American Reacts | How was England Formed? 

You have to remember the country names we use today. Didn't exist then. The vikings came from the whole of Scandinavia. Denmark Sweden and Norway. The saxons name is rooted in an area called Saxony in Germany.

The Danes at the time came from southern Scandinavia, the islands of the Baltic and the Jutland peninsula. After the Jutes and Angles migrated westward to form part of the Anglo-Saxons the rest of the Jutland peninsula was settled by the Danes and it became part of Denmark bordering the Saxons of North Germany. The Anglo-Saxons and Danes were closely related Germanic people; Old Norse and Old English were very similar.

I know you keep asking why wales is never being invaded. If you take a look at a terrain map that gives just one clue. But there's plenty of reasons to delve into. interesting to look up. Another interesting thing to look up is the Celtic nations. and where they fall on the map. Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, and Brittany

I prefer it when you pause because i need time aswell and I'm English 😂🤣

I'm a history fanatic myself, and I suffer from depression too. History keeps me going. Archeology is my favorite subject. Here in the UK there is no shortage of that. The Saxons came from North west Germany, Denmark, and parts of Holland. You've got to remember none of these countries existed back then. The first waves of Vikings came to England from Denmark. Then Vikings from other parts of Scandinavia followed. The area where I am from was part of Mercia, but was then annexed by the Vikings. A huge battle between the Anglo Saxons and Vikings took place about 5 miles away from where I live. It has alot of roman history too. I took a DNA test a few years ago tuned out I'm mostly Viking, which fits in with the history of my local area...LOL There's so much more history in my local area, but I can't go though it all because it would take forever. North west England is where I am from. But the whole of the UK is like that, no matter where you go, you're not far from where a famous historical event took place. P.S "Don't let the depression get the better of you, because it can do that!." Take it easy lad stay safe...☺

A lot of Tolkien's inspiration for LOTR came from his fascination with England around this time period, LOTR is pretty much set in a magical version of 9th century England.

Elf languages in Tolkien are based on Finnish and Welsh. Tolkien was a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and the Riders of Rohan speak a language that is essentially Old English or Anglo-Saxon (in the extended version of 'The Two Towers' Eowyn sings a lament in Old English for the death of her brother Theodred, at his funeral). It's cool to hear Old English spoken like that in a major film, but most modern English speakers can't understand Old English, which sounds very German compared to the heavily Latin & French influenced modern English.

There are still remnants from those tribal times a thousand years ago. If you go to Wales they speak a different language, go to the Highlands of Scotland or Ireland where they speak Gaelic, this goes back thousands of years.

As you noted yourself, Mercia had indeed been broken by the invasion of the Danes, Connor. The map on the video shows that part of Mercia remained theoretically independent apart from Danelaw. The king of Mercia, Coelwulf, nonetheless played a double game, trying to stay allied to King Alfred as well as accepting the authority of the Norsemen. His successor Aethelred remained an even closer ally of Wessex thereafter.

He is mispronouncing ALBA he's saying ALABA. The Gaels gave Scotland its name from 'Scoti', a racially derogatory term used by the Romans to describe the Gaelic-speaking 'pirates' who raided Britannia in the 3rd and 4th centuries. They called themselves 'Goidi l', modernised today as Gaels, and later called Scotland 'Alba'.

Pause as often as you feel necessary - it's a lot to take in.

Glad your doing well Connor I know this is 2 years ago, and have watched your new vlogs.Very interesting film which I knew a bit about but this added more information thanks for reaction 😊

12:37 - The reason they wanted to invade Scotland and not Wales is because the Scots had a habit of raiding into Saxon lands, while the Welsh kingdoms largely kept to themselves and often allied with the Saxons against the Danes. It was only after the Normans took over when the English conquered them.

