Jason Kingsley, the Modern Knight, investigates medieval murder and why a medieval Englishman could not be murdered in England. #historyfacts #history #medieval
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Jason Kingsley, the Modern Knight, investigates medieval murder and why a medieval Englishman could not be murdered in England. #historyfacts #history #medieval
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @modernknight
“Yes, your honour, I killed him. But in my defense, he was English.”
literally yes.
The defence of basically every Scotsman, Irishman and other colonial subject.
And yet it never works 😂🏴
@@DanielStarbuck and Frenchmen! Don't forget Frenchmen! 😂
Should be a Monty Python sketch!
As an English man who has lived nearly half a century in England without being murdered a single time, I approve of this message.
not even once??
There's a sad update to this I'm afraid...
This is the total opposite of the oldest legal code in Sweden where manslaughter of danish and norwegians was given a 50% off discount for the fine, local westrogoths being worth 21 marks, swedes and smålanders worth 13 1/3 marks and danes and norwegians 9 marks. (Thralls were a mere 3)
Difference is that these laws in England were enacted by conquering foreigners to protect their own men.
@@EvidensInsania Of course. Another difference is that the one in the westrogoth code was a fine toward the perpetrator personally rather than as here a general area being made to pay a fine for every murder.
That would be hilarious if they had something like that in Britain a with all the different types that are wondering around now.
Ah that sounds like wergild an earlier system in Anglo-Saxon England where if you killed someone you paid the fine to their family ..... and an Saxon was worth more than a Britain, freeman more than thrall etc.
@@celticm6616 Great way to help the budget.
Previously on CSI: Medieval "Ah yes, this is clearly an Englishman. He was the only one queuing for a bus. Eye witnesses say he tutted and rolled his eyes at a Norman who cut in que..."
Oh trust me, they do more than that. I once dropped something (a card of some kind I think) at a ticket office. Went back in to ask the cashier if he'd seen it. Got yelled at by three old men for "cutting in line".
"If you kill a person in secret right now and use the discount code ENGLISHMAN at the checkout then you don't have to pay the murdrum fine. Just pay shipping and handling."
I swear to God, someone give this man his own show on BBC, History or Discovery Channel. So much more actual information regarding this period presented in an interesting manner than there is currently on any TV channel. We all know the big great stories, but this day-to-day insight is what actually matters as far as societal development is concerned.
I agree his channel and content is awesome, but if he did get a show on one of those giant corporate channels they would force him to compromise himself and change it up, and ultimately to push "The Message" (tm).
Unfortunately, Discovery and The History Channel, which is owned by Discovery, are only interested in reality TV.
What's a tv
They'd only tie his hands and try to ruin the content. I'm glad we get to have him here
Television and those who one it are no longer interested in education. Thankfully individual creators understand not everyone wants ancient aliens on a loop
Now that’s what I call a home-field disadvantage
That's what having a country is all about. Sadly, we're losing those and becoming colonized by globalist entities that don't have our interests in mind.
@@namenameson9065 [citation needed]
@@hharvey6492 Tried opening your eyes and reading news outside of the corporate media opinion networks? Just look at what Blackrock is doing buying all the land. Listen to what the World Economic Forum has been saying since the 1970's. Look at China's relationship with all these multinational corporations, Apple, Nike, all of them. Look at what the Great Reset is all about. They all have common interests, and it isn't in your interests or mine. Globalism = Neo-Colonialism.
It's probably not fair to say that you "got away with it" if the victim was English. If the victim was English, the town probably got together to bring the killer to justice. The murder fine sounds like a way of making sure towns had an incentive to avenge the death of a foreigner whose death they wouldn't otherwise care about.
Imagine the confusion if an Englishman named Norman was murdered! Interesting video again 🙏
"You, Peasant, do you have a name ?". " . . . Norman". " . . . yes, I am, now answer my question". " umm . . . . Hoo's on third ?".
This makes me think about the rotherham grooming gangs. And how properly investigating the systematic abuse of young girls by invaders is punished more harshly than the abusive invaders themselves.
Everybody knows that your videos are fantastic. But beyond that, there's something that intrigues me: You never age. It doesn't matter how long time goes by, you always look like being at your early 40's!
