So when I last left off After the Flood I was writing about Sutton Hoo and Raedwald. I was also writing on a different blog address. But those two things are completely unrelated.
Either way, we’re going to pick up where I left off. With Wuffa.
As I said, I talked about Wuffa before. There’s an exceedingly good chance that the name of this “king” was actually a memory of the fact that at least some of the people who founded East Anglia were descendents of a Swedish clan known as the Wolf Clan. This is a slightly different story than the one where there was a Saxon named Wuffa. I’ve already talked about that one at length, though. I’m more interested in the fellow named Geat.
Wuffa is, as much as anything, a theory. There’s a guy in the genealogy named Wuffa and there’s a Swedish clan with a similar name. It’s rather circumstantial. But it’s also probable. Still, it’s nothing like the guy named Geat. Why?
There was a people group known as the Geats. I’ll say it again. Let it sink in. We know there was a freaking people group up in Scandinavia known as the Geats. There’s a non-zero chance, in fact, that the Jutes were descended from the Geats. Or possibly the other way around, but I’m pretty sure that the Geats came first.
Either way, considering the fact that the foundation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England was a crazy mish-mash of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, it would make perfect sense that there would be a “Geat” somewhere as an eponymous foundational figure in the Anglo-Saxon genealogies.
Honestly, this is not that difficult. All you have to do is just the tiniest bit of research. And by “research” I don’t mean, “Try to find something that supports your stupid hypothesis, then look up all the terms you can use to decry those evil modernists who disagree with you.
But that might be too much to ask. At least, we’ve learned that this is too much to ask time and time again. So I’m seriously considering giving up on asking…
Anyway, Cooper then decides to make the leap over to Ethelbert and discuss the Gewisse.
This I find to be, well, odd. We mostly have the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to tell us about the life of Alfred the Great. To the best of my knowledge, it has no problems referencing the Gewisse. Of course it does that because, in the tradition of good Medieval history, the book was created from a crapload of different sources.[1] There were at least five primary sources[2] used, and who knows how many additional sources went in to those.
It does, however, lead to directly to the next point. Well, “directly” in ways that only make sense if you’ve been following Cooper’s “logic” for long enough.
This is his constant argument. It’s a stupid, circular argument, the sort that makes me want to bang my head against the nearest hard, flat surface. The genealogies weren’t changed because the genealogies weren’t allowed to be changed. It’s a tautology, and a dumb one at that. It ignores the possibility that it wasn’t a rule in the first place. It ignores the possibility that it became a rule somewhere down the road after a bad genealogy was created. It ignores the possibility that mistakes of an honest nature were made somewhere in the murky past. The whole idea is, in a word, frustrating.
And it all builds up to this argument:
Goddamn modernists, what with their insistence on figuring out whether or not people from the past were just pulling stuff out of their asses. It’s tiresome, that’s what it is. I’m tired of Cooper’s stupidity.
The next bit, though, is actually causing me physical pain to contemplate at the moment. Honestly, it’s just that fucking stupid. It’s wear a goddamn helmet because you’re going to run in to something stupid.
So I’ll leave it until next week. I had a headache going in to this and this really isn’t helping…
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[1]And, yes, “crapload” is a specific historical term. It’s somewhat larger than a “buttload,” but smaller than a “ginormous shitload.” Consider this your lesson for the day.
[2]I use “primary sources” here incorrectly. A primary source is one that is regarded as being from a direct witness. In this case I use the term to refer to that which the writers of the Chronicle would have primarily used. Which would technically make them secondary sources. My goal, as always, is to leave everyone hopelessly confused.
Either way, we’re going to pick up where I left off. With Wuffa.
Now Wuffa was not the first king of East Anglia. That honour normally goes to his father Wehh, or Wehha, who reigned in the early 6th century, and for lack of record we are left to wonder what otherwise distinguished Wuffa from his father for him to be regarded with such distinction that all his descendants named themselves after him rather than after his father, who was, after all, the very founder of the royal line of the East Anglian kings.
Wuffa, of course, was not the only Saxon to found a clan. Sceldwea, otherwise known as Scyld (pronounced 'shield') founded the Scyldingas. Geat, (pronounced 'geet' or likewise founded the Geatingas. Beowulf of epic fame (see chapter 12) was a Geating, and Geat himself was inevitably given a place in the Saxons' ancestral pantheon. Nennius tells us that he was one of the false gods whom the pagan Saxons worshipped, and we read the same in Assher and other sources.
