Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity - Walter Scheidel Audiobook
Shared by:rmoor
The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world
The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome’s dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe’s economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?
In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil ensured competitive fragmentation between and within states. This rich diversity encouraged political, economic, scientific, and technological breakthroughs that allowed Europe to surge ahead while other parts of the world lagged behind, burdened as they were by traditional empires and predatory regimes that lived by conquest. It wasn’t until Europe “escaped” from Rome that it launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.
What has the Roman Empire ever done for us? Fall and go away.
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This post has 20 comments with rating of 4.5/5
June 5th, 2021
Many thanks, rmoor!!
June 5th, 2021
Competitive fragmentation - that’s the key to the door.
June 5th, 2021
Thanks for this and all the other great uploads– much appreciated!
June 5th, 2021
Thank you…. appreciated!
June 5th, 2021
Yes, maybe, but beware of the Post hoc justification for the changes.
June 5th, 2021
@caesar963 and some of that is called the world wars haha
June 5th, 2021
I haven’t read it yet but from what I can see the author seems to forget plaundring of the americas and africa and the countless deaths caused by european wars on its own continent along with the dark ages and the barbarian kingdoms which brought western europe back to the cave ages the way it was before the Rome,phenicia,greeks cultures on the continent which their influence certainly civilized western Europe in many ways… if anything the european renaissance ideals were completely based on that long gone legacy.
June 5th, 2021
Yeah, competitive fragmentation & diversity are key elements contributing towards Europe’s historical success. Imperialism is a dead hand. Stagnation inevitably ensues.
Wars are destructive, old cheese; there is an undeniable creative dimension, but it’s outweighed by the destructive factor.
Wars & plundering occur everywhere. The world wars did not have an international dimension?!
In Europe, there were no “dark ages” (a popular historical misconception). Or contemporary “cave ages” - which isn’t even a popular historical misconception. There were barbarian invasions - the Western Roman Empire fell as a result; but literacy & learning were not lost.
The Greek Dark Ages is the phase of history from the end of the Mycenaean palatial civilization around 1100 BC to the beginning of the Archaic age around 750 BC. Literacy & learning were lost. Ergo, dark.
Your “cave ages” were when the university, the hospital, and the concept & doctrine of human rights were created and developed. It also featured essential agricultural reforms, the growth & development of urban life, democratic institutional forms, the flowering of art, architecture, philosophy, literature, legal reforms, etc. And 4 renaissances.
Now those are some “cave ages” we should all embrace.
Do read/listen to the book. History is a wonderfully enlightening, necessary adventure.
Er, haha.
June 5th, 2021
European kingdoms weren’t really competing but plaundring each other and killing each other for power and greed and only the innocent were killed in between. Europe throughout its history, it was completely late on civilization until Rome brought it under its shadow connecting it with the east mediterranean centrale trade routes opening to it time of stability which with it traveling ideas can grow and thrive and be faster developed. a european in france can travel to Egypt by the sea or land with no fear of every day marduing pyraits under Rome. so without healthy foundation no civilization can withstand even if it was strong like the mongols for example, that what Europe was before Rome and after Rome. they were not even real states but bunch of tribes fighting each other.in Rome at least you got one dictator and maybe one civil war,but after rome you got tons of bloody dictators killing each other for all kinds of powers on yearly.
the world wars simply were european wars fought in the world,where their imperialism was plaundring… so your point of view of imperialism is contradictory since europe rose greatly due to the the massive plundering of the americas and africa through colonial imperialism. at least rome gave citizenship to the people it conquered.
The Dark Ages appoint to the chaotic era and the backwardness europe witnessed in comparison to its situation under Rome not because everyone couldn’t know how to read. Rome was not perfect for sure but western Europe situation became hell time worse when Rome collapsed so it was simply a golden age for the barbarian kingdoms ready to become kings by thin air in already furnitured lands but for the classical civilisation after the christian sword ’s blow and the barbarian sword ’s blow, it was the last nail on its coffin.what was lost of knowledge from the classical civilization is really tragice. all that survived is only 10% and even this 10% is not complete and some works might have been edited and not authentic.