@@ThatsRoyal Indeed...He's got great charisma! It'd be great seeing him working as an actor :-)
Holy shit, he's actually born in 1964! Jason looks amazing for his age
He's actually immortal and hasn't aged a day since the Middle Ages, that's why he knows so much about it!
So before the presumption of innocence, there was presumption of Englishness.
Jason Could you possibly prepare a specific video regarding horses' reactions and charges in front of various defensive systems such as pikes, spears, barricades, wood products, and other instruments designed to avoid contact with cavalry? I know you created similar videos and that you specialise in the Middle Ages, but thousands of movies show us these poor animals throwing themselves on pikes like dumb suicidal animals with no reactions! I was curious about what happened throughout the ancient Roman period, the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic Wars, and so on! Please, you are the only one with such many horse skills that only you can do this! ☠💀☠💀☠💀
This is such a great question! I've often wondered that myself as a horseback rider. Although I know the horses were highly trained, seeing the charges in movies, often makes me wonder how it really happened in the past during armed conflicts. Also, warhorses were really valuable and were ridden by people with a higher social standing.
I work with well trained horses on a regular basis and let me tell you, it wouldn't surprise me if indeed they'd make a committed charge against a pike wall. Like the previous user said, war horses were extremely valuable assets, sometimes even worth as much as a house, precisely because the specific role they played and the time and training involved for that (compared to draught horses, for e.g.). They are extremely disciplined creatures!
@@defaultytuser It is actually all that training that make a warhorse valuable, and the fact that they were ridden by people with means and status, that makes me doubt the use of mounted horses to breach a pike wall. I'm not saying it never happened but, from what I understand from various sources, it wasn't a common use of the cavalry.
@@killiansirishbeer Absolutely. I should have clarified that I was *only* talking about their discipline , because I totally agree that the whole "charge against a wall of pikes" situation doesn't make a lot sense for the reasons that you described!
@@killiansirishbeer Agreed, I can't see the mounted men charging a pike wall as if the rider punches through his horse may be dead and he is inside enemy lines.
Fascinating, this is absolutely brand new to me! I love the idea of the English resisting by killing Normans in secret. How was it handled if a Norman was missing but the body was never found.
These were the same guys that participated in the St. Brice day massacre which is the reason Cannute invaded
It is an exaggeration to describe it as a 'resistance'. The likely motive for the murdered Normans was simple robbery by peasants, not some political objection to their rule. There were actual rebellions against Norman rule, some by other Normans, and these were mentioned. None were successful. Remember the Anglo-Saxon ruling class had been wiped out. Being a peasant was going to be the same no matter who was ruling.
@@Norvik_-ug3ge I disagree. If your purpose is just robbing the Norman, then hiding the body where it will never be found makes much more sense. For the peasants, the change from Anglo-Saxon lords to Normans was considered a strong negative. The English peasants often had clan ties to their lords and the AS lords honored the peasants' traditional rights. The Normans eliminated or ignored some of the peasants traditional rights[including the hunting of certain types of game in the lord's forest]. Leaving the Norman bodies out in the open was a warning to not push the peasants.
These really are fantastic videos. I love this period of history, and these are so informative.
Glad you like them!
What a fantastic video, about a wildly interesting piece of English history! Love the bit of role playing in the murderers’ woods too! Wonderful ❤ 🌹❤
Glad you enjoyed it!
Wait, so... you're saying that Richard the Lionheart effectively gave the Templars a licence to kill? There's a joke about Roger Moore, aka Simon Templar, aka James Bond, in here somewhere...
My thoughts were that it had more to do with the Knights Templar being crucial to King Richard's crusade.
So I'm descended from a pack of murderous bastards? I've never been so proud.
It appears so. You don't make a rule like this unless there's a good reason for it.
The Saxons always just wanted to be left alone. If Godwinson had won in 1066 and our nobility hadn't been replaced we probably would have had nothing to do with the rest of the world for the next 1000 years. Glorious isolation.
I wondered where the word murder came from, yet never took the time to look it up. But it's so interesting! I write fantasy stories, but I always like to have a realistic medieval lifestyle in at least one aspect or another thrown in; politics, food, dress, etc. This channel is the best I could have subscribed to! 😁 Thank you for all the amazing facts. I can't get enough of this stuff!
Glad to have given you a place to start with your research.
