HIST 119B UCLA Political Elements in The Inferno by Dante Poem Discussion

  

Question 1 (3 pages): Discuss Dante’s

Inferno

. What are the most salient political, cultural, and theological elements of the book? What does it tell you about western European culture around 1300? What was important to Dante and how he articulates his values in this book? YOU COULD FOCUS ON SOME OF THE CANTOS; RATHER THAN THE ENTIRE INFERNO

Question 2 (3 pages): Historians have argued

that the expansion of the Norsemen and danes from the Euroasian heartland (what is today Russia) to the Americas marked the birth of the first global age. Briefly describe the expansion of the so-called Viking and in detail examine one are of expansion (England-Ireland, France, Iceland, Greenland, Baltic, Russia, or North America) and the unique social and cultural aspects of Viking society. This may require some outside reading.

Please use the references provided to voice your own opinion, not just copy down from the text. Please use quotes and cite correctly from the documents provided. This teacher likes having quotes and citations from the text, but wants the author to express their own opinions. ”

Remember you are making an argument. You are not narrating or describing the authors’ works. You are expressing your ideas which you support with references to the authors. ”

The Vikings in the West:
Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland,
and Beyond
Teo Ruiz
Iceland, I
• Early settlers: Irish-Scottish monks (ca. 800).
• Naming Iceland: Naddodd, snow land, Iceland.
• Viking Garóar Svavarrsson circumnavigated Iceland, 870.
• Norse chieftain Ingólf Arnarsson’s first homestead (near
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present Reykjavick), 874.
Migration of Vikings and their thralls (Irish and Scots).
All arable land taken by ca. 930: Vikings as farmers.
Grass fields, livestock, woll products.
Deforestation: 25% of island covered by trees (1% today).
Viking Expansion
Viking Expansion
Scandinavian settlement
Viking settlement of Iceland
Iceland, II
• The Althing in Icelandic history, 930.
• No kings, no centralizing trends. Geography dictated
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politics?
Migration to Greenland in 986.
Christianization of Iceland, ca. 1000.
Old Covenant, 1262: Iceland as part of kingdom of Norway.
Kalmar Union, 1415.
Poverty and plague (1402-04, 1494-95).
Norsemen landing in Iceland
Iceland, Epilogue
• Poverty and migration in the modern period.
• From home rule (19th century) to limited independence,
1918-44.
• Full independence from Denmark, 1944.
• Poverty-Boom-Crisis.
Greenland
• World’s largest island: ¾ covered by ice.
• Periods of habitation from 4,500 BCE onwards.
• Viking settlement in Greenland, ca. 1000. Erik the Red.
• Encountering others. The Inuit there before, during, after,
and today. A different relation to the ecology of Greenland.
• Western coast: green fields, hard ground, difficult habitats.
• Grazing animals (caribous), foxes, bears.
• Teeming with fish, walruses, seals, whales.
Viking Voyages
Viking Voyages
Eric the Red Sage
Settling Greenland, I
• Saga of Greenlanders, Saga of Eric the Red.
• Two areas of settlement: Western and Eastern Greenland.
• Western G: 650 kms northwest of eastern settlement.
• Erik the Red worked a farm by a fjord in western region.
• Archeological discovery in the West: church, cemetery
(144 graves).
• “The Farm beneath the Sand.” Turf house, small hall.
• Two men, Thor, Bardur, and a woman, Bjork: Runic
property marks. Wool weaving from sheeps, goats, and
wild animals. High quality
• Abandoned around 1400. Animals left behind.
Settling Greenland, II
• Eastern settlement: 190 farms, 12 parishes in 1350.
• Bishop named to Greenland in 1124.
• Western settlement: 90 farms and 4 churches.
• A bit over 1,500 people at the height of settlement.
• No trees. The economy of Greenland.
• A small population in a marginal climate: a violent world.
• Population vanished by the end of Middle Ages: Why?
• 1) Inuit; 2) climate and diet; 3) Employment as fishermen
by the English.
• Western settlement disappears first.
Hvalsey Church
Beyond Greenland
• Ca. 1000: Leif Ericksson. Vinland.
• Northern tip of Newfoundland.
