Podcasts about Carolingian Empire

--{ "Waiting for the Miracle - Ep. 1 "Intro., Int. 1 and 2"}-- Welcome to the first recorded episode of CTTM's book club at Telegram, covering Waiting for the Miracle, the transcript book form of Alan Watt's interviews with Jackie Patru on Sweet Liberty between 1998 and 2000. What are Prince's thoughts about individuality and the computer? - How did the Carolingian Empire contribute to standardization? - Prince's thoughts on the system's end goal of building your mind for you, destroying your free will. - Bloodlines of the elite - Freemasonry - Lorsch Abbey, Charlemagne - Movie, Midsommar - Breeding programs.

What happens when one of the greatest empires in history begins to unravel? Matt Lewis explores the turbulent era of the Carolingian Empire's rise and fall with Matthew Gabriel and David Perry. The Carolingian Civil War saw kings fighting kings, brother facing off against brother, and sons challenging their fathers. Together they delve into the succession disputes among the Frankish rulers, the violent conflicts that shaped medieval Europe, and the myth-making that justified Carolingian rule.Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis and edited by Amy Haddow. The producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

Charlemagne was king of the Franks and Emperor of the mighty Carolingian Empire. His unusually long reign saw him conquer vast swathes of Europe, and shape them into an empire that would inspire rulers for centuries to come. His efforts earned him the title of the "Father of Europe", and the consequences of his reign would be felt long after he was gone.Dan is joined by Matthew Innes, a Professor of History and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Birkbeck, University of London. Matt takes us on a tour de force through the life and legacy of one of Europe's most famous medieval leaders.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Max Carrey.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

Much of what we take for granted about the European Middle Ages was a product of the Carolingian dynasty, particularly its most notable member, Charlemagne. But before long, the empire Charlemagne built splintered, thanks to the ambitions of his grandsons. Dr. David Perry is co-author, along with Professor Matthew Gabriele, of the new book Oathbreakers, which is a wonderful and informative look at how the Carolingian world fell apart.Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge. And check out Patrick's new podcast The Pursuit of Dadliness! It's all about “Dad Culture,” and Patrick will interview some fascinating guests about everything from tall wooden ships to smoked meats to comfortable sneakers to history, sports, culture, and politics. https://bit.ly/PWtPoDListen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistoryBe the first to know about Wondery's newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterThis episode comes out for free on (WIDE DATE), and is available early and ad-free for Wondery+ subscribers.Sign up on http://wondery.fm/applepodcasts and stay up-to-date on the latest new podcasts and more from Wondery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlemagne, The Father of Europe, died in the year 814 and left only one surviving son to take the helm of the Carolingian Empire, which spanned the lion's share of the European continent. But his heir, Louis the Pious, had three sons, who each got a parcel of the empire when he died. Then those kings had children of their own, dividing the kingdom up until factions and branches of Charlemagne's lineage occupied independent power centers from the border of modern Denmark all the way down to Italy south of Rome. Our story today involves several of those Carolingian kings, and two priests who would become popes. Bishop Formosus served the Vatican as a diplomat on numerous missions in Europe, developing close ties to the Frankish kings to the north of Rome, the sons of the sons of Charlemagne. When his winding road to the Papacy finally made him Pope Formosus, he found himself at odds - even militarily - with the southern wing of the family, the Dukes of Spoleto, the sons of the daughters of Charlemagne. After Formosa's death, the Dukes of Spoleto reasserted their power, installing a new pope, Stephen VI, who exacted the southern family's revenge on Formosus and their northern kin by exhuming Formosus's rotten corpse and holding an infamously gruesome public trial. Formosus was obviously convicted, but the episode condemned Stephen VI in the moment and for the ages. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of History 102, 'WhatIfAltHists' creator Rudyard Lynch and Erik Torenberg dive into the West European Dark Ages, discussing the period from the fall of Rome until the rise of medieval Europe around 1000 AD. Were they really a decline or a period of critical transformation? Uncover the surprising truth behind this oft-misunderstood era.

fWotD Episode 2635: Thekla (daughter of Theophilos) Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Monday, 22 July 2024 is Thekla (daughter of Theophilos).Thekla (Greek: Θέκλα; early 820s or 830s – after 870), Latinized as Thecla, was a princess of the Amorian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire. The daughter and eldest child of Byzantine emperor Theophilos and empress Theodora, she was proclaimed augusta in the late 830s. After Theophilos's death in 842 and her mother becoming regent for Thekla's younger brother Michael III, Thekla was associated with the regime as co-empress alongside Theodora and Michael.Thekla was deposed by Michael III, possibly alongside her mother, in 856 and consigned to a convent in Constantinople. Some time later, she allegedly returned to imperial affairs and became the mistress of Michael III's friend and co-emperor Basil I. After Basil murdered Michael in 867 and took power as the sole emperor, Thekla was neglected as his mistress and she took another lover, John Neatokometes. Once Basil found out about the affair, Thekla fell out of favor, was beaten and had her property confiscated.Thekla was born on an uncertain date, as calculating her date of birth depends on the year her parents married, estimated to be either c. 820/821, or 830. Thus she was born in either the early 820s or the early 830s. The historian Warren Treadgold gives her a birth date of c. 831, and the historian Juan Signes Codoñer of spring 822. She is presented by contemporary sources as the eldest child of Byzantine emperor Theophilos and empress Theodora; but, some historians, such as John Bagnell Bury and Ernest Walter Brooks, have argued that her sister Maria was the eldest on the basis that she is the only one of the daughters to have been engaged, and generally the eldest married first. She was named after Theophilos's mother, Thekla. Thekla had six siblings: the four sisters Anna, Anastasia, Pulcheria, and Maria, whom Theophilos took great pride in, and the two brothers Constantine and Michael. Constantine, who shortly after birth had been proclaimed co-emperor by their father, drowned in a palace cistern as an infant.In the 830s, the eldest sisters Thekla, Anna, and Anastasia were all proclaimed augustae, an honorific title sometimes granted to women of the imperial family. This event was commemorated through the issue of an unusual set of coins that depicted Theophilos, Theodora, and Thekla on one side and Anna and Anastasia on the other. Although Theophilos was a staunch iconoclast, and thus opposed the veneration of icons, Thekla was taught to venerate them in secret by her mother and Theophilos's step-mother Euphrosyne. Theophilos built a palace for Thekla and her sisters at ta Karianou. Shortly before his death, Theophilos worked to betroth Thekla to Louis II, the heir to the Carolingian Empire, to unite the two empires against the threat they faced from continued Arab invasions. Such a match would also have been advantageous for Louis II's father Lothair I, who was engaged in a civil war against his brothers. Because of Lothair's defeat at the Battle of Fontenoy in 841 and Theophilos's death in 842, the marriage never happened.After Theophilos's death on 20 January 842, Empress Theodora became regent for Thekla's young brother, the three-year-old Michael III. In practical terms, Theodora ruled in her own right and is often recognized as an empress regnant by modern scholars, although the eunuch Theoktistos held much power. Coins issued in the first year of Theodora's reign depict Theodora alone on the obverse and Michael III together with Thekla on the reverse. The only one of the three given a title is Theodora (as Theodora despoina, "the Lady Theodora"). Thekla was associated with imperial power as co-empress alongside Theodora and Michael; this reality is indicated by her depiction in coins, where she is shown as larger than Michael. An imperial seal, also from Theodora's early reign, titles not only Michael but also Theodora and Thekla as "Emperors of the Romans". This may suggest that Theodora viewed her daughter, just as she did her son, as a potential future heir. The numismatist Philip Grierson comments that dated documents from the time of the coins' minting prove that she was "formally associated with Theodora and Michael in the government of the Empire." However, the historian George Ostrogorsky states that Thekla does not appear to have been interested in government affairs. Thekla fell heavily ill in 843, and is said to have been cured later by visiting the Theotokos monastery in Constantinople; for curing Thekla, Theodora issued a chrysobull to the monastery.On 15 March 856, Theodora's reign officially ended with Michael III being proclaimed sole emperor. In 857 or 858 Theodora was expelled from the imperial palace and confined to a convent in Gastria, in Constantinople; the monastery had been converted from a house by her maternal grandmother, Theoktiste, likely during the reign of Theophilos. Thekla and the other sisters were either expelled and placed in the same convent at the same time, or had already been there for some time. Whether they were ordained as nuns is uncertain: they may have actually been ordained, or it may only have been intended. In one version of the narrative, they were confined to the palace at ta Karianou in November 858, possibly in a semi-monastical setting. Another version claims they were immediately placed in the Monastery of Gastria. The most common narrative states that Theodora was confined to the monastery with Pulcheria, while Thekla, and her other sisters Anna and Anastasia, were first kept at the palace at ta Karianou, but shortly thereafter moved to the Monastery of Gastria and shorn as nuns. Theodora may have been released from the convent around 863. According to the tradition of Symeon Logothete, a 10th-century Byzantine historian, Thekla was also released and used by Michael III to attempt to make a political deal. He states that in around 865, Michael had married his long-time lover Eudokia Ingerina to his friend and co-emperor Basil I, in order to mask the continued relationship of Michael and Eudokia. Some historians, such as Cyril Mango, believe that Michael did so after impregnating Eudokia, to ensure that the child would be born legitimate. However, Symeon's neutrality is disputed, and other contemporary sources do not speak of this conspiracy, leading several prominent Byzantists, such as Ostrogorsky and Nicholas Adontz to dismiss this narrative.According to Symeon, Michael also offered Thekla to Basil as a mistress, perhaps to keep his attention away from Eudokia, a plan which Thekla had allegedly consented to. Thus Thekla, who Treadgold states was 35 at the time, became Basil's mistress in early 866, according to Symeon's narrative. The historian William Greenwalt speculates on the reasons that drove Thekla to agree to this relationship: resentment for having been unmarried for so long, Basil's imposing physical stature, or political gain. After Basil murdered Michael III in 867 and seized power for himself, Symeon further writes that Thekla then became neglected and took another lover, John Neatokometes, sometime after 870. When Basil found out about the affair, he had John beaten and consigned to a monastery. Thekla was also beaten and her considerable riches were confiscated. Mango, who supports the theory of the alleged affairs, commented that Basil would already have had good reason to dislike Neatokometes, as the man had attempted to warn Michael of his impending murder, but believes the best explanation for Basil's response is that "Thekla had previously occupied some place in his life", as a mistress. The De Ceremoniis, a 10th-century Byzantine book on courtly protocol and history, states that she was buried in the Monastery of Gastria, where she had been confined earlier, in a sarcophagus with her mother and her sisters Anastasia and Pulcheria.Codoñer, Juan Signes (2016) [2014]. The Emperor Theophilos and the East, 829–842: Court and Frontier in Byzantium during the Last Phase of Iconoclasm. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7546-6489-5.Garland, Lynda (1999). Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527–1204. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-14688-7.Greenwalt, William S. (2002). "Thecla". In Commire, Anne (ed.). Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 15: Sul–Vica. Waterford: Yorkin Publications. ISBN 0-7876-4074-3.Grierson, Philip (1973). Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, 3: Leo III to Nicephorus III, 717–1081. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 978-0-88402-045-5.Herrin, Judith (2002) [2001]. Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium. London: Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-84212-529-X.Herrin, Judith (2013). Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium. Oxford: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15321-6.Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (ODB). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.Lilie, Ralph-Johannes; Ludwig, Claudia; Pratsch, Thomas; Zielke, Beate (1998–2013). Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit (in German). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.Mango, Cyril (1973). "Eudocia Ingerina, the Normans, and the Macedonian Dynasty". Zbornika Radova Vizantoloskog Instituta. 14–15. ISSN 0584-9888.Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-813-51198-6.Ringrose, Kathryn M. (2008). "Women and Power at the Byzantine Court". In Walthall, Anne (ed.). Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520254435.Treadgold, Warren (1975). "The Problem of the Marriage of the Emperor Theophilus". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 16: 325–341. ISSN 2159-3159.Treadgold, Warren (1997). A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2630-6.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Monday, 22 July 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Thekla (daughter of Theophilos) on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Ayanda.

Si a lo largo del reinado de Ludovico Pío se habían dado conflictos dentro de la dinastía Carolingia, a su muerte en el 740 la situación sólo podrá agravarse. Tres hermanos se dividen el Imperio, iniciando una época de alianzas y traiciones que se prolongará durante décadas. Enfrentados y aliados entre sí en los diferentes momentos, deberán hacer frente a las amenazas exteriores: vikingos, sarracenos, eslavos y húngaros hostigan todas las fronteras del antiguo Regnum Francorum. En el interior, las insurrecciones serán el pan de cada día, hijos alzándose contra sus padres, en no pocas ocasiones incitados por una aristocracia rebelde. La tan ansiada unidad será imposible, una idea que aún así fue resucitada en algunos momentos, cuando parecía que un rey carolingio podría reconstruir todo el Imperio bajo su dirección. A la fragmentación inicial en Verdún en el 843, habrá que añadir la división de los reinos de Lotario I y Luis el Germánico cuando ambos fallezcan repartiendo sus tierras entre sus hijos, incrementando con ello la tensión en el reino. Con el fin del siglo IX se iniciará la imparable y veloz decadencia de una dinastía que había logrado dar vida a un nuevo Imperio inspirado en el recuerdo de la caída Roma y de espíritu cristiano. Con la muerte de Carlos el Gordo, la estirpe dará sus últimos coletazos de vida, aunque aún logrará mantenerse por algún tiempo en el poder en algunos de los reinos. Si te gusta nuestro contenido podéis dejarnos un me gusta y un comentario, así nos ayudáis a seguir creciendo. También nos podéis apoyar a través de la pestaña «Apoyar» con una suscripción mensual. ¡Muchísimas gracias! Síguenos en: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElScriptorium TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elscriptorium?is_from_webapp=1&;;sender_device=pc Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scriptoriumpodcast Telegram: https://t.me/ElScriptorium Contacto: scriptoriumpodcast@protonmail.com Bibliografía: - Álvarez Palenzuela, V.A. (2013). Historia Universal de la Edad Media. Ariel. - Mitre Fernández, E. (2009). Una Primera Europa: romanos, cristianos y germanos (400-1000). Encuentro. - Isla Frez, A. (1992). La Europa de los carolingios. Síntesis. - Riché, P. (1993). The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. - James, E. (1982). The Origins of France: from Clovis to the Capetians, 500-1000. Palgrave. - Halphen, L. (1992). Carlomagno y el Imperio Carolingio. Akal. - Kramer, R. (2019). Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire. Amsterdam University Press. - Noble, T. (2009) Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer. Penn State University Press. - Scholz, B. (1970). Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories. The University of Michigan Press. - Reuter, T. (1992). The Annals of Fulda: Ninth century histories, Volume II. Manchester University Press. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

