Medieval European History

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Many thanks! Very educational points.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

My last post was a bit too darn long to put together, so I'm going to try and make the next few nice and short.

The Transition to the High Middle Ages

Koenigsberger outlines how the situation gradually changes in the western kingdoms. A few key points:

Agricultural advances.

• Iron tools help with the development of the iron plough, which is used in lands with darker, heavier soil. Such  plough require 6-8 oxen to pull though, and this is a reason for the distinctive long but narrow 'medieval' fields. They require less turning for the oxen. In places like Italy though, with their easier to till soil, wooden ploughs were still used, and the old square shaped fields remained common.
• Iron tools also helped with the spread of windmills. Watermills were a relatively old technology, but the newer and more sophisticated invention of windmills allowed for mechanised grain milling to be conducted in more places, such as flat lands like Flanders / Netherlands regions. Of course, as Jubal and I have experience with in the game Vintage Story, this mechanical power could also be used in smithing!
• The 3 field fallow system spread. Gradually farmers learned that you could grow things like beans to put nitrogen back into the soil, so rather than 2 fallow years and 1 productive year, you could have 2 productive years, and 1 fallow year. This meant quite a bit increase in how much food you could get out of the soil. Although Koenigsberger also notes that this technique did tend to exhaust the soil faster. It was still effective, but not as huge an improvement as we might think. It depended more on the quality of the soil.
• Expansion into more areas also allowed for an increase in food supply. A famous example would be the work of the Dutch and the dyke system later, but clearing of forests, draining of marshes etc. were part of this process. The limits of expansion were beginning to be felt by the 13th century though.

Economic advances

• The spread of silver coinage (more silver mines) made it easier for people to trade, and therefore specialise in different things. You see more people who might still be small farmers, but also they produce things like boots or clothing and sell them in their shop. I believe this is what Manor Lords tries to show with the way 'burghers' were still in many cases still farming their own food out the back too, given the long strips of land that were used.
• An extra level of specialisation begins to emerge. Architects, sculptors, scribes, teachers. These people were often itinerant, because there is not enough demand in any one place to support them long term. So while the common people were relatively less likely to roam about (with the exception of pilgrimages, which gradually became more popular), there was a class of international people who worked around the continent. These people often knew each other, and used Latin as a living language. This helps to set the scene for the coming renaissance movements.

Urbanism

• Agricultural advances mean a greater population, and specialisation and trade help foster the return of urban areas. Places like London, Paris, Bruges, Milan and Florence start to turn into little cities. (By the 14th century Paris apparently boasted around 80,000 people, with London at around 30,000 I think.)
• Cities started to develop their own laws, independent of the feudal system. This is something I didn't really appreciate before. It makes sense, in that merchants and other 'citizens' of cities needed a certain relative freedom from those older obligations (including things like trial by combat!) in order to be able to do their business. In places like Italy, this progresses to the point of cities really becoming their own 'city states'. I get the impression that while this was more of an Italy thing, still the relative legal independence of cities was something that was found to some degree throughout Europe. This is also where we see the development of fraternities or brotherhoods of different sorts, trade unions, guilds and so on. A different kind of bond between people could exist in this spaces than the feudal bonds of liege and subject.
• The (although still modest) growth in wealth allowed for the building of great castles, monasteries, churches and cathedrals (warfare and worship of God were high social priorities for spending any surplus wealth). The itinerant specialist builders mentioned above developed their skills, and constructed the great "Romanesque" (pre-Gothic) buildings. These are dominant in the 11th and 12 centuries. This is a pan-European style, the first to emerge it seems following the collapse of the Western Empire. This speaks to the international / itinerant nature of the specialist builders of this time.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Another entry. This time I'm going to focus on the Crusades. This is largely from a dedicated section, but there are other related bits and pieces from later sections in here too, which makes sense because the period of the crusades is quite long and overlaps with so much else that is going on:

• I wasn't aware there were so many of these as distinct moments. Wikipedia lists nine major ones. But it seems there is disagreement on how many there really where. Some might argue that two 'crusades' should actually be understood as an ongoing larger one, for example. I believe the major ones were declared / launched by the Catholic church, but it seems as though this is not required by historians as a condition on something constituting a 'crusade'. Moreover, if I understand correctly, each 'crusade' was not always directed at a specific target (like recapturing the Holy Land). Sometimes it could be closer to a kind of church sanctioned open season on non-Christians in broader regions. This makes the history of the crusades a bit messy.

