The Earlier Centuries
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
“In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue, but have taken them at second hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” Mark Twain
“Everything we think we know about the world is a model … Our models fall far short of representing the real world fully.” Donella Meadows
Exploring root causes for the mess our world is in and how our way of life came to be, I began wondering whether Plato’s legacy had shaped the Business-as-usual (BAU) “system” we are now co-dependent on.
Besides knowing he authored the Republic, do you know who he was, his background and, most importantly, what paradigm he was born in? A paradigm is how one perceives, interprets and lives one’s life. Often, that elephant in the room is invisible but really crucial to understanding the context of anyone’s thinking and doing.
According to Britannica:
“Plato, (born 428/427, Athens, Greece — died 348/347 BC, Athens), Greek philosopher, who with his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture. His family was highly distinguished; his father claimed descent from the last king of Athens, and his mother was related to Critias and Charmides, extremist leaders of the oligarchic terror of 404.”
In The Story of Greece, author Mary Macgregor shared that the last king of Athens was Codrus:
“At first Athens, like Sparta and the other States, was governed by kings. But while Sparta continued to be a monarchy, Athens became an oligarchy — that is, she was governed by a few, and these few were nobles.
When Codrus, the last king of Athens, was on the throne, the State was invaded by the Dorians. An oracle had declared that unless the Athenian king was slain in the camp of the enemy, Athens would be taken.
Codrus loved his city and determined to save it from the enemy. So he disguised himself as a peasant and went to the camp of the Dorians, where he killed the first soldier he met. The comrades of the dead man at once fell upon Codrus and, as he had hoped, he was speedily slain. Then as the oracle had foretold Athens was saved from the enemy.
The Athenians resolved that they would no longer have kings to rule over them, because they were sure that they could never find any worthy to follow Codrus who had died for the sake of his country. This seems a strange reason for which to overturn the monarchy. In most countries it is the bad conduct of their kings which makes the people wish to get rid of them.
As Athens would not have another king, the son of Codrus was given neither the power nor the title of royalty. He was named merely archon, or ruler. An archon ruled only for ten years.
Soon the Athenians determined to choose nine archons each year, for they thought it would be well to divide the power among these men rather than entrust it to one ruler.
The archons were obliged to consult a council of nobles before they made a new law, while the council had to lay their plans before the assembly of the people.
In this way Athens became before long an oligarchy governed by a few nobles. The nobles often proved harsh rulers, taking from the people the rights that had been theirs when Athens was a monarchy.
At length the people grew so angry that they determined to destroy the nobles who treated them so cruelly. But as they were helpless without a leader, they were glad to follow any ambitious noble who would place himself at their head and lead them to fight against their oppressors. Too often the deliverer seized the supreme power himself and oppressed the people more than had the oligarch.
The usurper was called by the Greeks a tyrant. But the word tyrant did not mean to them, as it means to us, a cruel man. It meant simply one who had seized a power to which he had no real right.
Some of the tyrants were cruel, but others used the power which they had seized for the good of the State.
The years 700 B.C. to 500 B.C. are known as the Age of the Tyrants, because there were few States, save Sparta, which did not fall under the power of a tyrant during those years.”
Plato’s mother was Perictione, a descendant of Solon, an Athenian archon (chief magistrate).
Her illustrious family goes back to Dropides, archon of the year 644 BC. She married Ariston and they had three sons (Glaucon, Adeimantus and Plato) and a daughter (Potone). After Ariston’s death, Perictione married her uncle, Pyrilampes, an Athenian statesman, and had her fifth child, Antiphon.
The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta broke out soon after Plato’s birth. It ended when he was in his twenties.
“Instead of ruining Athens, Sparta installed as the conquered city’s rulers a collaborationist regime of anti-democratic Athenian aristocrats, who became known as the Thirty Tyrants. These men came from the class of aristocrats that had traditionally despised democracy and admired oligarchy. Brutally suppressing their opposition and stealing shamelessly from people whose only crime was to possess desirable property, these oligarchs embarked on an eight-month-long period of terror in 404–403 B.C.” Thomas R. Martin
Named for their cruel and oppressive tactics, the Thirty Tyrants stripped ordinary citizens of their rights, and ruled with a handpicked assembly of supporters. They executed, murdered and exiled Athenians, killing 5% of the population.
Plato’s teacher Socrates, an outspoken critic of democracy, had taught some of the Thirty Tyrants.
A leading member was Critias, Plato’s second cousin: “the cruelest of all the tyrants, decided to kill wealthy Athenians and foreign residents and seize their valuables and property. This was resisted by Thermanes, but Critias had him executed. He was a very complex man, a poet and cultured man who is a character in the Platonic dialogue named after him. He was also very cruel and seemed to enjoy bloodshed.”
“Charmides (Χαρμίδης) (d. 403 BC) = Critias’ cousin and Plato’s uncle (although younger than Plato), a startlingly handsome young man with a headache. (Probably dragged along by Critias, Charmides was later to become a participant in the overthrow of the Athenian democracy in 404 and was killed resisting its restoration in 403.)”
Given such background, is it any surprise that the privileged Plato came to idolize concepts of a philosopher king and the “common good”? Perhaps that was why his works caught the attention of future aristocrats, especially those from before the Renaissance.
Emperor Justinian I closed his pagan Academy in 529 AD but Platonism was revived centuries later.
History tells us of a seemingly never-ending power struggle between various emperors and popes who could never agree who was more superior but “the Holy Roman Emperor was elected by an Imperial College … (that) consisted exclusively of feudal lords.” World History
“After the collapse of the Western Empire in 476, the involvement of the Eastern emperor in papal affairs was gradually replaced by that of Germanic rulers and leading Roman families. As political instability plagued the old Western Empire in the early Middle Ages, popes were often forced to make concessions to temporal authorities in exchange for protection.” Britannica
Way before we were born, all the key decisions were already made by the very few in power even though:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton
Many peace treaties were also made over the centuries, but we are still perpetually at war. If we have access to their details, will they reveal the self-interests of “a few” who made them? Do agreements made by dead people long ago continue to be built upon to rule and control us today?
I never studied history in school so I am learning everything on the go with the bewildering 21st century’s Tower of Babel as my main source. In just a few months, it is impossible to thoroughly research the centuries, let alone write about that. So, any boo-boos, please let me know at crowdpowers@gmail.com 🙏
Also, rather than the BAU norm of focusing on singular topics i.e. verticals, I attempt to chronologically connect some dots. Hopefully, patterns that emerge in a timeline will nudge you into seeing the BAU forest (paradigm) in spite of the trees (single topics).
It’s really important you keep an open mind, not take anything personally and try to see the patterns over time. To explore the context of how the BAU model molds behaviors and the root causes for the mess our world is in, hack your own mind to self-discover whether we are still self-organized to create Plato’s paradigm to live. Enjoy exploring history with someone who never studied it in school!!
How the Philosophical Foundations of Western Culture Went Global?
