Had the Corn Laws not been repealed in 1846, is it possible that the revolutions of 1848 would have occurred in England as well?

I was always told my Great-Uncle died during the Great War. When I looked him up on the Commonwealth war graves site his death occurred on 30/11/18 after the end of the war. He is buried in what is now Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Were the British Army fighting in that region in this period?

I know we did a year or two later. He served in the 1st Armoured Brigade of the Machine Gun Corp of that helps.

There was a brief Anglo-Afghan conflict in 1919 and the frontier districts were long considered only partly pacified, but a more likely culprit in late 1918 may well have been the influenza pandemic whose second wave killed millions in India in the last four months of the year: troopships docking at Karachi are thought to have been one of its principal routes into the country, so those posted to the frontier may have been significantly affected (the CWGC's criteria for commemoration rightly include those falling to "disease contracted or commencing while on active service" alongside combat-related deaths. Frustratingly the MoD too seems not to give cause of death, so I'm not sure how to find that without a copy of the death certificate.

Hi thanks I managed to find a death certificate and it’s hard to read but it is listed as something like Inflammation of the Lung so i think it was likely an illness of some sort rather than combat.

That's the pandemic, then: November 1918 was one of the deadliest months internationally (October in the US, but later for most). It hadn't occurred to me that it had reached so far into inner Asia, but troop movements in the war's last year were the biggest source of global spread (and of transmission from the US to Europe in the spring as the US army built up its numbers in France), so here we see the virus's long and lethal reach.

Yeah it’s pretty sobering, dying that way after making it through the war seems especially cruel as well.

Indeed, that made it all the more traumatic for those who'd made it through, and I think it's part of the reason it later faded from collective memory in the west (in India it's very much remembered): it was just too much for people to cope with.

When and how did "Eurasia" become a byword for the post-Soviet space?

My understanding of Eurasia had always been the combination of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. That's what I was taught in elementary school. Then I get to graduate school, and everybody's referring to Central Asia or former Soviet states as "Eurasia." WTF?

How were rulers in the medieval era convinced to convert to catholicism? Imean why and how were they convinced that catholicism was "the true faith"? I get that most people were forced to convert but some also just converted by choice. Lots of old germanic tribes, slavic tribes and vikings (famously harald Bluetooth) converted to Christianity by choice.

It at least seems to me that once you're brought up in a theological society, it gets imprinted in you that this is just how the world works and there's no other way. Surely it would be blasphemous if a missionary just came around and tried to convince you and your people that their way is actually superior. How did it work?

I laid flowers on the grave of a soldier by me who died 'of disease' on 12/11/18. Always think his is the saddest commonwealth war grave of all those in the cemetery

Indeed, it's most frustrating for those of us who use it for the wider whole. The concept in this narrower sense was originally Russian, seeking to emphasise the cultural distinctiveness of the Tsarist and later Soviet space in relation to western & central Europe - some seeking in it a "greater Russian" identity, others a non-nationalist fusion of European and Asiatic elements.

Western usage seems to derive from post-Soviet scholars and political commentators for whom the Soviet-era concept offered a more convenient label than "former USSR". The less objectionable "northern Eurasia" enjoyed a brief vogue but was apparently too long for those who popularise these things.

And it gets even messier: the journal Soviet Studies became Europe-Asia Studies, while its peer Eurasian Studies covers a distinct though overlapping area "from the Balkans to Central Asia and Iran". I'm sticking with the original meaning.

The Soviet Union stretched from East Germany to the Pacific ocean with many aligned states or at least using Soviet military equipment in the middle east. The Soviet had close trade and political links leading the to some Western commentators to use the "Eurasia" for a shorthand for this area. This usage of the term lacks nuance but is not broadly inaccurate if talking about modern history.

It could be a after effect of a being gassed some time in the past.

> so those posted to the frontier may have been significantly affected (the CWGC's criteria for commemoration rightly include those falling to "disease contracted or commencing while on active service" alongside combat-related deaths.

Also on this point, worth remembering that throughout history, disease has caused more war time casualties than combat all the way up to at least WWI, possibly WWII?

A big development to change that (besides the mere luck of avoiding major world pandemics I suppose) was modern medicine recognizing the impact of disease and taking a deliberate approach to controlling it.

Even down to a very simple example: when you see recruits in military boot camp, they get hygiene inspections nightly, they get in trouble (at very least yelled at, maybe worse) for things like touching/picking at their face. (You so much as rub your eyes and a DI sees it, you were getting aggressively corrected.)

Only later did I realize, oh. duh.

They are breaking you of disease spreading habits (don't touch your face), and also conditioning you to disease preventative habits (change your socks/clothes, wash up at night. You wouldn't think washing and changing clothes should have to be reinforced, but its not the doing it, that they're conditioning. Its the never not do it no matter how tired you are. 19 hour day and you just hiked 20 miles, all you want to do is climb in the bag and sleep? Heck no nasty, you still clean your weapon and take care of your personal hygiene first.)

