Ancient World Review

Medieval England Twice As Well Off As Today's Poorest Nations

The common picture of the Middle Ages as being a time of  grinding poverty, illiteracy and subsistence living when the peasants spent their lives digging up filth in the fields is all wrong:

"Medieval England was not only far more prosperous than previously believed, it also actually boasted an average income that would be more than double the average per capita income of the world’s poorest nations today." Source: Science Daily (2010).

"... [This] research provides the first annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain between 1700 and 1870. Far more data are available for the pre-1870 period than is widely realised. Britain after the Norman conquest (11th century) was a literate and numerate society that generated substantial written records, many of which have survived. As a result, the research was aided by a wide variety of records -- among them manorial records, tithes, farming records, and probate records."

Wars and outbreaks of disease disrupted the economy in certain places and times, just like they do today, but medieval Europe in general was much more prosperous than commonly believed:

 "Trade and commerce in the medieval world developed to such an extent that even relatively small communities had access to weekly markets and, perhaps a day’s travel away, larger but less frequent fairs, where the full range of consumer goods of the period was set out to tempt the shopper and small retailer. Markets and fairs were organised by large estate owners, town councils, and some churches and monasteries, who, granted a license to do so by their sovereign, hoped to gain revenue from stall holder fees and boost the local economy as shoppers used peripheral services. International trade had been present since Roman times but improvements in transportation and banking, as well as the economic development of northern Europe, caused a boom from the 9th century CE." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

The market as an institution dates back to the 8th century BC in Greece, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

Related: The Essence of Money - A Medieval Tale. (Short video on the "market money" used in medieval trade fairs.)

With an estimated per capita annual income of around $1000 (1990 dollars), medieval England was much better off than places like modern Zaire, Haiti, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, just to name a few of the countries listed for comparison purposes in this study:

According to the researchers, "Our work sheds new light on England's economic past, revealing that per capita incomes in medieval England were substantially higher than the 'bare bones subsistence' levels experienced by people living in poor countries in our modern world. The majority of the British population in medieval times could afford to consume what we call a 'respectability basket' of consumer goods that allowed for occasional luxuries. By the late Middle Ages, the English people were in a position to afford a varied diet including meat, dairy produce and ale, as well as the less highly processed grain products that comprised the bulk of the 'bare bones subsistence' diet."

Note how the Medieval Warm Period led to an economic boom. According to modern climate alarmists, global warming would be a disaster. The truth, of course, is just the opposite.

The Roman Empire had extensive trade networks with countries as far away as India and China. When the western empire collapsed in the fifth century AD, the disruption of trade and central government plunged Europe into the so-called Dark Ages, but Europe with its relentless industry gradually recovered and the re-establishment of trade on both the local and global levels led to a rise in general prosperity which in turn led to the Industrial Revolution. According to the researchers who conducted this 2010 study, "the Industrial Revolution did not come out of the blue. Rather, it was the culmination of a long period of economic development stretching back as far as the late medieval period."

New Neanderthal Remains Discovered In Italy's Ciota Ciara Cave

Coverage of the Ciota Ciara site starts at 5:12.

"Excavations conducted by the University of Ferrara at Ciota Ciara Cave [Borgosesia province, Italy] have yielded remains belonging to Neanderthal man dating back 300,000 years." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"According to the press release, two teeth, a canine and a lower molar, discovered in the same stratigraphic levels where human remains had been found in 2019, an occipital bone (part of the posterior portion of the skull) and a second lower incisor, probably belonging to an adult individual of young age, were found in during the this year's excavation campaign."

Skilled Female Potters Traveled Around Baltic Nearly 5,000 Years Ago

Ancient pottery techniques. Location unknown.

"During the Corded Ware Culture period, Finland, Estonia and Sweden received skillful female artisans, who had learned to create fashionable and innovative pottery in the eastern region of the Gulf of Finland. The Baltic Sea countries also had a close network for trade in pottery." Source: Science Daily (2018).

"...Finland, Estonia and Sweden had at least five different manufacturing areas for Corded Ware pottery which engaged in active pottery trade across the Baltic Sea approximately 5000 years ago. Häme in Southern Finland had a manufacturing hub of Corded Ware pottery which can be described as quasi-industrial in Neolithic terms, and spread its products along the Finnish coast and into Estonia.

"...In traditional societies it is usually women who are in charge of the pottery craft and it is also common for women to relocate upon marriage. Corded Ware burials show that females were more likely to receive pottery as burial gifts, and analyses from European cemeteries show that the women were more likely to relocate during their lifetime."

