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Medieval Eurocom History: sinkholes, wolves, and gout
Well in America we don't get much schooling on the Dark Ages period in Europe, so recently on the public television I've been watching this show called, "The Western Tradition" and it has to be the most fascinating history show I've seen in a long time. Basically our education in world history goes from the Roman Empire and then makes a big jump to the colonization of the New World, and occasionally a paragraph about Charlemagne is thrown in. Even at the college level it's pretty sparse.
So I've always wondered just exactly how things went after the fall of the Western Empire and it's really fascinating because everything is interconnected and not like a period of chaos where everything was forgotten about.
Couple of random thoughts about this period:
1) You Italians sold out the Byzantines, way to go guys. I mean the wealth was traveling from west to east but they kept your asses intact for a few hundred years against all those rampaging Asian horse invaders.
2) I think Turkish chicks are so hot because they have the best mix of genetics, Contantinople was the equivalent of London, New York, and Paris combined in its day so everybody went there seeking fame and glory.
3) The living situation for the average Eurocom was horrible! They died at age 25, and often were freezing and starving to death. Packs of wolves would literally roam into towns (even Paris) and take them over. No wonder the settlers eradicated wolves when they came to the New World.
4) Time was relative and people lived for the moment. There was no standardized system of keeping time.
5) Most childhood nursery rhymes seem to come from the Dark Ages.
-Little Red Riding Hood (the wolves)
-Ring Around the Rosie (I think that they used to carry around Posey flowers in their pockets to either protect them from the Black Plague or to ward off the smell of all the death).
-Evil Trees that had faces (eurocoms would often venture out to the forest never to be seen again and this is because there were sinkholes everywhere that they would disappear into)
6) The Italian City States were the first to employ the skyscrapers en masse, sometimes cities had up to 70 towers that were built by the feudal families as a show of thier power, over the town.
7) Most people were starving to death but the feudal families were so rich that they often overate and suffered from gout. Yuck!
Let's talk about Dark Ages Euroland because it is fascinating. Hit me with your fascinating facts. Sorry if this is all old to you Eurocoms but this is all new to me so it's an amazing rediscovery.
So I've always wondered just exactly how things went after the fall of the Western Empire and it's really fascinating because everything is interconnected and not like a period of chaos where everything was forgotten about.
Couple of random thoughts about this period:
1) You Italians sold out the Byzantines, way to go guys. I mean the wealth was traveling from west to east but they kept your asses intact for a few hundred years against all those rampaging Asian horse invaders.
2) I think Turkish chicks are so hot because they have the best mix of genetics, Contantinople was the equivalent of London, New York, and Paris combined in its day so everybody went there seeking fame and glory.
3) The living situation for the average Eurocom was horrible! They died at age 25, and often were freezing and starving to death. Packs of wolves would literally roam into towns (even Paris) and take them over. No wonder the settlers eradicated wolves when they came to the New World.
4) Time was relative and people lived for the moment. There was no standardized system of keeping time.
5) Most childhood nursery rhymes seem to come from the Dark Ages.
-Little Red Riding Hood (the wolves)
-Ring Around the Rosie (I think that they used to carry around Posey flowers in their pockets to either protect them from the Black Plague or to ward off the smell of all the death).
-Evil Trees that had faces (eurocoms would often venture out to the forest never to be seen again and this is because there were sinkholes everywhere that they would disappear into)
6) The Italian City States were the first to employ the skyscrapers en masse, sometimes cities had up to 70 towers that were built by the feudal families as a show of thier power, over the town.
7) Most people were starving to death but the feudal families were so rich that they often overate and suffered from gout. Yuck!
Let's talk about Dark Ages Euroland because it is fascinating. Hit me with your fascinating facts. Sorry if this is all old to you Eurocoms but this is all new to me so it's an amazing rediscovery.
. I mean, Hell, when they took of Apulia and Naples and the Pope had to get the Normans (under Robert Guiscard) to kick them out, you can see where Italians might not like their Eastern neighbors
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