Are we talking about converting from pagan to catholic? The conversions were mostly top down with the king and court converting and putting a catholic layer over lingering paganism that lasted underground for generations afterwards. The biggest reason is the King went from being in charge because blood and force to anointed agent of God, making fighting the King the same as fighting god. Then you had the ease of dealing with few bishops rather than dozens of local priests in religious matters. The priests brought in bureaucracy as they were literate and many became clerks for the King allowing greater control and communications. laws were written down and taxes became more formalised and legal agreements such as treaties and land holdings stopped being based memory.

There's a gigantic organization. It has connections to natural resources, contacts with traders and political leaders, and has an armed force. There's an opportunity to get your family/clan/town/region access to those resources, people, and arms. That same opportunity is probably being offered to rivals.

Enthusiastic embrace is the most logical option in a lot of situations.

England is an obstinately un-revolutionary land for all its impacts on the international status quo (or perhaps because it found such outlets for its restlessness?), and modest relaxation from the 1820s of the harsh 1815 law allowed it to import grain during periods of shortage around 1830 and 1840, though prices remained high: the real crisis in 1846 was in Ireland, where the devastation of the potato crop left people unable to buy grain even at post-repeal prices, and worse followed in 1847 even as England more than doubled its grain purchases.

An upheaval was possible in the England of the 1840s, but not even the denial of the vote to the great majority of the population could rouse the masses to rise up when the issue came to a head in the spring of that year. "No revolution please, we're British."

Women often played a large role in pagan kings' decision to convert.

• Clovis, King of the Franks was convinced to abandon paganism by his wife, Saint Clotilde of Burgundy
• Æthelberht of Kent was converted by his wife, the Frankish princess, Saint Bertha.
• István I of Hungary and his father both agreed to convert so that he could marry Gisela of Bavaria, though István appears to have been a more faithful Christian than his father was.
• Mieszko I of Poland agreed to convert so that he could marry Doubravka of Bohemia.
• Vladimir the Great had a Christian grandmother, Saint Olga of Kiev, and finally agreed to convert so he could marry the Byzantine princess, Anna Porphyrogennētē
• Hermenegild I of the Visigoths was convinced to abandon Arianism by his wife, Ingund of Austrasia. (Though Arianism was a form of Christianity, it still fits the pattern).
• Władysław II Jagiełło agreed to convert to Catholicism so that he could marry Jadwiga of Poland and become king of Poland jure uxoris.

Two books I read recently, The Realm of Saint Steven and East Central Europe in the Middle Ages pointed out that converting often opened the door to Christian marriage alliances and that the idea of one god and one church often fit better with kings' missions to somewhat centralize their authority that the multitude of gods of pagan faiths.

It's difficult to judge what any of them were thinking psychologically, as ancient and medieval chroniclers generally did not seek to uncover their subjects' inner lives and motivations, as modern writers so often do.

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One powerful factor for rulers is that Christianity and the church's seal of approval solidified their basis for kingship and eased dealings with local Christian subjects and with other kingdoms. Formal conversion of the crown was generally preceded by conversion among part of the population as Christian missionaries journeyed through pagan lands, and contact with (and bringing of captives from) Christian territories was fairly commonplace, so the break wasn't wholly abrupt, while as a Christian monarch you now enjoyed the support of church and clergy so long as you didn't seriously misbehave.

east germany was not part of the soviet union btw

>change your socks/clothes

I have never served but my grandpa was in the army from 1944-1946 and I still don’t wear socks to bed because of how often I heard about trench foot from him and the training of changing socks. For years. Because I lived with him. So even when my feet are freezing I won’t wear socks to bed. So that conditioning can even extend to family members.

Most pagans didn't quite believe their religion to be "true" the way Christianity purports itself to be true.

To be a member of a pagan religion, you just had to be the ethnicity of that religion and participate in it's ceremonies and rituals. Christianity, on the other hand, is partly a philosophy that was debated, attacked, and defended. You'd be hard pressed to find a Norse shaman who wanted to discuss Christianity, while on the other hand Christians were the ones who had very compelling arguments for their religion, or I guess the point is that they at least had arguments.

IIRC, the earliest usage of the word "Eurasian" was used to describe the children of British colonists and their Indian wives.

Anyway, I saw in another comment that you seem to be pretty annoyed by this, but man, language is messy; words change meaning over time, and the same word has different meanings in different contexts.

Like if I told you I'm amped up, I'm not describing the amount of elecrical current in my body.

OK so in a lot of old movies all the farm/ country people wear trousers with suspenders. Belts were a thing from BC so, is it like that they were too expensive for the average farmer to acquire in contrast to suspenders?

