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  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Normans?
    Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 06:52
Yes, but the kissing of the Kings foot was very emberassing to the ing in this case. You see, Rollo was certainly not going to do something as filthy as kissing a foot himself, so he delegated the job to one of his warriors. This guy did not have a problem with kissing a foot, but there was just no way he was going to bend down for it.
The king was seated on a backless stool. So, this warrior grabbed the kings ankle and pulled it upwards to his mouth, so causing the king to topple bckwars onto his back, and planted a firm kiss on the sole of the foot.
As the incident does not seem to have had any political consequenses, the king must have needed Rollo pretty badly. Or at least would not have been able to punish him for the humiliation.
 
I bet it doesnt say that in your 'History as it should have been' books....
 
You know, you are really fighting a losing battle here. Nobody agrees with your Nationlistic Biased French view anyway.


Edited by Aelfgifu - 16-Jul-2006 at 06:57

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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 07:36
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

LOL, Rollo wasn't at Chartres?


There is absolutely zero evidence for it; it is pure speculation.

As far as intermarriage therefore not Scandinavian .... look we are not talking a thousand years here or anything. We're talking about a handful of noble engagements over the course of about 5 or 6 generations. Nothing unusual to noble families anywhere in Europe, least of all France itself.

What is that incident? He still kissed his foot though, meaning he was definitely defeated. I mean common, he still had to kiss the king foot.


No he didn't. He had one of his junior warriors toss him over and kiss his foot. They probably all laughed at the king too. And yet ... the treaty went forward.

Doesn't sound like they were much afraid of him. Sure sounds like he was afraid of them, to tolerate anything like that.
    
    
    
    

Edited by edgewaters - 16-Jul-2006 at 18:24
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 21:37
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

Yes, but the kissing of the Kings foot was very emberassing to the ing in this case. You see, Rollo was certainly not going to do something as filthy as kissing a foot himself, so he delegated the job to one of his warriors. This guy did not have a problem with kissing a foot, but there was just no way he was going to bend down for it.
The king was seated on a backless stool. So, this warrior grabbed the kings ankle and pulled it upwards to his mouth, so causing the king to topple bckwars onto his back, and planted a firm kiss on the sole of the foot.
As the incident does not seem to have had any political consequenses, the king must have needed Rollo pretty badly. Or at least would not have been able to punish him for the humiliation.
 
I bet it doesnt say that in your 'History as it should have been' books....
 
You know, you are really fighting a losing battle here. Nobody agrees with your Nationlistic Biased French view anyway.
 
I mean common, why would there be any foot kissing ceremony in the first place. Normally you kiss the back of the king's hand, not his foot. The king must have won something. But of course, Rollo is a honorable man, he won't kiss anyone foot neither in defeat and especially not in victory.
 
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 21:44
 

There is absolutely zero evidence for it; it is pure speculation.
 
Zero evidence, dude open a history; there was a Rollo at Chartres but nobody the origin of this Rollo.

As far as intermarriage therefore not Scandinavian .... look we are not talking a thousand years here or anything. We're talking about a handful of noble engagements over the course of about 5 or 6 generations. Nothing unusual to noble families anywhere in Europe, least of all France itself.
 
The Intermarriage when between the the mix French-scandinavian descendents with the French of nearby duchies. By 1066, now can be considered to be scandinavian.
 
Imagine an immigrant moved in France in 1851, do you think in 2006, his descecndents would be anything like that immigrant.
 


No he didn't. He had one of his junior warriors toss him over and kiss his foot. They probably all laughed at the king too. And yet ... the treaty went forward.

Doesn't sound like they were much afraid of him. Sure sounds like he was afraid of them, to tolerate anything like that. 
    
       
    
 
No, he didn't toss him over, it was more an accident; the king fell while the man was raising his feet, otherwise the man's head would be on a stake. Why would there be a feet kissing ceremony in the first place? If the king wasn't in position of power, he wouldn't ask Rollo to kiss his feet.
 
