QUICK!

William the Marshal

Do that one mick who chased the snakes into the sea.

Also, you could write about how it'd be cool if somebody drove all the micks into the sea today.

FUCKING THIS. He was the greatest Knight of all time, first earl of Pembroke and regent king of England. Never lost a tournament battle, beat Richard I in single combat and BTFO'd a French invasion at the battle of Lincoln

AT THE AGE OF 70

>OP asks for fairly obscure
>gets two of the most famous medieval people

No French people pls
Not obscure enough

>William Marshal
>French
Oh and I suppose the Normans were Vikings and the US revolution was a civil war. The absolute mark of an ultimate brainlet

irl MacBeth

>William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 – 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal (Norman French: Williame le Mareschal[1]), was an Norman soldier and statesman.[2]

>European figure
Does it have to be a ruler?

>loses to a gang of hastily assembled northumbrian peasants

Where was he born? Where was his family from? For which country did he fight for?

Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona
The medieval Chad.

Oh boy a French name! You got me.
No. He was born in England, his parents were born in England and he fought for and died in England. On his charge at the battle of Lincoln he cried out against the French invaders and rallied the English. He's as English as Alfred the great. I'd give that Richard I wasn't English, but my boy William was 100% rosbif through and through

>deliberately omits the fact that Wikipedia says Anglo-Norman

>by the 14th century, Normans finally identified as English

Yeah, but Marshall was born in the mid 12th century tho
That must be why he didn't feel English nor did he spoke the language

Do you even know what "Anglo-Norman" means?
It's a term invented by buttdevasted modern British historian to refers to French speaking Normans in England until they finally became assimilated as Englishmen during the HYW

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Normans

They had nothing "Anglo" in them aside from the land they ruled

>>fought in his first battle at the age of 15
with who? Other norsemen?

The process of the Normans considering themselves English was a gradual one; they didn't just wake up one day in 1450 and say "wewuz Normans but weiz Anglos now".

Also Marshall was born in England and therefore held a British passport.

Æthelstan

Zoe Porphyrogenita

he won against those, he got ambushed by the danish thingmannalid

>William Marsgall felt English

Pfffffttt, that's the exact opposite
books.google.fr/books?id=pF5UDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq="William Marshal" "speak English"&source=bl&ots=eBJh-NGFuR&sig=o6b4CiypdWOo-igFC1-aFcP6FGo&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPzKOVi5fZAhXKL8AKHe6nB7AQ6AEIPTAJ#v=onepage&q="William Marshal" "speak English"&f=false

books.google.fr/books?id=_yvtCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq="William Marshal" "speak English"&source=bl&ots=d7P9B1GxST&sig=gsBE3wc_MoMeQUmffbJZ2ocypW8&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPzKOVi5fZAhXKL8AKHe6nB7AQ6AEIQjAK#v=onepage&q="William Marshal" "speak English"&f=false

Tl; dr:
Marshall kept his lands in France and kept being loyal to the French king unlike most Norman nobles in his era

And he also hired a French poet from Tourraine to write his father's biography) rather than a Norman one (let alone an English one lmao) because with the arrival of Angevin kings, Parisian French had replaced Norman French as the language of nobility in England

Dude was as English as your average British governor in 1890 India was Indian

>didn't read the whole thing
Also even Anglo-Saxon English didn't have a national identity until 14th century in general.
>didn't speak the language
Stop coming to Veeky Forums you braindead simpleton

Says nothing there about him not feeling English.
Also that's like saying I can be Japanese even though my parents and I weren't born there, but I go on holiday there a lot

...

>Says nothing there about him not feeling English.
It says French was still the native language among Norman nobles in that era, and that they were basically a secluded foreign ruling cast in England

>Also that's like saying I can be Japanese even though my parents and I weren't born there, but I go on holiday there a lot
Not really comparable, unless the place you live in was conquered 150 years ago by a bunch of Japs whom you're descended from and who still live as Japs and speak Japanese while living on that foreign land

French was the lingua franca of Europe, and within 50 years of Norman invasion, the nobles in England primarily spoke English. Also that's like saying the founding fathers of the USA are English because if you go back far enough they are.
Also that book linked says the Norman invasion was basically a viking raid

Why do you hate the French? Butthurt anglo maybe?

Rastislav of Moravia, pretty interesting in Eastern European history

Geoffery of Monmouth. Fairly obscure, not powerful, but has made significant literary contributions but is not known widely for it.
He's the first person to write romantic Arthurian literature and wrote a book about the mythic history of Britain
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_of_Monmouth

See No French people

>Robert Guiscard Duke of Apulia
>1 of 12 children most of whom emigrated to southern Italy for fame and fortune.
>got papal bull to liberate Sicily from the Muslims, beginning the 0.90 Crusade beta test
>Successfully defeated the Holy Roman Emperor and Eastern Roman Emperor in separate battles.
>was excommunicated by the same pope twice, but it didn't matter since half his army was Muslim and most and his vassal hated him already.
>He fought with the ERE so many times around hamlets in Greece named after places in the Holy Land like Galilee , Bethesda, etc that later choniclers got confused and thought he fought in the 1st crusade. This culminated in Dante Algheiri placing him in Paradise as a warrior of great virtue.
>his first wife Sikelgaita would accompany him into battles on his many campaigns, arguably turning the Battle of Dyrrhachium from a rout to a victory

No French people pls

I think he's welsh. Also what's with the french prejudice

go for my boy Cnut the great, King of England, Denmark, and Norway

Rudolph Habsburg, first Habsburg king of Germany, and first Habsburg ruler in Austria.