It wasn't that belts were too expensive. As demonstrated in this historical video of Prince Albert's wardrobe, wealthy upper class men also wore suspenders at the time.

The issue was that trousers in the 18th and 19th centuries were high-waisted and belts wouldn't have helped keep them up, especially because trousers weren't made with belt loops.

Trousers became lower waisted and began to made with belt loops in the 1920s.

Ah ok, thanks

Thoughts on lost city of Atlantis ???

It's not lost, it was an allegory. Plato didn't hold knowledge of a lost civilisation that no one else did, but he did create stories to make people think and to prove his point. It would be like if I told you that there was a great land of Reddites where the civilians all paid for products with not money but their words, and the best words gained the best money, so people began to copy each others words word-for-word to try and make the same amount of money they all got, but this just created a world where no one knew how to make an original argument anymore and it descended into madness and fell into itself. In fact, I stole that example from someone else.

But it's a good description. People in antiquity were made fun of for thinking it was a real place. It was only in the last couple hundred or so years that people really started to miss the context of the story and begin to think it was real. Just like if my post about the land of Reddites was found 1000 years later away from all the other context I provided people might think that I was describing a real place. But most people who argue that Atlantis is real can't read Ancient Greek, aren't familiar with Plato, and haven't actually studied the topic well. There's a reason for that.

That's indeed a possibility I hadn't allowed for: the date and place make me think influenza, but a prior gas encounter could be the cause. It could even be both, with the flu rendering an older condition fatal.

You're not wrong. I deleted my comment.

My frustration stems from the fact that I applied to a "Russian & Eurasian Studies" program, thinking that it was simply focusing on Russia's place within the broader Eurasia, only to get here and find out it's just a post-Soviet studies program.

Of course, I now know this is par for the course throughout Western universities, think tanks, etc. But as a first-gen college student from a poor area of the U.S., I had no way of knowing this beforehand. I was going off of what I was taught, and it makes me feel misled.

Furthermore, I think there's a strong argument that what I thought this program would be makes more sense in the 21st century than straight up area studies.

another possibility is that there was something similar like a small island village or settlement that was submerged later, and plato used that as the base to craft out the atlantis story, which is the allegory as u said here

Thanks for the reply. I agree that Britain found a good outlet for its restlessness in the form of colonies. The British may have lamented the loss of the 13 colonies, but the reality is that if those rebel colonists had still been in England, Britain might have followed the same path as France.

Still, nothing motivates people like hunger. Without bread, the circus only goes so far, and England did have a civil war back in the 17th century. Speaking of which, I have a question about that too. During the years when Cromwell was in charge, did British nobles continue to have the same powers and privileges? Was there anything in the way of a ceremonial monarch? Who was living in the royal palaces?

I wasn't thinking just of colonies, rather of a range of economic and political outpourings - its contributions to industrialisation, liberalism, modern parliamentary governance (even if few had a say). Nobody but the king lamented the loss of the 13 colonies that much - within a few years trade was bouncing along as never before - rather it's the passing of the later "second" empire that that still agitates some fevered minds.

The conflict of the 1640s was again primarily about political power, and the economic dimension mostly involved division among the well-to-do between those benefiting from privileges granted by the crown and those competing in the market. Food was (as across most of Europe) more expensive than a century earlier owing to the inflow of Spanish colonial silver, but prices on the eve of the civil war weren't much above those of the previous 20-30 years.

The peerage continued mostly unmolested under the Commonwealth, though the House of Lords was abolished from 1649 until the Restoration of 1660 ended a brief experiment with a hand-picked upper house. Cromwell was invited to assume the crown, but declined: his title of Lord Protector can be interpreted as regent, though he insisted his regime was republican. He wasn't averse to the odd palace: most of the less essential royal properties were sold off in 1649, but today's older residences remained state assets, Cromwell governing from Whitehall Palace (its site today occupied mostly by the MoD and Cabinet Office after most of the old building burned down in 1698, the Banqueting House and parts of the basement surviving).

Most of "Eastern Europe" was formally independent of the Soviet Union. But, the Soviet hegemony absolutely did include Poland, East Germany, etc., (and considering Russian/Soviet ambitions have never particularly been satisfied with their current borders), making them de facto part of the Soviet Union.

One other thing to remember is that the Armistice (with Germany) was November 11, 1918, but the various treaties didn't get signed until mid-1919. There was sporadic fighting but more importantly, the soldiers are still deployed, still training, standing guard, etc. Your great uncle probably did die from influenza, but it might have been a training accident or pneumonia or something else caused by still being deployed.

That sucks. I had a course (unrelated) being changed halfway through with all of my intended options being scrapped, so i feel the pain of not getting the course you wanted. It's always best to get the details before accepting, but my experience is that you can't even rely on that.

