Posted on 10/28/2016 8:01:09 AM PDT by Lorianne
bkmk
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Also, we forget that from the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire to the 1300’s, Europe experienced warmer than usual summers—and as such, agricultural production stayed stable, which meant starvation was not an issue.
The real problem is that leftists and anti-christian bigots have seized acadamia and have revised the history to blame everything on Christianity, particularly the catholic church and to make Europe and eventually America to be the worlds sewer rather than blaming barbarian plundering, corrupt politics in Rome. Add to this, despotic feudal lords and chieftains that made them selves above the law and God and the church, prevailing ignorance and superstition in medieval peasants along with man's sinful nature.
The liberals would make out Christianity and the west to be the cancer of the world while elevating every other culture and religion especially Islam.
GREAT read. Very prescient.
“Rome wasn’t sacked in a day” - P2
Hmmm. Trade as the antidote to self-reliance... Things just became clearer to me.
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There’s a French historian named Régine Pernoud who’s written a number of excellent books about the Middle Ages; most of them are available in English. The best is “Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths.” She’s also written bios of Jeanne d’Arc, Hildegarde de Bingen, the Crusaders, Templars, etc.
dark ages matter
The medieval system of serfdom establish by Charlemagne and the Franks has lasting effects to this day. Here is a cool site I found about the “Hajnal line”. This line marks the furthest eastward expansion of the Frankish system of serfdom, and to this day, areas east and west of the line display different patterns when it comes to marriage, child rearing, education levels, and many other important factors in society:
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/big-summary-post-on-the-hajnal-line/
It’s amazing how much disinformation one learns in school. We were told not much happened except the terror of the Vikings in the Dark Ages. As an adult reading on my own I learned that there were so many pivotal events in the Dark Ages. Charles Martel stopped the barbarians Islamics in France for one. But there were many accomplishments for mankind and we actually know a fair bit about that time period.
The article never mentions the Muslims. It was the Muslim invasions that destroyed much of “classic” civilization, which was making a comeback in the 6th century.
Muslims destroy the productive areas in North Africa, the Middle East, and into Asia.
See Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited
https://www.amazon.com/Mohammed-Charlemagne-Revisited-History-Controversy/dp/0578094185
European lost most literacy because they lost access to cheap writing material, papyrus. They had to use parchment, about 100X as expensive.
I see a big factor in the decline and fall of the western and eastern Roman empires being the decline of the small independent farms which had provided the manpower for the citizen army.
In the west, the influx of slaves into Italy put the small farms out of business.
In the east, the growth of large estates in Anatolia did the same to the farmers there.
That’s the parallel to the decline of the middle class in the US.
“The article never mentions the Muslims.”
Yeah, I noticed that and you beat me to the post noting such. Kind of erodes the credibility of the author and article...
“The article never mentions the Muslims.”
Yeah, I noticed that and you beat me to the post noting such. Kind of erodes the credibility of the author and article...
To be fair, the “standard model” of the middle ages ignores the enormous impact of the Muslim conquests and continuous warfare/piracy in the Mediterranean.
The Mohammed v. Charlemagne is a more recent, and I think, does a much better explanation of what happened than the “standard model” does.
The “standard model” was developed whil anti-Christian sentiment was growing, and intellectual wanted to show that “all religions are equal” or superior to, Christianity. So the just ignored evidence to the opposite.
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