• Koenigsberger mentions that it was Christian Spain / Iberia where the initial concept of a religious (Christian) crusade developed, speculating that the inspiration might have come from that of the Muslim 'Jihad'. I don't see a reference to this in the Wiki on Crusades, and I wonder what consensus has formed on this since then.
• The first major pogroms against Jewish peoples in Europe occurred as a result of / as part of a crusade. I was not aware of the connection between these two, but it makes sense.
• Koenigsberger notes that the capture of the holy lands would likely not have been successful if it were not the case that the Turkish princes were fighting among themselves over the remains of the Seljuq empire.
• Apparently at its peak there were around 100,000 Latin speaking people living in the Holy Lands as a kind of quasi-colonial outpost that lasted nearly a century.
• It was interesting to see the contrast between the violence done by the crusaders who successfully captured the Holy Lands, and the restraint of Saladin when he retook them a hundred years or so later. Koenigsberger mentions the regard Saladin enjoyed in Europe for this 'chivalrous' behavior, and how Dante (as a mark of respect) has the muslim Saladin occupying purgatory in his Divine Comedy. "I saw great Saladi, aloof, alone."
• Connected to the above, I think it is another one of those historical moments where the factual barbarism of Europeans contrasts sharply with modern European / Western myth making / self-aggrandisement of itself as civilised vs. the barbarian other. 
• I wonder how the history of the world might have differed had Saladin or a Saladin not occurred. With enough time, would a new culture have developed in the east, similarly to how the Germanic tribes created new cultures through marriage and time in the west? Or was this always precluded by religious differences? The Germanic tribes Christianized after all, which made cultural blending far more simple.
• Koenigsberger mentions that one of the positive outcomes for Europe was that having a lot of surplus 'quarrelsome' young men go to the Holy Lands to live / die made everything generally more peaceful in the west. Which is kind of amusing. How much of war and violence in micro-scale or macro-scale is an outcome of / powered by the energies or 'will to power' of young men in general (and here by men I don't mean to be reductive in speaking of some 'biological' concept, hormones, or whatever, nor to exclude the biological, but being inclusive here of the political / cultural institution of men.)
• There is some mention of Catharism, and how the Church's fight against it spiralled out into a great deal of violence in the Albigensian Crusade. This is a very interesting (read, terrible) bit of history I wasn't familiar with. For example, the massacring of the the entire population of the city of Béziers. In reading of such stories as this and the massacres in the Holy Lands, I wonder more broadly about the nature of massacres. Of the above point about the violent capacities of (young?) men, and the nature of evil. The massacres of civilians by the Romans. Of more modern such events, and so on. It seems like a recurring theme over the course of human history, but given with different variations.  Of course, this event was not new in terms of violence being directed against innocent people in the name of Christianity. But what does appear to be new here is the way this directed, 'religious' violence was now occurring within the Christian west, against the Cathars, Jews, and other 'heretics', where once it was targeted at Pagans on the frontiers. Here Koenigsberger notes that we see the beginnings of the dark period of the Inquisition. I'm also wondering about parallels with the modern concept of Imperial Boomerang, where once violence is sanctioned on outsiders, it eventually 'comes home'. Hmm.. (Above, I say 'religious'. I don't want to imply that literally 'religion' itself (however we define this) is the cause of this violence. I really am not a fan of this line of argument that we saw in recent decades among prominent atheists. This is a different subject, but to begin with what we categorise as 'religious' is very difficult, particularly in a time of history such as this, where 'worldly' and 'religious' concerns and understandings are intertwined as they are.
• Catharism itself is really interesting too (I feel like I am saying that -everything- is interesting, but there is so much in history that stimulates the intellect isn't there. When one is in the right mood and looking for connections / growing one's understanding.)
  
  

  By reputation, Cathars believed that human souls were the sexless spirits of angels trapped in the material realm of the evil god. They thought these souls were destined to be reincarnated until they achieved salvation through the consolamentum, a form of baptism performed when death is imminent. 
  
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism
  
   

  I unknowingly learned a little bit about Cathar-like beliefs when playing The Seance of Blake Manor a few months ago (incidentally, a great game that I thoroughly recommend.) Relevant spoilers for a character in the game:
  
  
  Spoilers for The Seance of Blake Manor

  There is a Catholic priest character, named Lorcan Sinnot. It is revealed (or, rather, it can be revealed, if the player succeeds with this quest line) that he is actually a 'gnostic' who believes all of humanity is "trapped in the Black Iron Prison." This is actually a Cathar belief. The wiki calls Catharism 'pseudo-Gnostic', so certainly it is also the reverse, in that Cathar beliefs have a 'gnostic' character. Still, from my cursory look at it, I believe this specific idea of humanity being trapped in a prison created by an evil one seems to be specifically a Cathar-version of Gnostic thinking. Again, interesting! I do now want to learn more about Gnosticism, and the Cathar heresy
  
  
  Similarly, there is the heretic with gnostic beliefs in Pentiment, Vacslav.
  
