The importance of the Carolingian Renaissance for text-preservation, by the by, is immediately relevant to anyone who has looked at almost any manuscript tradition: the absolute crushing ubiquity of Caroline minuscule, the standard writing form of the period, is just impossible to ignore (also, I love the heck out of Caroline minuscule because it is easy to both read and write – which is why it was so popular in this period; an unadorned, practical script – I love it; it’s the only medieval script I can write in with any meager proficiency). The sudden burst of book-copying tends to mean – for ancient works, at least, that if they survived to c. 830, then they probably survive to the present. Sponsored by Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, the scribes of the Carolingian period (mostly monks) rescued much of the Latin classical corpus we now have from oblivion. It is depressingly common to hear “hot-takes” or pop-culture references to how the “medievals” or the Church were supposedly responsible for destroying literature or ancient knowledge (this trope runs wild in Netflix’s recent Castlevania series, for instance) – the reverse is true. Without those 9th century monks, we’d probably have about as much Latin literature as we have Akkadian literature: not nothing, but far, far less. Say what you will about the medieval Church, you cannot blame the loss of the Greek or Roman tradition on them.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: A Trip Through Dhuoda of Uzès (Carolingian Values)”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2020-03-27.
October 11, 2022
QotD: The debt we owe to the Carolingian Renaissance
October 2, 2022
“We are governed by a transnational criminal enterprise”
Elizabeth Nickson on the deliberately created web of disasters the entire western world faces thanks to our governments’ allegiance to philosophies promulgated by organizations like the WEF:
We are governed by a transnational criminal enterprise.
What are you doing about it?
One sentence caught my attention in Giorgia Meloni’s speeches this week. She said that most insulting thing for her and other Italians, was the EU’s order to erase all references to Christianity, Christmas and Christ from all government documents by Christmas (ironic) of 2022.
This is another of those blows from the One Worlders that feels like someone is stepping on your heart and pressing down. I may not be a church-going Christian, but it defines me like almost nothing else. It is my history, my literature, my culture, my ethical standards, my everything. Christianity defines the western world, it is an activist faith, it orders a congregant to spread goodness wherever he or she goes. Erasing it is a crime similar in effect as the death camps of which our leaders dream. It destroys the ground of our being.
And then I think of my father. Look at this photograph. As a teen, he was very much like the kids of today, self-involved, vain, a girl magnet like his great grandson, Bryson, who never sees a girl who doesn’t interest him. But he was one of the few fully adult men I have known. I want to say only, but I’ve met thousands of men and know few of them as well as I knew him.
It wasn’t until long after my father’s death that I discovered that he was at the tip of the spear of the British Army as they landed at D-Day, pressed forward into France and then into Germany. The Canadian Army, the fourth largest standing army in the world in 1945, had a reputation of brutalism like no other army, famous for it in WW1. This was in part because it was built – as was Canada – by some of the fiercest medieval clans in Europe. Just before James 1 murdered the British border clan heads, Elizabeth I said that with 10,000 such men, James could topple any throne in Europe. Canada attracted those clans, the climate, the terrain was the roughest in the world, and only they could conquer it. And in 1943, they formed an army like none other.
Being his child, I can grope myself into what he was feeling during those two years under remorseless fire, on the ground, buried into caves on the Rhine that last winter, responsible for hundreds of men. He woke up every day for two years, with death certain. I have his Book of Common Prayer. It is swollen with use, especially the prayers for the dead he read over the bodies of his friends. After the war he was put in charge of a Nazi camp and told to “sort those people out”. Kind of like a desert in hell, I would think.
His faith carried him through those years. He was welded to it by the time it was over, although he never proselytized, it was just part of him. Christianity acts, with good men, as spur and comfort. It informed every ethical decision he made. After the war, he came home and worked, fighting unions that destroyed the textile industry in Quebec, trying to keep his factory going in the face of actual bags of burning shit thrown at our house. He retired at 55 with a non-compete clause and spent the rest of his life in charity, working for free. He ran in succession one enterprise after another. His entire life, all of it, he used his spare time to work in the community. Three meetings a week, no matter what. He knew where every sparrow fell in the country village I grew up in, and in the city to which he retired. And if he missed one, his uncles, aunts or cousins picked them up and set them right. It was how they lived.
That used to be a requirement for adulthood. He learned it from his family who came to the New World in 1630, and who all, to a man or woman, worked for free in whatever village or county they found themselves in, making sure everyone was all right. In the towns and cities they settled, across the US and Canada from 1600 to 1945, you were only considered an adult if you rolled up your sleeves and worked for other people in the place that you lived, without being paid, and without expecting praise.
