Did the Targaryens colonize Westeros?

[KingAerys_II]

12 minutes ago, _Rhaegar_Targaryen_ said:

No they weren’t lol. Both have little feats without dragon riding. Aegon slew a (Drumm?) and Visenya slew 1 or 2 assassins. 

Are you joking? Aegon was described as a peerless warrior, Lord Toland refused to face him in a duel. 

Visenya and Aegon escaped dozen assassination attempts. 

Targaryens without dragons are Dayne wielding Valyrian steel blades. 

Aemon the Dragonknight, Daemon Blackfyre, Daeron I had no dragons, they were extremely dangerous. 

Meleys the Monstrous was a threat, he had no dragons

 

[KingAerys_II]

Targaryens are the only rulers that established laws for the smallfolk, some lords complained about the fact Aegon V spent time with lowborn people. 

 

[Maegor_the_Cool]

8 minutes ago, KingAerys_II said:

Are you joking? Aegon was described as a peerless warrior, Lord Toland refused to face him in a duel. 

Visenya and Aegon escaped dozen assassination attempts. 

Targaryens without dragons are Dayne wielding Valyrian steel blades. 

Aemon the Dragonknight, Daemon Blackfyre, Daeron I had no dragons, they were extremely dangerous. 

Meleys the Monstrous was a threat, he had no dragons

 

“are Dayne’s with VS” lol no. Arthur would wipe them easily. Aegon, Visenya, Jaehaerys, Daemon T, aren’t even the top 20 of Westerosi warriors.
 

And Lord Toland sent his “champion” to distract Aegon so he could escape and SUCCESSFULLY resist the Targaryens. He didn’t fight Aegon because it wasn’t the best thing for his people.

[KingAerys_II]

2 minutes ago, _Rhaegar_Targaryen_ said:

“are Dayne’s with VS” lol no. Arthur would wipe them easily. Aegon, Visenya, Jaehaerys, Daemon T, aren’t even the top 20 of Westerosi warriors.
 

And Lord Toland sent his “champion” to distract Aegon so he could escape and SUCCESSFULLY resist the Targaryens. He didn’t fight Aegon because it wasn’t the best thing for his people.

Arthur Dayne was a Kingsguard during Aerys reign. 

Aegon is described as a peerless warrior and Visenya is known to be the most skilled female warrior, that's what the biographies stated, nice try, anyway, read the thread, enjoy it and move on

[KingAerys_II]

Aegon unified Westeros as William did in Great Britain, so actually there is a parallel, William established the central government in England 

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, KingAerys_II said:

Aegon unified Westeros as William did in Great Britain, so actually there is a parallel, William established the central government in England 

No he didn't.

William was, more or less, the 15th king of England (it's possible to debate who the first one was, and there's one who often isn't counted). The centralised English government was established right from the start (indeed, across everywhere except Northumbria, before that), and was what helped to make the king of England unusually powerful among European kings, notwithstanding the small size of the kingdom. The ordered administration set up by the Saxon and Danish kings was one of the reasons England was such an attractive prize for William in the first place, and he did relatively little to bolster it.

But this government only extended across England. The king of Scots nominally owed fealty to the English king, but was de facto independent, and the king of Scots didn't control the whole of what is now Scotland: the western isles were independent and Moray may have been too. The situation in Wales varied but there was never direct control over all of Wales, and by 1066 most of Wales was functionally independent. In no way did William unify Great Britain: indeed arguably the island was more unified before the Norman Conquest than after it. 

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

Oh boy.  Another thread to bait Anti-Targaryen and Anti-Targaryen comments. I will bite but then also turn the tables around.  

The Targaryens rescued the people of Westeros from the abuses and the incompetent governance of the petty "kings" and families which ruled over them before the arrival of the Targaryens.  Rhaenys, Aegon, and Visenya rescued the people of Westeros from the likes of Harren, Durandon, Thoren, Torrhen Stark, and the rest.  The people were in need of better rulers and the Targaryens provided them with exactly that.  So is that colonizing?  I say no.  It was a mission of mercy to the people.  The Westeros that we know was built by the Targaryens.  It is in a bad way at the moment, thanks to the Baratheons, Greyjoys, Lannisters, and Starks.  

[SaffronLady]

5 hours ago, KingAerys_II said:

Arthur Dayne was a Kingsguard during Aerys reign. 

Aegon is described as a peerless warrior and Visenya is known to be the most skilled female warrior, that's what the biographies stated, nice try, anyway, read the thread, enjoy it and move on

It's just two pages in and your stubborness is beginning to show again.