Northumbria hasn't gone away. The kingdom of saints and scholars is still with us The county of Northumberland, the University of Northumbria, and Northumbria Police force all tell you that it's not forgotten. It's been a thousand years, but we're not giving up on it yet 👍

"Danes" was a catch-all name for Vikings. The word Viking means "Raider or pirate". The Old English (Angles Saxons and Jutes) have DNA so close to each other and the Danes that they are more or less indistinguishable.

Wales, UK is mostly mountainous valleys terrain. It's difficult terrain to invade. 😳

personally i think you should pause as much as you need. it’s the purpose of a reaction at the end of the day. enjoy your input and perspective

4:34 The Picts were the native inhabitants of modern day Scotland. They were named the Picti (Latin for the painted people) by the Romans because they often wore blue body paint. The Romans never managed to conquer the Picts. The term 'Scots' originally referred to Irish Gaels. Modern day Scotland gets its name because around 500AD the Scots invaded Pictish lands and set up the kingdom of Dial Riada on the west coast of modern day Scotland. Over time the Scots and Picts would merge into one but Scots culture and language would dominate. Pictish culture and language went extinct. The little we know about the Picts comes mostly from Roman literature. In 843 Kenneth MacAlpin was named both King of Scots and King of the Picts and formed the Kingdom of Alba. He is considered to be the first king of Scotland. So yeah, just remember that the term 'Scot' originally referred to people from Ireland. Hope this helps 👍

The reason it took so long to take Wales was for 2 reasons, 1 the English were busy fighting the scotts and vikings and 2 Wales was extremely difficult to fight. I took an absolutely stupid amount of over 400 castles to try to control Wales and still there were a good amount of uprisings of Wales fighting back

What is not told is that some of the native Brittons crossed the Channel to escape the Anglo-saxon invasion and setteled on the continent to found a "small" Britanny, witch became the nowdays region of Bretagne (Breizh in breton language) in western France. The breton language is parent of cornish and welsh languages. The national anthems of both Wales and Bretagne are sang on the Same melody.

The Welsh were a big help in driving back the Danes. Mostly likely the Anglo-saxon king owed them one and didn't fancy a campaign against them.

That early kingdom of England is missing Cumbria (note similarity of the name with Cymru the native name for Wales). Wales isn't great territory to conquer. Lots of mountains. Not much good farming land.

That video from Knowledgia that you're using is riddled with errors and omissions.

Tolken invented the elf language before he wrote Lord of the rings, he spoke it at university when he was a student.

Tolkien was a Philologist and a professor of Anglo-Saxon. He created 2 elven languages: Quenya (High Elven) based on Finnish and Sindarin (Grey Elven) based on Welsh. There are indeed dictionaries out there, the best being by David Salo who was the translator for the movies and is himself a Tolkien Scholar. He also used Anglo-Saxon as the basis for the Rohirric language of Rohan, Hebrew for Khadûl the language of the Dwarves. Black Speech, the language of Mordor, is entirely original.

Tolkien developed elvish languages in great detail - Quenya and Sindarin representing the language of the High Elves and the general elf population respectively (I'm simplifying). He based the language of the Rohirrim, the Riders of Rohan, on Old English so the names of the kings in this video would be perfectly suitable as names from Rohan.

Just to help you a tad the area of the UK map that is yellow the lower bit that the English got is Cumberland / Cumbria and has the lake district in it . It might of helped if he talked slower and now and then given you a modern name ( for better reference ) of the county that was taken for example York is in now Yorkshire

The original Scots came from Ireland.

It's not a pleasant history to watch, but it is interesting to realise that some of the most dramatic early colonial invasions were driven by plants! The world's commodities at the time were of course mostly plants (Opium, Sugar, tea, etc etc) The British even sent spies to steal the best tea seeds and then take them to Assam. A marvel of ingenuity and opportunity for the time.

