Return to Dux

It had been a long time since my first game of Dux Brittaniarum, and I was glad to get another go last Saturday. My knowledge of the rules was rusty and although I picked up the basics soon enough, I didn't get the finesse of card hand management.

Dick and I set up a campaign in the kingdom of Caerwent, where former Saxon auxiliaries had turned on their former Roman employers around 550 AD. In spring my Saxons under lord Artelric ambushed a Romano-British waggon train. And although I successfully distracted some good enemy units with some warriors, I always found myself one step behind in a tit for tat with the rest of the enemy. It had been a pretty chaotic raid, and by the end Artelric's men were slowly rounded up in a small area. A last ditch attempt to capture the wagons failed and the remnants of his force fled.

Later that summer the rejuvenated warband returned to raid a village but just as his men started to search the houses for loot, the Romano-British appeared out of nowhere. Again, I was on the receiving end and despite some serious retribution again Artelric's men left the field empty handed.

By now Artelric's nickname The Martyr has raised some suspicion among his following about his chances of success in the future. Getting wounded every time surely doesn't help although his willingness to get into the thick of the fighting stands him in good stead. It is to be hoped that he and his devout henchmen One-Eyed Aelfwyn and Ine the Pious will be able to turn around the series of bad luck, because there is little time until winter and payment to king Cwichelm is due...

Britain After Rome: Lots Going On in the Dark

Robin Fleming’s book is a great counterpoint to the political histories of the period. Because of the archeological evidence the book is strong on demographic, social and economic developments, and this allows stronger focus on the general population and women in particular than the written record. 

My battleworn copy

Especially the last chapter is a showcase for the power of archaeology to (re)create real stories of common people from physical evidence. The first part focuses on the high number of women dying before their 35^th birthday (often in childbirth) and its effects on society, like the many orphans. The second part, recording a live burial of a struggling woman suggests punishment or ritual burial of slaves with their masters. And the last one shows the high death toll in towns and the terrible hygienic conditions of people living close to their neighbours and animals.

And there's a host of similar episodes spread around the book that I haven't got time to mention here, but give a fresh look at what we call the Dark Ages based on relatively new evidence. But while the firm foundation in archaeology is the strength of this book, the long, speculative interpretation occasionally becomes a grind.

The archeological data frequently challenges the written record. Fleming suggests that the coming of the ‘Saxons’ (as most scholars now accept, it was a very mixed population of Germanic people from present day Northern France up to Denmark) was a lot less violent than suggested by the literary sources which were written later, sometimes centuries, than the actual events and who had their own agenda. According to Fleming the kingdoms of the 7^th and 8^th centuries used conquest myths to stress their legitimacy.

Archeological finds also point towards the conclusion that Roman economic decline started a few generations before the legions left for the continent in 410. Population had been declining during this period and continued even faster as Roman presence ended and political and economic fragmentation set in.

This suggests in Fleming’s view that there was room for newcomers, while few graves from this period show violent deaths, nor a heavily militarised society. However, I think even the smaller Romano-British population would maintain a claim to the land and it is unlikely they would have relinquished it totally without struggle. Also, men dying on the battlefield would not be buried in their home villages. 

The newcomers mixed easily with the Romano-British. Based on the lack of high status burials in this period, Fleming concludes that the 5^th and 6^th centuries saw a remarkably egalitarian society. It also contained a wide local variation of combinations of Romano-British and Germanic elements, with individuals picking and choosing elements from different cultures to create their own styles. Identities became very local, as opposed to the Romano-British elite which had focused on the fashions of its continental counterparts. The immigrants also, even though they described themselves as Saxons or Angles, were in fact leading very different lives from their grandparents. 

Would social structures be imported from the continent with the immigrants or would they assimilate into some sort of ‘melting pot’ as in the United States in the 19th century?

From the late 6^th / early 7^th century there are signs of economic recovery and rapid political concentration. First, a few dozen regional powers developed, which then coalesced into stronger kingdoms, like Mercia, that dominated the others. However, the subjugated kingdoms retained a high degree of independence. But the high level of competition forced all kings to find ways to stay on top of the political food chain. This found expression in increasingly high status burials.

Kings stimulated urban renewal by granting lands (hagae) to lords and monasteries. Two new sources of income for kings in the 7^th century were the tolls levied on town markets and industry, as well as coin minting. The increasing number of locally produced coins found in hoards and around commercial buildings shows that money returned to the economy. 

