|
Suddenly I'm seeing this Madden thing everywhere. It's weird. He's not the most credible professor on this topic-- he did a lot of bizarre press stuff after 9/11, talking about the crusades and how they relate to 9/11. And my dad, who's also a mediavalist, just burst out laughing at the idea that the church was a moderating focus. The initial desire to pure the crypto-Jews came from the Church, or at the least from the clergy. There were very prominent churchmen who were telling the royals that their nations were infested with crypto-Jews and they ought to do something about that. Madden manages to talk about people being killed for heresy by the secular authorities. Heresy isn't a secular crime. If you're killing someone for heresy, you're enacting religious law. It is true that the Inquisition wasn't solely composed of sociopaths. Most trials ended in an acquittal-- many times after a sufficient bribe had been paid, so I'm not sure where you're getting that the Inquisition acted as a control against corruption-- and the penalties were at least formalized. Prior to that, the Reconquista was originally more of just a land-war, but the Church got in and made it a religious one as a way of getting Christians to go fight heathens instead of each other. The Church promoted the idea of holy war against infidels, and later clergymen told royals that there was a conspiracy of crypto-Jews.
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 14:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 13:05 |
|
|
Railtus posted:However, the Inquisition also did some good things. They stopped witch hunts, they acted as a control against corruption in the church, they made sure the trials of heresy were based on theology rather than mob rule or lynching. Essentially the point I want to make is the Inquisition seemed to be more of a symptom of cultural trauma rather than a cause. I think the best way to summarize the Inquisition is that they were very fair in carrying out unjust laws, which is kind of a running theme in early modern jurisprudence. For instance, Sweden implemented Mosaic as the criminal code in the 17th century, but the courts never punished the guilty to the full extent of the law.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 15:11
|
|
|
I read that the Spanish even developed a kind of modern racism during the inquisition. Most of the Muslims in Spain were North African in origin, so dark skin became linked with Islamist leanings.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 15:25
|
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:I think the best way to summarize the Inquisition is that they were very fair in carrying out unjust laws, which is kind of a running theme in early modern jurisprudence. For instance, Sweden implemented Mosaic as the criminal code in the 17th century, but the courts never punished the guilty to the full extent of the law. They weren't very fair, though. The Inquisition itself was extremely corrupt in many places.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 15:42
|
|
|
Being able to bribe your way out of false/racially motivated accusations of heresy seems about the most fair you can hope for, I guess. Lot of talk about the Spanish inquisition, but as I recall, the inquisition was originally founded to root out a much more sinister menace to Catholicism; the Cathars. Does anyone know how the inquisition went about doing that? The usual torture->confess-> execute route? Or did they, too, let suspected Cathars bribe their way free? As far as the "execution" bit is concerned, as far as I understand, you're right in that the inquisition didn't execute people; they turned them over to the civil authorities for execution. Which is the kind of legal distinctions that means oh so much to the poor inquisitors doing god's work. But possibly less so to the defendant.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 17:42
|
|
|
For anyone interested, take a look at Google Books, Inquisition by Edward Peters. It has a fairly significant preview.Obdicut posted:Suddenly I'm seeing this Madden thing everywhere. It's weird. He's not the most credible professor on this topic-- he did a lot of bizarre press stuff after 9/11, talking about the crusades and how they relate to 9/11. And my dad, who's also a mediavalist, just burst out laughing at the idea that the church was a moderating focus. Or more accurately, how the Crusades did not relate to 9/11; there were strange ideas going on at the time, for example this speech by Bill Clinton: http://ecumene.org/clinton.htm There was also an issue about George Bush using the word “Crusade” to describe America using military force against the Middle East. Kemper Boyd posted:I think the best way to summarize the Inquisition is that they were very fair in carrying out unjust laws, which is kind of a running theme in early modern jurisprudence. For instance, Sweden implemented Mosaic as the criminal code in the 17th century, but the courts never punished the guilty to the full extent of the law. I really like that description. To me the Inquisition was not exactly a good thing, but it was kind in comparison to the secular courts of the day. SlothfulCobra posted:I read that the Spanish even developed a kind of modern racism during the inquisition. Most of the Muslims in Spain were North African in origin, so dark skin became linked with Islamist leanings. Absolutely. Limpieza de sangre or “cleanliness of blood” in the 1400s. The Spanish Inquisition came a little later (started in 1480), but the concept was firmly in place around the same time. sullat posted:Being able to bribe your way out of false/racially motivated accusations of heresy seems about the most fair you can hope for, I guess. Lot of talk about the Spanish inquisition, but as I recall, the inquisition was originally founded to root out a much more sinister menace to Catholicism; the Cathars. Does anyone know how the inquisition went about doing that? The usual torture->confess-> execute route? Or did they, too, let suspected Cathars bribe their way free? Calling witnesses was the most popular method. If you gathered the people, asked anyone if they wanted to make a confession, and that received leniency. This was also the opportunity for anyone else to make accusations. However, this suggests a relatively public proceeding, but other aspects of the trial assume that the accused does not know the identity of the accusers. If the accused told the Inquisitors who his enemies were, and the accuser was one of their enemies, then the trial would be dismissed. The identity was also kept secret to prevent retaliation by the accused. Inquisitorial records seemed to be quite detailed about witnesses, suggesting they were fairly important. Torture could be used after 1254, authorised by Ad extirpanda, although Inquisitions had been going on since 1184. So torture was not the standard. There were also restrictions on the torture, such as not being able to maim, technically only one session of torture (although the session caused by ‘suspended’ to start up again) and a confession was only valid if repeated after the one session was finished, and even then only used if otherwise virtually certain of guilt. With that in mind, torture was not that big a risk of false confessions, as they could be easily recanted... instead the risk was that the trial could go on indefinitely, with the accused sometimes held prisoner for the months or years needed for the trials to conclude. The reason for trying to gain confessions if so sure of the heretic’s guilt was to make them repent. Execution was never desirable with the Inquisition, the goal was to impose repentance and return them to the Church. The aim was something more than "Gotcha." How far these rules were followed is a fair question. It could get pretty bad; almost as bad as trials without the Inquisition. Which I think is the point I am going for, not that the Inquisition was a shining beacon or example of justice, but rather that it was a step forward. It was progress.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 20:47
|
|
|
Railtus posted:
Are you guys going to deal with the fact that clergy started the whole "root out the crypto-Jew" thing at any point?