“First came privateers and pirates, then commercial corporations. That the first were freebooters outside the law and the second were legalized by nation-states, materially changed the form but did little to change the function.” Dee Hock
Humanism is the idea that man was the center of his own universe, and people should embrace human achievements in education, classical arts, literature and science.
About four centuries before England embarked on the First Industrial Revolution, Plato’s teaching got traction in 13th-/14th-century Italy as humanism.
In the late 1420’s, Nicolaus of Cusa was introduced to his writings through the works of the Spaniard Raymond Llull that were housed at a Carthusian monastery outside Paris. Along with his contemporary Dante Alighieri, Llull had led the Platonist offensive against medieval Aristotelianism.
Dualistic mindset thinking seems prevalent even then.
At the Council of Basel in 1434, Cardinal Cusa presented the concept of a state in a book-length treatise entitled The Catholic Concordance De concordantia catholica, arguing for the authority of the council over that of the pope and stressing the notions of consent and representation. Abraham Lincoln later described that as how the government would rule “of, by, and for the people.”
“Cusa’s collaborators were all part of the effort to realize an idea which saw fruition in Louis XI’s France. They included the Florentine Paolo Toscanelli, the physician and mapmaker who made Columbus’ voyage possible; Ambrogio Traversari, who won over Pope Eugenius IV to the perspective of what would become the 1439 Council of Florence which unified the Eastern and Western Churches; Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, who helped Cusa win Germany to the side of Church unification; and Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, who along with Cusa broke with the schismatic turn of the Council of Basel in 1437 …
The rebirth of Platonist learning became institutionalized in Florence in 1440, with the founding of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Platonic Academy.
In many ways, Louis’ model for the Commonwealth was the Fifteenth century city-state of Florence. The Europe-wide Medici banking network was geared to providing credit for industry and infrastructure. Florence had a republican form of government whose wealth, unlike that of her rival Venice, was based on manufacturing. Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464) was a part of the circle of the heirs of Petrarch, most notably Ambrogio Traversari, who forged an international Christian-Humanist conspiracy from his cell at the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, then the economic capital of Europe.” The Commonwealth of France’s Louis XI: Fruit of the European Renaissance
Cosimo de’ Medici’s think tank a la Plato was well underway when Louis XI began experimenting with creating the nation-state model from around 1462.
With that in mind, here’s a very brief run up to Adam Smith rolling out his “self-interests” theories in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in the 18th century:
· After winning the War of the Roses in England in 1485, Henry VII began developing the English nation-state.
· The era of Spain as a global power began in 1492 as Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella took back all of Spain from the Muslims.
· With the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the monarchs of Spain and Portugal split the world to conquer into two halves between them. The imaginary dividing line ran down the center of the Atlantic Ocean — any new discovery of lands in West Africa and anything beyond the Cape of Good Hope was Portugal’s and to the west (the Americas), the Crown of Castile’s (Spain then).
· Between 1547–1584, Ivan the Terrible unified the Russian government to create the first Russian nation-state.
· Letters of the Grand Parti patent were created on March 18, May 17, and October 1, 1555, using techniques commonly said to have been invented during the 19th century.
France’s costly wars against Spain and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, were “financed by issuing Perpetual Rents on Paris town-hall which are sold to individuals and by borrowings from the merchant-bankers, mostly foreigners, established in the city of Lyon which, at that time, is the French financial center.”
Following the downfall of the Knights Templar, Lyon’s fair became the greatest market for international trade in all Europe. With just a desk and an inkstand, an Italian merchant bought and sold debt and made a fortune, using a bill of exchange. Essentially, it was a credit note, an IOU, expressed in the ecu de marc, a private currency used by an international network of bankers:
“Every few months, agents of this network of bankers would meet at the great fairs such as Lyon’s, go through their books, net off all the credit notes against each other and settle any remaining debts. Our financial system today has a lot in common with this model … By turning personal obligations into internationally tradable debts, these medieval bankers were creating their own private money, outside the control of Europe’s kings. Rich, and powerful, they had no need for the coins minted by the sovereign.” Tim Harford
· In September 1555, Charles V and the Schmalkaldic League signed the Peace of Augsburg in the imperial city of Augsburg in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany — “the dominant centre of early capitalism.” The Peace of Augsburg has been described as “the first step on the road toward a European system of sovereign states.”
The 1555 Peace of Augsburg tried to prevent conflicts between Protestants and Catholics by fixing boundaries between the two faiths. This officially made the legal division of Christianity permanent within the Holy Roman Empire. Over the next 50 years, that arrangement was destabilized as more became Protestants. The Holy Roman Emperor then decided and decreed that everyone must be Catholic.
· That led to the Thirty Years’ War (1614–1648), the bloodiest war in history (until World War I).
· Amid that, royalties were granting charters for the various East India Companies experiments. Were Popes endorsing the different Knights Orders for the Crusades their precursor? (Same pattern)
· In 1619, the Republic of Venice organized another public bank: Banco del Giro.
· Based on mathematics, Rene-Descartes devised a universal method of deductive reasoning, applicable to all the sciences. Formulated in Discourse on Method (1637) and Rules for the Direction of the Mind, this method laid the initial foundation for the mechanistic theory of life.
· The world’s first instance of mass speculation, the Tulip Bubble, happened in February 1637.
· The 1648 Peace Treaty of Westphalia then laid the legal foundation for the founding of nation-states:
“The first six months were spent arguing about who was to sit where and who was to go into a room ahead of whom. The principal French and Spanish envoys never managed to meet at all because the correct protocol could not be agreed.” History Today
“A new equilibrium was born based on the acquired “sovereignty” of 300 German princes and the corresponding contraction of the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor now reduced to a much smaller role. The Treaty was initially of interest only in the context of the organisation of power within Europe itself. However as Europe expanded in the next three centuries to encompass the whole world, the European Order became the World Order. Its basic organising principle was the sovereignty of individual nation-states, sovereignty being defined as supreme power against which there is no possible appeal. The Westphalian World Order (WWO) probably reached its zenith in 1945 when national governments exerted maximum power in global affairs …
In a nutshell the central authority of the empire was replaced almost entirely by the sovereignty of about 300 princes. The Peace Treaty was a turning point in the mutual recognition of sovereignty rights. Although the signatories of the treaty had only the peace of Europe as their ultimate objective, the unintended consequence of their efforts was to create a global order based on a “State System” …
(A system to perpetuate the Thirty Tyrants’ wildest dreams?)
The advancing players are the non-state actors. A first group has emerged from the market system itself: multinational corporations, nouveaux riches entrepreneurs, inventors and investors. A second group has emanated from more traditional special-interest groups, labor, consumer groups, religious organisations etc. The third group, composed of NGOs, purports to represent the elusive Civil Society. These non-state actors are now able to exert pressure and assume de facto governance functions either implicitly or explicitly.” Kimon Valaskakis, former ambassador of Canada to the OECD
“… The treaty gave the Swiss independence of Austria and the Netherlands independence of Spain. The German principalities secured their autonomy. Sweden gained territory and a payment in cash, Brandenburg and Bavaria made gains too, and France acquired most of Alsace-Lorraine.” History Today
Legal-dictionary defines a state’s sovereignty as:
“The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which an independent state is governed and from which all specific political powers are derived; the intentional independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign interference.
