Who Do You Root For: Barbarians or Romans?

[Valmy]

More or less everything, certainly everything good - the class system, snobbery, absurd titles and feudalism were the Normans.

Sounds like 19th Century Romantic German nationalism to me.   Do you really believe that garbage?  I thought those sorts of attitudes about English history had died out long ago.

[Valmy]

The Welsh never got properly conquered by the Romans and many of the remaining Romano-British (who often spoke a Celtic language - as would Gallo-Romans) were forced into to Wales (Old English for 'foreigners') by the Anglo-Saxons.

Oh?  I did not realize there was a distinction between British and Welsh back then.  I guess I figured the Welsh was the British remnent.

[Sheilbh]

Oh?  I did not realize there was a distinction between British and Welsh back then.  I guess I figured the Welsh was the British remnent.

You're right.  But the Romans dealt with tribes in Wales that remained and never really settled like they did with England.  From what I understand, it's a bit like the Normans - they built forts and military outposts but there weren't towns, or Roman life and as I say I think a fair few tribes survived and just carried on with their lives.  So what was the British, joined by many Romano-British, became the Welsh.

So I think daily life was Welsh/Celtic to a far, far greater degree than England where there are some centres of Roman culture as well as simple force.

[Sheilbh]

More or less everything, certainly everything good - the class system, snobbery, absurd titles and feudalism were the Normans.

Sounds like 19th Century Romantic German nationalism to me.   Do you really believe that garbage?  I thought those sorts of attitudes about English history had died out long ago.

No one believes in it.  It's like the articles you get every few years about how everyone's really a Roundhead or a Cavalier (Thatcher, Brown, Major, Attlee - Roundheads; Blair, Cameron, MacMillan, Churchill - Cavaliers).  It's not at all serious, but there is that sneaking sense that the raucous, drunken, individualistic, often (especially about the French) xenophobic side of the English is our Anglo-Saxon side.  The bit that's prim and proper, that bows to the Queen and still (still!) has a House of Lords where people wear ermine and stockings is the Norman side.

[Josquius]

Germanic tribes were more "democratic" at the time of the invasions because they were at a more primitive level of political organization than the Romans.  Tribal organizations always include a consultative aspect, and have lower powers of coercion.

It's also true that northern European states developed democratic accountability earlier than southern European states.  But I don't see how you can argue that this is a function of their German-ness.  By the time accountability had been established the states in northern Europe had evolved for centuries and had virtually no recognizable relationship to the early Germanic proto-states.

Individualism I see no support for whatsoever.

Maybe it was simply down to being more primitive that the Germanics were more democratic, however they didn't really develop themselves, they stole a lot of their modernity. Maybe. Either way they kept their tradition of democracy.

Individualism...perhaps this comes from the same roots of primitive traits holding over into more advanced times? Without a doubt Britain is a very oddly individualist country. The reasons for this I do not know.

[The Brain]

More or less everything, certainly everything good - the class system, snobbery, absurd titles and feudalism were the Normans.

That's the sum total of good things in English culture?

[Queequeg]

The Welsh and Yorkshire shepherds?

I don't know why Yorkshire would.  The Celts see themselves as being here before the Romans, often at war with them and occasionally beating them off.

Open question: why do the Welsh speak a Celtic language and not a Romance one?

The Welsh are Celts

Yorkshire was a Yan Tan Tethra reference. Language replacement in the North and southern Scotland was likely less motivated by outright Saxon conquest. There is a lot of remaining place names and evidence of continuation of usage of a Brythonic language until the Normans.

The Welsh are Celts but so were the Romano-British. If France could maintain split pride in their mixed Gaulish-Roman-Frankish heritage, no reason the Welsh can't.

[The Brain]

The Welsh language doesn't invite to identifying with the Romans in the way for instance French does.

[Syt]

Ah, Wales.

Where the men are real men, and the sheep are nervous.

[The Brain]

Have you ever been to Wales? It's a ghastly place.

[Sheilbh]

The Welsh are Celts but so were the Romano-British. If France could maintain split pride in their mixed Gaulish-Roman-Frankish heritage, no reason the Welsh can't.

No reason why they couldn't, but they didn't. The Romano-British don't figure. The popular view and the Welsh story is that the Romans were an invading and occupying force. Welsh cultural symbols often hark to pre-Roman times (or how we later imagined them) like the Eisteddfod, when they celebrate bards and dress as druids. I mean that's even the case in England, there's a huge statue of Boudicca right by Parliament.

The real story, as with many conquests was of mingling, inter-marriage and cultural hybridisation. But we're talking identity and national feelings so we're in myths here.

Edit: I wonder if part of it is that national identity are relatively recent creations, really unlinked to actual genealogies and no-one really wants to be a nation of collaborators, which is, I think, how the Romano-British are perceived.

[Queequeg]

Have you ever been to Wales? It's a ghastly place.

Misquoting Blackadder.  Bad Brain. 

The real story, as with many conquests was of mingling, inter-marriage and cultural hybridisation. But we're talking identity and national feelings so we're in myths here.

Very true.  I've known Turks who were the spitting image of an Armenian or Greek friend who have argued that all their ancestors came over in 1071, or were Balkan Turks.

[The Brain]

Misquoting Blackadder.  Bad Brain. 

[Valmy]

No one believes in it.  It's like the articles you get every few years about how everyone's really a Roundhead or a Cavalier (Thatcher, Brown, Major, Attlee - Roundheads; Blair, Cameron, MacMillan, Churchill - Cavaliers).  It's not at all serious, but there is that sneaking sense that the raucous, drunken, individualistic, often (especially about the French) xenophobic side of the English is our Anglo-Saxon side.  The bit that's prim and proper, that bows to the Queen and still (still!) has a House of Lords where people wear ermine and stockings is the Norman side.

That is ridiculous.  The Normans spent centuries undermining their duke and later their King everytime they got the chance, it was the Anglo-Saxons who had a highly centralized monarchy where everybody was more or less obedient even when the monarch in question was Aethelred Unread.  But ok I realize you were joking now

[Valmy]

The Welsh language doesn't invite to identifying with the Romans in the way for instance French does.

The Welsh language had alot of Latin Vocabulary though (and of course they have alot of similarities anyway both being Indo-European languages).  Besides France is different because Southern France was actually full of Romans while few Romans actually moved to Britain.  The Romans did not like to live places where they could not practice their Mediterranean lifestyle.