Anglo-Saxon England

[Desparin]

Now, I'm sure I'm not the only person that is bothered by this. Obviously, CK2 is a veritable melting pot of different cultures and religions by the end of a playthrough, but it particularly bothers me that while Paradox has lavished so much attention on, say, the naming of counties in Ireland, Wales, Brittany and Pictland (specifically the historical naming of such regions), that they have not attributed the correct names of the 'counties' in England to that of their Anglo-Saxon counterparts.

I just bothers me when I see particular modern-day English spellings, such as that of York (Eoferwic in Anglo-Saxon) when they can be bothered to change York to 'Jorvik' when being ruled by a Norse culture type.

Why one rule for certain cultures, but the local culture is almost put on a backfoot and ham-fisted with modern spelling and pronounciations ?


And before anyone points out that you can just rename the counties, baronies (whichever) when they're a part of your kingdom - I don't want to do that each time I play and Anglo-Saxon ruler. It's a pain.

And yes, it is a whiney gripe to point such a thing out, but the division of the 'counties' rather irks me as well. Seeing as there was no 'counties' in Anglo-Saxon England. There was the divisison (and annexation) of the Kingdom of Kent under the rule of Wessex (Westseaxna) (and honestly, I'm somewhat upset that London doesn't belong to Mercia like it should, feth knows why Canterbury (Contwaraburg in Anglo-Saxon) does). I'm happy to see Essex (East Seaxe) represented as a rightful Kingdom, but as to why Sussex and Surrey are independent at the 769 start date, I'm not sure. Rightfully they were already a part of the kingdom of Kent by that time. Then again, I can't complain so much as there is a need to keep Counts viable to play as so I'll give Paradox the benefit of the doubt on that one.

So basically, does anybody know of a nice handy mod that simply (and correctly) renames the counties in England to their Anglo-Saxon spellings?

[Bonin]

Hopefully this thread isn't dead or perhaps this will revive it. I too get frustrated when I see other cultures fleshed out with proper place names but not the Anglo-Saxons. So, after being inspired by this thread I've completed a full list of English duchies, counties and holdings, as well as some Welsh (mainly Cornwall) and Scottish counties / holdings with their Saxon equivalents. I'm at work at the moment but I will post it hopefully later tonight / tomorrow here and elsewhere for people to use or modify themselves if anyone is interested.

I make no claim for it to be an authoritative list. I am not a qualified historian. I have used what sources I had available which were mainly what was available on the internet (wikipeadia, local history sites etc), Bernard Cornwells superb Saxon Chronical books and my own limited knowledge of the time. Where I couldn't find any information, or in the cases that the settlements came after the Anglo-Saxons, I have either used near by places or tried to use my own imagination. I will try and highlight where I have done this for people who are more knowledgeable than me to modify.

I've also tried to use as much Anglo-Saxon grammar when applicable. I chose to use þ instead of ð for uniformity sake as I understand the two are interchangeable (if someone with more knowledge of Old English could kindly clear this up I'd appreciate that).

Hope you all enjoy and I will try my best to get it online asap :-)

[Cryten]

Alert! We got a Necromancer in the house. Also I admire how you dircredited yourself in the second paragraph.

[Bonin]

Its how I roll baby! ;-)

I'm also just trying to forwarn people that I'm no expert and that there will be mistakes. I invite others who are more knowledgable of Anglo-Saxon England to share their information to make the list better ... once I've posted it that is ...

[Varainger]

İlk olarak Bonin tarafından gönderildi:

Its how I roll baby! ;-)

I'm also just trying to forwarn people that I'm no expert and that there will be mistakes. I invite others who are more knowledgable of Anglo-Saxon England to share their information to make the list better ... once I've posted it that is ...

You could also have a look into the landed_titles.txt files of SWMH, the map mod of HIP.
The swmh_landed_titles.txt not only got anglo-saxon, but cornish and cumbric and many more name alternatives.

The "Western Europe 479-867 - Winter King" mod should have the names as well.

So it has all been done before.

Tough if that was made as a single mod for vanilla i don't know. Maybe.

[Bonin]

Well thats rained on my parade! Never mind, if only I'd known it would have saved me a lot of spare time. I'll still post the list in case people like me were unaware of the mods that already changed the names. Might be easier for people to copy and paste direct from here rather than downloaded a full mod.

[lazycat1984]

considering the achievement that CK represents as is, it seems like a minor quibble but I agree they should add the Saxon names when ruled by Saxon lords.

[Surimi]

The problem with a single mod for vanilla is that variant region names are stored in the common files (landed_titles.txt to be precise) rather than the localisation folder, so in order to make it work you'd have to edit those files, which means no ironman mode and potential problems remaining compatible with other mods.

The variant region names is very much a WIP, though, so perhaps paradox will add them in time. Frankly, if we were being "realistic" every region on the map should have variant names for every possible culture but it isn't going to happen for workload reasons (and because in many cases it would mean inventing alternate names for cultures which never historically owned or conquered particular areas of land). This is a relatively big oversight, but it's one among many.

In the meantime, you can edit titles with the cusomization pack to manually set them to the appropriate names.

[Langkard]

I believe that the reason Paradox didn't include culture-specific place names for some of the early cultures such as Anglo-Saxon, Suebi, Frankish and others is because they will usually change to the later cultures. For example, Anglo-Saxon changes to English, Suebi to Portuguese, Frankish to French, etc. and so they decided not to expend the effort for a culture which the game changes sooner or later anyway. I could be wrong, but this seems like a reasonable explanation for leaving them out; although, many of us as history buffs would enjoy the greater depth to the game.

[Bonin]

Oh yes I agree. It would be a mammoth task to rename every last county and holding for all the different cultures. It is a rather minor issue in the grand scheme of things BUT it adds to the immersion of the game (which is pretty damn good anyway!). Anglo-Saxon history is an important, but sadly often overlooked, part of English and indeed British history.

All I set out to do was to change the landed_titles.txt file to show Saxon names for as much of the British Isles as I could reasonably research. After reading this thread months ago I decided to go ahead and do it purely for my own use but thought that if someone else, who maybe hasn't heard of the mods mentioned earlier (like me!) that already do this already, wanted to use it / edit it / exanpand on it for their own purpose then I'd share it.

Not arsed at all about getting achievements myself so that doesn't bother me. I'd rather be fully immersed into Anglo-Saxon England!

Hopefully I'll be able to get on my computer tonight and upload it for anyone who wants to copy and paste! :-)

[Ragnarök]

İlk olarak Bonin tarafından gönderildi:

I've also tried to use as much Anglo-Saxon grammar when applicable. I chose to use þ instead of ð for uniformity sake as I understand the two are interchangeable (if someone with more knowledge of Old English could kindly clear this up I'd appreciate that).

I remember reading once that it works in such a way that þ can be used either in the beginning of a word as in the name þor or Thor or in the middle, whereas ð can only be used in the middle or at the end of a word as in Norð or North.

Admittedly, I think I was reading about how it was used in one of the Scandinavian languages and not Anglo-Saxon so take that with a grain of salt. For me, I still prefer solely using Eth in the middle/end of a word and Thorn to begin one.

[[JJ-C] Jjeinn-tae]

As the one who did a partial-working mod of this (although only private on my computer, since it never got finished) I figure I should chime in. While very time consuming, it's quite easy to create, although I ran into the issue of not having enough information to really finish it. Got sidetracked and it became "Rename everything for every culture," at least for the Kingdom/Empire titles. Felt that went well but a lot of my work needs redoing, because I feel I took some assumptions when I shouldn't have.

There's another big issue with it though. Since, as previously mentioned, you need to edit the landed titles file, you run into the fact that they pretty frequently add counties to the game as they release major DLC's. It no longer becomes a simple matter of copy/paste and you need to at least skim things over to see what you can copy in, if not do them individually. (Generally more the former, of course). It's certainly doable and could be far worse, but it is a bigger job than one would really think considering the scope of the mod.

[Langkard]

It's all good work. I'd incorporate it if I didn't play ironman.

Did you use the Domesday Book at all? Granted, it only lists names as of 1085-1086 and only goes as far north as Yorkshire, but the names are generally Anglo-Saxon (or Scandinavian in the northern areas) and it lists the occupied villages and manor lands at the time.

In the game, for example, the castle b_richmond in the county of York shows up as Hindrelag, Hindrelaghe, Indrelag and Indrelage in the entries and b_conisbrough appears as Coningesborc, Coningesburg and Cuningesburg. Skipton also appears as Scipton. York itself is listed in the Domesday Book using the Roman name for the old fort, Eboracum.

But the other game entries for the baronies, temple and towns of York won't appear at all. The "temple" of St. Peters was called St. Peters school and isn't listed.

Pontefract didn't exist as such in Anglo-Saxon times because the name supposedly originated with a bridge over the Aire between Kirkby and Tanshelf which was broken/destroyed by Anglo-Scandinavian rebels during a rebellion against William in 1069. Tanshelf (Tateshale) or Kirkby (always spelled Cherchebi in the Domesday Book) could be used.

Hull was a later castle, but was built at the site of a village called Wyke (listed at Wich in the book and only one of dozens so named - really just the Saxon -wic or the Scandinavian -vik) outside a hamlet called Myton (Miton in Domesday).

Scarborough may or may not have existed in Anglo-Saxon times (supposedly founded by a Viking raider named Þorgils Skarði in 966, but destroyed by Tostig Godwinson before 1066. One of Tostig's titles was Earl of Falsgrave (Walsgrif in the Domesday Book) and Lord of the Manor of Hougun (named in the book and now called Houghton). The Domesday Book often lists the Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian lord of a property as of 1066 when known at the time. Much of North Yorkshire is listed as the Manor of Hougun and owned by Earl Tosti (Tostig) as of 1066 in the Domesday Book.

This is just an example for one of the game counties. Many more village and hamlet names are listed for each county in the Domesday Book than could be used, so finding good Anglo-Saxon nearby equivalents for the later English used in the game shouldn't be a problem.

[Insomniac]

İlk olarak 73rd John Stern tarafından gönderildi:

the works of Bernard Cornwell

I am so turned on right now

[Bonin]

Indeed? Well thanks for that JJ. I'm no modder admittedly. I had read that it might create problems but it thought I'd take the risk. I've made several copies of the original and editted files so HOPEFULLY it wont be too much of an issue.

Langkard, yeh when I couldnt find anything from earlier dates I used examples from the Domesday book. In the case of Scarborough I used near by Whitby as before it was Hwitbi (Norse for "white settlement") it was a fairly important Saxon village. It was sacked by Viking raiders and then later resettled and renamed by them. Because I couldnt find any real evidence of a pre Vikinh Scarborough, and because I love visiting Whitby ;-), I decided to use that instead. For places like St Peters etc again I researched and if I couldnt find anything I either used a near by place or used my imagination. For example St Cuthberts might suddenly become Cuthberhtstow (the Old English form of Cuthbert followed by -stow which I believe meant "holy place"). In certain counties in particular I've unfortunately had to take such liberties and I'm hoping that others could suggest something better or more appropriate / historically correct in such cases! This is one of the reasons I wanted to share it. Hopefully the community will help create a more complete list!!

Ragnarök - I honestly dont know enough about Old English to say if you're right or wrong but thanks for the input :-) I will say though that I've seen both used in the middle of words such as Norþhymbra and Bađum so I'm not sure which is correct!

[Ragnarök]

The only thing I'm fairly positive about is that đ never begins a word.