Sovereignty is the power of a state to do everything necessary to govern itself, such as making, executing, and applying laws; imposing and collecting taxes; making war and peace; and forming treaties or engaging in commerce with foreign nations.”
375 years ago, did the Peace Treaty of Westphalia legally enable weaponizing anyone and anything?
· The Dutch Republic was recognized by Spain as an independent country in 1648.
· In 1656, English politician and essayist James Harrington published The Commonwealth of Oceana, one of the most important Venetian ideologues in England.
· Johan Palmstruch established Stockholms Banco as a privately owned bank with shareholders including the King, the City of Stockholm and himself in 1656/7.
· The Royal Society was established in 1660.
· Until the 1666 English Free Coinage Act, all currencies were publicly controlled by the king and the pope in England. Charles II transferred the control of money creation to private banks, i.e., corporations.
A corporation is “an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” Ambrose Bierce
· The Swedish central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, was founded in 1668.
· The Bank of England, the English central bank, was formed in 1694.
· France emerged as the dominant power in Europe as Louis XIV created an absolute monarchy between 1638 and 1715.
Did “a few” use opposing forces like that of Habsburg-ruled Spain and Austria, and the French House of Bourbon to orchestrate crises to divide, distract and confuse so our predecessors would unwittingly lay the foundation for the umbrella BAU model of control? Has that become another BAU norm?
The First Industrial Revolution started only 263 years ago but today, the world we were born into is solidly anchored on two European inventions — the state and the corporation. Although fairly new creations, have they not centralized laws, policymaking and/or terms and conditions to systemically shape behaviors across the world, including nurturing an abnormally insatiable appetite for control, greed and tyranny?
“A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, an artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake real people in its image.” Joel Bakan
Names of kings, popes, royalties, knights, etc. and even country borders change and they utterly confuse but what’s NEVER changed is the direction of top-down control — how “a few” have self-organized humanity to actualize all sorts of rent-seeking experiments so they can legally make all the key decisions that affect our lives and legally reap all the key benefits.
At the systemic level, none of us make one iota of decision.
Because whether fronted by a pope, royalty, knight, doge, minister, celebrity, elite, employee, whoever, haven’t “a few” from the West been covertly orchestrating how we globally live a “cradle to grave” business plan?
Hasn’t the “philosophical foundations of Western culture” been self-organizing us to live an unnatural way of life that gradually but systemically strips us of our rights?
A big part is to make everything legit through our willing participation. Conditioned to know the price of everything and the value of nothing, scarcity models test and standardize how easily people can be weaned/bought/standardized. Model answer exams, best practices, white papers, etc. all merrily pave the BAU way from the top-down.
Over the centuries, haven’t alchemic experiments included creating/ controlling money through artificial persons like central banks amid experiments with papal bulls, divine rights, treaties, provisions, parliaments, councils, city-states, nation-states, legal fictions, regulations, etc. to globally legalize absolute power?
Let’s go back in time to explore …
How “… the system must be first” began?
“In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.” Frederick Winslow Taylor
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” W. Edwards Deming
“Not only did (G. H.) Pember trace Catholic ritual back to the Mystery religions, but through these to the ancient ritual of the Babylonians. He was by no means the first to argue for such a connection between Babylon and Rome. The early Protestant identification of the Apocalyptic “Babylon the Great” (Rev. xvii. 5) with the Church of Rome suggested a connection that was more than verbal and metaphorical. About the middle of last century a series of works appeared in Britain which sought to prove that the worship of the Roman Church could be traced back through pagan Rome to the religion of ancient Babylon. The stimulus to this research was probably afforded in large measure by Catholic Emancipation and the development of the Tractarian movement.” F.F. Bruce, Babylon and Rome
Around 1894 BC: The Babylonian empire began and ended 300 years later. Often called the Chaldean/neo-Babylonian Empire, the second empire arose more than 1000 years after that. After Assyria fell, the “city of Gold” came to power in 625 BC until it was captured by Cyprus the Great in 539 BC.
63 BC: Beginning with Julius Caesar, the Caesars called themselves “Pontifex Maximus,” i.e. the bridge between this world and the next. As high priest of the invisible sun, Julius Caesar presided over as emperor of the political state and high priest over the pagan religions in ancient Rome.
The papal title Pontifex Maximus can be traced back in different forms to the ancient Chaldean times. When Medo-Persia conquered Babylon, the Babylonian religion was maintained, but after a revolt of the priesthood, the priests of Babylon were driven out of Medo-Persia, and established themselves at Pergamum, taking with them their titles and vestures.
Between 27 BC and 476 AD: The old Roman Empire was based in Rome and controlled nations around the Mediterranean rim, including Israel.
Around 375 BC: Plato wrote The Republic to explore the concept of a city-state ruled by the pure wisdom of a philosopher king. Featuring his teacher, Socrates in a dialogue with various Athenians and foreigners, he argued how the ideal state — one which ensured the maximum possible happiness for all its citizens — could only be actualized by a ruler possessed of absolute knowledge gained from philosophical study.
Plato’s ideal state comprised of three social classes — rulers, guardians (or soldiers), and producers (e.g., farmers and craftsmen) — was influential during the Roman Empire. Since then, others, including his student Aristotle, had expanded on his concept of control, adapting it to their own versions of the perfect ruler.
During the Renaissance, Plato’s teaching was revived as humanism which began to get traction in 13th/14th century Italy, interestingly, before Adam Smith’s theories, including of the “invisible hand” surfaced. It centered on the idea that man was the center of his own universe.
His Academy was revived in Florence by Cosimo de’ Medici, under the leadership of Marsilio Ficino, a scholar, astrologer and Catholic priest who had Cosimo as his lifelong patron.
In the BC era, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero were among the first to write about “the common good.”
2 BC: Church Father Irenaeus — Bishop of Lyon in Gaul (now France) — defined “the common good” as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.”
“Pergamos, also known as Pergamum or Pergamon, was a wealthy city established as one of the major cultural centers of the ancient Greek empire during the second century BC. When Rome took over and Augustus Caesar established the cult of emperor worship close to the turn of the first century, Pergamos was chosen as the headquarters, and a temple was built in honor of Rome and Augustus, approximately 29 BC.
Pergamos was referred to in the book of Revelation as ‘where satan’s seat is’ (Rev 2:13), most likely in reference to the temple of Augustus and prominence in the practice of emperor worship. The temple to Zeus at the top of the Acropolis, which now resides in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, may also be the reference to ‘satan’s seat’”. Bible World Now
2 BC: Origin of the Vikings?
“The so-called “Nordic circle” (Nordischer Kreis) is indicated as the original homeland of the Germanic tribes (second millennium BC). A vast area which — considering present-day names — comprises southern Sweden and Norway, the Jutland peninsula, the Danish islands and the plains of northern Germany. The Germanic peoples of the early days were not one People, nor were the various tribes aware of a common ethnic root. Likewise, today there is no certainty as to the probable existence of an original bloodline which, in any case, belonged to the great Indo-European family.
