1066: Channel 4 docu-drama about the invasion of England

Hey folks,

Channel 4 here in the UK recently showed a 'docu-drama' about the twin invasions of England in 1066; first by the Vikings of Norway, and then by the Normans of France.

If you have Flash player on your PC, you can watch both episodes of this drama at the Channel 4 website, the link is here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/1066/catch-up#2918011

cool, i'll watch it when i get home. (i have flash player at work now, but if try playing a documentary i think the system will die on its arse

There's also a strategy game about each of the 3 battles which is quite good fun to play.

Is the "received wisdom" that if Harold had waited a bit (days, weeks?) longer, to rest his army and gather up more forces, he would have won?

I read somewhere that it's reckoned he was trying to surprise William's forces -- ambush at night -- but that this cocked up, and he was forced into a defensive battle against the Normans. Was it that the Normans tactics were better (was armoured horse/knight better than shieldwall?) or simply that the ill-discipline of some of the Anglo_Saxon troops (the 'fyrd' or the farmer-warriors, not the huscarls), who broke and charged after the retreating Normans (and were then cut down by the knights) to blame for the loss?

Certainly a fascinating series of battles: first the Norwegians and then the Normans. One grim bit was that the Channel 4 programme suggested Harold was taken down by four Norman knights (I don't know if in reality he was shot in the eye before this as well), who disembowled him, gelded him and then decapitated him too! Nice (not). Bit different from today's kings and queens, eh?

Poor show getting pwned by the French imo... the ultimate humilation to be defeated by a race of garlic smelling onion eating nabs who don't know how to flush a toilet.

Vexacus wrote:

Poor show getting pwned by the French imo... the ultimate humilation to be defeated by a race of garlic smelling onion eating nabs who don't know how to flush a toilet.

Is a pretty accurate description of the people here around me, strangely I am not in France

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This service is not currently available in your area

Is there any way I can get my hands on this?

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Is there any way I can get my hands on this?

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garlic smelling onion eating nabs who don't know how to flush a toilet.

You got a strange taste me mon.

Vexacus wrote:

Poor show getting pwned by the French imo... the ultimate humilation to be defeated by a race of garlic smelling onion eating nabs who don't know how to flush a toilet.

On the positive side, these cheese-eating surrender monkeys were actually Viking in origin and they had battered the French in the Normandy area in order to live there.

As to what happened and what could have happened, I am of the opinion that whilst all the fighting against the Vikings and the march both up and down the country didn't help, if the shield wall hadn't broken the Normans would have lost at Hastings. No matter how fearsome the Norman knights were, they could do nothing against the shields of the Saxons.
As to whether the Norman "retreat" was a tactic or just a bit of indiscipline is very much open to debate, but they certainly made the most of what happened from it.

The REAL interesting thought is what would have happened if Harald Hardrada (sp?) had won at Stamford Bridge. He had fought for the Byzantine Emperor (the descendants of the Eastern Roman Empire) and was recognised as an amazing leader. I reckon if he'd won then the Normans would have either chickened out or lost in the subsequent battle for England. Then we'd have been a part of the Scandinavian Empire that included Denmark, Iceland and Greenland, not to mention the possibilities for trading with the American settlements they had. From that, I think we could say that Sweden and Finland could well have fallen to the Norse, which would mean that we'd have had a new and growing power which reached from East to West in Northern Europe that could slowly take ground as the Byzantine Empire receded. This would have made things interesting with the future expansion by the Turks and the situation of Russia's establishment.
Then we have the question of whether they would have gone for Normandy, claiming it by the historical links between the Normans and Norway. My guess is that the Normans would have been allies with the Vikings (and thus not fought with Harald if he'd won) and they would then have gone on to take over the whole of France., which would certainly have made the Moorish occupation of Spain an interesting opportunity for them to then claim to be defending Christendom and try to take the Iberian peninsula.
Based on all this, I'd say that we could quite easily see at least 3 quarters of Europe being ruled, or at least heavily influenced by Scandinavians. Hell, Quint could have been Prince of Europe for all we know!

