Creation of University

The section we read about education and universities caught my attention this week partially because I am a education major. I thought it was quite interesting how similar everything has remained since their creation in 1000-1200. All the words have evolved but have very clear Latin roots that are quite recognizeable. Those are things we as university students say every day and somewhat take for granted, not realizing the history behind them. I also thought that the church's influence as an intrical part of the founding of the higher education was unique from the way other schools were founded. The whole point back then was to get people educated that partained to the church in some way. The story of the university after that sounds like it could be happening now nothing is really that different. Maybe the police would do less killing but who knows...

Wikipedia Assignment #2

Viking Wikipedia Article
This article paints a picture of the Viking Age as they call it. Where the vikings were from what that meant, their customs etc. The article goes over what regions the vikings stormed through and the effect they had the people and the country there. And it compares the romanticized version of the viking, horned helmets and all, to the more realistic version that history details. It explained the weaponry as well as viking ships, the most legendary aspect of the vikings.

Word count: 6,833
Term search: vikings Actual title: Viking
Disambiguation: There was a lot in this section- a history part disusing the age of the vikings and other historical references, a section just for viking ships, aerospace, organizations, military, film and music section, sports, names of places that are viking in Canada and Minnesota, companies, and several others.
Discussion: The article had many, many comments and discussion about the actual term 'viking' itself and how the article portrays it and if it is accurate. This article was a former featured article and had B ratings on several wikipedia projects. There was even one comment from someone who discovered their ancestry included viking blood.
History: First change date- March 16th, 2003
Last change date- Oct. 2nd, 2008
Number of changes-just over 1,000
External Links: 6
References: 5
Further Reading: 0

I would recommend this article to most anyone who was interested in the topic. I think Wikipedia is a good tool to use when you know nothing or very little about a topic. It is very good if you are unsure if you are interested or not because it gives you the high lights of the topic, it is almost like cliffs notes for any subject matter. I do think it is a good idea to look at the discussion page to determine how reliable the information written is and if there is a dispute over any of the material.

Vikings the good the bad and the ugly!

I thought the reading about the Vikings was the most intriguing this week. I thought that we knew a lot more about them than was presented. It was mostly just stories from other sources such as the monks or other victims of their raids. Their lifestyle is fascinating to me, they don't have much at home so they just sail around looking for something to do. They sound like teenagers that get into trouble doing the same thing. One of the most interesting parts of the raids that were mentioned was the part that they did not destroy the places they raided because they liked to come back and do it again. If they were just looking for money and riches that area would have been depleted mostly by the first raid. Plus it sounds like they were brutes and nothing really slowed them down, so why wouldn't they go to richer places, just look at the inventory of the royal estate we read, there was plenty to be had there. To me it sounds like they really were looking for something else and maybe that is why so many settled in the areas eventually.

The results of the raids and their travels left the Vikings scattered everywhere bringing their own culture to many different places across western Europe. That causes a mix of many ethnicities of people across the area. Now a days it is so hard to find out your ancestry in part because of things like this, for example you family could be from England but are you 100% English probably not... The neatest way I have seen to find your ethnic heritage is to do a DNA testing. National Geographic was doing this for people, you gave them a saliva sample and they could genetically tell you if you were of German or Japanese heritage (if you were having a hard time deciding).

The begining of taxes

This week when I was reading The Capitulary De Villis 9th Century and the way they discussed the reporting of the income, it reminded me of a rudimentary version of the way we file our income taxes. The reading was going through all the specific things they needed reported, I was picturing it as a tax form and all the lines and exact items the federal and state government needs from you. I think this was especially fresh on my mind with all the polictical ad campaigns on tv and such a focus on taxes from the two presidential canidates. That made this article tie into life now for me, gave me a feeling of how this has always been an issue and will forever be one.

The Middle Ages

This is really the first time we see religion coming to play a significant role in the way history plays out in my opinion (in the western world), with the development of christian based faiths. The Islam section of reading was of particular interest to me, as I didn't know a lot about it. I learned a great deal. I thought the line about the Islam being more humane than many other religions of the time when now we think of if as sort of extremist. This time period is when areas start waring over religion instead of political power and land. Muhammad even said to convert or go to war with non-believers. This is humane? I also found it interesting that Mecca was more of a worship center for anyone that wanted to go there, until Muhammad changed that. This explains to be somewhat where Islams negative reputation has stemmed from. It has helped me to understand all the conflicts much better going on in the middle east. I enjoyed this reading very much.