Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roger Pearse · 09-12-2007, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucretius

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I agree. But that's showbiz.

99% of ancient literature is lost. Which 99% it was is largely down to chance. Works by major writers had a better chance. Works written specifically to insult those who did all the copying had a worse one. Works that 'must' survive, such as the Hortensius of Cicero -- familiar to every reader of Augustine's Confessions do not survive. Long chunks of Petronius do.

I'd like the option to read those books sitting under the sands of Egypt, unread for lack of money and time to go and look for them.

I don't believe that monks in the dark ages had any such agenda, or any means to carry it out if they had. When you're up to your arse in vikings, worrying about posterity tends to be a luxury.

It's a mistake to think in these centralised terms. Think of people, largely cut off from one another, going about their lives. What they did was determined by their immediate needs, not by ideology.

Being human beings, they were quite willing to destroy the works of their enemies. Living in an illiterate age, they couldn't tell what these were, and it didn't matter anyway. All these issues really come to a head in the early 16th century once the Spanish Inquisition sees what printing is achieving to spread Lutheranism and decides to put a stop to it.

I covered both of these in another post.

It is a bit disingenuous to claim that the "Dark Ages" were not all that "Dark" but that due to the war ,famine and disease the monks (or other scribes ) were not able to copy literary or historical works.

I think this sentence must have got away from you, as I can't work out what you mean to say.

I at least think that the Dark Ages were pretty miserable and very dark indeed. Vast numbers of books were destroyed. At one monastery the monks were starving, and wrapped whatever they were able to sell in a page torn from a (to them) useless book in their library. Sadly for the rest of us that book was the last copy in the world of a classical text, and every sale cost posterity something (this story from Lupus of Ferrieres). But books had to exist, under the rule of St. Benedict, and so copying went on.

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I would say that that would be a fair definiton of "Dark Ages" to be honest.
Yes there was a degree of central control but as I said it was obvioulsy not a universal control as claasical works survived better in some places than in others which would tend not to be the case in a dictatorial system of saying what was preserved or copied.

I don't know of any central control which specified some form of destruction of classical texts. If you do, I'd be interested to see the data for it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13 · 09-12-2007, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Not that I know of. They were dark because life was nasty, brutish, and short (which phrase always sounded to me like the name of a firm of provincial solicitors).

They are horrible lawyers but they totally kick ass in football.

Clivedurdle · 09-12-2007, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Euro_agnostic

I wasn't aware the dark ages lasted to 1000 Ad, I thought they ended about 800Ad.

They usually end in 1066, in England anyway. Once the Vikings push off, basically.

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And they were dark as in their are much fewer reliable sources about these times.

Not that I know of. They were dark because life was nasty, brutish, and short (which phrase always sounded to me like the name of a firm of provincial solicitors).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I always went earlier - Alfred the Great - definitely Edward the Confessor.

Clivedurdle · 09-12-2007, 02:12 PM

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Originally Posted by Ray Moscow

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They usually end in 1066, in England anyway. Once the Vikings push off, basically.

When the French arrived (well, Normans, anyway)!

Wasn't William technically a Viking? Norman - Norseman?

http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc...ow-history.cfm

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By 420 we believe that the village at West Stow was first occupied by the early Anglo-Saxon settlers.

What was it like here when the Anglo-Saxons arrived? There was a 'managed' landscape with Romano-British field systems; grazing for sheep on higher ground, water meadows and arable land all rather run down, as the economy collapsed.

Useful timber for building was to hand, and there were deserted sites, like the Icklingham Roman town nearby, where all kinds of useful things could be found and recycled such as tiles for hearths, bronze, iron and even bits of pottery.

It is believed that many of the Romano-British population survived the collapse of Roman Britain and were absorbed into early Anglo-Saxon society, some at least, as slaves.

There were no forests of pine trees - these are all 19th-20th Century plantations.

From about 420 AD for the next 200 years into the 7th Century the landscape in our area was settled by the Anglo-Saxons, whose little villages controlled areas of land which were to become the 'parishes' of later saxon and medieval times.

Antipope Innocent II · 09-12-2007, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Moscow

When the French arrived (well, Normans, anyway)!

Wasn't William technically a Viking? Norman - Norseman?

http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc...ow-history.cfm

Not really. The Normans played up their Viking ancestry, but by William's time they had long since abandoned speaking Old Norse and were to all intents and purposes identical in language, culture and warfare as their French neighbours. The one area where they seem to have retained some of their Viking heritage is in maritime technology - look at the Norman ships on the Bayeux Tapestry: they are classic Viking warships. Not surprisingly the few Old Norse words that found their way into French via Normandy are all to do with sailing, ships and fishing.

William the Conqueror's great-great-great-grandfather had been a Viking. His family had been French-speaking, French-living Frenchmen for at least three generations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amedeo

Once I had an astonishing dream.

I once had an astonishing dream - I dreamt you actually backed up your ludicrous fantasies about Columbus and the Medieval split on the flat Earth with real evidence rather than loud flatulence. Then I dreamt I had a threesome with Scarlett Johansson and Angelina Jolie.

I strongly suspect the second dream has more chance of coming true than the first.

Ray Moscow · 09-13-2007, 02:51 AM

Quote:

Clivedurdle: Wasn't William technically a Viking? Norman - Norseman?

What Antipope said!

The Normans were "Northmen", but by the point they spoke a dialect of French. It's interesting how we got some words from them and sometimes parallel words from Parisian French, meaning the same thing: ward and guard being the example that comes to mind.

Clivedurdle · 09-13-2007, 08:15 AM

But is it reasonable to put the English Dark Ages between the withdrawal of the Legions and Alfred the Great?

Roger Pearse · 09-13-2007, 08:46 AM

I would recommend Asterix and the Normans as the only reliable guide on matters of how Viking the Normans were.

And I want to see every Norman fulfilling his norm....

Brother Daniel · 09-13-2007, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I would recommend Asterix and the Normans (or via: amazon.co.uk) as the only reliable guide on matters of how Viking the Normans were.

And I want to see every Norman fulfilling his norm....

The Norman scientists' experiments to try to discover "fear" had me ROTFL. (WHAM! "No fear yet, only pain. Keep going.")

Of course, I was just a kid, and easily amused.

Roger Pearse · 09-13-2007, 11:46 AM

One of the better volumes in the series.

"And they all have names ending in -af!"

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09-13-2007, 08:15 AM	#297
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	But is it reasonable to put the English Dark Ages between the withdrawal of the Legions and Alfred the Great?

09-13-2007, 08:46 AM	#298
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	I would recommend Asterix and the Normans as the only reliable guide on matters of how Viking the Normans were. And I want to see every Norman fulfilling his norm....

09-13-2007, 11:46 AM	#300
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	One of the better volumes in the series. "And they all have names ending in -af!"

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