I am not sure if all of this went to the list, so my apolgies if
everybody already has this!.
However, again I may be mistaken but I thought that there were
certainly Celts in Rome in roman times as advisors and such like, it
would be a surmise that these histories, Virgil, Homer etc, would have
permiated across Europe in the intervening years, even though, as you
say, it is probably in the writing (and translation) that the essence
of the message was written.
I really would be interested in anyone elses views on this
David Debono
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Bella wrote
>A fair point---but i) raiding, or even trading with, Mediterranean
>towns isn't quite the same as acquiring a decent classical education
>ii) is it likely that a classical quotation, even if actually used,
>would have been transmitted by an oral tradition going back over a
>century? I'd still back Abbo myself,
>Bella
>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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______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
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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