• Another thing the crusades helped to foster was the growing dominance of the Italian city states over trade in the Mediterranean. Although simply walking to the Holy Lands was possible, it was difficult. Many died on the way over, and this did lead in at least one case to the outright collapse of an army. There was also Constantinople to contend with. An alternative was to take boats over and arrive much more speedily. Then once established the colonies there were supplies to deliver, wealth to extract, and soldiers, pilgrims and settlers who wanted to come and go. This meant an increased need for shipping, and Italy primarily fulfilled that need. This was an impetus for certain related financial / economic developments that we can discuss in the next post that would have significant ramifications for the course of European history (proto-capitalism, mathematical-rationalism).
• What else? Hmm.. I think lastly, I learned about the Crusaders (in Crusader #4) sacking the city of Constantinople (1204).  Koenigsberger has mentioned this in parting, but I haven't reached the part of the book where he deals with this properly yet. Still it seems worth mentioning here. He has noted that this action contributed to the eventual ability of the Ottomans (Turks) to subsequently end the Byzantine empire and strike further into Europe / the Balkans. It's ironic that it was the western Christians who ultimately brought about the end of the Eastern empire, which had functioned for so long as a bulwark against non-Christian forces pushing into the continent from the east. Another bit of history I was not familiar with.
• EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention another part of this story: the formation of the knightly 'holy orders' such as the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers (the Order of St John). Incidentally, we have a national 'priory' of St John here in Australia which provides ambulance services in various states, including here in Western Australia. One of those bits of history that jumped out at me after reading about the Hospitallers. Apparently the Order of St John was constituted in 1888, and does indeed trace itself back to the Hospitallers.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Oops, and over a week went by. I'm still reading, but I'm finding it hard to get any time to write about. Still, that's unlikely to change in the near future. So I'll try and write a bit more tonight.

Looking still at around the 12-13 centuries...

Something I found interesting that Koenigsberger draws attention to is how early we see the origins of capitalistic enterprise. Even at this early point, when looking for example at the wool trade, we find people in Flanders (I think is one location) doing things like buying fine wool from England in bulk, then paying people to card and spin it within their own homes, then taking that and having it woven by someone else, then taking that and selling it. A kind of 'vertical integration', where they had control over the workers to the extent that they were in cases forbidden from taking on jobs from others. Similarly something like this occurred in Italy (I think Florence) with 'wool guilds'. We have a kind of 'proletariat', but without any factories.

My original understanding of guilds was of a fellowship of craftsmen, who provided communal aid to each other and their community, and controlled things such as who got to be recognised as a 'master', what prices people could charge, and so on. And this is something that becomes more prominent as we move further along. But guilds could also be effectively cartels of a sort, run by wealthy people to stitch up markets and control labour. So it was apparently with some of the wool guilds.

Yes, this kind of 'proto-capitalism' impacted only a very small percentage of the working population. This is the age of the agrarian economy. But still the fact that it is very much visible this stage was interesting. And we can see it already beginning to spread into other areas that required a significant amount of money, such as mining, or ship building.

Italy in particular was perhaps the most important hub of such activities, because of its dominance in trading (and recall previously that the Italians received a boost here in facilitating movement of people and goods for the crusades). But the reason the Italians defeated their rivals for securing this trade, according to Koenigsberger, was because they had the

most sophisticated commercial techniques; different forms of partnership which allowed them to raise the large amounts of working capital needed for the ships, provisions, goods and wages in overseas ventures that might last many months.

With these partnerships, it was important that merchants be able to ensure each partner could receive the profits or carry the losses of a venture. And so, here we see the origins of 'double entry book keeping'. There is a book specifically about this apparently. Apparently the inventor (called the founder of accounting and book keeping) was one Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan monk, and a mathematician who taught mathematics to Leonardo Da Vinci of all people.

I want to quote another particularly interesting part here:

With the development of the new commercial techniques there developed also new attitudes of mind. Rational calculation of economic enterprise, a numerical, mathematical, assessment of possibilities; and rational mathematical, commercial methods came to be seen as the recipe for success.