 

The Battle On The Ice 1242 AD (Updated)

Subject starts at app 0:40.

"The Battle on the Ice ... was fought between the Republic of Novgorod led by prince Alexander Nevsky and the forces of Livonian Order and Bishopric of Dorpat led by bishop Hermann of Dorpat on April 5, 1242, at Lake Peipus [see next video]. The battle is notable for having been fought largely on the frozen lake, and this gave the battle its name." Source: Wikipedia.

"The battle was a significant defeat sustained by the crusaders during the Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. The Crusaders' defeat in the battle marked the end of their campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Slavic territories for the next century."

It's easy to forget that the Crusades weren't just fought against Muslims in the so-called Holy Land, but also against pagans and other Christians in Europe. Technically, a crusade was any church-sanctioned campaign and military/religious orders, i.e., organized gangs, like the Teutonic Knights were used to forcibly convert or slaughter unbelievers and suppress rivals to Rome's hegemony. And these "holy warriors" went rogue sometimes, operating like bandits or mercenaries in the pursuit of their own interests when they weren't massacring Jews and Saracens or attacking Christian kingdoms.

This is how "orthodox" Christianity took over the West. The Eastern Orthodox Church managed to stand up to the onslaught, however. It is now the second largest Christian church in the world, due in large part to its military victories over Catholic forces:

"The legacy of the battle, and its decisiveness, came because it halted the eastward expansion of the Teutonic Order [1] and established a permanent border line through the Narva River and Lake Peipus dividing Eastern Orthodoxy from Western Catholicism. The knights' defeat at the hands of [Alexander Nevsky's] forces prevented the crusaders from retaking Pskov, the linchpin of their eastern crusade. The Novgorodians succeeded in defending Russian territory, and the crusaders never mounted another serious challenge eastward. Alexander was canonised as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1574." (Wikipedia)

[1] "Throughout the 13th and 14th century CE the Catholic Teutonic knights crusaded in Prussia and the Baltic area mainly against pagan Lithuanians and Orthodox Russians, but as the order was bent on expansion for its own sake, many other nationalities were fought besides those." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

From the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky directed by Eisenstein. Music by Prokofiev. Full movie can be found here.

Despite the fact that he agreed to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, Alexander Nevsky is a legendary figure in Russia, a major national hero. Churches and cathedrals have been named after him. "On 24 September 2008, St. Alexander Nevsky was declared the main hero of Russia's history by popular vote ... In December 2008, he was voted the greatest Russian in the Name of Russia television poll." (Wikipedia)

"Hail and take heed, this is the tale one of the most famous Russian Heroes in history, second only to perhaps Vladimir of Kiev, the Baptizer of All Rus’. Few leaders have captured the hearts and minds of the Russians like Alexander Nevsky, who was voted Russia’s greatest leader of all time in 2008." Source: Russia Insider (2018).

Tapeworms & Roundworms In Medieval Europe

The roundworm: irrefutable evidence of God's design.

"Although helminth infections -- including tapeworms and roundworms -- are among the world's top neglected diseases, they are no longer endemic in Europe. However, researchers report that these infections were common in Medieval Europe, according to grave samples [see note below] analyzed from across the continent." Source: Science Daily.

Unlike me, this woman at least has an excuse for her malfunctioning brain.

Note: I'm not sure what the article means by "grave sample." It was kind of unclear whether the scientists who conducted this study found direct evidence of helminth infection in the bones they looked at or if they were making inferences based on the presence of the parasites in the soil associated with the bones:

"In the new work, Adrian Smith of the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues analyzed 589 grave samples from 7 European sites dated between 680 and 1700 CE. Samples were taken from the pelvises of skeletons. Data associated with the sites allowed them to assess the influence of age, sex and community size on helminth infection rates."

The Catholic Holy Relic Racket (Updated)

The traffic in holy relics was one of the biggest scams perpetuated by the medieval Catholic church, ranking up there with the sale of indulgences. Relics were tourist attractions in the middle ages, just like they are today. Back in the medieval world, an insignificant local parish could become wealthy and famous by attracting pilgrims, so it's not very surprising that relics were in high demand. They could be almost anything -- the bones of a saint, a lock of a martyr's hair, the "Holy Prepuce,"  the fingernails of an early church father, a vial of sweat from the brow of Jesus, a scrap of wood from the True Cross, etc., etc. Most, if not all of them, were fake, of course, but the faithful never asked any questions.

