BBC TV Series in 8 episodes
Episode One
What I learned from the TV series ‘King and Conqueror’ Episode 1
- The Saxons and Normans said ‘f*ck’ a lot.
- All historical records referring to Winchester as the Saxon capital are wrong as actually it was London.
- Men never washed their faces and attended coronations looking filthy in filthy clothes. Women wore clean ironed and pressed frocks and washed their faces. (Karen suggests this sounds historically accurate).
- The Saxons and Normans could chat cheerfully in one language. Was this Old Norse as both had Viking relatives? Or Anglo-Saxon? Or Norman French? Latin? The main relative seems to be the Danish Cnut who apparently couldn’t spell his own name, reversing the central letters.
- While Winchester Cathedral in the 10th century was briefly the largest church in Europe, by the 1040s they went to London and got crowned (coronated?) in wooden buildings instead.
- The coronation of Edward was 1043, which means William must have slipped in secretly as all records show his first visit to England as 1051. In 1043 he was only fifteen (born 1028). He looks old for his age.
- London was about 500 yards square with a wooden fence round it.
- The Saxons lived in wooden buildings only. The Normans lived in elaborate tents. The stone Saxon church remnants we see are due to time travel.
- Women were more powerful than men and ran the countries. Matilda of Normandy was an adept torturer. Good at cutting off hands and red hot pokers to the face. Emma ruled England. Emma had been queen twice with both Aethelread the Unready (he didn’t see that name coming) and Cnut. She was the mother of Harthacnut who was only half as much of a cnut as Cnut was. Then she was the mother of Edward.
- Even though ‘droit de seigneur’ was a Norman term, the Saxon Sweyn practised it enthusiastically.
- After rescuing William from bandits, Harold put his dripping blood stained sword straight back in its scabbard. I thought one wiped it on the grass, or on the slain enemy’s clothing first. Scabbards were expensive.
- You can ride a horse from London to Dover and back in about an hour. It’s only 78 miles. William landed at Dover, what with the ferry terminal being there.
- Edward the Confessor was raving mad and carried St Swithin’s digit around with him. One dreads to hazard where he inserted it.
- The Mercians were violent bandits. I accept that as true because I’ve seen Aston Villa football fans.
- The French (as opposed to the Normans) were conniving untrustworthy murdering bastards.
- King Henri becomes King Henry, as the actor can’t do the correct Inspector Clouseau accent which French people should have when speaking English which is supposed to be French.
- They lived in colour in those days, much as we do now, but their war photographers only had black and white cameras as we see in the Battle of Hastings footage during the credits.
Still, seven episodes to go. I expect I can extend this.
Peter Viney's Blog 
Also,
Actually, I found it impossible to identify any story line in the first episode that was was plausible. Even given the fact that the written records for the period are very patchy every storyline could be disproved by what little we do know.
LikeLike