We can draw a link between the coming intellectual renaissance, and the growing rational frame of mind among the intellectuals, and the commercial activities, accounting and banking that was taking place. Following from this, you could make the argument (although Koenigsberger does not say in so many words) that indirectly, the blood spilled by the crusades contributed down the line to the development of rationalist philosophy.

A closing thought: I am reminded of something Koenigsberger does say later in the book about a different case: "The achievements and the tragedies of European and human history cannot be easily separated." (p 279) How true.

On the one hand, if we look to anything we consider "good", and we find great harm. Yet also strangely, when we look at many terrible things (the crusades, or the black death), we can find some positive outcome down the road. There is no point at which we can really draw neat lines and isolate these elements entirely. Instead we see good and evil feeding into each other in a kind of dialectic of unintended and unknowable consequences.

It's like that Treehouse of horrors short in the Simpsons.

Shopkeeper: Ah, perhaps this will please the gentleman. [picks a Krusty the Clown doll] Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse.
Homer: [worried] Ooooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt.
Homer: [relieved] That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: [worried] That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of topping.
Homer: [relieved] That's good.
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate. [Homer stares] That's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

OK, an quick entry focusing on just one element: something I didn't cover earlier when I spoke about the transition to the high middle ages: Internationalism vs Regionalism.

This has been another really interesting part of learning about medieval Europe. In the early middle ages, there was a strong tendency towards internationalism for a small section of the population.

For example, specialised craftspeople (such as stone masons) often needed to be itinerant, because there was only so much work for them in any given region given the relatively small size of the economies (particularly in the western and northern kingdoms). Once a cathedral was completed, for example, you'd move on to the next place where a project needed more help. And that next place could be in an entirely different part of Europe.

The literate class in the west (scribes, priests, merchants, and such) also shared a common language in Latin, which they not only wrote, but spoke. In part they were simply inheriting the literary culture of the empire. In part, it was also a result of the internationalism and of the Catholic church. But also, this internationalism again here reflected the underdeveloped nature of the regions. Regional populations and economies were still too small for them to really function as intellectual or artistic hubs in and of themselves.

In other words, the loss of the urban centres in the west - which only very gradually built up to having populations in the tens of thousands - the smallness of the regional economies, these conditions fostered a certain internationalism among artistic and literate people out of necessity. This internationalism contributed to the development of a kind of post-Roman, pan-European culture. For example, a 12th century cathedral built in France and a 12 century cathedral built in Germany could look very similar.

Yet as we move into the high middle ages, regionalism begins to gain dominance. Not to the exclusion of internationalism, but it is now a countering force. As regions began to increase in population, as they grew wealthier, they developed their own kind of gravity, as it were. More craftspeople and intellectuals could work within the borders of a given place. More books were written in regional languages. More intellectuals could find learned company to collaborate with or study under without having to head to Italy or Paris.

This regionalism also had political implications. In the early middle ages, the 'universalist' claims of the imperial title or the Church were dominant. And the Church worked hard to secure its power as something standing above that of empire, working within that framework. Yet as kingdoms grew in power, they could more easily assert their own independence vis. the universalist claims of the Church. This lead in one instance to the French crown squaring off against the Papacy at the opening of the 14th century, with agents of the French king actually capturing and mistreating the then pope such that he died. The Papacy was subsequently moved to Avignon for nearly 70 years, with all 7 popes of that period being French! (Although that I understand that doesn't mean the Papacy was rendered entirely subservient to the French crown, and that Avignon / southern France at that time was a relatively independent region politically and culturally.) This is for Koenigsberger quite symbolic of the growing power (economic / political / intellectual) of the regions.

Some of my own general thoughts on the above phenomena:

In my own mind, I realised I tended to think of 'internationalism' in an overly simplistic way, whereby regional economic development leads to greater specialisation, which leads to greater trade between regions, and in turn fosters an interchange of people and ideas. From this perspective, Europe should be more 'international' as we move into the middle ages, not less. While this may have been true in terms of trade, intellectually and culturally it was (in certain respects if not entirely so) the opposite! And this is really instructive. The viability if you will, of a place to stand on its own feet, culturally, artistically, intellectually, can mean it can afford to be less connected, less international in outlook. (Naturally, this is a complex subject, and there are countervailing tendencies at work. With the printing press, for example, we see an enhancement of internationalism thanks to the ability of people to more easily read what those in other places are writing.)