Christianity also offered several boons to ambitious kings. First of all, clerics could provide a powerful administrative force to a king, increasing the utility of his resources. Secondly, Christianity became a fashionable status attribute, and as it became more accepted by powerful lords, it became expedient for their followers and subjects to convert as well. This would lead to a chain reaction of conversions down client networks. But the archeological evidence suggests that many pagan symbols and rituals continued or were incorporated in Christian burial rites.

While during the 7^th and 8^th centuries the general tendency was towards concentration and consolidation, the coming of the Vikings overthrew the status quo. In certain parts of Britain it seems that regular institutions collapsed, and in others it forced them to adapt to the crisis.

The coming of the norsemen for example strengthened the power of the Saxon kings, as they found clerical and secular lords more easily accepted their protection. In the 9^th century, the resurgent Saxons strove to bind the recovered territories more firmly to them and transferred their institutions as well as their authority (unlike the 7^th century kings).

A major new Saxon institution was the burh, the fortified town. The support for protection of these towns was linked to landholding. The burhs developed into central places, combining trade and administrative functions, with the sheriff (shire-reeve) as the representative of royal authority. Finds reveal commercial expansion and increasing sophistication.

While the Danes had been able to bring a large area of England under their control, and many of the erstwhile raiders settled, archeological finds suggest that the norsemen mixed as easily with the Saxons and other people in Britain as the Saxons had done with the Celts and Romano-British in the 5^th and 6^th centuries. And again the genetic mix was matched by social and cultural interaction that defies orderly generalisation.

Fleming puts much store on bottom up agency and tends to interpret developments not as the result of kings' decisions, but of social phenomena driven by local lords and townspeople. Money in this period was not primarily a means of market transactions, but a means to monetise tribute, so lords and kings could easily buy status goods and pay for communal works. Local lords were able to impose tribute on their subjects. The physical evidence for this development shows more high status burials, suggesting more elaborate social stratification. By the 11^th century the Saxon thegn had become more like a gentleman farmer than a warrior elite. That role was increasingly played by royal household troops like the huscarls.

For wargamers the eclectic mix of genes, cultures and identities suggests that we have a lot of freedom to create our own stories. In the fragmented and dynamic societies of these two periods, any story we can come up with can probably have occurred somewhere. 

What chronicles call Saxons, could also be Franks, Frisians or even germanified Britons. Vikings can be Swedes but also assimilated inhabitants of the Orkneys. Clerics can be academic abbots sent from Rome but also local priests with little knowledge of the scriptures and their own ideas about dogma. Fact will often prove stranger than fiction.

Excellent painting again from Rene

Quick! Have a look at the blog of René van den Assem to see pictures of the new Saxons (by Musketeer Miniatures) that he painted for me. And the alternative versions. Stunning!

The Joy of Rampaging Through the Roman Empire

As much as I like my civilization games, there's a type of games I like even better: games which bring decay and destruction. I've always dreamed of a version of Avalon Hill's Civilization in which the players start with a fully developed civilization and then get hit by barbarians and other troubles and see their empires decay. That itch is scratched a little by Struggle for Rome, known in these parts as de Val van Rome.

In terms of mechanics the game is familiar but quite different from basic Settlers of Catan. The fixed map is an obvious change, but also the theme is much more warlike than other versions. The players have two tribes with which to invade the Roman empire, lay waste to its cities and establish kingdoms of their own.

The board is an abstraction of the map of Europe, with areas like all Settler boards. However, there are cities at some of the intersections, and some intersections are connected by sea. Also the map is divided in five regions (roughly Germany, France, Spain and Southern and Northern Italy).

Struggle for Rome combines stationary (cities) and mobile (tribes) centres for resource gathering. The randomness of the dice rolls is limited by having four different numbers rolled each turn, and turn order is changed so that all players gather resources, spend these on units or developments, take actions with their tribes in turn, rather than combining all these in their own turn.

There's four resources in three terrain types (mountain, arable and pasture) in this game. There's a neat twist when you draw pasture cards, because they give you either horses or oxen, and you may need one and not the other at this particular moment. Arable land offers you grain and mountains bring stone.

Movement is based on arrows on hexsides. In theory you can move as far as you like, but withing limits of your available resources. You may cross one arrow for free but pay for all the following. Arrows on land cost a grain card or three gold, and arrows at sea cost one gold.

