23 thoughts on “It Wasn’t All Pillaging”

  3. The Telegraph also published a report on this, which ws totaly garbled and made the people interviewed sound like idiots.

  4. Well I guess they had to have something to speak for to make up for prolonging the dark ages by a few hundred years.

    I can imagine that during periods when they had their fill of loot and gold that they’d be rather civil. Especially considering that even when they did get riled up they generally went after the softest targets. Young barbarians looking to make a fortune had no problem banding together and raiding a monastery. Or, utilizing the shallow draft of their long boats to strike inland river towns.

  5. I’d love to hear what Jim has to say on this. I note that in Albion’s Seed, David Hackett Fischer says that the area of northwestern England that peopled the Delaware Valley and gave the US its “midland” culture was, in the first millennium, heavily influenced by Viking incursions. So the arc of ideological development that connects — in a reasonably straight geographical line — William Penn to William Allen White may have an exceedingly unlikely source: Vikings -> Quakers -> Midwesterners. Cue “The Immigrant Song.”

  8. Well, they provided enhanced genetic material that lasted nearly 1000 years (sadly, long gone now).

  9. Not sure genetic material can disappear. Indeed, Sykes concludes in Saxons, Vikings, & Celts that the Danish invasions were responsible for the only substantial non-indigenous component in the British genome.

    And who knew that Jim Bennett was doing Flash animations these days?

    (Actually I remember that fondly from rathergood.com, and am glad that it was preserved elsewhere.)

  11. Well, Jay beat me to it. The best discussion of this is in Fischer’s Albion’s Seed, definitely. But it’s also worth reading Alan Macfarlane’s Origins of English Individualism. or poke around at the very large amount of stuff on his website, . Basically, all the Germanic (if you go back far enough, all Indo-European) tribes seem to have had a similar legal and constitutional setup — fairly strong individual rights, and a tribal assembly where every warrior had a vote. You tended to see this “one-sword-one-vote” rule in eras where technology or training advantages in warfare were relatively “flat” – one warrior was about as useful as another. so counting spears was a reasonably good predictor of the eventual outcome. Why lose conbat effectives for the tribe in internal squabbles when elections were quicker, cheaper decision mechanisms? These assemblies were described by Tacitus and others. Libertarians tend to romanticise rhe Icelandic constitution, but it was actually standard Germanic boilerplate. The flatland continental Germans over time absorbed more statist, monarchist, and roman customs and lost the more libertarian features. The old constitution survived much longer in Iceland, and aspects also survived in the smaller Swiss cantons — they still have annual assemblies and until a few decades ago it was men-only, and everybody had to have a sword or some weapon to vote. You find obvious remnants of the old constitution on the Isle of Man today; their legislature, the Tynwald, is descended from the Viking assembly. (The name is another variant of “Thingvell(ir)”, the place the old Icelandic asembly met.) And the Anglo-Saxons, who had a similar background, had an assembly, the Witangemot, which at least some consider the ancestor of the House of Lords, although there is dispute over whether it can really claim continuity.

    Fisher goes into quite a bit of detail over the degree to which Yorkshire and nearby areas were heavily settled by Vikings. It’s fairly easy to see yourself — get a detailed map of England and look at the names. “-ton” and “-wold” are Anglo-Saxon endings, “-by” was Viking for “village”. That area continuously stood out as having stronger individual rights, more rights for women, more hostility to big estates, and more social equality. The north of England saw the end of indigenous slavery sooner than southern England, back in the early second millenium. The Quaker movement was particularly popular there and in nearby Lancashire — the Quaker meeting may have reflected the old Viking tradition of assemblies. And as was pointed out above, Quakers brought many of these attributes to America when they founded Pennsylvania. from which they spread west to the Midwest and beyond.