Following on from Russell's post not only Country names but County names, Once England was "unified" under one (or Two) Kings most of the old Kingdoms where made counties. Anglia was split in two, so you had the North Folk and the South Folk which are now known as Norfolk and Suffolk. The Jutes were in control of what is now known as Kent. The Saxon Kingdoms, East, now Essex. Middle, now not county but remains a postal address Middlesex, South, or Sussex now split in to West and East Sussex. Wessex although the strongest Kingdom never made to becoming a county instead it broken down into Shires, so Wilt, Hamp, Somerset, Oxford and of course Dorset. The Mercian Kingdoms were also broken down in to Shires, so Worcester, Warwick, Nottingham, Gloucester, etc.. I could go on and on & on

Good Reaction, My Friend. I'm 67 years old in London and can see for miles and do not require glasses for reading or the computer so be careful not to leave a legacy and try to cut down on screen time, my friend. Obviously, in this context, , there were no screens when I was younger...

The Scots were originally Irish and are linguisticaly close. The Picts were descended from the original pre-Roman Britons who inhabted much of Scotland before the influx of "Gaels" from Ireland and the Isles which included Scots.The greatest nemesis of the Picts was Robert the Bruce but really, with Scotlands own influences from Norway and other places it's a study in itself. If you have the interest you need to treat Scotland as a whole different subject. Personally, I blame the Romans for building that bloody wall. I have Scots and Welsh ancestry but the bigger influence is grounded in Wessex. Not to confuse you too much but by the time of the Viking invasions the "bigboy" was Wessex as they had already defeated the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendun in 825.

Nothing wrong being a visual learner

To answer the "why aren't you conquering Wales" question. Wales is incredibly mountainous, and at the time very sparsely populated. Its almost impossible to conquer a region with impassible terrain and where the people wouldn't know that you were in charge. The local Kingdoms of Powys and Gwnedd had a hard enough time keeping control.

Danes are from Denmark, what people confuses is that Vikings, although came from all of Scandinavia, the vast majority were Danish and Danes were the group that also settled the conquered lands.

I live in what was called northumbria. Our original people were invaded by scots and vikings around 800ad, still now the villages in our area are now randomly named in viking and saxon/briton style. names ending with -ham or-ton are anglo saxon (I live in Durham), names ending in -by are Danish or viking, eg whitby. northumberland, as it was, is dotted with villages and towns of each type

8:00 - I think part of why it's shown this way is also that we'd need to sail up to modern day Norway to catch the winds to bring us across the North Sea to Britain. The North Sea has an anti-clockwise flow pattern, as such.

Saxons initially probably were named from the weapon they used, the “seaxe. Drop the “e” and you get Saxon.

the clue is saxony it was a country in northern germany . the danes were the jutes from jutland which is now denmark the angles were also a northern german tribe, hence the anglo saxons...

The anglo Saxon came mainly from the parts of Germany then known as Saxony that is now Westfalen, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein

As a Welsh man don't worry we're not offended we got thick skin you should definitely do video on the history of Wales, Ireland and Scotland though all separately

Hi Connor I am sure you get the History channel in USA. There is a series called the vikings which was brilliant and it goes through all of this bit by bit and the acting is fantastic. Lots of it is all based around exactly what you are watching here. Although it is a drama, it was spot on with all the history and double dealing between the kings of wessex. Northumbria, Mercia etc. Give it a go and I am sure it will be so much easier to follow all the battles that led to the changes that happened.

Shout outs to King Malcom. One of my ancestors (and a lot of other people's too of course.)

Love your reactions.. Anglo saxons came from Germany,, Britons end up in Wales and Cornwall... Wessex also housed some Briton refugees.. Its why Wessex had a decent relationship with the Walsh peoples, even though they were warring with eachother often. You see with so many Britons living in Wessex, mainly Somerset area, trying to conquer Wales outright would be counter productive...The viking states were the ones raping pilaging and enslaving,, not the Walsh.

well...geograthy wise its hard to overun with all the mountains and hills which make up most of Wales...

