Re: The Need for Debate

On Tuesday, December 7, 2004, at 08:04 , Andreas Johansson wrote:
[snip]
> Horned helmets was used back in the bronze age, in both Scandinavia and
> the
> British Isles.
Right - so that was the source for those Victorian illustrations.

> There seems to be no evidence that actual vikings used them, tho.
That's what I was thinking of. They have now become associated in the
popular mind in Britain with Vikings. "If he's a Viking he will wear ha
horned helmet" - "If he is wearing a horned helmet, he must be a Viking"
Both statements quite without foundation of course!

> Presumably they were part of formal attire rather than for combat - they'
> re rather big and clumsy.
Yes, indeed - but that does not stop the popular picture of these warriors
streaming from their long boats in the horned helmets, all set for a
weekend of rape of pillage   :)

> 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.
Absolutely!! How I detest stereotypes.

> And, of course, most Scandinavians of the period weren't Vikings at all.
That's your story and you're sticking to it!  (just kidding   :)
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On Tuesday, December 7, 2004, at 05:52 , John Cowan wrote:

> Ray Brown scripsit:
>
>> Galileo's problem was....
[snip}
> His other problem was that he was a lifelong flamer, a troll, and
> a net.assassin of the very worst kind, and probably had a profitable
> sideline selling the Italian edition of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate
> People".  He had the regrettable habit of calling a spade a God-damned
> shovel, even when it was being wielded by a Prince (of the Church or the
> State, it hardly mattered).  As a result of having cheesed off everyone in
> Italy, he was brought up on charges of making the Pope look like a fool
> (which he had unquestionably done), was shown the instruments of torture
> (but they were never used on him), and was told to go home and stay there,
> which he duly did.
So, not a good debater, then? It seems to me he was very fortunate to have
been born in Italy at the time he was.I cannot imagine anyone like that
living long in Tudod England! To make henry VIII look a fool was to sign
one's own death warrant; and his off-spring were no better.

>>> There's also often the problem of
>>> perspective: for instance, the "barbarians" (Goths, Vandals etc) who
>>> eroded the roman empire near the end. Were they really that bad? Was
>>> there nothing important that was good to say about them?
>>
>> Yes, particularly the Goths.
>
> The reason the Goths took over the Western Roman Empire (basically just
> Italy at this point) was to protect the remaining glories of Roman
> civilization
> from the real thugs, like the Franks and the Bulgars.
Yep - and didn't they hold off the Huns a bit as well? The Visigoth
kingdom in Spain was IIRC on balance "a good thing".

--
Here lies the Christian,                        John Cowan
         judge, and poet Peter,
http://www.reutershealth.com
Who broke the laws of God                       http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
         and man and metre.                      jcowan@reutershealth.com

Ray
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http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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