"To drive from Campania to Tuscany is to travel between continents, such are the cultural contrasts between southern and northern Italy. [...] England’s regional differences are notably smaller."
Apples and oranges, surely. Our country is not England, but Britain (or the Yookay), and the differences between England and Wales or Scotland are substantial. Likewise, the difference between Northern and Southern Italy reflects the fact that they were different countries until 1861; what we think of as Southern Italy is basically the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
I agree, though, that the differences within Italy are particularly stark, as I noticed recently getting on a night train in genteel Turin and waking up in chaotic Bari. Walking through Sicilian towns past cafes populated with an all-male clientele, you could believe you were in Morocco. Even Naples feels rather North African.
Northern Italy was originally Keltic to which the assorted Germanic invaders, especially the Lombards, added a further a northern European strain. Southern Italy was heavily colonized by the Greeks. And central Italy was home to the Etruscans whose wider connections are obscure-- and their vassal city, Rome.
"Tom Holland, author of a biography of Athelstan among other things, has suggested that a united England was not inevitable and that the Scandinavian dominated north was already distinct enough to have developed into a different country (with perhaps the region north of the Tees, which avoided Viking conquest, becoming part of greater Lothian)."
Of course without the condition of shared struggle against the Norsemen in the first place, there would not have been the same generation of "Asabiyyah" against a common opponent among the kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Hence, it is probable that England would have evolved in a direction similar to Ireland with multiple rival kingdoms existing in loose association with each other.
I spent a lot of time in Italy about 25 years ago for my work and I was able to speak and understand a good bit of Italian. My main locus was Naples and when you get into the heart of the city in the bars and restaurants they speak Neopolitan which is very different from Italian - I couldn't understand a word of it.
Re: The Percys – the inspiration for House Stark in George RR Martin’s northern retelling of the English national story - were among the leading players in the War of the Roses
But so were the Nevilles whom the Lancastrian kings raised up to become a counterbalance to the Percys-- though the clan ended up becoming the bane of Lancaster in the War of the Roses.
It's not entirely accurate, but there is some truth to it.
The Wars of the Roses were not a battle between Lancashire and Yorkshire. A lot of people get this wrong. It was actually a fight between two families - the House of Lancaster and the House of York. They were like two big teams, each with their own symbol - a red rose for Lancaster and a white rose for York. That's how the wars got their name. These families were not just from one place, they had lands and supporters all over England. So, it's not about the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but about the noble families of Lancaster and York. The House of Lancaster and the House of York were like two rival branches of the royal family. They didn't just own land in one area, they had it all over the country. And their supporters came from all over England too. So, when we talk about the Wars of the Roses, we're talking about a big fight between these two powerful families, not just a local dispute between two counties. It's a common mix-up, but now you know the story behind the Wars of the Roses.
The idea that the conflict can be divided into north and south is a bit too simple. But in the early days of the fighting, there was a clear pattern based on where people lived. After Edward IV, a Yorkist, took the throne in 1461, the queen he replaced, Margaret of Anjou, who was a Lancastrian, went north and got a lot of support from the people who lived there. On the other hand, the people in London and the southeast mostly supported the Yorkists. The Battle of Towton in 1461 is a good example of this - it's often seen as a battle between the north and the south.
The implicit lesson here for Andy Burnham is that he's raging against geography in his attempt to create parity between north and south, rather like the blank slatists who would prefer genetics didn't have such a deterministic quality in how our lives unfold. Thomas Sowell would be tickled, at least.
"The most famous Catholic uprisings, the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536 and the Rising of the North in 1569, reflected the popularity of the old religion in this region. Strength of numbers and wealth meant that the South won this battle, although the North’s best years were ahead of it."
The North is often the last tragic holdout against various trends that take hold in the rest of the country be it the entrenchment of Norman rule, Protestantism, or the use of "thou" instead of "you". Also the use of "bairn" for "child" (in Old English, the latter meant "infant" or "embryo" originally).
Thank you as a child I read Sun of York by Ronald Welch and the wars of the Roses seemed to be characterised by people changing sides (Earl of Warwick), so I am surprised it can be between two places.
(For those who don't know anything about the wars of the Roses - changing sides doesn't always work well).
The notion that the north and west of Britain have harder rock and hillier terrain (and are therefore less fertile) is something of a received idea that in some ways is misleading. Just because Britain’s modestly-proportioned mountains are in the north and parts of the west, it doesn’t mean the north and much of the west are mountainous. Take Scotland. Until around 1650-1700, the population could be kept well-fed from the flatter country of the south of Scotland, the central belt and Fife. The sun does shine in Scotland, just for not quite as long as down south. Scotland has a large coastline for its area, with sea that provides mackerel and other cold water fish (need to check which, probs cod and herring). Even the Highlands have mega-fauna, or at least midi-fauna, in the shape of deer (and plenty of fish, including salmon). Furthermore, the economic success of England was for many centuries - starting as far back as the days of Rome - based on the export of wool. Sheep and hills go together, and everyone benefited, though those who benefited most were the big London traders through whom the wool was funnelled: the mercers, the merchant tailors (and haberdashers too maybe, except I’m not entirely sure what a haberdasher was or is). I think the idea that just because you can grow food you get richer is a bit of an oversimplification (but a widely believed one).
