The Peterborough MS (ca. 1121, now lost!) describes him as "so very stern was he also and hot, that no man durst do anything against his will. He had earls in his custody, who acted against his will. Bishops he hurled from their bishoprics, and abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison. At length he spared not his own brother Odo, who was a very rich bishop in Normandy."
Thank you for the recordings of the originals. Is “middaneardes” genitive form of what we would translate as “middle earth”? Did Tolkien derive inspiration from this concept/word?
Yes! It becomes ‘myddyl erthe’ in Middle English. In Beowulf the word is ‘middangeard’ ‘middle yard’, meaning the central continent on earth, but this seems to have got mixed up with the notion of a space between the upper and lower world.
Very interesting, Armand; I did not know the A-S Chronicle stretched to William I (a Norman king's as good/bad as a Danish one, I suppose).
The Peterborough MS (ca. 1121, now lost!) describes him as "so very stern was he also and hot, that no man durst do anything against his will. He had earls in his custody, who acted against his will. Bishops he hurled from their bishoprics, and abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison. At length he spared not his own brother Odo, who was a very rich bishop in Normandy."
William the Conqueror conducted the Harrying of the North, which I understand to have been quite severe.
There hasn't been a Harry like it until recently!
Thank you for the recordings of the originals. Is “middaneardes” genitive form of what we would translate as “middle earth”? Did Tolkien derive inspiration from this concept/word?
Yes! It becomes ‘myddyl erthe’ in Middle English. In Beowulf the word is ‘middangeard’ ‘middle yard’, meaning the central continent on earth, but this seems to have got mixed up with the notion of a space between the upper and lower world.
I like this