HASTINGS - OVERSIMPLIFIED - Historian Reaction (The War that Changed the English Language)

okay folks welcome back everybody you asked for it you got it i've actually never seen the oversimplified video about the battle of hastings we did the video a couple of days ago about the battle of hastings and a bunch of you said okay now you need to do the oversimplified i didn't know there was one i'm not sure how i didn't know there was one but i didn't know there was one so this is the oversimplified video to follow up uh to the one we just did about the battle of hastings this is about the war that changed the english language i've never seen it before i'm curious to see how it may add to what we've already talked about how it may have a different take on it let's dive right in the link's in the description if you want to check out the original video here we go was made possible by skillshare an online learning community with over 17 000 classes in just about anything you can imagine keep watching until the end of the video to learn how you can get your first two months for free england in the middle ages the sun is shining the birds are singing the children are playing in the village square wait did we just get rick rolled we got rick rolled it said we're no strangers to love right over here the sun is shining the birds are singing yeah we got rick rollins the children are playing in the village square what a wonderful time today not really hey you're dying of distance okay i i apologize i don't wanna pause this much right at the beginning that's not how dysentery spelled that's neither here nor there it has nothing to do with history it does make me think of oregon trail though which is one of my favorite games as a kid and also we're being raided by vikings what an awful time to be alive oh it's the year 900 europe is a vikings west stream raids galore hey you want to go raid paris okay that particular raid didn't go too well but the king of the frank said you guys are pretty tough and scary how about we give you land in northern france you protect us from other vikings and it was agreed the vikings set up the duchy of normandy and then they went full on french converting to christianity learning the language and making babies with the locals and that's actually where norman the word comes from it's the north men it's the the vikings and so it's kind of funny that you know when when we think of the norman conquest of england we think of that as french but really normandy was a viking duchy uh rollo and and einstein and all these guys who were uh vikings originally said no obviously they married into french families and things like that but yeah it wasn't just a french invasion it was a viking invasion of england england also had its fair share of viking problems in the 800s danish vikings had conquered most of the country but the anglo-saxons eventually managed to kick them out although they left behind a bunch of viking settlers now this guy's king he sucks replace him with his brother and he was like hey baby how you doing and had a son and then turned around and was like hey baby how you doing and had another son and then he died and no one was sure which son to make king this one because he's older not if i have anything to do with it that works for us too then he grew up and married the duke of normandy's daughter and so yeah and uh i mentioned this briefly uh during the the last video about normandy the anglo-saxon uh way of choosing kings was not simply who's the heir to the throne there was a a council called the witten and if you've ever seen the the tv show on netflix which is fantastic by the way the last kingdom you see a lot of this time period you see the the balance of power and the fighting going on between the various english kingdoms including some that are ruled by the danes the vikings uh you also see that in the tv show vikings uh and so yeah it's not necessarily okay you died your son takes over you know there's often a lot of fighting for that influence over the witten and a lot of times it didn't really go so well he had a bunch of kids remember this one he's important then his advisors came to him and said hey man all those viking settlers that are living here they might band together and kill you well then why don't we kill them first bad idea so it was this pissed off the danish king who launched an invasion and the vikings conquered england once again then the anglo-saxons unconquered it then the vikings reconquered it the king's family had to go into exile including edward remember him he went to normandy where he lived for 30 years he and his brother alfred tried to return to england to retake the throne from the vikings but they were betrayed by the earl of wessex who's crawford hey friend i'll take you to london where all the nobles are waiting to make you king so you know and this is good because this is giving a lot more of the background than we saw in the video the other day about uh about the battle of hastings this has given a lot more context to why things happened and what all built up to and why uh william the bastard you know had such a claim on the kingdom of england uh here's godwin the earl of wessex who we we talked about harold godwinson and he's the son godwin's son you know that's where the that kind of the naming pattern oh no look out red hot poker in the eyes i can't see and thus you can't be king legit what happened to normandy after a few more viking kings came and went one finally died without an air and edward was called back to england where he became king and that's where our story begins [Music] all pretty accurate here's the thing about becoming a king in the middle ages often your entire country won't support you at first you can be vulnerable to rebellions and it's up to you to take control fortunately for edward