Talk:Le Secret des Vikings

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This article was nominated for deletion on 9 May 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

[edit] Origin of article

For those who might be interested - the content of this article was originally in the article vikings. I cut it from there and turned it into a separate article because I felt the content did not warrant inclusion in that article, this was discussed on the discussion page of vikings first. I personally feel it is bunk, but I did not feel comfortable deleting the whole thing without a trace so I moved it to a separate article. (Barend 15:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC))

Hi Barend,
« Pseudohistorical » is the only critic I got from french historians. The reason why my work is « pseudohistorical » is that I worked with texts from the 16th and 17th centuries which were written by authors who had in hand chronicles from the 9th, 10th or 11th century. All these chronicles have disapeared today. We know them only thanks to these « second hand » writings. French historians consider that these « second hand » writings are not « trustable » because they are not contemporary of the events they mention. As they are not trustable, historians ignore them. I think this attitude is not « equitable ».
In law, a suspect is supposed innocent as long as his guiltiness is not proved. These texts may not be perfect, but there is no reason to ignore them. There is no reason to believe that the authors of these texts lied. They may have committed mistakes, but there is no reason for them to invent facts that happened seven centuries earlier. I decided to trust them.
I say Danes may have stayed in Gascogne for 140 years. Some historians reproach me with not proving my sayings with texts coming from a « scandinavian administration »...
As you maybe know such texts can hardly exist.
On the other hand, I tell them to prove the existence of a « gasconne » administration. This should be easy. The problem is that nobody never found a single text of that period in that area... This is quite suspect as « Gascons » belong to the « latin world », the « written world ».
The truth is that nobody knows what happened during that period in Gascogne. Historians just notice that « all the structures inherited from the gallo-roman society » disappeared in Gascogne by the 9th century... every body keep silent about the reason of such a disparition...
I give a reason. I didn't invent it : I found it in french texts. I'm not the only one, nor the first one to evoque that danish presence in Gascogne, however nobody ever heard about that abroad and especially in Scandinavia. How can you explain that, dear Barend ?
I think those who are interested in vikings should read more about their presence in Spain and wonder what they were doing overthere. I guess they were not looking for the beaches of Ibiza. What were they looking for, then ?
Hejdaa!
JS