Thomas_More
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Yes. But even in Britain before the First World War, the red coat was something to avoid, which is why recruiting sergeants had to trick working men by dropping the “King’s (or Queen’s) Shilling” into their mugs of beer when they weren’t looking, or lead press gangs into ale houses, brothels and streets to cosh them and drag them away into the army or navy.
If Britain was still dubious about patriotism in the 19th century, but nonetheless an industrialised nation-state, it’s no surprise it was still an infant in the 15th century in Spain and Portugal. But royal force and violence were real and ruthless, and strongly centralised. The monarchs were no longer the pawns of feudal lords and global markets and colonies were in play, if not in our modern sense.
So what are you trying to say, that these were not nation-states, but England was?Lastly, although the 1688 settlement had consolidated the bourgeois English state, and the 1707 Union had created Great Britain, half of the island, remember was still the roaming land of semi-feudal/tribal Gaelic clans until 1746.
https://share.google/gkQczj5K5TMGhHWMP (How could a fragmented feudal country have conquered this much and become the world’s global power – whilst England was dependent on pirating from it?)
The Basques and Catalans have never thought of themselves as Spanish; nor have the Bretons and Occitans thought of themselves as French, yet both are nation-states (Spain and France). There was one army under one royal livery and an empire whose governors were answerable to one royal authority. All wealth from conquest went to the Crown, in Spain, France and England. Each state appointed its own bishops. Whatever an individual or community believed, the reality was only one central allegiance. A crime against the state was a crime against its Church too and was punished by the state or church authorities answerable to the state and not to any foreign power, not even the pope.
A feudal secular authority could have never established global power, and none did, even if remnants of feudal society still lingered in the home nation. (As they did in England too).The Reformation was obviously part of a changing society, with Calvinism especially appealing to sections of the bourgeoisie (although Hungarian feudal lords also embraced it), but so was the “Counter”- Reformation; indeed the latter also expressed the needs of the emerging capitalist society and of the rising nation-states, enabling France and Spain, the two foremost Catholic powers, to achieve ecclesiastic, national, autonomy from Rome.
The rise of nation-states breaking up medieval Christendom produced the Humanists, such as More and Erasmus. Although More was made a saint in 1935, his books were for a long time banned in Spain!
Other great series and books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones%27_Barbarians
Except Terry is mistaken in assuming the Catholic Church of the early Middle Age to be the same as the “Roman Catholic” Church. This did not exist as a separate entity until 1054.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Ages:_An_Age_of_Light
Thank you. It was always in the interest of the British education system to present the Reformation, which would create the nation-state, as a great “liberation.” The continual adulation of Elizabeth I in movies etc., the use of her image as a national treasure, and the old narrative, still repeated, that the Reformation and the Renaissance dragged us out of the medieval mire.
The recent glorification of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s thug henchman, is part of this too.After all, this was the origin of the ruling class that still owns the land today, and it was the origin of “the nation” we are supposed to be “proud” of.
It is much easier to repeat the old narrative of a “Middle Age” of dormancy between ancient and modern “civilisation”, but so much now proves that to be nonsense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones%27_Medieval_Lives
“The main reason I wanted to make Medieval Lives was to get my own back on the Renaissance. It’s not that the Renaissance has ever done me any harm personally, you understand. It’s just that I’m sick of the way people’s eyes light up when they start talking about the Renaissance. I’m sick of the way art critics tend to say: ‘Aaaah! The Renaissance!’ with that deeply self-satisfied air of someone who is at last getting down to the ‘Real Thing’. And I’m sick to death of that ridiculous assumption that before the Renaissance human beings had no sense of individuality.”
Google:
” Contrary to popular myth, the Middle Ages were not entirely filthy, but hygiene was inconsistent and varied by class. While cities were notoriously unsanitary and lacked waste management, medieval people actually valued cleanliness and bathed regularly when water and fuel were available, often using soap.
Bathing and Hygiene: People often washed their hands and faces daily. While some later medieval views suggested excessive bathing opened pores to disease, regular washing was common in the earlier period. Soap was used, and for many, bathing was a regular activity.”
HistoryExtraHistoryExtra +2
Incidentally, in western Europe, a “Greek” meant an unkempt and filthy person.
Table manners were also very important, since eating was a social activity. Throwing bones over one’s shoulder is pure Hollywood.
Europeans would really stink and rot later, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Teeth, for instance. Medieval teeth were much healthier in the medieval period than later, after sugar came in heavily in the Elizabethan age.
As long as the harvest didn’t fail, medieval people of all classes ate well, and much better than after the enclosures, when the former peasants had nothing but famine and deprivation ahead.
From being the arboreal-abundant, garden-abundant and brightly painted towns of the 12th century as described by visitors to Henry II’s London, the towns and cities of the post-Reformation centuries would transform more and more into cesspits of disease, reaching the ultimate in poverty and filth during Britain’s industrial revolution.