 
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jul-2006 at 03:47
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

Zero evidence, dude open a history; there was a Rollo at Chartres but nobody the origin of this Rollo.


I repeat, THERE IS NOT ONE ACCOUNT OF A ROLLO BEING AT CHARTRES.

http://ice.mm.com/user/rob/Rollo/HistoricalRollo.html#N_8_

It is a strictly modern invention to assume he was there.

No, he didn't toss him over, it was more an accident; the king fell while the man was raising his feet, otherwise the man's head would be on a stake. Why would there be a feet kissing ceremony in the first place? If the king wasn't in position of power, he wouldn't ask Rollo to kiss his feet.


Hahaha!!!!
     

No, I'm afraid it was a situation more like a nerdy accountant in a biker bar. The king didn't accidentally fall over or whatever. The man's head wouldn't be on a stake because the Vikings owned him. One little skirmish at Chartres, and you think the French had the Vikings beat?? They probably realized at Chartres that they could never beat them, they mobilize the whole country and manage to basically catch ONE little pack of bandits. When there are dozens of raids happening simultaneously, what hope is there?


The French thinking was probably more along the lines of, let's give them land up north ... we can't catch them very well right now, but just wait til they've made homes in Normandy ... then we'll massacre them easily.

Edited by edgewaters - 17-Jul-2006 at 03:55
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jul-2006 at 21:42

Hahaha!!!!
     

No, I'm afraid it was a situation more like a nerdy accountant in a biker bar. The king didn't accidentally fall over or whatever. The man's head wouldn't be on a stake because the Vikings owned him. One little skirmish at Chartres, and you think the French had the Vikings beat?? They probably realized at Chartres that they could never beat them, they mobilize the whole country and manage to basically catch ONE little pack of bandits. When there are dozens of raids happening simultaneously, what hope is there?


The French thinking was probably more along the lines of, let's give them land up north ... we can't catch them very well right now, but just wait til they've made homes in Normandy ... then we'll massacre them easily.

I think you don't have a clue waht you are talking about. The Franks were terror incarnate when it comes to mass killing. The vikings were decisively defeated at Chartres. THat's why they were there to kiss the king's feet (one could literally say @ss). A nerd doesn't ask a bully to kiss his foott, the opposite is true. The low born viking accidentally tripped the king over, but somehow he didn't take offence, otherwise I wouldn't doubt he would have been killed by the king's knights.

Most large scale engagement in France btw Vikings and French ended in the viking defeat. At Chartres Robert Le Justicier pulverised the vikings and forced them into an alliance.

 
 


Edited by Quetzalcoatl - 17-Jul-2006 at 21:43
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jul-2006 at 01:45
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

The vikings were decisively defeated at Chartres.


Again, that's very unlikely. They never assembled large enough forces for any single defeat to be decisive.

Most large scale engagement in France btw Vikings and French ended in theviking defeat.


If Vikings got into a large scale engagement, something had gone wrong for them. Their success was in mobility; many small groups conducting lightning raids before anyone could respond.

At Chartres Robert Le Justicier pulverised the vikings and forced them into an alliance.


There's not a single historian or account before the 1800s (the birth of romantic revisionist nationalism in France and England) which claims that Chartres had anything to do with the foundation of Normandy. However, there are lots of accounts of a second group of "northmen" who were settling west of Normandy (and it is strongly borne out by toponymics in that area).

As far as the kissing of the foot, it was Charles' attempt to save some face. It failed, because the Norse simply made a buffoon out of him. To have a junior warrior do it was insult enough, that would have most kings lethally offended. Charles was in no position (no pun intended!) to do anything about it.
    

Edited by edgewaters - 18-Jul-2006 at 04:02
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jul-2006 at 05:44
There's not a single historian or account before the 1800s (the birth of romantic revisionist nationalism in France and England) which claims that Chartres had anything to do with the foundation of Normandy. However, there are lots of accounts of a second group of "northmen" who were settling west of Normandy (and it is strongly borne out by toponymics in that area).