The Germanic peoples are distinguished according to three large groups: North Germanic (Varangians or Norwegian, Danish and Swedish Vikings), East Germanic and West Germanic, to each of which belonged a great number of sub-groups and tribes.
The North Germanic group also includes Norwegian, Danish and Swedish Varangians (also known as Vikings). Classified in the East Germanic group were the tribes of the Goths (a group that included Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Gepids, Thervingi, Greuthungi, Crimean Goths), the Rugii, the Vandals, the Herules, the Burgundians, the Bastarnae, the Scirii and the Thuringians.
Classified in the West Germanic group (which in turn was divided into the large groups of the Ingaevones, Irminones and Istvaeones) were the Salians, the Franks — to whom a great part of Longobard history is connected — the Chatti, the Batavi, the Ubii, the Treveri and also the Suebi (or Suevi), the Saxons, the Quadi, the Marcomanni and the Alemanni. As regards the Longobards, the few ancient sources mention them sometimes as belonging to the Eastern Germanic and sometimes to the Western Germanic tribes (Irminones) group).” Longobardways
1 BC: The Netherlands was originally inhabited by Germanic tribes. A portion of the land became a Roman province after Julius Caesar conquered it. Later, the land became part of the empire of the Franks, then the House of Burgundy, and eventually became part of the Habsburg Empire.
64 AD: Persecution of the early church originally started under Roman Emperor Nero.
212: A decree passed under Roman Emperor Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) stated all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire were to be made citizens.
249–554: The Gothic Wars, a long series of conflicts between the Goths, a Germanic people, and the Roman Empire led to the collapse of the Roman Empire.
301: Roman Emperor Diocletian “issued an edict, fixing the maximum prices of commodities and wages throughout the empire. His accompanying system of tax collection, making civil officials responsible for payment of fixed sums, laid the basis for serfdom, by tying peasants to the land to meet their tax burden. Diocletian’s reforms were followed by the reforms of the Emperor Theodosius (r. 379–395), which legally bound the Roman subject to his occupation for life.” William F. Wertz, Jr.
311: Roman Emperor Galerius issued a decree that Christians be treated with “toleration.” In practice, this simply cancelled the official persecution of Christianity begun by Diocletian in 303. The return of confiscated property and restoration of rights were not, however, part of Galerius’s decree.
313 (4th century): Pagan Byzantine Emperor Constantine saw becoming a “Christian” would increase his political power to unite the Roman Empire. With Licinius, he legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan and pronounced Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This made him emperor over the state and high priest over the priesthood — the priesthood consisted of two orders: Pagan and Christian.
315: Constantine erected the arch of Constantine with images of a goddess adorning it. At the dedication of the arch, sacrifices were made to Apollo, Diana, and Hercules. Images of anything Christian were conspicuously absent.
(When he thought it was necessary, Constantine also did not hesitate to kill his own relatives — murdering his wife, Fausta, and his eldest son, the deputy emperor Crispus.)
325: The Council of Nicea was convened and presided over by Emperor Constantine. All 1800 Christian bishops from the Roman Empire were invited to attend, with all expenses paid, but 1500 bishops chose not to. Only 250 to 318 were reported to have attended.
Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea, which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed.
“The Roman Church at this time was totally a pagan church composed of doctrines that encouraged murder, human sacrifice, devil worship, peonage, the accumulation of wealth, and the worship of demon-god like idolatry. Emperor Constantine deduced that he needed to either crush or utilize the tide of this Christian rebellion, which was devouring his Kingdom and so Constantine ordered that the basic principles of the pagan Roman Church and the new Christian movement be merged together into one religion at the Council of Nicaea, which resulted in the birth of The Holy Roman Church.” Judge Dale, The Great American Adventure
(In 337, Constantine was finally baptized on his deathbed by Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia.)
This blending of religion and government led to an uneasy but powerful mix of doctrine and politics. The title “Pontifex Maximus” was later transferred to the Pope. Eventually, power was centralized in the Roman Catholic Church, the major social institution throughout the Middle Ages.
“After nearly two thousand years of existence, the Papacy is the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world. To countless millions, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth, the infallible interpreter of divine revelation. To millions more, he is the fulfilment of the Biblical prophecies of Antichrist. What cannot be denied is that the Roman Catholic Church, of which he is the head, is as old as Christianity itself; all other Christian religions — and there are more than 22,000 of them — are offshoots or deviants from it.” John Julius Norwich, Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy
“Around A.D. 375, a people called the Huns arrived north of the Danube from the Eurasian steppe, and they drove a number of other peoples — likely including the Vandals — to migrate toward the Roman Empire. This put a great deal of pressure on the Roman Empire, which by this point was facing frequent crises and had divided into Eastern and Western halves to better control the empire’s vast territory.” Owen Jarus
Fleeing from the Huns, the Vandals captured territory as they went. They also adopted Christianity, espousing Arianism, believing that Christ was not equal to God.
In A History of the Vandals, Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen, former curator of the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum, noted that the Vandals may have originated in southern Scandinavia, and that the name Vandal “appears [in historical records] in central Sweden in the parish of Vendel, old Swedish Vaendil.”
378/380: Damasus, Bishop of Rome, was the first Pope to bear the Pontifex Maximus title. As head of the Roman Catholic Church, he was Bishop of bishops, supreme pontiff, head of the pontiffs or priesthood (both Pagan and Christian). Two years after his coronation, Pope Damasus declared that no one should be consecrated unless they held to the Nicene Creed.
379–395: Theodosius I was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire before it divided into two regions: east and west. During his reign, he succeeded in a crucial war against the Goths, making peace with the Visigoth leader Fritigern. Peace was held until Theodosius’s death in 395. In the same year, the Alaric was elected leader of the Visigoths.
395: The Roman Empire was divided: The west then divided into smaller separate kingdoms while the east (the Byzantine Empire) prospered until Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.
406: The Vandals crossed the Rhine River, went first to Gaul, then to what is now Spain, then to northern Africa. They captured Carthage (now Tunisia) in 439 and made it their capital. As the years passed, they increasingly conquered more Roman territory. Carthage’s strategic location on the Mediterranean gave them an advantage, and the Vandals became a formidable naval power.
Threatened, the Roman Empire made a treaty to ensure the Vandals would leave Rome alone.