“Your “cave ages” were when the university, the hospital, and the concept & doctrine of human rights were created and developed. It also featured essential agricultural reforms, the growth & development of urban life. And 4 renaissances”
-
Nope you are mixing the The dark aged Europe with the enlightened abbasid caliphate and the golden islamic age where all these things were established first then traveled to Europe through Al Andalus and the resettlers from crusader kingdoms. the 4 renaissance you are talking about were bureaucracy limited renaissance moreover some revival which were in need for the ruler to have something to read because of boredom and bureaucracy to protect his throne not anything outstanding.
“democratic institutional forms, the flowering of art, architecture, philosophy, literature, legal reforms”
that never happened in the cave ages, dear!
you re mixing the enlightenment with dark ages here…
Yes! I can’t give a real opinion unless I read it for full. my list of books keep on growing, hopefully I will catch it once I’m done with story of Egypt by joanne fletcher.
June 5th, 2021
Wrong on literally all of that. I hesitate to ask which comedians you sourced it from! Beyond the standard Eurocentrism, it’s reasonably possible to date the beginning of the Second World War from the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 (earlier Manchurian incident, 1931). The subsequent invasion of Poland by Germany (& Russia) initiated the European dimension, in 1939. WW2 only began for America when it was attacked by Japan, in 1941, which gave the conflict its global scale & scope.
“In Rome at least you got one dictator and maybe one civil war” - honestly, that’s a truly Pythonesque parodic distortion of Roman history.
The Greek Dark Ages gain their title from the loss of literacy & learning. Hence, it is an historically “dark” period. It’s a historiographical term of art; a misnomer when applied to a period with literary sources. It’s a deeply ingrained error, not misapplied by professional historians or those educated in the pertinent areas. Sources are the key here.
Seek the causes of Europe’s unprecedented success, as we must, and we eventually encounter the creative flourishing generated by competitive fragmentation & diversity. Trade, learning & invention are the essential elements. Wars existed, as they existed everywhere, but they were not all that existed.
The imperialism & slavery of Rome were a dead hand. There was no need of agricultural innovation with a slave population, for inst.
The empires which preceded Rome were equally prone to such stagnation. In terms of true innovative genius, like it or not, we must credit the different Greek city states; a microcosm of what Europe was later to become - with the stagnation of a centrally dominant, bureaucratic empire. From the Italian city states, to the Carolingian era - and renaissance, Ireland’s Golden Age, the Holy Roman Empire, the Hanseatic League, the network of monasteries preserving literacy & classical texts (in scriptoria) throughout Europe, against the inevitable decay of time, etc. etc. We are indeed fortunate that they undertook the work, or everything would have been lost.
“You are mixing the The dark aged Europe with the enlightened abbasid caliphate and the golden islamic age where all these things were established first then traveled to Europe.” - Medieval European intellectual life emphasised joining faith to reason. It was also characterised by the founding of the university (Bologna) which grew out of the Cathedral schools of the 6th century (earliest evidence of school estab in such manner is in Visigothic Spain at the Second Council of Toledo in 527 AD), and the monastic schools.
“the 4 renaissance you are talking about were bureaucracy limited renaissance moreover some revival which were in need for the ruler to have something to read because of boredom and bureaucracy to protect his throne not anything outstanding.” - I’m going to have to pull rank on you here: none of this makes any sense whatsoever. We’re talking gratuitous syntactical incoherence. And historical absurdity, on a grand scale.
The Carolingian renaissance, being the first of the sequence, the drive to discover & preserve the Classical heritage from decay & destruction was “in need for the ruler to have something to read because of boredom and bureaucracy.” More Monty Python material there.
““democratic institutional forms, the flowering of art, architecture, philosophy, literature, legal reforms” that never happened in the cave ages, dear!
you re mixing the enlightenment with dark ages here” - Yes, because the cave/dark ages are not real historiographical designations. And Aquinas, Giotto, Dante, Chaucer, the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres, the concept & doctrine of human rights, the growth & development of urban life, the 4 renaissances = no, these were medieval & European, I’m afraid, dear, and not the Enlightenment!