• Visions of agricultural plenty: realities and fictions.
• L’Anse aux meadows.
• Native resistance. No enough demographic resources for
further settlements.
• The Vikings’ bold travel. Ca. 1000: The first true global
age since the human sapiens migrations?
• Florida? Chichen-Itza?
Leif Ericksson discovers America
Norse long house recreation • L’Anse aux Meadows •
Newfoundland, Labrador, Canada
L’Anse Aux Meadows,
Model of Viking settlement in the museum
Entrance to sod house,
L’Anse Aux Meadows
Inside long house recreation,
L’Anse Aux Meadows
Newfoundland
and
Labrador
Skálholt map,
1570
Chichen Itza, Mexico
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza fresco
Chichen Itza fresco
Chichen Itza fresco
Greenland: An Epilogue
• The return of the Scandinavians, early 18th century.
• Part of Denmark-Norway.
• Part of Denmark until 1953.
• 2008 Self Government Act. The first Inuit political entity?
• The melting glaciers: This is how the world ends…
Glacier melt
Glacier melt
Glacier melt
Dissolving glaciers
Dissolving glaciers
Dissolving glaciers
THE VIKINGS
Teo Ruiz
Scandinavia and the World:
The Baltic Sea in History
• Another “Middle Sea?” The North Sea and fluvial
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waterways of northeast Europe
Economic resources and waterways: Helsingor, 1429
Fishing: Skāne and the great herring market
Phillippe de Meziers’ account of 1364: Through
September and October, the herring travel from one sea
to the other through the Sound, by order of God, in such
large numbers that it is a great wonder, and so many
pass through the sound in these months, that at several
places one can cut them with a dagger.
Picking them up with buckets.
Baltic Lands, c.1000
The Vikings in History
• The Vikings in history: “Water unites, but land divides.”
• The geographic and climatic contexts.
• Scandinavia from the 8th to 12th century: The Viking Age.
• Who were the Vikings? Myth & reality: Berserkers, violence.
• First recorded raid in 793 at Lindisfarne, off northeast coast of
England
• Recorded in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.
• Why such rapid expansion throughout the northern Atlantic,
the Baltic, Russia, England, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain,
the Mediterranean (Sicily), and elsewhere?
The Vikings in History II
• The engine of Viking expansion: The Great Hall and long
ships.
• Built of oak, spars allowed for wind propulsion, shallow
draught allowed for easy landings, portage (Russia), and
shallow river incursions (France).
• Viking expansion: (not in chronological order): England,
Ireland, Byzantium, Normandy, Sicily
• Ships and the afterlife: sacrifices.
Fyrkat
Viking Expansion
Viking Expansion
The Vikings in History III
• Charlemagne’s threat and fear of conversion.
• Collapse of the Carolingian world (no demographic
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reasons).
Chieftains: the culture of gift-giving and the great Hall.
Rise of more centralized authority.
Conversion to Christianity and introduction of Latin
alphabet, c.1000
Runes and epigraphical material.
The Vikings in History IV
• Social organization according to Eddic poems.
• Specific to Eddic poem of Rigsthula (Old Norse legends,
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myths and later poetry): Jarls, Karls, Thralls.
Social order: divine origin.
Social mobility. Corvée system.
Social practices and daily life.
Introduction of heavy plough in late 8th century.
A world of farmers and raiders.
The Vikings in Russia: Kievan Rus
• Historiographical controversy.
• Vikings in the Gulf of Finland.
• Sailing up the Neva River to lake Ladoga.
• First foundation at Aldeigjuborg (today Staraia Ladoga),
c. 800.
• Novgorod the Great.
• Rurik (d. 879) in Kiev. Oleg 879-913; conquests, trade.
• The lure of Baghdad and Byzantium: Muslims coins.
The Vikings in Russia: Kievan Rus II
• Khazars. Igor 913-945; Oleg, 945-963;
Sviatoslav, 963-973.
• Struggle for succession. Vladimir, Grand Duke, c. 1000.
• Conversion to orthodox Christianity (Cyril and
Methodius, Old Slavonic).
Fluvial Networks: Baltic to Black Sea
The Vikings in History III
• Some explanations for the Viking expansion.
• Charlemagne’s threat and fear of conversion.
• Collapse of the Carolingian world (no demographic