How important was the Scribe profession in the ancient world, notably in say Egypt? Were they automatically part of the court or just a simple Bureaucrat? Did it determine who one married etc.?

That's the thing - I only knew of 1 Eurasia, the Eurasia that I was taught in elementary school, so why would I think it was anything different?

Yes, I think I only encountered it in the 2000s, and even now it's not that common outside academia. Hopefully the fad will pass.

I made a post about this in Archaeology but it was removed so asking here. Apologies about the size.

Why did ancient people use the lunar cycle in addition to the solar cycle?

Tracking the 365 days between a solstice seems like an accurate solution to knowing when seasons will begin/end. If we were to say Spring begins on the 90th day (just an example) this would be accurate for several years.

Why did people supplement this with the use of lunar cycles when they do not line up with the seasons very well (approx 1/3 of a month further out of sync every year)?

The only reason I can think of is that tracking lunar cycles is extremely straightforward and anyone can do it, but it creates the issue of needing to realign every few years (often an extra month after the winter solstice if I remember right). The lunar cycle has been used in essentially every ancient culture so there obviously must be other benefits than it just being 'easy'. What are these?

It wasn't easier to track via the moon, it was MUCH easier. How exactly do you calculate the solar cycle in ancient times? You won't have accurate-enough timekeeping for centuries to know the exact day of the solstice by tracking duration of day, you're basically stuck trying to accurately measure shadows or the angle of the sun, which takes years of observations to establish. That's a lot of effort for anyone and is very not-portable. It's something only the elites can do or will care about.

But anybody can see the moon, and it's not even 10 fingers' worth of counting from full or new to a quarter moon. It's very easy for everyone to observe and to track with. It's also not ambiguous--a full moon is a full moon, you might be off by a day at most, and there would be general agreement in a community.

And the primary thing you need timekeeping for is agriculture (because that's what 90% plus of the population do, and what 100% eat). But, due to weather variability, knowing when spring astronomically begins doesn't help you all that much. Temperature trends, rain, likelihood of a frost, all of those are more important. IIRC, lunar calendars (the Islamic calendar being a notable exception) usually start counting in the spring, when X crop needs to be harvested and Y crop planted for just this reason.

Most scribes were fairly well off since their abilities were in demand — it’s been estimated that only 1% of ancient Egyptians were literate — but some were far more powerful and wealthy than others, and their duties and level of literacy varied. There is quite a difference between a personal scribe of the vizier, an army scribe, and a local village scribe! Keep in mind that the people we lump together as scribes held a wide variety of positions that partially determined their status and responsibilities — priest, butler/cupbearer, physician/exorcist, construction foreman, treasury official, etc.

For more info, see Ancient Egyptian Scribes: A Cultural Exploration by Niv Allon and Hana Navratilova and the chapter “Scribes” by Alessandro Roccati in The Egyptians edited by Sergio Donadoni.

Thanks this is the reply I was looking for

Does anyone know of any book or visual media that explains in some detail the Congress of Viena after the napoleonic wars. I have found previous sources online, but they usually only focus on the major parts of the treaties, like Germany or even Italy. I know that multiple subjects were the matter of that congress and so I am looking for something that, in the spirit of Historia Civilis' videos, digs deeper in some more overlooked aspects of the Viena peace treaties.

Thanks

The USSR was actually pretty definite about its borders: its sphere of influence and network of satellites or allies (like the USA's) were less fixed. Poland and East Germany weren't a de facto part of the USSR any more than various Central American countries were part of the US, rather they were a part of the Soviet bloc and expected to toe the line to varying degrees. Poland's communist leaders actually exercised considerable independence after 1956, a luxury not available to the frontline GDR.

The question I’ve got does anybody understand what happened in Tulsa in 1921 because people I’ve met there but nothing ever happened

Yes, it's rather apparent if you comb through pre medieval sources that this idea originated with Plato and almost all of them mention him and the dialogue that generated it.

The Tulsa Historical Society and Museum seems a good place to start:

>On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a white woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city’s white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling.
>
>Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District.
>
>In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days.
>
>Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.

A commission appointed by the state government reported in 2001 that:

>Black Tulsans had every reason to believe that Dick Rowland would be lynched after his arrest. His charges were later dismissed and highly suspect from the start..... As hostile groups gathered and their confrontation worsened, municipal and county authorities failed to take actions to calm or contain the situation.
>
>At the eruption of violence, civil officials selected many men, all of them white and some of them participants in that violence, and made those men their agents as deputies.... In that capacity, deputies did not stem the violence but added to it, often through overt acts that were themselves illegal. Public officials provided fire arms and ammunition to individuals, again all of them white.
>
>Units of the Oklahoma National Guard participated in the mass arrests of all or nearly all of Greenwood’s residents, removed them to other parts of the city, and detained them in holding centers.... Entering the Greenwood district, people stole, damaged, or destroyed personal property left behind in homes and businesses. People, some of them agents of government, also deliberately burned or otherwise destroyed homes credibly estimated to have numbered 1,256, along with virtually every other structure — including churches, schools, businesses, even a hospital and library — in the Greenwood district..... Although the exact total can never be determined, credible evidence makes it probable that many people, likely numbering between 100-300, were killed during the massacre.
>
>Not one of these criminal acts was then or ever has been prosecuted or punished by government at any level: municipal, county, state, or federal.

