Contributions from New England
Introduction
Today it could be said that the English culture "is in fashion", today we all idealize the reign of Isabel II, the only monarchy that pleases the most republican, the great empire that were the English, not to mention that allWomen vote thanks to Pankhurst, of course, has a movie, Clara Campoamor no. In short, we would all want to be English because it seems that it is a reason for pride. This phenomenon is because they have managed to sell very well over time through the media, of the cinema especially.
Developing
This is not something new, another of the most common examples is the United States: the first world power, the American dream, Marilyn Monroe and the magical, wonderful and extraordinary happy years ‘20. With all these things we have in our heads since we are little, who remembers that Americans are not really Americans and we are and idealize the oppressive people that massacred practically the entire population of Natives? Small cons of the story that do not matter to us because the good ones have always been the jeans and not the Indians.
Less Pocahontas, who after a brutal idealization of its history, in the second film goes to England from aristocrat to save his people from the English settlers and get it. But neither is it necessary to extrapolate criticism of a moment in history as "distant" as the S is.XVII, just thank God that Disney’s Pocahontas was not contemporary at 1890 and lived in Wooded Knee. For example, although the really does not say that it had a better life with our dear English.
Returning to the side of the Atlantic that interests us, the United Kingdom. Specifically let’s focus on this book that, like most, idealizes, which we will analyze respecting the division of parts proposed by the author himself. This book, in my opinion, ideals a bit the history of the United Kingdom England, where these wonderful English who never lost their identity from Britans when the Germans came and that later when the Vikings arrive they do not lose their new identity as Anglo -Saxon, not evenWhen they get a Danish king.
Although we will analyze this more in depth aspect later. How do Britanos go to Anglo -Saxons? It is a mystery of science. The venerable Beda himself, who said that the Anglo -Saxons come from Anglos, Jets and Saxons, has some problems explaining the story, or rather, excusing it. That is, as a cleric should not be an Anglo -Saxon so proud considering that until not so ago, remember that Beda was born in 672, these were the pagans and the British were the Christians were the Christians.
He should have thrown his hands in the head with the massacre of 1.200 monks at the beginning of the seventh century, but no, because it was due to a prophecy of a bishop, who apparently the British without faith deserved because they had rejected eternal salvation. At no time Beda describes pagan Saxons as German barbarians, according to him the English had become a nation chosen by God. England is like the spoiled child who is always right and even when he does not have it is the fault of others.
It is more throughout history we have a thousand and one examples of this: Britania was wonderful, the only part of the islands that was civilized, but it is never mentioned that in Hambledon (Buckinghamshire), such a number of remains of girls were found thatIt is more than clear that infanticide was practiced to maintain a mostly male workforce or it is not mentioned that yes, slavery in pre -Roman tribal societies, but it is in the Roman Britain where it becomes a fundamental institution.
What is mentioned in the movies and in most books is that the small barbarian pictures were that they did not let them live in peace. In the end everything looks like a movie of Indians and jeans. The Indians are Scotland, Wales and Ireland and the jeans England. In the 11th century the word wealh meant slave or Welsh and later with the excuse of evangelizing Ireland because they were "Christians of name but pagans in fact" the Anglonormandos invaded her when we all know that the Irish missionaries were those who evangelized England centuries ago.
It is very unfair that history considers civilizations better than others and even more than historians reinforce this. Currently I do not think that my life is better than that of someone who lives in an Amazon tribe, just as they would take their hands to my head watching my day to day I would not last a minute in their routine. There is a prehistory manual that says that the appearance of writing is usually associated with the new most advanced civilizations even if this is not true. That is, the Mycenaean Society, with writing, gave way to another one that was Ágrafa.
The Maya went from a stage with writing to one that did not have it. In summary, someone should review the story and the treatment we have given him, with the example of writing we can see it, we have an ethnocentrist vision of history, which most looks like our current "first world" is the most advanced and the most advanced andIs not always that way. The worst thing is that I can not say that I have completely disliked this book because the third part leaves you with a good taste, which makes you forget the shameless way with which the English are treated as heroes that fight the wild wildthat invades them again and again.
The contemporaneity of the book is evident. That is, it is a book published in 2015 that speeds up Sula Read and its understanding since its registration is standard and sometimes it is even colloquial. On the other hand, the organization of the book, which divides the book into three parts that in turn are divided into chapters, very clearly separates the different most notable stages and civilizations of this period. In addition, except for a third, the other two are chronologically ordered. This advantage will be remarkable throughout the book.
In the first part it is when it becomes the most noticeable for the reader since it separates the before and after the fall of Rome, in the second part it focuses on the evolution of the barbarian peoples of the Anglos, the Saxons and the judges after theirIsland invasion. The bibliography is overwhelmingly extensive, it is surprising even how well documented the book is and it is even more surprising that with all this bibliography failures as carafales are committed as the statement that St. Patrick after his capture by Irish pirates would never return to Great Britain.
