The fact is that in the Vikings’ own language, Old Norse, víkingr just meant pirate, marauder. It wasn’t an ethnic label, it was a job description. And what this means for us is that if you come across headlines – as these days you very often do – which say something like ‘Vikings! Not just raiders and looters any more!’ then the headlines are wrong. If people weren’t raiding and looting (and land-grabbing, and collecting protection money), then they had stopped being Vikings. They were just Scandinavians. But while most Vikings were Scandinavians, most Scandinavians definitely weren’t Vikings, not even part-time.
Etimoloji
Volsung Hanedanı
In ‘The Saga of the Volsungs’, the founder of their line is indeed called Volsung, but this does not sound right. The -ung ending nearly always means ‘descendant of’, as if the original name should have been Volsi. Beowulf in fact knows the name as Wæls, and refers to Sigmund, Sigurd’s father, as ‘the Wælsing’, the ‘son of Wæls’,5 which does sound right. However, the original and correct name for the founder of the dynasty may have been censored out by later Christian writers, for in Old Norse völsi is a word for ‘horse penis’. (There is an Old Norse short story incorporated into ‘The Saga of St Olaf’ that accuses the pagan Swedes, possibly unfairly but possibly not, of worshipping a horse penis in winter fertility rites.) ‘The Saga of the Volsungs’ as we have it starts off with an involved story about an apple sent by Odin to ensure conception, and a sword which only the hero Sigmund can draw, planted by Odin in a huge tree called Barnstock. This clearly means ‘bairn stock’, ‘child stock’, so once again there is some kind of story of miraculous conception lurking in there. Possibly the original founder of the dynasty was once thought to be a fertility god.
Dominicans
The popes tried sending preachers among the Cathari, but they were notoriously ineffective, at least until a Spaniard named Dominic Guzman (1170–1221) struck upon the reason. In 1206 Dominic was helping in efforts to convert the Albigenses when he realized that the papally assigned preachers were depending on their ecclesiastical pomp and dignity. The Albigenses considered such show a sure sign of false religion. Dominic believed that the heretics would listen if the preachers themselves were committed to poverty. To win the heretics, Dominic went forth among them as a poor man, barefoot and begging.
In 1220 the Dominican mission and lifestyle gained official approval. The new preaching order that we know as Dominicans was called mendicant, meaning “begging,” and the term friar (or brother) distinguished them from monks because, unlike monks, they went forth to live among people to preach and teach. Just as monastic houses had once arisen to minister in the countryside, so the mendicant friars now emerged to meet the spiritual needs of townspeople.
Austria
A third trouble spot was the kingdom’s eastern frontier, which was continually threatened by the Slavs and the Avars, Asiatic nomads related to the Huns. “In six campaigns Charlemagne decimated the Avars and then set up his own military province in the valley of the Danube to guard against any possible future plundering by eastern nomads. Called the East Mark, this territory later became Austria.”
Gregory’nin Angel-Angle Benzetmesi
A story circulated, probably part fact and part fiction, that Gregory, before he assumed the papal office, happened upon three young English boys for sale in the Roman marketplace. Gregory was immediately attracted to them. “Alas! Alas!” he exclaimed, “that such bright faces should be the slaves of an inward darkness. So beautiful they are and yet their minds are sick and without God’s grace.” He asked the slave owner what nation they came from. “They are Angles,” answered the man. “Yes, indeed,” Gregory went on, “they have the appearance of angels and they should be co-heirs of the angels in Heaven. What province do they come from?” “From Deira,” said the slave owner, mentioning the ancient name for what is now Northumberland. “From Deira? Then indeed they should be saved from God’s anger [dei ira] and called to the mercy of Christ. Who is their King?” “Aella.” “Then,” said Gregory, “must Alleluia be sung in Aella’s land.” Gregory attempted to go to England himself as a missionary monk but was hindered by God and the pope. But once on the papal throne himself, he sent the Benedictine Augustine and forty monks to replant the gospel on English soil. The success of that mission in Kent, as we have seen, provides a direct link for all Anglo-American Christianity with the early church.
Episcopacy=Bishop Anlamı
When the churches granted to bishops the power to determine when sins could be considered forgiven, catholic Christianity was complete. Episcopacy (from the Greek word episkopos, meaning “bishop” or “overseer”), the power and prestige of the bishops, developed slowly.
Bible Anlamı
The name itself—Bible—suggests that Christians consider these writings special. Jerome, the fourth-century translator, called them “the Divine Library.” He wanted to stress that the many books were, in fact, one. Greek-speaking believers made the same point when they shifted from the early plural form Biblia, meaning “the Books,” to Bible, meaning “the Book.” Long before, Jews had faced the same problem when they spoke of the Scriptures and Scripture. That explains how, in time, Bible and Scripture came to mean the same thing in Christian circles: the sixty-six books that Christians consider the written Word of God.
Catholic Anlamı
Though the universality of Christianity was a common idea in the New Testament, the term catholic never appears. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in the early second century, was apparently the first to use the word. He spoke of this concept when he said, “Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church.” By the end of the second century the term catholic was widely used of the church in the sense that the catholic church was both universal, in contrast to local congregations, and orthodox, in contrast to heretical groups.
Catholic=universal
Ecclesia
The Greek equivalent was ekklesia (or church in English) and meant a gathering of people, God’s people.
Feodalizm Terimlerinin Avrupa’ya Yayılışı
Along with fiefs came the language of feudalism. The vocabulary of all the peoples on the peripheries of Frankish Europe is marked by loan words, often originally from the French, describing the equipment and habits of the immigrant mounted warriors who settled in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Hungarian words for ‘helmet’, ‘armour’, ‘castle’, ‘tower’, ‘tournament’, ‘duke’, ‘fief’ and ‘marshal’ are all loan words from German, several of them, like ‘tournament’, having been in turn borrowed by German from French. The Germanic word ‘rider’ (modern German Ritter, ‘knight’) was used in medieval Ireland (ritire) and Bohemia (rytiry) for a knight. The Polish and Czech words for fief are direct borrowings from the German Lehen. In southern Italy the Normans made the word ‘fief’, which had been a rarity, common currency. New arrivals brought new terms, reflecting different concepts of social and legal relationships.