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> lots of educational tidbits If you think that it is useful in this way you may be interested what was excluded. See https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea

> lots of educational tidbits If you think that it is useful in this way you may be interested what was excluded. See https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-assassins-creed-valhalla/ https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-ass... > To say that the game sanitizes this history is a profound understatement. (...) > In short, your raiding doesn’t so much as inconvenience the civilian population. (...) > You are a viking (one thing they do right: viking is a job description, meaning ‘raider,’ not an ethnic identity) who does not kill non-combatants. This is akin to the famous joke about the pirates who don’t steal anything. > We should be clear about what is happening in England in c. 875 when the game takes place. After almost a century of repeated Norse and Danish viking raids on the English coast (which, to be clear, were not merely raids for physical goods; they were slave raids as trading in slaves (‘thralls’) was an important part of the Scandinavian economy), the arrival of what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls the ‘Great Heathen Army’ (in 865) turned that into a war of conquest. The Norse and Danes overran the English kingdoms (save Wessex) and settled in the area, subjugating the population, taking the best farmland from its former owners and generally wrecking the place in the process. Our sources are very clear that this was not a particularly pleasant process for the existing population and the surviving English kingdom of Wessex responded to it with a series of reforms that radically militarized the kingdom.

prox 6y ago
The Netflix series The Last Kingdom seems to portray what you describe pretty well.
- LilBytes 6y ago
  I was expecting to hate this show but I ended up enjoying it. Even more than what I my highest possible expectations gave me. There's an episode in the Last Kingdom and in Vikings when we see the great pyres lit to communicate a raid was occurring. There's quite a few on the coast of North Eastern England where I grew up still present to this day. Admittedly I some what doubt they're original .
  - HeckFeck 6y ago
    >Admittedly I some what doubt they're original . They've been left should Norway get any ideas again.
  - prox 6y ago
    You mean you still have the pyres there?
- jeremyjh 6y ago
  The book series it is based on (Saxon Chronicles) does an even better job. It is fiction but Bernard Cornwell does his research. He has his characters talking about Englaland sooner than OP would suggest though; in the novels this was a term Alfred was using as he neared the end of his reign. The novels are told from the perspective of a colorful fictional character but are really the story of Alfred, his defense of Wessex and the making of England by he and his children.
  - throwaway1239Mx 6y ago
    I've always enjoyed reading BC's endnotes about the research he did for each book almost as much as the actual story. :D
  - prox 6y ago
    Didn’t know it was a book, should be a fun read, thanks!
- throwaway1239Mx 6y ago
  The book series by Bernard Cornwell is also excellent, if you enjoy that sort of thing. The books have a fairly well defined structure (one may even consider them formulaic), but he appears to have done a lot of detailed research into day-to-day life of that time, and happily shares it with the reader. Not quite Neal Stephenson level of digression, but not far off. I haven't read his Sharpe novels, but the Archer's Tale books and his version of King Arthur are similarly enjoyable.
ivanhoe 6y ago
And Anglo-Saxons did pretty much the same to Britons, Gaels and Picts some 300 years earlier. And Romans did the same before them. That's how things were done back then, and I've read a number historians now saying that Viking raiders were neither more cruel, nor more violent than the others by the standards of those times, just the history we know was written by the other side - and importantly by Christians, while Viking raiders were pagans, so it was important to depict them as wild devils - the same way as Roman historians depicted conquered people as "barbaric", while in fact often Romans were acting far more savage than Moesians, Goths, Dacians and others.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- peteretep 6y ago
  > That's how things were done back then And by “back then” we mean prior to about 1920
  - cafard 6y ago
    Are you sure you don't mean 2120?
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    In 1939 an European country invaded another European countries with goal of murdering and enslaving population living there. Years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_... did similar thing in Iraq. (there are many other examples, I am not going to list all of them)
    - peteretep 6y ago
      In 1940 this was considered remarkable ... 50 years before that, not so much
- JetSetWilly 6y ago
  > I've read a number historians now saying that Viking raiders were neither more cruel, nor more violent than the others by the standards of those times, just the history we know was written by the other side Well, anglo saxon england wasn't a big fan of slavery, in fact the christian world in general wasn't and the church did a lot to combat it. And it was the vikings raiding anglo saxon england, not the other way around. So while you can always find historians to say, that all cultures are the same because of of various unconvincing whatboutery reasons, I think from our current understanding, between those two peoples at that moment in time, one side really was worse behaved.

prox 6y ago

The Netflix series The Last Kingdom seems to portray what you describe pretty well.

LilBytes 6y ago
I was expecting to hate this show but I ended up enjoying it. Even more than what I my highest possible expectations gave me. There's an episode in the Last Kingdom and in Vikings when we see the great pyres lit to communicate a raid was occurring. There's quite a few on the coast of North Eastern England where I grew up still present to this day. Admittedly I some what doubt they're original .
- HeckFeck 6y ago
  >Admittedly I some what doubt they're original . They've been left should Norway get any ideas again.
- prox 6y ago
  You mean you still have the pyres there?
jeremyjh 6y ago
The book series it is based on (Saxon Chronicles) does an even better job. It is fiction but Bernard Cornwell does his research. He has his characters talking about Englaland sooner than OP would suggest though; in the novels this was a term Alfred was using as he neared the end of his reign. The novels are told from the perspective of a colorful fictional character but are really the story of Alfred, his defense of Wessex and the making of England by he and his children.
- throwaway1239Mx 6y ago
  I've always enjoyed reading BC's endnotes about the research he did for each book almost as much as the actual story. :D
- prox 6y ago
  Didn’t know it was a book, should be a fun read, thanks!
throwaway1239Mx 6y ago
The book series by Bernard Cornwell is also excellent, if you enjoy that sort of thing. The books have a fairly well defined structure (one may even consider them formulaic), but he appears to have done a lot of detailed research into day-to-day life of that time, and happily shares it with the reader. Not quite Neal Stephenson level of digression, but not far off. I haven't read his Sharpe novels, but the Archer's Tale books and his version of King Arthur are similarly enjoyable.

ivanhoe 6y ago

And Anglo-Saxons did pretty much the same to Britons, Gaels and Picts some 300 years earlier. And Romans did the same before them. That's how things were done back then, and I've read a number historians now saying that Viking raiders were neither more cruel, nor more violent than the others by the standards of those times, just the history we know was written by the other side - and importantly by Christians, while Viking raiders were pagans, so it was important to depict them as wild devils - the same way as Roman historians depicted conquered people as "barbaric", while in fact often Romans were acting far more savage than Moesians, Goths, Dacians and others.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
peteretep 6y ago
> That's how things were done back then And by “back then” we mean prior to about 1920
- cafard 6y ago
  Are you sure you don't mean 2120?
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  In 1939 an European country invaded another European countries with goal of murdering and enslaving population living there. Years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_... did similar thing in Iraq. (there are many other examples, I am not going to list all of them)
  - peteretep 6y ago
    In 1940 this was considered remarkable ... 50 years before that, not so much
JetSetWilly 6y ago
> I've read a number historians now saying that Viking raiders were neither more cruel, nor more violent than the others by the standards of those times, just the history we know was written by the other side Well, anglo saxon england wasn't a big fan of slavery, in fact the christian world in general wasn't and the church did a lot to combat it. And it was the vikings raiding anglo saxon england, not the other way around. So while you can always find historians to say, that all cultures are the same because of of various unconvincing whatboutery reasons, I think from our current understanding, between those two peoples at that moment in time, one side really was worse behaved.