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Mark Jarrett's The Congress of Vienna and its legacy (IB Tauris, London 2013) has received favourable reviews and is rated fairly in-depth (522 pages), though it covers the pre-1814 background and post-1815 multilateral efforts down to Greek and Belgian independence, so it may not be quite what you're after.

Hungary 1956. Czechoslovakia 1963. Afghanistan 1979.

US: Panama 1903, Mexico 1914 & 1916, Haiti 1915, Dominican Republic 1916, Russia(!) 1918, Nicaragua 1926, Lebanon 1958, Vietnam 1965, Dominican Republic 1965, Cambodia 1970, Laos 1971, Lebanon 1982, Grenada 1983, Iraq 1991, Somalia 1992, Bosnia 1995, Kosovo 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, not counting selective airstrikes, limited interventions or backing for local proxies or third-party interventions. Were all those countries de facto parts of the US?

Czechoslovakia was 1968, btw.

Thanks RE the Czechoslovakia date. I looked it up and still managed to type it wrong.

The Monroe Doctrine is absolutely an attempt by the US to be the sole hegemon over the Western Hemisphere. There was any question that this is/was the case? Ditto the "world's policeman"/pax americana that covers the other situations--is anyone seriously disputing that this is a hegemonic situation?

(Whether you think that it's a good situation is a separate question).

However, and this isn't an accusation against you personally, your list is a classic whataboutism. Whether the USSR and now Russia have done some stuff isn't disproven if the USA has done similar stuff. I pointed out unambiguous historical episodes of just post-WW2 USSR invading and/or treating its neighbors as if they were under de facto USSR control (I could have added current events to the list--just the involvement of Belarus and Chechnya in the Ukraine conflict is really good example of my point--but those are too recent to be considered "history"). Can you dispute that those episodes occured or that they show hegemony by the USSR?

The issue isn't the exercise of hegemony in claimed spheres of influence - both superpowers obviously did that - it's whether such acts make the country subject to such action a "de facto part" of the hegemonic power as you claimed. If they do in the Soviet case but not in the US one, then why?

I wasn't engaging in whataboutery to disprove or minimise any act, merely illustrating that such projection of power does not amount to de facto annexation - unless you believe that in both cases it does, which at least has the virtue of consistency.

Thank you. I'll give it a look.

You're welcome: I hope you can find more sources. I was surprised that there don't seem seem to be other substantial recent treatments - it seems an odd oversight, especially given the bicentenary only 8 years ago.

What was the greatest military comeback of all time?

For example, during the Korean War, when the South Koreans were squeezed all the way to just Busan, then proceeded to occupy 90% of the Korean peninsula over the next few months. Or the turnaround the Soviets had during WW2 when they retook all their land from Germany, and even ended up pushing into Berlin.

Basically, what is the war equivalent of the Patriots 28-3 comeback in the Super Bowl?

You dragged the US into the conversation and are now attempting to make a point about the USSR based on what the US has or hasn't done. I'm sorry you can't see it, but that is classic whataboutism.

Not engaging in whataboutism would involve you trying to show how the Hungarian and Czech experiences aren't the USSR treating them as de facto parts of it/mere extensions of Moscow's will. How Poland got away with the "Polish October" in 1956 might be a good place to start. You'll also want to explain away things like overthrowing the Hungarian government that was trying to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact in 1956.

It would also involve addressing how the invasion of Afghanistan wasn't the USSR trying to expand its borders (the second part of my point). You might also want to take a detour to discuss if Imperial and post-USSR Russian grand strategy was actually different from USSR grand strategy, or whether it's consistently been a policy of Russian imperialism.

There is a English poem or song that describes the loss of the commons and rise of state ownership and it’s effect on law and punishment as well as classism. Here is an example :

https://unionsong.com/u765.html

What is the earliest example of this song or poem and who or what is it attributed to, a political movement party, ethnicity, religion, or class? How did it survive to be used until present day? And how has its original usage changed?

When was insurance first a thing?

(Like health insurance, property insurance, etc.)

You were the one making the initial assertion: to apply it to one side but not the other is just double standards.