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 21:12
|
|
|
Obdicut posted:Are you guys going to deal with the fact that clergy started the whole "root out the crypto-Jew" thing at any point? Well, you have not really asked a question, and this is an ask thread. Your comment did not look like it needed any response from me. After doing a little reading on the topic, what I found was mob violence against New Christians – the 1449 riot in Toledo, and another in 1467. The Sentencia Estatuto issued by the secular mayor, which was condemned by the Pope. In 1465 rebels against the king published the Sentence of Medina del Campo, including some harsher treatment of crypto-Jews. These were mentioned in Inquisition by Edward Peters. Those events seem to imply the “root out the crypto-Jew” idea was circulating around Spain without the clergy, particularly when the input of the Church was to condemn some of those actions.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 23:00
|
|
|
Railtus posted:Well, you have not really asked a question, and this is an ask thread. Your comment did not look like it needed any response from me. Unsurprisingly, that level of research isn't sufficient. Ferrand Martinez, Alonso de Hojeda, Archbishop Pedro González de Mendoza, and this little known guy named Tomás de Torquemada. All clergymen absolutely instrumental, Martinez in laying the original antisemitic, antimuslim groundwork, and the latter in exploiting it and convincing the royalty that there was an infestation of crypto-Jews. Prior to that, the Spanish court had been rather open to Jews. It is entirely true that after it got started, the pope weakly tried to stop it on occasion, and the royals used it to further their own political ends, but the pope is not the Church; the origins of the Inquisition, the antisemitic conspiracy theories, the holy war preached by the pope during Reconquista-- all sprang from the Church.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 23:27
|
|
|
Thank you Railtus and other contributors, reading this thread has righted more than a few wrong conceptions for me. I am curious about travel in Medieval times. I can see how trade caravans, armies, and noble families could move about (strength in numbers, armed escorts, etc,) but how would a commoner cover distance? I realize many didn't, but some must have ventured beyond a half-day range of the spot on which they were born. Would they not travel to learn a trade, or visit a distant relative? How much of a risk was travel, and how would they go about it?
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2013 23:33
|
|
|
swaziloo posted:Thank you Railtus and other contributors, reading this thread has righted more than a few wrong conceptions for me. You’re welcome. I am glad you find it helpful. Travel was done to learn a trade, although medieval households did not entirely conform to the nuclear family of the 20th century. They might even include a few servants, including for well-off commoners, or apprentices etc. The point is households are a little bit larger. This might be important when travelling, as people tended to travel in groups. Maybe a group of the household or several people in the village travel together all heading in the same general direction. Pilgrims normally gathered together for travelling so I assume other groups would organise something similar. The relative safety of travel varied quite a bit. In 1300s-1400s Germany there was certainly a demand for learning self-defence, and travel before then (particularly the Interregnum of 1250-1273, the time of the ‘robber barons’). England appeared to have some roads known for being dangerous, and a similar period of dangerous travel during the reign of King Stephen. With outlaws, they were probably near good hunting sites rather than waiting for a traveller to rob. Outlaws also had an incentive to stay away from the road; anyone could kill an outlaw and take their possessions. Overall I think the risk of robbers on the road was mostly overstated, but it is a bit like wandering the city at night today. Hospitality was practised. If wandering you might be able to get someone to offer you a place to stay, even if only a barn. Monasteries were known for good hospitality, which led to problems of getting too many guests. Sometimes this would result in creative interpretation of their rules of hospitality; the monks might treat you like Christ himself… such as waking you in the dead of night for prayer because Christ would not mind. If a nobleman is travelling you could simply follow his entourage and hope it scares off any trouble. Obdicut posted:Unsurprisingly, that level of research isn't sufficient. You don’t have to agree with me. I find it unconvincing because Alonso de Hojeda, Archbishop Pedro & Tomas de Torquemada were doing what you mention in 1477, by which point the rest of Spanish society was already persecuting conversos. Ferrand Martinez died in 1395, within a few years of the 1391 massacre that led to large numbers of conversos. History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Joseph Perez & Lysa Hochroth (page 43 for anyone interested) also gives the impression that Martinez was opposed by others in the church.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 05:02
|
|
|
Obdicut posted:It is true that the Inquisition wasn't solely composed of sociopaths. Most trials ended in an acquittal-- many times after a sufficient bribe had been paid, so I'm not sure where you're getting that the Inquisition acted as a control against corruption-- and the penalties were at least formalized.t there was a conspiracy of crypto-Jews. If memory serves, judging by how the Church operated at the time (at least, before Protestantism was invented), this was probably not a bribe in the traditional sense but rather an indulgence. One of the things that Catholicism gets fire for is that, way back in the day, it was believed that you could literally buy your way out of sin. God would forgive you if you gave the Church money because, you know, House of God and all of that jazz.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 08:00
|
|
|
Railtus posted:If a nobleman is travelling you could simply follow his entourage and hope it scares off any trouble. I imagine you'd gain a safety in numbers thing at night too, sharing a sleeping area with the help.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 12:21
|
|
|
Railtus posted:
Think Spanish society's persecution of conversos might have had anything to do with the holy-war terms that the Church promoted during the reconquista And why do you think having a formal inquisition that codified this was somehow tamping it down, unlike, say, speaking out against the practice? This is like saying that trying black people for raping white women in the US was fairer than just lynching them. From a very tortured angle perhaps, but who gives a poo poo, and the trial itself gives justification to the idea in the first place. quote:Ferrand Martinez died in 1395, within a few years of the 1391 massacre that led to large numbers of conversos. History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Joseph Perez & Lysa Hochroth (page 43 for anyone interested) also gives the impression that Martinez was opposed by others in the church. I'm sure he was opposed by some within the church. That didn't stop the original papal bulls, or the appointment of Torquemeda who only the most flower-child mind could see as a moderating force in this. This is really bizarre. The impetus for the anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim fervor came from the church, obviously. It was church teaching that war and conversion under threat of violence was acceptable. It was the Church that turned the reconquista from a reclamation of land to a holy war. You can claim the Inquisition is fairer than a lynch mob, but that's about as weak praise as you can get and the existence of the Inquisition validates the ideas behind the lynch mobs in the first place. You cannot simply look at 'The inquisition' separate from the Church's anti-semitic and anti-Muslim views, writings, policies, and diplomacy at the time. It is also odd to view any authority as secular when enacting religious law. This is turning into a threadjack, so I'm going to drop it, but I severely caution you against this essay by Madden. It seems highly political rather than scholarly. Looking into his background, I can see he's written for National Review and is well-liked by John Derybshire. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...KzGYBiXD9kBgorQ
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 12:47
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:If memory serves, judging by how the Church operated at the time (at least, before Protestantism was invented), this was probably not a bribe in the traditional sense but rather an indulgence. One of the things that Catholicism gets fire for is that, way back in the day, it was believed that you could literally buy your way out of sin. God would forgive you if you gave the Church money because, you know, House of God and all of that jazz. Indulgences get a bad rap because people don't understand the scale of history. They're a penance for sin that is intended to introduce the sinner into the virtue of charity. They don't forgive the sin itself, not any more than the modern version of "tithing" means that all sins are automatically forgiven. They were a progressive reform in the 6th century that replaced the severe corporal penances that were popular at the time. They eventually became a problem in the mid-late medieval era, culminating with the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent, but that was 1,000 years later. Obdicut posted:This is really bizarre. The impetus for the anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim fervor came from the church, obviously. It was church teaching that war and conversion under threat of violence was acceptable. It was the Church that turned the reconquista from a reclamation of land to a holy war. You can claim the Inquisition is fairer than a lynch mob, but that's about as weak praise as you can get and the existence of the Inquisition validates the ideas behind the lynch mobs in the first place. The Reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition was spurred by the monarchy that directly profited from it. Torquemada was the confessor and adviser to Queen Isabella, and led the drive to create the new inquisition as well as expand it into a religious purge in Spain. He did not have the particular support of the Holy See, so when he died 15 years later that mission dissipated with him. And certainly holding a trial governed by laws is better than having lynch mobs and feudal lords doling out arbitrary punishment. These nuances between secular and religious authority, or the difference between the Inquisition and a lynch mob, might seem meaningless to you, but they served as a foundation for medieval society and were the political catalysts for the Renaissance. Kaal fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Feb 21, 2013 |
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 13:10
|
|
|
Kaal posted:
As well as by the church, who championed it as a holy war. This is not controversial in the least. quote:And certainly holding a trial governed by laws is better than having lynch mobs and feudal lords doling out arbitrary punishment. These nuances between secular and religious authority, or the difference between the Inquisition and a lynch mob, might seem meaningless to you, but they served as a foundation for medieval society and were the political catalysts for the Renaissance. I don't see any nuance in naming them 'secular' authorities when they're carrying out religious law. There was no clean division between secular and religious, and its anachronistic to suppose there was. Obviously the competing interests of church and state were significant, but describing secular courts punishing heresy is like describing Henry VIII's break with Rome as an increase in his secular power. Trials may be better than lynch mobs, or they may simply be a codified version of a lynch mob that also allows you to steal the person's property. And the trial, by their existence, approves of the concept in the first place. There is no way of dealing with the Inquisition without looking at the background of antisemitic and antimuslim propaganda by the church, or the very idea that heresy is a mortal crime, also promoted by the church. The idea that the church was a moderating influence is simply bizarre. Again, this is a derail, I think it should be dropped-- we can do an A/T on the inquisition, reconquista, and/or crusades, perhaps, but I do hope in that that this essay by Madden will be looked at critically.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 14:07
|
|
|
Vivoviparous posted:In a similar vein, is there historical documentation that shows the effect cultural traumas like The Inquisition had on society, like how Japan is still affected by the bombing or Germany is still affected by WW2 or the southern United States is still affected by Reconstruction? I read a book about it some years back, and the author described that the pest caused all human relationships to shatter - down to parents leaving their children if they got sick, and even (small) children leaving their parents if it was the other way round. She also described that this total breakdown of all human relations, compassion and companionship caused a horrible, horrible time after the pest was finally gone. Like bandits not only robbing people, but torturing/killing them without good reason and contrary to their own interests (after all, who will you steal bread from if you kill everybody).