You can pillage or conquer cities. Both require that your tribe has enough tribesmen to overcome the defences of the city, expressed in the number of its towers. When a town is pillaged, the countered placed on it before the start of the game is revealed. This shows whether tribesmen are lost in the attack and what the loot is. This may be gold, a pasture or a development card. When conquering a city, no loot is received, but the town now constitutes a victory point and generates resources in the bordering areas. However, it also ties down tribesmen. A tribe cannot conquer until it has pillage cities in three different regions.

As in many Settler variants, you strive to collect 10 victory points. As we've seen, each conquered city brings you one point, but there's a few alternatives that can determine your strategy for the game, as you can see in the two examples below.

Notice that southern Britain is included, but as two areas of wasteland

The first victory  last week was rather haphazard, as I bought a bunch of development cards early, that handed me two victory points on a plate. I then decided to go for Scourge of Rome by plundering cities in all five regions. After that I had some trouble to build enough towns, as my resources were coming in only slowly. In a neat move I denied my main competitor (who had extra points for his diplomats) the points for Scourge by conquering the last available town before his eyes. I won, but not far ahead of the competition.

The second game I ran for the extra points for conquering four cities with both my tribes. This strategy has the advantage of bringing in generous amounts of resources by the end of the game. Even though the competition was pretty fierce here as well, I managed to win again.

Don't be fooled though. Despite the warlike theme, the game does not call for much interaction between the players. You can't conquer or pillage the cities of other players. That allows for a bit of screwage by hemming other players in, but direct conflict is not on the cards.

So the game is still firmly in euroland, but much more dynamic than the original Settlers. There's less screwage and complexity than in Cities & Knights, but this is probably the best stand alone version of Settlers out there.

There's a small expansion involving the bigger cities, which you can download here.

Learning Dux Britanniarum the hard way

I guess I didn´t take the best approach to my first battle of Dux Britanniarum. Although I flicked through several parts of the rules, I hadn´t memorised them too well. Also the night before I didn´t sleep before 4 am and maybe could have left a few beers.

But anyway... I was there! And as I unloaded my troops, Dick and I went through creating my characters (yes, I pre rolled a group, but I didn't have the stats handy yesterday). This resulted in my leader Olwin being very average, and with no remarkable traits. My young noble Stig was an excellent horseman (might come in useful someday) while the other, Klapmund, was a local Briton. Stocky, but athletic.

We then selected the scenario and our points of entry. My raid was aimed at a village at the other side of the table, with Dick's forces entering the table halfway between me and the village. This meant that even if I managed to get past him to the village, I would have to get back through him on the way back. I decided to worry about getting back later.

My archers covering my troops against Dick's fully deployed battle line

So Klapmund with two groups of duguth (warriors) managed to race to the village past Dick's troops, while my other troops covered for them and then retreated back to the village facing of his deployed shield wall, There didn't seem to be a point in rushing at him in his strongest formation, while my troops were divided.

When Dick's milites (regulars) were forced to break up the shield wall to follow me up, I had Stig charge them with a group of gedridht, my elite warriors. This was fairly even against superior forces, but I decided to send in the other group as well to turn the balance in my favour. The milites fell back with some losses and a lot of shock, while I had only lost one man. But I had also lost Stig, who in his youthful zeal had tried to hard to gain his warrior's glory.

Stig leading his gedridht against the milites

Even as my gedridht fell back past the village, my warriors were unsuccessful in looting. And because Dick's elite comanipulares showed up, I couldn't try all the huts. At this point I decided to try to make it around Dick's troops while they were divided. I also hoped to gain a bit more speed.

This didn't work. Although I beat off a charge of Dick's numeri (levies), my gedridht lost heavily. And Dick could bring together his comanipulares and milites in shield wall under his own command. This allowed him to break up the shield wall, move and then enter shield wall again. In this way he could still catch me.

My gedridth exacting fearful retribution from the numeri

Although he received a bloody nose in that last fight, he broke up the last effective forces and my troops returned home scattered and I lost almost half of them in this raid. It will take me two months to build up my force again.

Dick´s losses were as heavy as mine (a monument to the skill and courage of my men, or the luck of the dice), so his victory didn't gain him much, except a bit of loot. Luckily for him, he didn't lose many elite troops nor levies, because these are most valuable.

