Questions

[James Ruhland]

>
> I think we have strayed from the original question: can CIRCULAR
> vassalage relations exist?

If by "circular" you mean can a lord enfief someone, then recieve a fief
from that same person, thus beconing their "vassal" as well as their lord?
Yes, I think that happened in the lands of the Franks; one of the reasons
the place was such a mess for most of the midieval period.
.

[Jim Cooper]

Geniver wrote:
>
> I think we have strayed from the original question: can CIRCULAR
> vassalage relations exist?
>
> I think the answer is NO, and I haven't seen anyone come up with a
> historical example yet!
>
> Geniver
>
No. There is no way that someone can be the lord over you if you are
his lord. It can't happen. Period. There are no historical examples
to prove that it can (unless someone has one .... please post it if you
do.) Have my posts been that unclear? If they were, I apologize.

Darren

[James Ruhland]

>
> As far as I recall Russia was founded by vikings who migrated up
> river before they became such a bloodthirsty bunch.
>
Half right: Russia was founded by noric (viking) Rus (Varangians)
simoultaniously with their other reaving/raiding et al. I.E. while they
were "such a bloodthirsty bunch" (which is why we hired 'em as Mercs. .
.that is, after we convinced them it was not in their best interests to
raid the City, by burning their skiffs [longships] with Greek Fire.)

[Neil Barnes]

On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, Bearcat wrote:
> >The reason for this may probably related to the fact that the Kingdoms that
> >were raided the most often by the Vikings seemingly had the greatest degree
> >of serfdom.
>
> As far as I recall Russia was founded by vikings who migrated up
> river before they became such a bloodthirsty bunch.

Are you implying that before they settled Russia the Vikings weren't
Bloodthirsty? That seems a little optimistic.

Actually pre-1066 Serfdom didn't really exist in England. Anglo-saxon
peasants weren't legally bound to the land in the same way. William
introduced the Feudal system based upon that established by Charlemagne
on the Continent, which as a vassal of the King of France he had quite a
bit of experience of of.

This was despite the heavy Viking raids on the whole of the British
Isles, including the settlement of large chunks of both islands by the
Scandanavians with their flat packed pine furniture :) In fact one of
the major reasons Harold lost to William was that he just fought off an
invading Viking army at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire,
while William was landing. Thus half his army was still marching down
south when he committed to battle at Hastings.

Scotland, not being conquored by the Normans, never had the Feudal
system imposed on it, which is why it's political system remained much
more clan based (until the scottish landowners cleared most of their
lands in the Highland clearances).

neil

[Neil Barnes]

On Thu, 8 Jan 1998, Trizt wrote:
>
> It's only a myth that "vikings" where bloodthirsty created by the catholic
> church so they could frighten people to seek "protection" under the church.

Hmm. Actually at one point the Anglo-saxon kings of England paid the
Vikings protection money (the Danegeld) to try and stop them invading.
It worked as well as could be expected. Alfred the Great (famous for
burning cakes) spent most of his reign fighting the Danes, who settled
in the Danelaw - roughly modern Yorkshire & East Anglia.

Vikings also invaded Ireland (don't remember the details - wasn't Ulster
a Viking kingdom, pre-Cromwell?) and Normandy (the Norman dukes were
descended from Viking settlers). As I mentioned before, Harald fought
off a Norwegian invasion just prior to the Battle of Hastings.

> Usually the "vikings" did make trade, but it happen that they did make war on
> other people, but it was as common between the none "vikings" to make war
> upon themselves.

I think that ignoring the fact the Vikings were a pretty violent people
is being a bit naive. Raiding & Trading were pretty much of a muchness
for them. It just depended how well defended the people you'd reached
were.

I mean they sailed across Russia & via Gibralter to raid Byzantium.
They were pretty impressive at that stuff.

> The Finns who are those closest living to the "vikings" had
> litle to fear from them, many runestones tells the story why the Finns didn't
> fear those "bloodthirsty" men from the west.