407–409: “… the Vandals, Alans and Germanic tribes like the Suevi had swept into Roman Hispania. In response to this invasion Honorius now enlisted the aid of the Visigoths to regain control of the Iberian peninsula …
413–426: “in response to the charge by the Romans that the sack of Rome by the Visigoth Alaric in AD 410 was due to the city’s inhabitants having forsaken the classical Roman religion and adopting Christianity,” St. Augustine of Hippo, sometimes called “the Father of Roman Catholicism,” wrote The City of God where “Augustine sets forth his idea of two contrasting cities, the City of God and the City of Earth. The City of God, according to Augustine, consists of all human and celestial beings united in their love for God and their seeking to glorify Him. The City of Earth is comprised of those beings who love only themselves and seek their own glory and good.” Got Questions
418: Honorius rewarded his Visigothic federates by giving them land in Gallia Aquitania on which to settle. This settlement formed the nucleus of the future Visigothic kingdom that would eventually expand across the Pyrenees.” Midi-France, The History of the Languedoc: Visigoths, Alamans and Vandals
450: The city-state of Venice was founded by leading families of the Roman oligarchy who sought refuge from Visigoths and Huns as the empire collapsed. Calling itself “the Serene republic,” Venice was ‘in all pretense a total oligarchy’:
“It grew as a junior partner to the Byzantine Empire for centuries and formed a unique form of government. A senate amounting to nearly 1500 members of the nobility was formed which itself was headed by a Council of 10. Atop this pyramid was a council of three which utilized the figure of an elected doge to justify itself. The system was so effective that in its 1000+ years, only one attempt was made by a doge to go renegade — a crime for which he was publicly beheaded in 1355.” Matthew Ehret
(Was this power hierarchy also similar to the Thirty Tyrants’ set-up?)
455: The Vandals, a Germanic tribe, took over Rome.
Gaiseric (aka Genseric), the Vandals’ king, had observed Rome was disintegrating. When Petronius Maximus murdered Roman Emperor Valentinian III, he voided their treaty but negotiated with Pope Leo I to not destroy Rome. The Vandals raided the city’s wealth, but left the buildings intact. Years of clashes followed. Between 460 and 475, the Vandals successfully repelled a Rome now intent on taking back what it had lost but Gaiseric’s death sounded the death knell for the Vandals.
(In 533, the Romans took back North Africa, expelling the Vandals for good.)
476: The fall of the Roman Republic saw the Roman Empire reduced to its eastern half, with the ethnically Greek city of Constantinople as its capital, albeit retaining the Roman style of government and law. Modern historians tend to call this the Byzantine Empire but its inhabitants continued to see themselves as Romans. This saw the emergence of two other civilizations: Islam and Western Europe.
(The Holy Roman Empire came into existence long after the Roman Empire had collapsed. It had no official capital, but the emperors — usually Germanic kings — ruled from their homelands.)
“After the fall of Rome those uprooted from the destroyed temple took advantage of Rome’s problems and began to insert themselves into the remnants, making serious headway through Charlemagne who would further the advance of the Carolingians direct into the monastic system. By the time we reached Crusade it was clear that the Holy See had become in debt to the merchants of Venice and Genoa. From this point forward the phrase; all roads lead to Rome, and then back to the cities that controlled it Genoa and Venice had teeth. Through the Templars the merchant class expanded their money lending to monarchs across Europe with the 1066 invasion of England being the catalyst to the advancement of the feudal system outside of Northern France, into the British Isles and spread across the European landmass.” The Bridge
476–752: The Merovingian Dynasty was a Frankish line of kings who ruled Western Europe. Gaul, the largest and most important state then, encompassed modern France, Luxembourg as well as significant portions of Switzerland, northern and central Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.
By the end of the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire and the influence of Greco-Roman culture were in decline. The Roman Empire had lost its hold on most of Western Europe. From the capital in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), the Eastern Roman Empire was focused on defending against Arab/Islamic invaders from the East. Out from under the thumb of Rome, and with less pressing threats from invaders, Western Europe began to come into its own politically, and Christianity in Western Europe began to develop as well.
“The Roman Empire in the West finally collapsed in A.D. 476. But the Roman Empire in the East, sometimes called the Byzantine Empire, continued for almost a thousand years, until 1453. And if the Ottoman Empire is considered as the Ottoman dynasty of an ongoing Byzantine Empire, then the Byzantine Empire kept going until shortly after World War I. With certain exceptions, the ruling dynasties of Byzantium continued the oligarchical policy of Diocletian and Constantine.” Webster G. Tarpley
486: Gaul, the Roman territory located between the Seine and Loire Rivers, fell to the Salian Franks, a Germanic tribe. The Merovingian Dynasty continued to expand their kingdom.
496: King Clovis I, a Merovingian descendent, was baptized as a Christian.
Fearing he might lose to the Alemanni, Clovis asked his Catholic wife’s God for help and after his victory, was baptized by Remigius, the bishop of Reims, along with other Frankish leaders and 3000 other Franks.
“The Church was wholeheartedly supporting all of the actions that Clovis took, and he granted fiefs and land to the church, built churches and supported the expansion of Christianity … To further strengthen the bond between church and state, Clovis called a church council in Orleans in 511. Clovis codified the first laws which were regulating the legal state in his kingdom. He established the so called ‘personalization of law’. The codex of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum — 506) was used for the Gallo-Roman population, while the Franks were judged by customary law, which was codified in the Salian codex, the Lex Salicia.” Short History
But Clovis was still quite willing to use treachery and brutality to defeat any opposition. As a Catholic convert, he was loyal to the Nicene Creed. Merovingian rulers were allied with the Pope and became promoters of Catholic Christianity. Although harsh and even barbaric in their rule, their alliance with and promotion of Roman Catholicism led to a nominal acceptance of orthodox Christianity throughout Western Europe and the spread of Christianity to England.
In the 6th and 7th centuries, the harsh practices of the Merovingian Dynasty were detrimental to the Church. The Merovingians viewed the Church as a tool to be used for their own purposes. They regularly appointed laymen as bishops and sold church offices. Pope Gregory tried to institute reforms, but these were resisted.
But, according to European royal history:
“Under the Merovingian dynasty, the Mayor of the Palace was the manager of the household of the Frankish king. The office existed from the sixth century, and during the seventh it evolved into the ‘power behind the throne’ in the northeastern kingdom of Austrasia.
The Mayor of the Palace held and wielded the real and effective power to make decisions affecting the kingdom, while the kings had been reduced to performing merely ceremonial functions, which made them little more than figureheads. The office may be compared to that of a prime minister, all of which have similarly been the real powers behind some ceremonial monarchs.”
Around 500: The Byzantine Empire encompassed the Greek and Balkan Peninsula, Asian Minor, Palestine and Egypt and was a leading economic, military and cultural power in Europe.
527–565: Considered the last great Roman emperor and the first great Byzantine emperor, Justinian I fought to reclaim the western portions of the Roman territory but ended up leaving a legacy of law and architecture. The Christian emperor appointed a commission to begin the first book of what became an extensive and thorough legal code. Referred to as Justinian’s Code, the Corpus Juris Civilis was primarily a compilation and clarification of centuries of existing law, and would become one of the most influential sources in western legal history. Justinian also saw the construction of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It served as the center of eastern Orthodox Christianity.
529: Emperor Justinian I closed Plato’s pagan Academy because he wanted persecutions against heretics and orthodox Christians to end.