Had Hungary and Czechoslovakia been de facto parts of the USSR, 1956 and 1968 would never have arisen: that Moscow was reduced to sending in its tanks underlines the limitations of its political fiat. It's for you to explain how Poland got away with its different course: had your claim been valid, that couldn't have happened.

It's also for you to support the claim that in Afghanistan the USSR was "trying to expand its borders". Afghanistan was the last thing Moscow wanted in its territory: it hadn't wanted to go in at all, and only the prospect of a deeply hostile regime on its central Asian border drew it in.

Yours seems a rather absolutist two-dimensional take: intervention = de facto annexation. I invite you again to consider whether this applies to US military actions, and if not, why not?

Why were Christians persecuted in the Holy Roman Empire? Was it because of religious intolerance?

I think there is a mistake in your question. The Holy Roman Empire was a medieval state that existed in Germany from the 9th century onward. It was a Christian kingdom, the Holy in its name refer to the fact that pope crowned the Emperor.

So no persecution there. unless you refer to the wars of religions between catholics and protestants in the 16th century. If that's the case say so and I can answer that.

​

Now. What I think you mean is the Roman Empire when it was still Pagan (before emperor constantine converted in the 4th century), right?

​

In that case the answer is very interesting. Rome had a public religion, the religion was the religion of the state/government. All Romans participated in its rites (and no one else. You were Romans because you participated in the cult, you participated because you were Roman). The idea is that if all the citizens worship the gods of Rome, the gods are happy and Rome stays a world power. Often you hear that Rome was tolerant of other religions, it's usually true but the idea is that they literally didn't care about your religion as long as: as a Roman you still participate in the official religion and your foreign faith is not done inside the limit of the city of Rome... as a Roman if you do that you can worship Isis or Mithras or whatever on your own, that's no problem at all.

Now the problem with Christianity is that it claims to be the one true god and one true faith (which while not new is not the norm at this time for other religions) and explicitly forbids the worship of other deity. So Christians didn't go to the temple of Jupiter to do their yearly sacrifice and didn't participate in the city wide worship of Venus and all the other religious duties expected of Roman citizens... and that's a problem for Rome. The citizens needs to participate in the official religion for the gods to help Rome. But not participation you are endangering Rome. And that's they were persecuted.

Add to that that the Roman society is extremely hierarchical, and that Christianity is very egalitarian, this is also seen as an attack against Rome. So persecution too.

​

Christianity was not the first religion to be persecuted that way, the Bacchanalia (a mystery cult that also forbid the official religion and blurred hierarchical lines) was persecuted violently in 200BC. But it's important to keep in mind that it wasn't really about the religion itself. There were a lot of Roman Monotheists at the time or Romans who practiced other faiths... but also the main city cults.

In conclusion: The main problem was that Christianity forbid the practice of the official religion, which was a religious duty. So the state persecuted them for violating the law pretty much as if they refused to pay taxes. It's wasn't religious discrimination in itself but actions against the fact that Romans refused to do their legal obligations.

It's very old. A Babylonian merchant borrowing to transport goods could pay a surcharge to cancel repayment if the cargo was lost in transit, a system adopted in Europe from ancient Greece onward. Rome had contributory societies to support families of deceased members, a practice likewise continued by medieval guilds which also offered support in the event of illness. The modern insurance market is commonly traced to 17th-century London, especially after the devastating fire of 1666 demonstrated the risks to property.

Surprisingly (to me anyway) it's first recorded in the second enclosure wave of the 18th-19th centuries, but it's widely thought to originate in the first (16th-17th centuries). It's an objection not to state but to private ownership, specifically the conversion of common land (where all villagers shared rights, notably in letting their livestock feed) to individual property, a process dating back to the Tudor wool boom but renewed with rising agricultural returns in the 18th century.

So it's a rhyme of protest against social & economic inequality, invoking the particular plight of smallholders but adopted more generally among workers and radicals: here the state is with the landowners who dominated political life into the industrial period, but it's they (and by extension later privileged economic interests) rather than the state itself who are the real target.

Napoleon's 1815 return springs to mind, expanding his realm from little Elba to the whole of France before meeting his Waterloo. I'd say though that the greatest or at least most lasting comebacks from defeat or conquest haven't been military at all, they've involved the subject population absorbing its conquerors and largely continuing as if nothing had happened (an exaggeration, of course) - I'm thinking Mongol or Manchu-ruled China, western Europe's Romano-Celtic peoples after the 5th century, etc.: make love, not war, perhaps.

I'd add that a further issue was that Christianity sought converts. Judaism was also emphatically monotheistic, but Christianity sough to extend its flock, and was doing so among the classes who might threaten the social order should the religious element of their allegiance to the empire be eroded. Christianity's growth presented a threat that older religious minorities didn't: as it turned out, church and state found a modus vivendi, but that evidently wasn't perceived in the early centuries.