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reasons).
Chieftains: the culture of gift-giving and the great Hall.
Rise of more centralized authority.
Conversion to Christianity and introduction of Latin
alphabet, c.1000
Runes and epigraphical material.
The Viking Age and the Hansa.
The Vikings in history IV
• Social organization, according to Eddic poems.
• Specific to Eddic poem of Rigsthula (Old Norse legends,
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myths and later poetry): Jarls, Karls, Thralls.
Social order: divine origin.
Social mobility. Corvée system.
Social practices and daily life.
Introduction of heavy plough in late 8th century.
A world of farmers and raiders.
English resurgence
against Vikings,
9th century
HISTORY
Organize your answers carefully. Provide Examples and chronological references. Do not
be reluctant to voice your own opinion. Your answers have to be more than a memorization
of your text book or class notes.
YOUR ANSWERS MAY NOT EXCEED 2,000 WORDS. THAT IS 8 PAGES FOR THE
TOTAL, TYPED AND DOUBLE-SPACED.
Part 1: Short essay 3-4 pages
Part 2: Short essay 3-4 pages
BOTH NEED TO BE ANSWERED
Remember you are making an argument. You are not narrating or describing
the authors’ works. You are expressing your ideas which you support with
references to the authors.
Part I. Write a short essay answering question A
QUESTION A. Discuss Dante’s Inferno. What are the most salient political, cultural, and
theological elements of the book? What does it tell you about western European culture around
1300? What was important to Dante and how he articulates his values in this book? YOU
COULD FOCUS ON SOME OF THE CANTOS; RATHER THAN THE ENTIRE INFERNO
Part II. Answer One
Historians have argued that the expansion of the Norsemen and danes from the Euroasian
heartland (what is today Russia) to the Americas marked the birth of the first global age. Briefly
describe the expansion of the so-called Viking and in detail examine one are of expansion
(England-Ireland, France, Iceland, Greenland, Baltic, Russia, or North America) and the unique
social and cultural aspects of Viking society. This may require some outside reading.
The Sagas: Window into
Icelandic (Viking) Society
Teo Ruiz
Scandinavian settlement
Iceland
Iceland and the Vikings
• Iceland: the quintessential Viking society.
• The Sagas of the Icelanders.
• What were the sagas? How were they written? Who
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wrote them?
No sentimentality or judgment.
Written in the vernacular (Old Norse): 50 plus extant
sagas.
Written in prose as a form of historical fiction.
Sagas as memory and representation.
Norsemen landing in Iceland
Viking settlement of Iceland
The sagas in medieval literature
• The world of men and women: conflicts, feuds, and
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resolution of these feuds
A fictionalized portrait of the world as it was.
Little role for gods or supra-heroic figures.
A literature sponsored by free farmers with enough
income to pay for rendering into writing oral stories
about their ancestors: Identity.
Legitimizing power.
Important role of women.
Dragons.
Icelandic sagas manuscript
Icelandic sagas manuscript
Icelandic
sagas
manuscript
Grettir the Strong,
Icelandic sagas
protagonist
Icelandic sagas manuscript
Icelandic sagas tapestry
Icelandic sagas tapestry
Icelandic sagas tapestry
The Saga of the Heath-Slaying I
• According to scholars, the oldest Saga extant.
• First 15 chapters lost in a fire in Copenhagen.
• Following chapters tell the story of Bardi and Ginsli.
• Emphasis on material possessions: (steads) and feuds.
• Manly virtues, strong women, feuds.
• References made to a moot (think of Tolkien) and the
carrying out of feuds. Thorarin foster father to Bardi and
Ginsli. The role of foster relations.
• Thorarin’s swaying of the Althing in Bardi’s favor..
Ginsli and his family slayed Bardi’s brother, Hall.
The Saga of the Heath-Slaying II
• References to a foster father and mother.
• Kin relationships.
• The killing of Gisli, a central point in the narrative.
• Abandons his wife, second marriage.
• Voyage to Norway, return to Iceland.
• Gisli’s life as a soldier and his death in combat.
• Thorarin plans Bardi’s revenge.
