It was rather a long way in those days.
May 1, 2019 2:46 PM   Subscribe

King Alfred and India: an Anglo-Saxon embassy to southern India in the ninth century AD. From the fascinating blog of Dr Caitlin Green.
In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew, in India, with the alms which he had vowed.
Along the Pepper trail.
posted by adamvasco (7 comments total) 55 users marked this as a favorite
 
Paging Doctor Cornwell, Doctor Bernard Cornwell...to the unnecessary but much desired historical fiction room please.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:23 PM on May 1, 2019 [4 favorites]


This is really cool. I don't understand why it would be hard to believe that two travelers from the court of King Alfred could have made it to India overland on one of the Silk Road routes. A thousand years before the same Romans who had conquered Britain already had established overland trade routes with China; Hellenistic culture had spread as far as Japan.

At around the same time these two would have been traveling to India, Scandinavians were settling the Black Sea. Some Vikings even made it as far a Georgia, in the Caucasus.
posted by JamesBay at 7:08 PM on May 1, 2019


My wife and I visited Cochin / Kochi in Kerala, India as part of a side trip while attending a wedding in India. It's a beautiful area with lovely views of the sea. Thomas is rumored to have traveled to a nearby (but lost?) city near there.
posted by grimjeer at 7:15 PM on May 1, 2019


A recent episode of the BBC's In Our Time podcast covered some of the associated British history: "The Danelaw"
posted by XMLicious at 9:51 PM on May 1, 2019


Stephen Lawhead's story, Byzantium, of an Irish monk who travels to Byzantium during this era covers this territory pretty well.
posted by euphorb at 7:55 AM on May 2, 2019


Dublin to Byzantium / Istanbul is about 3,000 Km and pretty much all through Christendom where latin speakers could be found in all larger towns. Going East the common language runs out so it all got even more complicated for the next 6,000 Km even if they made part of the journey by Sea.
Heroic travelling whichever way you look at it.
posted by adamvasco at 8:14 AM on May 2, 2019


Yeah, it's not that it's *unbelievable*, it's just that...wow, that must have been quite a journey.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:04 PM on May 26, 2019


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