As far as the kissing of the foot, it was Charles' attempt to save some face. It failed, because the Norse simply made a buffoon out of him. To have a junior warrior do it was insult enough, that would have most kings lethally offended. Charles was in no position (no pun intended!) to do anything about it. 
 
I want to see your imaginary sources. If there is anything to doubt, it is whether the viking had any impact on Normandy, or whether the origin of the name of the place is even scandinavian. If they had an impact it was minimal and there was little traces of vikings heritage in normandy by 1066.
 
You should read about the subject before commenting on it. Yes the viking engaged in several large scales battle both in England and France. Usually it ended with the viking being defeated, especially in  France. They had some success in England though.    


Edited by Quetzalcoatl - 18-Jul-2006 at 05:49
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jul-2006 at 09:53
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

I want to see your imaginary sources.


There is no pre-1800s source that says Rollo was at Chartres, that's the whole point. How can I show you what does not exist? Instead, why don't you show me a contemporary (or even just medieval account) that states he was.

If there is anything to doubt, it is whether the viking had any impact on Normandy, or whether the origin of the name of the place is even scandinavian.


No question at all. There are tons of toponymics in Normandy that are of Scandinavian origin.

Not only that, the Normans were in consistent alliance with Scandinavians. Not only did William co-ordinate his attack on England with a Viking assault in the north, whenever Normandy itself was threatened, the Normans would call on great numbers of Vikings to come to its aid - for instance, around the year 1000 when Eudes of Chartres was threatening Normandy, the duke called on Olaf I of Norway to assist.
    
    

Edited by edgewaters - 18-Jul-2006 at 09:54
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jul-2006 at 20:24
Not only that, the Normans were in consistent alliance with Scandinavians. Not only did William co-ordinate his attack on England with a Viking assault in the north, whenever Normandy itself was threatened, the Normans would call on great numbers of Vikings to come to its aid - for instance, around the year 1000 when Eudes of Chartres was threatening Normandy, the duke called on Olaf I of Norway to assist.
 
ROFL. The battle of Stamford bridge was purely coincidental (there is no source that said the attack was coordinated. Why would William want another claimant to the throne in England to start with?). THe Normans had little contact with the scandinavians by 1066.  Fact is after the conquest of England, the viking and anglo-saxons were both treated as lower class.
 
The Breton held 20% of the land, the rest was controlled by the Normans and other French factions. No scandinavians whatsover was a landlord as they, like the anglo-saxons, were dispossed of their land. Another fact, the Normans married mostly only with people of the continents or among French ruling elite of England. They clearly set themselves apart from the anglo-saxons and danes alike. They would take the occasional wives from the local population, but lest a male would adopt a French name (many anglo-saxons did), spoke French, they would remain at the bottom of the ladder.
 
Only after the capetian wars (about 1200+) when Anjou and Normandy were conquered by the Franciliens, and the Angevin kings and other French were cut off from France did they start to integrate with the locals (who still spoke old English).
 
I've already posted an article of the apartheid system set by the French in England. Clearly they didn't feel the vikings were their breathrens.
 
Extract ( the normans were strong defenders of the French language and culture just like any other French)
 

On the status of the English Language after the Norman Conquest

It has been forgotten by many, most notably the English themselves, that for three centuries after the Norman Conquest, England was ruled by a ruling class that spoke French. As Matthew of Paris, writing in the mid thirteenth century, explained "Whoever was unable to speak French was considered a vile and contemptible person by the common people". Or as the chronicler Robert of Gloucester wrote in around the year 1300, (in French naturally) that "unless a man knows French, he is thought little of", adding that "I reckon that there are no countries in the whole world that do not keep to their own speech, except England only".

In the 1320s, Ranulph Higden a monk from St Werburgh's Abbey in Chester, wrote a Latin universal history under the title of Polychronicon and included a passage on the state of contemporary education in England, stating that;

children in school, contrary to the usage and custom of all other nations, are compelled to abandon their own language and carry on their lessons and their affairs in French, and have done so since the Normans first came to England. Also the children of gentlemen are taught to speak French from the time they are rocked in their cradle and learn to speak and play with a child's trinket, and rustic men will make themselves like gentlemen and seek with great industry to speak French to be more highly thought of.