Relics were sacred power objects. They were also infectious, i.e., the magical power in a relic could be very conveniently transferred to another object by contact, thus creating an almost infinite supply of relics which could then be set up in their own shrines.

"...relics aren't necessarily always body parts," according to Vice. "They come in three different flavors: First-class relics are body parts, second-class relics are pieces of clothing or things the saints touched while they were alive, and third-class relics are objects that other relics have touched. A relic has power no matter where it falls on this hierarchy, which is why you have so many lying around, and so many folks praying to them."

Body parts had the most talismanic power and were highly prized for their ability to extract money from pilgrims. For example, the bones of Saint Nicholas were thought to exude "a clear watery liquid which smells like rose water, called manna (or myrrh), which is believed by the faithful to possess miraculous powers," according to Wikipedia. The pilgrims who came to see these holy objects provided a major boost to local economies. Like modern tourists, they had to eat and sleep somewhere while they were in town. They would buy food, lodging and local products, not to mention the donations they made to the church.

Pilgrims still pay homage to the relics of St. Nicholas.

Abrahamic religions supposedly condemn idolatry, but if this isn't idolatry, I don't know what is. And there's no telling where these venerated objects came from originally. The conventional history of Nicholas's relics is a classic example of the way the relic traffic worked in the medieval world:

"Nicholas' tomb in Myra had become a popular place of pilgrimage. Because of the many wars and attacks in the region, some Christians were concerned that access to the tomb might become difficult. For both the religious and commercial advantages of a major pilgrimage site, the Italian cities of Venice and Bari vied to get the Nicholas relics. Taking advantage of the confusion, in the spring of 1087, sailors from Bari in Apulia seized part of the remains of the saint from his burial church in Myra, over the objections of the Greek Orthodox monks." (Wikipedia)

That's the story, anyway. There was no method for determining the authenticity of body parts in the middle ages, so the sailors could've just brought back some animal bones and passed them off as the bones of Saint Nicholas. Who would know the difference? And who knows if the original bones in Myra actually belonged to the saint? One way or another, the monks had good reason to complain about the theft of their valuable relics. Without them, they'd go out of business.

The Shroud of Turin, probably the most famous talismanic object associated with the Catholic church, is still a source of revenue. The church doesn't charge to view the shroud, but it attracts thousands of visitors every year and all kinds of shroud-related trip packages, hotel deals and walking tours are available at a price (1). And the controversy over the shroud's authenticity has spawned a minor publishing market for books arguing one side or another.

(1) Catholic pilgrimages, like Holy Land vacation deals, are a big business, and sometimes include an "audience with the Pope," assuming he isn't busy telling Europe to open its borders to unlimited immigration or trying to figure out how to deal with the church's latest pedophile scandal.

Next video shows Pope Francis praying in front of the Shroud of Turin back in 2015.

The belief in relics is still alive and well. In the case of the shroud, which is almost certainly a medieval forgery, many Christians are convinced that it actually shows the face of Christ despite the fact that no one knows what Jesus looked like (assuming that he ever actually existed). As for relics in general, a lot of people, especially in the third world, still believe that the remains of saints and various objects associated with church legends have some kind of supernatural power to heal disease and forgive sins.

In other words, a lot of Christians are devout fetishists.

Related:

Pilgrimage Routes and the Cult of the Relic

Hoaxes of the Middle Ages

The Professional Killers Of The Middle Ages

Medieval knights were professional killers who had more in common with Tony Soprano than the mythical Knights of the Round Table. And the romanticized Code of Chivalry, with its vows to respect the honor of women and protect the weak and innocent, was basically just a code of conduct designed to bind knights to their lords and restrain their more violent impulses. In other words, Chivalry was a system for keeping a class of fighting men under control in the interests of discipline and public order.

Kings needed the knights to fight their enemies, but controlling these violent thugs was easier said than done and they had a tendency to run amok, especially in peacetime when there was little opportunity for "legitimate" plunder in the name of the monarch. Tournaments were one way for the knights to blow off steam and gain some glory, but managing them was a constant problem, both for the kings and for the church, which was anxious to keep them from raiding its property.

