Re: The Need for Debate

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:

> ...which as you say is rather one-sided and negative. The same with the
> Vikings - ask most people about Vikings and you will told about helmets
> with horns and pillaging & raping. In fact AFAIK there is no evidence for
> horned helmets - it is IIRC due to a fanciful illustration in some
> Victorian history book - and they did actually settle and develop quite
> civilized communities, for example, at Jorvik (York), in Iceland &
> elsewhere,
Horned helmets was used back in the bronze age, in both Scandinavia and the
British Isles. There seems to be no evidence that actual vikings used them,
tho.

Presumably they were part of formal attire rather than for combat - they're
rather big and clumsy.

One shouldn't make blanket statements whether the Vikings were destructive or
not; _some_ certainly were mere destroyers, pillagers and killers, who
civilization would have done better without; others were constructive, setting
up cities and trade routes. And, of course, most Scandinavians of the period
weren't Vikings at all.

                                                          Andreas

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