Also the Viking were looking for quality agricultural land to soak up
their exploding population, which had quickly exceeded the capacity of
their homeland to support. Finland, being pretty much like the rest of
Scancanavia, would be a much less inviting prospect than Britain,
Ireland or Northern France.

neil

[Trizt]

On 09-Jan-98, Neil Barnes (nb4769@bristol.ac.uk) wrote about Re: [BIRTHRIGHT]
- - Questions:

- ->I think that ignoring the fact the Vikings were a pretty violent people
- ->is being a bit naive. Raiding & Trading were pretty much of a muchness
- ->for them. It just depended how well defended the people you'd reached
- ->were.

Vikings werent any more violent than any other european peoples, I read a
quite nice scientific article about Vikings a year ago. I twas about the myths
that the "english" church made about the Vikings to scare the serfs and lords
to obedians (spl?). One of the most spread of the myths is the plunder of the
monestary of Lindifarne. The monks did have all the treasures with them when
they founded their new monastary some years later, they had been protected by
the Vikings who did plunder the settlement not far from the monastry. Later on
the monks was amongst them who did choose a dane (viking) to become the king
of England as a thank for been protected that evening 793.


- ->I mean they sailed across Russia & via Gibralter to raid Byzantium.
- ->They were pretty impressive at that stuff.

- ->Also the Viking were looking for quality agricultural land to soak up
- ->their exploding population, which had quickly exceeded the capacity of
- ->their homeland to support.
I have to agree that the number of the germanic peoples grow rapidly, but that
did most of the other peoples too, only exceptions would be the basks (in
spain) and the Finnic peoples.

- ->Finland, being pretty much like the rest of
- ->Scancanavia, would be a much less inviting prospect than Britain,
- ->Ireland or Northern France.
Yes, it's quite the same as most of sweden, norway is more rocky... but Finnic
fure was wanted in many parts of europe, most of all maybe in Byzan. In
differnce to the rest of the scandinavians the Finnic peoples didn't travel
far for trading, the "new come" slavic peoples became a sort of stopper of the
long tradeways which the Finnic peoples had had since the stoneage.
The east faring vikings had the problem that they could be taxed by the
Cweans, Bejormans and Tavast (all three are Finnic peoples) and this was the
main reason to the aggression toward "Finland". Later on the agression got a
bit of religous reasons, but it was still that the Finnics could taxe the
swedes and novogrodians. Thanks to the xian religion the Finns was divided
into three main groups "Finns" allied with the swedes and the catholic church,
Bejormas allied with novogrod and the ortodox church while the Tavast was in
the middle with a mix of Kalevala and xianty. As the Tavasts xianity was
closer to the catholic they choose to allie with the swedes and "Finns"
1361-1362 with the supposed death of the last king of Tavastland (1360 was the
last year when any text tells anything about an independent Tavastland).

Oki, sorry about the long historical stuff here which don't really have much
to do with BR, but I think people may understand my dislike to have a "viking"
background in those areas of Rjuvik which has Finnic names.


//Trizt of Ward^RITE

-

[Trizt]

On 09-Jan-98, James Ruhland (jruhlconob@sprynet.com) wrote about Re:
[BIRTHRIGHT] - Questions:

- ->Also, while it's prolly true that the Vikings were no more violent than
- ->other europeans, during their hayday they were a lot more efficient at it.
- ->I mean, it wasn't just Anglo-Saxon propaganda. The norse helped wreck the

Yes they had much to do with things with things that happened all over europe,
but the catholic church did add alot of lies to those things which happened,
which has lived on into our time. The real bloodthirsty people did expand a
long time before the vikings, this during the days of early Rome (I hope I
didn't missremeber the age), the Celts flooded europe, but there isn't much
stories about them left how they spead all over western europe.
I just have tried to say is that the stories about "bloodthirsty vikings" are
mostly lies added to historical happenings. They did respect others and most
of all "holy" people as munks and priests.


//Trizt of Ward^RITE

-