568–774: The Lombards aka Langobards were Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula.
“… the PRELIMINARY PHASE is the Scandinavian phase of the myth of their origin which sees the tribe of the Winnili (Winniles) transform into the tribe of the Longobards, and which ends at the beginning of the 1st century BC with their migration towards the Germanic shores to the south of the Baltic and along the final course of the river Elbe.” Longobardways
In the late 8th century, Paul the Deacon wrote History of the Lombards on how Lombards were descended from Winnili. Covering their mythical origins to the death of King Liutprand in 743, this Benedictine monk, scribe, and historian of the Lombards wrote about the Eastern Roman Empire, the Franks, and etc.
“Winnili” meaning “victorious fighters” is the ancient name of the Lombards when they were still a small tribe living in Scania, the present-day region in Sweden.
Roman historian Publio Cornelio Tacitus described them as being “remote” and very aggressive with a reputation for being fierce and warlike. Some sources state that they chose to change their name to Longobards only after their victory against the neighboring Vandals.
“ … the history of the Longobards can be divided into a preliminary phase (that of the Scandinavian myth of the origins) and four historic periods … the area is included in the so-called ‘Nordic Circle’ (Southern Sweden and Norway, Jutland, Danish islands and the plains of northern Germany), which includes territories inhibited by several Germanic tribes. So far, this has made it extremely difficult to indicate with a sufficient approximation the origin of the tribe of the Winnili (the future Longobards). However, the most accredited hypothesis points towards the present Swedish region of Scania.
Corresponding to the four epochs in which Longobard presence is ascertained are four geographical macro areas of settlement:
□ Northern Germany,
□ Central-Eastern Europe
□ and Italy, which is divided into two geographical and temporal strips: one that extends over a large part of the peninsula and referring to the Longobard kingdom, from 568 to 774; and the territories of the Longobard Principalities in the South after the end of the Kingdom, that is from 774 to 1077 (year of the Norman conquest of the South of Italy, which brought the long Longobard period to a close) …
The peak of Longobard culture is scientifically recognized today as the first foundation of European Culture.” Longobardways
“All Italian bankers, including the Genoese, the Venetians, and Milanese, were referred to as ‘Lombards’ — Lombard, in German, means ‘deposit bank’ — the Lombards were bankers to the entire Medieval world. Modern history begins with the transfer of their operations north to Hamburg, Amsterdam, and finally to London.” Eustace Mullins
697 (7th century): According to tradition, Paolo Lucio Anafesto was the first to be elected doge, or duke, serving until 717. The office originated when Venice was nominally subject to the Byzantine Empire but became permanent in the mid-8th century. The doge was the highest official of the republic of Venice from the 8th to the 18th century (more than 1000 years) and the symbol of the sovereignty.
Chosen from among the ruling families of Venice, the doge’s power was extensive, and a life-long office, although not hereditary. As only the nobility could take part in their election, Venice erroneously called itself a republic. By the 15th century the office had assumed the character of prince subject to law.
(The last doge, Ludovico Manin, was deposed when Napoleon conquered northern Italy in 1797.)
The title was also used relatively briefly in Genoa, the principal civil official being modeled on Venice and instituted in 1339 to help end disorders among factions in the city.
8th-15th century: “Venice and other Italian maritime republics of Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice held a monopoly on European trade with the East. From the East came many herbs and spices such as pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric and many other spices which were among the most expensive and in-demand products of the Middle Ages. Venice and the other Italian maritime republics became phenomenally rich during this period.
In 1453 the Ottoman empire defeated the Byzantine Empire and then controlled the trades routes through which the Eastern traders brought spices to Europe. The Ottoman empire charged large taxes on products bound for Europe. Western Europeans did not want to be dependent on a large Muslim power for the spices that came from Asia. Western Europeans began exploring sea routes to Asia to bypass the Ottoman empire.” Money Stocks Tycoons
752 (8th century): Pope Zachary deposed King Chideric III, ending the Merovingian Dynasty. His successor was Stephen III who was brought up in the papal court. Stephen III knew a pope was not merely a religious leader but also a civil governor with extensive territories under his command. He severed ties with the Byzantine Empire to become the first temporal sovereign of the newly-founded Papal States.
754: Stephen III was the first pope to make the trip across the Alps to Gaul where he met the Frankish king Pippin III (also spelt Pepin) who promised to restore the lands taken by the Lombards to the church.
At the abbey of Saint-Denis, France in July, Stephen anointed Pippin and his sons Charlemagne and Carloman, consecrating them kings of the Romans. Pippin then invaded Italy with his Frankish nobles, besieging Aistulf at Pavia, but after Pippin’s army returned to Gaul, Aistulf resumed his war on Italy.
“The papacy had invoked Constantine’s fictional donation as early as 754 CE to authorize Carolingian King Pepin’s gift of Ravenna and the Exarchate of Italy to Pope Stephen II (made in exchange for the Church’s recognition of Pepin as King of the Franks). As the popes began to claim more territories through such donations, ultimately controlling the large belt of land known as the Papal States, they came to stake their temporal authority to the story of Constantine’s gift.” Joseph Williams
The fabricated Donation of Constantine (Donatio Constantini) purports to be an original 4th-century document in which Constantine supposedly had granted supreme temporal and spiritual power to the Church. Claiming Pope Sylvester I had miraculously cured him of leprosy, Constantine, in gratitude, had transferred his power and authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope who then generously gave that power back, allowing the emperor his reign.
It was thought to be created at the behest of Pope Stephen II to aid his negotiations with Pippin III.
“The idea was that the Pope approved the transfer of the great central European crown from the Merovingian dynasty to the Carolingians, and in return, Pepin [Pippin] would not just give the Papacy the rights to Italian lands, but would actually ‘restore’ what had been given long before by Constantine.” Robert Wilde
756: In January, as the Lombards surrounded Rome, Stephen sent another appeal. Pippin, Charlemagne, and Carloman returned to Italy, subdued the Lombards and conferred on Stephen territory in the exarchate of Ravenna, the duchy of Rome, and the districts of Venetia and Istria, thereby founding the Papal States. Secured also was papal independence from the imperial regime at Constantinople, making the Frankish ruler protector of the papacy. The pope became a sovereign prince.
“The Papal States were territories in central Italy that were directly governed by the papacy — not only spiritually but in a temporal, secular sense. The extent of papal control, which officially began in 756 and lasted until 1870, varied over the centuries, as did the geographical boundaries of the region. Generally, the territories included present-day Lazio (Latium), Marche, Umbria, and part of Emilia-Romagna.” Melissa Snell
768: Charlemagne inherited the Frankish crown.
800 (9th century): Pope Leo III laid the foundation for the Holy Roman Empire when he crowned Charlemagne, the Frankish king “Emperor of the Roman Empire.” As the imperial title was transferred from east back to west, this set a precedent for the next 700 years. It was a direct continuation from ancient Rome as popes claimed the right to select and install the most powerful rulers.
