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March 10 - March 16, 2024
We seem to need the trappings of monarchical continuity in order to reflect contentedly upon ourselves, just as we need alcohol in order to socialize. The English have more to fear from republicanism than most – we risk losing our skimpy sense of self.
The English tradition of kings and queens has a lot riding on it and a lot to answer for. Its longevity, and the stability that that implies, has resulted in an England that doesn’t have much else uniting it.
History is a very contemporary thing – it’s ours to think about, manipulate, use to win arguments or to justify patriotism, nationalism or group self-loathing, according to taste. In contrast, the past is unknowable. It’s as complicated as the present.
When it comes to the likely readership of this book, that ‘most’ must rise to ‘all’. If there is anyone reading this book who didn’t already know that, I would love to hear from you because you are genuinely reading in a genre that was previously of no interest. You, if you exist, and I bet you don’t, are an absolute confounder of the
Rather poignantly, the modern English word ‘lord’ derives from the Old English hlaford meaning ‘bread-giver’. In Roman times, there’d been circuses too.
It’s odd that it’s called Celtic because its root is as Roman as the pope’s church. It had spread to Britain because of the Roman Empire, but had then become cut off because of the Anglo-Saxons. Without the wifi of the empire, the app hadn’t been getting the updates. Different practices had started to emerge.
apposite
Everybody left. Or died, which is a form of leaving.
The thought that disasters are your fault is comforting, on some level. It gives you the illusion of control when, in truth, something horrible came out of the blue and ruined your life.
At some point in the next century or so, Edmund’s remains were interred in a place that, but for the last ‘s’, was named after precisely what people first went there to do: Bury St Edmunds. Another saint–king whose admirers focused on his celestial title.
We can understand more clearly that history isn’t actually a proper story. It’s more like a soap opera. It never fucking ends.
non-Wessexian (non-Wessexy? non-Wessexual? awessexual?)
This means Edward VIII was really Edward XI which, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, seems more appropriate for a Nazi sympathizer.)
On accession, Edward was challenged for the throne by his cousin Aethelwold (a great name for an artisanal cheese),
I’m acknowledging this because I’m aware of the irony that, while I’m writing about an age in which almost all women (and men) were illiterate, in the current era of mass literacy, it is much more likely that any given book is being read by a woman than by a man. Men read less than women and instead commit more violent crime and listen to more audiobooks. These aren’t necessarily the same men, I should add.
In contrast, Anglo-Saxon monasteries were often more casual and public-facing than we imagine such institutions to be. Many of the people who lived in them, known as secular clerks, were free to marry and popped in and out, treating the place like a vaguely God-themed Club Med. The system of parish priests and churches hadn’t yet developed, so it made sense to have a version of monasticism that wasn’t entirely inward-looking. Still, there was an aura of flexibility and fun that’s always vulnerable in a religious context.
he standardized the coinage, exported the West Saxon institution of the ‘shire’ to the rest of England where we can still find them – in fact they’ve since found their way into Scotland and Wales too – and established shire and local courts based on ‘hundreds’, areas of a hundred ‘hides’. A hide was the amount of land deemed sufficient to support a family. Many of the familiar trappings of the English state were being put in place.
What helped daily life go smoothly was a straightforward, well-organized hard-arse. Edgar’s ruthless and violent refusal to be questioned, his indomitable martial spirit and his readiness to deploy violence, engendered peace.
King Aethelred, known as Aethelred the Unready. The nickname sums him up, though apparently ‘unready’ didn’t mean what it sounds like it means, but derives from the Old English word meaning ‘badly advised’, while the name Aethelred means ‘well advised’. It’s a joke – Well-Advised the Badly Advised – and a message to posterity about the limited impact of nominative determinism.
but were organized by the King of Denmark and Norway, Sweyn Forkbeard (Forkbeard is Old Danish for Fuckface) (no it isn’t).
The whole notion of slaughtering people was a lot more acceptable in those days – nowadays we’re really down on it, but they were really down with it (oh, the power of prepositions!).
Then they die at a really weird point in the story. And we’re reminded it’s not a story. It’s soap opera. In soap operas people expire mid-storyline all the time, because of trouble with agents or scandal in the news. Well, whoever was playing Sweyn Forkbeard asked for his own Winnebago or got hooked on diet pills or accused of assault and was abruptly written out.
Amid all this levity about the strange name Aelfgifu, which must have sounded perfectly normal to people in those days, don’t think I’m unaware of the enormous vagina in the room. I am referring of course to Cnut’s name, which is basically Cunt. It’s very very nearly Cunt.
The bottom (fart) line is this: I don’t want to become someone who will blithely carry on when a king’s name is as close to the word cunt as Cnut’s is. If I get to the point where that amusement is lost on me – the fact that a big important serious king is very very nearly called King Cunt, King Cunt the Great or the Great Big Cunt – then I think an important part of me will have died.
He’s often known as Canute. Maybe that version of his name is a Hyacinth Bucket-style attempt in later centuries to distance him from genital connotations.
And that, I’d say, is a Lesson We Can Learn from History. Possibly the only one: You Never Completely Know What’s About to Happen.
Cnut’s son Harthacnut, a name which surprisingly means ‘Tough Knot’ not ‘Hard Cunt’,
People don’t always do what they say they’re going to do. You’ve got to keep your eye on that and seriously consider not doing what you’ve said you’re going to do yourself, in pre-emptive response. Don’t be the first to jump in the pool. Or the
They asked to change service provider! Who ever does that? It’s such a hassle. You start your life with Vodaphone and British Gas and HSBC and you’re stuck with it unless you’re a pervert who gets off on filling in
History is dominated by big themes and trends: capitalism, nationalism, colonialism, industrialization, communism, sexism, racism, Christianity, Islam. Enormous things that rise and fall like tides – that’s what affects our lives.
Whatever Dan Brown says, Jesus seems to have ascended to heaven without issue).
dishonest. It can be made fairer and attempts to make it less fair can be resisted. Optimistic realists seek improvement, not perfection.
But life doesn’t have a tournament structure. For a mortal species, to focus on what happened last is a pretty downbeat way of looking at things. In the end, we die. But that’s not necessarily the main thing about us.
impecunious
Some say that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I find that an awkward principle because, in my view, allowing good men to do nothing is the purpose of civilization.
The conflict that this led to, when Matilda finally came over to England to pursue her claim in 1139, has been referred to by historians, since Victorian times, as the Anarchy. It won’t surprise you to hear that this term has since fallen out of favour. Apparently it’s a simplistic label. I’m sure it is, but that’s pretty much the deal with names. I’d say ‘Brian’ is a simplistic label for the guy who came to fix our washing machine, but it’s still his name. I don’t reckon we’d get to the root of the man any better by calling him Adrian.