If you didn’t do that work, you were considered a baby that everyone else had to carry. You were made to feel that.
It was that above every single other thing, that made the US and Canada the magnet it is for every other race and country in the world. Self-government by adults. And by the way, for the race-hustlers, they were officers on the Underground Railroad, when it wasn’t popular to be on the side of people of color. They married into Indian bands when it was absolutely beyond the pale.
The boomer generation abandoned that task, and the devolution of the culture was swift. The left creates jobs by creating bureaucrats and the responsibilities that used to be held in common, solved in common, done for goodness alone, are now done for money and benefits by people who generally do not live in the regions they supervise. They have screwed up everything because they can’t make decisions because they have no courage. And they have no courage because they have no ethical standards. Their only standard is whether it increases their own comfort. And that of maybe two other people. To whom they are related.
The only thing they create is debt and obstacles to growth. Aside from technical/engineering standards, (which are being broken) everything they do, can be done by citizens acting in concert.
Our disengagement led to our current economic catastrophe, like nothing else. It is the reason the globalist criminals were able to take over. It is why we now sit in danger of nuclear war.
September 30, 2022
History Re-Summarized: The Roman Empire
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 16 Sept 2022
The plot twist of Rome is that it was always a mess, now sit back and enjoy the marble-covered mayhem.This video is a Remastered, Definitive Edition of three previous videos from this channel — “History Summarized: The Roman Empire”, “History Hijinks: Rome’s Crisis of the Third Century”, and “History Summarized: The Fall of Rome”. This video combines them all into one narrative, fully upgrading all of the visuals and audio, with a substantially re-written script in parts 1 and 3.
(more…)
September 29, 2022
The Byzantine Empire: Part 5 – The Death of Roman Byzantium, 568-628 AD
seangabb
Published 21 Jan 2022In this, the fifth lecture in the series, Sean Gabb discusses the progressive collapse of Byzantium between the middle years of Justinian and the unexpected but sterile victory over the Persian Empire.
Between 330 AD and 1453, Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the capital of the Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Later Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Mediaeval Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire. For most of this time, it was the largest and richest city in Christendom. The territories of which it was the central capital enjoyed better protections of life, liberty and property, and a higher standard of living, than any other Christian territory, and usually compared favourably with the neighbouring and rival Islamic empires.
The purpose of this course is to give an overview of Byzantine history, from the refoundation of the City by Constantine the Great to its final capture by the Turks.
Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in late 2021, in which he discusses and tries to explain the history of Byzantium. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.
(more…)
September 27, 2022
QotD: The Poor Law Reform Act of 1834
One of the law’s architects, Edwin Chadwick — a man who made Mr Gradgrind [Wiki] look like one of the Cheeryble brothers [Wiki] — infamously commented that it was vital that the inmates of workhouses should be given the coarsest food possible. William Cobbett, a leading opponent of the bill, gleefully seized on this, nicknaming the Whigs, who pushed the legislation hardest, the “Coarser Food Party”. The idea of all this — rooted in the principles of utilitarianism, political economy and Malthusianism — was, as future Archbishop of Canterbury John Bird Sumner put it, to encourage the labouring poor to do everything they could to avoid the “intemperance and want of prudent foresight” that creates poverty, the “punishment which the moral government of God inflicts in this world upon thoughtlessness and guilty extravagance”.
In the 1830s, these ideas were at the very vanguard of progressive thinking. They were promoted by the metropolitan liberal elite of the age, men such as James Mill, Jeremy Bentham and David Ricardo, the forward-thinking “Philosophic Radicals” who spewed out reforming and “improving” ideas through their famous organ The Westminster Review. Other contributors included happy-go-lucky eugenicist pioneer and social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, as well as Harriet Martineau, the sort of woman who would cheerfully have put her “enlightened benevolence” into practice by personally taste-testing workhouse food to ensure it was sufficiently coarse.
These ideas were gleefully leapt upon by a large swathe of the Church leadership, who endorsed the grim dogmas of political economy with an alacrity that would only surprise anyone unfamiliar with the long history of our episcopacy’s lamb-like submission to secular liberal orthodoxies. As E.R. Norman pointed out many decades ago, the Church of England’s leaders have, again and again since at least the eighteenth century, “readily adopted the progressive idealism common to liberal opinion within the intelligentsia, of which they were a part”. They have “always managed to reinterpret their sources in ways which have somehow made their version of Christianity correspond to the values of their class and generation”, a process intimately connected to the fact that bishops are nearly always tied (by personal links, economic interests and a desire to conform) to their secular peers who set the broader cultural and political agenda.