    The genetic story’s a lot more complicated, and is still in flux. The accepted truth seems to be overturned every year now, as more and more sophisticated DNA evidene is gathered. The story as I understand it today (it will probably change tomorrow) is that most of the British Isles is, genetically, indigenous pre-Indo-European, most closely related to the Basques. The population of England, especially in the southeast, is substantially Germanic, and now seems to predate the Anglo-Saxons of history. It is quite logical, after all, the Germanic tribes from the continent would have drifted across the rather narrow seas for a long time before Hengist and Horsa were brought over to be the then-and-there version of Blackwater. The “Celts” barely register on the DNA evidence, even Ireland, and they seem to have been quite different people than the Celts on the Continent. Probably a farily small group came over, conquered a bit, and spread the language and culture. So the squabble about Gaelic vs. English or Welsh vs. English is just a squabble over which settler/conqueror language you want to use. If they really want to revive the indigenous language they should go down to Bilbao and learn Basque.

    But as I said, the genetic stuff keeps changing rapidly and a new story might emerge tomorrow.

  12. Screw this tea party party crap. I say we bring on the claymore and battle axe party to establish a new book of rights.

  13. Heh. I was just listening to “Dancing w’ Claymores” on my CD player. Edged weapons are wonderful things. But don’t bring one to a gun fight. A little of both for me, because I think we’re going to be needing them.

  14. Quite right, Josh. As long as tongues are the only weapon allowed the c***s***ers will always win. Practise, you know.

    In re the main point, it seems worth bearing in mind our depiction of the Norsemen in the 400-1000 time frame probably comes largely from latinized churchmen and monks, an inherently hostile and biased set of witnesses.

    I don’t doubt the Norsemen helped take down “civilization” in this time period, but I think a good case can be made that late Roman civilization was for most people sufficiently enervating, cynical, and oppressive that it needed destroying.

  15. New evidence suggests that many of the Norse invaders were in fact model immigrants.

    Well certainly compared to the one’s they’ve got today, anyway.

    Unfortunately, with the AGW stuff, I’ve grown wary of scientific “studies” which have some kind of relevant subtext.

    Britain is in the middle of a huge glut of culturally aggressive immigrants and the situation is considered a crisis.

  16. “The monastery and village were already burned down and looted and the locals slaughtered or fled when we got here. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”

  17. “Heh. I was just listening to “Dancing w’ Claymores” on my CD player. Edged weapons are wonderful things. But don’t bring one to a gun fight. A little of both for me, because I think we’re going to be needing them.”

    There is a kind of claymore that is quite effective against firearms. Requires a bit of practice to set-up right and has some funny writing on one side that you better not ignore.

  20. I loved them Aleta.

    They are what broke the back of the human wave assault. They were designed to make sure the human wave tactics of the Chinese in the Korean War could not be repeated.

    A few Claymores on the perimeter means a better nights sleep for some poor, mud-covered grunt. Makes a helluva force-multiplier for an ambush too. Just make sure they are pointed per instructions.

  21. Oh, I didn’t say they weren’t useful. Just don’t much like them. Me with a gun or crossbow etc. can tell friend from foe. Landmines can’t. Appreciated: yes. Liked: no.

    And just so you know: me former USAF. Vietnam War.

  22. But a claymoore is command detonated unless you set up some in a mechanical ambush(rare) so they can tell friend from foe just as well as the poor sleep-deprived sob with the piezo-electric detonator.

    They (the M18 series Claymore) aren’t a land mine in the sense of an M16 series mine is (the famous bouncing betty mine) in that they are almost always command detonated and highly-directional in their blast and fragmentation pattern. Their operational concept was derived from what is know as the Misznay-Schardin effect.

    The M16 bouncing bettys had an exposed trigger that could be a nasty suprise to the EOD sap with the mine detector set if his MK-1 eyeballs weren’t keeping ahead of detector.

    And just so you know: me former mud-covered CAV Trooper.

    Anyway, back on topic:

    Vikings like spam

  23. Mike, you’ll appreciate a cartoon I saw a while ago. Four panels, viz.:

    (1) PFC in a water-filled trench, in the rain, yells God damn it! This sucks!

    (2) Ranger hiking through mud with 40 kg pack, in the rain, says Well, this sucks just fine.

    (3) Special Forces guy wading through a swamp in a torrential downpour, pauses after using his knife to kill aa cottonmouth and growls Ha! I wish this would suck some more!

    (4) AF pilot, leaning to look out the canopy at the ground, says Sure looks like it sucks down there.

    (Not quite fair to the AF, I know; but funny)

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