As I said, I talked about Wuffa before. There’s an exceedingly good chance that the name of this “king” was actually a memory of the fact that at least some of the people who founded East Anglia were descendents of a Swedish clan known as the Wolf Clan. This is a slightly different story than the one where there was a Saxon named Wuffa. I’ve already talked about that one at length, though. I’m more interested in the fellow named Geat.
Wuffa is, as much as anything, a theory. There’s a guy in the genealogy named Wuffa and there’s a Swedish clan with a similar name. It’s rather circumstantial. But it’s also probable. Still, it’s nothing like the guy named Geat. Why?
There was a people group known as the Geats. I’ll say it again. Let it sink in. We know there was a freaking people group up in Scandinavia known as the Geats. There’s a non-zero chance, in fact, that the Jutes were descended from the Geats. Or possibly the other way around, but I’m pretty sure that the Geats came first.
Either way, considering the fact that the foundation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England was a crazy mish-mash of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, it would make perfect sense that there would be a “Geat” somewhere as an eponymous foundational figure in the Anglo-Saxon genealogies.
Honestly, this is not that difficult. All you have to do is just the tiniest bit of research. And by “research” I don’t mean, “Try to find something that supports your stupid hypothesis, then look up all the terms you can use to decry those evil modernists who disagree with you.
But that might be too much to ask. At least, we’ve learned that this is too much to ask time and time again. So I’m seriously considering giving up on asking…
Anyway, Cooper then decides to make the leap over to Ethelbert and discuss the Gewisse.
Gewis founded the clan of the Gewissae who later settled in the west of England, and in the charters that have survived, the kings of Wessex are each styled Rex Gewissorum. However, when Alfred of Wessex translated into Old English Bede's Historia Ecclesiasticae, he suppressed the title Rex Gewissorum, and his reason for doing this was undoubtedly the blatantly pagan connotations of the name. Alfred himself, as a supposedly good and Christian king, wanted no such association of his name with that of Gewis. It would have had the same uncomfortable sound as styling himself king of the children of Woden, and this would have been anathema both to himself and to his Christian clerical ministers.
This I find to be, well, odd. We mostly have the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to tell us about the life of Alfred the Great. To the best of my knowledge, it has no problems referencing the Gewisse. Of course it does that because, in the tradition of good Medieval history, the book was created from a crapload of different sources.[1] There were at least five primary sources[2] used, and who knows how many additional sources went in to those.
It does, however, lead to directly to the next point. Well, “directly” in ways that only make sense if you’ve been following Cooper’s “logic” for long enough.
And yet, and here we come to the significant point, in his own authorised biography (i.e. Asser's Life of Alfred), which Alfred himself undoubtedly oversaw with great care, the name of Gewis is allowed to stand proud as one of Alfred's ancestors! Alfred, whilst willing enough to drop for himself the hitherto royal but pagan title of Rex Gewissorum, was clearly not prepared to expunge the name of Gewis from the royal line, simply because the royal genealogies were themselves sacrosanct and inviolable.
This is his constant argument. It’s a stupid, circular argument, the sort that makes me want to bang my head against the nearest hard, flat surface. The genealogies weren’t changed because the genealogies weren’t allowed to be changed. It’s a tautology, and a dumb one at that. It ignores the possibility that it wasn’t a rule in the first place. It ignores the possibility that it became a rule somewhere down the road after a bad genealogy was created. It ignores the possibility that mistakes of an honest nature were made somewhere in the murky past. The whole idea is, in a word, frustrating.
And it all builds up to this argument:
And this should be carefully considered before any further assurance is given that these royal genealogies were freely tampered with, an allegation that has been made and repeated in countless modernist works on the subject.
Goddamn modernists, what with their insistence on figuring out whether or not people from the past were just pulling stuff out of their asses. It’s tiresome, that’s what it is. I’m tired of Cooper’s stupidity.
The next bit, though, is actually causing me physical pain to contemplate at the moment. Honestly, it’s just that fucking stupid. It’s wear a goddamn helmet because you’re going to run in to something stupid.
So I’ll leave it until next week. I had a headache going in to this and this really isn’t helping…
--------------------------
[1]And, yes, “crapload” is a specific historical term. It’s somewhat larger than a “buttload,” but smaller than a “ginormous shitload.” Consider this your lesson for the day.
[2]I use “primary sources” here incorrectly. A primary source is one that is regarded as being from a direct witness. In this case I use the term to refer to that which the writers of the Chronicle would have primarily used. Which would technically make them secondary sources. My goal, as always, is to leave everyone hopelessly confused.
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