there was already a super powerful guy who had a lot of control over england and if edward could get his support then england would be here who is this guy no piss it's the guy who gave my brother the red hot poker in the air after an awkward moment where edward exiled godwin from the country he eventually had to give in and let him keep his earldom possibly after godwin gave him a bunch of gold and said he was very very sorry so godwin is this incredibly powerful earl we've talked about him yesterday and of course his son as well but you know didn't have the claim to the throne for himself but of course his son eventually gets that claim and actually is named by the witten as the the king later on uh but he's powerful he's got money he's got land he's got everything you need uh in 11th century england to be able to wield significant power over whoever the king is king edward also married godwin's daughter then godwin died and his massive fortune was passed down to his sons who all became earls in particular this one became the new earl of wessex harold godwinson was now king edward's brother-in-law he was a close advisor to the king a brave warrior who had proven himself in battle against the welsh and in many ways he was almost like a co-king uh oh edward got old and he's on his deathbed possibly for religious reasons or maybe because he wasn't happy about having to marry her he didn't point his wife and as a result has no kids meaning there's no obvious heir to the throne yeah he's known as edward the confessor and he's got this really prominent tomb uh in westminster abbey uh he you know he's the last great anglo-saxon king um and yeah uh religion may have been a factor he may have chosen about celibacy we really don't know for sure what happened but obviously it throws the whole land into turmoil meaning i'm going to be king he does have a grand nephew it could be him now let's go with me just one problem i mentioned that edward's mother was a norman edward grew up in normandy and he had a lot of norman friends the current duke of normandy was william the bastard why was he called the bastard one day his father was sneaking out of his castle when his advisor said where are you going to the tanner shop why to get a tan but that was a lie firstly because tanner's give you leather not tans and secondly because he was really going to see the tanner's daughter one thing leads to another and out comes baby william born out of wedlock thus an absolute bastard his father died when william was seven or eight and he became the new juke he spent most of his childhood narrowly avoiding assassination which probably turned him into the big balls tough guy he's remembered as today so and we talked about this in the other video too it's really super unusual for an illegitimate child to be able to inherit particularly a powerful duchy like normandy but this says a lot about william the kind of person he was the kind of personal charisma and leadership he had the influence that he had and the friends that he had that he was able to not only get this title even as a child but hang on to it and then actually conquer england in the process it's impossible not to uh consider all of those factors as a reason why he was so successful in 1051 the town of alison tried to rebel against him and the townspeople beat on dead animal skins as an insult to his commoner mother william was furious and he responded by well let's just say it wasn't pretty that's the kind of guy we're dealing with here william and edward were good friends and edward allegedly promised that william could have the english throne after him a decade later howard garwinson even visited william and pledged an oath to him over holy relics promising that william could be the next king of england although it's possible harold only did it because william was holding his family hostage so when william heard that the king was on his deathbed he said hooray i'm gonna be king so now you have two extremely powerful men who both think they're about to become the next king but wait this guy is the king of norway he spent most of his life as a warrior for hire fighting for whoever would give him the most gold you name a place he probably fought a war then poland yep estonia yep against pirates in the mediterranean yep the holy lands sicily and bulgaria yep he got crazy rich off the back of it and was swimming in gold then he returned home and became king one of the previous norwegian kings had made an agreement with one of england's viking kings saying that when that viking king died the king of norway would get the english throne hardrada felt that because of this agreement he was now entitled to the english throne he was also eager to go on one last big conquest that would turn him into a legend so when he got word that edward was on his deathbed he thought i'm gonna invade england and then i'm gonna be king so all three of these guys have a legitimate argument for why the king should be a kingdom should be theirs now when when edward the confessor dies the witten does name uh harold godwinson as the king and so by anglo-saxon law he's the guy it doesn't matter who he named the heir or things like that that's the guy that they chose and they've crowned uh his you know obviously harold hardrata his claim goes back to the previous um danish king who hasn't been in power for some time now and and you know was a previous king and so it's probably a little less of of a claim than the others but uh boy and then you actually i think one of harold godwinson's brothers actually sides with harold hardrada uh in his claim to the throne so now we have three extremely powerful men who all think they're about to become the next king of england and that means somebody's probably about to get hurt back in england harold gorwinson is watching over the