Gary.

Samuel HaNagid, Andalusian Jewish poet, soldier and politician.

Too famous

Ibn Mardanis, 12th century emir of Murcia and Valencia. Was a Moorish lord but dressed like a Christian, and allied with Leon-Castille against the Almohads. Was called El Rey Lobo, the Wolf King.

>Google.fr
>.fr

Did you just do a search and posted the first thing that came up without reading it?

Also the biography in Fench was commissioned by Marshal's son after his death.

You could try pne of the African Kings. Of England.

Hol up

>and within 50 years of Norman invasion, the nobles in England primarily spoke English.
Henry III was the first to speak English fluently and Henry IV was the first for whom English was his native language.

Nobles not royalty

Nobility got replace by Normans, then French. Court language was French, it was the king’s language
The remaining Anglo Saxon nobles got assimilated or fucked over when William had his way with northern England.

Please read the post carefully before replying

>When William the Conqueror led the Norman conquest of England in 1066, he, his nobles, and many of his followers from Normandy, but also those from northern and western France, spoke a range of langues d'oïl (northern varieties of Gallo-Romance). One of these was Old Norman, also known as "Old Northern French". Other followers spoke varieties of the Picard language or western French. This amalgam developed into the unique insular dialect now known as Anglo-Norman French, which was commonly used for literary and eventually administrative purposes from the 12th until the 15th century.
> it is clear that Anglo-Norman was, to a large extent, the spoken language of the higher social strata in medieval England.
>It was spoken in the law courts, schools, and universities and, in due course, in at least some sections of the gentry and the growing bourgeoisie. Private and commercial correspondence was carried out in Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French from the 13th to the 15th century though its spelling forms were often displaced by continental spellings. Social classes other than the nobility became keen to learn French: manuscripts containing materials for instructing non-native speakers still exist, dating mostly from the late 14th century onwards.

For fucks sake dude...

>various contemporary sources suggest that within 50 years of the invasion most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English

Peter Delyan

He's basically a GoT character.

Then how comes William Marshall 100 years after the invasion still spoke and wrote in French rater than English?

how come Mexicans still speak Spanish like 500 years after the spanish invasion

>Nine hundred years plus twenty-six more had passed from the glorious Incarnation of our Savior when the all-powerful King Athelstan assumed the crown of empire. Thirteen years later there was a massive battle against barbarians at Brunandun which is still called 'the great war' to the present day by the common folk. The barbarian hordes were then overcome on all sides and they held sway no longer. Afterwards he drove them from the shores of the sea and Scots and Picts alike bent their necks. The fields of Britain were joined as one; everywhere there was peace and abundance in all things. No fleet has since moved against these shores and remained without the consent of the English.[

>harald won against the people who killed him

based af desu
>tfwynb Harald Sigurds'son

Either Brian Boru - former High King of Ireland or Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill - High King of Ireland before and after Brian Boru.

Take him: Henry I(919/921-951) was the second son of Henry the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, he constantly rebelled against his brother Otto, as he saw himself as legitemate ruler of East Francia. He failed badly against his brother, but still received the Duchy of Lotharingia, which he failed to rule. This happened after he repented his doings and sat in jail for a conspiracy to assasinate his brother on easter. Then he got to rule the Duchy of Bavaria, mainly because his wife was from there. He is generally associated with cowardice, sexual debauchery, hate towards his brother and some may even say he led the Hungarian hordes to the Rhine and invited them. He committed a lot of crimes, for example, he gouged out the eyes of the Bishop of Salzburg and castrated the Patriarch of Aquilea. His grandson became the last Liudolfingian Monarch of the HRE, Henry II.

That's William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury, and bastard son of Henry II. Those are six yellow lions rampant on a field of blue. The Marshall sported one red lion rampant on a field of yellow and green.

he killed the northumbroids in the battle of fulford. the danish thingmannalid was the core of harold's army (who was pratically a dane too) in the battle of stamford bridge

yep, together with his brother who died and later got sanctified

>No French people pls
You have a small mind and I pity you sir.

Suleiman the Magnificent

Shit answer that doesn't fit time frame.

OP go with Kilij Arslan.

Harald was killed by people who were more German than Saxon
noice

I thought saxons were German

The mental gymnastics he's about to go through to prove that the Normans are still 100% literal Vikings in 1066, is going to be impressive.