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 15:15
|
|
|
Nektu posted:Find books about the black death, how it changed the face of europe and the culture of the (few) survivors people if you want to read about traumas. Can you recommend any particular titles?
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2013 20:21
|
|
|
Excellent thread Railtus. I've got a few questions- How large was the average person? I toured some castles in Europe and it was noted that people of the period tended to be smaller than modern times. Is this something that is period or geographically specific, or are people today in general taller than in the past? I know you said that attacks on castles before cannons was generally avoided, but are there any examples of a successful attack on a castle before the cannon era? How popular was the trebuchet? Were the preferred over standard catapults? I am interested in the evolution of defensive fortifications through Medieval times. What was used after cannons made castles obsolete? Were there any significant improvements made to castles before the cannon, or was the progress rather stagnant?
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 04:57
|
|
|
Meat Mitts posted:I am interested in the evolution of defensive fortifications through Medieval times. What was used after cannons made castles obsolete? I can answer this one pretty well. Before gunpowder artillery came into use, tall vertical walls were stronger defensively because they were harder to scale. It was also good to build with stone, because it would not burn, and was hard enough to resist damage from rams and often from stones fired by mechanical artillery, which might simply shatter against them. However, a high wall or tower is weak against a projectile like a cannonball, because a lot of its structural strength simply goes to holding itself up. Stone is also problematic because its hardness makes it prone to shattering when hit hard enough. A projectile like a cannonball, which strikes at a near right angle with great force, will break the bottom of the wall and the wall's own weight will cause it to collapse. Lower, thicker walls are more resistant to cannon fire. The defensive counter to cannons was the star fort, which was principally developed in the Italian Wars of the 16th century. The French royal army had been an early and enthusiastic adopter of gunpowder artillery, which by the end of the Hundred Years War had yielded them a substantial advantage over the English armies, which lagged behind. In order to resist this firepower the Italians designed forts with very thick, low, sloping walls made mostly of heaped up earthworks, which could absorb cannon fire. In consequence of being built low to the ground like this, the forts could not rely only on their walls to deter assault. To make defensive firepower more effective, the perimeter of the forts had triangular projections that reached outward like the points of a star. Thus every part of the wall could be fired on from another part, with no dead spaces where assaulting infantry would be safe from the defenders. Star forts were the standard from the 16th century through the Napoleonic Wars, and they were tremendously effective. The seemingly slow pace of most military operations during that period is explained by the difficulty of making any real impact against this type of fortification. They were finally rendered obsolete in the 19th century by the development of high explosive shells, which could blast fixed defensive positions to rubble regardless of what they were made of.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 07:09
|
|
|
Meat Mitts posted:How large was the average person? I toured some castles in Europe and it was noted that people of the period tended to be smaller than modern times. Is this something that is period or geographically specific, or are people today in general taller than in the past? Seems to me that focusing on height alone when explaining differences in building features would be a mistake, since the context in which the buildings were built in are also extremely important. A different social structure results in different demands on the building, and also affects the price of the materials required to build it, making it difficult to view an old building in the right context for someone coming from a very different society. I think this is particularly relevant in the case of modern society, as the industrial revolution really turned things upside down in the architecture world. Not only did the social order get upset quite heavily, creating a large "middle class" with "rights", the same upheaval turned the old truth of cheap labor and expensive materials on its head. Basically, we're talking about stone architecture built for people in a more obviously stratified society, whose daily life was very different from our own, and thus the buildings they inhabit are going to reflect this. Perhaps a more dramatic example of this is the yurt, which is a dwelling that is obviously based on a very different lifestyle than that which the average Westerner lives. In short, short doors does not have to mean short people.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 14:45
|
|
|
I think it was the book 1492 where I read that North American Indians were standing straight and firm, were taller and healthier than Europeans that arrived (16th century Europeans). At least until the epidemics started spreading.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 16:59
|
|
|
Another question: is there any way to tell how much sense of humor/sarcasm influenced the writings of the time? Basically, is there a method used to try and determine if anything written can't be trusted due to the author's own sense of humor coloring their statements/descriptions?