“During his reign, he subdued Bavaria, conquered Lombardy and Saxony, and established his authority in central Italy. By the end of the eighth century, his kingdom, later to become known as the First Reich (empire in German), included present-day France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as a narrow strip of northern Spain, much of Germany and Austria, and much of the northern half of Italy.
The Carolingian Empire was based on an alliance between the emperor, who was a temporal ruler supported by a military retinue, and the pope of the Roman Catholic Church, who granted spiritual sanction to the imperial mission. Charlemagne and his son Louis I (r. 814–40) established centralized authority, appointed imperial counts as administrators, and developed a hierarchical feudal structure headed by the emperor. Reliant on personal leadership rather than the Roman concept of legalistic government, Charlemagne’s empire lasted less than a century.
A period of warfare followed the death of Louis.” German Culture
891: Fall of the Carolingian dynasty.
Under Charlemagne’s grandsons, the Frankish realm swiftly disintegrated. They agreed to split the empire into three parts: the Kingdom of West Francia (the precursor of medieval France), Middle Francia or Lotharingia, and East Francia. The third kingdom evolved into the Kingdom of Germany during the late 9th and early 10th centuries.
“Charlemagne’s grandsons decided that the ruler of Middle Francia was to carry the imperial title. This agreement broke down quickly because that family line of the Carolingian Dynasty went extinct. As a result, Middle Francia descended into chaos, breaking apart into the Kingdom of Burgundy and the Kingdom of Italy.” World History
“Not only had Charlemagne’s empire been divided into three kingdoms, but the East Frankish Kingdom was being weakened by the rise of regional duchies, the so-called stem duchies of Franconia, Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and Lorraine, which acquired the trappings of petty kingdoms. The fragmentation in the east marked the beginning of German particularism, in which territorial rulers promoted their own interests and autonomy without regard to the kingdom as a whole. The duchies were strengthened when the Carolingian line died out in 911; subsequent kings would have no direct blood link to the throne with which to legitimate their claims to power against the territorial dukes.” German Culture
“The Church was appalled by all these disputes of the Carolingian dynasty and within all those civil wars because it reduced the revenue to the Church.” Short History
962–1806: To resurrect the western empire of Rome, the Holy Roman Empire officially began when Pope John XII crowned King Otto I of Germany “emperor” over a loosely joined union of smaller kingdoms in western and central Europe:
“In the 10th century, the Italian princess Adelaide (931–999) asked Otto I, King of Germany (r. 936–973) and Holy Roman Emperor (r. 962–973), to come and settle affairs south of the Alps. Otto invaded northern Italy, installed order, married Adelaide, and continued to Rome.
Otto was now King of Germany and, through Adelaide’s family line, King of Italy. In his mind, this called for an imperial title. Fortunately for him, the pope was grateful for the reintroduction of some sense of stability in Italy by the German forces. So he thanked Otto by reviving the vacant imperial title and crowned him emperor. The ‘office’ of the Holy Roman Emperor was hereby formally transferred from Middle Francia to East Francia/ Kingdom of Germany, where it would remain for the rest of the Holy Roman Empire’s history. That is why this event, in 962, is usually seen as the start of the Holy Roman Empire. Some historians regard the crowning of Charlemagne, in 800, as the beginning but his empire is now generally referred to as the Frankish or Carolingian Empire.” World History
“… the designation ‘Holy Roman Empire’ occurs for the first time as a symbol of continuity at Otto the Great’s coronation in 962.“ The World of the Habsburgs
“Germany’s emperors came from three powerful dynastic houses: Luxemburg (in Bohemia), Wittelsbach (in Bavaria), and Habsburg (in Austria). These families alternated on the imperial throne until the crown returned in the mid-fifteenth century to the Habsburgs, who retained it with only one short break until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.” German Culture
The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs from 1273 to 1806.
“The Holy Roman Empire was not a unitary state, but a confederation of small and medium-sized political entities … the Holy Roman Emperor was elected by an Imperial College … (that) consisted exclusively of feudal lords. Its ecclesiastical members were the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne. The secular electors were the dukes of the four ‘nations’ of Germany: Franconia, Swabia, Saxony, and Bavaria. After the Staufer dynasty, Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria were replaced by the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. These and other aristocrats continued to wield great power during the late medieval phase of the Holy Roman Empire, but as cities accumulated more wealth, burghers managed to press for ever-increasing concessions from their feudal overlords, gradually paving the way for an early modern, urbanized society.” World History
In the Holy Roman Empire, civil authority and church authority clashed at times, but the church usually won as Catholic Popes wielded the most influence, and the papacy’s power had reached its zenith.
Holy Roman Emperors — usually Germanic kings — ruled from their homelands and oversaw local regions controlled by a variety of kings, dukes and other officials.
“Because German kings were so often in Italy, the German nobility became stronger. In addition, the presence of German kings in Italy as emperors soon caused them to come into conflict with the papacy, which did not hesitate to seek allies in Italy or Germany to limit imperial power. A last problem was that the succession to the German throne was often uncertain or was hotly contested because it was not inheritable, but could only be attained through election by the German dukes.” German Culture
During the Middle Ages, a wide variety of new church traditions became the official doctrine of the Roman Church and the church-state also engaged in many military conflicts, including the Crusades.
1024–1125: “After the death of the last Saxon king in 1024, the crown passed to the Salians, a Frankish tribe. The four Salian kings–Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V–who ruled Germany as kings from 1024 to 1125, established their monarchy as a major European power. Their main accomplishment was the development of a permanent administrative system based on a class of public officials answerable to the crown.
A principal reason for the success of the early Salians was their alliance with the church, a policy begun by Otto I, which gave them the material support they needed to subdue rebellious dukes.” German Culture
1054 (11th century): To justify the Church’s supremacy and involvement in temporal affairs, Pope Leo IX made the most dramatic use of the Donation of Constantine. The Eastern Orthodox Church separated from the Western (Roman) Church, in part due to Rome’s centralized leadership under the Pope.
1064: Piero was the first to take the name Colonna (“de Columna”), after inheriting the castle of Colonna in the Alban Hills, together with Palestrina and other places:
“noble Roman family of great antiquity and importance, descended from the 10th-century counts of Tusculum …
“Like other Roman families, the Colonna gained power and wealth through papal favour and by the 13th century were already providing cardinals and senators of Rome. Thereafter, the Colonna were consistently prominent in the politics of the church and the city of Rome.
Throughout the Middle Ages, they figured among the most unruly and potent of the Roman baronial dynasties; their feuds with the Caetani and Orsini dominated the local history of a region where feudal power long remained unsubdued. Of more than local importance, however, was their bitter quarrel with the Caetani pope, Boniface VIII, who tried to extirpate the family and drove them into alliance with his enemy, the French king Philip IV the Fair; Sciarra Colonna (d. 1329) led the armed attack on Boniface at Anagni on Sept. 7, 1303. On the pope’s death the Colonna recovered their lands and influence, and for many years subsequently Rome was harassed by their struggle for power with the Orsini, which divided the nobility into two contending factions.” Britannica
Before 1066: The people of England had held allodial title to their land.