A few lessons: defense is really difficult in these rules. Many combat cards are only useful in your own turn.

I also didn't have a good feeling for the effect of the combat cards before the game, so I didn't work as hard as Dick to prune my hand for the best combinations. That's something I need to study as well

But the battlefield is the better place to learn how to fight, so I'll just be grateful for the lessons I was taught and trust in better results next time.

Special delivery, coincidence and basing

Yesterday evening I was informed my new washing machine would be delivered today. Luckily I could skip today at work, so close to christmas.

This also allowed me to do a small chore I'd been putting off, but which really needs done: putting the magnetic tape on the bases of my Saxons. Tomorrow is their first day in battle! They'll be bled in a Dux Britanniarum battle facing Dick's Romano-British.

You see? Excellent fit!

Started yesterday evening late, to cut up the tape into 19mm squares or rectangles and cutting off the corners. Today's been gluing, with the odd mistake rectified (it does matter which side of the magnetic tape is on the bottom).


But the happy coincidence doesn't end there. So last week I'd ordered these magnetic tape circles to put under the round bases. Because that's a pain to cut yourself. You know what? They arrived just past lunch as well! Got it finished before the guys came to deliver the new washing machine.

I've got my basic army plus some archers ready now, the glue needing a bit of time to dry.

Very happy boy. This is the stuff I hate about modelling, so the less time it takes, the better!

Welsh starter army for SAGA and Dux Britanniarum

Also in the mail this week: a Gripping Beast starter army. Thanks Arvid!

Usable both for SAGA and  as British opponent for my Saxons in Dux Britanniarum. In that case it will need a few additions, but that's okay. No hurry.

Potential candidate for army painter treatment as well.

Notes on Britannia in the Roman Age

A few notes from Edge of Empire of interest to the situation in Britannia. See my review yesterday for more on the Low Countries.

Milestone commemorating the edge of the Roman Empire in Utrecht

Britannia was a grain exporting region, and also delivered to the garrisons on the lower Rhine. This testifies to the fertility of the land. After the Romans left, grain exports ceased, probably as much because of the lack of social organisation, as from the fall of population. 

I wonder whether and when the country became a grain exporting country again. As said, the loss of Britannia also effectively made the Rhine frontier undefendable. Even though grain might have been provided from further away, this would have been too expensive. 

Like Belgica, you could argue that considering its economic role and the relative peace, Britannia was part of the core of the Roman Empire rather than the outer ring. I would like to see whether Britannia was a net tax exporting region. This would give some indication whether it would be able to maintain the required defenses by itself (if politically united).

The North Sea in this period was more alive than I’d have thought. Considering that the large raids by Chauki pirates on the coast of Flanders in 47 and 172 AD were recorded, suggests that they were also active at other times. They probably also were part of the threat that led to the establishment of the Saxon Shore fortresses. Lendering and Bosman suggest that the Saxons took over the role of pirates. 

I'm now firmly in the camp that thinks that Saxon was a generic name for Germans from the continent in the 5th and 6th centuries..

Dutch 2010 edition

Also, with the establishment of Saxon settlements in Britannia, the North Sea effectively became an Saxon inland sea in the 5^th and 6^th centuries. This reminds me of discussions about the North Sea as an economic and cultural community in later periods, much like Braudel described for the Mediterranean. This means that the North Sea was a conduit of interaction (economic, cultural, social) rather than a barrier.

Edge of Empire review

De Rand van het Rijk. De Romeinen en de Lage Landen by  Jona Lendering and Arjen Bosman

Dutch 2010 edition

Edge of Empire, as it will be released in English, is in fact more of a military than a general history of the area between the Somme and the Weser in the Roman era. This is of course due to the remaining evidence, which mostly focuses on warfare.

The book starts off in earnest with the campaigns of Caesar in northern Gaul. The authors argue that the distinction between Gauls and Germans was not as strong as Caesar suggested (he had his own agenda to emphasize it). This remains a problem throughout this era of shifting tribal allegiances and confusion of ethnicity brought about by the fact that we mostly know these people through the heavily coloured writings of the Romans. Although the areas in the outer ring and even in Germania were Romanised over time, the clichés of the barbarians kept being used until the fall of empire.

In the 1^st century AD the Rhine border was consolidated, while there were attempts at expansion across the Rhine. Although colonisation beyond the great river proved unsustainable, Roman influence extended across the Rhine through alliances and divide and rule politics.