La muerte de Carlomagno abre una nueva etapa en la historia del Regnum Francorum. Su sucesor será su único hijo vivo: Ludovico Pío, también llamado Luis el Piadoso. Acusado por la historiografía de iniciar la decadencia del Imperio fundado por su padre, su reinado será presentado como un simple intermedio entre la grandeza de Carlomagno y la época de conflictos civiles auspiciadas por sus herederos. Frente a este visión, el reinado de Ludovico pío aparece como una época de consolidación y de transformaciones sociales; etapa que será sucedida por unas turbulencias a lo largo de todo el siglo IX que llevaran al ocaso del Imperio Christianum al que Carlomagno y sus intelectuales dieron vida el 25 de diciembre del año 800. El reinado de Ludovico y sus sucesores quedará marcado, sin ninguna duda, por la intriga política. Se abre, así en el 814 todo un siglo lleno de conflictos civiles surgidos por las disputas en el propio seno de la dinastía carolingia e instigadas por una nobleza y un clero con intereses diversos y divergentes. Conspiraciones, alianzas, traiciones, asesinatos, rebeliones y guerras dejarán su impronta en el Regnum Francorum a lo largo de toda la centuria. Si te gusta nuestro contenido podéis dejarnos un me gusta y un comentario, así nos ayudáis a seguir creciendo. También nos podéis apoyar a través de la pestaña «Apoyar» con una suscripción mensual. ¡Muchísimas gracias! Síguenos en: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElScriptorium TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elscriptorium?is_from_webapp=1&;sender_device=pc Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scriptoriumpodcast Telegram: https://t.me/ElScriptorium Contacto: scriptoriumpodcast@protonmail.com Bibliografía: - Álvarez Palenzuela, V.A. (2013). Historia Universal de la Edad Media. Ariel. - Mitre Fernández, E. (2009). Una Primera Europa: romanos, cristianos y germanos (400-1000). Encuentro. - Isla Frez, A. (1992). La Europa de los carolingios. Síntesis. - Riché, P. (1993). The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. - James, E. (1982). The Origins of France: from Clovis to the Capetians, 500-1000. Palgrave. - Halphen, L. (1992). Carlomagno y el Imperio Carolingio. Akal. - Kramer, R. (2019). Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire. Amsterdam University Press. - Noble, T. (2009) Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer. Penn State University Press. - Scholz, B. (1970). Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories. The University of Michigan Press. - Reuter, T. (1992). The Annals of Fulda: Ninth century histories, Volume II. Manchester University Press. Música: Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Chapter 1 Interpret what The Sea Wolves is aboutThe Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings by Lars Brownworth is a non-fiction book that explores the history and impact of the Vikings during the medieval era. The book delves into various aspects of Viking civilization, such as their explorations, warrior culture, trade relationships, religious beliefs, and their eventual spread across Europe and even to America. Lars Brownworth, an American author and history podcaster, provides an engaging and detailed account of the Viking Age, drawing insights from historical records, archaeological findings, and sagas. The Sea Wolves offers readers a comprehensive understanding of the Viking Age, making it an informative read for those interested in the history of the Norse seafarers.Chapter 2 Is The Sea Wolves A Good Book"The Sea Wolves" is a historical non-fiction book written by Lars Brownworth. It explores the history of the Vikings and their impact on the British Isles. The book focuses on the era between the 8th and 10th centuries when Viking raids and invasions were prominent. Brownworth examines the motivations, tactics, and cultural aspects of the Vikings, providing an engaging narrative of their exploits.Many readers have found "The Sea Wolves" to be an informative and captivating exploration of Viking history. Brownworth's writing style is considered accessible, making the book enjoyable for both history enthusiasts and those new to the subject. The author's thorough research and ability to present historical events in a narrative manner have been positively received.While there are positive reviews for "The Sea Wolves," it's always recommended to read reviews and summaries to determine if a book aligns with your interests and preferences.Chapter 3 Key Features of The Sea Wolves "The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings" by Lars Brownworth is a historical book that explores the history and legacy of the Viking civilization. The book begins by tracing the origins of the Vikings in the Scandinavian region and explains how their maritime expertise enabled them to become successful seafarers and warriors. It delves into their raids and conquests, providing detailed accounts of their brutal tactics and the impact they had on the communities they targeted.Brownworth also examines the Viking society, discussing their social structure, religious beliefs, and legal system. He explores the roles of women and the influence of mythology and folklore in shaping Viking culture. The book further explores the Vikings' expansion and colonization, including their expeditions to places like Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland (North America)."The Sea Wolves" also delves into the Vikings' interactions with other civilizations, such as the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world, and the Carolingian Empire. It delves into their trading networks, diplomatic relations, and clashes with various rival powers. The book also discusses the decline and eventual demise of the Viking era, examining the factors that contributed to their downfall, including internal strife and external pressures.Throughout the book, Brownworth provides a balanced portrayal of the Vikings, dispelling some of the popular myths and misconceptions surrounding them. He addresses both the positive aspects of their achievements, such as their navigational skills and artistic expressions, as well as their violent and destructive tendencies. In doing so, he offers a comprehensive examination of the Viking civilization and its lasting impact on European history.Chapter 4 The Sea Wolves Author The book "The

Ready to embark on a journey through time to the heart of Europe's empirical history? Strap in as we dive headfirst into the rich tapestry of the mighty Roman Empire, making our way through to the medieval power corridors. We'll shed light on the rise and fall of the Frankish Maravigian dynasty, all the way to King Clovis's Catholic conversion and the establishment of hereditary rule. Uncover the secrets of the feudal system and discover the shocking power dynamics that led to the Maravigian dynasty's deposition by the Carolingians. As we navigate into the second half of our journey, we grapple with the chaotic aftermath of Charlemagne's death in 814. Witness the splintering of the Carolingian Empire and the rise of the Western Frankish Kingdom, Eastern Kingdom, and Lotharingia. Uncover the shift from consolidated power to a feudal system and its profound effect on medieval Europe's political makeup. We'll tackle tales of civil wars, religious politics, and the rise of local vassals in France. Our expedition concludes in 911 with the birth of the Duchy of Normandy – revealing how the Vikings adopted the local language. From the pinnacle of power to the nitty-gritty of everyday life, we make the pages of history spring to life in an unforgettable journey.Support the showShow Notes: https://www.thepithychronicle.com/resourceshttps://www.tiktok.com/@thepithychroniclershttps://www.instagram.com/the.pithy.chronicle/

A north-south divide over bullfighting, which holds an important cultural spot in many parts of southern France, but which opponents say is animal cruelty. A French climate activist on why blocking roads and interrupting opera performances is the only way to get attention. And the 9th-century Viking attack on Paris. The bullfighting tradition is long and strong in many parts of southern and south-western France, but a lawmaker from the north of the country says it's immoral and wants to get it banned outright. A corrida in Vauvert, near Montpellier, where toreros were performing along with students from the Arles bullfighting school, suggest the issue might be more nuanced. Aficionados object to a Parisian vision of how they should or should not celebrate their culture. The violence inherent to bullfighting is also, they say, what makes it so powerful. (Listen @2'07'') Climate activists have taken to throwing things at famous paintings in European museums, to capture the public's attention over what they see as an existential threat. While French paintings have not been hit (so far), homegrown French activists Dernière Rénovation (Last renovation) have been using direct action or acts of civil disobedience to highlight the very specific issue of housing renovation. The housing sector is the second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in France, after transportation, and the group wants the government to pass more ambitious legislation to push homeowners to better insulate their buildings. To increase pressure on the government, they started in the summer by interrupting the Tour de France. Since then, they have regularly blocked highways around the country. Victor talks about interrupting an opera performance, and why such acts of civil disobedience are necessary. (Listen @20'00'') The Viking siege of Paris that started on 24 November 885 was the beginning of the end of the unified Carolingian Empire, setting in place the future shape of the France we know today. (Listen @16'12'') Episode mixed by Nicolas Doreau. Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, iTunes (link here), Spotify (link here), Google podcasts (link here), or your favourite podcast app (pod.link/1573769878).

A north-south divide over bullfighting, which holds an important cultural spot in many parts of southern France, but which opponents say is animal cruelty. A French climate activist on why blocking roads and interrupting opera performances is the only way to get attention. And the 9th-century Viking attack on Paris. The bullfighting tradition is long and strong in many parts of southern and south-western France, but a lawmaker from the north of the country says it's immoral and wants to get it banned outright. A corrida in Vauvert, near Montpellier, where toreros were performing along with students from the Arles bullfighting school, suggest the issue might be more nuanced. Aficionados object to a Parisian vision of how they should or should not celebrate their culture. The violence inherent to bullfighting is also, they say, what makes it so powerful. (Listen @2'07'') Climate activists have taken to throwing things at famous paintings in European museums, to capture the public's attention over what they see as an existential threat. While French paintings have not been hit (so far), homegrown French activists Dernière Rénovation (Last renovation) have been using direct action or acts of civil disobedience to highlight the very specific issue of housing renovation. The housing sector is the second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in France, after transportation, and the group wants the government to pass more ambitious legislation to push homeowners to better insulate their buildings. To increase pressure on the government, they started in the summer by interrupting the Tour de France. Since then, they have regularly blocked highways around the country. Victor talks about interrupting an opera performance, and why such acts of civil disobedience are necessary. (Listen @20'00'') The Viking siege of Paris that started on 24 November 885 was the beginning of the end of the unified Carolingian Empire, setting in place the future shape of the France we know today. (Listen @16'12'') Episode mixed by Nicolas Doreau. Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, iTunes (link here), Spotify (link here), Google podcasts (link here), or your favourite podcast app (pod.link/1573769878).

Paul & Dan chat about bases for player characters in D&D -- strongholds, ships, taverns, houses, and more! European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. These nobles built castles to control the area immediately surrounding them and the castles were both offensive and defensive structures; they provided a base from which raids could be launched as well as offered protection from enemies. Although their military origins are often emphasized in castle studies, the structures also served as centers of administration and symbols of power. Urban castles were used to control the local populace and important travel routes, and rural castles were often situated near features that were integral to life in the community, such as mills, fertile land, or a water source. Due to the lord's presence in a castle, it was a center of administration from where he controlled his lands. He relied on the support of those below him, as without the support of his more powerful tenants a lord could expect his power to be undermined. Successful lords regularly held court with those immediately below them on the social scale, but absentees could expect to find their influence weakened. Larger lordships could be vast, and it would be impractical for a lord to visit all his properties regularly, so deputies were appointed. This especially applied to royalty, who sometimes owned land in different countries. Watch Dan play the 1993 D&D Stronghold gameRead Dan's blog on late-era Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time. This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Castle", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

