I feel that I have to reply,
If I remember correctly "Haralds Saga" from Snurlson (sp?) has quite a
description of the raids just before the english invasion right around
the coast of the Med. On one occasion Harald raided a town on the
coast thinking that it was Rome itself.
I would have thought that with such travel, and trade as well, there
would have been an amount of Danes and others that could, and probably
did speak and converse in Latin, would there have been any reason why
they would not have heard of Vergil?
All IMHO of course, the point of view of a medieval hobbyist only!
David Debono
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Subject: educated brigands
Author: medieval-religion-request ([log in to unmask]) at
unixmail
Date: 18/09/96 20:03
I suspect that the appearance of classical allusions in brigands' speeches has
less to do with the learning of the brigands than with that of the Latin authors
who describe them. In Abbo's Latin life of St Edmund, the Viking messenger sent
to threaten Edmund tells him that it is the custom of his lord Hinguar 'to spare
the conquered and defeat the proud' ('parcere subjectis et debellare superbos');
I find it very unlikely that a ninth-century pagan Viking would quote Virgil,
though a learned tenth-century monk might...
Bella Millett
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