For inst, human rights arose from Canon law, the Imago Dei, and the concept of the dignified human soul.
If you harbour an alternative emotional affection, that’s just fine. All cultures may contribute achievements - it’s not a zero-sum game. For inst, I’m constantly praising the record of Islam on this site. However, denying the factual historical record is inane & futile.
June 5th, 2021
That should read - without (rather than “with”) the stagnation of a centrally dominant, bureaucratic empire.
June 6th, 2021
Within, for a guy who say’s “I haven’t read it yet but”, nor is familiar with Walter Scheidel’s work, you sure are babbling alot alot alot & with great certitude.
“”"I haven’t read it yet but”"” is a big flashing warning sign to everyone that says - Beware, here come a babbler who likes to pretend he knows things he doesn’t.
P.S. Just prior to my comments, Caesar gave you a world class beat down. Within, dude you should be flattered that one of the most erudite people this place has ever known made the effort to straighten you out.
June 6th, 2021
No beat downs, just sharing information. All that “my culture is bigger than yours” stuff serves only to reveal profound insecurity & cultural doubt. Getting to grips with the factual historical record as it really happened is enough of a job for us, rather than inventing self-serving silliness.
June 7th, 2021
@caesar963
WW2 was result for world domination wars fought before it in way or another,by economy or military means
in europe mainly and firstly.
“The Greek Dark Ages”
the historical terms applied to those periods didn’t came out of nothing. The Greek Dark ages are just historian division of periods of archaic age that still shrouded in mystery not because Greek city states were extremely advanced or civilized and simply gone into oblivion, actually what before greek dark ages barely is greek if not greek at all. it is still unknown age to us but the dark ages of Europe is not on the same scale. it is not super archaic age to reconstruct it. generation of the enlightenment completely wrote about it and the people who lived in it too. they were the ones who called it as such not us! in modern age.
living as slave in rome was not eternal sentence and if we recall Rome was the product of its own age it was not claiming to be the empire of the merciful god and yet slaves were much safer in Rome than in Europe after Rome. let’s all remember how slavery went with those states that came after rome and how modern empires used slaves to build their own based on color and race fantasy of fascist ideas like in The USA and france. and how slavery built their colonies in the america or settler colonies in Africa and east asia.so slavery in this way was reason of that success of modern Europe if we gonna get along with that.
What Preceded before Rome is what made Rome be a realty. The greek city states were not created out no where they borrowed almost everything from the older civilizations that preceded them not because they didn’t became suddenly smart out of thin air just because they were fighting each other! and those cultures before them which given us the latin alphabets we write with. the only thing made them get destroyed as civilizations was the wars and fragmentation not stagnation or laziness. African sub-Sahara was extremely fragmented although being rich in resources it didn’t develop in civilization so it is the other way around really.
“monasteries preserving literacy & classical texts”
they didn’t do it for love of doing it to keep them preserved but for educational linguistic reasons for themselves only at most since they were no early examples of classical texts left to rely on, while reading the bible which was written in classical text. if some text in classical greek and latin were cryptic in the bible they wouldn’t know how to explain it. so if totally all texts completely were vanished so the bible would. it was for religious bureaucratic reasons and that why we have only 10% percent of all classical text and half of them were kept in the byzantine empire and the abbasid empire not in those monasteries and those texts were only read by selected few and who have authority not for all people to read and hey some of them are bad example and immoral. since for them it was their apologetic evidence of the long dead infidel civilization. and BTW the Italian renaissance if anything was completely based on that pagan roman legacy…
“Medieval European intellectual life emphasised”
they emphasized on serving the ruler and killing infidels. it was not combined by reason. just dare to say the earth is not flat u would be burned on stick don’t forget the black cats killing spree and witches too.
schools were already established since mesopotamia while first university in the world was built in Quaraouiyine.the university of Bologna was long time later built and never became as important until even more later in time. and as I told you it was an influence from Al Andalusian flowering civilization.
not because of the fragmented kingdoms after rome were simply fighting each other. and that andalusian civilization has also collapsed because of its fragmentation too.
