6 ms·
The Burial of William the Conqueror: A Comedy of Errors
- sandworm101 3y agoThis fiasco is infamous, but such situations at the death of a ruler were not unusual. The lines between "King" and "Warlord" are small. At the time, non-violent transitions of power were the exception. When such a person dies it is normal for everyone to panic. Anyone owed money, and the King owed everyone money, would grab what they could in full knowledge that the dead ruler's debts were unlikely to ever be paid. Even stripping the body was not extreme. A king's daily clothing could easily be worth many years wages for a servant. Everyone would retreat to their homes in full knowledge that armies would soon be on the roads. Valuables would be buried and livestock taken to higher pastures out of sight. Ships would put to sea. It was always a time of fear.
- bee_rider 3y agoA king is just a nepo-warlord.
- actionfromafar 3y agoSometimes kings were elected, though. (Typically not by the general population, but by a clique of influental people, so I guess your point stands.)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kitd 3y agoGood story, retold in typical style by Horrible Histories here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289IDfmm8fM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289IDfmm8fM A bit OT, but "The Last English King" by Julian Rathbone is an excellent historical novel surrounding the Battle of Hastings, told from a Saxon PoV. It's funny that even now, nearly 1000 years later, Hastings is generally felt from an English view as a defeat, despite being the founding event of the English monarchy. As alluded to in the video above.
- stvltvs 3y agoAlfred the Great et al. would beg to differ about Hastings being the beginning of the English monarchy rather than the beginning of the Norman monarchy.
- grotorea 3y agoFavourite part of the historiography of England: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_yoke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_yoke
- arethuza 3y agoThere is an amusing part of Michael Wood's excellent In Search of England about the Norman Yoke. While at school he had written a letter to Bernard Montgomery ("Monty") and was summoned to the House of Lords to debate the matter with the great man - he only realises fairly late on that of course Montgomery is from a Norman background (descended from Roger of Montgomery) while as a Wood he was from humble Anglo-Saxon stock.
- arethuza 3y agoDidn't Alfred describe himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons" rather than "King of England" - a very minor point but it reminds me of the title "King of Scots" - the Scots being incomers to what become Scotland in a similar way that the Anglo-Saxon "English" were incomers to what became England?
- 3y ago
- nerdponx 3y ago> According to the historian Orderic Vitalis, William moaned on his deathbed, "I treated the native inhabitants of the kingdom with unreasonable severity, cruelly oppressed high and low, unjustly disinherited many, and caused the death of thousands by starvation and war, especially in Yorkshire....In mad fury I descended on the English of the north like a raging lion, and ordered that their homes and crops with all their equipment and furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So I chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of this fair people." This is an interesting contrast with leaders like Genghis Khan, who seemed to think (or at least portray to others) that his actions were not only acceptable but noble and religiously desirable. It'd be interesting to see a study of regret and non-regret among conquerors throughout the ages. Do we have other examples of this, or does William stand out among his contemporaries and predecessors?
- aredox 3y agoHow reliable is this, though? Many people (especially religious ones) around him were best placed to pretend he turned very remorseful.
- graemep 3y agoWould they make it up though? Depends on motives and it is likely he died with many people with different motives around him. Some would want to condemn his violence, but others would want to justify it as their holdings would depend on it.
- munificent 3y agoProbably because: > He had gifts sent to the local churches and to the poor, “so that what I amassed through evil deeds may be assigned to the holy uses of good men." Some of his wealth also went to the clergymen of Mantes, so the churches he had destroyed could be rebuilt. I can definitely imagine some bishop or cardinal pilfering the king's treasure room while claiming the king decreed it out of remorse.
- jbandela1 3y agoOn the other hand he did go from being known as "William the Bastard" to being known as "William the Conqueror". It is also illustrative of the advances in medical science. As one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, William could only wait for the inevitable horrible death which took 5 weeks to happen from the date of injury to when he died. Today, these kinds of injuries and worse are routinely treated in trauma centers all across the world.
- sandworm101 3y agoI have heard that his bloated abdomen needed to be "pierced" to get him into the coffin, which no doubt released a horrible stench. But I like to think that someone had the honor of actually stabbing the King, that someone from the "bastard" line of thinking enjoyed doing so.
- saiya-jin 3y agoyou didn't read the article, did you
- sandworm101 3y agoI did. I've read of this incident many many times. Anyone who has studied British history has read several versions and translations, each slightly different.
- inglor_cz 3y ago"As one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, William could only wait for the inevitable horrible death which took 5 weeks to happen from the date of injury to when he died." True, but it is also true that the richest, most powerful people of today still die after weeks of agony because of conditions we cannot treat. At best, we can sedate them a bit to make their passing easier. People from the 23rd century will likely pity us just as much as we pity medieval people.
- vrighter 3y ago
- Bayart 3y agoOn the subject, there's an excellent Youtube channel ran by a medievalist named Dr. Allan Barton dedicated to the very specific subject of aristocratic (in particular royal and British) funeral practices. https://www.youtube.com/@allanbarton https://www.youtube.com/@allanbarton
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]