Of course the other interesting situation would have been the formation of Great Britain. With the Vikings ruling the English, that would have left Wales and Scotland (not to mention Ireland) not at the mercy of the Norman kings and their ways. Whilst the Vikings were violent warriors and had been know to do the odd bit of raping and pillaging when they raided the coasts of England, they were also prone to creating trade agreements. Could we have seen a Scotland trading with the Vikings and remaining independant. What about Wales? Would they have stayed away from border skirmishes? My guess is that Wales (or rather most of it) would probably have been conquered due to starting a war, which would have potentially ended with the Vikings leaving them Snowdonia but having the western coast of Wales to link up with Norse settlements in Ireland for potential trade. Scotland would have remained pretty much peaceful, so I think we could have seen a very interesting UK too!

*head explodes in a mushroom cloud*
Blimey, Gurf. lol
I watched this and was fascinated by it. I've been quite into our great isle's history since learning about Boudica and often pondered the 'what ifs'.

So many, and we'll never know.

Kadris wrote:

*head explodes in a mushroom cloud*
Blimey, Gurf. lol
I watched this and was fascinated by it. I've been quite into our great isle's history since learning about Boudica and often pondered the 'what ifs'.

So many, and we'll never know.

I love the "what if" questions of history, gives a great opportunity to theorise.

Right. Where to start.

The biggest way to mispercieve 1066 is to consider it "English vs French". The Normans weren't ever strictly french, although there was plenty of cultural cross-pollenation between them. The French were the product of the germanic frankish tribes moving into Gaul, while the Normans were Norse-men (Vikings).

In fact, the next 1000 years of anglo-french hostility doesn't derive from bitterness from the conquest, but rather the fact that Norman (and then Plantagenet) kings in England had a claim over large parts of the country we now call France. Hence the 100-years war, which more or less cemented the rather on/off relationship we've had since then.

To be honest, the trails for the program put me off completely. "The Battle for Middle-Earth"? Says pretty much everything there is to say about Channel 4 if they think they need to jazz up the single most important turning-point in British history by making a Tolkein reference of all things. My benchmark for historical dramas is the wonderful HBO/BBC series Rome (first season for preference) and I'm currently working my way through The Tudors.

Hey Adalan/Richard/breaks rules imposed by Vex for not using real names:

I sort of agree. The 1066 programmes are worth watching IMO: clearly, though, they were trying to draw in viewers who get turned off by history (I guess). My other half didn't like them; I did.

The Rome series I really liked, too. Both of them. As everyone here knows, my all time fave TV is The Wire, of course. Which is not historical at all. Much as I like history, I really like stuff which gets inside the nitty gritty of day to day reality, the forgotten parts of the world ... whether close to, or far away from, home. (e.g. how many people know, or care, that 20,000 Tamil civilians died in shelling by Sri Lankan government forces of the Tamil Tigers' last enclave? We're too busy frothing about our MPs, whose corruption pales into insignificance with that elsewhere ...)

The tone for the first series of Rome was gradual escalation and acceleration as it followed Caesar's rise, and Vorenus's rise with him. But the second season is the opposite, even though Octavian's rising to power, the entire season feels like it's slowing down as he kills off more and more characters. By the end of the series there's hardly anyone left alive.

Adalan wrote:

Right. Where to start.

The biggest way to mispercieve 1066 is to consider it "English vs French". The Normans weren't ever strictly french, although there was plenty of cultural cross-pollenation between them. The French were the product of the germanic frankish tribes moving into Gaul, while the Normans were Norse-men (Vikings).

In fact, the next 1000 years of anglo-french hostility doesn't derive from bitterness from the conquest, but rather the fact that Norman (and then Plantagenet) kings in England had a claim over large parts of the country we now call France. Hence the 100-years war, which more or less cemented the rather on/off relationship we've had since then.

To be honest, the trails for the program put me off completely. "The Battle for Middle-Earth"? Says pretty much everything there is to say about Channel 4 if they think they need to jazz up the single most important turning-point in British history by making a Tolkein reference of all things. My benchmark for historical dramas is the wonderful HBO/BBC series Rome (first season for preference) and I'm currently working my way through The Tudors.