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 18:57
|
|
|
Wait, so one of the biggest threats to the Catholic Church, the Cathars, were asexual cultists that loved eating eggs, fish and veggies? I can't understand why these guys were popular. It's seems to me that the Catholic view of eating, drinking, loving and then paying it all off via indulgences would be waaaay more popular . Was there popularity just blown up to stamp out a heretical branch of Christianity? I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that the Cathars would grow to be such a huge problem that an Inquisition and Crusade were launched against them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 19:28
|
|
|
Wiggy Marie posted:Another question: is there any way to tell how much sense of humor/sarcasm influenced the writings of the time? Basically, is there a method used to try and determine if anything written can't be trusted due to the author's own sense of humor coloring their statements/descriptions? We know for certain that Chaucer found farts incredibly funny.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2013 22:42
|
|
|
I really love this thread. I love history and study it a lot for fun, but I had a lot of misconceptions sprinkled with some skepticism on depictions and common thoughts of medieval life. That said, I have some questions for you medieval buff goons. I have read a lot about royal hostages in non-fiction and in fiction. Was this a thing? I took it to be insurance against a defeated enemy who was allowed to retain their lands from rising up again, in fear their heir would be killed in retaliation. Is this about what it was, or was it more akin to ransoming? Did said hostage retain his or her noble status and were they treated by their conquerors in keeping with their status, or were they more or less ill-treated prisoners with no privileges? How did the Knights-Hospitalers differ from the Templars? I don't know much about either other than (I think) they were both religious warrior sects. Did they have notable prowess in fighting and riding? Were they basically the same as Templars without the subsequent negative stigma? I read through the entire thread and came across a discussion of Bernard Cornwell, so having read his entire Saxon Tales series, I thought I'd weigh in and ask a related question as to his historical accuracy: In the books he describes the main character, Uhtred of Bebbanburg (modern Bamburg) in his dealings with Christians. As was discussed before he seemed to place a heavy bias against medieval Christians in that he distrusted them and they were all liars, only converted to be sheltered from Alfred's pious wrath, etc. At one point he describes the character with a group of Christians who are traveling with the corpse of St. Cuthbert as a holy relic. Was this a thing, carting hallowed corpses around as relics like this? Wouldn't it have been considered heretical to not bury the bodies of your most revered saints? How prevalent was the shield wall and when did it fall out of use? Where did this form of warfare originate? How much freedom did the typical commoner have in the medieval period? Were all commoners serfs or peasants in service to a lord, or were some free men who had a little money and a trade but no status? I know it seems silly asking about historical accuracy in a work of historical fiction, maybe like little kids asking if I've used some weapon they had in Modern Warfare 3 or something. Sorry if they are silly questions.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 01:26
|
|
|
Excelsiortothemax posted:Wait, so one of the biggest threats to the Catholic Church, the Cathars, were asexual cultists that loved eating eggs, fish and veggies? I wrote an essay a couple years ago on the Cathars. Can't remember much about it, but if I dig it up do you want it? It's undergrad-level writing/research, but not terrible.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 05:47
|
|
|
life is killing me posted:I really love this thread. I love history and study it a lot for fun, but I had a lot of misconceptions sprinkled with some skepticism on depictions and common thoughts of medieval life. That said, I have some questions for you medieval buff goons. I know that in Tokugawa Japan the shogun kept all the daimyo's wives and first born sons in Tokyo to keep them subservient. Oda Nobunaga committed suicide after being turned on by an allied lord, who had supposedly let Oda use his mother as collateral. Oda reneged on the deal and got the mother killed so... European wise, it was customary to send young nobles to live with and train in other castles/courts, as part of a way to build alliances and friendships. quote:How did the Knights-Hospitalers differ from the Templars? I don't know much about either other than (I think) they were both religious warrior sects. Did they have notable prowess in fighting and riding? Were they basically the same as Templars without the subsequent negative stigma? Pretty much, they were a group that formed to protect pilgrims, and were associated with, suprise!, hospitals. The Templars pissed off the Pope, the Hosplitar's ended up squatting in Malta for basically forever harassing the infidel in someway or another, often combating Barbary pirates. quote:I read through the entire thread and came across a discussion of Bernard Cornwell, so having read his entire Saxon Tales series, I thought I'd weigh in and ask a related question as to his historical accuracy: In the books he describes the main character, Uhtred of Bebbanburg (modern Bamburg) in his dealings with Christians. As was discussed before he seemed to place a heavy bias against medieval Christians in that he distrusted them and they were all liars, only converted to be sheltered from Alfred's pious wrath, etc. At one point he describes the character with a group of Christians who are traveling with the corpse of St. Cuthbert as a holy relic. Was this a thing, carting hallowed corpses around as relics like this? Wouldn't it have been considered heretical to not bury