How Religion shapes and influences the trajectory of a country's development path is a subject I have long been curious about - and I found persuasive answers in the work of Economic Historian Jared Rubin. Jared's book is a tour de force on how rulers and elites use religious legitimacy to propagate their rule - and the developmental implications of such equilibrium. The first part of our conversation is to get him to explain some of the fundamental concepts of his book and analysis. It is impossible to capture his work in a single conversation, so curious listeners can check out his book - and his excellent blog posts here, here, and here. He also has a new book out with previous podcast guest, Mark Koyama (episode here).You can also get the podcast on all the popular platforms like Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, and the rest. The transcript of the conversation is available below. Thank you for listening and for your support.TRANSCRIPTTobi; Welcome to Ideas Untrapped podcast my guest today is Jared Rubin. Jared is an economics professor at Chapman University in California. He's an economic historian, and he has written a wonderful book titled Rulers, Religion and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not. Welcome to the show, Jared.Jared; Thank you. It's great to be here. It really is.Tobi; Kind of like [an] obvious first question is why religion, really? I mean, so religion has always been this largely accepted but not really systematically defined or studied aspect of the society, especially when it comes to its influence on institutions and economic development. So what motivated you along this line of research?Jared; Yeah, so this goes back a long way. Religion is something I've always been interested in. Not necessarily, for me, a personal conviction and I'll be fine if it were, but it's been something mainly because I've had a hard time understanding its impact. It's something that very obviously influences decision making. So from my undergraduate days, I was interested in economics, which I view as, kind of, how and why people make decisions. And I was also interested in religion for actually similar reasons because it clearly influenced the way that people made decisions. So I took a lot of courses on various religious topics in undergraduate, but it was something that when I went to get my PhD in economics I never really thought I would pursue. I didn't think that it was something that economists studied. And then in my second year of graduate school, I took a class from who would eventually become my advisor, [...] Wright, who has done work on religion in the past, particularly the role that Islamic and Christian cultural attributes fed into economic development in the medieval period and my mind was blown that you could do this, that some economists took religion seriously. So I went to him, this was probably 2003 and I told him that I wanted to do a dissertation on religion and economic development over time. And at the time, precisely the setup to your question, he told me - that's fine if that's what you want to do, and that's what you're interested in, but know that you're going to have a hard time getting a job?Because there were very few economists at the time that were interested in religion. I mean, you could probably count them on two hands, the economists seriously thought about religion... which in retrospect, is kind of mind-blowing.For me, especially, thinking about medieval Europe, say... I don't understand how you can think about European economic development in the medieval period without thinking of the role of the church. If you think about almost any aspect of Middle Eastern economic history since the spread of Islam, very hard to think through the mechanisms through which growth either happens or doesn't without thinking about the role of Islam, and particularly religious authorities. So I decided to go down this path anyway. I knew that it was something I wanted to do with my career. That's the type of thing that got me really excited about working. And my view on things in general is, you only live once. So if you're fortunate enough to be in a position where you can do what you want, do it! I did eventually find a job, which was fortunate. And as I dug more and more into the history, you know, history was also something that I didn't necessarily think I was going to do... I've always read a lot and it always interested me... start to realize that, you know, something I kind of knew anyway, especially Islam-Christianity comparison, there are way more similarities than there are differences between the religion and religious tenets. Now, clearly, there are differences. But when it comes to the things that impinge on economic development, there's a lot of similarities, especially in history. Now, the question is, has religion played a role at all in economic development and that's what I was trying to think through. And when you start really reading the history, I think one of the things you must immediately latch on to, whether it be medieval European history or medieval Middle Eastern history, is the role that religion played in politics really mattered. And when you start getting a [...] that well, maybe even if these religions are pretty similar, actually, (they're not nearly as different as I think a lot of people think they are) the role they played in politics has diverged a lot over time, and the divergence to some degree coincides with the divergence in economic fortunes in the region. So that was the observation that inspired me to write this book. And to really then think through not just the role that religion has played in politics, but why it might differ across societies, and then how it might evolve over time based on the somewhat initial differences, and then what that might mean for economic development. So I ended up writing a few papers on this. But I decided that the time had come to write a book because I had enough, at least, I saw how the connections were made in my mind and between my papers, and that's where that came from. It's kind of a brief background.Tobi; Yeah, just for the audience, your work on religion is not just limited to the book, you've written numerous papers, and publicly available essays, which I'm going to be putting up links to some of it in the show notes. So I'll start my exploration with the evolution of big gods in society, because religion has been with humanity for as long as we know. But tell me, how did big Gods, monotheistic religion become the most popular flavour of human religious practice? I know you've written about this.Jared; Yeah. So this is something that it's certainly more in the field of anthropology. So there's been some really good anthropological work recently done on this, and actually some work by some economists as well. And this is something that's also, you know, as I was just mentioning, it's intimately related with politics. So small gods, this is not a term that is meant to describe them or anything like that in any way, shape, or form. But it's just meant to say [that] we call small gods, like, gods that have a specific purpose. It might be a god that brings water to a population or heals sickness, things like that. That's a small god, you know, it's a god that has a specific purpose.Big gods are gods that has broader powers. So certainly, when we think about monotheistic gods, those are very big gods, it's the God in a sense, but polytheistic gods can be big gods as well. But what big gods can do is what this literature cites as a purpose of big gods is that it can be a way to legitimate rule. It can be a way that if a ruler has the support of a big god, whatever that means, right? And that can be based on some tenet of the society that whoever's ruling is God-ordained, there might be some clerical class in a society that ordains a ruler as God-ordained. But the idea is that big gods, especially centralized gods (and this is where you kind of get towards a more monotheistic faith) are much better at legitimating rule, at keeping rulers in power, and this is where we get autocracy from too. So a lot of these early societies that had big gods, these were the ones that ended up being a little less fair, that kind of really centralized power in a small group of people because gods like that could be used in that way. You know, when you have a variety of gods you can appeal to, when you have these ''smaller gods'', each group can have their own god. And in that way, it's really hard for any one political group to monopolize divine power. So the recent research on this has mainly connected the origin of these types of gods with political power. And this is something I haven't done my own original research on. But I've written a few things, especially online, we have a blog that I worked for that kind of summarizes this works. I think it's really interesting and not just interesting, but it's a really important precursor to my own work to think about where these gods come from in the first place. Because where my own work comes from is well into monotheism. We're talking about the origins of Christianity and Islam that's well past the point where big gods have formed originally. The real idea is big gods start coming about when humans settle down in society. So, around the Neolithic revolution 8,000-10,000 years ago, so...One other thing that really popped immediately in your book is the role of elites in society. And this is something that has been a bit elusive, at least, in my own experience to define. Tobi; I have a friend [and], I mean, when we talk about Nigeria, and how elites are not really doing enough or talking about the right things or doing the right things, the usual retort is, oh, yeah, well, who are the elites? And I find that it's a surprisingly harder question to answer than it sounds. Jared; Yeah. Tobi; So you describe elites as anyone who can influence how people whom they do not know, act. Can you explain that a bit? Who exactly are the elites in society? How do they emerge?Jared; Yeah, I think this is a really important question. And it's a question that I don't think there's one answer to in the sense, like, I wanted to define elites in a certain way, because I wanted to be able to kind of think through what I described as elites, and this was the commonality. But certainly, if you read other works, they'll define elites in a slightly different way. There are certain people we all know are elite, right, like presidents, or people on the highest courts, things like that. But then there are other people that might not be so obvious whether they're a leader or not, like a local priest or imam or something. Is that person an elite? You know, maybe some people would say yes, some people would say no. So yes, for my book and my work more generally, I use this definition, because it has practical value. So it's this idea that to be an elite, you need to be able to influence the actions of other people, particularly people you don't know. Now, you ask two questions, both of which are really good. One is, how do you become an elite? This is something I've been thinking about a lot for work I'm still doing now is, what is the source of power? Because elites have power, almost by the definition of what I described, if you really want to think about why this matters, it's [that] there's some sorts of power that they have.Now, this differs by the type of elite, some of the ones I'm concerned with in the book of religious elites. Now, the idea here tends to be that religious elites (have) either through their study or through their position or something have access to something people care about. Which is, you know, either the Word of God or some places and times actually begin to connect to the supernatural, something like this. And because they have privileged access to ''we'll just call it the supernatural''... something people really care about, that gives them power to do other things to influence the way people act. And it might be in a way that's consistent with religious tenets and might not. There's been plenty of instances where not. In other cases, there's access to coercive power that can make one elite. This is something where you can say warlords could be considered elite in the sense that at the top level, they have access to coercive power, that because people fear the use of coercive power, it allows them to make people act in a way that they don't want to act.You know, more generally, military elites. And there's a lot of grey area here, you know, so in the military, for instance, who's elite who's not? The lowest rank military person probably isn't, you know, they might be able to be on the street with a gun or something, trying to direct people to do something, but it's not really their actions that is causing this, it's the people above them.Then the very top people are elite. Somewhere in the middle, you just have to kind of make a decision if you're thinking about the social scientific definition. And then this other [group] who I describe as economic elite, who with their access to resources, gives them power. Whether through a formal political process or not, you know, oftentimes, especially in the modern world, it's often through formal political processes. But there's a lot of non-formal processes as well through which this happens, certainly through markets, for instance. You know, market power can be really [a] domineering force. So by this definition, my definition is much more broad than many definitions, especially, in the politicacience literature, because by my definition, there's a lot of elites in many societies. And a reason I think that it's important to consider this idea of there being many elites is that there's many people in general and in societies that can influence the political process. Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean that just because you're elite, you'll influence a political process. The way I've described it in my own work is I do use game theory, or at least is the idea of thinking about the interactions between these various people in societies. And when you go through a Game in Game Theory, you think about how they interact with each other, and what are their motivations? What are the outcomes of their interactions, that's really ultimately what you want to get at. And so I think about the game as being between elites. Now, certainly there are people in the background, right, that aren't elites. The non elites are the people that give elites power in a sense because it's those very non elite states that the elites can influence. And that's the very source of their power. So there is a bit of a tautology here, in a sense that elites power because they can influence people, and then non elites follow elites because they can be influenced. But it's also one of these things. We see it across societies. And I do think that there are many reasons why one can become an elite. And those also differ across societies as well.Tobi; In your book, you also describe a class of people who are still elites, as propagating agents of a ruler. But, one thing became very clear your argument that a ruler seeks to propagate their rule. That's what they desire, you know, isn't this a bit of a public choice assumption, some would question that to say that, Oh, well, just ruling for its sake is not the only desire of a ruler. Some rulers want to do good, some want to, you know, like there are diverse motivations and desires for a ruler. But your mechanism sort of relies on this propagation of rule. What is your argument for choosing to go in that direction?Jared; That's a good question, because this is something that, you know, books have been written on, you know, why do religion? What are the motivations? I mean, you're right, certainly, some have much more altruistic motives, i don't deny that. Some have the exact opposite. Essentially wanting to seek as many rents as possible. And then there are others in the middle. They might be altruistic towards their own ethnic group, and very much the opposite towards others. And this is more of a theoretical concept. Because when we need to think about the interactions between various people or groups in society, we do need to think about what they need, what they want. And what I was trying to do in this book was to think about the most general way of capturing this. And I actually agreed that you can think about it in other ways, and I don't think this captures 100% of motivations, but all of the stuff we've been talking about here, whether it be pure altruism, or you know, something like that, or really wanting to improve society. Or again, on the other hand, wanting to capture as many rents for you or your small group of people. In order to do that, you have to stay in power. And so at its base, I want to minimize the assumptions we make. Because once you make an assumption about, say, wanting to maximize tax revenue, or state revenue or something like that, you know, because certain types of rulers that would really benefit, well then you're you're no longer capturing the type of society where, you know, as you mentioned, maybe the ruler just wants to do best for their society. So what I was trying to do, I was trying to think through a way that we might discuss leadership, rulership in a way that is going to be true of all types of societies. So even in democracies, you have rulers at many levels wanting to be reelected. So they're constrained in ways to do that.Clearly in very autocratic governments, no matter what the autocrat wants to do, they can't do it if they don't stay in power. But yeah, I certainly agree that if you wanted to study, especially, a certain type of rulers or a type of ruler of certain motivation, you could think about this a little different, for sure. Good point.Tobi; Going with your mechanism now, so for a ruler to propagate it's rule, you identify two types of agents. One is legitimizing agents and the other coercive agents. But you see cases, and that transverses many societies... you see cases where there is a sort of overlap between the two where the faction of a ruler has some legitimacy, but also uses force to entrench that legitimacy. So disentangle both types of agents for me slightly.Jared; Yeah, so this is good. Maybe for the sake of listeners, that's a word I use that is not really too common in the literature - this term, propagating agents. To your previous question, I find propagating rulers as staying in power. So a propagating agent is somebody in society that can help you stay in power.If it's a religious agent, they might have access to the Word of God or something like that. A military agent, as you mentioned, is a type of coercive agent - one that has power. And to your question, you're absolutely right and I think nearly every society in human history has had some combination of legitimacy and coercive power. In fact, you know, you really can't have rulership without some degree of coercive power. If a ruler has zero access to coercive power, they will be overthrown quite easily. You can, in theory, have a society that has zero legitimacy, and you know, it's run completely by coercive power. We would say that there have been a few societies that have, at least, come close to that. But again, that ruler is very tenuous in their rule, because there's gonna be a lot of people in society that don't think that they're the rightful ruler. I should also just note quickly that legitimacy is a very complex concept, but we can think about it in a simplistic way, as just that one has political legitimacy when people view that person's having the right to rule. And that can come from a lot of sources. It can come from, certainly, religious elites. It can come from economic elites. It can even come from military elites, depending on, you know, the cultural attributes of the society. So I think, say, certainly, Genghis Khan had this type of legitimacy. And then this was true, at least, in my reading of Mongol societies, that those who could fight have political legitimacy as well as the right to rule. One of the ideas put in my book, to get directly to your question here, is that you can think about it as not necessarily disentangling the two, but what weight do you put on the two. Does the ruler use 95% coercive power, 5% legitimacy or the reverse? Now, one thing that I argue is that there are many types of legitimacy that are relatively inexpensive, from the rulers perspective, you know. So, of course, coercive power is often pretty expensive, for two reasons. One, it's just often expensive in terms of resources, you know, either be outfitting a military or police forces or things like this. And the other thing is that it's expensive in the sense of giving too much coercive power to groups in society is also a threat to your own rule. Because those are the people that are most likely to overthrow you.Now, legitimacy... to gain legitimacy, I think of it as kind of interaction between rulers - I should say, rulers here doesn't necessarily have to be a person, maybe a small group of people [or] something like that... just the ruling elite - and those in society that can provide legitimacy. Again, whether they be religious elites, economic elites, something like that.And we can think about this as a trade-off. There's going to be some types of maybe policies, sometimes it's just pure payments. Like it's certainly in both Christian and Muslim societies that much of their history, religious authorities will say tax-exempt, things like that, you know, as a part of the payoff. They also might want some types of policies. Oftentimes, the religious elite maybe wants suppression of rival religions, things like that. In the grand scheme of things that tends to be relatively inexpensive, relative to other forms of legitimacy. So then it's attractive. And that's one of the outcomes or the way that I'm thinking about it in the interactions between different groups. You know, some kind of basic economic comparison. There's going to be benefits from using different forms of legitimacy or coercion, there are also costs. So we think about what's the cost-benefit trade-offs, and rulers are going to use some types and not others. And that's going to differ by society, it's also going to differ over time. One thing my book tries to do is look at the evolution of these trade-offs over time and why they diverge between the regions.Tobi; You also explained and described something called the rules of the game, as institutions - be it culture, norms and the practices of the society which sort of set the boundaries of what a ruler and the elites can sort of do in a society. So, I mean, describe that to me a bit. How is that a limiting factor? Because a lot of people kind of assume that once you achieve some legitimacy, maybe through religious legitimacy by, say, converting to the most popular religion of population, you can do what you want. But you made it clear that there are some limiting factors in different societies to what rulers and their agents can do. Describe this process.Jared; Yeah, so that term ''the rules of the game'' is a very famous one used by the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Douglass North. And that's, again, even for him, you know... that's like a very simplistic way to think about institutions. And North goes well beyond this. And then they [other economists] have gone even further beyond this. But the way that these work do not mean that actors, or even rulers, can act unilaterally and do whatever they want. They're constrained by various things. And one of the real things that I focus on here is this degree to which religious elites can really legitimate rule and how effective they are at doing this.So in some societies, religious elites are extremely effective at doing this; and this is not just to do with their effort or something like that, it's based on history. It's something that historically, in some societies, religious elites have been very good, so they continue to be very good, at least for the short run. What I do in the book, of course, is you know, look at certain parts of the Middle East. Religious elites can be extremely effective at either propping up rule or the opposite, or challenging rule. Look at the 1979 Iranian Revolution - that's exactly what happened there. On the other hand, religious elites may no longer be powerful where they once were powerful. I mean, Western Europe is like that today. Religious elites tend to not have much power in Western Europe today, in large part because society is not very religious, whereas they used to. So again, that's kind of a constraint that's faced by a ruler at any one given point in time. So maybe a medieval European ruler would have desired to have religious legitimacy because in the medieval period religions are still very effective at legitimating rule. In the modern-day, certainly Prime Ministers, Presidents are going to look elsewhere as they tend to. So when we talk about, you know, the rules of the game, we can think about this as a rule. It kind of sets the stage for how this game as I described it between those who rule and those who can keep them in power, how they interact with each other.So let's get right into the meat of your argument proper, which is how Christianity and Islam emerged when they did, and how the relationship between both religions and their societies and the institutions they propagated, sort of lead to economic divergence, so to speak. Tobi; And so I'm going to ask you two questions. I'm trying not to assume too much knowledge for the audience here. So I'm going to ask you two related questions. So describe for us briefly how the emergence of Islam [happened] when it did, and the emergence of Christianity when and where it did [and] how that came to influence the divergence that was to come later in the society where they sort of propagated these influences. And my second question, just to note, is that you made very clear - which also I should state for the sake of the audience - that you're not arguing that there is something inherently wrong with any religion. Though, some might argue that, well, you kind of have to say that, right? So...Jared; Yeah, no, I think the second question follows from the first question, though, too, because this is actually really important to clarify if the audience hasn't picked up on that yet is, this book doesn't really look at the tenets of religion. In fact, Islam and Christianity are much closer on most fronts than they are apart. So to the extent that religion might have played a role in what ended up becoming a larger economic divergence, it's hard to look at the tenets of religion as the core cause. And moreover, something the book also notes is that a good explanation of any type of divergence...you know, economic divergence in the long run, but especially between Europe and the Middle East has to also account for the fact that the Middle East was far ahead of Europe for a long time. Minimum, 400 years, probably 700 years.