Before the Danes invaded and the map showed the different kingdoms, you can see that the west of England + all Wales was not conquered. The southwest of England still had Celtic tribes. The most Celtic culture in the southwest is the two counties right at the bottom: Devon and Cornwall. As u can see when Alfred was king the whole of southwest was then included the kingdom of “Wessex”. Still today SOME (few sadly) people in Cornwall and Devon speak a Celtic language. Cornish for Cornwall and I can’t remember for Devon it’s either Cornish or Breton. I live in Devon and there is SO much Celtic and medieval history, a lot of it evidence still standing/found

The Danes and the Norwegians were different. The Norwegians were further north.the Danes and the Angles were in my part of Yorkshire, whereas the Norwegians were in what is now North Yorkshire and further North. Their royalty tended to inter marry.so they worked together.

Danes was a common name for all Vikings, Denmark had hegemony over Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Viking is not a name but the name for what they were doing - raiding.

The Angels and Saxons were from near Hamburg Germany today, Denmark was a Viking Kingdom also ,

Anglo Saxons were comprised of Angles and Saxons, who both came from the area of the European Continent know today as Germany. Areas of England known as Essex, Sussex were Saxon. East Anglia for instance, as the name suggests was occupied by the Angles.

U r correct the Angles and the Jutes were both Danish peoples , and the saxons were ORIGINALLY mostly from around the German area of Saxony and some who would be modern Dutch people, at that time they had taken some land in Northern France (which btw I think is where they would have launched a lot thier boats towards Britain from, )at that time around time were very well known across all of Northern Europe, and they pushed the Britons ,the Celtic peoples and others who are often just non conformist and are then forced actually any remnants of anything that wasn't the new dominant culture was forced (in most cases at sword point) into the extremities and corners of the Islands you can see how spread through ,just the archives and the archaeology and information we have is truly Mind-blowing 🤔💯

Don't worry about stopping the video all the time bud I'd do the same we all learn different ways so don't worry about it mate

Before the Romans Britons were Celtic, the Romans called England Britain.

The people across what's now England before any of the Germanic tribes moved here were Celts, basically Welsh in a way. They spoke the ancestor of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Also, what's now Cornwall was never part of Wessex. They were defeated by Wessex, but never made part of it.

Jutes, Angles and Saxons also Frisians. Jutes from Jutland Denmark? Danes a common term for the Norse. These tribes were pushed out or emigrated out of Germany, Netherlands. Just part of a continuing migration of people's being displaced by eastern migrants.

We're Anglo-Saxons. The Angles came from an area of southern Denmark called Angeln. The name 'England' was named after the Angles. If the Danes had defeated the Saxons finally the country would have been call 'Daneland'.

Saxons were from Saxony and Normans were from Normandy... Germanic and Nordic beliefs were similar, they all shared the same beliefs (the same gods) and had a similar way of life, raiding and war mixed with farming... Modern borders are irrelevant so don't think of them by nation think of them as tribal groups who happened to live in places later defined by national boundaries...

Generally speaking the danes and norweigans went westward although the danes were more numerous due to their land being more to the south and therefore more fertile. The danes are kindoff like the mainshow in England although the norweigans were doing interesting things all over the western hemisphere. And the swedes went east again generally speaking, keep in mind that there were plenty of swedes who went westward and likewise the opposite situation with the danes and norweigans, anyways the swedes went to finland, the baltics and modern day russia, ukraine and belarus were they united slavic tribes and created the first semblence of what today is considered russia. The swedes also went further south into the black sea into constantinople were they were extremely elite warriors known as The Varangian Guard and became invaluable to the byzantine emperors, otherwise swedes (although not as often because of powerful arab fleets) ventured into the caspian sea were they raided the eastern coasts of modern day azerbaijan and raided and traded with the persians in northern persia.

In amongst all the history and comedy videos you do it would be a bit of fun to incorporate a challenge video or two. 1 idea will be not to shave for 100 days challenge

Don't worry about because most English people, me included, don't understand it either. You practically have to have a degree in English history to fully understand it .