[KingAerys_II]

11 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

No he didn't.

William was, more or less, the 15th king of England (it's possible to debate who the first one was, and there's one who often isn't counted). The centralised English government was established right from the start (indeed, across everywhere except Northumbria, before that), and was what helped to make the king of England unusually powerful among European kings, notwithstanding the small size of the kingdom. The ordered administration set up by the Saxon and Danish kings was one of the reasons England was such an attractive prize for William in the first place, and he did relatively little to bolster it.

But this government only extended across England. The king of Scots nominally owed fealty to the English king, but was de facto independent, and the king of Scots didn't control the whole of what is now Scotland: the western isles were independent and Moray may have been too. The situation in Wales varied but there was never direct control over all of Wales, and by 1066 most of Wales was functionally independent. In no way did William unify Great Britain: indeed arguably the island was more unified before the Norman Conquest than after it. 

I remembered Great Braitan was divided in three kingdoms: the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes. 

There was the Hadrian wall to isolate the Scots, this reminds me of the wildings 

[Hugorfonics]

14 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

No he didn't.

William was, more or less, the 15th king of England (it's possible to debate who the first one was, and there's one who often isn't counted). The centralised English government was established right from the start (indeed, across everywhere except Northumbria, before that), and was what helped to make the king of England unusually powerful among European kings, notwithstanding the small size of the kingdom. The ordered administration set up by the Saxon and Danish kings was one of the reasons England was such an attractive prize for William in the first place, and he did relatively little to bolster it.

But this government only extended across England. The king of Scots nominally owed fealty to the English king, but was de facto independent, and the king of Scots didn't control the whole of what is now Scotland: the western isles were independent and Moray may have been too. The situation in Wales varied but there was never direct control over all of Wales, and by 1066 most of Wales was functionally independent. In no way did William unify Great Britain: indeed arguably the island was more unified before the Norman Conquest than after it. 

Question, aren't the Saxons Danes? (Although for clarity I'd say the Saxons were "colonists" while the "Danes" were conquerors... although actually maybe not, I mean they'd probably call themselves colonists. So much for clarity. ) So, of course this isn't really true, I mean the power of William definitely reaches further then England, although its probably the other way around. William of Normandy was a vassal to Paris who in turn probabaly owed some type of allegiance to the HRE. If anything, to my understanding, William kinda brings England back into European politics, unified in that way,  which the Danes were I guess also trying to do, in their own Danish way. But yea, definitely not like Aegon (who did not conquer and unify all of westeros anyway lol)

 

2 hours ago, KingAerys_II said:

I remembered Great Braitan was divided in three kingdoms: the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes. 

There was the Hadrian wall to isolate the Scots, this reminds me of the wildings 

Very jumbled.  The Roman's called it Britannia, the three germanic tribes invaded Enlgand a while after Rome abandoned her and Hadrians Wall. The fact that the celts above Hadrians stayed autonomous is really just a  coincidence 

[Alester Florent]

2 hours ago, KingAerys_II said:

I remembered Great Braitan was divided in three kingdoms: the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes. 

There was the Hadrian wall to isolate the Scots, this reminds me of the wildings 

I don't know where you've been getting your history, but... no.

Firstly, and this is important, Great Britain is the entire island, not just England. (Spoilered for length)
 

Spoiler

The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were three Germanic tribes who began to migrate to/invade Roman Britain (which never included the whole island) as Roman power began to decline. There were also Frisians. By about 500 there were a number of kingdoms covering Britain, including native Britons, Irish, Picts, and Anglo-Saxons. Traditionally, in what is now England, there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, although the number varied from upwards of ten to, eventually, four. In 927, following a prolonged struggle against Viking invaders, the kings of Wessex established control over all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and formed the "Kingdom of England". Athelstan, the first such king, also received homage from the kings of Scotland and Gwynedd (functionally, Wales, at that point) but these were not subject to his direct rule. Hadrian's Wall was by this point an irrelevance, a Roman fortification that had been abandoned for centuries.

In 1013-16 an invasion by Denmark ousted the Wessex kings. The last Danish king, Harthacnut, died without heirs in 1042 and the throne passed back to the house of Wessex (the senior member of whom, Edward, was his half-brother). When Edward died in 1066 he left a contested succession with four candidates: the last member of the house of Wessex, Edgar (who was about 13-14), William of Normandy (a cousin to Edward on his mother's side), Harald Hardrada, the king of Norway (who claimed to be Harthacnut's legal heir) and Harold Godwinson, the most powerful English noble. Harold Godwinson was elected and was immediately faced with invasion by Harald and William; he defeated (and killed) the first but was in turn defeated and killed by the latter. Edgar was hastily elected king to oppose William but the heart had gone out of the English resistance and William took the throne by conquest. Edgar fled to Scotland, where he continued to make trouble for the Norman kings.

