Anglo-Saxons vs Vikings?

I've just started watching the last kingdom and previously watched some of Vikings (couldn't finish it was too shit) but I've wondered why are the Anglo-Saxons portrayed as shit a fighting, weak, and cowardly whilst Vikings are portrayed as amazing warriors, giants with tattoos, and generally superior peoples? I though Vikings were shitty pirates who got btfo by a exhausted army at Stamford Bridge, whilst Anglo's united England and made it a modern state from a shitty backwater of Europe.
So my two questions are:
1. Why are Anglo-Saxons portrayed as shit in popular culture
2. Were Anglo-Saxons better/equal/worse than the Vikings at war?
>Inb4 watching shitty television
I'm a sucker for period dramas an i'm not even gay wtf?
Thanks boys.

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youtube.com/watch?v=xwPVk72GLfY
sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm
twitter.com/AnonBabble

The only relevant event featuring anglo saxons is them getting gangraped1066

For a large part of history, the Anglo-Saxons were weaker than the Vikings, hence Danelaw. It wasn't until Alfred the Great could unify the various Anglo-Saxons that the Vikings were consistently defeated.

Video related. For our purposes, you can skip to the 1 minute mark.

youtube.com/watch?v=xwPVk72GLfY

>Watching the Last Kingdom
The books are superior

>Implying I can read.

Anglo-Saxons and Vikings were the same shit

If I sent you back in time you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a Saxon village and a Norse village

The Viking age came to an end by 1000 A.D. The "vikings" that were defeated at Stamford Bridge weren't vikings at all, just Danes.

The main issue was that the vikings were more focused on conquest, and felt no reason to keep to treaties and the like. The Anglo-Saxons treated the vikings like another attacking kingdom, so making use of treaties etc. then the vikings ignored the treaty and kept on attacking, which drew more vikings cause the Anglo-saxons looked weak.

>I've wondered why are the Anglo-Saxons portrayed as shit a fighting, weak, and cowardly whilst Vikings are portrayed as amazing warriors, giants with tattoos, and generally superior peoples?
It's a relic of Romanticism, particularly during the early Victorian period with writers like Charles Kingsley. (This is also where the very stupid ideas about Scottish Highlanders and to an extent Native Americans come from, by the way).
In reality the Vikings were more like a constant pest and when they were forced into pitched battles they lost badly against the Anglo-Saxon.

>In reality the Vikings were more like a constant pest and when they were forced into pitched battles they lost badly against the Anglo-Saxon.
Nice meme.

>Stamford Bridge
Yeah, forget that those Vikings were outnumbered, ambushed and had no time to put on any gear outside of their swords and shields. It was 15.000 against 6000 in the first phase of the battle, with 3000 more coming when the battle was just about over.
Norwegians*
Harald Hardrada is considered the last Viking king, which is why Stamford Bridge is traditonally seen as the end of the Viking Age (although his grandson, Magnus Barefoot, did some Viking-ish business around the Irish Sea a few decades later)

Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian culture wasn't really all that different to begin with. Old English and Old Norse is surprisingly similar for example, the Anglo-Saxons just got more of that Christian influence earlier than the Scandinavians. I'd say they have been evenly matched for most of the time they clashed, the Great Heathen Army wasn't that terrible, despite the Veeky Forums memes, it did manage to conquer 3 out of the 4 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and establish the Danelaw. Then we later have Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut the Great's successful invasions. The Vikings themselves is one of the factors why England got unified, because constant attacks gave the Anglo-Saxons a common enemy they could rally against.

Do the books make Alfred into a bit of an idiot who just lets Uthred do everything as well? Or is that just the show?

It's not a meme.

>Vikings sucked because they got btfo at Stamford Bridge
Napoleon sucked because he got btfo at Waterloo
The Ottomans sucked because they got btfo at Vienna
The british sucked because they got btfo at Yorktown
Nazi Germany sucked because they got btfo at Stalingrad
Japan sucked because they got btfo at Midway

So you are saying the Anglos let 2/3 of England be taken before they faced the vikings in pitched battle?

I stand corrected.

>Danes
Whew lad

...

>he wrote in English

English is a Scandinavian language

sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm

eh, west germanic. calling it north germanic is a bit of a stretch

When they hit by lighting raids, the other user is pretty much right. If you have 30 huscarls and I show up with 300 men ready for battle then it doesn't matter shit how many men you have in the field or how good those 30 might be. Besides your good troops you have militia liable to run off if things go south, or not even bother with no one to rally around.

The "great heathen army" was probably very small by modern standards but they struck fast and destroyed the forces of places like Northumbria and killed their leadership.

Both forces were relatively equal in capabilities the Viking's tended to attack when most opportune. Equal footing and things were pretty balanced

>why are the Anglo-Saxons portrayed as shit a fighting, weak, and cowardly whilst Vikings are portrayed as amazing warriors, giants with tattoos, and generally superior peoples?
1. the AS wrote about how terrified they were of vikings (this was mostly because the vikings raided villages, monasteries, etc. that weren't well defended and this did not put up a fight)
2. vikings are more lucrative these days than anglo-saxons, so portraying them as being more powerful will yield the dollars of people who really like vikings

How is Alfred an idiot in the show???