Game of Thrones and old english

[grumbler]

God I hate Gibson

The thing that really annoys me is that because of Braveheart I don't think we'll ever get a film about Robert the Bruce which is the far more interesting story.  The cunning, wily and ultimately successful rebel deserves more than Wallace.

I think you grossly over-estimate the power of Gibson over the Hollywood decision-makers, and even more over-estimate the impact of Braveheart on the entire future of historical cinema.  We had Braveheart even though we had already had Rob Roy.  We'll have another Robert the Bruce movie, as well.

[Malthus]

My impression of the Anglo-Saxons is that their understanding of leadership was very much based on reciprocity.  The major feature of their society is the swearing of oaths to your lord and to your hall.  In Anglo-Saxon texts the focus on the failure of any individual to fulfil their boast almost always presages immediate and total defeat of the whole.  The other aspect of that is that leadership doesn't seem to have any divine features.  There's no outrage at bad lord, or lords who fail to fulfil their role of protector, being removed.  It's the legitimacy of a very warlike society really.

What's really interesting is how they try and imagine Christianity in this context.  They imagine Christ as an Anglo-Saxon Lord.  His supporters are like retainers, the Cross is his most loyal servant doing his wish.  While Christ being crucified is making the ultimate self-sacrifice for his oathsmen, to protect his people.  Other poems have Christ leading spear charges against demons.  The promise of heaven is seen as a Lord rewarding his thanes at an eternal feast in their hall.  It's a very distinctive vision, but even for Christ his divinity is almost secondary to his role as Lord.

Certainly there is no hint that chiefs were divine in the sense of being untouchable. More that there were certain people who were extra-heroic or aristocratic by virtue of ancestry. This lingered a long time in anglo-saxon culture.

For example, in theory the anglo-saxon kings of Wessex were elected by the Witan - but in practice, the "election" was from any who could claim desecnt from Cerdic (and usually but not always by primogeniture). The members of the witan were thanes, heriditary aristocrats. The presumption is that the roots of such aristocracy go back to the age where descent froim gods made sense as a social marker.

Oath-swearing or "oath helping" as a method of trial is an interesting thing: I've argued elsewhere that it makes perfect sense as a violence-controlling mechanism in the absence of a fixed set of laws and a monopoly on violence ...

[Razgovory]

Eh?  The Normans were still very much there in England when Geoffrey on Monmouth was there. He was writing during the reign of Henry I.  The Angevins don't show up till a bit later. It also helps to remember that Normans are French.

Henry II's reign starts the year Geoffrey's work is first published.  He's more English than later Kings but is basically French, he's also rebuilding after a civil war.  I think those reasons are part of the attraction of myths of uniting Kings like Arthur and Brutus.  But the French court in Anjou has Chretien de Troyes writing Arthurian Romance almost immediately after Geoffrey which suggest the myth was already known outside of England as an example of courtly virtues.

No, it doesn't.  Geoffrey finished his work in the mid 1130's.  Henry II didn't become King till 1154.  And even after the the rise of the Angevins, most of the nobility in England had strong ties to Normandy.  Often owning fiefs in both Normandy and England.  These families were not replaced and are likely to have spoken the Norman dialect for some time after Henry II came to power.

[Sheilbh]

No, it doesn't.  Geoffrey finished his work in the mid 1130's.  Henry II didn't become King till 1154.  And even after the the rise of the Angevins, most of the nobility in England had strong ties to Normandy.  Often owning fiefs in both Normandy and England.  These families were not replaced and are likely to have spoken the Norman dialect for some time after Henry II came to power.

Sorry I thought they were both 1154

I get what you're saying about the ties to Normandy.  But I don't think any of this addresses my main point that Arthur emerged as a major figure in the era of Angevins and was of particular importance to Anglo-Central French courtly culture (Chretien, 'the Frenshe bookes') not Anglo-Norman culture.  The language doesn't matter at all it was originally in Latin anyway and I think there are translations not very long after in Anglo-Norman, in French and there's quite early editions of it in Middle English too which indicates its enduring popularity.