 

On the transformation that took place as a result of the Norman Conquest

The one thing that did unite the respective Danish and English populations of Britain was their mutual opposition to the idea of being ruled by the French speaking Normans. (Indeed it is worth noting that it was in the more Danish areas of England that the new Norman masters of England experienced the strongest challenge to their rule.)

The Normans to state the obvious, spoke French and in common with most conquerors viewed the conquered population of England with a certain amount of disdain. They took very little interest in the culture of the conquered English, which is the main reason why so little Anglo-Saxon cultural material survives. Apart from Boewulf, which is really an Old English version of a Scandinavian poem in any case, and the work of Caedmon (who was British) there isn't really a great deal left. (Incidentally it is this general lack of any genuine Old English mythic material that prompted a certain JRR Tolkien (a professor of Anglo-Saxon) to write the Lord of the Rings in the first place, and thus provide the English with their missing corpus of myth.)

The new Norman ruling class of England tended to marry each other, or nice French speaking girls from the other side of the channel; there was very little if any intermarriage with the natives. (Stories of Norman barons marrying 'Saxon heiresses' are 18th and 19th century myths, invented at a time when it became fashionable for the aristocracy to flaunt imagined 'German' origins. (The kings of the House of Hanover were most certainly German you see.)

 
 


Edited by Quetzalcoatl - 18-Jul-2006 at 20:31
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 03:35
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

THe Normans had little contact with the scandinavians by 1066.


Just saying that doesn't refute the facts I have spoken of. If they have no contact by 1066, then they have only had no contact for about one generation, since the King of Norway had been invited to help protected Normandy from Eudes of Chartres in the 1020's.

Fact is after the conquest of England, the viking and anglo-saxons were both treated as lower class.


Of course the Anglo-Danish were treated as a lower class. They were pagans for the most part, and the Normans were Christian and "civilized". Christian Vikings and pagan Vikings got into alot of conflict over this all over the Scandinavian world at this time. Do you think Vikings were some sort of united group?      

Scandinavians from different kingdoms didn't see and each other and then put down their weapons and hug each other, you know. And the Normans were much different, far more steeped in Christian culture than any of them. Vikings fought each other alot, they even battled one another in England several times. It was Danes and Saxons against Norwegians at Stamford Bridge. Danes and Norwegians had fought in London itself prior to that (check the origins of the song, "London Bridge is Falling Down").

Particularly the Normans were a breed apart. But they were just as much a breed apart from the Vikings, as they were from the English or Parisian French. The Normans conquered England; not the French. Normans are Normans. We can argue all day about who the Normans were, but it's very clear they were their own thing, neither French nor Scandinavian, by the time of the Conquest. Saying that the Normans were French is like saying that the Ostrogoths of Odoacer and Theodoric were Romans. They spoke Latin, and married Romans; fought "barbarians", wore togas, converted to Christianity; lived in villas, went to the baths and gymnasiums; Odoacer and Theodoric were even military officers in the Roman army before they took power, and Theodoric's Ostrogoth kingdom was run in Roman style. But they weren't Romans!

No scandinavians whatsover was a landlord as they, like the anglo-saxons, were dispossed of their land.


Wrong, plenty of Saxon and Danish nobles retained their holdings, the ones that could demonstrate loyalty to their new overlords even expanded their territory in some cases.

Another fact, the Normans married mostlyonly with people of the continents or among Frenchruling eliteof England.


So? All British royalty from Canute right down to recent times has done the same thing. French nobility married with Spaniards, Prussians, Germans, God knows what else. Are you not aware of the nature and purpose of marriages in feudal kingdoms?

They clearly set themselves apart from the anglo-saxons and danes alike.


That was what the Normans did best - clearly set themselves apart from everyone else. They set themselves apart from the Scandinavians, set themselves apart from the French, and then set themselves apart from the English.

I've already posted an article of the apartheid system set by the French in England. Clearly they didn't feel the vikings were their breathrens.