dying king edward suddenly he comes out with a shocking announcement hey uh everyone gather in that's it come closer don't be shy okay so i've got bad news the king is dead um i know very sad uh but good news he said that i should be the next king so hooray for me and um oh yeah he said that if he once told anyone else they could be king that he doesn't like them anymore and they should just stay in normandy and they actually show in the bayou tapestry which is the bayou tapestry kind of tells the story of these events and i can't wait to see it someday and they actually show edward the confessor on his deathbed pointing in the direction of harold godwinson kind of gesturing to him to be the king and also he said that no one should ask any further questions okay good talk go um go do whatever it is you do usually it took months of preparation to crown a new king but harold rushed it and he had himself crowned the same day king edward was buried in normandy william's advisers came to him and said hey big willy bad news harold goblins in his big willy and william was furious so he sent an envoy to harald who said william says you stole the throne and demands you immediately return it to him hmm let me think about that no he said no nice that bastard wait i thought you were that's you dude uncool uncool william immediately began gathering his armies together and preparing for an invasion of england now killing a king was generally frowned upon in old-timey europe because they were considered to have been chosen by god himself so back in normandy william had to get god on his side he needed the post blessing for his conquest so he went to the pope and said goblinson made an oath to me over holy relics and then he usurped the throne can i kill him yeah sure why not and it's quite something too again talking about the illegitimacy here for the pope to side with an illegitimately born uh duke of normandy over the chosen by the witten king of england uh yeah this really comes down to money and power and influence and all those sorts of things so the pope gave william his blessing meaning william now had god on his side everything was ready to go just one problem the world all the way the wrong way and william had to wait with his army in normandy while godwinson waited with his army in the south of england they waited and waited and waited and then william said screw it and sailed for england and got shipwrecked because the wind was blowing the wrong way so then he decided to keep on waiting they waited for two months and the wind never changed eventually gorwinson got bored and also ran out of food for his soldiers so he sent them all home and he returned to london the south coast was undefended and all william could do was keep waiting while the northerly wind kept william in normandy it was carrying herdrata and his viking army to england hardrada landed near the old viking city of york and defeated a regional army led by the northern earls and york surrendered when godwinson heard about this he must have been pretty upset he had just disbanded his army and now he had to gather them all together again and march all the way and this is impressive that he just sent the army home and he's able to not only gather an army back together but march all the way to the north of england and win a stunning victory at stamford bridge north he made the exhausting journey in just four days which is crazy quick and he caught the vikings off guard and unprepared for battle the two armies stood on either side of the river derwent legend says that a berserker viking single-handedly held the only bridge crossing the river dodging arrows and fending off attackers until some english soldiers got under the bridge in a barrel and gave him the old spear in the jewels this gave the vikings enough time to form a shield wall but because they'd been caught off guard many weren't wearing their chain mail and armor and the english eventually defeated them killing hardrada and with him bringing the viking era in england to an end and it wasn't all that close in the end the viking army was pretty well wiped out they had brought hundreds of ships to carry their army and only needed a couple dozen to carry who was left at the end uh it was a major victory for harold godwinson and here goes the wind finally william's fleet of over 700 ships and 14 000 men set sail and landed on the english coast at pevensey and set up camp near hastings and harold was still all the way in york his exhausted army had to march all the way south just days after their battle with the vikings harold made it to london and considered just staying there and waiting for william to come to him but william forced harold's hand by burning down a bunch of villages howard's army set out and met williams on the 14th of october 1066 and both sides prepared themselves for the battle of hastings the english were on a hill so they decided to stay there because it was a good defensive position the normans approached and the two sides probably spent a while yelling at each other william and the normans had a few tactical advantages over the english the first were the archers the norman sent volley after volley of arrows at the english who formed a shield wall in defense then williams sent his infantry up the hill yeah and the archers weren't all that successful firing uphill firing into a shield wall i didn't have nearly the impact that archers did at other battles for example agincourt the english threw anything they had at them and the normans couldn't break through the field wall then the norman's next tactical advantage came into play william sent his cavalry up the hill but even they struggled to break through the shield while defending and the cavalry actually goes up the middle the the infantry attacks the size the cavalry comes up the middle uh