[It] doesn't really matter exactly how long in a sense that, you know, it was a while and eventually Europe pulled ahead. But that fact in and of itself suggests that a simplistic argument about there being something about Islam that holds economies back is a foolhardy one. I mean, how do you explain that the Middle East for the first, say, 600 years after the spread of Islam was so far ahead of Western Europe, on every front - economically, scientifically, culturally, technologically, everything? So specifically, your first question, though the book looks at and draws out the implications of one very important difference between not so much the theology or the tenets of the religion but a historical difference between the two that did get involved institutionally into the two regions.This stems from the way that the religions were born and it has to do with their role in legitimating role. And the book argues that, for historical reasons, Islam is more effective at legitimating rule. And it cites numerous passages not just in the Quran, but also the Hadith, which are the kind of the second most important set of religious sayings that's associated with teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. And the reason that the book argues... and I'm not the first person by any means to note this... that Islam is better, or is more effective at legitimating rule is the conditions under which these religions were born. So Christianity was born in the Roman Empire. And for its first 300 years, it was a minority religion, which was essentially trying to survive in the Roman Empire. And for this reason, we see the writings in early Christianity when the real doctrine in the corpus of Christian doctrine is really being formed are not about legitimating rule. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You know, there's the famous quote attributed, at least, to Jesus, you know, ''render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God, what is God's''. The idea of being these two separate spheres, and the religious sphere is not part of that of the Caesar, the secular ruler. And then there are plenty of others who at the time, you know, Augustine and numerous Popes that had similar ideas. On the other hand, Islam formed at the same time, what was at the time the world's largest ever empire was formed. Muhammad himself was a political figure, as well as a religious figure.Then, in the first 30 years, the first caliphate, then under the Umayyad Caliphate, within a 100 years of the spread of Islam you have it going from the Atlantic Ocean, you know, in terms of the Iberian Peninsula, all the way to South Asia.This is the largest empire the world has ever seen. And as this empire is expanding, this is the same time that the corpus of Islamic thought is being formed. It's being formed differently in different contexts. But because it's forming alongside a growing empire, there is need for Islamic justification for political rule. So from a very early period, you get Islamic doctrine and this being kind of ingrained institutionally that a rightful ruler is one who follows islam, however that is defined. And again, what this ends up doing is, eventually, after the Islamic clerical classes eventually come about in the ninth and 10th century, this ends up giving them a lot of power because they're the ones who can define whether a ruler is acting like a good Muslim or not. And because of the principles, you know, the kind of what we might call a cultural principle of what makes legitimate rule, it gives religious authorities a lot of power on the one hand, because they can be the ones that describe it. But then, when a ruler has this legitimacy, it gives the ruler a lot of power to act however they like because they're viewed as legitimate and they might not necessarily need as much coercive powers as they otherwise would.Tobi; You sort of answered my second question. I agree with you, by the way. But what I've noticed with people who get defensive about this kind of argument is to insist on the tenets argument and say, Oh, no, one of these two religions, Islam, in particular, is quite politically prescriptive. And because of that you cannot just separate the tenets of each religion from its institutional or social or political influence, right. But you are saying that, because there was a divergence in the rules of the game, so to speak, when these two religions started growing, influenced the text, the tenants, the practices, and how much legitimacy each can command, you know? So I guess my next question would be, at what point... because like you said, the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was a pretty successful Empire for hundreds of years. Jared; Yes. Tobi; When did it change? When did religious legitimacy and the way it worked in the Middle East become a sort of economic albatross?Jared; So this is the great question. And I think this is the important question to answer because I would actually argue, and I do argue in the book, that initially, this was something that actually was economically beneficial relative to what, say, post-Roman Europe was going through at the time; and even relative to what, you know, societies, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, but even throughout the Middle East North Africa look like, you know, there were empires at the time. But one thing early Islam did was it helped unite these various regions under one rule, which meant fairly consistent rule of law, even though you know, we don't think of these as pure rule of law societies, but there was consistent rule, they use the same currencies, they could expect similar protections. One thing that religion does do, you know, this isn't unique to Islam, but because Islam at least, was mainly initially spread amongst merchants, so this was something that [for] the broader populations of these regions, it took a while for them to more broadly Islamise, but merchants were among the first to convert. And this is something that, at least, brought them into similar social circles, it improved their networks. And I think this helps explain - it's not the only thing, but it helps explain the economic growth of what we might think of as a broader Islamic world for its first 400 years.This is known in the historical literature as the golden age of Islam from the mid-seventh century till about 1000 or so. And I think you can make the case that the fact that these rulers were in fact strong, for the most part, was a reason for this. And certainly, at least up until like the late 9th century, when the Abbasid Empire which was the large empire, beginning the mid 8th century was kind of at its peak. This is a reason I think that Islam plays its role. And again, I mentioned a few minutes ago that I think an explanation that focuses on religion also does need to explain why Islam was associated for so long with a relatively economic successful region. Whereas, you know, this is the same period - that period mid-seventh century to 1000 or so where Europe is not nearly as successful, you know, it's still kind of in its post-Roman doldrums. Even when you get some type of unification like under Charlemagne, the Carolingian Empire, there's no real capacity to rule in most of those places. And I think, in part at least, that's due to differences in the way that these rulers - to use my term of propagating rule. Now to get at your big question, what we really need to explain then is actually a reversal. So the year 800, ironically enough, is often a year that's pinpointed, because on the one hand, in Western Europe, it's kind of a famous year because it's the year that the Pope crowned Charlemagne. But it's also right at the height of the Abbasid Empire in terms of its economic power, in particular. And this is a year that, you know, around this time, early ninth century, that economic divergence between the two regions was probably at its greatest. So we then say, well, what was the source of reversal? Now, I want to make it clear that I'm pinpointing one source, this is by no means the only source. There are many different reasons, I mean, nothing as big as 1000 years of economic history is going to be mono-causal. But one thing I look at is, we can start with the Middle East and North Africa and say, because religion was so effective at propagating rule, there was very little incentive for political authorities to change this. They stayed in power, by ceding relatively little to religious authorities, they certainly had to have access to coercive powers, which they did. There's been a lot of good work that has looked at what access to coercive powers meant for the stability of Muslim empires as well as their economic strength. But it meant that religious authorities remained powerful and, importantly, what I then got to argue is that it meant that economic elites were kept out of the ruling coalition. Before I go too deeply into this, I want to also make it clear that, you know, having a society run by economic elites is generally not a good thing. You know, purely economic elites. Because economic elites, you know, people that are engaged in commerce, maybe merchants, things like that, we should be thinking about them just like we think about all actors as being somewhat selfish.They have their own desires that they want satisfied. And in this case, it may benefit them at the expense of society. One thing I note, though, is that the big things that economic elites want from the political bargain are things that tend to benefit society more broadly.And the two big ones I point out in the book because these come up again and again in our history are some types of protections often for their property. But you know, more broadly for especially commercial interactions, you know, so you have some type of means to appeal when you're being cheated, or certainly when your rights are being infringed in any way. And there's a very large literature in economics that suggests these types of rights are really important for economic development. And the other thing is investment in large scale public goods. Things like transport networks, roads, bridges, canals, things like that. And a whole host of other public goods, eventually education becomes something, even though that's actually quite a bit later. There's a long, long history of economics that suggests that those things are typically most efficiently provided by government. Again, the economic elites want these types of things, because they benefit themselves. They do benefit themselves, but they also happen to benefit society more broadly. So on this front, you could say, Well, if the economic elite really don't have a seat at the bargaining table, in this case they don't have a seat because rulers don't need them. They have plenty of legitimacy, say, through religion and giving up stuff like property rights is among the most expensive things that can be asked for. So rulers really don't want to give that up if they don't have to. On the other hand, in Europe, what ends up happening around the year 1000 or so... it starts in northern Italy, in the low countries, is you start to get some seeds of commercial development. Trade, actually, a lot of the trade at least begins with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslims. And with this, as trade starts to expand, some of the things that the religious authorities might impinge upon, while we look at say like moneyed interest or stuff like that. But that's actually I think less important in the broader scheme of things.What's probably more important is that economic elites gain more power. And, you know, to go back to the broader narrative in the book, because Christian religious authorities actually have less legitimating power, they're less effective at legitimating rule. [And] once there are these other sources of power that come up in a society that can provide rulers with things like tax revenue, rulers seek them out. So this is precisely the period where Europe goes through a major kind of overhaul in its Church-State relations. So the most famous episode and this is called the investiture crisis, where it essentially pits the papacy versus various secular rulers. And this is a period, a medieval period where religious legitimacy remains important, but it loses some of its value and where it loses its power, it's economic elites that gain. I fast forward a little bit to the Reformation, which where it takes place kind of permanently undermines the role of, certainly, the Catholic Church, but just more generally, [the role of] religion in legitimating rule. And in those places, that's where you really start to see economic elites, mainly in the form of Parliaments becoming much more powerful. And there again, that's where you start to see these economic elites bargaining for various things that improve the economic development in the region. Again, they're doing it for their own personal reasons. it's not to say that economic elites are altruistic, kind-hearted people that want what's best for society. Oftentimes, it's quite the opposite, they just want things that benefit themselves. But some of the things they want are the types of things that we think of that portend broader economic success. So in a nutshell, that's kind of the very broad scope of the argument. Certainly, there's historical detail that the book goes into. But yeah...Tobi; Some of the implications of your work are so deep, that I'm not quite sure I can do it enough justice. But one thing I want to now get at is the issue of persistence. I mean, the period you called in the book, and also your research, they are pretty long enough, some will say, for us to see maybe some convergence. I mean, there has been the Industrial Revolution, the first one, the second one, and I mean, now we live in an age of globalization. And some of this divergence can still be observed. So specifically, speaking of religious legitimacy and how growth retarding it can be in certain conditions, how persistent is that effect? And secondly, how does legitimacy wither?Jared; I think that this is kind of a key question in terms of thinking about these long-run processes. And I think one answer to this is that, in part, at least, it comes down to incentives.It comes down to incentives of the ruling elite to continue to use religious legitimacy. And to kind of go back to what we're talking about initially, we can think about this in terms of cost benefits. And what we might think about as the costs here are what economists think about costs as - it includes opportunity cost, the foregone cost of using something, a different form of legitimacy in this case.As long as the costs are relatively low, which we might think of that as broadly being the case with religious legitimacy, then it's likely to persist. This doesn't necessarily entail anything deterministic about... you know, just because a religion is good at legitimating rule, it's definitely going to persist, there might be other things in societies that come about. In fact, you know, we have seen this here and there, you know, so say, after World War One, Turkey became a fairly secular society, at least in terms of its politics. So there's nothing absolute at all here in terms of it persisting, but what we can say, and I think this is where if you do economics correctly enough is strong. But if you use economics in a good way, you never want to say something's definitely going to happen. But you can say things are more likely to happen because people are incentivized to do something in a certain way. And that's what I think I would describe here in terms of persistence. And I think this same logic also helps us understand why in this case, things don't persist. Why the use of religious legitimacy doesn't persist. And these might be things outside of what we might think of as the ruling elite or the religious elite's control. When, you know, what I was just describing... when you have a reemergence of commerce in Europe, for instance, in what is known in the historical literature as the commercial revolution, happening approximately between 1000 - 1300, that changes the cost-benefit calculation. And because the benefits of religious legitimacy were lower, and now the costs are higher, because you're essentially keeping this increasingly powerful economically outside the political circle if you continue to rely on religious legitimacy, that changes the calculation. And maybe you do want to start offering these economic elites political rights, but it would come at the expense of political power for the religious elite. But that's precisely what ends up happening in the medieval period in Europe, is that these economic elites increasingly get rights throughout central Europe and actually in other parts of Europe as well.They start forming communes, which are like the city-states, which are mainly made for merchants by merchants to trade with each other, but they gain a lot of rights and these rights come at the expense of the religious elite. The religious elites have relatively little power in these areas, and these areas become the economic workhorses of medieval Europe. And they benefit the rulers, in some cases, immensely and this becomes one of the primary sources of tax revenue and a whole host of things. So again, you know, I think if we think about it in terms of this cost-benefit framework, we have to know the history, certainly, to know why these costs and benefits might change. But I think it does give us a framework for thinking about why things persist as well.Tobi; Thinking about incentives the way you just described it, especially of the elites, and this is not just about religion, you see some societies that may be too reliant on rent from resource revenue and their struggles to diversify also struggle with this incentive problem. So I guess my point would be, is it fair or, should I say, reasonable to conclude that a lot of modernization projects that we are seeing whether in terms of foreign aid or interventions or setting up democracies in, perhaps, states that have no history of that form of governance, are they all efforts that are doomed to fail if the incentives of local elites remain the same?Jared; Oftentimes, yes. And this is where I think that this question is extraordinarily deep in that this gets at so many different things in human history. And I think, you know, we can broadly say that transporting something that worked, whether it be institutional design, whether it be just funding for certain types of things that worked in one society, it doesn't necessarily work in another society if, in this case, the institutions... and you could even say that there are cultural incentives too that, you know, when people are imbued with a certain view of the world, then they're not just going to be able to adopt new things in a whole host of ways. So yes, I would argue pretty strongly that certainly elites that govern the political process, when incentives don't change, you're unlikely to get a change in political behaviour. So if you really want to think about what might be a driver of societal change, at some point, the incentives of the elites have to change. So this can come from a variety of ways. This can come from certainly international, either pressure or incentives, or, you know, it can be financial incentives. It can come from the ground up. What I just described in Europe was more of a ground up thing, in that the incentive of political elites only changed after commerce really started to reemerge. And on the other hand, talking about commerce reemerging in Europe, it still wasn't flowing, as far as we can tell, nearly as much as it was in the Middle East at the time. So what that indicates is that... at least to me, is that the incentives for Middle Eastern rulers or North African rulers at the time to employ religious legitimacy was just so much stronger that it was going to take a lot more to undermine those incentives. So again, that's where I think to your question, really understanding the incentives that authorities face, [that] the various parts of the ruling coalition face is really important to even begin to understand what is possible in terms of change.Tobi; My final question to you, which is also a bit of a tradition on the show, is what's the one big idea that you would like to see spread everywhere? It may be something you're working on new [or] old, it may be something that you find interesting. So what is it?Jared; By spread everywhere, you mean [the] broader population? Tobi; Yes.Jared; I think it's [the] implications of my work. It's not my work in particular, but it's the type of stuff that got me interested in this in the first place. It is that if you really want to take a grand, grand, grand view, I think with both myself and I think a large fraction of people who go into economics, why we get in the field is to understand both wealth and poverty. Because for me understanding poverty, you have to understand wealth as well, you have to understand how it's created. Because I think what most of us, I would hope one, at least one of the main reasons we're interested in this is because understanding the way economies work as a source to help people.You know, the people that need it the most. And, you know, something I've long been interested in is the role that religion has played in this because I think it's one of many factors. And again, I want to be very clear, I have a book coming out early next year with Mark Koyama. He's been a guest on your show in the past about how the world became rich, and we look at a lot of different reasons in that book. So this is one of the reasons but I do think that there are massive misconceptions in the role that religion has played and can play in the future. And I think that if we want to say think about the broader Muslim world, for instance... you know, what worked to raise the economic profile and improve the economic development of, say Western Europe initially, my argument was that it was in part getting religion out of politics. I don't think that's going to work, though, in large parts of the Muslim world for reasons we just discussed. So an implication of both my work but also something that is long interested me is this idea that tenets of religion themselves are not things that have a massively damaging impact on economic development. And I think that oftentimes, that's something that is easy to pinpoint, especially for people who want to blame religion for something. But when we think about the role that religion plays in politics, and this is not unique to religion, it can be the role that the military plays in politics, can be the role that actually, frankly, certain types of economic elites play in politics. And if we really want to improve the lot of... there's still a billion or so people in the world that live on $3 a day or less...the role of local politics plays a role in depressing the capacity for those people to just get to a point where thinking about what they're going to eat is not dominating their lives.And it differs by society. But I do think that attempts to improve the lots of those people that aren't as concerned with the political are not going to get far. And that's a lot of, you know, especially Western NGO types. And this is not to say, I mean, many of them do extremely good and important work. But if we really want to get at the source of lifting, you know, at least the most dire of poverty out of the world, I think it's the political that we really need to address. And we need to address it in different ways in different societies. This is not by any means to say that all we need to do is impose democracy. It's exactly the opposite in many cases because democracy when it's imposed, and does not arise organically often does not work that well. So it's thinking about local context, it's thinking about how rulers stay in power, it's all of these things, and including religion. This is in part to say, there's no panacea. There's no silver bullet that's going to affect the politics in various places in the same way. But I do think that if we can pull on generality out which, much more importantly, can help alleviate the most dire of poverty, it's to really try to affect the political. That's the thing that I'm frankly hoping to continue to work on for the next 40 or so years to thinking about the historical determinants of this and what that can teach us for the present.Tobi; Thank you so much. My guest today has been Jared Rubin, economic historian and professor of economics at Chapman University. Thank you very much, Jared, for joining me.Jared; Thank you so much. This has been really fun. 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In this episode we look at life among the villages of the Carolingian Empire.  Join in as we see them deal with new challenges such as land ownership, growing cities, and the church!  

