Intro Blessed by the pope and led by the monarchs of the Christian kingdoms of old Europe, this adventure was to represent all that the medieval spirit had in it. Despite the obvious military failure of the Crusades (with the exception of the first), Christianity emerged from it economically and cu
Intro After the Treaty of Verdun, the Carolingians reigned over West Francia, but real power increasingly eluded them, as powerful lords reinforced theirs over their fiefs. The Robertians, Counts of Paris then disputed the crown with the Carolingians. Soon this powerful family would obtain royal po
Intro Shortly after the death of Charlemagne, three major events marked the Carolingian Empire: Succession troubles lead to the break-up of the Empire, from now on the Germanic part is definitively separated from the Romanesque part. These are the first faces of France and Germany that appear. Eur
Intro With the Popes blessing, the mayors of the palace usurped the throne from the last Merovingians, the lazy kings. Pepin the Short, who became King of the Franks in 751, managed to restore the unity of the kingdom. With Queen Bertrade Berthe au Grand Pied, the daughter of the Comte de Laon, a p
Intro Several years after the conquest of Gaul by Clovis and his descendants, the Frankish kingdom was plagued by fratricidal wars. The wealth of the Merovingians ceased to grow because of the greed of the officials in charge of levying taxes as well as the absence of military victories which depri
Intro Terrible time than this, the great Roman Empire crumbles to disappear, the great emperors have lost their panache. The Germanic tribes extended, they pushed back the frontiers of the Empire. The Roman legions lost their effectiveness in the face of barbarian fervor. This period is dark and en
Intro This article brings together several aspects of customs and daily life in the Middle Ages. We will study successively: Urban life in the Middle Ages, with the expansion of the communes and the description of Paris Peasant life in the countryside Popular entertainment such as fairs or knights
Intro For a long time, the Middle Ages were considered a dead era from the point of view of scientific development and technical progress. Today, on the contrary, we recognize that the four or five centuries that separate the year 1000 from the invention of the printing press brought about profound
Intro In the Middle Ages, a trader specializing in the type of oriental goods (pepper, nuts, cinnamon, oil...) was a rich man. With the development of large-scale commerce, the fortune and power of the “bourgeois traders” continued to grow. Indeed, during the late Middle Ages, the small regional as
The different art movements Art in the High Middle Ages Shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, we witness the appearance of buildings with a centered plan based on the circle, the square or the octagon surrounded by semi-circles. Originally, with a thermal or leisure vocation for the Romans, b
General Origin of heraldry At the end of the 12th century, at the time of the Crusades, precise and until then immutable laws governed the principles which the science of the coat of arms, called “Heraldry”, must obey. It is now certain that the origin of coats of arms, in this form, dates back to
Waging war in the Middle Ages Military strategy In the Middle Ages, with the exception of Crécy, Bouvines or Agincourt, there werent really any major battles. The majority of military operations consist of avoiding pitched battles and open country confrontations. The majority of conflicts are only
Intro At the beginning of the Middle Ages, religious faith was already deep and well anchored among European Christians. Despite a tendency to generate a certain fanaticism, it only rarely rose to the point of violence. Things changed, however, as the threat of Islam grew and spread... Presentation
Historical context The end of a world Shortly after the barbarian invasions, the urban decor of Rome disappeared, giving way to fields, pastures and forests. The principles of the urban culture of the Romans thus had to adapt to this new change. Powerful Germanic tribes invaded Europe and settled t
One of the first measures that Hitler took after his rise to power was the abandonment of the League of Nations, it was his way of showing in practice his rejection of the international order of Versailles. Rejection that he had made very clear at the beginning of Nazism, in the 25 Points of the DAP
Despite his failed attempt to annex Austria (to which I have devoted another entry) , Hitler did not stop planning the annexation of this country. On February 12, 1938, Hitler summoned the Austrian Chancellor Von Schuschnigg to his headquarters in Berchtesgaden, there, after intimidating him, he dem
Czechoslovakia was a new, somewhat artificial state that emerged from the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the treaties that ended World War I. A loosely cohesive country made up of four large territories (Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Ruteria) and inhabited by a great diversity of sociall
France and England entered into negotiations to reach an agreement with the USSR, however, Stalin, offended in Munich, began the path towards his “political turn ”. Stalin feared to see the Western democracies a new Munich at the expense of Poland. The Russians, in April 1939, proposed to France and
From the beginning of his political activity, Hitler declared that he did not recognize the German borders drawn after World War I, obviously neither the Polish ones. Among his objectives was to do with the Polish corridor that divided Prussia in two and with the free city of Danzig After com
It was the largest campaign of annihilation of Jews carried out by the Nazis during the Holocaust . Now, a new historical investigation reveals even more chilling facts about the scope and speed of execution of Operation Reinhard. During a period of 100 days, approximately 1.47 million Jews from occ
In 555 AD Byzantine and Sassanid empires fought again on the occasion of the occupation of Laziki in the Black Sea. After a series of battles a powerful Persian army under the general Nahoragan besieged the small Byzantine forces in the city of Fasi, known from the Descent of the Myria. The Persi
Elected King of Poland, Stanislaus I Leszczyński was forced to give up his throne in 1709, but regained it on the death of Augustus II (1733). If he is supported by France, Spain, Sardinia and Bavaria, his rival Augustus III (son of the deceased) receives for his part the support of Russia, Austria
The history of the Norman conquest of England is well known to blog regulars, with entries dedicated to the year it occurred (1066), to Harold Godwinsons supposed oath of allegiance to William of Normandy, to the eventful coronation of this and to Saxon attempts to oppose Norman domination, epitomiz
Suppose Sparta were devastated and only the temples with the foundations remained:after a long time its power would raise, I believe, in relation to its renown, serious doubts among future generations. (1) The warning of the Athenian historian Thucydides is clear:between the legend told, even alter