The Viking Road To Byzantium by H R Ellis Davidson (.MOBI)

File Size: 4.6 MB

The Viking Road To Byzantium by H R Ellis Davidson
Requirements: .MOBI reader, 4.6mb
Overview: Much has been written on the activities of the Vikings in the West, and many archaeological finds have increased interest in their campaigns, their short-lived territorial gains, and their gradual abandonment of pagan cults for Christian ways. The controversy as to their role of raiders and destroyers as opposed to that of traders and settlers has long occupied historians, and the old romantic picture of the last representatives of a splendid heroic tradition, together with a more cynical approach to the Vikings as ruthless thugs and uncultured pirates, have both been replaced by a more cautious appraisal of their way of life. The main interest has turned to study of their laws and coinage, their ships, weapons and market
towns, and the nature of their trade, and economic reasons have been put forward for their movements and activities. The value of the Icelandic sagas as reliable historical documents has been doubted and denied, as also the fulminations of the church chroniclers against the raiders, and sources are now slowly being revised in
accordance with a different historical approach. If we may feel sometimes that we possess more accurate knowledge of the building of Viking ships than the doings of their kings, it is none the less worth remembering that we have a veritable treasure-house of literary material, produced not so very long after the reverberations of the Viking Age had died away, and much of it eminently readable. Some of this material has been misinterpreted in the past, but this is no sensible reason for rejecting it wholesale. In this literature there is a good deal concerning the Viking road to the East, across the Baltic instead of the North Sea and the Atlantic, reminding us that there were plenty of eastern Vikings as well as western ones.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History

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