
Modernity Got Going with the Vikings - danielam
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150513-north-sea-ngbooktalk-vikings-bergen-herring-money-roman-law-dark-ages-donald-trump/
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trhway
>The North Sea is small, but its cultural influence spread from Dublin in the
west to Poland in the east, says author.

well, even further east - Kievana Rus, the starting point of Russian state,
was founded by Vikings as kind of forward operating bases in their dealings
with Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. Before Vikings, it were just some
Slavic tribes in the forest, and under Vikings it became a small state making
raids south on Constantinople and to Caspian Sea/Iran. Basically it was put on
the map of Europe, and the rest is history :)

Anyway, Vikings and Caliphates (as well as Roman Empire before) are great
examples how climate changes affect, sometimes to the point of really driving,
the history.

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legulere
There were certainly strong contacts between the Scandinavians and the Kievan
Rus, however the exact relationship between them aren't known.

~~~
trhway
i'm not sure why you're saying that. While details have been lost in time,
general story is pretty clear.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians)

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MilesTeg
I think every medieval historian thinks that their subject is the root cause
of the renaissance. I have read that modern world exists thanks to

… the Arabs who preserved Roman learning and reintroduced it to the west … the
Mongols who fostered world wide trade routes … the Turks whose conquests of
the Eastern Roman Empire caused wealthy and educated Greeks to flee to the
Italian city states and kick start the renaissance ….etc

This time it’s the North Sea Vikings. I don’t think I buy this one. Yes
trading was easier by water. But that was true everywhere and not just in the
North Sea. Others have already mentioned the problems the currency claims.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
There's a lot of stuff in that article that I don't quite believe, such as:
"When the Roman Empire fell apart, there were no coins in circulation, just
gold. But you didn’t pay taxes with gold. What the Frisians did was reinvent
cash. Not just coins, but cash—money you carried with you in order to do
business. They were trading between different kingdoms and territories, so
they had to have something that made sense to everybody. Outside Friesland,
there’s very little evidence of the minting of silver coins until much later.
"

A little bit of googling turns up evidence that lots of people were minting
silver, here's some 6th century Goths doing it:
[http://www.romancoins.info/Ostrogoths.html](http://www.romancoins.info/Ostrogoths.html)
and Charlemagne too:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen_penny_of_Charlemagne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen_penny_of_Charlemagne)

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Fjolsvith
I believe the Charlemagne coin was minted in the 8th century.

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garrettgrimsley
>The Frisians seemed to have started cash and spread the habit through
trading.

Does he point to any specific account in his book? From what I've read it was
the Chinese that first used paper currency, not the Europeans. The whole
article could use a parenthetical "in Europe."

~~~
wobbleblob
Did you read the whole article? There is no reference to paper currency, the
cash strictly refers to coins.

But you're right, it's not exactly clear what he means there:

"When the Roman Empire fell apart, there were no coins in circulation, just
gold. But you didn’t pay taxes with gold. What the Frisians did was reinvent
cash. Not just coins, but cash—money you carried with you in order to do
business."

I'm pretty sure the Frisians weren't the first to mint coins, and if this
refers to a new kind of use of coins, it's not explained in the article.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
I did read the whole article, but I interpret cash as meaning paper currency.
Especially when they say "Not just coins, but cash" it leads me to believe
they are talking specifically about banknotes. I re-read the article and they
do clarify that they are talking about Europe specifically, both in the book
title and the interview. Perhaps 3AM isn't the best time to post.

