Vikings

Interesting thesis. How would descendancy from Rollo have supported William's claim to England, if Rollo had never a claim to England himself?

Really William's claim to the English throne rested on his blood-relationship to the penultimate Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor. Edward's mother Queen Emma (c. 985—1052), the second wife of King Aethelred of England and later, the wife of Canute the Great, king of England and Denmark, was the daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, William's great-grandfather (and grandson of Rollo). In 1066, there were no surviving descendants of Canute and the remaining descendants of Aethelred (by his first Anglo-Saxon wife) had little to no support. Hence William figured his claim as good as anybody's.

William also claimed that Edward (who had grown up in Normandy and was generally very Norman-friendly) had designated him as his successor long before his death; and also that Harold Godwinsson, who was elected king after Edward's death, had sworn an oath of loyalty to William when Harold was shipwrecked in Normandy, which he supposedly broke when he took the throne of England. Factor in that Harold's hereditary claim to the throne was very weak, because, even though he was supported by the English nobility, he had no royal pedigree at all. Harold's only connection to the royal house was that he was Edward's brother-in-law.

William's descendancy from Rollo is not actually in doubt. Only it played no part in William's claim to England. The relevant ancestor was Richard I.

Yes, but this is a show about a multitude of cultures which get called Vikings.

The Raiding is just a small part of it.

Though really, ever since Paris, I couldn't give a shit about our heroes because they're just awful people and I have difficulty hoping for them to get anything but killed. Historically accurate or not, who really cares about Bjorn after he sold a bunch of Muslim women into sex slavery?

I really just need to stop discussing these things. I never have an actual educated stance on any of it, just shit I hear that turns out to be irrelevant.

ETA: Honestly, I've only ever really watched the show to see Lagertha. I like Katheryn Winnick.

edited 22nd Nov '17 7:43:15 PM by Journeyman

I just have to say I'm looking forward to when Alfred the Great butchers the GHA.

With the way this show deals with history, I'm not sure he'll win.

After all, at this point Rollo is heir to the Kingdom of France.

I fell off this show near the end of season 2, but I caught a few episodes of Season 5 today on a flight (part of a pre-premiere marathon I guess). Is it just me or did the fight choreography get considerably worse over the interim? The Norsemen no longer seem to fight in their classic shieldwall anymore, instead favoring massed frontal charges and individual, scattered duels. It's a hell of a letdown considering how tactical the early battle scenes were (and how vikings fighting as a disciplined unit instead of an unruly mass was central to how they were able to best the Saxon garrison forces that they faced.