They didn't feel the Anglo-Danes were their brethren, no.

Extract ( the normans were strong defenders of the French language and culture just like any other French)


No, not really! Norman French was greatly different from Parisian French, from the beginning.

On the status of the English Language after the Norman Conquest It has been forgotten by many, most notably the English themselves, that for three centuries after the [COLOR=#0000ff">Norman Conquest[/COLOR">, England was ruled by a ruling class that spoke French.


No, I don't think that's been forgotten at all. But apparently the French have forgotten that the Normans weren't speaking the same French as the French king. Anglo-Norman French is a very distinct dialect, even in the 11th century.

The one thing that did unite the respective Danish and English populations of Britain was their mutual opposition to the idea of being ruled by the French speaking Normans. (Indeed it is worth noting that it was in the more Danish areas of England that the new Norman masters of England experienced the strongest challenge to their rule.)


Well that was nothing new. The Anglo-Danish had been opposing favouritism towards Norman appointments and style of government, even under Edward the Confessor. Was he Gallic French too?




The new Norman ruling class of England tended to marry each other, or nice French speaking girls from the other side of the channel; there was very little if any intermarriage with the natives.


Do you think French kings went out and married Parisian commoners? No ... they went abroad too. You clearly have a deep misunderstanding of feudal marriage as an institution, here. Danish kings of England did it before the Normans, and Saxons before them.

    
    
    
    

Edited by edgewaters - 19-Jul-2006 at 03:59
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 04:34
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

It has been forgotten by many, most notably the English themselves, that for three centuries after the Norman Conquest, England was ruled by a ruling class that spoke French.
 
You mean when anyone mentions Robin Hood or Hereward the Wake or Ivanhoe in England all they get is a blank puzzled stare?
 
Good guy Saxons versus bad guy Normans (except Richard I) is one of the staple themes of schoolboy fiction in England and always has been.
 
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  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 08:04
"On these open shores, the mark of pagan invasions was strong during the 10th century. Rollon's conversion in 911 followed by his position as count of Normandy is fairly considered a famous date in the history of France. [...] The population is not fully renewed: judging by toponymy, the Norman colonization was mostly along the shore and had little influence on the society or on the institutions (Normandy is no more "Scandinavian" than Occitania is "Roman"). The Christian feudal system, however, was destroyed and renewed. Under the duke Richard II (996-1026), the monasticism flourishes again at Jumieges and Fecamp, where the duke has a splendid palace. In the same time, from sources written here, we have informations on the land, on the people, on the coinage, on the institutions - and we find so little Scandinavian traces. Even the Norman nobility seem mixed: the "ethnical" borders are undoubtely surpassed. We could think that even the Norse bands of 9th century had several Galo-Christians among their ranks, as the legend of Hastingus suggests (told by Raoul Glaber) - there's no doubt that they often negotiated with the Frankish counts and kings, being bound by alliances or coalitions.
Slowly fixed and converted, the Normans on the Seine assumed the post-Carolingian civilization quite well. The duchy is ruled through comitates (pagi), but most often by vicounts and relatives of the counts. [...] Besides a right on the shipwrecks and some exile sentences, nothing significant is different between Richard II and the other French principes. [...] He uses the same methods; perfectly integrated and a good ally for Hugo Capet and Robert the Pious, but that doesn't stop him to interfere for Eudes II of Blois. He's a node for many networks inside the kingdom and outside it. He also interferes at the Normans "across the sea" (the true Danes) to redeem the vicontess of Limoges, taken prisoner around 1010 at St. Michel-en-l'Herm.
[...]
In this new province it came the time to invent, or at least to fix, the past. The canonic Dudon from St. Quentin writes at Richard II's command a history of the first Norman dukes. [...] What else Dudon offers before 911 or 943, even many times after these dates, but pure inventions? He doesn't know anything about the true Denmark or about the Scandinavian culture. But he leads us in a mythological "Dacia" to tell us the origins and the great deeds of Hastingus and Rollon (see also C. Carozzi - "Des Daces aux Normands ..."). They are proud, they fight, they negotiate and cheat in way that is similar with the realities during the kingdom of Hugo Capet and Robert the Pious!
[...]
Why should we wonder that Normandy is painted with so little true Scandinavian nuances, when the acculturation was strong and fast from the beginning?"
(translation and adaptation from Dominique Barthelemy - "L'an mil et la paix de Dieu", a analysis of the French feudal history between the end of Xth century and the middle of XIth from this point of view of the "peace of God", but also going many times beyond that, as you can see from these paragraphs)
 
