| 词条 | Draft:Pagan Europe |
| 释义 |
WORK IN PROGRESS The purpose of this article is to summarise the knowledge about an area roughly corresponding to North European paganistic people. However, this article is not meant to be exclusive to religion, the name is simply religion specific since I don't know any better terms. Instead, the purpose of this article is to give an overview of the history and important factors affecting it. It should serve as an introductory overview for readers to paint the larger picture and expose more specific avenues to explore the topic further. The nature of this article means that no part of this article should go unnecessarily in-depth on information. The amount of information covered is large and the article should remain easily readable and understandable. This means that dates, names, polities and similar singular entities should only be added only if there is no other alternative - general terms and generalizations should be preferred. Setting the stageReligionThe religion of these people is characterized by lacking large-scale organizational structure. Religion for them didn't exist in the way it did for Christians. Beliefs and faith were largely based on local traditions and changed gradually from settlement to settlement. As opposed to organized religions, their faith and beliefs were generally inclusive to other beliefs. Elements of other religions, faiths and beliefs were often absorbed and assimilated into beliefs and traditions of local people. Environmental factorsThe history of these peoples was greatly affected by the geography of their surroundings. Significant elements of geographical features are the Baltic Sea, a system of rivers connecting Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, Scandinavian Mountains, Lake System of Finland the East European Plain, Ural Mountains and Carphatian Mountains. Geographical BoundariesThese people were surrounded by natural and some non-natural boundaries. Between these boundaries, these people formed a continuous whole in the sense that most differences inside the boundary were geographically gradual while differences beyond these boundaries were significantly less gradual as a comparison. From north and north-west, they were bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, beyond which travel was difficult. On the eastern side, they were bordered by the Ural Mountains and nomadic clans of the steppes, who were fundamentally different from these pagans, forming a border which can be much clearly drawn. To the south-east, they bordered by the Black Sea, beyond which lied Byzantine Empire. The southern border was the Carpathian Mountains, which imposed a natural border between people south of it and north of it from the Black Sea all the way to modern-day area of Germany. Where the Carpathian mountains ended, the Frankish Empire began. With the borders of the Frankish Empire, the Christian World began and that makes it an easy border to draw. Lateral factorsWhen talking about these peoples it is also important to know about the lateral effect on each other. These people didn't exist in a vacuum. They had neighbours and those neighbours didn't often have similar ancestors. However, they did borrow concepts, traditions and beliefs from each other. Thus it is important to summarise how they affected each other laterally in addition to detailing their ancestry. Hierarchical factorsThe people haven't always been in this region. There have been times when some of these peoples weren't the physical area this article is talking about. During their migrations, they have taken with them their traditions and beliefs from their old location. Some of those old traditions survive and affected laterally other people in their vicinity. Factors are hierarchical as opposed to lateral factors, since these are tied to the people and not tied to their geographical location. Common vessel for these factors are traditions passed down from generation to generation. Emergent PhenomenaDue to these factors, several phenomena emerged in that time and region. The river system which connects The Baltic Sea to the Black Sea was a valuable geographic feature and spurred many intentional efforts to seize and maintain control over it. The Baltic Sea itself made communications and interactions easier between polities on its coasts, facilitating the spread of beliefs and traditions and also normalizing differences between those polities through the lateral borrowing of beliefs and ideas from each other. The Scandinavian Mountains made land-based actions difficult and that resulted in larger reliance on the sea, while at the same time providing protection from land-based threats. Cultural Sphere of the Baltic SeaBaltic Sea connected people living on its shores. It is easier to move large amounts of goods by sea than by land. Trading by sea also grants more direct access to potential clients, while long-range land trade usually happened through intermediaries, which significantly lowered potential profits, since each intermediary would take their cut. Having a direct access to clients meant that larger profit could be made or one could sell their goods with significantly lower prize than competitors. Traders of that time made extensive use of this. Trading, by its nature, requires at least two people to come together and interact. The people living on the coast of the Baltic Sea did trade with each other and thus interacted with foreign-born traders and as an extension of this, interacted with the cultures from which the traders originated from. When cultures interact with each other, their cultures diffuse into each other over time, which means that their differences lessen over time as they adopt each other's beliefs, traditions, practices or technologies. This phenomenon created a shared cultural zone around the Baltic Sea. Although, the cultures still maintained lots of their differences, they also became similar in many aspects. Their heritage to the worldTheir actions left a heritage on successive generations descendant from them and also to those who also lived in the same area after them. The conflicts stemming from the value of the Baltic-to-Black Sea river system caused the emergence of a powerful multi-ethnic polity(The Rus), whose direct descendant still exists today(Russia). British Isles were significantly affected by them. Their actions caused the Christian world to turn their eyes to the Baltic Sea, which resulted in a round of Crusade in North Europe. References |
| 随便看 |
|
开放百科全书收录14589846条英语、德语、日语等多语种百科知识，基本涵盖了大多数领域的百科知识，是一部内容自由、开放的电子版国际百科全书。