the bodies of your most revered saints? Noooope. Dead saints had protective and curative power. Dead saint bits were all the rage, hair, teeth, toenails, the jams. Big churches generally had one or two. This isn't unusual at all, I think there's some Sufi sect with a reliquary of a saint's dentures. Still, the whole 'idolatry' thing was a bit controversial, but the Catholic church's devotion to the saints is kinda one of their things. quote:How prevalent was the shield wall and when did it fall out of use? Where did this form of warfare originate? quote:How much freedom did the typical commoner have in the medieval period? Were all commoners serfs or peasants in service to a lord, or were some free men who had a little money and a trade but no status? Define 'typical.' Generally, farmers with no lords would find themselves lorded over pretty quick. Urban dwellers and those with travelling trades were a little more independent, but it varied wildly from time to time and place to place.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 05:51
|
|
|
Grand Prize Winner posted:I wrote an essay a couple years ago on the Cathars. Can't remember much about it, but if I dig it up do you want it? It's undergrad-level writing/research, but not terrible. Sure. I'd love to know more about them then just "Crazy sexless cult"
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 06:26
|
|
|
Gimme an email address or something, I re-read it and am loving shocked I got a passing grade. Here's a section about their religion. I think (hope) that I pulled this out of a draft: The Catharist faith was a heretical dualist offshoot of mainstream Christianity, likely derived from the Bogomils of the Eastern Roman Empire's Bulgarian holdings. The Cathars believed that the universe was divided into two parts. One, a pure realm of spirit, was ruled over by the gentle God of the New Testament. The physical world, they said, was a product of the Devil, a deity the equal of God but entirely evil. This hard-line dualism was an evolution from the earlier Bogomil conception of the devil, which described a Satan that was the near-equal of the Deity but doomed eventually to fail. The Bogomil belief system and its Languedoc descendant did not stem from the Manichean Heresy of Persia, but because of the similarities between Mani's early dualism and these later creeds, the orthodox Catholic Church's servants frequently described dualists, regardless of particulars, as “Manichees.” A central point of contention between the Cathars and Catholics related to the Cathar interpretations of the Old Testament, the Resurrection, and the Trinity. The credentes and perfecti saw the world as a creation of the Devil, one made as a prison for angels that Satan had tricked into following him into rebellion against God. The God of Abraham and Moses was, the Cathars said, in fact the Devil in disguise, and the ruse was not revealed until the coming of Christ, a divine messenger and servant of God, who was made, not begotten. Christ was opposed by the Devil through the Romans, and was ultimately humiliated on the cross—however he did not die but merely played dead in an attempt to fool the devil. Before Christ left the Earth, however, he gave his Apostle John an explanation of the Cathar version of cosmic truth: Human beings are the fleshly prisons of angelic beings. Only by being “baptized in the spirit” can these better angels of our nature be returned to God upon the deaths of our mortal shells. Should a soul not be baptized by the laying on of hands by an ordained perfectus, the soul would be forced to migrate into another body. Some but not all Cathar traditions believed the soul would experience a Hindu-style reincarnation, in which the angelic portion of the soul would travel to a newborn creature most appropriate to its action in the previous life; a murderer might end up in the body of a worm, while a generally-virtuous soul would find his way to a body likely to encounter the Cathar sect. The interpretation of the Passion as a public insult to God led to rather iconoclastic views among the Cathar faithful. The Cathars saw the trappings of the Catholic mass, especially the cross and the Eucharist, to be degrading symbols of the humiliation placed upon a messenger of the Deity. They further rejected what they saw as the ostentation, materialism, and worldly ambition of the Church. The Cathars arranged their own Church in a manner similar to the early Christians of Rome, before the Church became an established entity. Faithful were divided into an elect of ordained itinerants who performed duties of both minister and monk (the Perfects, or perfecti) and simple believers (the Believers, or credentes). The perfecti were charged with traveling between Cathar congregations to organize services and with proselytizing for their faith. They took vows of chastity, poverty, and of a sort of vegetarianism (the eating of fish was still allowed). The perfecti fasted so frequently that they were frequently identified by their gaunt appearance, but they were far from simple fakirs. The average perfectus appears to have been well-educated. Many could read—in the vernacular if not in Latin—and most Cathar works were published in Langue d'Oc. Cathar writers produced an apparent wealth of documents and arguments in defense of Catharism but only a few survive. Ah crap, that seems to just say what you already know. The rest of the essay is questionable in its sourcing, but it looks like I was calling the Cathars the first major nationalist revolt in Europe. Catharism had a very strong appeal in the Pays d'Oc. Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Feb 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 08:26
|
|
|
the JJ posted:Pretty much, they were a group that formed to protect pilgrims, and were associated with, suprise!, hospitals. The Templars pissed off the Pope, the Hosplitar's ended up squatting in Malta for basically forever harassing the infidel in someway or another, often combating Barbary pirates. Grand Prize Winner posted:Cathars!