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Our last episode was on Project MAC, a Cold War-era project sponsored by ARPA. That led to many questions like what led to the Cold War and just what was the Cold War. We'll dig into that today. The Cold War was a period between 1946, in the days after World War II, and 1991, when the United States and western allies were engaged in a technical time of peace that was actually an aggressive time of arms buildup and proxy wars. Technology often moves quickly when nations or empires are at war. In many ways, the Cold War gave us the very thought of interactive computing and networking, so is responsible for the acceleration towards our modern digital lives. And while I've never seen it references as such, this was more of a continuation of wars between the former British empire and the Imperialistic Russian empires. These make up two or the three largest empires the world has ever seen and a rare pair of empires that were active at the same time.  And the third, well, we'll get to the Mongols in this story as well. These were larger than the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, or any of the Chinese dynasties. In fact, the British Empire that reached its peak in 1920 was 7 times larger than the land controlled by the Romans, clocking in at 13.7 million square miles. The Russian Empire was 8.8 million square miles. Combined the two held nearly half the world. And their legacies live on in trade empires, in some cases run by the same families that helped fun the previous expansions.  But the Russians and British were on a collision course going back to a time when their roots were not as different as one might think. They were both known to the Romans. But yet they both became feudal powers with lineages of rulers going back to Vikings. We know the Romans battled the Celts, but they also knew of a place that Ptolemy called Sarmatia Europea in around 150AD, where a man named Rurik settle far later. He was a Varangian prince, which is the name Romans gave to Vikings from the area we now call Sweden. The 9th to 11th century saw a number o these warrior chiefs flow down rivers throughout the Baltics and modern Russia in search of riches from the dwindling Roman vestiges of empire. Some returned home to Sweden; others conquered and settled. They rowed down the rivers: the Volga, the Volkhov, the Dvina, and the networks of rivers that flow between one another, all the way down the Dnieper river, through the Slavic tripes Ptolemy described which by then had developed into city-states, such as Kiev, past the Romanians and Bulgers and to the second Rome, or Constantinople.  The Viking ships rowed down these rivers. They pillaged, conquered, and sometimes settled. The term for rowers was Rus. Some Viking chiefs set up their own city-states in and around the lands. Some when their lands back home were taken while they were off on long campaigns. Charlemagne conquered modern day France and much of Germany, from The Atlantic all the way down into the Italian peninsula, north into Jutland, and east to the border with the Slavic tribes. He weakened many, upsetting the balance of power in the area. Or perhaps there was never a balance of power.  Empires such as the Scythians and Sarmatians and various Turkic or Iranian powers had come and gone and each in their wake crossing the vast and harsh lands found only what Homer said of the area all the way back in the 8th century BCE, that the land was deprived of sunshine. The Romans never pushed up so far into the interior of the steppes as the were busy with more fertile farming grounds. But as the Roman Empire fell and the Byzantines flourished, the Vikings traded with them and even took their turn trying to loot Constantinople. And Frankish Paris. And again, settled in the Slavic lands, marrying into cultures and DNA.  The Rus Rome retreated from lands as her generals were defeated. The Merovingian dynasty rose in the 5th century with the defeat of Syagrius, the last Roman general Gaul and lasted until a family of advisors slowly took control of running the country, transitioning to the Carolingian Empire, of which Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, as he was crowned, was the most famous. He conquered and grew the empire.  Charlemagne knew the empire had outgrown what one person could rule with the technology of the era, so it was split into three, which his son passed to his grandsons. And so the Carolingian empire had made the Eastern Slavs into tributaries of the Franks. There were hostilities but by the Treaty of Mersen in 870 the split of the empire generally looked like the borders of northern Italy, France, and Germany - although Germany also included Austria but not yet Bohemia. It split and re-merged and smaller boundary changes happened but that left the Slavs aware of these larger empires. The Slavic peoples grew and mixed with people from the Steppes and Vikings. The Viking chiefs were always looking for new extensions to their trade networks. Trade was good. Looting was good. Looting and getting trade concessions to stop looting those already looted was better. The networks grew. One of those Vikings was Rurik. Possibly Danish Rorik, a well documented ally who tended to play all sides of the Carolingians and a well respected raider and military mind.  Rurik was brought in as the first Viking, or rower, or Rus, ruler of the important trade city that would be known as New City, or Novgorod. Humans had settled in Kiev since the Stone Age and then by Polans before another prince Kyi took over and then Rurik's successor Oleg took Smolensk and Lyubech. Oleg extended the land of Rus down the trading routes, and conquered Kiev. Now, they had a larger capital and were the Kievan Rus.  Rurik's son Igor took over after Oleg and centralized power in Kiev. He took tribute from Constantinople after he attacked, plunder Arab lands off the Caspian Sea, and was killed overtaxing vassal states in his territory. His son Sviatoslav the Brave then conquered the Alans and through other raiding helped cause the collapse of the Kazaria and Bulgarian empires. They expanded throughout the Volga River valley, then to the Balkans, and up the Pontic Steppe, and quickly became the largest empire in Europe of the day. His son Vladimir the Great expanded again, with he empire extending from the Baltics to Belarus to the Baltics and converted to Christianity, thus Christianizing the lands he ruled.  He began marrying and integrating into the Christian monarchies, which his son continued. Yaroslov the Wise married the daughter of the King of Sweden who gave him the area around modern-day Leningrad. He then captured Estonia in 1030, and as with others in the Rurikid dynasty as they were now known, made treaties with others and then  pillaged more Byzantine treasures. He married one daughter to the King of Norway, another to the King of Hungary, another to the King of the Franks, and another to Edward the Exile of England, and thus was the grandfather of Edgar the Aetheling, who later became a king of England.  The Mongols The next couple of centuries saw the rise of Feudalism and the descendants of Rurik fight amongst each other. The various principalities were, as with much of Europe during the Middle Ages, semi-independent duchies, similar to city-states. Kiev became one of the many and around the mid 1100s Yaroslav the Wise's great-grandson, Yuri Dolgoruki built a number of new villages and principalities, including one along the Moskva river they called Moscow. They built a keep there, which the Rus called kremlins.  The walls of those keeps didn't keep the Mongols out. They arrived in 1237. They moved the capital to Moscow and Yaroslav II, Yuri's grandson, was poisoned in the court of Ghengis Khan's grandson Batu. The Mongols ruled, sometimes through the descendants of Rurik, sometimes disposing of them and picking a new one, for 200 years. This is known as the time of the “Mongol yoke.”  One of those princes the Mongols let rule was Ivan I of Moscow, who helped them put down a revolt in a rival area in the 1300s. The Mongols trusted Moscow after that, and so we see a migration of rulers of the land up into Moscow. The Golden Horde, like the Viking  Danes and Swedes settled in some lands. Kublai Khan made himself ruler of China. Khanates splintered off to form the ruling factions of weaker lands, such as modern India and Iran - who were once the cradle of civilization. Those became the Mughals dynasties as they Muslimized and moved south. And so the Golden Horde became the Great Horde. Ivan the Great expanded the Muscovite sphere of influence, taking Novgorod, Rostov, Tver, Vyatka, and up into the land of the Finns. They were finally strong enough to stand up to the Tatars as they called their Mongol overlords and made a Great Stand on the Ugra River. And summoning a great army simply frightened the Mongol Tatars off. Turns out they were going through their own power struggles between princes of their realm and Akhmed was assassinated the next year, with his successor becoming Sheikh instead of Khan. Ivan's grandson, Ivan the Terrible expanded the country even further. He made deals with various Khans and then conquered others, pushing east to conquer the Khanate of Sibiu and so conquered Siberia in the 1580s. The empire then stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  He had a son who didn't have any heirs and so was the last in the Rurikid dynasty. But Ivan the Terrible had married Anastasia Romanov, who when he crowned himself Caesar, or Tsar as they called it, made her Tsaritsa. And so the Romanov's came to power in 1596 and following the rule of Peter the Great from 1672 to 1725, brought the Enlightenment to Russia. He started the process of industrialization, built a new capital he called St Petersburg, built a navy, made peace with the Polish king, then Ottoman king, and so took control of the Baltics, where the Swedes had taken control of on and off since the time of Rurik.  Russian Empire Thus began the expansion as the Russian Empire. They used an alliance with Denmark-Norway and chased the Swedes through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, unseating the Polish king along the way. He probably should not have allied with them. They moved back into Finland, took the Baltics so modern Latvia and Estonia, and pushed all the way across the Eurasian content across the frozen tundra and into Alaska.  Catherine the Great took power in 1762 and ignited a golden age. She took Belarus, parts of Mongolia, parts of modern day Georgia, overtook the Crimean Khanate, and modern day Azerbaijan. and during her reign founded Odessa, Sevastopol and other cities. She modernized the country like Peter and oversaw nearly constant rebellions in the empire. And her three or four children went on to fill the courts of Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands. She set up a national network of schools, with teachings from Russian and western philosophers like John Locke. She collected vast amounts of art, including many from China. She set up a banking system and issued paper money. She also started the process to bring about the end of serfdom. Even though between her and the country she owned 3.3 million herself.  She planned on invading the Khanate of Persia, but passed away before her army got there. Her son Paul halted expansion. And probably just in time. Her grandson Alexander I supported other imperial powers against Napoleon and so had to deal with the biggest invasion Russia had seen. Napoleon moved in with his grand army of half a million troops. The Russians used a tactic that Peter the Great used and mostly refused to engage Napoleon's troops instead burning the supply lines. Napoleon lost 300,000 troops during that campaign. Soon after the Napoleanic wars ended, the railways began to appear. The country was industrializing and with guns and cannons, growing stronger than ever.  The Opium Wars, between China and the UK then the UK and France were not good to China. Even though Russia didn't really help they needed up with a piece of the Chinese empire and so in the last half of the 1800s the Russian Empire grew by another 300,000 square miles on the backs of a series of unequal treaties as they came to be known in China following World War I.  And so by 1895, the Romanovs had expanded past their native Moscow, driven back the Mongols, followed some of the former Mongol Khanates to their lands and taken them, took Siberia, parts of the Chinese empire, the Baltics, Alaska, and were sitting on the third largest empire the world had ever seen, which covered nearly 17 percent of the world. Some 8.8 million square miles. And yet, still just a little smaller than the British empire. They had small skirmishes with the British but by and large looked to smaller foes or proxy wars, with the exception of the Crimean War.  Revolution The population was expanding and industrializing. Workers flocked to factories on those train lines. And more people in more concentrated urban areas meant more ideas. Rurik came in 862 and his descendants ruled until the Romanovs took power in 1613. They ruled until 1917. That's over 1,000 years of kings, queens, Tsars, and Emperors. The ideas of Marx slowly spread. While the ruling family was busy with treaties and wars and empire, they forgot to pay attention to the wars at home.  People like Vladimir Lenin discovered books by people like Karl Marx. Revolution was in the air around the world. France had shown monarchies could be toppled. Some of the revolutionaries were killed, others put to work in labor camps, others exiled, and still others continued on. Still, the empire was caught up in global empire intrigues. The German empire had been growing and the Russians had the Ottomans and Bulgarians on their southern boarders. They allied with France to take Germany, just as they'd allied with Germany to take down Poland. And so after over 1.8 million dead Russians and another 3.2 million wounded or captured and food shortages back home and in the trenches, the people finally had enough of their Tsar. They went on strike but Tsar Nicholas ordered the troops to fire. The troops refused. The Duma stepped in and forced Nicholas to abdicate. Russia had revolted in 1917, sued Germany for peace, and gave up more territory than they wanted in the process. Finland, the Baltics, their share of Poland, parts of the Ukraine. It was too much. But the Germans took a lot of time and focus to occupy and so it helped to weaken them in the overall war effort.  Back home, Lenin took a train home and his Bolshevik party took control of the country. After the war Poland was again independent. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Serbs became independent nations. In the wake of the war the Ottoman Empire was toppled and modern Turkey was born. The German Kaiser abdicated. And socialism and communism were on the rise. In some cases, that was really just a new way to refer to a dictator that pretended to care about the people. Revolution had come to China in 1911 and Mao took power in the 1940s.  Meanwhile, Lenin passed in 1924 and Rykov, then Molotov, who helped spur a new wave of industrialization. Then Stalin, who led purges of the Russian people in a number of Show Trials before getting the Soviet Union, as Russian Empire was now called, into World War II. Stalin encouraged Hitler to attack Poland in 1939. Let's sit on that for a second. He tried to build a pact with the Western powers and after that broke down, he launched excursions annexing parts of Poland, Finland, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. Many of the lands were parts of the former Russian Empire. The USSR had chunks of Belarus and the Ukraine before but as of the 1950s annexed Poland, Easter Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria as part of the Warsaw Pact, a block of nations we later called the Soviet Bloc. They even built a wall between East and West Germany. During and after the war, the Americans whisked German scientists off to the United States. The Soviets were in no real danger from an invasion by the US and the weakened French, Austrians, and military-less Germans were in no place to attack the Soviets. The UK had to rebuild and British empire quickly fell apart. Even the traditional homes of the vikings who'd rowed down the rivers would cease to become global powers. And thus there were two superpowers remaining in the world, the Soviets and the United States.  The Cold War The Soviets took back much of the former Russian Empire, claiming they needed buffer zones or through subterfuge. At its peak, the Soviet Union cover 8.6 million square miles; just a couple hundred thousand shy of the Russian Empire. On the way there, they grew to a nation of over 290 million people with dozens of nationalities. And they expanded the sphere of influence even further, waging proxy wars in places like Vietnam and Korea. They never actually went to war with the United States, in much the same way they mostly avoided the direct big war with the Mongols and the British - and how Rorik of Dorestad played both sides of Frankish conflicts. We now call this period the Cold War. The Cold War was an arms race. This manifested itself first in nuclear weapons. The US is still the only country to detonate a nuclear weapon in war time, from the bombings that caused the surrender of Japan at the end of the war. The Soviets weren't that far behind and detonated a bomb in 1949. That was the same year NATO was founded as a treaty organization between Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States.  The US upped the ante with the hydrogen bomb in 1952. The Soviets got the hydrogen bomb in 1955. And then came the Space Race. Sputnik launched in 1957. The Russians were winning the space race. They further proved that when they put Yuri Gagarin up in 1961. By 1969 the US put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon. Each side developed military coalitions, provided economic aid to allies, built large arsenals of weapons, practiced espionage against one another, deployed massive amounts of propaganda, and spreading their ideology. Or at least that's what the modern interpretation of history tells us. There were certainly ideological differences, but the Cold War saw the spread of communism as a replacement for conquest. That started with Lenin trying to lead a revolt throughout Europe but shifted over the decades into again, pure conquest.  Truman saw the rapid expansion of the Soviets and without context that they were mostly reclaiming lands conquered by the Russian imperial forces, won support for the Truman Doctrine. There, he contained Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe. First, they supported Greece and Turkey. But the support extended throughout areas adjacent to Soviet interests. Eisenhower saw how swiftly Russians were putting science in action with satellites and space missions and nuclear weapons - and responded with an emphasis in American science.  The post-war advancements in computing were vast in the US. The industry moved from tubes and punch cards to interactive computing after the Whirlwind computer was developed at MIT first to help train pilots and then to intercept soviet nuclear weapons. Packet switching, and so the foundations of the Internet were laid to build a computer network that could withstand nuclear attack. Graphical interfaces got their start when Ivan Sutherland was working at MIT on the grandchild of Whirlwind, the TX-2 - which would evolve into the Digital Equipment PDP once privatized. Drum memory, which became the foundation of storage was developed to help break Russian codes and intercept messages. There isn't a part of the computing industry that isn't touched by the research farmed out by various branches of the military and by ARPA.   Before the Cold War, Russia and then the Soviet Union were about half for and half against various countries when it came to proxy wars. They tended to play both sides. After the Cold War it was pretty much always the US or UK vs the Soviet Union. Algeria, Kenya, Taiwan, the Sudan, Lebanon, Central America, the Congo, Eritrea, Yemen, Dhofar, Algeria, Malaysia, the Dominican Republic, Chad, Iran, Iraq, Thailand, Bolivia, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, Angolia, Ethiopia, the Sahara, Indonesia, Somalia, Mozambique, Libya, and Sri Lanka. And the big ones were Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Many of these are still raging on today.  The Soviet empire grew to over 5 million soldiers. The US started with 2 nuclear weapons in 1945 and had nearly 300 by 1950 when the Soviets had just 5. The US stockpile grew to over 18,000 in 1960 and peaked at over 31,000 in 1965. The Soviets had 6,129 by then but kept building until they got close to 40,000 by 1980. By then the Chinese, France, and the UK each had over 200 and India and Israel had developed nuclear weapons. Since then only Pakistan and North Korea have added warheads, although there are US warheads located in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, and the Netherlands.  Modern Russia The buildup was expensive. Research, development, feeding troops, supporting asymmetrical warfare in proxy states, and trade sanctions put a strain on the government and nearly bankrupted Russia. They fell behind in science, after Stalin had been anti-computers. Meanwhile, the US was able to parlay all that research spending into true productivity gains. The venture capital system also fueled increasingly wealthy companies who paid taxes. Banking, supply chains, refrigeration, miniaturization, radio, television, and everywhere else we could think of. By the 1980s, the US had Apple and Microsoft and Commodore. The Russians were trading blat, or an informal black market currency, to gain access to knock-offs of ZX Spectrums when the graphical interfaces systems were born. The system of government in the Soviet Union had become outdated. There were some who had thought to modernize it into more of a technocracy in an era when the US was just starting to build ARPANET - but those ideas never came to fruition. Instead it became almost feudalistic with high-ranking party members replacing the boyars, or aristocrats of the old Kievan Rus days. The standard of living suffered. So many cultures and tribes under one roof, but only the Slavs had much say.  As the empire over-extended there were food shortages. If there are independent companies then the finger can be pointed in their direction but when food is rationed by the Politburo then the decline in agricultural production became dependent on bringing food in from the outside. That meant paying for it. Pair that with uneven distribution and overspending on the military.  The Marxist-Leninist doctrine had been a one party state. The Communist Party. Michael Gorbachev allowed countries in the Bloc to move into a democratic direction with multiple parties. The Soviet Union simply became unmanageable. And while Gorbachev took the blame for much of the downfall of the empire, there was already a deep decay - they were an oligarchy pretending to be a communist state. The countries outside of Russia quickly voted in non-communist governments and by 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and the Eastern European countries began to seek independence, most moving towards democratic governments.  The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in 15 separate countries and left the United States standing alone as the global superpower. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO in 1999. 2004 saw Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia join. 2009 brought in Albania and Croatia. 2017 led to Montenegro and then North Macedonia. Then came the subject of adding Ukraine. The country that the Kievan Rus had migrated throughout the lands from. The stem from which the name  and possibly soul of the country had sprouted from. How could Vladimir Putin allow that to happen? Why would it come up? As the Soviets pulled out of the Bloc countries , they left remnants of their empire behind. Belarus, Kazakstan, and the Ukraine were left plenty of weapons that couldn't be moved quickly. Ukraine alone had 1,700 nuclear weapons, which included 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Add to that nearly 2,000 biological and chemical weapons. Those went to Russia or were disassembled once the Ukrainians were assured of their sovereignty. The Crimea, which had been fought over in multiple bloody wars was added to Ukraine. At least until 2014, when Putin wanted the port of Sevastopol, founded by Catherine the Great. Now there was a gateway from Russia to the Mediterranean yet again. So Kievan Rus under Rurik is really the modern Ukraine and the Russian Empire then Romanov Dynasty flowed from that following the Mongol invasions. The Russian Empire freed other nations from the yolk of Mongolian rule but became something entirely different once they over-extended. Those countries in the empire often traded the Mongol yolk for the Soviet yolk. And entirely different from the Soviet Union that fought the Cold War and the modern Russia we know today.  Meanwhile, the states of Europe had been profoundly changed since the days of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man and Marx. Many moved left of center and became socialized parts of their economy. No one ever need go hungry in a Scandanavian country. Health care, education, even child care became free in many countries. Many of those same ideals that helped lift the standard of living for all in developed countries then spread, including in Canada and some in the US. And so we see socialism to capitalism as more of a spectrum than a boolean choice now. And totalitarianism, oligarchy, and democracy as a spectrum as well. Many could argue reforms in democratic countries are paid for by lobbyists who are paid for by companies and thus an effective oligarchy. Others might argue the elections in many countries are rigged and so they aren't even oligarchs, they're monarchies.  Putin took office in 1999 and while Dmitry Medvedev was the president for a time, but he effectively ruled in a tandemocracy with Putin until Putin decided to get back in power. That's 23 years and counting and just a few months behind when King Abdullah took over in Jordan and King Mohammed VI took over in Morocco. And so while democratic in name, they're not all quite so democratic. Yet they do benefit from technology that began in Western countries and spread throughout the world. Countries like semi-conductor manufacturer Sitronics even went public on the London stock exchange. Hard line communists might (and do) counter that the US has an empire and that western countries conspire for the downfall of Russia or want to turn Russians into slaves to the capitalist machine. As mentioned earlier, there has always been plenty of propaganda in this relationship. Or gaslighting. Or fake news. Or disinformation.  One of those American advancements that ties the Russians to the capitalist yoke is interactive computing. That could have been developed in Glushkov's or Kitov's labs in Russia, as they had the ideas and talent. But because the oligarchy that formed around communism, the ideas were sidelined and it came out of MIT - and that led to Project MAC, which did as much to democratize computing as Gorbachev did to democratize the Russian Federation.