Under Roman rule, the difference in economic development between the southern area and the Rhine frontier became more pronounced. This difference is a recurring theme throughout the book. The province of Lower Germania was part of the outer crust of the Roman Empire and the garrisons were an economic stimulus. Belgica, on the other hand, was part of the core, and a net tax exporter. This meant that after Roman power diminished, the outer ring declined, while Belgica could hold out on its own.

This was most pronounced during crises, for example in the 3^rd century when internal conflict opened opportunities for external attacks. The new German alliances were more aggressive and more dangerous and mounted major incursions in 240 and 256-260.

The Gallic Empire under Postumus from 260-274 was a local response to the crisis in the absence of central aid. German troops were incorporated as foederati and more troops were stationed in the interior. However, in 274 the central authority was reasserted and troops were sent elsewhere at the expense of local garrisons. This in turn led to renewed incursions.

Although Belgica seems to have recovered well from the crisis, Lower Germany entered a long period of decline. The area north of the line Doornik, Bavay, Tongeren, Maastricht, Cologne was effectively given up as no mans land inhabited by German farmers. There is evidence that the language border shifted in this period as a result. The Frisians disappeared as a separate people and reappear as Saxons in present day Friesland. This was combined with ecological crises, like floods due to intensive salt pans.

Relative peace returned until troops from the west were called east in the crisis of 405-6, never to return. The abandonment of Britannia also meant the end of grain exports and maintaining the Rhine fortresses became unsustainable. Rome now effectively gave up the west.

Northern France and Belgium now became the power base for the Frankish kings. It remained a wealthy and self-supporting area and relatively stable as compared to the decline in the Mediterranean.

After the Frankish takeover a process of creeping Germanisation set in. Chlovis was still a Roman in name, but later Merovingians dropped all pretense. There is a tendency to paint the Germanisation as bringing along decline, but Lendering and Bosman argue that institutions like serfdom and feudalism not imported by Germans but already introduced by the Romans.

The book is well written in a clear style, much like its Roman examples. It´s richly illustrated with maps, portraits and photographs of archeological finds and reconstructions.

Lendering and Bosman emphasize the dearth of evidence and the extent of their conjecture. In many cases the archeological evidence points to different conclusions than the historical sources or contradictory historical sources must both be discounted.

  

The book is now reprinted in English as Edge of Empire - Rome's Frontier on the Lower Rhine and of course I heartily recommend it.

There's a few interesting tidbits relating to Britain at this time as well, which I will post later.

Dux Britanniarum characters

I've done the character generation for my Dux Britanniarum warband. The rules have a simple and reasonably fast method of generating characters through a few dice rolls. This results in characters with enough debth to add atmosphere to the game.

Lord Wilmar, the Tony Montana of the Dark Ages

My lord is Wilmar, born on this side (ie the British) of the waters from noble stock. All his life his desire has been to advance his status among his people and his actions tell the tale. This has gained him a reputation for ruthless ambition. While this makes him useful to a king, it is of course also a risk. And Wilmar would be wiser than to covet the wives of his master and peers.

Apart from your lord, there's two nobles and a champion. Wilmar's two nobles are Sasbout and Osmond.

Sasbout, the miser

Sasbout is Wilmar's elder cousin and likewise strong and tall. But he lacks his cousin's burning ambition and is instead thrifty and conscientious. Those people who have an interest in Wilmar´s carreer quietly hope that Sasbout proves a tempering influence on his lust for glory and carnal gratification.

Osmond, the flatulent

Osmond is younger than Wilmar and more slender. He is of low ancestry but his devotion to the gods makes him a dependable lieutenant. His gastric troubles, which no prayer or gift to the gods will drive away, make him the butt of many a joke.

Swidbert killed that wolf with his bare hands

Swidbert is Wilmar's champion, a distant relative from across the sea. The men are only separated by a moon in age, but the difference in appearance is striking. While Wilmar sticks out in a crowd himself, Swidbert towers even over him, bulky and bristling with muscles. Many times has he crushed his opponents by sheer strength.

As a Saxon noble, you don´t live in a political vacuum. Your ambitions are curtailed by your king. In Dux Britanniarum, the characteristics of the king are generated much like those of your nobles.  

