What happened after the Norman invasion of England

1. What happened to the Saxon lords? Were they all killed?

The Irish are aplit on that. The Nationalists would agree with you, the Republicans disagree.

1.  as Aelfgifu

Originally posted by gcle2003   And if you weren't born at least near the New Forest you're a grockle anyway.

Actually I agree with you fully, King John. Perhaps my reply was not very clearly formulated, but I did not mean to imply they were just French with a Norse fringe...

Originally posted by Paul Originally posted by gcle2003   And if you weren't born at least near the New Forest you're a grockle anyway.       or a pony.

Originally posted by Aelfgifu I do protest against the Norse taboo on killing family though. I do not know where the author got it from, but that is really something I have never heard of before and do not believe. It was quite common for brothers or cousins to fight and/or kill each other in bids for power in medieval Scandinavia (Eirik Bloodaxe killed his own brothers to get power over Norway, and although he was disliked, he was by no means shunned), although banishment was in general a preferred solution. (Banishment or fleeing of political opponents in Scandinavian powerstruggles are one of the main theories of why they went Viking across Europe)

The article to which I was referring deals mainly with Blinding and Castration in lieu of capital punishment. When comparing the punishments of rebels in the England of Alfred the Great to the Scandinavian world he states:

"On the contrary, Scandinavian kings usually refrained from putting their opponents to death, preferring the penalty of exile or resorting to corporal punishment when thier authority was challenged. Cultural anthropology provides a plausible explanation: the widespread taboo against killing relatives. ...Not only did a Scandinavian nobleman know all of his fellow aristocrats but he could also safely assume that they all were in one way or another his kin.

"...Blinding and castration (and sometimes further mutilations) combined, served as a means of eliminating rivals who could not be killed because they were family. In 1134, King Harold of Norway blinded and unmanned his nephew Magnus, who ruled jointly with him. In 1146, Valdemar I of Denmark mistreated his cousin, Duke Magnus, in a similar way. In Sturlungasaga, the same fate befalls the Icelandic noble �roekja, when he falls into the hands of his cousin Sturla."25 Here he provides his sources I shall include his footnote with proper number.

25. Susan Tuchel, Kastration im Mittelalter (D�sseldorf: Droste, 1998), p. 101 n.31 and page 102; Sverre Bagge, Society and Politics in Snurri Sturluson's Heimskringla (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 112 ff; Preben Meulengracht S�rensen, The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society (Odense: Odense University Press, 1983), pp 68 and 81-84.


Certainly we can see here that the killing of family happened inspite of the taboo however there is clear documentation that a taboo or inclination against such events was present in Scandinavian society. At any rate this is only a minor point in his article the major point is that Castration and Blinding were used as a merciful alternative to capital punishment. If you get a chance to read the article I would do it. It is incredibly interesting. I think in my last post I included where the article could be found.

Castration and blinding was not limited to northern countries, such was the fate for example of Czech duke Jaromir around 1000 AD (a work of his brothers Oldrich and Boleslaus).
I have also heard about similar punishments being done before by Moravians.

Bagge is not at all discussing blinding and castration as punishment though. He is discussing it as a way to get rid of political opposers. In Germanic culture, primogeniture did not exist: any male member of the royal familiy had a claim to the throne. This automatically makes all male family a threat to a ruler. Bagge shows examples of kings using blinding, castrating and maiming (cutting off feet) as a way to stop ones opponents without killing family. But he names about 6 incidents of this happening. Over a couple of hundred of years of history, I do not find it a very convincing argument. Equal amounts of examples can be found of family members who either could get along or did kill each other.  

Originally posted by King John In many pre-Christian European cultures there was the idea that a king could not have any flaws in his appearence. This is especially true of the Celtic peoples and to a certain extent Germanic peoples. This article, van Eickels' article that is, mainly argues that castration, specifically, was a way to eliminate hiers with out killing them in Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. The taboo was a minor point that he made since the article was about gendered violence, that is the idea that the punishment of castration did more than just hinder procreation but rather it kept opponents from gaining a following and/or power. The taboo argument I, too, feel needs more support. I threw it out there more to show the Scandinavian influence of Norman and subsequently English Law.