I never thought that 'learn something new today' could be so utterly fascinating and so wonderfully presented! Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!
What fun! This is the second time I've visited a museum exhibit to find, to my delight, that our favorite knight/historian has posted a great new video. Museum lobbies are a fine place to watch MHTV. Off to Twitter to RT.
lol, thanks for your support as usual!
@@ModernKnight You're Welcome M'lord. :-)
Always makes my day seeing these videos. Thank you Jason and the Team
Our pleasure.
When I first found your channel I was a lowly beggar, now I have risen to the rank of Squire!
I honestly just read about this. By the time of Richard I's reign, the murder-fines had changed from applying to an Englishman killing someone to include any/all "unnatural" (I'll explain that in a moment) death and the culprit wasn't captured. Unnatural deaths included everything from murder to someone dying of hunger or exposure (death by misadventures, such as killed by a boer during a hunt, weren't considered unnatural deaths). During a series of poor harvests from 1193 to 1196, there were multiple cases of peasants found in fields or homes that had died of exposure or starvation, and, in these cases, the murder-fine was applied to the hundred. Explanations for applying the murder-fine in these cases range from King Richard being content need of money due to his ransom from the Holy Roman Empire and war with France, to, as Sir Francis Palgrave pretty much put it, the inherit responsibility of the county and local people to take care of their poor. For reference, this is from the first couple pages in Ch. 8 of "England Without Richard 1189-1199" by John Appleby Edit: I meant boar (had a bad feeling I misspelled something). That said, great to see the replies pointing the mistake lol
You can never trust random Boers during a hunt. Lol
Boers in medieval England?! Those Dutch sure to get around.
@@MaxwellTornado They did buy English wool. It wouldn't be surprising if a few merchants wanted to send someone to take a look at the sheep and whatnot. (Assuming we're counting the Flemish as Dutch, which someone from the low countries might have to clarify).
@@RambleOn07 Those Boere are contentious people
This also comes from the very limited rights of taxation of the early kings. You only needed central authority for defence against foreign invasion. And for settling disputes between provinces. Hence, the kings early on could inject themselves into the legal system. Before the kings it was a clan based system were the power of your family decided if you would be paid the weregild or not, or at least how much was paid. In Iceland we see a system that is much more sophisticated where people without clan could sell their claim to their patron and he could then press their claims with the power of his clan. Everyone in old Norse society was under the protection of someone more powerful, up until the clan chiefs or the clans themselves that were sovereign.
As a Frenchman I think it’s a reasonable rule.
lol, yes. It still amuses me, in a grim way, that people were obviously pretending dead bodies were English when they weren't, to save tax.
Well this was when the English were under occupation from a small noble class originating in what is now France, and speaking an early version of French. I've heard there was effectively guerrilla resistance for quite some time, especially in rugged parts of the North, but I haven't found a good source about it
one of the best channels out there
Jason, you have to be one of my favourite entrepeneurs of all time. If you enjoy your business and hobby ventures only half as much as it seems, then you've really succeeded. Thanks for the great content, and for acting as a great custodian of the Judge Dredd IP. 😄
I always smile when I get the notifications for this channel, I know it will always be something good.
I am a huge history buff and find your channel fascinating. Could you please make a video about knights' treatment of horses and their general upkeep in Medieval times? Wars were not only terrifying for the fighters but also for the horses. Thank you very much.
our pleasure, hope you watch more of our work.
Well, that is a fascinating bit of history. Great content as always!
So if you found a dead body on your patch you might want to secretly transport it to a neighbouring area so they would get the fine.
His depth of knowledge of many facets of the Middle Ages is astounding.
I want to take the time to say thank you for your fine video. Taking the time to not ony to do research, but to present it in a respectful way as possible and seasoned with a bit of humor. I always come away having learnt something!
Love your channel it’s taught so much about the history of the country I now call home
This shows how important is language. Thank you as always mr. Kingsley.
Thank you for the video. Always look forward to the next one. You are an inspiration and example; on how to make and conduct yourself when making videos.
This was so unexpected and interesting to discover. Great video, I continue to be fascinated by the things actual people did throughout history. Also, it's a shame movie amd book writers don't look more to people like you, because this whole "murder" thing could create some really good storylines, both comedic and dramatic
Fantastic information . Thank you. have a great week
Love the new intro! And thank you for the wonderful history lesson. Guess it was a better time to be an Englishman! Regards to Kasumi Take good care Jason!