• A lineal story without adornment.
• Little of the magical and symbolic.
The Saga of the Heath-Slaying III
Famed groves of the race-course whereon the sword runneth,
All up on the Heath ’twas eleven lay dead
In the place where the lime-board, the red board of battle,
Went shivering to pieces midst din of the shields.
And thereof was the cause of the battle, that erewhile
It was Gisli fell in with his fate and his ending
In the midst of the fray of the fire of the fight:
‘Gainst the wielder of wound-shaft we thrust forth the onslaught.
Ragnar’s Saga
• Similar to The Saga of the Heath Slaying: a story of feuds.
• War and the Viking age.
• Ragnar, legendary Scandinavian king and hero.
• Described in Old Norse poetry and in several sagas.
• Carried out many raids against England and France.
• No historical evidence for his life, but identified in the sagas
as the father of many sons, including such historical figures
as: Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn Ironside, and others.
Ragnar’s Saga
• According to the saga, Ragnar married three times: to
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shieldmaiden Lagertha; noblewoman Ipora Borgarhjort; and
to Aslaug.
His enemy, King Aella of Northumbria, captured him.
Killed by being thrown into a pit of snakes after torture.
His sons invaded Northumbria with the “Great Heathen
Army.”
Great alliance of all Scandinavian people to invade England
in 865.
Think Tolkien; Game of Thrones.
The Great
Heathen
Army,
865
Saga of Erik the Red
Leif Eriksson discovers America
Saga of Erik the Red
• Describes the exploration of North America.
• Erik exiled to Greenland: A troublemaker.
• His saga also tells of Leif Ericson’s long ship, blown off
course and landing in “Vinland the Good.”
• Representations of plenty: how to atract settlers.
Norse Religion I
• Nordic religion before Christianity and Christian accounts:
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the mediation of religion and literacy.
Links to German mythology: ancestor worship.
Care for the dead.
Temples (at Uppsala) and altars, ghost beliefs.
Human sacrifices, mostly associated with funeral rites.
Priests and kings, local deities, agricultural cults.
Norse Religion II
• Nordic gods include Thor (with his hammer).
• Avery profitable after life as a Hollywood charcater.
• Depicted in the mold of Saga heroes.
• Odin (father of Thor) described as a pursuer of
knowledge.
• Inventor of runes; and also associated with ravens.
• The goddess Freyja, a shieldmaiden.
• The goddess Skaoi, snowbound winter goddess. Think
Frozen.
Norse Religion III
• The god Njoror, a benevolent god, invoked for calm seas.
• Many agricultural gods and goddesses.
• Norse mythology focuses on the trials and tribulations of
the gods (gods could die, myth of Baldr).
• The death of gods and their rebirth: the power of
mistletoe. The role of the mistletoe in Indo-European and
Celtic cultures. Oaks and fire festivals. Witch protection.
• The relation of gods to humans and other beings.
• The familiarity between the divine and the secular world of
humans.
Odin
Thor
Thor
Freya
Balder
Balder’s death
Norse Religion IV
• Norse mythology posits Nine Worlds.
• They exist around a primordial tree, Yggdrasil (ash tree,
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dragons).
In one creation myth, the world is formed from the flesh of
the primordial being Ymir.
Valhalla, the hall of the slain in battle.
Half of the dead warriors killed in battle go to Valhalla: an
enormous hall in Asgard, ruled by Odin. The dead heroes
led there by the Valkyries.
The otheer half to Freyja’s fields or Folkvangr. Dead
heroes to help Odin at Ragnarök.
The Seer’s Prophecies.
Max Brückner,
Scene of Wagner’s Walhalla
Norse Religion V
• The first two humans: Ask and Embla.
• These worlds will be reborn after Ragnarok.
• The final battle between the gods and their enemies, ends
with the burning of the world… only to be reborn.
• In this new earth, the surviving gods will gather in valhalla.
• The land will be fertile and green.
• Two humans will restore mankind. (Think Wagner).
Max Brückner,
Final scene of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung
(The twilight of the gods)

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