20 August 2015
The twelfth century was in many repects an age of fresh and vigorous life. The epoch of crusades, of the rise of towns, and of the earliest bureaucratic states of the West, the culimination of romanesque art, the revival of roman law and Greek science and the origin of universities. (Ch. H. Haskins, The Renaissance … Read more » “The Origins of Modern Europe”
20 August 2015
However, there is every reaon to assume that nationalism will endure, despite all attempts by politicians and scholars to herald the start of the post-national period. The multipolarity of nations is too deeply embedded in Western political culture to be removed from it within a few decades, whether we like it or not. (C. Hirschi, … Read more » “The Origins of European Nationalism”
20 August 2015
First is the Christianity that of the Middle Eastern homeland of Jezus. Still in the eight century the great city of Bagdad would have been a more likely capital for worldwide Christianity than Rome.. The eruption of Islam is the chief reason why Christian history turned in another direction. D. MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, … Read more » “Bagdad or Rome: The Christian Capital”
20 August 2015
The Fall of the Roman Empire marked the beginning of the monastic period. The monks were to play an essential part in the scholarly intercourse between those places where culture survived. Brief History of Parchment (Monsempron-Libos 1998)
20 August 2015
Nos a Gulielmo victi victoris patriam liberavimus (we, conquered by William, have liberated the Conqueror’s fatherland). Bayeux, British war cemetery inscription.