So in summary, William didn't create or unify anything. England had been a unified kingdom for over a hundred years before he arrived (apart from a very brief period of partition in 1016). What William did do was: (a)bring over a bunch of Normans to completely replace the English aristocracy and senior clergy, and change the language of government to French; (b) make a bunch of legal changes to land ownership and government systems which in due course made the kingdom (and the army) less centralised and more at the mercy of local lords, (c) lay waste to a huge area of northern England following a rebellion, which some estimate killed or permanently displaced around 75% of the population; and (d) by uniting England and Normandy under his rule, directly embroil England in the political situation in mainland France, which would have lasting consequences for both countries.

He also didn't conquer, or rule over, Scotland or Wales. While the English kings claimed suzerainty over both, this was largely on paper, especially in the case of Scotland, and the Norman kings were generally less successful at asserting their overlordship than the Saxon kings had been. Neither was politically unified with England until centuries after William's death.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Alester Florent

[KingAerys_II]

Targaryens are very similar to Varangians, the Viking rulers that were called by Slavic tribes to end the belligerent situation among the tribes

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Hugorfonics said:

Question, aren't the Saxons Danes? (Although for clarity I'd say the Saxons were "colonists" while the "Danes" were conquerors... although actually maybe not, I mean they'd probably call themselves colonists. So much for clarity. ) So, of course this isn't really true, I mean the power of William definitely reaches further then England, although its probably the other way around. William of Normandy was a vassal to Paris who in turn probabaly owed some type of allegiance to the HRE. If anything, to my understanding, William kinda brings England back into European politics, unified in that way,  which the Danes were I guess also trying to do, in their own Danish way. But yea, definitely not like Aegon (who did not conquer and unify all of westeros anyway lol)

The Angles came from what is now Denmark, as did the Jutes (Jutland); I think the Saxons were from further south. But the Danes who started arriving in the late 8th century are a distinct people again: they speak a different language (from a different branch of Germanic, albeit still not too dissimilar), they have different customs, and they're, at least initially, pagan, while by that time the Anglo-Saxons were wholly Christian. But the Danes in general got on a bit better with the English than the Norse did: There are a number of occasions on which Danes and English joined together to drive out Norse "foreigners". 

That William brought England back into Euorope is an argument I've heard before and there is something in it, even if it's perhaps a bit more complicated than that. England had turned away a bit from the continent after the Danish conquests in the 800s, but had a close relationship with Scandinavia, and the Norman connexion wasn't new: Edward the Confessor had been largely raised there (hence his apparent preference for Wiliam as successor: he never seems to have felt quite a home in England). And Edgar, the atheling, had been born in Hungary of all places. And, of course, English mercenaries were always welcome additions to the Byzantine imperial (Varangian) guard, so much so that Constantinople was a popular destination for discontented huscarls after the Conquest. 

[KingAerys_II]

I am speaking of the "Varangian invitation", however if I am not wrong Saxons are germans

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

The Angles came from what is now Denmark, as did the Jutes (Jutland); I think the Saxons were from further south. But the Danes who started arriving in the late 8th century are a distinct people again: they speak a different language (from a different branch of Germanic, albeit still not too dissimilar), they have different customs, and they're, at least initially, pagan, while by that time the Anglo-Saxons were wholly Christian. But the Danes in general got on a bit better with the English than the Norse did: There are a number of occasions on which Danes and English joined together to drive out Norse "foreigners". 

That William brought England back into Euorope is an argument I've heard before and there is something in it, even if it's perhaps a bit more complicated than that. England had turned away a bit from the continent after the Danish conquests in the 800s, but had a close relationship with Scandinavia, and the Norman connexion wasn't new: Edward the Confessor had been largely raised there (hence his apparent preference for Wiliam as successor: he never seems to have felt quite a home in England). And Edgar, the atheling, had been born in Hungary of all places. And, of course, English mercenaries were always welcome additions to the Byzantine imperial (Varangian) guard, so much so that Constantinople was a popular destination for discontented huscarls after the Conquest. 