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 12:46
|
|
|
Any recommendations on books about The Knights Hospitaller? I read a few books on The Crusades, in which they were mentioned, and would like to read more about them. Specifically during their years on Rhodes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2013 18:44
|
|
|
Terrific thread! Thanks so much for making it! The resurrection of Richard III's skeleton has brought up the old arguments between the Ricardists and the Tudor fans over the mystery of The Princes in the Tower. I'd love to hear the OP's and other historians' personal theories about what happened to the princes. As Ricardists have pointed out, if Richard *had* killed the princes (or had them killed at his command), why didn't Henry VII make hay of it once he became king? What about Philippa Gregory's fictionalized theory, that Buckingham had them killed at Margaret Beaufort's behest and unknown to Richard? And was it ever determined whether Perkin Warbeck was indeed one of the princes? (Anne Easter Smith makes the case in one of her novels that Warbeck was in fact the Duke of Clarence's out-of-wedlock child, raised by his sister, Margaret of Burgundy.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2013 01:52
|
|
|
They've resurrected it? Holy poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2013 08:14
|
|
|
Forgive my delays, Friday was occupied with dissertation, Saturday I was working, then I slept badly and Sunday had me tired. I will not be able to answer all questions yet. Meat Mitts posted:Excellent thread Railtus. I've got a few questions- Medieval people were on average only very slightly smaller than today, maybe 1 or 2 inches shorter on average (although with peasants being a little shorter and nobles being a little taller). It was later on that people got much smaller. One of the best examples of a successful attack on a castle was the Siege of Rochester Castle in 1215, which lasted 7 weeks. Different chroniclers say different things about how effective the catapults and stone-throwing engines were, but the method was eventually to dig underneath the castle and then burn pig’s fat in the tunnel beneath to burn down the wooden supports. It caused a corner of the castle to literally collapse. I should note that most of the prisoners at Rochester were spared once the castle surrendered, including non-nobles. However, before the surrender of the castle, prisoners were deliberately maimed out of spite. Trebuchets were very widely popular, although used in fairly low numbers. At Rochester there were a total of 5 siege engines, although I’m not sure what kind. In the Siege of Acre 1191 there were 2 trebuchets. So they were popular, but you would not see many. The other form of catapult was a mangonel, but medieval mangonels were more trebuchet-like than the earlier versions. This makes it difficult to tell whether a catapult was a trebuchet or mangonel. Generally I think the trebuchets were safer, so I would prefer them. Castles evolved a huge amount. Individual castles even evolved a huge amount. Motte & Bailey (1000 AD): Essentially a ditch or moat with a stockade (sharpened logs) and the earth from the ditch used to create an artificial mound. On top of the mound was a tower, often of wood. http://resources.teachnet.ie/mmorrin/norman/images/motte.JPG These were relatively easy to build. By which I mean William the Conqueror brought three of them across the channel and assembled them once he got to England. Yes, you could prefabricate an early castle. You can probably see where the motte was on this picture. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...r_wideangle.jpg Later on, the tower on top of the mound was made into stone. These get called ‘shell keeps’. These were mostly just plain round stonework. One interpretation of the term ‘shell keep’ is that the outer walls were stone and the inner structure was still wood or timber. Compare those with Krak de Chevaliers from the 1100s. This held a garrison of 2000 men. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Krak_des_Chevaliers_01.jpg/300px-Krak_des_Chevaliers_01.jpg Lots of small features were added to castles throughout the ages. The change from square towers to round towers. Stouter gate-houses. Arrow-slits changed to gun loops. Portcullises or falling gates were added. Machilocations were openings in the floor used to drop things on the enemy below. Sometimes battlements (the bits sticking out the top of the castle wall for cover) included wooden frames over the top. Eventually castles became concentric, which meant an inner castle with a separate outer wall. Essentially castles changed a lot, but only a little at a time. After cannons, castles became shorter (lower walls make more difficult targets) and thicker. They were also shaped to be more difficult targets, for example lots of triangles so you would struggle to get a good shot at a flat surface. Those complex things are called Star Forts or polygonal forts. Wiggy Marie posted:Another question: is there any way to tell how much sense of humor/sarcasm influenced the writings of the time? Basically, is there a method used to try and determine if anything written can't be trusted due to the author's own sense of humor coloring their statements/descriptions? Good question. We do not have a set policy for humour or sarcasm, we just have to guess, although what we normally do is compare it to other sources, look at the context of the source (is it a personal letter? Is it for public consumption? Is it formal?). If we know who it was written to and why, that can make it far easier to determine how seriously or literally to take the document. life is killing me posted:I really love this thread. I love history and study it a lot for fun, but I had a lot of misconceptions sprinkled with some skepticism on depictions and common thoughts of medieval life. That said, I have some questions for you medieval buff goons. On royal hostages, I think so, although I will need to research again once I have more time. It was not common or standard, although Vlad the Impaler was sent to the Ottomans. They educated him while he was their hostage, but he also is rumoured to have learned his brutality from watching Turkish practises, and developed a rather passionate hatred for them. Knights Hospitaller were different from the Knights Templar in that they started out as a hospital rather than knights, it was a hospice in Jerusalem to provide care for pilgrims on the road, but later expanded to include an armed escort for travelling pilgrims. Comparatively, the Templars started off as a very small armed force (nine knights initially), so the plan was probably to be more proactive and aggressive in hunting down banditry in the Holy Land since they initially did not have the manpower. However, the Templars were given enough resources and financial support that they started working on financial systems including cheques and letters of credit to make travelling easier for pilgrims. Essentially, the Hospitallers were healers who later became knights, while the Templars were knights who later became a