Yesterday a swarm of sturdy re-enactors gathered at Hastings, in England, on the very field where the battle was fought in 1066. The last Saxon king of England, Harold, died there, and William, Duke of Normandy, became king.
And suddenly the whole country had to learn medieval French. All the existing power structures were changed and handed over to French nobles, and England would never be the same again. The Saxons were, effectively, frozen out of everything.
The upshot was that England became a ‘modern’ country; the English language absorbed the French language and became unimaginably rich and varied, and an ancient way of life died out forever. Paganism was out, for instance.
In case you think that these re-enactors are just a bunch of 350 louts who would do anything for a punch-up I have a surprise for you. Many of the carefully costumed ‘warriors’ marshaled yesterday were in fact women, not all of them young, and they knew they were part of a ritual. It was a ritual that acknowledged the way things must change, and it sanctioned the alterations that would come. In so doing they affirmed the hand-over, for better and for worse.
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