Capel Lofft, “The closing of the Episcopal mind”, The Critic, 2022-06-21.
September 21, 2022
The Medieval Saint Diet
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 20 Sep 2022
(more…)
September 20, 2022
The Byzantine Empire: Part 4 – Justinian, The Hand of God
seangabb
Published 1 Jan 2022Between 330 AD and 1453, Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the capital of the Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Later Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Mediaeval Roman Empire, or The Byzantine Empire. For most of this time, it was the largest and richest city in Christendom. The territories of which it was the central capital enjoyed better protections of life, liberty and property, and a higher standard of living, than any other Christian territory, and usually compared favourably with the neighbouring and rival Islamic empires.
The purpose of this course is to give an overview of Byzantine history, from the refoundation of the City by Constantine the Great to its final capture by the Turks.
Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in late 2021, in which he discusses and tries to explain the history of Byzantium. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.
(more…)
September 19, 2022
City Minutes: Crusader States
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 13 May 2022Crusading is one thing, but holding your new kingdoms is a much trickier business. See how the many Christian states of “Outremer” rolled with the punches to evolve in form and function over multiple centuries.
(more…)
September 16, 2022
The Byzantine Empire: Part 3 – The Age of Justinian – Cashing in the Gains of the Fifth Century
seangabb
Published 7 Dec 2022Between 330 AD and 1453, Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the capital of the Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Later Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Mediaeval Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire. For most of this time, it was the largest and richest city in Christendom. The territories of which it was the central capital enjoyed better protections of life, liberty and property, and a higher standard of living, than any other Christian territory, and usually compared favourably with the neighbouring and rival Islamic empires.
The purpose of this course is to give an overview of Byzantine history, from the refoundation of the City by Constantine the Great to its final capture by the Turks.
Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in late 2021, in which he discusses and tries to explain the history of Byzantium. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.
(more…)
September 14, 2022
QotD: The Wars of Religion and the (eventual) Peace of Westphalia
There’s simply no possible compromise with an opponent who thinks you’re in league with the Devil, if not the literal Antichrist. Nothing Charles I could have done would’ve satisfied the Puritans sufficient for him to remain their king, because even if he did everything they demanded — divorced his Catholic wife, basically turned the Church of England into the Presbyterian Kirk, gave up all but his personal feudal revenues — the very act of doing these things would’ve made his “kingship” meaningless. No English king can turn over one of the fundamental duties of state to Scottish churchwardens and still remain King of England.
This was the basic problem confronting all the combatants in the various Wars of Religion, from the Peasants’ War to the Thirty Years’ War. No matter what the guy with the crown does, he’s illegitimate. It took an entirely new theory of state power, developed over more than 100 years, to finally end the Wars of Religion. In case your Early Modern history is a little rusty, that was the Peace of Westphalia (1648), and it established the modern(-ish) sovereign nation-state. The king is the king because he’s the king; matters of religious conscience are not a sufficient casus belli between states, or for rebellion within states. Cuius regio, eius religio, as the Peace of Augsburg put it — the prince’s religion is the official state religion — and if you don’t like it, move. But since the Peace of Westphalia also made heads of state responsible for the actions of their nationals abroad, the prince had a vested interest in keeping private consciences private.
I wrote “a new theory of state power”, and it’s true, the philosophy behind the Peace of Westphalia was new, but that’s not what ended the violence. What did, quite simply, was exhaustion. The Thirty Years’ War was as devastating to “Germany” as World War I, and all combatants in all nations took tremendous losses. Sweden’s king died in combat, France got huge swathes of its territory devastated (after entering the war on the Protestant side), Spain’s power was permanently broken, and the Holy Roman Empire all but ceased to exist. In short, it was one of the most devastating conflicts in human history. They didn’t stop fighting because they finally wised up; they stopped fighting because they were physically incapable of continuing.
The problem, though, is that the idea of cuius regio, eius religio was never repudiated. European powers didn’t fight each other over different strands of Christianity anymore, but they replaced it with an even more virulent religion, nationalism.
Severian, <--–>”Arguing with God”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-01-20.
