NORMANS

VIKINGS

Vikings were the pan-European problem for centuries until about 1200. What exactly made them sail far away to rob somebody if they can't even bring back anything? Viking ships were small, no decks. They'd fit several prisoners, maybe a cow. Considering the cost of the ship construction, the risk of sea travel, the risks of warfare ... I'm not the first one to ask this question. Answers are as "good" as obsession with foreign chicks (skandinavian women THAT ugly?) and they were angry at christians (for hundreds of years?). Vikings also didn't fight for gold/silver/slaves since there were no banks, markets, plantations or any other way to spend, invest or exploit in natural economy where people eat what they produce. There was also not that much gold/silver in Europe by that time, so even if they wanted to rob someone, they'd need an intelligence service to find one in the first place.

Their suicidal business model starts making more sense if you shift the time and location to a period in German history when the trade and navy really took off yet there were still "less civilized" people around to colonize, plunder, kidnap, racketeer. Historians call it Hanseatic League ... 1267 ... hired privateers in 1392 ... 1438–1441 ... privateer war ... city of Kiel was expelled from the League in 1518 for harbouring pirates, also consider Victual Brothers ... 1393-1440 ... guild of privateers who later turned to piracy, and, of course, Northern/Baltic Crusades (1147-1410), which continued as 1419, Norwegian ships with five hundred soldiers ... plundered many Russian settlements ... the Archangel Michael Monastery, wars of Erik Axelsson Tott against Russians (1475-1482), war between Sten Sture the Elder and the Tott family in 1487. Yet another time in History when you can see things actually happening, as you'd expect them to happen, but long after they "ended".

The primitive boat on the left is from 1223 seal of Hanseatic City of Lubeck. Note the dragon heads on both ends. Drakkars from famous "Vikings" TV series (picture above, to the right) are just like this picture, but longer/wider. The show is about Ragnar Lodbrok, guy from 800+. What you see in the show is from 1200+:

Real 800+ people of North Europe had dugout canoes and rowboats, plundered neighbour villages, practiced headhunting, ritual cannibalism, and collected human skulls, just like other tribes all over the world, e.g. dayaks of Borneo. This is the actual past that back-dated Viking legends are supposed to hide.

CATHERINE II

Russian Empress Catherine the Great (1729-1796) was neither Russian (German) nor even Catherine (Sophia Augusta Frederica). Her rule is a period of transition from colonial/feudal state into the modernistic absolute monarchy. Empire was vastly expanded, cities established and rebuilt, industrialization started, Pugachev's riot suppressed, turkish threat eliminated ... I think I've heard these before: Peter the Great (1672-1725), an Emperor with a very unusual biography, did very similar things about hundred years earlier. He was married to Catherine I, a swedish girl of a very obscure origin. Catherine II was married to Peter III. The period between Peter I rule and Catherine II rule is very strange: Peter II dies at the age of 14, Ivan VI deposed and later killed, Peter III dies in a coup and his wife Catherine II becomes the Empress, but her son, Paul I, will be killed later as well. The strange biography of Peter I descends into even stranger 1600+ period of Russian history with (officially acknowledged) four(!) "False Dmitry" tsars, invasions, riots, coups, etc. The first realistic stable absolute monarch biography in centuries is that of Catherine II.

Why is this German girl ruling Russia? Official historians acknowledge that Romanovs become Holstein-Gottorp since Peter III. All Russian tsars since are married to princesses of Germanic origin. Is it a coincidence that theory of Norman origins of Russian monarchy rises in 1768? This was concluded after study of 1400+ copies of 1100+ records of something that happened in 800+ in modern day Ukraine. The documents were discovered in ... Königsberg in 1700+. The chronicles (picture above) said that Russians couldn't deal with each other and, out of desperation, decided to invite vikings to rule them. This becomes a mainstream narrative since publiсation of History of the Russian State, ordered by Alexander I, Catherine's grandson. Famous Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov painted the picture about this in 1909 (vikings are on the left):

After Revolution, WWII, crush of USSR, this is still a mainstream theory. They continued discovering normanistic kings: The Tale of Igor's Campaign ... in 1795 in the library of the Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl. What else could be made up in Russian History? Anything: there was no other serious published study before 1800. Can we believe that German dynasty landed on Russian throne "just like that"? Have "original" Romanovs ever existed to begin with? Russian history reads like an adventure novel until the reign of Catherine II. BTW, French history is just like that until Ludovic XIV (1638–1715), British - until 1688.

