Replies

Thank you. Interesting.

I think that one consequence of the utter neglect given to the period between, say, the reign of Augustus and the rise of Luther is that people have NO IDEA of the political turmoil and chaos all over the the Mediterranean littoral and Europe for hundred and hundreds of years. The idea that peoples from north eastern Europe stomped through Spain and occupied North Africa, or that Muslims went roaring back the other way and darn near got into France (and, much later ,Vienna) is just not known, and so its effect on society and on the wild fears of the people is not appreciated.

Tom Sowell, in related news, is very good on how far more white people have been enslaved than black -- and on how the slave trade persists. But it's an aspect of history that is just neglected unless one goes a-looking for it.

one consequence of the utter neglect given to the period between, say, the reign of Augustus and the rise of Luther is that people have NO IDEA of the political turmoil and chaos all over the the Mediterranean littoral and Europe for hundred and hundreds of years. The idea that peoples from north eastern Europe stomped through Spain and occupied North Africa, or that Muslims went roaring back the other way and darn near got into France (and, much later ,Vienna) is just not known, and so its effect on society and on the wild fears of the people is not appreciated.

Truly spoken. Can you imagine it in your head? in 21 BC Octavian becomes Princep and the Republic is over, though no one realises it for decades until Caligula. Then, we have the year of the 4 Emperors in 69 AD, then, in another blink of an eye we have the 4 good Emperors starting with Trajan who extends the Roman Empire so that it rules over Iraq!

Then another 100 years and the Empire is in chaos from the time of Maximilian the Thracian. Then a century of chaos before Domitian

Then, in 300 AD, from out of nowhere, Christianity becomes legal and in a decade becomes the state religion!

Then in 430 AD, the Western empire falls and chaos reigns in Western Europe with Spain falling to Visigoths, North Africa to Vandals, Britannia to Jutes, Angles, Frisians and Saxons, Gaul to a new consolidated tribe, the Franks, Italy to the Lombards, Dacia to the Ostrogoths and Visigoths

And behind the scenes of this Germanic invasion of the Empire is the hidden forces that pushed the Germanics eastward -- the push of the Huns, the Cumans, the Bulgars (Onagur Bulgars being pushed west by Onagur Bulgars), the Magyars etc.

None of these posters realise that until the 7th century the Bulgarians were feared pagans who ruled over all of what is now the Balkans and threatened Byzantine (though in a strange turn of events, in 718 the Bulgar Khan Terzel saved Europe by destroying the Arab seige of Constantinople, pushing Arab forces back to lower Syria).

Do they realise that the Magyars were feared heathens until the 9th century, that Slavs were pagans until the 9th and 10th centuries and that Lithuanians were pagans until the 13th?

Mix that with Arabs coming out of nowhere and destroying the old enemy -- Persia and conquering it and then conquering all of NOrth Africa and pushing into Europe.

Tumultous times.