"The southern-dominated Yorkists won this battle, although one of their number, the future Richard III, spent most of his youth in Yorkshire and was probably the only English monarch to speak with a northern accent. As king, he was also the first ruler to make an attempt at regional devolution with a Council of the North, among many progressive innovations of his reign, and yet all everyone remembers is the nephew-murdering. Richard’s death was greeted with despair in York, and he remained popular in the region among Ricardians convinced of his innocence."
Ah, good old Richard III, the Maxentius of English history. Perhaps unjustly vilified by the propaganda of his successor who similarly started a dynasty to commence a theological revolution.
Yes. And Henry the Eighth wasn’t a Protestant really: the Church of England is/was much like the Roman church, with the monarch as the pope, bishops, palaces etc. High church C of E priests I believe can’t marry and they do confession (theology ain’t my strong suit, but they certainly aren’t Calvinists!)
No - all Anglican priests are at liberty to marry. I believe the quasi-Catholic Society of the Holy Cross (SSC, founded in 1855) encouraged clerical celibacy as an ideal, but never actually required it.
"To drive from Campania to Tuscany is to travel between continents, such are the cultural contrasts between southern and northern Italy. [...] England’s regional differences are notably smaller."
Apples and oranges, surely. Our country is not England, but Britain (or the Yookay), and the differences between England and Wales or Scotland are substantial. Likewise, the difference between Northern and Southern Italy reflects the fact that they were different countries until 1861; what we think of as Southern Italy is basically the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
I agree, though, that the differences within Italy are particularly stark, as I noticed recently getting on a night train in genteel Turin and waking up in chaotic Bari. Walking through Sicilian towns past cafes populated with an all-male clientele, you could believe you were in Morocco. Even Naples feels rather North African.
Naples really does feel like it’s part of the global south and after reading Gomorrah I felt like I would join the Liga if I was from Lombardy
Northern Italy was originally Keltic to which the assorted Germanic invaders, especially the Lombards, added a further a northern European strain. Southern Italy was heavily colonized by the Greeks. And central Italy was home to the Etruscans whose wider connections are obscure-- and their vassal city, Rome.
This took me back to Michael Wood's classic BBC documentary In Search of Erik Bloodaxe, available on YouTube and always worth a watch.
Did he ever find Erik Bloodaxe?
And why would you want to?
"Tom Holland, author of a biography of Athelstan among other things, has suggested that a united England was not inevitable and that the Scandinavian dominated north was already distinct enough to have developed into a different country (with perhaps the region north of the Tees, which avoided Viking conquest, becoming part of greater Lothian)."
Of course without the condition of shared struggle against the Norsemen in the first place, there would not have been the same generation of "Asabiyyah" against a common opponent among the kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Hence, it is probable that England would have evolved in a direction similar to Ireland with multiple rival kingdoms existing in loose association with each other.
"To drive from Campania to Tuscany is to travel between continents, such are the cultural contrasts between southern and northern Italy"
Here are a couple of good articles on the sheer linguistic diversity of Italy:
https://sjquillen.medium.com/ciceros-nightmare-the-linguistic-diversity-of-italy-part-i-160802625a2e
https://sjquillen.medium.com/ciceros-nightmare-the-linguistic-diversity-of-italy-part-ii-f839a197f851
I spent a lot of time in Italy about 25 years ago for my work and I was able to speak and understand a good bit of Italian. My main locus was Naples and when you get into the heart of the city in the bars and restaurants they speak Neopolitan which is very different from Italian - I couldn't understand a word of it.
Re: The Percys – the inspiration for House Stark in George RR Martin’s northern retelling of the English national story - were among the leading players in the War of the Roses
But so were the Nevilles whom the Lancastrian kings raised up to become a counterbalance to the Percys-- though the clan ended up becoming the bane of Lancaster in the War of the Roses.
It's not entirely accurate, but there is some truth to it.
The Wars of the Roses were not a battle between Lancashire and Yorkshire. A lot of people get this wrong. It was actually a fight between two families - the House of Lancaster and the House of York. They were like two big teams, each with their own symbol - a red rose for Lancaster and a white rose for York. That's how the wars got their name. These families were not just from one place, they had lands and supporters all over England. So, it's not about the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but about the noble families of Lancaster and York. The House of Lancaster and the House of York were like two rival branches of the royal family. They didn't just own land in one area, they had it all over the country. And their supporters came from all over England too. So, when we talk about the Wars of the Roses, we're talking about a big fight between these two powerful families, not just a local dispute between two counties. It's a common mix-up, but now you know the story behind the Wars of the Roses.