In the Song of Roland, knights are told to "fear God and his church." Translated, this means: "don't steal from the church and slaughter its monks and lay people." In other words, the church, having no other means to resist armed force, had to rely on the power of superstition to keep the knights docile and direct their energy elsewhere. The knights were also instructed to "serve the liege Lord in valor and faith," which is just another way of saying "don't rebel and chop the king's head off or hold him for ransom and slaughter his subjects for your own amusement."

Knights were valuable for their fighting skills, but those same skills made them difficult to control. One of the reasons behind the first crusades was to keep the knights busy and to provide them with a means to enrich themselves at a safe distance. If the knights weren't satisfied, if they couldn't achieve their ambitions, they would turn against their liege Lord and find another one who would better serve their interests by providing opportunities for plunder. It was safer, more politic, to direct their violence against a foreign enemy thousands of miles away.

The knights and crusader armies were never completely under control, however. They committed all sorts of mayhem during their travels: slaughtering Jews along the way, laying siege to Constantinople and so on. Their liege Lords weren't any different. For example, King Richard the Lion-Hearted slaughtered thousands of enemy prisoners at the Massacre of Ayyadieh in 1191. The massacre probably included the women and children who accompanied the enemy soldiers, but they were infidels and, conveniently, weren't protected by the Code of Chivalry.

The Code protected the knights from other knights, and it served to protect their Lords and the church from the murderous rampages of their soldiers, at least to a certain extent. Politics was force back then, just as it is now, but politics is also a system for controlling and directing that force in order to exploit the natural resources of a territory. That's what the State is: The monopoly on violence over a given territory. The trouble is that rulers have a difficult time controlling that violence. The Roman emperors had endless problems with the legions and Praetorian Guard, and medieval kings had the same kind of trouble dealing with the real-life versions of Sir Galahad.

Note: The medieval melee is still a form of combat sport. This stuff is a lot more interesting than, say, football, and the only kneeling these reenactors do is when one of their opponents pounds them into the ground.

Related: Feudalism and Knights in Medieval Europe

5,000-Yr-Old "Woodhenge" Discovered In Portugal

"The remains of several timber circles constructed over 4,500 years ago have been discovered at the Perdigões complex archaeological site [1] in Portugal." Source: Live Science.

"Though some news outlets have described the circles as a 'woodhenge,' akin to the famous Neolithic monument of Stonehenge, archaeologists prefer not to call it that - instead referring to them a 'Timber Circles.' While the archaeologists prefer a different name the design is similar with wooden posts encircling an area. 

"'We interpret it as a ceremonial place and prefer to refer to it as timber circles,'" said António Valera, an archaeologist with the Era Arqueologia company, who is leading excavations at the site."

The timber circles of the original Woodhenge northeast of Stonehenge.

[1] According to Wikipedia, "The location of Perdigões, in Reguengos de Monsaraz, is thought to have been an important location. Twenty small ivory statues dating to 4,500 years BP have been discovered there since 2011. It has constructions dating back to about 5,500 years. It has a necropolis. Outside the location there is a cromlech. The Almendres Cromlech site, in Évora, has megaliths from the late 6th to the early 3rd millennium BC. The Anta Grande do Zambujeiro, also in Évora, is dated between the early 4th and the mid 3rd millennium BC. The Dolmen of Cunha Baixa, in Mangualde Municipality, is dated between 3000 and 2500 BC. The Cave of Salemas was used as a burial ground during the Neolithic."

No English captions available, but this 2018 video has some good views of the Perdigoes complex archaeological site.

An Overview Of The Mongol Empire (Updated)

"The Mongol Empire ... existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history," according to Wikipedia.

Note: The British Empire at its height was larger than the Great Mongol Empire, but it was scattered across several continents.

The short history of the Mongols is so complex and covers so much territory that I'm not even going to try to describe it in any kind of detail. Basically, Genghis Khan united the savage Mongol tribes of the Asian steppes, invaded China, then sent some of his forces west to attack Europe. The Great Khan and his sons led these various battles, spreading terror and massive destruction wherever they went.

"The Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century was the attempted conquest of Europe by the Mongol Empire, by way of the destruction of East Slavic principalities, such as Kiev and Vladimir. The Mongol invasions also occurred in Central Europe, which led to warfare among fragmented Poland, such as the Battle of Legnica (9 April 1241) and in the Battle of Mohi (11 April 1241) in the Kingdom of Hungary." (Wikipedia)

Genghis Khan died in 1227 AD. One of his sons, Ogedei, became the new Khan in 1229. The Mongol forces in the West might have gone on to conquer Europe, changing world history forever, but they began to withdraw in 1242. To this day, no one knows for sure what happened. According to Wikipedia, "the true reasons for the Mongol withdrawal are not fully known, but numerous plausible explanations exist."