Thanks!
You're quite welcome.
Interesting thing I didn't know about England. Thanks for doing the research and sharing it with us. :)
Very interesting video - I had no idea of the murdrum laws. Thank you, Jason! :)
I could listen to these videos for hours. Interesting stuff. The BBC also has a very interesting 3 part series on Normans by Professor Robert Bartlett.
Always a good day when I see you've posted because I get myself nice little nuggets of knowledge that are pretty damn nifty
This is fascinating. Love your tidbits of history. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it
This is quite interesting! Thanks for the great history lesson. 😊
Another great video as always
Thank you for informative and very fun to watch videos! I like the ones showing the life of ordinary people the most. The music is deafening sometimes though.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
I love the little nuggets of info you put out that are completely ignored by others
3:20 The term "Presentment of Englishry" sounds amazing :)
Thank you for this enjoyable video! It has been awhile and I must say that you look marvelous.
It’s not THAT weird. We still have laws (in the USA at least) which add significant severity to crimes committed out of “hate” for another group. In effect what this means is, the prosecuting DA can add a LOT of years to your sentence if they feel like it for murder/assault/etc outside of your own ethnic group. I think it’s ridiculous, but humans love making laws like this.
It should be no suprise; it's a standard tactic of colonialism to punish the native population for differentiating themselves from the newcomers - granted we're no longer talking about colonialism but globalism but it's the same dehumanisation and degreadation of a nation of people into mere statistics that should all 'logically' get along according to psycopaths with no understanding or empathy for the cultures/values involved. It's just leveraged for the profit of corperations that want to exploit a global workforce rather than be limited by local scarcity of labour which might otherwise force them to pay competitive wages and invest in the local populace; far cheaper to 'import' people from other places where other people have already paid for such costs.
The current justice system is very much about motive, intent and circumstances, rather than the actual outcome. For example, shooting your neighbor may land you any number of years in prison depending on whenether it was self-defence, a crime of passion, pre-mediated murder or the result of momentary insanity. And if someone decides to ram their car into a Pride parade because he really hates gay people, obviously that's going to carry a different, harsher sentence than someone losing control of their car and accidentily hitting people at that same parade, even if the outcome is the same. Note that hate crimes apply to not just race, but all protected categories, including religion, gender expression, sexuality and in some countries political leaning as well.
@@mynamejeff3545 _"Note that hate crimes apply to not just race, but all protected categories, including religion, gender expression, sexuality and in some countries political leaning as well."_ However, in practice, there are no protected categories, only protected subcategories. Nobody is getting years tacked onto their sentence for anti-White hate, anti-male hate, anti-heterosexual hate.
you just have the weirdest stories, love it.
Is not a story is history.
@@Argoon1981 yes, his story is so weird.
Love your videos :-). Hope more is to come. Especially on medieval food!
that was a truly fascinating bit of info, thanks!
Another fascinating insight. Thanks to you Jason I am hooked on the medieval period and its history.
Glad you enjoyed it
I love to listen to these vids while Im cooking or gardening. Such a treat!
Glad you enjoy it!
I needed this in my life
Never heard of this. Absolutely fascinating.
In old Norse law, if you killed someone, you had to make it known to the wider community. You had the right to pass over two settlements / farmsteads before making it known from the place of the slaying (because it was considered unreasonable to force you to report a slaying to the relatives of the killed) but if you passed a third and did not make it known, you became a murderer, which was "nith", not excusable by fine. The Norse hated secrecy and punished theft and murder much harsher than robbery and slaying. Because a secret crime poisoned the entire community for years or generations to come. Hence, they also made the community where an unclaimed body was found responsible for the weregild if nothing else could be proven. Reason being that the local community were the only ones who were in a position to know and because of old Indoeuropean practices of guest rights. Another aspect was that weregild was higher for killing local people and lower for killing people from far away. In the oldest law code from Sweden that was law in the province of Västergötland (Western Geatland) in 1230ies, you payed full fine for Westgeat-men, bit lower for people from other areas with Swedish king and then even lower for Danes and Norwegians. The most remote people that had weregild were South Men (Germans) and Englishmen but it was not very high. This was because people from far away had less family in the area so then both lower ability to force the fine to be paid and were less threat of a blood feud. The fine was then split three ways between the person who owned the vengence, the closest relative, normally the widow, the clan of the dead man and the king. That the clan get a third is because they were the ones who would have to extract the fine by threat of blood feud. That the king would get a third came with Christianity and stronger central authority, 1230 is pretty late when Norse culture was being continentalized. So, to evaluate laws like these, you have to put them in context. Examine how Englishmen settled murders between them. And how this system could be applied in a less stable and less traditional and more mixed place such as in Danelaw or Norman England. I suspect that what you describe is as much an effect of Christianity and centralization as of invasion.
