Normans question

[Vytis]

Originally posted by Elewyn
[B]If Normans were nothing diferent than Vikings they are called Vikings too.

They spoke French. They had great skill of incorporating local customs and systwems into their own (first step: Danes came to France and its king offered them a land. They accepted it, kept their warrior skills but from local people they learn French and got more "civilized". When they built up powerfull duchy of Normandy they were no longer Vikings, I'll be very lucky if you got this point once, Vytis :) like vhen Varyags lived for longer than 100years in Slavis environment, they got asimilated, have something from Viking ancestors, something from Slavs, they were no longer Slavs nor Vikings)

So according to your theory :
Danes came to France.They started speaking french but didn't become french. They started calling themselves Normans instead. That's probably because they settled in french province of Normandie. :) Did I get it more or less right? :)

[Elewyn]

I would prefere saying they settled there, the French started to call them Normans and their duchy Normandie. And Normans were more both French and Vikings than none of it. More or less. I don't mean it exactly, so please don't take it literaly.

They were not so diferent from other temporary swordsmen (by look), but in certain time of X-XII. century they were the strongest unit, so IMO they represent in KoH something like "western swordsmen from X to XII century" and because in this times "norman shield" was very popular and Normans were the strongest power in the West, they are called Normans instead of something else.

We can see there more units like this. Before Normans, in times of VIII to X century there are Vikings, as representants of their age (except some details, most of temporary units did look like them). Vikings are on north and Saracens are for the same period on south , for XII and XIII century, we have Templars here for the west, for XIV and XV century Teutonic champions. All of them have armour which fits to their age, weapons which fit partly to their age, partly to themselves, but they are "representants", available in a region they were most famous of.
Swordsmen are "light infantry" from XI to XIII in average, Men-at-arms look perhaps like "light infantry" from XIII to XV century.

That's what I think about "unit system of KoH"

[Jarlabanke]

I'm just wishing for a guy with some sort of blunt weapon for use against heavy armor.
About the Normans, if I remember it right even though a lot if Danes/Norwegians went there the majority of the people there still were french and frenchspeaking, I think I've read that the last known contact with Scandinavia was some norwegian skald visting the norman court some years before the invasion of England.