Actually, the title that C4 used is a very accurate description for the setting. "Middle Earth" has 2 meanings in the programmes, firstly the obvious Tolkein meaning and secondly the reference to how the Anglo-Saxon's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_earth#Etymology) referred to the world (or at least a particular area of the world).

Of equal significance to the second meaning is the inference that Tolkein's use of "Middle Earth" brings. Tolkein originally created his Middle Earth because he felt that Europe, and England in particular, needed more mythology in it's history. In his view, with the Norman Conquest and the spreading of Christianity came the end of mythology (rather amusing, given his Catholic faith!) and he felt that the last true mythology to come from the Saxon world was Beowulf. As a result, a lot of his influences for how humans are portrayed comes from the varying ways that Saxon's were thought to live. A prime example of this is the "Golden Hall" of Edoras and its equivalent in Beowulf, but also the general feel of Rohan being Dark Ages Saxon in style.

Yes yes yes, but that's not the reason they used the phrase. It's marketing, raw, naked and trembling.

Adalan wrote:

Yes yes yes, but that's not the reason they used the phrase. It's marketing, raw, naked and trembling.

Lawl

*shakes fist at screen* 'You damn varlets! Your marketing shall never sway me - never I say!'

*hobbles off back into the basement he shares with his mother*

... I didn't watch it because of the odd LOTR title... and funnily enough, I have my doubts that anyone else really did. (haven't spoken to 'anyone else', purely conjecture)
'1066' is likely to ring in most people's heads as a historical date, even if they don't know why.

Kadris wrote:

... I didn't watch it because of the odd LOTR title... and funnily enough, I have my doubts that anyone else really did. (haven't spoken to 'anyone else', purely conjecture)
'1066' is likely to ring in most people's heads as a historical date, even if they don't know why.

I watched both episodes and would recommend anyone else to watch them too. Whilst it is not strictly accurate in the specifics of how it does things, the general coverage is accurate and it even brought new things to light about the happenings of the year that I never knew about. For example, I never realised that there was a third fight (the first of the 3), or that at the Battle of Stamford Bridge there was 1 Viking that held the entire Saxon army at bay until he was beaten by cunning, rather than strength and skill.

As for the complaints about the marketing, I have no problem with it at all. It speaks about the changing from one civilization to another (Saxon to Norman) which is accurately portrayed in the title and if it gets people in purely because of what they know about the LotR films then I see no problems either.

lol, one thing I thought about the whole Stamford Bridge stand-off was how much it was like the bit in 'Robin Hood - Men in Tights' when Robin first fights Little John... Achoo hops from one side of the river bank to the other showing that they don't need to fight over the bridge.

Was it just the only location they could find to film that part or was there some other reason either side couldn't just swarm across the stream to the other side and engage the enemy?

Made me giggle at least.

Gurfang wrote:

I watched both episodes and would recommend anyone else to watch them too. Whilst it is not strictly accurate in the specifics of how it does things, the general coverage is accurate and it even brought new things to light about the happenings of the year that I never knew about. For example, I never realised that there was a third fight (the first of the 3), or that at the Battle of Stamford Bridge there was 1 Viking that held the entire Saxon army at bay until he was beaten by cunning, rather than strength and skill.

As for the complaints about the marketing, I have no problem with it at all. It speaks about the changing from one civilization to another (Saxon to Norman) which is accurately portrayed in the title and if it gets people in purely because of what they know about the LotR films then I see no problems either.

Kadris wrote:

lol, one thing I thought about the whole Stamford Bridge stand-off was how much it was like the bit in 'Robin Hood - Men in Tights' when Robin first fights Little John... Achoo hops from one side of the river bank to the other showing that they don't need to fight over the bridge.

Was it just the only location they could find to film that part or was there some other reason either side couldn't just swarm across the stream to the other side and engage the enemy?

Made me giggle at least.

I think the main reason they wouldn't cross anywhere other than the bridge is because it makes you easy targets for spears, thrown axes and arrows as you run down and then when you run up your opponents have the higher ground while you tire yourself out running up. Higher ground means easier to attack over the top of the shields, which removes the advantage of the shield wall.