1066

Actual Norman migration to England must have started around the time of Hanseatic League formation: you need lots of decent size ships to bring in cattle, families, etc. Given the Hanseatic practices described above, no wonder they started raiding France. Probably one of the first (southern coast, Portchester) fortifications built in England: 1259 ... frequent departure point for troops ... little attention was paid to the castle's defences, ... towards the end of the century a wooden tower was built, this is almost 1300. It was a good base for plundering across the channel. Hastings is 80 miles to the East: 1066 ... Castle was originally built as a wooden ... used for farming until the ruins had become so overgrown they were lost from memory ... 1824 ... archaeological investigations of the ruin ... chapel floor and parts of the chancel arch and walls were re-constructed out of blocks found lying on the ground. I think that's how they came up with the idea of Stonehenge: find some rocks on the ground and claim there was a structure there before. Think of a date. Should be something devilish, ... 1066?

I don't know if Eric the Red discovered North America around year 1000, but I'm pretty sure he missed England. Because wooden tower (like this French one) at Portchester in ~1300. London must have started as yet another Hanseatic Tortuga-like pirate "republic".

NOTE: There was no France in 1200+, only Phoenician colonies on the Atlantic coast down to Spain as well as in England. That's what Vikings British Normans racketeered and later claimed and defended in 100 Year War, War of Roses and Reconquista.

1588

Elizabeth I is a myth: virgin queen of pirates as a symbol of anarchy. French/Church must have tried to establish a government there (Stuarts?), using Scotland as a base, given Scots didn't benefit from the piracy. Pirates didn't like it, their leaders were people like Cromwell: elected war-chieftains. Asian nomads and Cossacs had similar democracies.

Portrait below, we are being told, shows (left to right) three pirates of "Elizabethan Age": John Hawkins, his younger cousin Francis Drake, Thomas Cavendish (the youngest). All 3 look like relatives, which would explain the presense on the (family) portrait. Thomas Cavendish must be somehow related, given he's in the same business around the same time, yet there is no record of it. John's flagship was called Jesus of Lübeck, a carack built in the Hanseatic City of Lübeck. I wonder were the Drake last name came from ...

1688

Why would somebody call Glorious Revolution (1688) "glorious"? It was an invasion lead by a Dutch King William of Orange, wasn't it? There were 3(!) Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-1674) before it. Why would somebody discover Bayeux Tapestry in 1724 telling us about William I who also invaded and momentarily conquered Britain in 1066? Is it a coincidence he was of Germanic origin too?

First census of England happened only in 1801 (~10 millions). In 1086, 20 years after conquest, William I ordered a census (of a country with an army he defeated in one day battle). They called it Domesday Book. It's a very impressive document, unfortunately there was nothing comparable until 1800. Domesday Book was 700-800 years ahead of it's time or ... forgery. I wonder if it is based on statistics of 1688, gathered for the actual William the Conqueror or some ruler right before him. It does describe Britain in a poor state, which explains an easy success of 1688. The book lists 268,984 households, that is interpreted as 1.2-1.6 million people.

This magnificent British castle dates from 1441 ... dismantled in 1777 ... remained a ruin until ... restoration work ... completed ... in 1933:

This is 70 miles South West from London, a prime realty. Yet only in 1441, 300+ years after "conquest" local feudal built something there (because you can't sail anywhere from that). Not the one you see on the photo, just something. Another magnificent medieval Peckforton Castle ... built ... 1850.