This is the best little nugget of history I've been told about in quite some time. Thank you for your research.
Our pleasure!
Great video, I didn't know about this. Any video which mentions Hereward the Wake is good by me. I liked the vengeful Englishman in the woods with his lethal looking little scythe.
Great to see a new video
Lovely episode as always! Interesting lore and history. 3 videos per week from this channel would still not be enough :-) Keep up good work! Btw: does your "Mule without name" has a name now?
Last I heard, he was still officially The Mule Without A Name, and his stable name was still Muli.
I thought this was going to be about the difference between murder and petty treason.
Fascinating history as always.
Lol, crazy old laws and stuff. Cheers for this one Sir :)
Thanks for an interesting video.
This attitude from the population speaks volumes about our psyche as a nation, which I think bubbles through the generations x
remember there is London and the city of london (run by the guilds) i wonder if when they are referring to the city of London they mean the guild owned bit as they held alot of sway, not the general public part?
Interesting bit of history as always!
"It just shows you sometimes that the victor's make the rules, and the locals suffer." My how... on the nose.
My favourite thing about this channel, is how insightful the information is, all while been presented to us from a man standing in a field. 😂
Gods, if you could time travel Jason, the yarn you could spin. I love your voice, your perspective, and it encourages me to imagine and dream. Keep up the awesome, Kingsley Rex. If not in title, for sure in presence.
Very interesting. Thank you. 👍
Finally! I have something to watch.
Love these videos , so interesting!
Glad you like them!
Fascinating and ever so slightly bonkers!
This is such a neat show. 👍
That's so interesting! And also I now have an idea for my next book 🤣
Fascinating video!
I hope to write my dissertation on the revival of English nationalism in the high medieval period, as the conflicts with France gradually drew a line between nobles in England and nobles in France, and made nobles in England identify more with the English nation.
The loss of lands in France must have changed the mindset of the ruling class through the 14th century. Before that few of those Plantagenat kings would have spoken much English.
I love these historical snippets.
This must have got very confusing over time as they became more mixed
I’m quite interested in and curious about the ‘secret” aspect of killing/murder. Can you do a video on that please?
This is one of those little bits of content that only served to make my day that little bit worse. Thanks
I can imagine an English woman claiming a murdered man to be her son to get everyone out of paying the fine. Might be a little suspicious if she had a half dozen 'sons' turn up dead over a short period. 😆
It's like someone has to take a day off from work because her fifth grandma died.
"There were perhaps so many murders in London, the fine became impossible to implement" *Opens newspaper*... This checks out.
Fascinating!
This is pure unadulterated insanity!!!
I haven't watched the video yet, but I'm going to say now I 100% bet this is Norman shenanigans
In some ways this sort of collective punishment lived on in our law. Here in Ireland you could claim for criminal damage to property by persons unknown and levy the claim on the local council area. A shopkeeper, where I live, in the 1960s, arranged for his own shop, which was losing money, to be burnt down and then claimed the full insurance value from the county council.
Fantastic core of a story there. A Dane is murdered, the area has to pay a ruinous fine. Someone has to go out and find the killer so they can get the money back.
This will definitely be useful for a book!
What a great short entertaining video :)
interesting facts we just normally dont get to know thankyou x
Very interesting bit of history.
That would make a great premise for a book. About what time period was this?
As I remeber, in the Frankish Salic law the fine for killing a Frankish/Barbarian person was higher than for killing a (Gallo-)Roman.
How fascinating! I wonder how far geographically these murdrum laws applied - I can imagine that those in the very North of England tried to find convenient loopholes.