I should add that also Lucien Musset has some similar opinions in his book "Les invasions".
 
I will come soon with few considerations on some other points you made.


Edited by Chilbudios - 19-Jul-2006 at 08:15
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 08:21
On these open shores, the mark of pagan invasions was strong during the 10th century. Rollon's conversion in 911 followed by his position as count of Normandy is fairly considered a famous date in the history of France. [...] The population is not fully renewed: judging by toponymy, the Norman colonization was mostly along the shore and had little influence on the society or on the institutions (Normandy is no more "Scandinavian" than Occitania is "Roman")


I don't think anyone's arguing that. The Norman impact on France was much like the Norman impact on the English population; they formed a ruling class with very little impact on the general population.
    
Even the Norman nobility seem mixed: the "ethnical" borders are undoubtely surpassed.


Mixed, yes. All nobility throughout all Christian Europe were mixed.

Edited by edgewaters - 19-Jul-2006 at 08:24
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  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 08:52
Edgewaters, the point of those paragraphs is that Normans during Richard II were "French", therefore the Normans of William (Guillaume Tongue) were also "French" (including the nobility, so even Richard II or William themselves).
 
Now about some of your earlier points:
 
Saying that the Normans were French is like saying that the Ostrogoths of Odoacer and Theodoric were Romans. They spoke Latin, and married Romans; fought "barbarians", wore togas, converted to Christianity; lived in villas, went to the baths and gymnasiums; Odoacer and Theodoric were even military officers in the Roman army before they took power, and Theodoric's Ostrogoth kingdom was run in Roman style. But they weren't Romans!
This analogy is preposterous (and that even if we leave the anachronisms aside).
For one thing, being Roman is much different than being French (or belonging to many other ethnicities/medieval identity groups). In some periods of the Empire (let's say during 3rd century for example) you could be Roman though you were ethnically Lybian or whatever. Being Roman wasn't about having Latin as mother tongue (though you were forced to know it to live in that society), wasn't about being fully integrated into a pure Roman set of values and customs and forgetting much of your own (as the above author argues about the Normans from Normandy).
Then again, the Goths of Theodoric weren't that Roman as you insinuate. Parts of the aristocracy refused the Classical culture (well, Theodoric was "Roman", had educated his children in the Roman way, tried to impose a public Roman school, but he had opponents; and as we know the dynasty of Amalii fell - the death of Theodat in 536 - and the conservative Gothic factions which followed it were even hostile to the Roman culture).
The "Romans" among the barbarians from the 5th-6th century kingdoms were just a small elite which in itself was not fully persuaded to adopt the new culture. As Theodoric said: "the poor Roman imitates the Goth, the rich Goth imitates the Roman".
Coming back to Normans, were they just imitating the continental society?
Reading my last message I'd say they really integrated into this society.
 
It's all about identity - assumed and perceived from outside. If you think of yourself as a French/Roman and most around you, too, then you're a French/Roman. Analyse again Theodoric's kingdom and XIth century Normandy and see that the comparision cannot be done.
 
No, not really! Norman French was greatly different from Parisian French, from the beginning.
[...]
No, I don't think that's been forgotten at all. But apparently the French have forgotten that the Normans weren't speaking the same French as the French king. Anglo-Norman French is a very distinct dialect, even in the 11th century.
This is a really funny point. So a Marseillese is not French, because he's speaking in dialect? Let's plunge in the middle of 11th century, were the Aquitans French? But the Burgundians? Or for you France is a small "island" around Paris??
Though he made some erroneous points, Quetzacoatl is right on this one. The conquerors of William were speaking French and installed the French language (dialectal as it was) in England.
 