This episode explains how the crisis of the Carolingian Empire and Europe's fragmentation led to a network of fidelities and the establishment of many little local powers. At the same time, the Church suffered a period of decadence, but that held the seeds of a renewal.

This episode tells the story of the Carolingian empire, analysing its chronology, characteristics and relationship with the Church, but also some phenomena that arose in that period, such as the increase of aristocracy's power that led to the birth of forgeries.

Welcome to the seventh episode of “We Effed Up!” On this episode, we discuss the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and how one man's decision to follow tradition led to a millennium of conflict.SourcesDavis, Jennifer R. Charlemagne's Practice of Empire. Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, 2015.Fried, Johannes (Lewis, Peter, Trans.). Holy Roman Empire. Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, 2016.McKitterick, Rosamond. Charlemagne: The Formation of European Identity. Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, 2008.Nelson, Janet L. King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne. U. of California Press, Oakland, 2019.Norwich, John Julius. A History of France. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2018.Wilson, Derek. Charlemagne. Doubleday, New York, 2007Wilson, Peter H. Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, 2016. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

When last we left off in the political narrative Emperor Charles the Bald died after nearly reuniting the Carolingian Empire. From his base in West Francia he conquered Italy, then Lotharingia and marched east to conquer the German lands. A disastrous battle forced him to retreat, and the empire remained fragmented. Before we move forward […]

We travel back in time to a period of paranoia, and religious inquisitions. No, not the witch hunts but the rarely explored Carolingian Empire, circa 850 AD. Can a morality system work in a board game? Can we give up our life of crime and redeem ourselves? Or will we give in to suspicion of our fellow townsmeeple? Join Mark and Daniel as they talk about the worker-placement board game Architects of the West Kingdom. Follow us on social media or YouTube for more details on our upcoming livestream debrief! Giveaway The winner of a brand new copy of 'Cascadia' is Ritchie A. Congratulations Ritchie! Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway.

What was life like in medieval Francia? Learn all about it for the rich, poor, powerful and powerless. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 60: Life in the Carolingian Empire Prologue: The Great Dance One of the most common misconceptions people have about history is that there is a natural development from one political or societal state to the next. Marxist doctrine holds that societies begin as tribalistic confederations, advance to a primitive form of communal organization, shift […]

He was one of the last solid pontiffs before perhaps the darkest time in the history of the papacy. He held off the Muslim Army as long as he could, spent way too long looking for new emperors, was a patron of one of the Church's greatest evangelists, and sadly was the first Bishop of Rome in history to meet a certain kind of sordid end.

Following on from his bestselling and hugely entertaining Germania and Danubia, Simon Winder continues his idiosyncratic journey through Europe’s past with Lotharingia (Picador). Now almost forgotten, Lotharingia arose from the ashes of the Carolingian Empire and stretched from the North Sea coasts of what is now the Netherlands all the way to the Alps, encompassing myriad languages and nationalities. Despite its disappearance and ensuing obscurity Lotharingia, Winder shows, has exercised a surprising and powerful influence on the history of the continent of Europe, from the Early Middle Ages to the present day. Winder was in conversation about Europe’s lost country with psychoanalyst and essayist Adam Phillips. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I wanted to slowly end this year of 2020 by giving you an episode on positive interactions between Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages, and especially as a nice follow up to our previous episode on Medieval Antisemitism. In this lecture Dr. Lackner transports us back into the Carolingian Empire under the rule of Charlemagne and eventually his son Louis the Pious. We explore the lives of Jews living under Carolingian rule and their roles ranging from administration and diplomacy to trade. Next we explore the society of the Holy Roman Empire and the success that Jewish communities experienced as men ranging from the Priesthood and Papacy to Politicians ignored and occasionally bent the rules so to speak to attract Jewish families to their communities to further better their structure and economy as a whole. We also take a look at interactions between Jews and Christians while especially looking at the women of both groups and how they were able to form friendly and intimate relationships with one another much easier than their in many cases suspicious male counterparts, from wet nursing to communal ovens we look at a different face of medieval society as we know it. Last but not least we explore art and patronage between Christians and Jews in the Medieval world from coral rosary beads made by Sicilian Jews to art designed by Christians for their Jewish patrons and yes even taking a moment to examine mistakes by Christians in their failings in understanding Jewish life, religion and writing. Touching briefly on conversions and Jews in the military service this episode covers a large and complicated period in human history and we get to explore a variety of topics on Jewish-Christian relations in the "Dark Ages" and we must ask ourselves, were the Middle Ages really that dark? Or do we as humans tend to focus on the negative moments of our history the most while unintentionally letting the many beautiful events and moments pass us by? Further studies and resources! Ibn-Khordadbeh's account of the Radhanites is available on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite Bishop Rudigar of Speyer's Contract to the Jews: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1084landjews.asp More from Dr. Lackner VIOLENT MEN AND MALLEABLE WOMEN:GENDER AND JEWISH CONVERSION TOCHRISTIANITY IN MEDIEVAL SERMON EXEMPLA https://www.academia.edu/30183616/VIOLENT_MEN_AND_MALLEABLE_WOMEN_GENDER_AND_JEWISH_CONVERSION_TO_CHRISTIANITY_IN_MEDIEVAL_SERMON_EXEMPLA Jews through Christian Eyes: The Jewish Other in Thirteenth-Century Papal Policy, Artwork, and Sermon Exempla https://www.academia.edu/9847535/Jews_through_Christian_Eyes_The_Jewish_Other_in_Thirteenth-Century_Papal_Policy_Artwork_and_Sermon_Exempla --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antiquity-middlages/support

First, we go to the Leaders Bracket where we pit the Emperor of the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne against the third pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt, Ramesses the Great. From the Military bracket we start with the feared general of ancient times, Hannibal Barca. He goes up against the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc.Support the show (http://www.battlegroundhistory.com)

Welcome to the first episode in the second series of the Excavate Podcast. In this episode, Khalid introduces you to an age that will shape Europe for millennia to come. He will be recounting how a new group of warriors came to be feared across Europe and what made them so dangerous compared to others. The story begins on a small island off the south coast of England where three strange ships have been blown off course. From there we are led to the rest of the British Isles and across the sea to the Carolingian Empire where Emperor Charlemagne struggles to contain this new threat. This is the story of the Viking Age.   Follow the host - https://twitter.com/KhalidWinter  Directed by Emily Ling Williams

After a brief hiatus, host AJ returns to discuss the children (and grandchildren) of late emperor Louis the Pious as a way of finishing his time covering the Carolingian Empire in Depth --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/francofriendly/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/francofriendly/support

This is episode 36 called Birth of Catalonia and in this episode you will learn: SHOW NOTES - Why the title of the episode is misleading - The chaos within the Carolingian Empire, like in the Emirate of Córdoba, and the government of Odalrico and Hunifredo - The traditional, legendary story of how Wifredo the Hairy, of the House of Barcelona, seized power - The real story of how Wifredo the Hairy became Count of Barcelona and how Wifredo's family monopolized both secular and religious posts in the Marca Hispanica - The gradual independence of the Catalan counties after the deposition of Carolingian emperor Charles the Fat, and how that contrasts with the myths that originated in the late Medieval period - The first attempt to make the dioceses of Catalonia independent from the archbishop fo Narbonne - The different popular and official repopulations during Wifredo's rule - Why the Christian repopulations occurred and how was life in the borderlands - How Count Wifredo the Hairy died fighting the Banu Qasi and the continuist rule of Wifredo II - The Legend of the Four Blood Bars, that gives a different version of how Wifredo the Hairy died and how the Senyera was created - The legacy and importance of Count Wifredo the Hairy - A reflection on how his historical figure is manipulated to serve the purposes of the Catalan separatist agenda

Today we cover 622 to 692. The Dark Ages. The Carolingian Empire. Vikings. Magyars. A dark and fascinating era of history. Lightning Segments. Pete Singer on Econtalk? WTH? My theory about why public discourse has become so fragmented: We're wealthy.

This is episode 29 called Kingdom of Pamplona and County of Aragon and in this episode you will learn: SHOW NOTES - Why Vasconia has always been subject to external attacks - How the Carolingian Empire and Emirate of Córdoba fought to control Iberian Vasconia and how that led to the emergence of pro-Frankish and pro-Umayyad Basque parties - The assassination of the Banu Qasi governor of Pamplona, led by Velasco the Basque who represented the pro-Frankish party - How Íñigo Arista, supported by the Banu Qasi and Córdoba, gained control of Pamplona - Why the Kingdom of Pamplona is not considered a kingdom and the game of double legimitacy - The origins of the County of Aragon, briefly under the Carolingian Empire and how García the Bad made the County of Aragon a vassal of Pamplona instead - The last attempt of the Carolingian Empire to regain control over the Western Pyrenees, the Second Battle of Roncesvalles and its consequences - What kind of relationship did the Banu Qasi and Arista-Íñigo dynasty had - The political history of the County of Aragon in the 9th century and the origins of surnames like Sánchez or García - Brief talk about social and economic aspects of the Kingdom of Pamplona and the County of Aragon - What are the origins of the Basques (genetic studies) - The external history of the Basque language, why its usage declined and the current situation of Euskera - Reflection on the pragmatic relationship between the Kingdom of Pamplona and the Banu Qasi

Charlemagne (English: /ˈʃɑːrləmeɪn, ˌʃɑːrləˈmeɪn/; French: [ʃaʁləmaɲ]) or Charles the Great (2 April 748 – 28 January 814), numbered Charles I, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans from 800. During the Early Middle Ages, he united the majority of western and central Europe. He was the first recognised emperor to rule from western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded is called the Carolingian Empire. He was later canonized by Antipope Paschal III. Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, born before their canonical marriage. He became king in 768 following his father's death, initially as co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. Carloman's sudden death in December 771 under unexplained circumstances left Charlemagne the sole ruler of the Frankish Kingdom. He continued his father's policy towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain. He campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianizing them upon penalty of death and leading to events such as the Massacre of Verden. He reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Rome's Old St. Peter's Basilica. Charlemagne has been called the "Father of Europe" (Pater Europae), as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the classical era of the Roman Empire and united parts of Europe that had never been under Frankish or Roman rule. His rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire considered themselves successors of Charlemagne, as did the French and German monarchs. The Eastern Orthodox Church viewed Charlemagne less favorably due to his support of the filioque and the Pope's having preferred him as Emperor over the Byzantine Empire's Irene of Athens. These and other disputes led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054. Charlemagne died in 814 and was laid to rest in his imperial capital city of Aachen. He married at least four times and had three legitimate sons who lived to adulthood, but only the youngest of them, Louis the Pious, survived to succeed him. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehistoryexpress/support

This is episode 27 called Marca Hispanica and in this episode you will learn: SHOW NOTES - The dynastic struggle between al-Hakam and the brothers of former Emir Hisham, Sulayman and Abd Allah - The conspiracy of Córdoba in 805 led by Maliki jurists and scholars - The formation of a feared bodyguard known as The Mutes - The story of the Day of the Moat, following the revolt of Toledo - The revolts of the other capitals of the marches, Mérida and Zaragoza - How Alfonso II of Asturias strengthened ties with the Carolingian Empire - Why the Carolingian Empire wanted to control the Pyrenees - The Frankish conquest of Barcelona in 801, that led to the establishment of the Marca Hispanica - How the Spanish March was administered and colonized - What feudalism is - A reflection on why the Marca Hispanica and later Catalan Counties barely expanded for three centuries

In today's episode, we examine the efforts of Christian missionaries to spread the gospel throughout Europe. We also see the rise of the Carolingian Empire and the beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire.

In this episode we start our in-depth look at the Holy Roman Empire. This episode covers the time period from the collapse of the unified Carolingian Empire to the death of Otto I in 973. In this episode we will also take a larger look at the Empire in general, its political system, culture, and economy. 

In this episode we return to what we will loosely be calling "France". The Carolingian Empire is forever gone. In its place are a patchwork of small kingdoms ruled over, nominally, by the new King, Hugh Capet. Over the next roughly one-hundred years, Capet and his successors would battle Dukes, Counts, and other Kings, in an effort to re-centralize authority in Medieval France. 

27:03 clean The empire of Charlemagne finally collapses for good. After surviving multiple dy

Join me as I talk with Dr. Laura Carlson about theology and politics in the Carolingian Empire in her article "Adoption, Adaptation, and Authority: The Use of Isidore of Seville in the Opus Caroli." Join the conversation on the Claytemple Forum. Read Dr. Carlson's article in Isidore of Seville and His Reception in the Early Middle Ages. Follow Claytemple Media on Facebook and Twitter.

