why were the Normans so POWERFUL

>The emperor was fully aware that Bohemond was undoubtedly the most experienced, talented, and politically astute commander
among the crusaders, having learned it the hard way. Back in 1081, having placed his new Norman kingdom of Italy and Sicily firmly
under his control, Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemond had sailed their Norman troops across the Adriatic Sea, taking Corfu and Durazzo, coastal cities within the primary Byzantine area. Emperor Alexius Comnenus marched north to expel the Normans, only to be badly defeated at the Battle of Dyrrhachium. Next, the Normans conquered nearly all of northern Greece. Desperate to
prevent the Normans from taking his entire empire, Alexius paid an enormous sum (said to be 360,000 gold pieces) to Henry IV, the
Holy Roman Emperor, to attack the pope, who was the Normans’ ally in Italy. Robert Guiscard rushed back to Italy to meet this threat, leaving Bohemond in command in Greece. Although still in his early twenties, Bohemond proved a brilliant leader, especially gifted at recognizing and countering enemy tactics, and he defeated Alexius in two battles, thus putting the Normans in control of Macedonia and nearly all of Thessaly. At this point Alexius managed to convince the
Seljuk Turks that the Normans were a threat to them, too, and so, with a new army including thousands of Turks, Alexius was barely
able to defeat the Normans at Larissa. At this point, in large part because Bohemond lacked the funds to pay his troops their back salaries, the bulk of the Norman army sailed back to Italy, although Corfu and a substantial area along the Adriatic were still in Norman
hands.
From Rodney Stark's God's Battalions

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    tried to copy paste from a pdf, didn't go well clearly

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Their society is basically "what if we gave a bunch of people Vikang succession laws & Western European wargear instead of axes and roundshields 24/7, and had feudalism so they do nothing else but train & look for wars?"

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      this plus a large amount of families were well off and with 2nd and 3rd sons who could afford to have their own wargear and eager to make something of themselves since they were out of the inheritances.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >what if we gave a bunch of people Vikang succession laws

      This being?

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Germanics are simply the best. The more Germanic an ethnicity is and the less it has been corrupted by Christianity, the more powerful they are. That is why Normans were very succesful for a bunch of time, until the toxic influence of Christianity finally caught up with them. Now most Post-Roman Germanic Kingdoms have been so diluted that you can't call countries like Spain, Italy or even France Germanic anymore. And Germany was castrated after World War 2. A marvellous instance where Germanics managed to rediscover their heritage and power.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The Normans were deeply Christian when they were pulling off their greatest conquests THOUGH. They venerated the Archangel Michael, the warrior saint. There was more than enough room for heroism and belligerence in medieval Christianity.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Sure, they were Christian, but there is a difference between being Christian and being a Christian for many generations. Their Germanic Warrior Ethos was still very pure and through the Christian Religion, they had access to all of the benefits of the Christian World. Including being able to freely travel undisturbed for their conquests in England, Italy, Africa and Greece. Short term it was a massive boost. Long term they got wiped out though assimilation and all of the traits that made them great got washed away.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >GERMANS ARE MOST POWERFUL WITHOUT GOD
      >literal subhuman tier until culturally uplifted by Rome and accepting Christianity

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >conquers the western half of your empire
        >goes on to create the greatest empires in all of human history

        > The more Germanic an ethnicity is and the less it has been corrupted by Christianity, the more powerful they are

        Tell that to the poor saxons at Verden

        Franks still had Germanic Warrior Ethos, mate.

        Uh oh paganbros....

        Choosing a God based on what they can do for you and might makes right is a very pagan mindset. Weird that a Christian would post this to btfo a Pagan.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Holy cope

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >converting to Christianity is a very pagan thing to do

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            It's a false narrative that most Pagans that just outright became Christians. They just worshipped Jesus in addition to their usual Gods. It's just that inviting Christian Priests to their land often resulted in their children and grandchildren being christian, not really themselves. Conversion war a very slow process. Not a sudden one like Christians want people to believe.

            I mean look at the Anglo-Saxons. It sounds like a /misc/ tier conspiracy theory, but Christians told them they were a lost tribe of Israel and the bible is actually the story of their ancestors.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            > mean look at the Anglo-Saxons. It sounds like a /misc/ tier conspiracy theory, but Christians told them they were a lost tribe of Israel and the bible is actually the story of their ancestors.

            British Israelism was not a thing among Anglo-saxons. That was a later Protestant emergence.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      > The more Germanic an ethnicity is and the less it has been corrupted by Christianity, the more powerful they are

      Tell that to the poor saxons at Verden

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Uh oh paganbros....

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >conquers the western half of your empire
      >goes on to create the greatest empires in all of human history

      [...]
      Franks still had Germanic Warrior Ethos, mate.

      [...]
      Choosing a God based on what they can do for you and might makes right is a very pagan mindset. Weird that a Christian would post this to btfo a Pagan.

      >The more Germanic an ethnicity is and the less it has been corrupted by Christianity, the more powerful they are.

      That’s not true at all as Cromwell and his puritans proved when they destroyed those pagan royalists with “warrior ethos” at battle

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        wrong
        >> According to J. Duncan Spaeth, "Wyrd (Norse Urd, one of the three Norns) is the Old English goddess of Fate, whom even Christianity could not entirely displace."
        >Calvinism brought a return to the old germanic/early English belief of pre determined fate. This is how you get brave men, by understanding what you can and can’t change. Dealing with anxiety or scared as shit? Deal with it. It’s no wonder that calvinist cultures were the most successful, and less pointless revolutions.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Wyrd
          which is etymologically ancestor of word "weird" and used as such in medieval. It is like claiming Zoroastrianism exists in Britains because word "magic" exists
          >Calvinism
          Most old testament tier protestant sect is pagan now?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Calvinism brought a return to the old germanic/early English belief of pre determined fate. This is how you get brave men, by understanding what you can and can’t change. Dealing with anxiety or scared as shit? Deal with it. It’s no wonder that calvinist cultures were the most successful, and less pointless revolutions.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Germaniggz eez best!
      >evacuates Eastern Europe
      pogchamp

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    because they are fearless and bold, even their enemies acknowledged these qualities
    they had no problem going into completely alien territories and staking everything when completely outnumbered, they could be reckless which was their greatest weakness
    these qualities gave them massive success in an era of undisciplined light infantry who could be routed easily by their cavalry shock tactics

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The funny thing is had some of the British infantry not broken ranks to advance on the Norman cavalry and then broken when charged at the Battle of Hastings, I'd be speaking a different language.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Wtf is this, lmao. This reads like propaganda designed to make an abject Norman failure look like some brilliant feat. No doubt they fought with valor, but Comnenus reclaimed everything at the end of the day.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >abject Norman failure look like some brilliant feat
      The Normans dunked on the Byzantines in practically every battle. An army of slaves and mercenaries led by eunuchs couldn't stand against a disciplined, well armed and armoured cohesive fighting force like the Normans. They got humiliated in southern Italy, then the Normans ran roughshod over the Byzantine heartlands before Alexius managed to enlist the aid of the Turks. Pretty embarrassing.

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