Wilmar's king is called Markwart, an upstart bastard of peasant stock who has risen through the ranks through his skill at arms. Though pretty secure in his position, he´s just turned fifty-four and may soon meet his ancestors.

Now it's just waiting for a Romano-British opponent and an area for a campaign. Luckily, Derk has almost finished his army.

Saxons bring up reinforcements

 As if the Romano-British haven't enough to worry about, this is a bunch of Gripping Beast Franks I  received in the mail this weekend.

Army in a box

Bought from Marktplaats/eBay with some unpainted stuff, including a box of Gripping Beast Anglo-Saxon thegn for the SAGA period. It was reasonable value for money. The painting is okay (although not as good as René). This means I now also have ample cavalry and skirmishers.

Considering I also have some great minis from Musketeer coming in, that about settles my army for this period.

And then I find out they do prepainted dark ages buildings from Gripping Beast and Warlord. That'll be my next objective then.

More pics of my Saxons

Some more pictures of my Saxons. As said, they were painted excellently by René van den Assem. Check out his other work at his Paint_in weblog. Click on the images for close up.

A German warband

The gedrith or hearthguard, the close retainers of the lord

More gedrith

These will probably provide some of my named characters. You've got to love the dog minder and the shaman.

This is a warband of veteran warriors (duguth) in a linear formation with a fair bit of aggression

And finally a warband of duguth at ease

Now looking forward to my first game of Dux Britanniarum! I've been working on my main characters, who I will introduce to you soon.

First glimpse of my Saxons



Saxons are coming!

A quick snap of my newly painted figures. This was done with my not so great mobile, but I will do some better pictures with a better camera this weekend.

I am very pleased by the paint job René did, and I'll be happy to recommend his work to anyone. René really enhanced the already great sculpts of Gripping Beast.

In fact, these figures are not Saxons specific for Britain, but continental Germans. There's an overlap in miniatures between the two areas of course, but this gives my army a bit more identity.

quick update

Won't finish my Italian review tonight so just a quick update of what's going on in various projects.

WWI

In the works are three reviews of books on Italy around WWI, spanning the period from 1815 to 1922. I will publish them at the Maximum Effort blog.

Dark Ages

I also have a review of a book on the Low Countries in the Roman age in preparation which also gives pointers to the Dark Ages, with interesting implications for Post-Roman Britain.


I've found somebody to paint my Dux Britanniarum troops, and they are under way as we speak. The first game of Dux was played last Saturday at my club, Murphy's Heroes in Delft, and the impressions were favourable. I'm anxious to join in. By the way, there's a few nice new early Saxon models coming out through Musketeer miniatures. Especially Hengist and Horsa look awesome.

Vietnam

I've now shifted to reading stuff for the upcoming megagame Lost Youth on operations in Vietnam (London, September 15th). The stack of books waiting is higher than I can take on in the three weeks left, so I will pick and choose. Started out in Michael Herr's Dispatches and it's cracking. Halucinatory. I'll definitely be in the mood for that game.

Essen 2012

Also coming closer is Spiel in Essen, late October. Probably won't manage to play all the stuff I picked up last year (that lesson has been taken on board), but I've already made a first pick of games I will be checking out. See my geeklist on boardgamegeek. It's a work in progress, as the list of releases for Essen is not complete yet. More suggestions are welcome, of course.

Waterloo

I've talked to my friend who's writing the biography of the Prince of Orange and we're concocting a devious plan, which might alter my future. I'm very excited about it and I hope everything will come up sixes. So far I'm mostly collecting books, but in 2013 I aim to start reading them.

Back in town, open my mailbox...

And there it is: Dux Britanniarum!

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords, or the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!" Monty Python

I picked up The Saxon And Norman Kings by Christopher Brooke about a decade ago in a second hand book shop in London and I remember reading it on the trip or soon after. I enjoyed it a lot then, as it's an interesting book and well written. That's also what made me read it again for my Dark Ages project.

It starts out, not with biographies, but an overview of how kings were selected, what they did, the origin of kingship etc. Only then it turns to the more conventional chronological narrative up to the ascension of Henry II and the establishment of the Angevin monarchy.


Central in this book is the matter of succession. The question was not as formalised as in the later monarchies, and elements of inheritance or royal blood, election and designatio by the incumbent monarch all played a part. Historians have disagreed about which element here was the most important. As time went by, Brooke holds, the royal bloodline became ever more important and even though the suggestion of election is always there, it is not likely that it played a big role.

