What was actually being chanted yesterday that caused the announcement?

Religion is like Marmite, you like it or you do'nt, me personally i'm a Marmite

 

Lover or hater. ?

 

More that parts of France were a region of England but you could also argue that the English monarchs of the time were more French than English. I think Richard I spent very little of his life actually in England and his first language was French.

 

With a body like mine i'm a lover, and with Marmite a lover too.

 

That is a very anglocentric revision . England was ruled by a region of France. But its all a bunch of inbreds dick-waving really

 

Normandy. Hence the term Normans.

 

Yeah his brother John stayed at home looking after his mother and fleeing across the wash with the crown jewels when he thought Richard was coming home. Apparently his train sank and a lot of expensive jewels and gold were washed away.

 

Were all related at some point along the way one of our ancestors will av bin raped or impregnated by somebody that shunt av been there,

 

Less than you probably think, you have to go back to the crusades/Arab conquests and the wars of the reformation to find conflicts which were genuinely religiously motivated wars.
When religion is co-opted by the state you get people justifying war by religion, that doesn’t mean people are fighting over whos God is right. The cannons of all the major world religions advocate peace before war.

 

It was actually the Plantagenets by the time of the Crusades. Not the Normans. Those of the 3 Lions crap..

 

Hey Ponty, I thought you were having a go at Normy there.

 

All ture however its probably easier to convince someone to fly a plane into a building if they genuinely belive in a reward in the afterlife.

 

It's more complex than that, which is why we ended up in so many wars in the middle ages.

To start with Normandy was a dukedom of Guillaume (neve called William in his lifetime) who gave his loyalty (fealty) to the King of France.

Guillame invaded England (famously, it's what he's mainly known for) in 1066 and became King. So he's a King of England and a Duke of France, he holds England in his own right, but still gives fealty to the King of France for Normandy.

Move on a few Kings and Queens and the King of France has taken back Normandy because John was a weak king and his brother Richard I dicked around the daughter of the King of France by saying he's marry her and then married someone else.

However, the King of England still has lands in France - Aquitaine/Gascony which were acquired by marriage through Eleanor of Aquitaine a few kings back yo which every few years the current King still has to go to France and kiss the hand of the King of France and swear loyalty which as a king in their own right really pissed them off.

So, Edward III finally has enough, claims he is the rightful King of France and starts the Hundred Years War.

But from William I down to Edward II all those Kings of England swore fealty to the King of France for their holdings in France and they all identified as French, they spoke French as a first language, the language at court was French, the nobility were all similarly French speakers and identified the same.

England was in all but name, a colonised country owned by French nobility.

 

Arguing over religion is akin to arguing over a comic book. Lots of fictional characters. Fascinating how many people can take offence about religion. Christianity v Islam or Marvel v DC.

 

In my defence I was trying to be brief. It's a fascinating period of history though.

 

Most fascinating, over the last two years I set myself a challenge to better understand the UK, I started with the Anglo-Saxon "invasion" and am currently up to Edward III in around 1346/Battle of Crecy.

But it's mainly been a traditional history, a history of kings and battles.

Once I've done them I want to move on to a social history, find out about the serfs and villeins, fashion, food and religion. What made people tick.

I have found out about Roland the Farter, a jest for Henry II, Each year he was obliged to perform "Unum saltum et siffletum et unum bumbulum" (one jump and whistle and one fart) for the King's court at Christmas.

 

No chanting from East stand, just moaning that we were sat in someone's seat

 

Insurance fraud.

 

I wonder if that's where shake, rattle and roll comes from?

 

Al-Qaeda would be still herding goats and Camels in the deserts of the middle east if the secular forces of the West hadn't rained first money and then bombs on them. Hundreds of millions of people get along fine with Islam without the need to kill or harm anyone.