September 12, 2022
The Lord of the Rings and Ancient Rome (with Bret Devereaux)
toldinstone
Published 10 Sep 2022In this episode, Dr. Bret Devereaux (the blogger behind “A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry”) discusses the relationships between fantasy and ancient history – and why historical accuracy matters, even in fiction.
(more…)
September 9, 2022
The Byzantine Empire: Part 2 – Survival and Growth
seangabb
Published 15 Oct 2021Between 330 AD and 1453, Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the capital of the Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Later Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Mediaeval Roman Empire, or The Byzantine Empire. For most of this time, it was the largest and richest city in Christendom. The territories of which it was the central capital enjoyed better protections of life, liberty and property, and a higher standard of living, than any other Christian territory, and usually compared favourably with the neighbouring and rival Islamic empires.
The purpose of this course is to give an overview of Byzantine history, from the refoundation of the City by Constantine the Great to its final capture by the Turks.
Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in late 2021, in which he discusses and tries to explain the history of Byzantium. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.
(more…)
September 3, 2022
The Byzantine Empire: Part 1 – Beginnings
seangabb
Published 1 Oct 2021Between 330 AD and 1453, Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the capital of the Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Later Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Mediaeval Roman Empire, or The Byzantine Empire. For most of this time, it was the largest and richest city in Christendom. The territories of which it was the central capital enjoyed better protections of life, liberty and property, and a higher standard of living, than any other Christian territory, and usually compared favourably with the neighbouring and rival Islamic empires.
The purpose of this course is to give an overview of Byzantine history, from the refoundation of the City by Constantine the Great to its final capture by the Turks.
Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in late 2021, in which he discusses and tries to explain the history of Byzantium. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.
(more…)
August 28, 2022
Church and state, British-style
In The Critic, David Scullion reviews Catherine Pepinster’s book Defenders of the Faith: The British Monarchy, Religion, and the Next Coronation:
The longevity of Elizabeth II has (mostly) allowed us to avert our attention from the question of the relationship between church and state for a very long time. Given that her 70 years on the throne have seen the relentless rise of the forces of philistine secularism and constitutional vandalism, one cannot help but feel grateful for the benign obscurity that her reign has cast over such issues. Alas, this cannot be the case for much longer.
During her coronation in 1953, the Queen made solemn oaths to maintain the “true profession of the Gospel”, “the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law” and the Church of England. She was anointed with holy oil as the chosen ruler of God in a ceremony that owes its ultimate origins to the monarchy of Israel, and which can be traced back in England to at least the coronation of Edgar in 973 AD.
In 1953 this solemn ceremony was received with little in the way of controversy, except in terms of the debate over whether it should be televised. In the end it was, but with the most holy part of the rite — the coming of the Holy Spirit and God’s blessings in the sacred moment of anointing — kept away from the nation’s prying eyes.
If the next coronation is similar, one can only imagine the chorus of outraged, irreverent squawking that will sound from the amassed ranks of secular-liberal opinion-formers. Despite this unappetising prospect, it seems reasonable to discuss what form it should take now, given that 70 years have elapsed since the last one — a task that Catherine Pepinster’s new book purports to undertake.
I say “purports to undertake”, because in fact the vast majority of it is taken up with a rather pedestrian rehearsal of British religious and monarchical history since the Reformation, followed by long and dull accounts of what little we know about the spiritual lives of HM the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles.
These central six chapters of the book are overwhelmingly preoccupied with a topic which clearly concerns the author more than any other: the nature of the relationship between Roman Catholicism and the monarchy, which seems like a rather odd focus given that the British monarchy has not been in communion with the Church of Rome since the 16th century.
She spends a large proportion of the book bewailing the historical inequities perpetrated against Ms Pepinster’s co-religionists by the British establishment, and demonstrating how recent decades have seen a real — albeit cautious — rapprochement between the monarchy and Roman Catholics. She goes on to make a series of commonplace observations about the country’s growing secularism, the rise of religious and cultural diversity, and the decline of Anglican congregations since 1953.
If one wants to know what the equivocating Ms Pepinster thinks the implications of all these trends are for the next coronation and relations between church and state, then one will have to read between the lines. Although her account of the various possibilities is a useful summary, working out what she actually favours is like trying to staple a jellyfish to wet soap.
August 25, 2022
Barbarian Europe: Part 8 – The Franks
seangabb
Published 1 Sep 2021In 400 AD, the Roman Empire covered roughly the same area as it had in 100 AD. By 500 AD, all the Western provinces of the Empire had been overrun by barbarians. Between April and July 2021, Sean Gabb explored this transformation with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.
(more…)