The Carolingian renaissance was not even called that until much later. so you really think the king sit all day on his throne holding his sword? he wanted to have fun and literature was one of these methods where there was no TV… not all lovers of literature were really wise and lovers of wisdom some of the literature was written simply for the king to enjoy and also for his bureaucratic group. society was classist to the core and not everyone was even allowed to read such stuff only selected people were. and if you wanna run a kingdom you need bureaucracy and that bureaucracy was living like in a mini city in the palace that was their world of fun as much as being the place where they do run that kingdom and make conspiracies.
“the concept & doctrine of human rights, the growth & development of urban life”
those have nothing to do with the dark ages but the enlightenment which brought them to society as opposite to that age and the church control and its holy presenter on earth lead by the mighty king from nobel blood….
“For inst, human rights arose from Canon law, the Imago Dei”
Well The inquisition want some word with you then:)
I agree on your last paragraph all civilization has given something to human civilization as whole but to say dark ages were age of great light compared to roman Europa is absolutely not right. I would prefer to live under crazy caligula rather than living under any visigothic holy king.
June 7th, 2021
@apnea
you shouldn’t read a mighty book to discusses this subject since it has been on the front page for long time now since centuries it isn’t a subject with yes and no it is complex but not new and I gave my example from what i certainly know on the main question not on the author or his own book as I said I had it on the list of reading.
I have no problem with caesar963 and sometime I like some of his comments we are not fighting here. what we are doing is giving opinions about long time gone history events that’s why we have freedom of speech to speak up our opinion on things like these.
June 7th, 2021
Monty Python AND Game of Thrones this time. Mr/Mrs also teaches GoT as if true history. Still, a lot funnier than the last one.
“The Carolingian renaissance began because the king was bored of sitting all day holding his sword & wanted to have fun and there was no TV” - can you give me a documented historical source for that (and not another Monty Python sketch)? Or is it merely more blather? Blather to the seventh power? Apart from the oblivious Pythonesque filter, it doesn’t take account of actual causes, wider societal trends & drivers, and falls for amateurish historical reductionism, and a 19th century notion of the “Great Man” view of historical events.
It’s the “Tywin Lannister didn’t have a Nexflix account” fallacy of history again. Or “Biggus Dickus had appallingly slow broadband, so he kicked of the War for the Planet of the Apes with the Red Wedding” historiographical misconstruction. And how tediously often do we see those bad boys?
Honestly, you’re just guessing - without any historical foundation whatsoever. Opinions must be informed to be in any way valid.
“Enlightenment” is a phrase. You have to look beyond the nice phrase, in order to fully understand the background, both positive and wholly negative. A true understanding encompasses what the Enlightenment actually resulted in. Enlightenment “thinkers” inter alia formulated theories of “scientific” racism; Rousseau’s despotic philosophy led to the brutality of the French Revolutionary Terror, the atrocities in the Vendée, the subsequent wars, and the rise of Napoleon (more tyranny & wars), and the rise of extreme nationalism.
We can trace a line from Rousseau’s extremism (”Whoever refuses to obey the general will, will be forced to do so by the entire body. This means merely that he will be forced to be “free”" anyone?) to the evil ideologies of the 19th & 20th centuries.
Moderns would refer to “Enlightenment” & “Dark” as expedient framing devices. It would also be “cancelled” by the current culture. Always be curious enough to peer under the hood.
“Dark” relates to literary sources. It’s an historiographical term of art. No escaping or talking around that one, I fear.
Pop culture loves facile “light” & “dark” phrasing - because it’s simple. Pop culture’s comprehension of historical issues is non-existent. You have to look beyond pop culture to glean any true understanding. It merely trades in mindless simplicity.
It’s another absurd puzzler that you say that the Greeks were inspired, yet you imagine that the (dark) Enlightenment was spawned in a vacuum! Again, ahistorical.
For inst, Bertrand Russell dismissed Islamic & Arabic civilisation as having contributed nothing of any value to philosophy or science. They were mere commentators on the vastly superior Greek and European thinkers.
We don’t necessarily agree with this damning judgment today.