If you Google ancient foot prints in Happisburgh, Norfolk, England. There were footprints and worked flint, oldest out of Africa found there. Happisburgh is pronounced Hasbro. We are an ancient land with lots of pre history.

Yes, Tolkien used Anglo Saxon in LOTR spoken by the Rohirrim!

Connor, when you speak English, as you do, you are using about 60% Saxon words from the Saxon invasion that you see here. (short sharp words... dog, go, come, sky, call, open, shut, etc. - the words that are easy to say.) Ever wondered why German people today speak such brilliant English? it is because their language is predominantly Saxon, as is ours. Good luck.

Pause all you like it's very complex , good video 🙂

The geography of Wales makes it a potential nightmare to conquer

Angles and the Saxons are from Northern Germany the Jutes were from Jutland which is southern Denmark.The Vikings were from all over Scandinavia

From what I understand, the Saxons invaded the British Isles and established the different areas as shown on the map (Northumbria, etc.). The Saxons were early Germanic tribes from the European continent, modern day Germany. The Saxons brought their Christian faith to Britain. There might have been Roman Christians (if Romans decided to stay) but definitely the Saxons established Christianity in Britain. The Vikings originated from Scandinavia, modern day Denmark/Norway/Sweden, but they also settled in Europe before venturing into/conquering the British Isles. So it could be said there were multiple contingents of Vikings from various points - Scandinavia and Europe - invading the British Isles. The Vikings were not like the Romans - they were not cohesive, militarized. They could be strategic depending on who was the leader of a strong unit. But units fractured, spread out, reorganized. Eventually Vikings became part of the Anglo-Saxon community, converting to Christians themselves. I'm not even getting to the Norman invasion!

That video missed out Cnut the Great?

The raids from the Norsemen, ( Denmark, Sweden, and Norway) were not by “Vikings”. Norsemen went “Viking” which was the term for raiding..

"why don't they invade Wales?" Big mountains.

From what I can tell the saxons arrived first during the late Roman era as mercenaries to fight of other Saxons . The Angles though still fierce arrived later to claim land so more farmers than warriors. Greetings from the land of East Angles .

Mercia is now called the Midlands.

He didn't conquer Wales because he was unifying the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms and people, at which point was in Scotland by the 10th Century as well. The Welsh are Celtic so they did not belong to the Anglo-Saxon Family

Hey Connor, your surname is certainly Celtic.... you could therefore come from Irish or Scottish origins.

No Anglo-Saxons were from France Belgium & Germany the Vikings were from Norway Denmark Sweden and Finland, the Picts ruled western scotland and northern ireland the scots were from the highlands of east scotland the celts were from wales and the republic of ireland (all in terms of modern nations) The britons aka the people that were conquered by the romans ended up marrying into anglo saxon familes as they did eventually when the vikings settled in their conquered lands until wessex and their king alfred the great defeated all of the vikings drove them out and setup what would become England

This made me sad. I'm Welsh, we're native Britons. We've been here for 11,000 years. There's so much history before the Romans. Lyr, Coel, Bran King of ravens, Cynon. Still, this IS about England after all.

Go look up a faction map for the game Attila total war. It's not totally historical but will give you a decent idea of who was where a few hundred years before this.

The elf language is part old Finnish part Welsh.

no wonder you are confused, it is the video which is incorrect when the narrator jumps from calling them Viking invaders then calling them Danes, and yes, the Danes came from Denmark and they did invade East Anglia. I was taught that the Danes made peace with East Anglia (by being paid off with horses) They then joined forces with the Vikings, the joint army then conquered Northumbria, then the Danes came back and conquered East Anglia.

Kings and Generals also made a series on this.

Remember the Scots as mentioned here are not the Scots as we know today. The Scots of old were Irish and they invaded and occupied the North East of Scotland, They spoke Irish while the south of today's Scotland were Britons and spoke a variety of welsh.

