Alcuin
of Zarkanya
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2005
- Messages
- 1,451
I think Byzantium was more powerful than we northern and western Europeans care to recall. Its army used the first mounted armored knights, the cataphracts, was commanded in distinct army units, the themata, which at least superficially resemble Gondor’s regional levies, paid for by regional commanders (Forlong of Lossarnach or the Lord of Dol Amroth), backed by a small but professional army that resembles the Byzantine tagma. We recall such incidents as the Fourth Crusade, where under the direction of the blind Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, from which the Byzantine Empire never recovered. We think this means the Crusaders were stronger: I don’t believe that’s the case: I believe they attacked their allies, took advantage that the far-flung armies of Byzantium were all deployed along the front lines, and destroyed the effective seat of Christendom.
Powerful kingdoms emerged from the breakup of Charlemagne’s empire, as already noted. After the rise of France under Charles the Bald, Germany arose under Holy Roman Emperor Otto I the Great. Despite many changes over the centuries, these two nations still exist – and until recently (still within living memory!) contested “the bowling alley” that separates them.
But weak, divided kingdoms mark the history of Britain until William the Conqueror. The Britons fought among themselves after the departure of the Romans: Vortigern infamously invited Hengist and Horsa to fight for him so that he might overcome his rivals among the Britons: it proved not only his undoing, but “the Ruin of Britain”. The native Britons – we should say Romano-Britons, for Emperor Constantine the Great was born in the Imperial city of Eboracum, modern-day York¸ were never able to unite themselves to drive out the Anglo-Saxon invaders (with the possible exception of unification under King Arthur and his victory over the Saxons at Mount Baden). One by one, the Brittonic kingdoms fell: Rhegin, Ynys Weith, Caer Colun, Deifr, Gwent, Caer Lundein (London), Pengwern, Novant; and finally Rheged, Gododdin, Cait, Dumnonia, Ystrad Clud (Strathclyde), and last of all Gwynedd and Powys (together, Wales).
Nor were the Anglo-Saxons immune to such civil wars that weakened them against invaders: Viking invasions saw the fall of Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Merica. Only Alfred the Great stemmed the overwhelming tide of the Norsemen, his grandson Æthelstan the Glorious finally decisively defeating the Vikings and uniting the Anglo-Saxons to become the first true King of England. And by the way, Æthelstan is Anglo-Saxon for “noble stone”, reminiscent of Aragorn’s regnal name, Elessar: “Elf stone”. And Offa’s Dike famously divides Wales from Mercia – and modern England. That border, defined by “a deep dike with a steep wall on the further side” very much as Tolkien describes the border of Arthedain and Cardolan, is more than 1200 years old.
And this without reference to the nearly continuous internecine civil wars of the Irish and Scots, which brought ruin, death, and misery to nobles and common folk alike.
There is also the example of the Visigoths, whose kingdom was lost to the marauding Moslem Saracens because of endless court intrigue, civil war, and familial murder. Medieval France also suffered division and civil war; but for the intervention of Joan of Arc, Charles VII would never have come to the throne, and but for his madness (inherited perhaps from his French grandfather, Charles VI Valois King of France), Henry VI of England might well have been king of both England and France.
The history of the British Isles shows no lack of ruinous insular warfare that invites invaders to trample and conquer its inhabitants.
Before twentieth-century Prohibition in the United States, alcohol consumption was much higher than today. We have lists of the consumption of alcohol for the colonial delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia (because this was paid for out of “government” funds), where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed and from which the American Revolution was waged politically, and from what I understand, by modern standards, everyone there was smashed out of his gourd.
Powerful kingdoms emerged from the breakup of Charlemagne’s empire, as already noted. After the rise of France under Charles the Bald, Germany arose under Holy Roman Emperor Otto I the Great. Despite many changes over the centuries, these two nations still exist – and until recently (still within living memory!) contested “the bowling alley” that separates them.
But weak, divided kingdoms mark the history of Britain until William the Conqueror. The Britons fought among themselves after the departure of the Romans: Vortigern infamously invited Hengist and Horsa to fight for him so that he might overcome his rivals among the Britons: it proved not only his undoing, but “the Ruin of Britain”. The native Britons – we should say Romano-Britons, for Emperor Constantine the Great was born in the Imperial city of Eboracum, modern-day York¸ were never able to unite themselves to drive out the Anglo-Saxon invaders (with the possible exception of unification under King Arthur and his victory over the Saxons at Mount Baden). One by one, the Brittonic kingdoms fell: Rhegin, Ynys Weith, Caer Colun, Deifr, Gwent, Caer Lundein (London), Pengwern, Novant; and finally Rheged, Gododdin, Cait, Dumnonia, Ystrad Clud (Strathclyde), and last of all Gwynedd and Powys (together, Wales).
Nor were the Anglo-Saxons immune to such civil wars that weakened them against invaders: Viking invasions saw the fall of Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Merica. Only Alfred the Great stemmed the overwhelming tide of the Norsemen, his grandson Æthelstan the Glorious finally decisively defeating the Vikings and uniting the Anglo-Saxons to become the first true King of England. And by the way, Æthelstan is Anglo-Saxon for “noble stone”, reminiscent of Aragorn’s regnal name, Elessar: “Elf stone”. And Offa’s Dike famously divides Wales from Mercia – and modern England. That border, defined by “a deep dike with a steep wall on the further side” very much as Tolkien describes the border of Arthedain and Cardolan, is more than 1200 years old.
And this without reference to the nearly continuous internecine civil wars of the Irish and Scots, which brought ruin, death, and misery to nobles and common folk alike.
There is also the example of the Visigoths, whose kingdom was lost to the marauding Moslem Saracens because of endless court intrigue, civil war, and familial murder. Medieval France also suffered division and civil war; but for the intervention of Joan of Arc, Charles VII would never have come to the throne, and but for his madness (inherited perhaps from his French grandfather, Charles VI Valois King of France), Henry VI of England might well have been king of both England and France.
The history of the British Isles shows no lack of ruinous insular warfare that invites invaders to trample and conquer its inhabitants.
Reinheitsgebot, “purity order,” to make certain the beer was not contaminated. “Barley, hops, and water.” That’s it. I understand the list of permissible ingredients has grown considerably, but that there is a movement to rescind the Reinheitsgebot altogether: is this so?
Before twentieth-century Prohibition in the United States, alcohol consumption was much higher than today. We have lists of the consumption of alcohol for the colonial delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia (because this was paid for out of “government” funds), where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed and from which the American Revolution was waged politically, and from what I understand, by modern standards, everyone there was smashed out of his gourd.