Christianity was a farmers’ religion, and the Danes tended to convert, once they settled for good, in Eastern England.  Once they converted, they became pretty well indistinguishable from the English, after a generation.

[Alester Florent]

10 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Christianity was a farmers’ religion, and the Danes tended to convert, once they settled for good, in Eastern England.  Once they converted, they became pretty well indistinguishable from the English, after a generation.

They were still sufficiently distinct that they had their own laws, though, and could be identified and indeed targeted for massacre by Ethelred in 1002, by which point they'd been established for 150 years or so. There were probably still linguistic differences, too. The distinction seems to have largely stopped mattering after Cnut's conquest, although the Danelaw seems to have retained some legal importance for a bit. Presumably William's razing of Anglo-Danish power structures rendered it functionally irrelevant after the Conquest.

I suspect that it's a question of identity as much as anything. Although it had a nationalist bent, early England clearly retained a degree of multiculturalism, allowing descendants of Danish settlers to continue to think of themselves as Danes (or Anglo-Danes, when threatened by Norse) despite in other ways being heavily Anglicised. 

[Hugorfonics]

46 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

The Angles came from what is now Denmark, as did the Jutes (Jutland); I think the Saxons were from further south

Word, present day Denmark, but like 18th century Denmark, maybe?

46 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

But the Danes who started arriving in the late 8th century are a distinct people again: they speak a different language (from a different branch of Germanic, albeit still not too dissimilar), they have different customs, and they're, at least initially, pagan, while by that time the Anglo-Saxons were wholly Christian.

They speak something of a different language, no doubt, but probably so did the anglos and saxons (and Spaniardsand Portuguese) and the English may have been Christian but the stories of Odin and Thor and all those crazy Danes was probably still in effect.  I mean Beawolf is Danish. (Although so is Hamlet lol)

46 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

But the Danes in general got on a bit better with the English than the Norse did: There are a number of occasions on which Danes and English joined together to drive out Norse "foreigners". 

That's pretty funny, but probably not coincidencental, right? From this example,  the Danes and English clearly belive they're kin.

47 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

That William brought England back into Euorope is an argument I've heard before and there is something in it, even if it's perhaps a bit more complicated than that. England had turned away a bit from the continent after the Danish conquests in the 800s, but had a close relationship with Scandinavia, and the Norman connexion wasn't new: Edward the Confessor had been largely raised there (hence his apparent preference for Wiliam as successor: he never seems to have felt quite a home in England). And Edgar, the atheling, had been born in Hungary of all places. And, of course, English mercenaries were always welcome additions to the Byzantine imperial (Varangian) guard, so much so that Constantinople was a popular destination for discontented huscarls after the Conquest. 

Yea the world's always been bigger then what we thought,  after all they're all Christian,  except the Danes lol. I mean Hungary is really not that far and Byzantium has ruled the world for like 500 years, but still, like the Danes had the early kings of England's attention and vice versa, the conquest really made England into a French territory, or colony, until like Joan of Arc times.

[KingAerys_II]

The kings of England kept being dukes of Normandy, so they were vassals of the French Kings, but it's wrong to consider them less powerful

[Hugorfonics]

8 minutes ago, KingAerys_II said:

The kings of England kept being dukes of Normandy, so they were vassals of the French Kings, but it's wrong to consider them less powerful

Anjou, Brittany, probably some more places, Acquatianie. There definitely was not a clear cut indicator on who's more powerful, after all 100 years couldn't even decide who gets the whole pie. 

But William and his successors were clearly enveloped in this French style game where as Aegon really made himself a "nation state" which we see with England and France after the 100 but not before. (Although maybe breifly with the Danes, it's a shame because they weren't exactly literate so so much of history feels like guess work)

Nation states did exist tho, the best example is Japan but a closer one to this topic would be Hungary 

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, KingAerys_II said:

The kings of England kept being dukes of Normandy, so they were vassals of the French Kings, but it's wrong to consider them less powerful

The duchy of Normandy was a vassal of the French Crown, but England never was. Normandy also had some special privileges within France. This dual status could and did cause a lot of issues, as the French king could impose penalties on the English king's French possessions but had no say in England itself. The French kings were also personally weaker within France than the English kings were in England, thanks to the subdivision into quasi-independent duchies and counties. Feudalism is complicated.

From 927 to about 1200, the king of England was almost always, almost certainly, more personally powerful than the French king, even if the kingdom was smaller and less prestigious. Several English kings (Athelstan, Edmund, Cnut, William II, possibly others) could make a credible claim to be the most personally powerful man in Europe, certainly western Europe.