History of Medieval England - Thursday 6th Period: Discussion 1: Introduction and Pre-history to 500

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

Good afternoon, class. Now I get to torture you all by making you all stand up and introduce yourselves to your classmates. This is because I'm sadistic want to get you used to the concept of talking during our discussion sessions. Please give your name and what one thing you'd like to find out in this class.

Your homework, due next Tuesday but to be posted in this post is to pick a topic from the once-optional-now-mandatory reading list I gave you on Prehistoric Britain and Roman Britain and give me ETA a minimum of one hundred Wikipedia words on it. Got it? Good.

[[OOC comment threads are done!]]

[[ETA: OOC: At some point I stopped receiving comment notifications for this post. I'm scanning and trying to jump into discussions. But since I'm trying to foster discussion *amongst* all of you, I try not to jump in everywhere.]]

Comments

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"Actually, I believe Roman Britain was considered quite important. It acted as a proving ground for aspiring politicians and a powerbase for usurping emperors. And when it was invaded and lost to the Saxons, that was considered the first death knell of Rome."

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

"It also was tremendously wealthy in ore -- as you asked earlier, Mr. Mitchell -- and food. Plus, they assumed that as an island it would be an easily defensible chunk of land. On that score, they were wrong, as the northern tribes proved."

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"But if they had managed to conquer the northern tribes, then it would have been more so, wouldn't it?"

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Who considered that the first death knell? The romans or us?"

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"Historians do. What with their twenty-twenty hindsight and all."

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Well yeah, so maybe the romans themselves thought 'good riddance', that whole place was way too expensive and we needed those troops."

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

"That's pretty much exactly what they did. But it meant that Rome no longer had the resources to endlessly pour into expansion the way they had before."

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Cameron nodded as that made sense. "So, if Britain was one of the first places that they decided to drop in favour of holding on to others, that's got to say something about how important they thought it was. Doesn't it?"

Re: DISCUSSION 2: Medieval English History: Roman Britain

[lady-jessica-bg.livejournal.com]

"Who ever hears his own death knell?" Jessica responds.