an ethnicity. If you asked 'Were Normans really Norse?', the answer would be that they ethnically were, but they weren't fucking vikings

>butthurt
u wot m8

>2016
>not spending every other weekend at the Jorvik centre like a good Bong

>the answer would be that they ethnically were

Not really, after generations of interbreeding with the locals
Rollo's son was only 50% Danish, so William seven generations later must have been like 15%

Hon hon, hol' up
*Eat snails*
So.. Youz be sayin
*Pray to Jesus*
That we...
*Cut garlic*
Oui oui, we were...
*Reads "La Chanson de Roland"*
Oui sommes...
*Build castle*
Oui wuz vikings et merde ?!

>does it mean that Vikings managed to defeat the UK?
If you read your 11th century Icelandic sagas you'll find that Scandinavians had been fucking with England for centuries. They refer to it casually as almost like a vacation. "Jagar Jagarsonson ruled Orkney as a just king, and went to raid England and Ireland every spring and fall for many years until he grew old and grey etc etc"

>Ethnicity matters
The idea of ethnic purity is one of the biggest spooks out there.

Average norman viking sketchtoy.com/67367909

Kek

>Were Normans really Vikings?

Obviously not, viking is an occupation. These men were professional soldiers, not raiders. They were an Old French speaking hybrid race after the several hundred years they lived in France, Franco-Norse.

Besides, much of Williams field army wasn't even Norman. The Breton division for example played a key role by retreating and thereby baiting a significant section of the Anglo shieldwall into foolish pursuit. They were separated from their formation and destroyed.

Also, there was no UK at the time and the Danelaw had happened already so the question is moot you retard.

>when brits are eternally assblasted and will never admit normans were french in front of a french guy

It never fails

Vikings had defeated the UK before
before Edward the Confessor there was Cnute the Great, a Danish king of England-Norway-Denmark and many other areas in the North Sea, followed by his son before the House of Wessex was restored with Edward.

Isn't it more the nobles were descendents of Vikings but the populace wasn't

Similar to how the Rurikid were Scandis but the Russians by and large weren't

its true, its hard to admit
>fuck the french

t. brit

10/10

>French names
Not entirely, they had a great many names of Germanic origin - even their own labelled name of Norman. Names like Richard and Gerald are Norman, sure, but their origin is undeniably Germanic.

Also their culture of sailing to England to take it over seems like far more of a Scandinavian tradition from the 300 odd years prior than it seems a French one.

Almost all french, english, spanish names have germanic origin.

I wouldn't say almost all. But certainly many.

The point being that Normans adopted the Germanic originated names Richard, Gerald, Robert...etc through French

Outstanding.

>*Reads "La Chanson de Roland"*
Norwegians love him for some reason.
youtube.com/watch?v=JqwnkaWYsPo

It's really wonky point overall.

There's a huge amount of people who are simply named after saints, Germanic or not(Peter, Mark, John for biblical, Patrick, Maximilian and so on for saints) so it's a nasty piece of shit to decipher. For example there's tons of Matthews in some slavic countries yet nobody considers slavs to be Hebrenised.

There's actually very few names that are both commonly used these days and don't come from those two sources(come on, how many Wulfgards and Dalebors do you know?) and it's likely that it was already a thing among medieval European elites so trying to figure out cultural influence from popularity of names used by important people back in the times is pretty fucking stupid