Welcome to the first episode of an history of the Founding of the Holy Roman Empire, this is a project that explores the foundation and the evolution of the Merovingian Empire trough the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, this Podcast will conclude with the standardisation of the Holy Roman Empire as know in the early 16th Century.

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk's twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire's foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk’s twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire’s foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk’s twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire’s foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk’s twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire’s foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk’s twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire’s foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk’s twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire’s foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk’s twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire’s foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly, throughout the period. But as Matthew Gillis shows in Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017), in the age of Charlemagne and his descendants, heretics were largely “seen as either distant foreign dangers or the legendary villains of ancient church lore.” That is, until around 840 CE, when one Gottschalk of Orbais began preaching what he called twin predestination. Gottschalk was heavily influenced by Augustine, who had argued that long before time began, God already ordained who would be among the elect and who among the damned. Gottschalk's twin predestination theology made him into a figure Professor Gillis refers to as a “religious outlaw,” a “heretic in the flesh,” the Carolingian Empire's foremost religious dissenter. Heresy & Dissent in the Carolingian Empire is a fascinating study of a figure whose meaning has been debated for centuries, but whose own moment in the 840s reveals a world beset with fears of sin and pollution. Matthew Gillis is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

44:35 clean westerncivpodcast@gmail.com (Adam Walsh)Adam WalshA fast-moving history of the western world from the ancient world to the present

In this episode we introduce the Carolingian Viking Age and then plot the rise of the Frankish Kingdoms to set the stage for rise of the Carolingian Empire. Along the way we will witness the Rise of Clovis, discuss the process of Ethnogenesis and take a look at the career of the infamous Merovingian Queen, Brunhild of Austrasia.  For more information on the Fall of the Western Roman Empire: https://www.amazon.com/Inheritance-Rome-Illuminating-400-1000-Penguin/dp/0143117424/ref=sr_1_1

Today we take an in depth look at the final dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. This look is complicated by a variety of factors, not the least of which is the inability of early medieval monks to tell the time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

October is a battle weary month in the Middle Ages with no fewer than six major battles! This month we are going to discuss a couple of the battles. In this episode we are going to look at the Battle of Tours in 732. The Battle of Tours pitted the Frankish Christian army led by Charles Martel against the Muslim army led by Adbul Rahman. It was a battle that would define the future of Europe. Charles Martel, the 'Defender of the Christain Faith,' the father of the Carolingian Empire, can he defeat a vastly superior Saracen army? Find out in this episode! Please send any comments, suggestions or topic ideas to podcast@medievalarchives.com If you are enjoying the podcast please considering leaving a rating on iTunes. Rate the Medieval Archives Podcast now! Listen to the episode now In this episode we discuss: Muslim Invasion of Gaul Abdul Rahman Al Gahfiqi Charles Martel Battle of Toulouse Battle of Tours And more... Get your free audio book from Audible.com at: http://www.medievalarchives.com/AudibleOffer Download the MP3 and listen to it on your favorite MP3 player. Subscribe to the feed so you do not miss a single episode. iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Download MP3 | RSS Feed The music was provided by Tim Rayburn. It is available at Magnatune.com

In the first part of this lecture, Professor Freedman discusses the emergence of the Vikings from Scandinavia in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Vikings were highly adaptive, raiding (the Carolingian Empire), trading (Byzantium and the Caliphate) or settling (Greenland and Iceland) depending on local conditions. Through their wide-ranging travels, the Vikings created networks bringing into contact parts of the world that were previously either not connected or minimally so. Professor Freedman concludes the lecture, and the course, by considering what’s been accomplished between 284 and 1000. Although Europe in the year 1000 experienced many of the same problems as did the Roman Empire 284 where we began -- population decline and lack of urbanization, among others – the end of the early Middle Ages also arguable heralds the emergence of Europe and Christendom as cultural constructs and sets the stage for the rise of the West. Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu This course was recorded in Fall 2011.

In this lecture, Professor Freedman discusses the crisis and decline of Charlemagne’s empire. Increasingly faced with external threats -- particularly the Viking invasions – the Carolingian Empire ultimately collapsed from internal causes, because its rulers were unable effectively to manage such a large empire. In the absence of strong social infrastructure and an idea of loyalty to the ruler, government servants strove to make their positions hereditary and nobles sought to set up independent kingdoms. Although it only lasted for a short time, the Carolingian Empire helped shape the face of Europe, especially through the partitions of the Treaty of Verdun which created territories roughly equivalent to France and Germany. Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu This course was recorded in Fall 2011.

Episode 54 – The Crusades – Part 1In the first episode of Communio Sanctorum, we took a look at the various ways history has been studied over time. In the Ancient world, history was more often than not, propaganda. The old adage that “History is written by the winners” was certainly true for the ancients. With the implementation of the Scientific Method in the Modern Era, the researching and recording of history became more unbiased and accurate. It was far from a pure report, but it could no longer be considered blatant propaganda. The Post-Modern Era has seen a return to bias; this time an almost knee-jerk suspicion of ALL previous attempts at recording history. Even attempts of Modernity to document history are suspect and assumed guilty of recording little more than the bias of the authors, though their works were footnoted and peer-reviewed. Post-modern critics adopt a presupposition all recorded history is fabrication, especially if there's anything heroic or virtuous. If it's a dark tale of hopelessness and tragedy, well, then, maybe it can be accepted. It's almost as though Post-moderns want to make up for the ancient historians' penchant for propaganda. Post-Moderns cast history as “neg-paganda” if I can coin a word.Let's attempt a shedding of our bias, even though we can't fully do that, as we look at the Crusades. Instead of layering onto the Christians of Europe in the 11th and 12th Cs the sensibilities of people who live a thousand years later, let's attempt to understand the reasoning behind the idea of taking up a pitchfork or sword and making a life-altering trip over hundreds of miles, through strange lands, to risk one's life for è What? Oh yeah, to rid the Holy Land of pagan infidels.Wait; Mr. Crusader-person; have you ever been to the Holy Land? Do you own land there that's been stolen? Do you have relatives or friends there you need to protect?  Have you ever met one of these infidels? Do you know what they believe or why they invaded?No? Then why are you so amped about marching half-way around the world to liberate a land you've not been all that interested in before from a people you know nothing about?See? There must have been some powerful forces at work in the minds and hearts of the people of Europe that they'd go in such large numbers on a Crusade. We may find their reasons for crusading to be horribly ill-conceived, but they were totally sold out to them.The Crusades reflected a new dynamism in the Christianity of Medieval Europe. People were driven by religious fervor, a yearning for adventure, and of course if some personal wealth could be thrown in, all the better. For 200 years, Crusaders tried to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. It seems all the colorful figures of this era were caught up in the cause, from Peter the Hermit in the 1st Crusade, to the godly Louis IX, King of France, who inspired the 6th and 7th.Many Europeans of the medieval period viewed a pilgrimage as a form of especially poignant penance. These pilgrimages were usually trips to a local holy place or shrine erected to commemorate a miracle or to cathedrals where the relics of some saint were kept in a reliquary. But there was one pilgrimage that was thought to gain a special dose of grace – a trip to the Holy City of Jerusalem. The merchants of Jerusalem did a good business in keeping the constant flood of Christian pilgrims supplied with food, lodging and of course sacred mementos. Some pilgrims went by themselves; others in a group—ancient versions of the modern day Holy Land Tour. When pilgrims arrived in Jerusalem they'd make the rounds of all the traditional points of interest. They walked the Via Dolorosa to Calvary then sat for hours praying. When these pilgrims returned home, they were esteemed by their community as real saints; towering figures of spirituality.For centuries, peaceful pilgrims traveled from Europe to Palestine. The arrival of Islam in the Middle East in the 7th C didn't interfere. By the 10th C European bishops organized mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The largest we know of set out from Germany in 1065, with some 7,000 ! That's a lot of buses.To impede a pilgrim's journey was considered by the medieval Church as a serious breach of protocol because you endangered the pilgrim's salvation. If his pilgrimage was penance for some sin, you might deny him pardon by your altering his course. The mind-set of European Christians became one of extreme care to not interfere with Pilgrims once they'd set out.All of this faced a major problem in the 11th C when a new Muslim force took control of the Middle East. The Seljuk Turks, new and fanatical converts to Islam, came sweeping in to plunder the region. They seized Jerusalem from their fellow Muslims, then moved north into Asia Minor.The Byzantine Empire tried desperately to stop their advance, but at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the Turks captured the eastern emperor and scattered his army. Within a few years nearly all Asia Minor, the chief source of Byzantine wealth and troops, was lost, and the new Byzantine emperor sent frantic appeals to the West for help. He pleaded with Europe's nobility and the Pope, seeking mercenaries to aid in the rescue of lost territory.Then, reports began to trickle back about the abuse of Christian pilgrims on the Turkish controlled roads to Jerusalem. The trickle turned to a stream, the a river. Even when pilgrims weren't mistreated, they were subject to heavy fees to travel thru Muslim lands.The standard, brief description of the inception of the First Crusade goes like this ... In 1095, the Eastern Emperor Alexius I sent an urgent appeal for help against the Muslims to Pope Urban II. The Pope responded by preaching one of history's most influential sermons. In a field near Clermont, France he said to the huge crowd that had gathered, “Your Eastern brothers have asked for your help. Turks and Arabs have conquered their territories.  I, or rather, the Lord begs you, destroy that vile race from their lands!”But there was more to Urban's appeal than just liberating the East from infidel hordes. He also mentioned the European need for more land. He said, "For this land which you inhabit is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.”Popes and bishops were accustomed to making such bold proclamations and issuing stirring appeals. They were nearly always met by loud “Amens!” and affirmations of the rightness of their call. Then people went home to lunch and promptly forgot all about what they'd just heard.  So the response to Urban's sermon that day was astonishing. The crowd began to chant, “Deus vult = God wills it!” But they did more than chant. People across the entire socio-economic spectrum of Europe began preparations to do precisely what the Pope had said è Go to Jerusalem and liberate it from the Muslims. They sewed crosses onto their tunics, painted them on their shields, fired up the smithies and made swords, spears and maces. Commoners who couldn't afford armor or real weapons, made clubs and sharpened sticks.They were going to go on a new kind of pilgrimage. Not as humble worshippers but as armed warriors. Their enemy wasn't the world, the flesh and the devil; it was the Muslim infidel defiling the Holy Places.As the Pope ended his impassioned appeal to the loud affirmation of the crowd, he declared their slogan Deus Vult! would be the crusader battle cry in the coming campaign.The pilgrims agreed to make their way east any way they could, gathering at Constantinople. Then they'd form into armies and march south toward the enemy.The First Crusade was underway.As word spread across France and Germany of the holy mission, people from across all social levels were caught up in Crusader fervor. A similar excitement was seen in the California and Yukon Gold Rushes. It's not difficult to understand why. We need to be careful here because removed by a thousand years we can't presume to know the motivations that shaped every Crusader's actions, even though there are not a few historians who claim to be able to do so. Surely motives were mixed and diverse. Some, out of simple obedience to the Church and Pope, believed it was God's will to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. Being illiterate peasants, they couldn't read the Bible or know God's will on the matter. They believed it was the Pope's duty to tell them what God willed and trusted him to do it. When the Pope declared anyone who died in the holy cause would bypass purgatory and enter directly into heaven, all the incentive needed to go was provided for thousands who lived in the constant fear of ever being good enough to merit heaven.Another powerful incentive was the opportunity for wealth. Medieval Europe was locked in a rigid feudalism that kept the poor in perpetual poverty. There was simply no rising above the social level one was born into. A Crusade offered a chance at the unthinkable. The loot of a successful campaign could bring great wealth, even to a peasant. And those who returned gained a reputation as a warrior that could see them and their sons raised into positions of relative honor in a noble's army.The risks were great; but the benefits both tangible and significant. So thousands took up the crusader cause.The problem for the thousands of peasants who wanted to go was that no noble would lead them. On the contrary, the nobles wanted their serfs to stay home and tend their fields and farms. But the Pope's appeal had gone out to all and no noble wanted to be seen as contradicting the Church. So they just hoped no one would rise to lead them. It was one of those moments of profound leadership vacuum that just begged to be filled; who filled it was a man known as Peter the Hermit.Of all the Crusaders, Peter surely had the strongest scent. The monk had not bathed in decades. He rode a donkey that, eyewitnesses said, bore a remarkable resemblance to its owner. Peter's preaching was even more powerful than his odor. In 9 months, he gathered 20,000 peasants under his banner, then began the long and difficult trek east to Constantinople.They created chaos as soon as they arrived. Complaints of robbery poured into the Emperor's office. He knew these Western European peasants were no match for the Muslims, but he couldn't let them camp out in his city. They were ferried across the river where they immediately began pillaging the homes of Eastern Christians. Many of these poor, uneducated and illiterate peasants had come for loot and saw plenty of it right there. They'd already travelled a long way from home and were now among a people who spoke a different language, wore different styles and ate different foods. “Why, they don't look like Christians at all! And what's that you say? These people don't follow the Pope? Well, then maybe they aren't Christians. Didn't we set out to fight unbelievers? Here are some. Let's get to work.”“But these aren't Muslims!”“Okay. We'll compromise. We won't kill them; we'll just take their stuff.”Peter's peasant army put additional strain on the already poor relations between the Eastern and Roman churches. Two months later, the peasants marched straight into a Muslim ambush and were wiped out. Peter, who was in Constantinople rounding up supplies—was the lone survivor. He then joined another army, this one led by European nobility who arrived well after the peasants. These Crusaders defeated the Muslims at Antioch then continued on to Jerusalem.The Muslims failed to take this second movement of the Crusade seriously. It's not difficult to understand why. They'd just defeated a huge force of Europeans easily. They assumed they'd do the same to the smaller force that came against them now. What they didn't realize was that this force, while indeed smaller, was the cream of Europe's warrior class; mounted and armored knights who grew up on battle.On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. It was a brutal massacre. Around the Temple Mount, blood flowed ankle-deep. Newborn infants were thrown against walls. It wasn't just Muslims who knew the Crusaders' wrath. A synagogue was torched, killing the Jews trapped inside. Some of the native Christians were also put to the sword. To this day, the wholesale slaughter of the First Crusade affects how Jews and Muslims perceive the Christian faith.But -- and this in no wise is meant to be a justification for the brutality of the Crusades; it seems just a tad hypocritical for Muslims to decry the atrocities of the Crusades when it was by the very same means they'd laid claim to the holy land in the 7th C. In truth, while crusading under the Christian cross is a horrible violation of the morality of Biblical Christianity—Jihad, Holy War is one of the main tenets of Islam. Long before the Pope erroneously offered absolution to Crusaders and the promise of heaven to those who died in the campaign, Islam promised paradise to Muslims who died in Jihad. Historically, while the Christian faith has spread by the work of humanitarian missionaries, Islam has spread by the sword. Or we might say, while true Christianity expands by the sword of the Spirit, Islam spreads by a sword of steel.Following the conquest of Jerusalem, the Crusaders carved out four states in the Middle East; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.This First crusade was followed by eight more, none of them really able to accomplish the success of the first, if we can call it success. All told, the gains of the Crusades lasted less than 200 years. But one major accomplishment was the reopening of international trade between Europe and the Far East, something that had languished for a few hundred years.The Crusades have proven to be the focus of much historical study and debate. They're usually linked to the political and social situation in 11th C Europe, the rise of a reform movement within the papacy, and the political and religious confrontation of Christianity and Islam in the Middle East. The Umayyad Caliphate had conquered Syria, Egypt, and North Africa from the predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire, and Spain from the Arian Christian Visigoths. When the Ummayads collapsed in North Africa, several smaller Muslim kingdoms emerged and attacked Italy in the 9th C. Pisa, Genoa, and Catalonia battled various Muslim kingdoms for control of the Mediterranean.The Crusaders were emboldened in their prospects for success in the Holy Land because of the successes they'd had in the Reconquista, the conquest of the Muslom Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. Earlier in the 11th C, French knights joined the Spanish in their campaign to retake their homeland. Shortly before the First Crusade, Pope Urban II encouraged the Spanish Christians to reconquer Tarragona, using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric he later used to preach Crusade to the people of Europe.Western Europe stabilized after the Saxons, Vikings, and Hungarians were brought into the Church by the end of the 10th C. But the demise of the Carolingian Empire gave rise to an entire class of warriors who had little to do but fight among themselves. The incessant warfare sapped Europe of its strength and wealth. Europe needed an external enemy they could turn their wrath on. As we saw in a previous episode, while the violence of knights was regularly condemned by the Church, and there was the attempt to regulate them in the treaties known as the Peace and Truce of God, the knights largely ignored these attempts at pacification. The Church needed an external threat they could direct the knights lust for battle toward.It was also at this time that the Popes were in constant competition with the Western emperors over the issue of investiture - the question of who had the authority to appoint bishops; the Church or the nobility. In some of the squabbles between Church and State, the popes weren't above calling out knights and nobles loyal to them to back down the power of the Emperor and recalcitrant nobles. So the Pope's mobilizing an armed force wasn't that far out of context.Another reason Pope Urban called for the First Crusade may have been his desire to assert control over the East. Remember that the Great Schism had occurred 40 years before and the churches had been rent ever since. While historians suggest this as one of several reasons driving Pope Urban's decision to start the Crusade, there's no evidence from any of his letters this factored into his plans.Until the crusaders' arrival, the Byzantines had continually fought the Muslim Turks for control of Asia Minor and Syria. The Seljuks, Sunni Muslims, had at one time ruled the Great Seljuk Empire, but by the First Crusade it had divided into several smaller states at odds with each other. If the First Crusade and been waged just a decade before it would probably have been crushed by a united Seljuk force. But by the time they arrived in the Middle East, the Seljuks were at odds with each other.Egypt and most of Palestine was controlled by the Arab Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate, which was far smaller since the arrival of the Seljuks. Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuks caused great disruption for the local Christians and western pilgrims. The Fatimids lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1073, then recaptured it in 1098 just before the arrival of the Crusaders.As I said at the outset of this episode, this is just a summary of the First Crusade. Because this is such a crucial moment in Church History, we'll come back to it in our next episode.As we end, I want to once again say, “Thanks” to all the kind comments and those who've given the CS Facebook page a like.Every so often I mention that CS is supporter solely by a few subscribers. You can probably tell the podcast is your typical sole-author, “guy, a mic, and a computer” arrangement. I'm so thankful for those who occasionally send in a donation to keep CS going.