Normans had been in France for 100 years of course they were French
It's like saying William Marshal was French despite Normans being in England for 100 years

Nuno Álvares Pereira, one of the best military leaders in history, never lost and is some sort of saint

Retarded analogy

In France, the Normans were offered a land after getting defeated by the French king (Siege of Chartres, 911)
In exchange, they had to accept vassalage and to assimilate to French customes (religion, language, lifestyle...)
Also they interbred a lot
That's why they ended up integrated as Frenchmen within a few generation

Meanwhile in England, they were conquerors
They dominated unchallenged and weren't forced to integrate by the locals
That's why they didn't adopt English culture until more than 300 years after the invasion
For the record, William Marshall spoke French

>For the record, William Marshall spoke French

And that is based on?

On every record about his life
For exemple, the biography of his father he ordered was in French

You have to remember that until the HYW, French was the main language of most of English nobles

Now I'm not saying he couldn't speak English tho (Idk about this), but French was definitly his native language

Charles II of Navarre, widely considered such a wicked man that his death by immolation via medical treatment was widely considered the result of his unjust deeds

>the biography of his father he ordered was in French

The fact that you keep repeating this after it being pointed out in this very thread ()
that it was his SON who had the biography made after he died, suggests you don't really know what you are talking about.

>person speaks language
>this makes them that race
Wow so I guess everyone in the Holy Roman Empire really was a Roman because they spoke latin

I'm not the other guy, but I did read his text, unlike you it seems

Pic related, it clearly states that French was the main languae of English nobles until the early 1400s

As for the son of Marshal, he undoubtedly spoke te same language as his father (French that is)
He didn't order the biography in French because of the romanticism

>people in the HRE spoke Latin

You could have picked a better example like present day Switzerland

>defeated
more like they broke the siege to raid in burgundy cause the frogs were hiding in fear after what ragnar lothbrok did. the frog king saw how fierce the normans were and offered them land in exchange for protecting the seine

Mark of a brainlet
>royalty only knew french therefore all norman nobles also only knew french
Also given that I've already posted something about how William identified as English and it is referenced to a book written by a frenchman i hardly think bias is an issue
Furthermore look at pic
Also that's like saying the Americans in the revolution weren't American but English because they wanted their rights as Englishmen and they were all descended from English
Why are you trying so hard to deny it? Why is it so important to you to deprive the English of one historical figure in a huge collection of great historical figures?
Stop being a retard and come back to Veeky Forums when you actually know what you're talking about

>more like they broke the siege to raid in burgundy
Hmmmm no
The French victory in the siege ended all hostilities and the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte was signed

>cause the frogs were hiding in fear after what ragnar lothbrok did
>ragnar lothbrok
It's about time you stop basing your historical knowledge on this fictitious TV show

>Also given that I've already posted something about how William identified as English and it is referenced to a book written by a frenchman i hardly think bias is an issue
He can very well have identified as an "English" (aka someone living in England) while retaining his Frech culture and language
In this era, feudalism was more important than shared culture/language, so people would rather take pride in the place they own than in the cultural group they belong to
What he meant by "English" was basically "Frenchman of England"

>Furthermore look at pic
Yeah, it says they interbred
I never claimed they were of pure French race (if you can even call the French a race)
I only point out that they retained their French culture and language for centuries
They were a foreign cast ruling over England

>Also that's like saying the Americans in the revolution weren't American but English because they wanted their rights as Englishmen and they were all descended from English
Not really comparable as the American shared the same culture and language as Brits (unlike Normans and Anglos), but yeah, technically the American revolutionaries were Brits
Who does even deny it?

>Why is it so important to you to deprive the English of one historical figure in a huge collection of great historical figures?
I ain't denying anything
The French Normans who lived in England post-invasion are part of English history, no one denies that
I'm just pointing out tat until the 1400s, they were basically a bunch of Frenchmen living in England, and not full-blown Englishmen like they're depicted in modern movies

The Anglo-Saxon English adopted to Norman culture as well just saying, so it's not like it's British ambassadors in India for lack of a better analogy.
Also where did you get the "until 1400s" bit anyway?

>spoke French
>gave his son an English name

Not to mention he was a very low ranking knight at the start of his career, not nobility.

>Also where did you get the "until 1400s" bit anyway?

This is merely a linguistic issue.
Many of the European monarchs conversed in French for formal and administrative manners. The nobility on the other hand were even less inclined to unless necessary. It's logical to adopt the language of your new home and people.

Did you read the quote? It says how in their heads the norman nobility saw themselves English despite French origins

>gave his son an English name

He didn't, you brainlet
William isn't an Anglo-Saxon name, it's the Norman variant of a Germanic name

>William is a popular given name of an old Germanic origin.[1] It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066
>In fact, the form William is from the Old Norman form Williame, because the English language should have retained helm.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William

William Marshal himself went by the name of "Williame le Mareschal", not by the form you currently use to refer to him
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke