The Brutality of Vikings

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Great shipbuilders and seafarers. Without their contribution to maritime technology and culture, the European empires which colonised the Americas might never have left home; which would have been to the obvious benefit of the natives abroad, one might argue.

And Africans as well.

Entire cultures wouldn’t exist today.

Africans would have colonized America of their own free will.

The notions of “illegal” persons and “illegal” peoples would not have been invented.

 

[RestlessSoul]

And Africans as well.

Entire cultures wouldn’t exist today.

Africans would have colonized America of their own free will.

The notions of “illegal” persons and “illegal” peoples would not have been invented.

We are a warlike, migratory species. I doubt we will ever stop our restless shifting around the globe, but perhaps we can do it without the violence.

Interesting, though, how many cultures also have such a profound sense of connection to the concept of a homeland. Rastafarians like Bob Marley, for example, dreamed of going 'home' to Africa.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Great shipbuilders and seafarers. Without their contribution to maritime technology and culture, the European empires which colonised the Americas might never have left home; which would have been to the obvious benefit of the natives abroad, one might argue.

The Norse would of course have a massive impact on England (their descendants, the Normans, did take over amd begin what is generally acknowledged as the beginning of the English Monarchy) but I would argue the monstrous sized ambitions of Alfred the Great played a greater role with those ambitions growing larger as time went on those who would come later not being able to stop what already started (it started by claiming the Aenglisch speaking countries and deficed why stop there?).
The Spanish and French I doubt it. Columbus getting here was a fluke and he didn't even realize he was here (he thought he was in India). The French, perhaps, though I suspect it looks more like the English and their colonial drives have better explanations, especially as the Franks themselves were no saints.
Basically back then there was fragile, thin peace amd otherwise dog eat dog. "We torture them so they cannot torture us" wasn't really paranoia in times past but a reality of life.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And Africans as well.

Entire cultures wouldn’t exist today.

Africans would have colonized America of their own free will.

The notions of “illegal” persons and “illegal” peoples would not have been invented.

Rome was colonizing Africa way before the Norse were around. Egypt colonized it before them.

 

[Quagmire]

That's basically everyone back then. English, Welsh, Frank, Norse, Irish, Firisian, Jute, Goth, Gaul, Roman, Saxon, Norman, everyone did that.

No, not really. By the time of the Vikings most of Europe was under some sort of centralized authority. Any parts that weren't part of the Holy Roman empire had formed into their own kingdoms.

At that point war had became more political; nobles needed permission from the King to war upon their neighbors, kings and emperors needed permission, or at least be confident of approval, from the Pope

Except the random part. Attacks were rarely random and usually picked for reason such as low risk cattle raids to defenseless monasteries filled with precious gems and metals. Low risk-high reward was how many attacks were planned. Attacks were actually picked and planned enough that Alfred the Great and his children stuffed the Saxon kingdoms full of burghs where they could to defend against and especially deter viking raiders who were very reluctant and hesitant to lose that many men attacking something that fortified when they could find a smaller village to raid.

They were random in the sense that they weren't motivated by any mutual history or by any anticipation of permanent conquest of territory or resources.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, not really. By the time of the Vikings most of Europe was under some sort of centralized authority. Any parts that weren't part of the Holy Roman empire had formed into their own kingdoms.

...

Well, not all parts of Eastern Europa and Northern Europa.
And there is an aspect of colonization to some of the behaviour of the Norse.
I prefer to call them Norse and not Vikings.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Interesting, though, how many cultures also have such a profound sense of connection to the concept of a homeland. Rastafarians like Bob Marley, for example, dreamed of going 'home' to Africa.

Territory is sacred.

Under International Law, individual and collective religious rights must be respected. And those collective rights may involve a specific piece of territory.

Here’s just one example, from the Best Hymn in the World.

The mountain at 1:10 is located at the center of the world, the Axis Mundi, where heaven meets earth and hell.

It is absolutely fundamental to Catholicism.

El Mejor Himno Del Mundo Vídeo Oficial del Himno Al Patìa

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No, not really. By the time of the Vikings most of Europe was under some sort of centralized authority. Any parts that weren't part of the Holy Roman empire had formed into their own kingdoms.

Yeah, really. Yes the Franks had already produced Charlemagne but lots of Europe was still like post-Rome Briton with power vacuums being filled, amd especially stabilized, from the decline of the Roman Empire and collapse and demise of the Western Roman Empire.
And of course these larger states, such as England and France, would now and then get riled up bad and things would look like an episode of Game of Thrones.
Plus I gave you examples of people who engaged in such behaviors during the Middle Ages. True, they really were a lot like us back then, but the back then also the hot heads, brutes and fighters who mostly won tended to get further ahead ahead because the possessions on those you killed in battle were loot, and even then and now we like winners who can elevate our status and better our position so these sorts of violent types also got lots of people turning to them as their loaf guardian/hlaford (our word for lord) was far better than they'd get elsewhere.

They were random in the sense that they weren't motivated by any mutual history or by any anticipation of permanent conquest of territory or resources.

They very much were. They went to Briton to take it all over. They went to France, settled, and became the Normans.
And largely they did have histories with eachother. The Great Heathen Army didn't just appear out of nowhere. There was history on top of history on top of history because even back then there were lots of us getting around and mingling with others.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yeah, really. Yes the Franks had already produced Charlemagne but lots of Europe was still like post-Rome Briton with power vacuums being filled, amd especially stabilized, from the collapse of the decline of the Roman Empire and collapse and demise of the Western Roman Empire.
And of course these larger states, such as England and France, would now and then get riled up bad and things would look like an episode of Game of Thrones.
Plus I gave you examples of people who engaged in such behaviors during the Middle Ages. True, they really were a lot like us back then, but the back then also the hot heads, brutes and fighters who mostly won tended to get further ahead ahead because the possessions on those you killed in battle were loot, and even then and now we like winners who can elevate our status and better our position so these sorts of violent types also got lots of people turning to them as their loaf guardian/hlaford (our word for lord) was far better than they'd get elsewhere.