The idea that the conflict can be divided into north and south is a bit too simple. But in the early days of the fighting, there was a clear pattern based on where people lived. After Edward IV, a Yorkist, took the throne in 1461, the queen he replaced, Margaret of Anjou, who was a Lancastrian, went north and got a lot of support from the people who lived there. On the other hand, the people in London and the southeast mostly supported the Yorkists. The Battle of Towton in 1461 is a good example of this - it's often seen as a battle between the north and the south.
Neat comment.
"Lindisfarne Gospels being taken from Durham Cathedral and placed in London, where it remains, the North’s version of the Elgin Marbles."
Do you mean they would've been destroyed if they had remained in the North?
The implicit lesson here for Andy Burnham is that he's raging against geography in his attempt to create parity between north and south, rather like the blank slatists who would prefer genetics didn't have such a deterministic quality in how our lives unfold. Thomas Sowell would be tickled, at least.
A quibble, but a serious one: genetics creates a probabilistic not a deterministic factor in human behavior and culture.
Strictly speaking you're right, but it didn't sound quite as good that way.
"The most famous Catholic uprisings, the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536 and the Rising of the North in 1569, reflected the popularity of the old religion in this region. Strength of numbers and wealth meant that the South won this battle, although the North’s best years were ahead of it."
The North is often the last tragic holdout against various trends that take hold in the rest of the country be it the entrenchment of Norman rule, Protestantism, or the use of "thou" instead of "you". Also the use of "bairn" for "child" (in Old English, the latter meant "infant" or "embryo" originally).
Masterly marshaling of detail to make a point about north and south - and readable! Glad to subscribe.
I had not heard of ‘Londonburh’ before. I suppose that’s why some still say ‘London Town’.
I have no fixed opinion, but since you bring up the Princes and seem well informed: who done it?
There was also 'Lundenwic' i.e. Londonwich, "about one mile west of Londinium, to the north of the present Strand."
hence Aldwych, or old city
I hadn't heard this
"the War of the Roses, which despite the name was in some ways more of a conflict between north and south than Lancashire and Yorkshire."
Where can I read more?
Fatal Colours is a good popular history
Thank you as a child I read Sun of York by Ronald Welch and the wars of the Roses seemed to be characterised by people changing sides (Earl of Warwick), so I am surprised it can be between two places.
(For those who don't know anything about the wars of the Roses - changing sides doesn't always work well).
I wonder what the Muslim version of this history will be 50 years hence, based on what I am seeing in the press!
Very interesting
The notion that the north and west of Britain have harder rock and hillier terrain (and are therefore less fertile) is something of a received idea that in some ways is misleading. Just because Britain’s modestly-proportioned mountains are in the north and parts of the west, it doesn’t mean the north and much of the west are mountainous. Take Scotland. Until around 1650-1700, the population could be kept well-fed from the flatter country of the south of Scotland, the central belt and Fife. The sun does shine in Scotland, just for not quite as long as down south. Scotland has a large coastline for its area, with sea that provides mackerel and other cold water fish (need to check which, probs cod and herring). Even the Highlands have mega-fauna, or at least midi-fauna, in the shape of deer (and plenty of fish, including salmon). Furthermore, the economic success of England was for many centuries - starting as far back as the days of Rome - based on the export of wool. Sheep and hills go together, and everyone benefited, though those who benefited most were the big London traders through whom the wool was funnelled: the mercers, the merchant tailors (and haberdashers too maybe, except I’m not entirely sure what a haberdasher was or is). I think the idea that just because you can grow food you get richer is a bit of an oversimplification (but a widely believed one).
"The southern-dominated Yorkists won this battle, although one of their number, the future Richard III, spent most of his youth in Yorkshire and was probably the only English monarch to speak with a northern accent. As king, he was also the first ruler to make an attempt at regional devolution with a Council of the North, among many progressive innovations of his reign, and yet all everyone remembers is the nephew-murdering. Richard’s death was greeted with despair in York, and he remained popular in the region among Ricardians convinced of his innocence."
Ah, good old Richard III, the Maxentius of English history. Perhaps unjustly vilified by the propaganda of his successor who similarly started a dynasty to commence a theological revolution.
Henry VII started a new dynasty but he was a good Catholic (as much so as any king).
His descendants/successors very much weren't though.
Mary I was. His daughters Mary and Margaret were also Catholic throughout
Yes. And Henry the Eighth wasn’t a Protestant really: the Church of England is/was much like the Roman church, with the monarch as the pope, bishops, palaces etc. High church C of E priests I believe can’t marry and they do confession (theology ain’t my strong suit, but they certainly aren’t Calvinists!)
No - all Anglican priests are at liberty to marry. I believe the quasi-Catholic Society of the Holy Cross (SSC, founded in 1855) encouraged clerical celibacy as an ideal, but never actually required it.
I see. Do some “do” confession? Not sure what the correct term is. Take? Hear?