The title of this episode is “What a Mess!”As is often the case, we start by backing up & reviewing material we've already covered so we can launch into the next leg of our journey in Church History.Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany had received the support of Charles Martel, a founder of the Carolin­gian dynasty. Martel supported these missions because of his desire to expand his rule eastwards into Bavaria. The Pope was grateful for his sup­port, and for Charles' victory over the Muslims at the Battle of Tours. But Martel fell afoul of papal favor when he confiscated Church lands. At first, the Church consented to his seizing of property to produce income to stave off the Muslim threat. But once that threat was dealt with, he refused to return the lands. Adding insult to injury, Martel ignored the Pope's request for help against the Lombards taking control of a good chunk of Italy. Martel denied assistance because at that time the Lombards were his allies. But a new era began with the reign of Martel's heir, Pippin or as he's better known, Pepin III.Pepin was raised in the monastery of St. Denis near Paris. He & his brother were helped by the church leader Boniface to carry out a major reform of the Frank church. These reforms of the clergy and church organization brought about a renewal of religious and intellectual life and made possible the educational revival associated with the greatest of the Carolingian rulers, Charlemagne & his Renaissance.In 751, Pepin persuaded Pope Zachary to allow Boniface to anoint him, King of the Franks, supplanting the Merovingian dynasty. Then, another milestone in church-state relations passed with Pope Stephen II appealing to Pepin for aid against the Lombards. The pope placed Rome under the protection of Pepin and recognized him and his sons as “Protectors of the Romans.”As we've recently seen, all of this Church-State alliance came to a focal point with the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in AD 800. For some time the Popes in Rome had been looking for a way to loosen their ties to the Eastern Empire & Constantinople. Religious developments in the East provided the Popes an opportunity to finally break free. The Iconoclastic Controversy dominating Eastern affairs gave the Popes one more thing to express their disaffection with. We'll take a closer look at the controversy later. For now, it's enough to say the Eastern Emperor Leo III banned the use of icons as images of religious devotion in AD 726. The supporters of icons ultimately prevailed but only after a century of bitter and at times violent dispute. Pope Gregory II rejected Leo's edict banning icons and flaunted his disrespect for the Emperor's authority. Gregory's pompous and scathing letter to the Emperor was long on bluff but a dramatic state­ment of his rejection of secular rulers' meddling in Church affairs. Pope Gregory wrote: “Listen! Dogmas are not the business of emperors but of pontiffs.”The reign of what was regarded by the West as a heretical dynasty in the East gave the Pope the excuse he needed to separate from the East and find a new, devoted and orthodox protector. The alliance between the papacy and the Carolingians represents the culmination of that quest, and opened a new and momentous chapter in the history of European medieval Christianity.In response to Pope Stephen's appeal for help against the Lombards, Pepin recovered the Church's territories in Italy and gave them to the pope, an action known as the 'Donation of Pepin'. This confirmed the legal status of the Papal States.At about the same time, the Pope's claim to the rule of Italy and independence from the Eastern Roman Empire was reinforced by the appearance of one of the great forgeries of the Middle Ages, the Donation of Constantine. This spurious document claimed Constantine the Great had given Rome and the western part of the Empire to the bishop of Rome when he moved the capital of the empire to the East. The Donation was not exposed as a forgery until the 15th Century.The concluding act in the popes' attempt to free themselves from Constantinople came on Christmas Day 800 when Pope Leo III revived the Empire in the West by crowning Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor. It's rather humorous, as one wag put it – the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, and can scarcely be called an Empire.Charlemagne's chief scholar was the British-born Alcuin who'd been master of the cathedral school in York. He was courted by Charlemagne to make his capital at Aachen on the border between France & Germany, Europe's new center of education & scholarship. Alcuin did just that. If the school at Aachen didn't plant the seeds that would later flower in the Renaissance it certainly prepared the soil for them.Alcuin profoundly influenced the intellectual, cultural and religious direction of the Carolingian Empire, as the 300-some extant let­ters he wrote reveal. His influence is best seen in the manuscripts of the school at Tours where he later became abbot. His influence is also demonstrated in his educational writings, revision of the Biblical text, commentaries and the completion of his version of Church liturgy. He standardized spelling and writing, reformed missionary practice, and contributed to the organizing of church regulations. Alcuin was the leading theologian in the struggle against the heresy of Adoptionism. Adoptionists said Jesus was simply a human being who God adopted & MADE a Son. Alcuin was a staunch defender of Christian orthodoxy and the authority of the Church, the pre-eminence of the Roman Bishop and of Charlemagne's sacred position as Emperor. He died in 804.The time at which Alcuin lived certainly needed the reforms he brought & he was the perfect agent to bring them. From the palace school at Aachen, a generation of his students went out to head monas­tic and cathedral schools through­out the land. Even though Charlemagne's Empire barely outlived its founder, the revival of education and religion associated with he and Alcuin brightened European culture throughout the bleak and chaotic period that followed. This Carolingian Renaissance turned to classical antiquity and early Christianity for its models. The problem is, there was only one Western scholar who still knew Greek, the Irishman John Scotus Erigena. Still, the manuscripts produced during this era form the base from which modern historians gain a picture of the past. It was these classical texts, translated from Greek into Latin that fueled the later European Renaissance.The intellectual vigor stimulated by the Carolingian Renaissance and the political dynamism of the revived Empire stimulated new theologi­cal activity. There was discussion about the continuing Iconoclastic problem in the East. Political antagonism between the Eastern and the Carolingian emperors led to an attack by theologians in the West on the practices and beliefs of the Orthodox Church in the East. These controversial works on the 'Errors of the Greeks' flourished during the 9th C as a result of the Photian Schism.In 858, Byzantine Emperor Michael III deposed the Patriarch Ignatius I of Constantinople, replacing him with a lay scholar named Photius I, AKA Photius the Great. The now deposed Ignatius appealed to Pope Nicholas I to restore him while Photius asked the Pope to recognize his appointment. The Pope ordered the restoration of Ignatius & relations between East & West sunk further. The issue ended in 867 when Pope Nicholas died & Photius was deposed.Latin theologians also criticized the Eastern church for its different method of deciding the date of Easter, the difference in the way clergy cut their hair, and the celibacy of priests. The Eastern Church allowed priests to marry while requiring monks to be celibate, whereas the Western Church required celibacy of both.Another major doctrinal debate was the Filioque [Filly-o-quay] Controversy we briefly touched on in an earlier episode. Now, before I get a barrage of emails, there's debate among scholars over the pronunciation of Filioque. Some say “Filly-oak” others “Filly-o-quay.” Take your pick.The point is, the Controversy dealt with the wording of the Nicene Creed as related to the Holy Spirit. The original Creed said the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father. A bit later, the Western Church altered the wording a bit so as to affirm the equality of the Son of God with the Father. So they said the Spirit proceeded from both Father & Son. Filioque is Latin for “and the Son” thus giving the name of the controversy. The Eastern Church saw this addition as dangerous tampering with the Creed and refused to accept it while the Filioque clause became a standard part of what was considered normative doctrine in the West.Another major discussion arose over the question of predestina­tion. A Carolingian monk named Gottschalk, who studied Augustine's theology carefully, was the first to teach 'double predestination'; the belief that some people are predestined to salvation, while others are predestined to damnation. He was tried and condemned for his views by 2 synods and finally imprisoned by the Archbishop of Rheims. Gottschalk died 20 years later, holding his views to the end.The other major theological issue of the Carolingian era concerned the Lord's Supper. The influential Abbot of Corbie wrote a treatise titled On the Body and Blood of the Lord. This was the first clear statement of a doctrine of the 'real presence' of Christ's body and blood in the Communion elements, later called the doctrine of “transubstantiation,” an issue that will become a heated point in the debate between the Roman Church & Reformers.The reforms of King Pepin and Pope Boniface focused attention on priests. It was clear to all that clergy ought to lead lives beyond reproach. That synod after synod during the 6th, 7th, & 8th Cs had to make such a major issue of this demonstrated the need for reform. Among the violations warned against were the rejection of celibacy, gluttony, drunkenness, tawdry relationships with women, hunting, carry­ing arms & frequenting taverns.Monastic developments at this time were significant. The emphasis was on standardiza­tion and centralization. Between 813 and 17 a revised Benedictine rule was adopted for the whole of the Carolingian Empire. Another Benedict, a monk from Burgundy, was respon­sible for an ultra-strict regimen. Charlemagne's successor, Louis the Pious, appointed Benedict the overseer of all monasteries in the realm, and a few years later his revised Benedictine rule was made obligatory for all monasteries. Sadly, with little long-term effect.When Louis suc­ceeded Charlemagne, the Pope was able to regain his independ­ence, following a long domination by the Emperor. The imperial theocracy of Charlemagne's reign would have yielded a 'state church' as already existed in the East. But the papacy stressed the superiority of spiritual power over the secular. This was reinforced by the forged Donation of Constantine with its emphasis on papal pre-eminence in the governing of the Empire, not just the Church.In the middle of the 9th C, priests at Rheims produced another remarkable forgery, the False Decretals. Accomplished with great inventiveness, the Decretals were designed to provide a basis in law which protected the rights of bishops. They included the bogus Donation of Constantine and became a central part of the canon of medieval law. It shored up papal claims to supremacy in church affairs over secular authority. The first Pope to make use of the False Decretals was Nicholas I. He recognized the danger of a Church dominated by civil rulers and was deter­mined to avert this by stressing that the church's govern­ment was centered on Rome, not Constantinople, and certainly not in some lesser city like Milan or Ravenna.From the late 9th until the mid-11th C, Western Christendom was beset by a host of major challenges that left the region vulnerable. The Carolingian Empire frag­mented, leaving no major military power to defend Western Europe. Con­tinued attacks by Muslims in the S, a fresh wave of attacks by the Magyars in the E, and incessant raids by the Norsemen all over the Empire, turned the shards of the empire into splinters. One contemporary lamented, “Once we had a king, now we have kinglets!” For many Western Europeans, it seemed the end of the world was at hand.The popes no longer had Carolingian rulers as protectors. So the papacy became increasingly involved in the power struggles among the nobility for the rule of Italy. Popes became partisans of one political faction or another; sometimes willingly, other times coerced. But the cumulative result was spiritual and moral decline. For instance, Pope Stephen VI took vengeance on the preceding pope by having his body disinterred and brought before a synod, where it was propped up in a chair for trial. Following conviction, the body was thrown into the Tiber River. Then, within a year Stephen himself was overthrown. He was strangled while in prison.There was a near-complete col­lapse of civil order in Europe during the 10th C. Church property was ransacked by invaders or fell into the hands of the nobility. Noble­men treated churches and monas­teries as their private property to dispose of as they wished. The clergy became indifferent to duty. Their illiteracy & immorality grew.The 10th C was a genuine dark age, at least as far as the condition of the Church was concerned. Without imperial protection, popes became helpless playthings for the nobility, who fought to gain control by appointing relatives and political favorites. A chroni­cle by the German bishop of Cremona paints a graphic picture of sexual debauchery in the Church.Though there were incompet­ent & immoral popes during this time, they continued to be respected throughout the West. Bishoprics and abbeys were founded by laymen after they obtained the appro­val of the papal court. Pilgrimages to Rome hardly slackened during this age, as Christians visited the sacred sites of the West; that is, the tombs of Peter and Paul, as well as a host of other relics venerated in there.At the lowest ebb of the 10th C, during the reign of Pope John XII, from 955-64, a major change in Italian politics affected the papacy. An independent & capable German monarchy emerged. This Saxon dynasty began with the election of Henry I and continued with his son, Otto I, AKA Otto the Great .Otto developed a close relationship with the Church in Germany. Bishops and abbots were given the rights and honor of high nobility.  The church received huge tracts of land. Thru this alliance with the Church, Otto aimed to forestall the rebellious nobles of his kingdom.But the new spiritual aristocracy created by Otto wasn't hereditary. Bishops & abbots couldn't “pass on” their privileges to their successors. Favor was granted by the King to whomever he chose. Thus, their loyalty could be counted on more readily. In fact, the German bishops contributed money and arms to help the German kings expand into Italy, what is now the regions of East Germany & Poland.Otto helped raise the papacy out of the quagmire of Italian politics. His entrance into Italian affairs was a fateful deci­sion. He marched south into Italy to marry Adelaide of Burgundy and declare him­self king of the Lombards. Ten years later, he again marched south at the invitation of Pope John XII. In February of 962, the Pope tried a renewal of the Holy Roman Empire by crowning Otto and Adelaide in St Peter's. But the price paid by the pope for Otto's support was another round of interference in Church affairs.For the next 300 years, each new German monarch followed up his election by making a march to Rome to be crowned as Emperor. But at this point, it wasn't so much Popes who made Emperors as it was Emperors who made Popes. And when a pope ran afoul of the ruler, he was conveniently labeled ‘anti-pope' & deposed, to be replaced by the next guy. It was the age of musical chairs in Rome; whoever grabs the papal chair when the music stops gets to sit. But when the Emperor instructs the band to play again, whoever's in the chair has to stand and the game starts all over again. Lest you think I'm overstating the case, in 963 Otto returned to Rome, convened a synod which found Pope John guilty of a list of sordid crimes and deposed him. In his place, they chose a layman, who received all of his ecclesiastical orders in a single day to become Pope Leo VIII. He managed to sit in the Pope's chair less than a year before the music started all over again.