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Before we begin, I’d like to address something from our last episode. I told you about reports of Vikingr armies marching around the countryside near the Wrekin. I offered a variety of methods of reaching the Wrekin, all of which would have involved quite a bit of work. However, as some of you have noted […] The post 188 – Rebellion and Succession in the Kingdom of Wessex first appeared on T...

It’s Christmas day 854. King AEthelweard of East Anglia, a king who we know almost nothing about, is dead. The only evidence we really have that he was alive in the first place are his coins, and this is likely due to the fact that, throughout the Viking Age, succeeding bands of Scandinavian pyromaniacs destroyed […] The post 187 – The Queen of Wessex: aka The Worst Midlife Crisis Ever first...

This episode is getting a bit into the political weeds and it’s for a very important reason. We’re seeing the development of that dynastic juggernaut we all know and love, the House of Wessex, and I want you to see how and why it’s forming into what it will eventually become. Because the successes of […] The post 186 – Wessex: A story of Myth building, Opportunism, and Annexation first appea...

When we left off last time, we were taking a look at the problem facing Europe that no one wanted to talk about. And this wasn’t like plague of people mistaking tights for pants. In that situation, the only solution is to ignore it until it retreats back to the darkest recesses of fashion. The […] The post 185 – Building the House of Wessex first appeared on The British History Podcast .

When we left off last time we discussed the viking raids of Paris and Hamburg… though they were far more than the raids we’d seen in the last 40-50 years. Now we’re looking at fleets that number in the hundreds and we’re seeing the nobility on the continent, especially the Frankish nobility, hiring many of […] The post 184 – The Chaos of Bad Governance first appeared on The British History P...

This is a big event for Medieval Western Europe, and it doesn’t come out of nowhere. The surge of Northmen, and in particular the Danish attacks against Frankia, had a starting point. This wasn’t a simple matter of pagans picking a random point on the map and charging… the Vikingrs may have been motivated largely […] The post 183 – Ragnar’s Siege of Paris first appeared on The British Histor...

Ok, when we left off, a fleet of 120 ships set sail from Scandinavia. And at their head, according to legend, was Ragnar Lodbrok. Ragnar Hairy Breeches. Support the Show The post 182 – Ragnar Lodbrok first appeared on The British History Podcast .

When we left off last week, the Vikingrs had established fortified bases in Ireland… Not only that, but after building the bases they decided to hang out there for the winter, choosing to stay in the relatively warmer climes of the British isles rather than return home to freeze in the long northern nights. Support […] The post 181 – Vikingrs Gotta Viking first appeared on The British Histor...

It’s 838. Only two years earlier the West Saxons were defeated by a fleet of Vikingrs, and they responded to this loss the way you would expect them to… by completely ignoring the loss and, instead, focusing on dynastic politics and making endowments to the church at Canterbury. And now another fleet of Vikingrs was […] The post 180 – The Cracks in the Shieldwall first appeared on The Britis...

The Music of Erich Zann By H. P. Lovecraft You can read a copy of the story at hplovecraft.com. Happy Halloween! The post Halloween Special: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Music of Erich Zann first appeared on The British History Podcast .

When we left off last week, 35 ships launched from Denmark and set their course for England. As we have been learning, the Anglo Saxon kingdoms were now seriously in danger of Vikingr attacks for the first time, having lost the protection of the Frankish coast guard. Not only that, but over the last approximately […] The post 179 – The Battle of Carrum first appeared on The British History P...

When we last left off we were talking about what a big deal King Egbert of Wessex was. And for good reason. In 829, King Egbert of Wessex held virtually all of the south and even demanded the submission of Northumbria after a battle at the River Dore, an event that earned King Egbert the […] The post 178 – Dereliction of Duty first appeared on The British History Podcast .

Last episode I gave you a forest view of where we are going and, roughly, who these Viking raiders were as well as the scale of the impact that they will have upon Europe. And it really is something to behold. The Viking Age isn’t very long, but Europe hadn’t seen this level of rapid […] The post 177 – The Road to 830 first appeared on The British History Podcast .

“Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not show mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea.” Jeremiah 50: 41-42 This passage of the […] The post 176 – The Prophecy of Jeremiah first appeared on The British History Podcast .

A sea of blood. Support the Show The post 175 – Chapter Five: A Sea of Blood first appeared on The British History Podcast .

We start today with a few bare statements in the record. They’re easy to overlook, and most people do, but they hint at a very important aspect of Pictland in the 700s. The absolutely enormous amount of political wrangling. Here’s what we know. In 725, King Nechtan stepped down from the throne of Pictland and […] The post 174 – CeltCast Part 3 first appeared on The British History Podcast .

I’m continuing my quest to organize and bring all the stories back together and so today we’re going to move the timeline forward (to get us closer to the Vikings) and we will also be talking more about the kingdoms that were active in the region that would later become scotland. There were several of […] The post 173 – The CeltCast Part 2 first appeared on The British History Podcast .

Today we’re beginning the process of creating a singular British history podcast. The side casts made sense when the story was first beginning, but now (rather than helping you understand the story better) they’re confusing it) and so today we are merging the Scotcast and Welshcast into the Celtcast. I’m eager to get the story […] The post 172 – CeltCast Part 1 first appeared on The British...

When we left off last time, we were talking about how we have a limited understanding of this area of history due to a combination of scarce resources and the victorians building a mythology of englishness. We also covered the early middle ages and the turn that was occurring in Southern Britain in the 6th […] The post 171 – The Welshcast Part Seven first appeared on The British History Podc...

This season we’ve seen the Anglo Saxons come incredibly close to forming an early unified English Kingdom… in fact they will continue their attempts in this episode. Though we can guess how that will go because we have seen their culture and governmental structure hamstring their previous attempts at unity. From our vantage point of […] The post 169 – The Rise of Wessex first appeared on The...

When we left off, King Beornwulf was reigning over Mercia. Beornwulf was the beginning of the creatively named B-Dynasty, due to the fact that Anglo Saxons seemed to denote their dynasties by selecting the same first letters for their kids. So Beornwulf had two kids named Berhfrith and Behrtric, a brother named Bynna, and it’s […] The post 168 – The Fall of Mercia first appeared on The Briti...

Season Four is called Anglo Saxon Ascendancy because we have been seeing mighty kings like Offa, AEthelbald, and Coenwulf acquire vast amounts of power in Britain that enable them to nearly become the first kings of England. Their hegemonies were so big and impressive that we have one Mercian leader getting into arguments with Charlemagne […] The post 167 – The Beginning of the End first app...

We start today with a death. On the 28th of January, 814, Charlemagne died and the throne passed to Louis the Pious. The death of Charlemagne was a big deal for early medieval europe, not just because it meant that we wouldn’t have anymore passive aggressive comments about the quality of British wool, or weird […] The post 166 – Wulfred: The Rogue Archbishop first appeared on The British His...

Last week we talked about the impact that the Church was having on internal politics within the Anglo Saxon kingdoms, and that is something we will continue to talk about today. However, before we begin, let’s talk about something strange that’s happening on the continent. Support the Show The post 165 – Did Archbishop Wulfred Just Kill a Guy? first appeared on The British History Podcast .

When we last left off, King Egbert was ruling over Wessex, King Cuthred (Coenwulf’s brother) was ruling over Kent… and Emperor Coenwulf held Mercia. I call him Emperor, by the way, because that’s what he called himself. And also because he does seem like he was a king of kings. His brother answered to him, […] The post 164 – Shadow Governments in Britain first appeared on The British History...