>. Judaism was also emphatically monotheistic

It was also a very old religion (which is something the Romans respected) and during the Temple era the Jewish authorities had a deal with Rome: they would not sacrifice to Roman Gods... but will make a sacrifice to their god for the emperor, which, as far as the Roman were concerned, was good enough.

Interesting. Do you know if early Christians were willing to do likewise? It seems a pragmatic compromise, and in accordance with the notion (if not the meaning) of "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's".

Christians (when they became important enough to be noticed) did not practice sacrifices, which were essential for the Roman religion (it's not about faith, it's about the correct actions, a simple prayer wouldn't do), so the question is moot. Also if you read Pliny's letter to Trajan (written around 112) some things are pretty clear: he has to discover who is and who is not a Christian and he notes this

>Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged

This is confirmed by other sources: Christians absolutely refused anything to do with the Roman Religion, which as I said was a crime in itself.

Interesting again: I was thinking of a non-blood sacrifice, but Pliny indeed suggests that no offerings were acceptable to this obstinate minority.

Yeah, my apologies for the mishap, I was referring to the one between 303-313, which is what I'm assuming you've answered. Thanks, by the way. My takeaway is:

1. Persecuted because they were endangering Rome by not partaking in events honouring the Roman Gods.
2. The fact that Roman society was hierarchical rather than egalitarian. This part I'm a little foggy on, if you wouldn't mind shedding some more light, why was this a reason for persecution?
3. And it wasn't religious discrimination but rather persecuting "criminals" for breaking the law – the law being that they had to worship the Gods for their grace upon the empire.

Good luck with the living under a bridge and demanding tolls. Watch out for goats.

1. exactly. Keep in mind that up until 299 Rome had been at war with Persia. Defending Rome wasn't an abstract idea, the empire was threatened.
2. We live in a society where we consider that humans all have the same fundamental rights and value. This is not the norm in antiquity. Roman society is extremely hierarchical. There are actual legal distinctions between categories of people, and not just between free people and slaves. The rich, powerful and from old Roman families are supposed to be on top of every hierarchy. Then lowborn citizens. Then non citizens. Then slaves. This hierarchy is part of Roman society. In Roman religion the powerful ones hold the priesthoods, they are the superiors of lowborn and foreigners. Christianity has for its main tenets that everyone is equal and also gave a lot of importance to women (which for Romans always have a subordinate role). In Christian communities you could have non citizens/citizens of low birth, or even slaves (to not even talk about women) in position of authority over good roman citizens. This is unthinkable for Romans. This is an actual danger for them because it reject the traditional hierarchy. It is seen as "destroying the essence of Roman society", an attack against their society (to simplify a lot they see it as a conspiracy to destroy what makes Rome Rome).
3. Yes, more or less. The persecution of 303 is maybe when it starts to be a systematic persecution of the religion itself (it is still debated by historians), but even then because it seen as a dangerous cult: it is a cult that endanger Rome's relations to gods... but it's also a religion that goes against Rome social structure.

So you've nothing coherent to add. Oh well.

Who are some LGBT+ people who made history, outside of the arts or 21st century politics?

To my mind, I can only think of these gay (by modern standards) men:

• Alan Turing (father of modern computing and AI)
• Sacred Band of Thebes (150 male couples who defeated the Spartans in battle, among others)
• Mark Bingham (led the effort to fight terrorists aboard Flight 93 on 9/11)
• Glenn Burke (first out professional baseball player, who likely invented the high-five)

This question is maybe too broad/meta, but what are the most accurate sources on... how everyday european medieval life worked? For example some questions I have:

• What techniques were used to make clothing and construct buildings?
• How were simple fires for warmth, cooking and lightning lit?
• How accessible were parchement and ink?
• How did trade and trade routes develop?

I like to think I'm half-decent at doing research, but so far I've only ever found video and blog posts of questionable accuracy... is there any book that answers questions of this sort with the highest accurcacy possible?

I have a very simple question and am new to this sub, I hope it doesn’t violate any of the rules. But I want to know more about the story of Adolf Hitler telling Benito Mussolini that he’s being possessed by an aryan ghost, I can’t seem to find anything about this story anywhere, is it even true? It would be amazing if someone would tell me the full story. Thank you for reading

X, Y and Z all fought the same opponent in different times and locations, yet they all failed. They had different backgrounds, different religions and barely contacted each other, but they shared a common enemy, that shared the same religion with Y, after it converted them. X and Y laid siege to its capital, but only Y succeeded, despite X’s best efforts to stop them. Meanwhile Z’s precursor tried to do the same, came close but was ultimately unsuccessful. If you calculate the distance between the capitals of X and Z and Y and Z in kilometers you will get two, four digit numbers. Subtracting those numbers leaves you with a little over four times the length of the famous walls of the Y capital.