and you know the the anglo-saxons are winning this battle and all they have to do is hold fences wave after wave of infantry and cavalry came and harold knew all he had to do was let the normans exhaust themselves and he would win but then something a bit strange happened it's possible the normans incorrectly believed william had been killed maybe they lost their will to fight against the shield or maybe it was an intentional deception tactic but suddenly the norman forces turned and ran away from the english and he makes a good point there and most videos on this topic say the same thing we even after a thousand years even after this battle in this time period have been studied by everybody because this is such a major event nobody knows for sure what happened why they broke there's conflicting eyewitness accounts there's conflicting stories about it nobody knows why this happened but in the end it's the turning point of the battle believing they had won the english broke their shield wall and chased down the retreating normans who then turned around and circled the english troops and cut them down in the chaotic fighting that followed harold gawwinson was killed the most popular theory being that he took an arrow in the eye the english were defeated and william had one he was no more just a bastard now he was a conqueror and again the arrow in the eye thing comes back to the bayou tapestry and that's why we think that's what happened we don't really know for sure if that's how he was killed at first the english nobles were reluctant to make him king but william burned down a few more villages and the nobles eventually gave in and offered him the crown as he was coronated the local villagers in westminster let out a cheer of support but william thought it was a riot so he burned down the village william then had to go on a long and herring of the north swelling rebellions and burning down villages all over england to force the people into submission and and william i mean this was legitimately devastating especially in the north william pretty much scorched earth burnt the country to the ground and rebuild it in his image so to speak completely transformed anglo-saxon england into norman england built castles all over the place he really did reform the entire country in his image and england went through a massive transformation under its new norman rule english nobles were replaced with normans they built castles and grand cathedrals but one of the most interesting changes occurred within the english language the normans brought their dialect of french to england and emerged with old english in ways we still live with today first of all the normans were obviously the ones in power so words related to power like government judge castle and crown come from the normans words that are considered posher are more refined are usually the norman ones at first the anglo-saxons probably weren't that friendly to the normans while the norms likely weren't that amiable towards the anglo-saxons yeah and uh the you know the french language is becomes the language of the english court uh you know the english government the english royalty for the next nearly what probably 350 years or so it's only like around 1400 or so just before the wars of the roses that english starts to dominate government an anglo-saxon might come into a room but a norman would enter into a chamber an anglo-saxon might buy themselves a shirt while the norman would purchase a blouse and while that filthy peasant's new shirt may be fair the norman blouse is absolutely beautiful the normans actually considered some anglo-saxon words so crude that i can't even say them on youtube but there's more ask an anglo-saxon what job he does and he might respond with some low-level trade such as a baker a miller or a shoemaker but a norman has a skilled trade like a painter a tailor or a merchant the anglo-saxon farmers working in the fields owned many cows pigs and sheep but once they were served up in a norman banquet they became beef pork and mutton and written english changed too since many anglo-saxons couldn't write the written language was romanticized your annoying friend that says cool whip might just be speaking an old english dialect as the anglo-saxons originally wrote it when where and what but the normans swapped the w and h around and the long english a vowel sounded more like an o to the normans so you can thank them that you live in a home not a ham hey fun fact about william the man couldn't read or write not in french not in english not in anything well what if i told you there was a place where you could learn french japanese if you wanted and not just that pick up a musical instrument so he's going to talk about skillshare there and skillshare is great i use it myself uh check out his video and see the entire ad for yourself but that was really well done in fact i think i you know while uh the video we watched the other day uh from baz battles i think does a great job of showing us the tactical part of the battle itself i think this one actually does a much better job of giving the background and the why to how and why everything happens so great stuff really impressed by that one you know i love all of oversimplified stuff it's entertaining but it's also fairly accurate most of the time so good stuff i thank you guys for putting me on to that one uh make sure to check out the original video if you've never seen it and hit like on that one as well as this one and we'll see you again soon thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 207,961

Keywords: historian reacts to oversimplified, history reaction, oversimplified reaction, vlogging through history, vlogging through history oversimplified, vth

Id: saizXpa8QRY

Length: 20min 33sec (1233 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021