The Anglo-Saxons came from what was later Holstein in southern Denmark and northern Germany, and from the various and sundry lowlands (the Netherlands, Belgium) and parts of Normandy. The Danes came from Jutland (northern Denmark) and southern Norway. None of these places were countries of their own at the time. Also, there's roughly 400 years between the Anglo-Saxon migration and the Dane invasion.

Wales is very mountainous and not easy to conquer. The rest of the island is fairly flat until you reach the highlands in the north of what is now Scotland.

no...the romans named britain and london but it as existed for thousands of years with many many different names.. no the scots came from ireland..ireland used to be called scotia

You might look into the immigrations and invasions before the “Britons”. Before the Romans there were Celts, but they weren’t the first there either.

The Anglo saxons and Danish are the same peoples, Danes come from Denmark they are the same people just separated by 200 years

If yall dont wanna learn then GEEEEDDDOOUUT

Danes were from Denmark the name similarity is pretty obvious, Angles were Danes Saxons were Northern Germany (both Germanic peoples), Its hard to understand because back then Germans weren't a thing, Germanic peoples were southern migrating Norse people during the bronze age which became Germanic hence the very similar languages and worship of gods, Odin in Norse and Wodan in Saxon, the natives of Britain were since before Roman times would have been Celtic, a Europe wide culture (it seems) that was seen as barbaric from Roman eyes hence the subjugation of the Gauls (although that is another story that was a result of a Northern Celtic peoples sacking Rome many centuries prior which some historians believe the Romans never truly got over and hence the rest is history and which led to Caesars conquest of Gaul and eventually Britain. In my opinion, during the bronze age Europe was mostly Celtic culture but was invaded from the North by the Germanic peoples (Bronze age Norse) and from ther South by the Latin Romans. The remnants of Celt is evident in modern Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany (in France) and Northern Portugal/Spain.

Side note. Tolkien completely created several languages most notably Elvish, which has several dialects. All before writing Lord of the Rings

You should watch The Last Kingdom on Netflix, it's historical fiction based on the books " The Saxon chronicles " by Bernard Cornwell. It's fiction but based from facts dealing with this exact time.

The video misses out about 150 years of the Septarchy; politics and wars between the Germanic settler kingdoms. Perhaps that's why it's a bit confusing. It moves straight on to the Viking period. Dumbed down...

The natives are the 12 or so kingdoms of the Britons, that were actually here before the Romans.

3:20 Don't know how Knowledgia made such an error but no it was not the Picts and the Scots, it was the Picts and the Irish. The Scot or Scoti at the time was basically meant a Gael or Irish tribe in British island usually in the north that would become modern-day Scotland.

As an Englishman you're right it is confusing. Saxons/Anglo-Saxons (same thing iirc) = Englishman. They migrated from Northern Germany from the location known as Saxony (or close to it). Whether or not the English Saxons founded Saxony is unknown to me, but it's plausible. Also the Picts were comprised of the Scottish with the Irish & Welsh calling themselves Celts and/or Gauls. They migrated from what is today France.

The Angles and saxons came from modern day Germany Netherlands etc- not Scandanavia.

What happened to the jutes

In Northern Britain there were a few main tribes..the Picts themselves were a tribal confederation. The Scots ..where from what is called Northern Ireland and had migrated to what they called Argyle..the Coast of the Gaels and took certain of the Western Isles as their own, The area of modern Scotland called Strathclyde was called Al Cluthe.. that was a Kingdom in its own right as well, And included what is now called Cumbria in NW England today.. they were ancient Britons as well. Your video is missing much. The modern Welsh are descended from the ancient Britons. Most of what is called England today still have genetic ancient Britons in their DNA

The video starts with the Romans leaving, it’s not describing the situation before the Romans.

The Britons are Welsh

These were not names from "Lord Of The Rings". It is the other way around.