What's your reason to consider them Scandinavian? How were they culturally representing Scandinavia and how were they culturally representing the continental post-Carolingian France?
 
 
 
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  Quote Konstantis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 10:34

The Normans were called ''Keltes'' by the Greeks.The word Keltes is the Greek word used to describe the Celts,the Gauls.Perhaps the Greeks,my ancestors, knew that the Normans were genetically more celtic than scandinavian,since many warriors of the Norman army were Bretons.

I think that since the Normans spoke French or at least a type of French, they should be considered French.They were not the same as the French of Paris,but they were provincial French.
The racial admixture with the vikings is a fact and can be seen in many traits exhibited by the vikings.The Normans inherited from their viking ancestors the naval skills,the surprise attacks,the speed of movement,the brutality and ruthlesness.
But the differences which set them apart from the vikings were much more.They spoke a type of French,they fought in the French manner using the cavalry as their crack troops and they organised their Duchy according to the carolingian feudal system.They inherited from their carolingian ancestors the technique of building strongholds and they perfected it.
Even the terms that they used in their army were French.
The Normans should be seen as a caste among the French,originating from Normandy and not as a distinct people.
 
 


Edited by Konstantis - 19-Jul-2006 at 10:35
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  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 12:43
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

'Richer of Rheims called the Normans 'pirates' in a late tenth century work, almost a century after Rollo's arrival'
Bates, David, Normandy before 1066, page xvi.
I'm not sure how much value should you give to such testimonies.
Opening again the book of Dominique Barthelemy we find this Richer of Rheims describing Hugo Capet as the king of the "Gauls, Bretons, Danes, Aquitans, Goths, Spaniards and Gascones". Do you really think there were these 6 strongly shaped "non-French" ethnicities/identities (the first one seems to be "French")?
At the same time Richer of Rheims proves his - otherwise expected - naivity in judging the people of "France". He identifies the western kingdom of the Franks with Cesar's Gaul and its 3 parts: Belgia, Celtica and Aquitania. He also claims that the more you go south, the less rational are the people you meet, though everywhere it's the same quarreling spirit. The most rational are the Belges (people living north of Seine). Well, you know where Rheims is ... Wink
Another observation would be that there's a tendency to "archaize" the people, i.e. to characterise them not by realities of the present, but by the memories of the past. As at the core of the French kingdom were the Gauls, its neighbouring feudes have similar obsolete characterizations, in particular your account showing Normans to be pirates (if indeed the information is correct and he talks about the followers of Rollon)
 
We shouldn't transform all the medieval stereotypical views into evidences with absolutely no interpretation/critical spirit.
 


Edited by Chilbudios - 19-Jul-2006 at 12:59
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  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 13:17
Yes, of course chronicles are not always reliable. But there is a big difference between dividing the people in groups with archaic names or calling a group of people 'pirates'. Seems a lot more personal to me. And as I clearly showed, it was not I who drawed that conclusion, it was Mr Bates. Read the article, it is very convincing.

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  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 13:29
Calling Normans pirates at the end of 10th century looks to me like when, in the same period, Liutprand of Cremona in his mission to Constantinople loaded the Byzantines with a lot of derogatory terms (avarice, liars, vicious, born from a fratricide etc. ) based on a mythical Roman image, and also bounded in the past.
What's Bates argument (I don't have the article, can you sketch some arguments concerning some issues discussed here?) that this sentence reflects indeed a reality and it's not, like I suggest, an insult to Normans, the expression of an intolerance to an "other".
 


Edited by Chilbudios - 19-Jul-2006 at 13:31
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  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 13:59
Dont have it here, Im at my parents house, I will look it up when Im back in my room... Its a book, not an article...
But I remember it was just one exaple in a list which shows that both the Normans and the Franks considered there was a difference between them.


Edited by Aelfgifu - 19-Jul-2006 at 14:01

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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