The point is that historical assessments can change.
Expert historians on the medieval period dispensed with simple-minded assessments during the 19th century. New research & data equals more sophisticated, objective judgments & determinations. More informed opinions, in essence. Study this at university level and all the simplistic, fatuous, pop culture misconceptions (”dark ages”) begin to look like what they really are.
“how modern empires used slaves to build their own based on color and race fantasy of fascist ideas like in The USA and france. and how slavery built their colonies in the america or settler colonies in Africa and east asia.”
- This is all historical anachronism, an unstable confusion of notions from different periods & locations. Again, it doesn’t make sense.
“so slavery in this way was reason of that success of modern Europe if we gonna get along with that.”
- Serious perplexity here. If slavery was the sole reason that Europe overtook every other culture & region, as slavery was rampant everywhere (in, for inst, the Middle East) then the European success would have been replicated everywhere. That’s the problem with historical reductionism, it leads to such illogicalities, inconsistencies, and absurdities. Reducing everything to slavery (not every European country had overseas colonies) leaves out competition, innovation, education, banking, sophisticated economics, discovery, trade, etc. It essentially omits the actual reasons for the unprecedented success.
If slavery was the route to success, and the West abolished it during the 19th century, thereby cutting off their only avenue to prosperity (presumably), then the countries of the Middle East & the Islamic world would have been possessed of a serious advantage. During the 20th c, authorities only very slowly outlawed slavery in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was abolished only in 1924. At Istanbul, the sale of black and Circassian women was conducted openly until the granting of the Constitution in 1908. Slavery in Iran was abolished in 1929. Mauritania became the last state to abolish slavery - in 1905, 1981, and again in Aug 2007(!) Oman abolished slavery in 1970, and Saudi Arabia and Yemen abolished slavery in 1962 under pressure from Britain (officially; however, unofficial slavery is rumored to exist). However, slavery claiming the sanction of Islam is documented at present in the predominantly Islamic countries of the Sahel, and is also practiced in territories controlled by Islamist rebel groups. It is also practiced in countries like Libya and Mauritania - despite being outlawed.
In 1953, sheikhs from Qatar attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom included slaves in their retinues, and they did so again on another visit five years later.
By 1969, slavery still existed in the deserts of Iraq bordering Arabia and it still flourished in Saudi Arabia, the Yemen and Oman.
During the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) people were taken into slavery; estimates of abductions range from 14,000 to 200,000.
It is estimated that up to 600,000 Mauritanians, or 20% of Mauritania’s population, are currently in conditions which some consider to be “slavery”, namely, many of them used as bonded labour due to poverty.
Again, why hasn’t slavery in these nations resulted in success?
If you want someone to help you to defend Islam as one of the great religious traditions, I’m your man. But I can only work within the parameters set by the factual historical record. We must confine ourselves to that code of truth.
Once again, aside from being catastrophically evil, imperialism & slavery are a dead hand. Overwhelmed with top-heavy, unproductive bureaucracy; overreach; mission creep; and failure to innovate, especially economically.
Yes, human rights concept & doctrine was developed by canon lawyers in the 12th c (the ius commune). They developed the principle that an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. This forms part of the discipline of jurisprudence, in addition to history. Aquinas worked in this tradition, when he epitomised the Natural Law. As he said, “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality (dignity) is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” MLK made explicit reference to Aquinas’ Natural Law principles.
On WW2 For China & Korea, the conflict began before 1939, thanks to the Japanese invasions. What occurred was essentially genocide. Also, the Korean language was forbidden, by the Japanese regime, to be taught, written or spoke in schools and universities. This only ended in 1945, with the liberation.
Re the Inquisition: the secular courts were basically Star Chambers. When the Inquisition took over (as the secular courts were already acting in their name) due process & witnesses were introduced into the procedure. And executions radically reduced. All later misconceptions were generated by subsequent propaganda.
“the historical terms applied to those periods didn’t came out of nothing. The Greek Dark ages are just historian division of periods of archaic age that still shrouded in mystery not because Greek city states were extremely advanced,” etc. etc.