X was a battle of new vs old, few vs the many in more ways than one. A battle where old rivals put aside their differences and fought as one. There were many participants in the side of the many but they all came from three modern countries. Two of them were large, but the third one was tiny, yet formidable. A cultural melting pot, which held its ground more than once no matter how many bombs were thrown at it and yet, the country fell in only six days to a very famous general, who turned things around by abolishing slavery and founding many schools. That did not last however, as the country was later taken over by a cripple. That crippled would later die by a seemingly unremarkable places, besides a lighthouse and Roman baths discovered in 2021. The Roman baths or Thermae are also a very important archeological site in the city of Y, which also saw a massive battle unfold as many clashed against the same few. The battle of Y, crippled many men, but it was the death of the king with four crowns that ultimately decided its outcome. One of his four crowns belonged the kingdom which was the first one outside of Italy to embrace the Renaissance, innovative in many ways one of these inventions would eventually be used in the conquest of Z.

I need solutions for these riddles

Alexander the Great and Roy Cohn come to mind. It used to be much easier for people to maintain their privacy. There are plenty of figures throughout history where there were rumors about their sexuality, but where there is no way of knowing for sure.

There is a large portion of people that its very hard to tell, because not many people would be openly LGBT and claims to be part of LGBT was easily used to discredit/disparage someone (e.g. roman emperor Elagabalus and claims of him being trans). However there are much more clear example for the poet Sappho and prussian king Frederick the Great.

I'm reading Louis Zamperinis book and he references an ocean spill involving Sulfa powder. However when searching, all I can find online is the 1937 Sulfa disaster. Anyone know where I can find information on this?

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Was Vlad Tepes respected in Western Europe?

He stood up against Mehmed II and was backed up by the Pope apparently, is this true? And were there any other monarchs that helped Vlad in stopping the Ottomans?

If so are there any sources describing who and what kind of support he received?

Also did the western monarchs at the time consider him a tyrant or was he respected in some aspects?

I can't find any detailed sources about this just very summarized descriptions and I would be interested to hear about this.

Thank you

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Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and probably Harun alRashid for a start.

Frederick the Great had several of these. I would also say the Russians pushing Napoleon back to France.

This is a serious inquiry: in reading the definitive book on Thomas Jefferson by Jon Meacham, the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Merriweather Lewis (of Lewis and Clark fame) appears to paint a picture of a extremely close relationship to the point where a homosexual relationship could thrive. Is there any scholarly report of this?

What story? We need to hear it before we can find out if it's true. If all you have is a snippet from the internet it's almost certainly made up.

>how everyday european medieval life worked? For example some questions I have:

When it comes to medieval questions you first of all need to decide when and where. In some definitions 'medieval' covers 1,000 years, and even people who unironically use the term 'Dark Ages' admit there was change over that time. The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer is a good, informal place to start.

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If a young man on a mountain bike were to accidentally travel back in time into a medieval town, would the local artisans be able to help him maintain his bicycle? assuming he has a fairly decent understanding of how his bike works, and perhaps a small pouch of tools

Anything more than cleaning and oiling: not really. Airing the tires would be next to impossible without extremely precise fittings that most artisans wouldn't be capable of. Any replacement parts would require materials (rubber) or manufacturing precision (chain, spokes, etc) that would be very difficult if not impossible to reproduce.

With enough time and money, an artisan could probably figure out workarounds (like casting replacement links out of brass or bronze) but the bicycle would be more and more of a frankenstein's monster and would be less efficient and usable.

Just checked out the 1812 French invasion of Russia. An incredible comeback indeed, even if they did retreat quickly on purpose at times. Again, Russian winters are insurmountable (unless you're Finland lol).

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>I thought Alexander was just a conqueror basically, the same as any other empire like Rome

Rome, who famously didn't colonise anywhere? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_(Roman) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonies_in_antiquity

Although people tend to talk about colonisation as being a modern process, it's arguably much older, and empires have been doing it as long as they have existed. It's what makes them empires.

>and I realized I am not sure of what exactly qualifies as 'colonization'.

You colonise a place when you assert control over it, and physically establish your 'superiority' in matters of law and culture, compelling the indigenous people to either remain subservient and/or convert to your ways. Rome is one of the best examples of this, constantly seeking a controlled influx of people via the foederati, establishing Roman citizenship as something to be sought after, etc.

Was the comitia centuriata only open to soldiers. My understanding is that it was based on military membership (officers at the top, infantry at the bottom) until 241BC when any Roman citizen including civilians could vote in it, is that correct? Thanks

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thank you so much!

Alexander II would have been the talk of the age if he didn't have to share it with Napoleon.

Does anyone know of interesting legends or myths from the pirating and colonial expansion era in the 1600s? Similar to Libertatia and El Dorado. I find them very fascinating

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