In total this book collects information from 208 different sources. This amount of sources should ensure the reliability of the book but when at the beginning it happens that an error like the one we have already mentioned is made, the reader, if he realizes this, can begin to doubt. My case was that, so I was direct to the library in search of more complementary readings to solve the doubts that could arise in relation to the veracity of the data. The funny thing was that, according to Hugh Kearney, the sources can be committed from 1949.
This date agrees with the final emancipation of Ireland thus forming the current Republic of Ireland. This seems to have no relationship with the sources, but the funny thing is that from this fact many historians partially eliminated Ireland’s relationship with British history, with England above all, throughout history. They began to write "national" manuals with current geographical divisions (Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England), this caused the perpetuation of certain ethnocentric myths and certain ideologies.
With this I do not say that certain cultural "barriers" should not be created to differentiate each place and its evolution but what does not seem successful is to use contemporary divisions ignoring that in ancient times, even without high -speed airplanes and trains, the world does notIt was so great and the influences between countries were much more common than we thought, and if for telling the story of a place, and strictly from that place, we ignore what surrounds it, we are not really being completely objective.
It is true that this seems a bit sectarian to manipulate history to idealize your country or region, but we recodCatalonia, had adapted the story in which children ideologically indoctrinated. So yes, it is a bit sectarian, but it is not any novelty that political facts get into history manuals. Moreover, in this book it is mentioned what possibly the battle of Deorham in 577, collected in the Anglo -Saxon chronicle.
It was an invention of Wessex to acquire the cities of Bath, Gloucester and Cirencester. Which in the ninth century were from Mercia. So in summary, a battle were invented, they put it in a history book and took advantage of the fact that the opposite could not be verified. The difference between that manipulation and the current ones is that there are currently more sources than in the past. Summarizing the issue of sources not as reliable as they should for political issues. Here is the problem, most of the sources of the book, 188 of 208, are after 1949 so, I do not believe that all, but some if they may fall into this national ethnocentrism that does not respect a complete truth.
The first part of the book is more precise in information. That is, as the book progresses, especially at the beginning of the second part everything becomes a set of theories of different researchers about what could happen. This is more than understandable, the amount of documents that we have in Rome are not minimally comparable to those of the high Middle Ages that is not known as the dark age. Moreover, in the case of England according to Cannon and Griffiths, the V and VI are "the darkest of the dark age".
Finally and a general conclusion mode on the bibliography I firmly believe that the book is very well documented and the masterful third is the sign of this, we are told aspects of the society of the very useful era that help you create an imageVery complete, but I also believe that in certain aspects the author should have been more cautious in the choice of some sources. And unfortunately, and under my personal perspective that a failure as evident as that of St. Patricio is committed to few pages to begin causes the reader to lose the credibility of the book and the author.
That is, how to trust the veracity of the sources that the author has chosen when the same author has not been faithful to history? This kind of question makes me think that perhaps the author has chosen sources and certain parts of those sources to reinforce the message that the media and ours have been sending us over the years about the "individual" history and cultureof this place is "better" than the rest. In summary, such an obvious and shameless failure doubts the author’s objectivity. Finally, it is these things, which could have been avoided, those that leave you a somewhat bittersweet taste according to what moments.
Legacy of Rome: This part of the book narrates the events from the expulsion of Roman officers by the English to the invasion itself of the Saxons, Anglos and Jets. It covers a quite broad temporal frame and although it is true that the V and VI centuries are considered as “the darkest of the dark age” according to Cannon and Griffiths, referring to the lack of sources in Britania even compared to the rest of Europe, I think that in some aspects it falls short. That is, there is almost no information, not to mention that it ignores the fact that four cultures on the island came to live together.
The only source of detailed information about Britania in the V and VI centuries, Gildas, describes attacks by Irish and pictures, highly emboldened due to the absence of Roman troops. Surely, San Gildas ignored other events that would not fit well for the moral purpose of his "of excidy". In addition, it seems that Gildas was not based on written sources for events between 440 and 500, probably using unreliable oral traditions. Gildas is not a reliable source for the events of the 5th century.
conclusion
E focused on writing what Britania ruined (pictures, sajones, plague, sin, etc.), so it gives an image deliberately. Vortigern, looking for help to contain the Celts, requested assistance to a Germanic continental people, the Saxons. The problems of the Britania of the 5th century were abundant: incursions and settlements of Irish peoples to the west, invasions of the Pictos from the north, Anglo -Saxon making its way from the south and the east, and finally, intestine struggles between the British kingdoms.
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