heavily armed banking service. The Templars were too successful as bankers, and the French king essentially had them rounded up on false charges, tortured and executed in 1307 – because he owed them far too much money. This caused the other orders, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights (Hospitallers for Germans) to have panic attacks and start looking to form their own kingdom outside the domain of a king. The Teutonic Knights invaded Lithuania and kept having fights with Poland, while the Hospitallers became the Knights of Malta. The Military Orders (Teutons, Templars & Hospitallers) did have a reputation for being nigh-invincible, although this was as a group rather than as individuals. The Hospitallers at Malta did hold off huge Ottoman armies, such as the Siege of Rhodes (1480) holding off maybe 20 000 (some sources say up to 70 000) with only 3000 or so men (of which around 500 were knights). Even the times the Ottomans won the Hospitallers made them pay through the nose for that victory. The big thing about the military orders that made them so effective was their discipline. Knights varied in how disciplined they were as units, they could be well-oiled machines or arrogant nobles out for glory. Knightly orders were less concerned with glory, so they would be far more reliable and organised. They were also relatively rich, which could mean excellent equipment. I suspect monastic vows were partly to make their upkeep cheaper. Wives and children were expensive, so a frugally living knight would be a bargain death machine. Body parts of saints was a thing, although it was far more popular to keep a part of the saint in a church than to cart it around. I have not read the Saxon Tales though. Shield walls were virtually ubiquitous from the Romans up until maybe 1200, where it started to decline a bit but just became one item in the toolbox rather than the default formation. Shields were getting smaller around 1250, which made its use as a formation seem less plausible, which implies the tactical change was going on sooner. Freedom depends on your typical commoner means, but most urban centres (towns and cities) had charters in which most people were free. Also, a lot of rural commoners might be free tenants, with no labour obligation etc, although unfree peasants typically received something in return for their labour obligation such as land.
|
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2013 08:55
|
|
|
How prevalent were things like pavises and tower shields? I remember reading that a pretty popular thing in and around Italy for a while was to take a big chunk of militia, kit them out with big rear end shields and crossbows, and have them hide behind their fancy little portable walls while raining fire all over everything. I remember reading that it was popular because it took very little training to get a ton of these guys. It was like "OK, you hide behind your big wall thing, point this thing at the other guys, and pull the trigger. Got it?" How much truth was there to that?
|
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2013 09:09
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:How prevalent were things like pavises and tower shields? I remember reading that a pretty popular thing in and around Italy for a while was to take a big chunk of militia, kit them out with big rear end shields and crossbows, and have them hide behind their fancy little portable walls while raining fire all over everything. Pavises seem to have been fairly prevalent in central Europe from the 1300s or so. They were also used in the Hussite Wars, which had a fairly significant amount of troops who were not really trained warriors. So there may have been truth to the idea. However, most often we hear pavises used in the context of Genoese mercenaries and other professional troops rather than levies. Tower shields generally did not feature in medieval times. The closest we got were the kite shield between 900-1200, which would cover from shoulder to shin. During this time period kite shields were the main shield. A trained arbalester (a special type of high-powered crossbow) could shoot twice per minute. Then again, lots of lighter crossbows are much easier to use. You do get militia with crossbows, although they vary a lot in their power. The more powerful crossbows were more demanding (they still relied on muscle power for the huge draw-weights) and tend to be more expensive, so those would be used by more trained guys. Crossbows were more user friendly, and missiles were a much better use of lesser-trained troops. So yes there was some truth to it, but at the same time crossbows were also popular among the highly trained guys as well.
|
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2013 18:12
|
|
|
the JJ posted:Noooope. Dead saints had protective and curative power. Dead saint bits were all the rage, hair, teeth, toenails, the jams. Big churches generally had one or two. This isn't unusual at all, I think there's some Sufi sect with a reliquary of a saint's dentures. Still, the whole 'idolatry' thing was a bit controversial, but the Catholic church's devotion to the saints is kinda one of their things. Oh yeah I was researching this recently. A relic (the dead saint, or part of one) is supposed to physically have the Holy Spirit in it, almost a kind of spiritual radiation emanating from it. If you think of the Holy Spirit as the action of God in the world (that's probably an oversimplification) the saint's physical body is the mechanism through which the action took place. And remember, the saint's body is going to be physically reconstituted and resurrected on the Last Day. So the relic isn't remains in the sense of "ruins" or "leftovers"-- it's just temporarily inanimate. e: this thread is cool
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2013 01:21
|
|
|
swamp waste posted:Oh yeah I was researching this recently. A relic (the dead saint, or part of one) is supposed to physically have the Holy Spirit in it, almost a kind of spiritual radiation emanating from it. If you think of the Holy Spirit as the action of God in the world (that's probably an oversimplification) the saint's physical body is the mechanism through which the action took place. Speaking of: How did people deal with all the multiple copies of relics, with skulls everywhere, enough splinters of the true cross to float a boat, etc? Did they nod and a wink at this stuff, or was city-to-city communication really so bad that nobody would put two and two together and figure out that the same Saint's skull was in four places?
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2013 03:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 13:05 |
|
|
Some questions about medieval navies and boats: Were the Vikings the only people who had longships? If so, what type of boats did the Anglo-Saxons use to get to Britannia? What type of boats did Irish and Scottish people use in early medieval times? What type of boats did the Franks, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths use?
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2013 07:51
|
|