vi THE VINLAND VOYAGES 



so uniformly unfavorable that few until recently have 

 suspected possible inaccuracies. 



True, it has been said with increasing frequency that 

 the Norsemen may not have been quite so black as 

 they were painted, since practically every stroke in 

 their portraits had been laid on by the clergy, who, 

 as the only learned men of Christian Europe, were 

 the historians of the Viking Age and whose animosity 

 was particularly violent because the monasteries and 

 churches had been the main targets of depredation. 



In the last fifty years it seems to have been growing 

 clear at last that the civilization of the Vikings was 

 high, though different from the Christian. As a brawl- 

 ing horde of ruffians they could, for instance, be 

 thought of as overrunning and plundering northern 

 France J but without a well-developed machinery of 

 organization they could not have welded their con- 

 quests into that disciplined and powerful Normandy 

 which presently conquered England. It is gratifying 

 to French vanity if you can believe, though it is not 

 easy to believe, that the Norsemen brought with them 

 to the continent no marked intellectual or cultural gifts 

 except an ability to learn from the conquered how 

 they should behave as conquerors. 



It is incredible that men with such quick ability to 

 learn should have learned nothing of the ways of a 

 high civilization till they met the Christians. 