The invaders might have left following the death of Ogedei in the East -- maybe they had to go back in order to take part in the inevitable leadership challenge. It's also possible that their forces were bogged down in Europe and got stretched too thin after suffering a large number of casualties. The weather may have played a role as well, the harsh winter making it difficult to feed their horses, and internal rebellions could have weakened them to the point where withdrawal was their only option.

The Mongols were always an unstable coalition and their unity depended on strong, charismatic leaders like Genghis Khan. His death led to the inevitable wars of succession and by 1294 "the Mongol Empire had fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives." (Wikipedia) After that it wasn't long before Mongol rule collapsed all over Eurasia.

"In 1335, the [Mongol] Il-Khan ruler of Persia and the Middle East, Abu Said, died of bubonic plague during a war with his northern cousins, the [Turkicized Mongol] Golden Horde. This signaled the beginning of the end for Mongol rule in the region." Source: "How The Black Death Started In Asia," Thought Company.

The Mongols may have been responsible, at least in part, for carrying the Black Death into Europe, but the growth in trade between East and West probably had more to do with the spread of the contagion. One way or another, the Mongols had a devastating effect on Eurasia. Overall, they are thought to have been responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of up to 40 million people. Despite that incredible statistic, however, some historians argue that the impact of the Mongol invasions was beneficial for the regions they vanquished:

"In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege." Source: "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World," by Jack Weatherford.

Weatherford, an anthropologist, believes that the popular image we have of the Mongols is an historical distortion created by 18th century European writers:

"Whereas the Renaissance writers and explorers treated Genghis Khan and the Mongols with open adulation, the eighteenth century Enlightenment in Europe produced a growing anti-Asian spirit that often focused on the Mongols, in particular, as the symbol of everything evil or defective..." (Wikipedia)

Lecture from 2013. Closed-captions helpful.

This revisionist view of Genghis Khan could be true, I suppose, at least to a certain extent, but I find it very hard to believe that the Mongol hordes brought a "blossoming of civilization" to medieval Europe. They were more than just a cartoonish mob of mindless, bloodthirsty marauders, of course, but it seems like quite a stretch to depict the Great Khan as some kind of enlightened progressive:

"Destruction during the 13th century Mongol conquests has been widely noted in both scholarly literature and popular memory. The Mongol army conquered hundreds of cities and villages and also killed millions of men, women and children. It has been estimated that approximately 5% of the world's population was killed either during or immediately after the Turco-Mongol invasions. If the calculations are accurate, the events would be the deadliest acts of mass killings in human history." (Wikipedia)

Note: If it's true that Genghis Khan abolished torture, that would make him more humane that most of our recent US presidents.

Related: William of Rubrick's Account of the Mongols.

The Brutal Brilliance of Genghis Khan

Highly recommended: Mongol, The Rise Of Genghis Khan, a 2007 semi-historical movie from Russia.

Syphilis Was In Europe Long Before Columbus

Video from 2017.

"Columbus brought syphilis to Europe -- or did he? A recent study now indicates that Europeans could already have been infected with this sexually transmitted disease before the 15th century. In addition, researchers have discovered a hitherto unknown pathogen causing a related disease. The predecessor of syphilis and its related diseases could be over 2,500 years old." Source: Science Daily.

Note: The first recorded syphilis outbreak occurred in Europe in 1495. Some researchers believe that Columbus brought the disease back from the New World, but "other researchers believe syphilis itself circulated in Europe for centuries and became more virulent in the late 1400s. They point to a growing body of archaeological evidence: skeletal remains from across Europe with suggestive bone lesions, some possibly dating to the 14th century. Yet the evidence has always been inconclusive: Bone lesions can be caused by any of the Treponemal diseases, and some people with syphilis may not develop skeletal signs." (Science)

This latest research suggests that the treponema bacillus responsible for syphilis, bejel, and yaws may have evolved in Europe thousands of years ago:

"'Using our ancient genomes, it is now possible for the first time to apply a more reliable dating to the treponema family tree,' [according to one of the researchers.] The genetic analyses conducted in this study suggest that the predecessor of all modern Treponema pallidum subspecies likely evolved at least 2,500 years ago. For venereal syphilis in particular, the latest common ancestor existed between the 12th and 16th century."