- Void for vagueness here. We should strive for clarity. Again, if the point was a strong one, it would come through.
In all seriousness, I’ve never seen anyone genuinely mistake Monty Python for actual history before. The internet is truly a modern marvel. There’s no end to the inadvertent self-parody on display.
June 7th, 2021
“they didn’t do it for love of doing it to keep them preserved (texts) but for educational linguistic reasons for themselves only”
- Hilariously, this is wholly & utterly refuted by the very driving purpose of the Carolingian Renaissance (from the late 8th c to the 9th c). During this period, there was a drive to discover & preserve texts, and an increase of literature, writing, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms & scriptural studies. The network of monasteries notably encouraged literacy, promoted learning, and preserved the classics of ancient literature, including the works of Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, and Aristotle. They were also the economic hub of the community. At its height the Benedictine order alone boasted 37,000 monasteries throughout Europe.
They helped in the preservation of Western Civilisation by copying ancient manuscripts. This begins in the 6th c when a retired Roman senator, Cassiodorus, established a monastery at Vivarium in southern Italy and endowed it with a fine library wherein the copying of manuscripts took centre stage. Thereafter, monasteries were endowed with scriptoria as part of their libraries.
The other place where the survival of manuscripts had priority were the schools associated with the medieval cathedrals. It was those schools of medieval times which lay the groundwork for the first University established at Bologna in the 11th c (”madrasas” should not be confused with the university). The Church had already made some outstanding original contributions in the field of philosophy and theology (the various Church fathers, and St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Aquinas, Don Scotus, Roger Bacon, Wm of Ockham) but she was also saving indispensable books & documents.
Alcuin, a polyglot theologian (of the “dark ages”!) worked closely with Charlemagne to restore study and scholarship in the whole of West-Central Europe. In describing the holdings of his library at York he mentions works by Aristotle, Cicero, Lucan, Pliny, Statius, Trogus Pompeius, Virgil. In his correspondence he mentions Horace, Ovid, Terence. And he was not alone. The abbot of Ferrieres (c. 805-862) Lupus quotes Cicero, Horace, Martial, Seutonius, and Virgil. The abbot of Fleury (c. 950-1104) demonstrated familiarity with Horace, Sallust, Terence, Virgil.
The greatest of abbots after Benedict, Desiderius, who eventually became Pope Victor III in 1086, personally oversaw the transcription of Horace and Seneca, Cicero’s De Natura Deorum and Ovid’s Fasti. His friend Archbishop Alfano (also a former monk at Montecassino) was familiar with the works of ancient writers quoting from Apuleius, Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, Varro, Virgil. He himself wrote poetry imitating Ovid and Horace. Saint Anselm, as abbot of Bec, commended Virgil and other classical writers to his students.
Another great scholar of the so called “dark ages” was Gerbert of Aurillac who later became Pope Sylvester II. He taught logic but also ancient literature: Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Persius, Terence, Statius, Virgil. Then there is St. Hildebert who practically knew Horace by heart. Clearly, the Church helped preserve ancient pagan culture, which would have otherwise been lost.
Of course, there were many monasteries which specialised in other fields of knowledge besides literature. There were lectures in medicine by the monks of St. Benignus at Dijon, in painting and engraving at Saint Gall, in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic in certain German monasteries. Some monks after learning all they could in their own monastery would then travel to other monastic schools established during the Carolingian Renaissance. For instance Abbot Fleury went on to study philosophy and astronomy at Paris and Rheims.
Montecassino, the mother monastery, underwent a revival in the 11th c which scholars now consider “the most dramatic single event in the history of Latin scholarship in the 11th c” (see Scribes and Scholars by L. D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, 1991). Because of this revival manuscripts which would have been forever lost were preserved: The Annals and Histories of Tacitus, The Golden Ass of Apuleius, The Dialogues of Seneca, Varro’s De Lingua Latina, Frontius De Aquis and thirty odd lines of Juvenal’s satire that are not found in any other manuscript in the world.