And indeed, if you look at the world today, you see plenty of examples of this. The Dutch, for example, are famously good at speaking English. And well they should be, given they are a small country. They cannot expect to get far speaking Dutch outside of the Netherlands. Similarly their large companies are very international. I doubt you would be getting a job at one if you spoke no English! In France though it's a different matter. You can get along pretty nicely culturally and economically (and even travelling to quite a few places, like ex-colonies) speaking just French. You could also contrast the international, export-oriented nature of South Korea's music industry to the domestic consumption-oriented music industry of Japan, which has twice the population. Or consider how China's cultural exports in the form of film and music largely remain restricted to their own cultural / linguistic sphere. In part because they can afford for this to be the case. China is big enough. There's no need to sell movies to Americans.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

OK, baby is asleep! Another history post before I go back to work.

Let's talk Russia, as that's fresh on my mind. I wonder if Jubal might have some thoughts on this one too given the historical link between Russia and Byzantium.

Koenigsberger goes into some detail in a few sections on how Russia's social / political structure came to differ fairly markedly from what we see in the west. More specifically, he is offering a kind of explanation of how Russia came to be particularly dominated by autocratic government. I'll list his points below. But by all means I am also keen to hear any counterfactuals or qualifications. I wonder to what extent his analysis holds up today, and how much it may be coloured by the politics of the time in which the book was written (still prior to the fall of the Berlin wall).

But, assuming for now the premise: "Since the medieval period, Russia has been more autocratic than western Europe." Why does Koenigsberger think so? (And again here, we are initially speaking also of 'Russia' before 'Russia' even really exists, so there's an ambiguity here.)

First, early on, there is the form that Christianity took. Koenigsberger mentions Cyril and Methodius, two Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries who went to spread Christianity to the Slavic peoples. For the purpose of translating the bible, they devised a new script known as Glagolitic. This was a precursor to Cyrillic, which incorporated some Glagolitic elements. Koenigsberger point out that Christianity in Slavic regions at this time was received through this filter of what was translated, and what was translated was very scarce. There was lack of access to the kinds of pagan literature or theological commentaries that helped lend more ambiguity or nuance to Latin Christianity. This contributed to Slavic Christianity being relatively more dogmatic or conservative.

Second, the impact of the Mongols. The Mongols were able to dominate Russian territory for quite a long time (I think for some 200 years). Koenigsberger does not develop an argument about any general cultural impact of this (although he notes a few things that the Russian princes learned through collaborating and/or fighting with them, such as the importance of information networks). But something he did point out that I thought was interesting was the significant migration of peasants it caused. For a long time, Moscow was not a particularly developed area. It is remote. It is cold. People were living further down on the plains around the big rivers. But with the coming of the Mongols, many moved further north into regions that were only rarely attacked by Mongol raiding parties. Moscow was once such place. This is not the only reason it turned into a great capital - this was also a political achievement - but it was an important element. However, while these peasants were welcomed into the region, they weren't integrated into the kinds of reciprocal duty / obligation relationships you often see in feudal Europe. They were more or less at the mercy of the Princes.

Third, the lack of separate city-based power units. Something I learned early on this book was how in the west larger cities came to operate under different rules to the rest of a kingdom. Quite early on, cities developed a degree of autonomy, and people living there understood their relationship to each other separately to their relationship as a vassal to their lord. Yet Koenigsberger claims that this kind of 'civic identity' and political / legal independence didn't get a chance to take root in Russia. Novgorod did hold its own for a while, but was eventually conquered and subjugated underneath the rulers in Moscow. Koenigsberger also contrasts how, while houses in western European cities would front on to the street, houses in Russian cities would face inwards towards their own courtyard, and often be surrounded by fences. He suggests this was reflective of that lack of 'civic' mindedness.

Fourth, the later subjugation of the Church under the government. Koenigsberger claims that secular / religious tension in Latin Europe - or to put it differently, the power struggles between the Catholic Church and the different kingdoms - was a source of 'dynamism' that worked against autocratic tendencies / mentalities. Meanwhile, Russia followed the lead of Byzantium, in linking Church and state much closer together. Later, they gained increased independence from the Patriarch of Constantinople, and understood themselves as an independent centre of Orthodox Christianity, like a kind of 'new Byzantium'. Then in the 18th century the Russian government formally took over the Russian Orthodox Church, such that it was like a branch of the state.

So to sum up, we have...

1. An early tendency towards dogmatic interpretations of Christianity.
2. Migrations away from the mongols enhancing the power of the princes vis the peasants.
3. A lack of independent cities.
4. Subjugation of the Church under the government.

I think for Koenigsberger these factors set the scene for what would come later with the empire and then the Soviets.