Except of course in a few very controversial cases. The choices for Harold Godwinson in 1066 and Mathilda in 1135 clearly turn in a different direction with the backing of the most important barons in the land. But Brooke would argue that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. In all the rules seem to have allowed for a certain lattitude. While not all kings could claim all three elements of legitimacy, one or two could be enough when backed with force.

The book also shows the close links between the Anglo-Saxon kings and the church, which did a lot for legitimacy and their historical record. Great sponsors of the church are still better documented and better received than those that looked upon the church as a necessary evil or useful tool rather than a holy institution in its own right.

Obviously, this book was written without a lot of the archeological evidence available today and its far from complete. Nevertheless, it gives a good introduction to the age from an interesting viewpoint.

Minor Project: Dark Ages Skirmishing

There's two interesting new skirmish rulesets out (or on the verge of coming out) set in the Dark Ages: SAGA by Studio Tomahawk/Gripping Beast and Dux Brittaniarum by Two Fat Lardies. SAGA is set in the later period around 1,000 AD while Dux is set in the age of Arthur around 500 AD.


Anyone who's ever played Avalon Hill's classic boardgame Britannia can probably understand the fascination of this period. Not only was Britain invaded by consecutive waves of invaders, there's also an epic quality to these small bands of adventurers carving out their kingdoms on foreign shores: Hengest & Orsa, Swein Forkbeard, Harald Hardrada and of course William.

On the opposing side are always the desperate invaders-turned-incumbents like Arthur, Offa, Alfred and Harold Godwinson. Their tragic fates lend a melancholy quality to the age.

You can also understand I was immediately taken in by the prospect of playing scenario based skirmishes with a limited number of miniatures rather than sizeable armies that would take ages to collect and paint.


I've ordered a German/Anglo-Saxon starter armer of 44 figures from Gripping Beast for Dux, and a first bunch of 40 plastic Vikings for SAGA. The miniatures are fine, and very good value for money as far as I'm concerned. I liked the Germanic sculpts better than the other Arthurian factions I think are interesting, like the Picts and Scots. Vikings are just the coolest miniatures around for SAGA.

Now, knowing my time restraints, I intend to have them painted rather than take that on myself. This is a big decision, but I think the right one. Time is shorter than money, so I need to outsource and focus on what I do best, which is reading.


This means I have a bunch of books stacked up, and as you could see in my previous post, it is still growing. There's a few Ospreys, to get me running, like the Anglo-Saxon Thegn, Vikings, Arthurian Fortresses etc. There's also a few books with interesting articles on Dark Age warfare and finally a few broader monographs on the Age of Migrations and the Anglo-Saxons. Most of the latter cover both the Arthurian and the Viking period, so that's efficient information collection, eh?

I hope to put on a first few reviews shortly.

Back from Derbyshire

Yesterday I dove head first into the kelidh to celebrate my good friend Nick's birthday. As the Dutch team failed to score against the Danes, this proved the superior choice. Much fun was had by all and the weekend was lovely, despite the parsimony of English weather: dry but not enough blue in the sky to make shorts.

For some reason, Nick felt it was necessary to give me a copy of Garmonsway's Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I've had much fun looking at the differences between the versions and sifting through the kind of stuff that would interest the monks that wrote it: the death and installation of popes, bishops and abbots. Never forget that most of our impressions of medieval monarchs are based on the opinion of ecclesiastics, who had their own axes to grind.

On the way back I dipped into the bookstore at the airport and couldn't resist a 3 for 2 Sonderangebot. The main inspiration was David Edgerton's book on the mobilisation of the Empire in Britain's War Machine. I got excited by the tables of British and overseas production as well as the maps of oil pipelines and major centres of war production. Topping that is the list of highest awards from the Royal Commission of Awards for Inventions! Edgerton weaves contemporary and newly made graphics very well and I look forward to reading it some day.

The Sonderangebot formed a pretext to buy two more books on Anglo-Saxons (my present minor project). On the one hand A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons by Geoffrey Hindley and on the other Simon Young's A.D. 500. A Journey Through The Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland. The former is a rather conventional history, while the latter is set up as a sort of fictional travel guide, written from the perspective of a Byzantine. That makes it a perfect background for a campaign set during the first Anglo-Saxon invasions. I hope to have more elaborate reviews of these books in the coming months.