They very much were. They went to Briton to take it all over. They went to France, settled, and became the Normans.
And largely they did have histories with eachother. The Great Heathen Army didn't just appear out of nowhere. There was history on top of history on top of history because even back then there were lots of us getting around and mingling with others.

And not to forget the Rus.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Rome was colonizing Africa way before the Norse were around. Egypt colonized it before them.

Spain took it to a whole new level.

African roots in Latin America: Palenque (Colombia) | Armin Schwegler | TEDxUCIrvine​

This talk illustrates how linguistics and population geneticists have recently managed to reconstruct the precise African roots of descendants of African slaves that were transshipped some 400 years ago from Black Africa to Latin America. The talk focuses on Palenque (Colombia), where special African traditions and an unusual creole language have been preserved to this day.

Professor Schwegler’s research emphasizes the study of Latin America from a linguistic, social, and historical perspective. For three decades, this has led him to explore in depth the precise African origins of Hispanic communities whose roots are found in the transatlantic slave trade. Using population genetics (DNA) research to complement humanistic investigations, his work shows that “lost history” can indeed be reconstructed with precision. To that end, he has traveled widely and afar, and published several books and over 60 research articles.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Spain took it to a whole new level.

African roots in Latin America: Palenque (Colombia) | Armin Schwegler | TEDxUCIrvine​

This talk illustrates how linguistics and population geneticists have recently managed to reconstruct the precise African roots of descendants of African slaves that were transshipped some 400 years ago from Black Africa to Latin America. The talk focuses on Palenque (Colombia), where special African traditions and an unusual creole language have been preserved to this day.

Professor Schwegler’s research emphasizes the study of Latin America from a linguistic, social, and historical perspective. For three decades, this has led him to explore in depth the precise African origins of Hispanic communities whose roots are found in the transatlantic slave trade. Using population genetics (DNA) research to complement humanistic investigations, his work shows that “lost history” can indeed be reconstructed with precision. To that end, he has traveled widely and afar, and published several books and over 60 research articles.

Okay, but what does that have to do with Vikings?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And not to forget the Rus.

Yeah, it really is fascinating how people from very hard lands carved their name forever into human history. Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, they went everywhere.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Okay, but what does that have to do with Vikings?

See the OP below. This thread is not just about the Vikings. It is about cultures all over the world. The Vikings are just one example of a culture.

The OP asks for other examples.

I’ve given two such examples, now.

Obviously, I know more about one of them than I do the other, but they both had struggles with the colonial state regarding their rights to Welcome the Stranger, which is absolutely fundamental to Catholicism, due to the Wars for the very soul of Catholicism that took place in the Land of Magical Realism, on a battlefield shaped by the powerful forces of plate tectonics, going all the way back to Pangia. (Yeah, religion is interdisciplinary, and involves many disciplines. I think we need to get over our fears of science when it comes to the study of religion.)

Seems a common notion, but then was any culture in our history any less brutal than they?

Sometimes I can identify them as more refined than other cultures, but not without severity in thier ways.

Can we make some comparisons of common understandings between cultures as they relate to the "brutality" of ??????

 

[Revoltingest]

WTF is your problem, anyway?

I notify people when they fail to make
sense because they use words whose
definitions they don't know.
It's a service that I offer gratis.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I notify people when they fail to make
sense because they use words whose
definitions they don't know.
It's a service that I offer gratis.

Or in some cases claim there is only one defintion of a word when there are many. That can also happen, but not really since it is all an illusion.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

I notify people when they fail to make
sense because they use words whose
definitions they don't know.
It's a service that I offer gratis.

You like to force your own gundamentist state religion on peoples of different religions.

You won’t even allow other religions to determine their own cultures and their own religions.

You want the state to mandate your religion.

In your religion, gun control is not a religious issue.

In your religion, civil war is not a religious issue.

Religious folks are just expected to flee the country for their safety, to escape your thuggery.

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

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m.youtube.com

 

[Revoltingest]

While sitting in Beijing and speaking as one with a bit of Viking heritage and a lot of Germanic with some Irish, Scottish and English

Pick society, group, or empire of the time and tell me which one that didn’t have slaves or didn’t commit acts if cruelty

I thought I'd already addressed this.
Hmmmm....I did. Not well enuf apparently.

I assume that nearly all have cultures who committed
wrongful acts. The issue is celebration of those
cultures. Why is it wrong to have Confederate pride,
but perfectly fine to be proud of Viking lineage?

 

[Revoltingest]

Aye .. and they should take great pride in such Heritage ... a people who accomplished many things ... Would be pure unadulterated Ethnocentric nonsense to let partaking in a custom universal at that time get in the way of such pride... ..

Thats right Revol --- new word alert .. from the field of Anthropology .. the study of Anthropo .. "Ethnocentrism"

And I thought my writing style is odd.
You take the....

 

[Revoltingest]

You didn't get that it was a joke?

Hard to tell.
I picked an inference.

 

[Wu Wei]

The OP didn’t have a time limit.

The 20th century and 21st century are pretty bad as well.

But my original post and subsequent posts are specifically in reference to the Viking era. Which is defined by specific dates 799 to 1100