Re:Why did Vikings have 'Allah' embroidered into funeral clo...
by eesmith on Thursday February 06, 2020 @01:35AM
(#22253914)
> it used to be one of the most homogeneous mono-cultural countries in the world
I'm having a difficult time understanding what "mono-cultural countries" has to do with this topic.
The modern concept of "country" is often attributed to Westphalian sovereignty from the 1600s, but this article concerns the Norse era.
Norse territory wasn't a mono-culture. The Norse controlled lands on Great Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere, where the Norse were ethnic minorities.
The ethnic Norse on the Scandinavian peninsula were not a mono-culture because some were followed the Christian religion and some followed the Old Norse religion.
Nor were the genetics a mono-culture. During the Norse times, about 10% of the population were thralls, and a substantial fraction of that captured non-Norse slaves, some of whom became freedmen.
Then there were the Geats, Swedes, and Gutes.
That said, I'm fine with saying that the diversity of the Scandinavian peninsula has varied, and that in more recent history, especially after the rise of the strong centralized state, it was much closer to a mono-culture.
I'm having a difficult time understanding what "mono-cultural countries" has to do with this topic.
The modern concept of "country" is often attributed to Westphalian sovereignty from the 1600s, but this article concerns the Norse era.
Norse territory wasn't a mono-culture. The Norse controlled lands on Great Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere, where the Norse were ethnic minorities.
The ethnic Norse on the Scandinavian peninsula were not a mono-culture because some were followed the Christian religion and some followed the Old Norse religion.
Nor were the genetics a mono-culture. During the Norse times, about 10% of the population were thralls, and a substantial fraction of that captured non-Norse slaves, some of whom became freedmen.
Then there were the Geats, Swedes, and Gutes.
That said, I'm fine with saying that the diversity of the Scandinavian peninsula has varied, and that in more recent history, especially after the rise of the strong centralized state, it was much closer to a mono-culture.