The historical phe
nomenon that began on 8 June 793 with the sack of Lindisfarne abbey in Northumberland and ended around 1050 left a lasting trace in the memory of the frightened West. The Viking myth of the barbarian brute, standing in horned helmet at the prow of his drakkar, is still vivid today. And yet its causes are known: the Scandinavian pirates attacked rich and defenceless places, abbeys, collegiate churches, cathedrals and so on because they were not numerous enough to form true armies or fleets capable of confronting an enemy face to face. Their chosen victims, the clerics, were also the only ones capable of writing, particularly of writing down the chronicles or annals that are our usual starting-point for grasping the phenomenon. It is they who made the Viking an instrument of Satan or the arm of God come to chastise the West for its sins. Later on, the Viking became the model of the cavalier (18th c.), then of the Nietzschean Uebermensch.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Silk Road, a term that first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, refers to that network of caravan tracks traversing Central and West Asia, used to carry trade goods between the East and West from approximately the second century B.C. to the fifteenth century A.D. These tracks were neither a single road nor was silk the only commodity that was carried across them. The termini of the “Road” were said to be Rome in the West and Chang’ an in the East.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Silk Road, a term that first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, refers to that network of caravan tracks traversing Central and West Asia, used to carry trade goods between the East and West from approximately the second century B.C. to the fifteenth century A.D. These tracks were neither a single road nor was silk the only commodity that was carried across them. The termini of the “Road” were said to be Rome in the West and Chang’ an in the East.