The devotion to books of those monks was so extraordinary that they would travel far and wide in search or rare manuscripts. St. Benedict Biscop, abbot of Wearmouth monastery in England, travelled widely on five sea voyages for that purpose. Lupus asked a fellow abbot permission to transcribe Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars and asked another friend to bring him Sallust’s accounts of the Catilinarian and Jugurthan Wars, the Verrines of Cicero and De Republica. He borrowed Cicero’s De Rhetorica and wrote to the Pope for a copy of Cicero’s De Oratore, Quintillian’s Institutiones, and other texts. Gerbert assisted another abbot in completing incomplete copies of Cicero’s and the philosopher Demosthenes. A monk of Muri said it all: “Without study and without books, the life of a monk is nothing.” So, we would not be far off the mark in asserting unequivocally that Western civilisation’s admiration for the written word & the classics of antiquity have come to us via the Catholic Church which preserved them throughout the barbarian invasions, from all corners.
Thomas Aquinas who was educated by the monks of Montecassino before joining the Dominican order. St. Benedict was also a teacher. St. Boniface established a school in every monastery he founded in Germany; the same was done by St. Augustine and his monks in England and St. Patrick in Ireland. Irish monasteries developed as great centres of learning & transcription of manuscripts.
It was the monk’s commitment to reading, writing, and education which ensured the survival of Western civilisation after the fall of the Roman Empire & the invasions of the Barbarians. They laid the foundations for the university & became the bridge between antiquity & modernity. Admittedly this is a mere cursory survey of a vast subject but hopefully it renders the idea.
Of course, ignorance of all of this crucially vibrant history can be epitomised in Vico’s description of the “barbarism of the intellect,” which he considered far more sinister than the physical, material barbarism of old.
“the Italian renaissance if anything was completely based on that pagan roman legacy”
- Dante & Petrarch (amongst others) were major precursors of the fourth renaissance. The fourth renaissance also engaged with the Classical past, and was developed & motivated by Christian humanists, incl the great Erasmus, Thomas More, John Colet, etc Christian humanism considers humanist principles like universal human dignity, individual freedom, and the crucial importance of happiness as essential & principal or even exclusive components of the teachings of Jesus. The movement can be traced back to the Patristic Period, 100 AD to 451 AD - which does indeed encompass the Classical period. So it comes full circle.
Moreover, St Augustine had studied & incorporated Plato (4th & 5th c AD), as Thomas Aquinas would later do with Aristotle (13th c AD).
“just dare to say the earth is not flat u would be burned on stick don’t forget the black cats killing spree and witches too.”
- Oy. The flat Earth thing was originated by the American satirist, Washington Irving, 200 yrs ago. Much like the people who take it to be true history, it’s a joke. Lecturers in the medieval universities argued that evidence showed the Earth was a sphere. David Lindberg & Ronald Numbers (both historians of science), state that there “was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth’s] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference”. Widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, although they are not supported by historical research.
Also, the witch craze occurred later in time. Substantially, it was a post-Renaissance (4th) phenomenon - particularly from 1580 to 1630.
Reason was held in high regard during the Middle Ages. Science historian Edward Grant writes, “If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed [in the 18th c], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities”.
One positive here is that you’re encountering historical facts which you were entirely oblivious of prior to this. All constructive developments are to be welcomed & put to use. Now do read the histories, and the self-serving scales will fall. It’s always possible to beneficially integrate/incorporate new information. Empty, baseless cultural promotion, as I observed, only emphasises cultural insecurity & doubt. We must refer to the factual record.
June 18th, 2021
Was this read by a robot?
I was hyped for this read but its unlistenable. Just horrible. Makes your brain protest. Lucky i didn’t spend any money on it.
July 20th, 2021
If the modern world was there waiting to free itself from Rome’s shackles why did it take over a thousand years for it to happen after Romanes domum eunt?
July 5th, 2022
@ceaser963 I’ve been reading your comments on these posts for a long time. You come off as the archetype of the guy that thinks he knows way more than he does, but knows enough to look intelligent on a torrenting chat forum.
There absolutely was a European dark age. That is not a misconception. People looked a aqueducts and wondered wtf they were
You have dark western European colored glasses on man
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