By comparison with Arab civilisation, yes, this is true. But the Crusades themselves would bring Arab knowledge back to Europe, and Greek texts in Arabic, translated into Latin.
The Templars provided areas of worship for Muslims, and fellow “Franks” would be punished if they mocked Muslims when not in battle with them. Richard and Saladin were friends, and Saracen nobility recognised as equals in knighthood. The Crusades would bring changes to Europe, including our present numerical system, which replaced the Roman.
With large numbers of people following the armies overland to the Middle East, it is hardly surprising that the westerners arrived in an insalubrious state.
The literature of the time, and particularly the gestes of Wolfram Von Eschenbach, testify to the respect for Saracen nobility. Eschenbach’s Gahmuret, the father of Parzival, fights for a Muslim queen against the Christian crusader king of Scotland in north Africa, while his other hero, Willehalm, has a Muslim lover whom he adores.
In the long poem Flamenca, the Occitan writer points to an unkempt, bearded brute of a husband as being like a Greek of the kind encountered during the Crusades, so propaganda goes both ways.
Both Templars and Hospitallers were formed to provide succour for the hordes of western pilgrims and followers of the armies to the Middle East, and these monastic orders established hospitals along the pilgrim routes and back home.
It was the sacking of the monasteries by Henry VIII and the Reformation which destroyed so much medieval knowledge, including medicine.
It is surmised that all we have left of English medieval literature can be fitted into one cardboard box, thanks to the Reformation!
Google: ” The 12th-century Renaissance was a period of intense intellectual, social, and artistic revival in Western Europe, acting as a precursor to the Italian Renaissance. It featured the rise of early universities, the translation of Greek and Arabic texts, the growth of Gothic architecture, and a revival of Latin classics, significantly shifting European culture toward scholasticism and humanism.
Amazon UK
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Key Characteristics and Developments:
Birth of Universities: Cathedral schools grew into universities, such as in Paris, Oxford, and Bologna, creating new centers of learning.
Intellectual Revival & Translation: A surge in translating Greek and Arabic scientific and philosophical works into Latin occurred, particularly in Spain and Italy, reintroducing thinkers like Aristotle and advancements in medicine.
Literary & Artistic Shifts: The era saw the rise of vernacular literature and the shift from Romanesque to Gothic architecture. Courtly love literature and stories like Arthurian romances became popular.
Scientific Advancement: Increased interest in natural philosophy, mathematics (Euclid), and cosmology, along with the adoption of tools like the compass in trade.
Legal Revival: A rediscovery of Roman law took place, notably the compilation of Justinian’s legal corpus, shaping European legal systems.
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Key Figures and Centers:
Adelard of Bath: A prominent translator of Arabic science.
School of Chartres: A major center for philosophical studies, often focused on humanistic interpretations of cosmology. “I completely disagree with the term “Dark Ages” and refer you to the book and TV series “Dark Ages, Age of Light.”
It was an age (before 1066) when, in western Europe, the Romance languages were evolving: French, Castilian, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Occitan. Latin was also being played with, literally: not only changing colloquially and evolving into the new vernaculars, but also being misused for amusement by both literati and commoners. It was an era – which continued into the High Middle Age (1066-1250) – of linguistic play as well as evolution.
In Spain the Visigoths created unique architectural forms; later, in Sicily, Normans, Muslims and Greeks co-operated in building cathedrals of splendour: the Muslims contributing with Islamic design, the Catholics with paving and the Greeks with murals.
The Vandals were builders and erectors, not destroyers, and we have them to thank for the abolition of the vicious Roman gladiatorial shows, which disgusted them. The Goths were peaceful migrants, and the sacking of Rome never happened (it is a lie fabricated by St. Jerome). Why do we believe the opposite to all of this? Because of Roman lies about “barbarians” – when the Romans were the real barbarians!
The book and TV series by Terry Jones, “Barbarians” explains all this and researches the cultures of the interesting peoples that Roman propaganda dismissed as “barbarian.”Arabic, Persian, African and other Asian knowledge was absorbed both by the Crusades and from Moorish Spain through Provence and into Italy from the West during the 12th century renaissance.
Far from being “dark”, these centuries, in spite of obvious horrors and wars, were a golden age, with movement across the continents. Franciscans reached Vietnam and Borneo in the 1300s. Khanbalik (Beijing) had a Catholic archbishop by the early 1200s. Marco Polo was only one of numerous west European travellers and traders of the 13th century, before the Ming closed the Silk Road in 1368 and expelled foreigners. Chinese travellers reached Rome. One met both the Pope and the Kings of England and France. In Aquitaine and Provence the troubadours took Occitan culture and language to Henry II’s court in England. The Occitan fiefdoms turned the south of France in the 1100s into the cultural garden and melting pot of Christendom, providing a haven for Cathars and Jews and Muslims which stretched into Catalonia and the court of Alfonso the Wise, where all religions and cultures were welcome.
“Dark” Age can only refer to our long ignorance of these centuries, not their nature.
