Why Did the Saxons Lose to the Vikings? Medieval Animated DOCUMENTARY

Kings and Generals historical animated documentary series on the history of medieval era continues with a video on the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse - Vikings, as we try to deduce why the Saxons weren't able to defend against the Vikings and would go on to lose in many cases.

Script: Jim Zaat
Animation: Michael Merc, Artem Krikhtenko
Artwork: Vyacheslav Sheo

Music courtesy of EpidemicSound

#Documentary #Saxons #Vikings

[MrGksarathy]

I think the main issue is that Wessex might have been the only kingdom that was able to adequately organize a system to marshall their own forces and react to Viking incursions.

[PakBallandSami]

“The Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons were closely related by ancestry and language, since the latter had themselves only left Denmark three hundred years previously.”
― Ed West

[jonbaxter]

Everyone forgets the Saxons were almost proto-Vikings; the were Germanic raiders, ships based, had the same Gods and ethnic background and came from the same areas.

The issue was after the Saxons conquered the Britons, they did go a bit soft. Trading war and plunder for civilisation. Vikings came and repeated the process 300 years after the Saxons did.

[BlaBla-pfmf]

The fact that historically South England was the richest part of the British isles played a part. Short trade routes with France, a milder climate making for more productive agriculture and wealth from the mines of Cornwall and Devon meant Wessex had enough money to pay the danegeld or wage war even when they didn't control the best british real estate, the Thames valley.

[warren]

I am elated by the new graphical details and also the old animation details such as that you used in the Kyivan Rus' video et al. Keep it up, you will always be my favorite historian youtuber.

[PakBallandSami]

Vikings: *invade england*
Anglo-saxon: your are trying to kidnap what i have rightfully stolen

[ronanwaring]

Wessex also had the advantage of learning from the mistakes of it's neighbours, by swapping age old battle tactics not changed in centuries with new and improved ones.

[samwill]

"We have an enemy that can show up any time, basically without warning, and burn down our stuff"
**Gives them a bunch of horses**
"This problem SOMEHOW just got way worse!"

[stephenbuck]

The Anglo Saxon’s eventual defeated the Vikings. The last battle against the Vikings was at Stamford Bridge in 1066 by King Harold and the Vikings were slaughtered. I accept that King Harold was the defeated by the Normans who were sort of Vikings by they did not come from Scandinavia.

[sidp]

I hope you guys will finally restart the battle of Ashdown and Anglo-Saxon series. You guys start at five years ago.

[royalhero]

But they didn't though, I'm not sure why people always seem to think this. In a lot of pitched battles the Vikings were routed by the Saxons, and of course Alfred and his descendants drove them off entirely in the end

[Maxrodon]

Dan Carlins hardcore history podcast summed it up nicely. Saxons were full time farmers and part time soldiers based on their lifestyle while vikings were full time soldiers and part time farmers.

[jordangill]

They didn’t lose to the Vikings, the Vikings lost to the Saxons. Why do people keep getting this wrong?

[RashidAli-fbse]

In Anglo-Saxon England, the ealdorman was appointed by the English king to be the chief officer in a shire. He commanded the local fyrd and presided with the bishop over the shire court. As compensation, he received the third penny—one-third of the profits of royal justice and one-third of the revenues from boroughs under his jurisdiction.

By the late 900s, ealdormen often controlled multiple shires at once. During Cnut's reign (1016–1035), they became known as earls (from Old English eorl meaning "noble").[note 1] He divided the kingdom into four earldoms: Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. Earls were governors or viceroys, ruling in the king's name, keeping the peace, dispensing justice, and raising armies. Like the earlier ealdormen, they received the third penny from their jurisdictions. There were, however, limitations on their authority. They could not mint coins or hold their own courts, and in theory, they could be removed by the king. In rank, earls were below the king and above thegns; they were therefore the king's chief counselors in the Witan.[15] Earls were an "élite within an élite", numbering at most 25 men at any one time between 1000 and 1300.

When Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–1066) came to the throne, he inherited the royal estates of Harthacnut but lacked family lands of his own. As a result, the earls collectively possessed more land than the king, especially Earl Godwin of Wessex. In 1066, according to the Domesday Book, the Godwin family estates were valued at £7, 000, Earl Leofric of Mercia at £2, 400, and Earl Siward of Northumbria at £350. In comparison, the king's lands were valued at £5, 000. This concentration of land and wealth in the hands of the earls, and one earl in particular, weakened the Crown's authority. The situation was reversed when Godwin's son Harold became king, and he was able to restore the Crown's authority.

[TheStrategos]

The Saxons kept losing and then Alfred The Great showed up.⚔️

[ITSC]

The title is misleading - the Vikings lost to the Anglo-Saxons in the end.

[iliketehfair]

Early Anglo chroniclers be like:
"Bout to go fight the vikings, I'll post the chronicle later."
Later:
"Got my ass beat, I'm not posting that shit."

[alvaromneto]

RIP East Anglia. A land of people who repetadly chose the sword over submittance. Some centuries early with the Iceni and Boudicca, which managed to take 70K romans/auxiliares with her and her horde rose up against them. They'll always have my respect.

[gentlesirpancakebottoms]

This is not sarcasm. I genuinely love the CGI snippets looking like what would be considered high quality PC game cinematics from the late 90s and early 2000s. They hit me right in the nostalgia:p

[HaggisOfDeath]

The 'unstoppable' vikings were just pirates who attacked defenseless villages and monasteries. In the vast majority of cases where they met a similarly sized force, they would usually simply sail away, and if they did fight more often than not they lost (and this isn't to say the French or English were superior fighters, its that your general viking raid was not comprised of soldiers; it was bandits, pirates, plunderers; it makes sense that they often wouldn't match up to trained forces). The vikings were 'terrifying' because they attacked defenseless areas without warning and had no mercy for the farmers or monks.

There were of course some serious Scandinavian armies that were very powerful, and some of these had success, and some were defeated. Cnut obviously triumphed for the 'vikings', but there were almost countless instances of the Anglo-Saxons and Franks defeating viking raids that are just footnotes in history. We remember the exceptions largely because they were exceptions and because the vikings were so brutal afterwards. Ultimately the big victories that the Anglo-Saxons won were more important, Alfred with his Christianisation of Guthrum helped speed along the conversion of the Vikings as a whole, and the battle of Stamford Bridge which famously ended the 'viking age'.

Shameful title.