But the center is seeking to play down the Scandinavian Vikings' reputation as wild, murderous looters who pillaged and burned through much of Europe, a claim Kobro said was largely exaggerated in texts left by ancient English monks.So they're really even more benign than Hagar the Horrible. The Catholic Encyclopedia reminds us that the less benign view is more historically accurate:
"They were really more traders and merchants," said Kobro.
The work of destruction which the first stream of Northmen wrought on the continent is told in words of despair in what is left of the Frankish Chronicles, for the pagan and greedy invaders seem to have singled out the monasteries for attack and must have destroyed most of the records of their own devastation. A Danish fleet appeared off Frisia in 810, and ten years later another reached the mouth of the Loire, but the systematic and persevering assault did not begin until about 835. From that date till the early years of the following century the Viking ships were almost annual visitors to the coasts and river valleys of Germany and Gaul.And so on...
However, this sounds like a Monty Python skit to me.