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings, and fixtures) independent of any superior landlord. It relates to the concept of land held “in allodium”, or land ownership by occupancy and defense of the land. Not even the king can take the land.
“Then, in 1066, two armies converged on England. The first was the Norwegian army of King Harold Hardrada (‘the pitiless’), a Byzantine general who had served as the commander of the Imperial Guard in Constantinople. Harold Hardrada was killed by the English at Stamford Bridge in 1066. But in that same year the weakened English forces were defeated at Hastings by William of Normandy (‘the Conqueror’). Thus began the Norman Yoke, imposed by Norman oligarchs and a century of Norman kings.” Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D., How the Venetian System Was Transplanted Into England
1066: William the Conqueror, a descendant of Scandinavian invaders, came and took the people’s land when he became the first Norman king of England. From then to King John in 1199, England was bankrupt. The King invoked the Law of Mortmain so people could not pass their land on to the church or anyone else without his permission. Without Mortmain, the King would lose the land he controlled.
(Traditionally, such transfers are made to religious corporations. Unlike a natural person, property is redistributed upon death. Like any corporation, the religious society has unlimited, perpetual duration under the law and can hold land permanently. With contributions from members, holdings of religious corporations can grow, immune from responsibilities for taxes and payment of feudal dues. Land in Mortain is said to be held in perpetuity in one dead hand, that of the corporation:
Latin of corps: corpus (living or dead) “body.”
In The Hour of Birth of the Sovereign State (English translation of Die Geburtsstunde des souveränen Staates), Professor Friedrich von der Heydte documented that in the 10th and 11th centuries, the development of at least the first three of the following states was prepared by the Norman occupation. By the 13th and 14th centuries, these four kingdoms had already developed an identity distinct from the Holy Roman Empire:
England under Henry II (1154–1189),
France under Louis IX (1226–1270),
Sicily under Frederick II Hohenstaufen (1212–1250), and
Spain under Ferdinand (1217–1252) and his successor, Alfonse the Wise (1252–1258).
1067: The City of London Corporation was established — the world’s financial power center — as a system to control local governments. From William the Conqueror in 1066 up to the Reformation, it was Roman Catholic.
During the Middle Ages, a wide variety of new church traditions became the official doctrine of the Roman Church. The church-state engaged in many military conflicts, including the Crusades.
As the Roman Empire became the Roman Catholic Church, did old Roman Catholic dioceses in 11th-century England become the model for the first “corporations” of the modern global “company” — the “corporate” BAU ecosystem?
“Over the next four centuries, Venice developed as a second capital of the Byzantine Empire through marriage alliances with certain Byzantine dynasties and conflicts with the Holy Roman Empire based in Germany. The Venetian economy grew through usury and slavery. By 1082, the Venetians had tax-free trading rights in the entire Byzantine Empire.
The Venetians were one of the main factors behind the Crusades against the Muslim power in the eastern Mediterranean. In the Fourth Crusade of A.C.E. 1202, the Venetians used an army of French feudal knights to capture and loot Constantinople, the Orthodox Christian city which was the capital of the Byzantine Empire.” Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley & James Higham
1075: The Investiture Contest was “a struggle in which the reformist pope, Gregory VII, demanded that Henry IV (r. 1056–1106) renounce his rights over the German church. The pope also attacked the concept of monarchy by divine right and gained the support of significant elements of the German nobility interested in limiting imperial absolutism. More important, the pope forbade church officials under pain of excommunication to support Henry as they had so freely done in the past. In the end, Henry journeyed to Canossa in northern Italy in 1077 to do penance and to receive absolution from the pope. However, he resumed the practice of lay investiture (appointment of religious officials by civil authorities) and arranged the election of an antipope.
The German monarch’s struggle with the papacy resulted in a war that ravaged German lands from 1077 until the Concordat of Worms in 1122.” German Culture
1095: When the Turks threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I appealed to Pope Urban II for help:
“Wanting to reinforce the power of the papacy, Urban seized the opportunity to unite Christian Europe under him as he fought to take back the Holy Land from the Turks.”
On November 27, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, Pope Urban II ordered taking up arms to aid the Byzantines to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. The crusades marshaled the aggressive energies of the European nobility in a move that greatly enhanced papal prestige in the 12th and 13th centuries:
“European nobles were tempted by the prospect of increased land holdings and riches to be gained from the conquest. These nobles were responsible for the death of a great many innocents both on the way to and in the Holy Land, absorbing the riches and estates of those they conveniently deemed opponents to their cause.” History.com
Between 1096 (the same year as the founding of Oxford University) and 1291: There were eight major Crusades. The driving force were large feudal land owners who used their money and resources to raise armies for them.
“The Black Nobility are the oligarchic families of Venice and Genoa, who in the 12th century held the privileged trading rights (monopolies). The first of three crusades, from 1063 to 1123, established the power of the Venetian Black Nobility and solidified the power of the wealthy ruling class. The Black Nobility aristocracy achieved complete control over Venice in 1171, when the appointment of the doge was transferred to what was known as the Great Council, which consisted of members of the commercial aristocracy, a complete triumph for them. Venice has remained in their hands ever since, but the power and influence of the Venetian Black Nobility extends far beyond its borders, and today, is felt in every corner of the globe.” Dr. John Coleman
1101: In Europe, royalty was little more than a family of warlords. Returning from the First Crusade, Robert Curthose, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, invaded England in an attempt to take the throne from his brother, Henry I.
1113 (12th century): Originally formed by a group of merchants from Amalfi in Italy, a medieval Catholic military order was founded as “Knights of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem” in February. Pope Paschal II recognized it with a papal bull establishing its sovereign status that made it independent of lay and other religious authorities. Today, The Sovereign Military Order of the Malta (SMOM) is the oldest knighthood in the world — considered a sovereign entity under International Law and under the United Nations.
(In 1530, they moved to Malta and became known as the Knights of Malta. Eventually aka the Knights Hospitaller, they ran most of the hospitals in the Holy Land and even started to build them in Europe, one of the earliest being in Utrecht in 1122.
From providing aid and medical care to Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, the Knights of Malta soon became a military order which acquired extensive territories in Europe as they made significant contributions to the Crusades in Iberia and the Middle East.)
1118: On April 14, Baldwin II was crowned king of Jerusalem.
1119: The Knights Templar was founded when nine members (all related, by blood or as in-laws) approached King Baldwin II. They proposed creating a monastic order to protect pilgrims.
Baldwin II gave them the Temple Mount — the Temple of Solomon from biblical times. Besides acquiring a headquarter, they got themselves a name, with Hugh de Payens as the first Grand Master of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.
These “Poor Knights” obtained enormous wealth by establishing itself as a monopolized charity group in the region that collected massive donations from all over Christendom for the Holy Land. The Templars — as the knights were popularly known — were soldier monks.
1122: On September 23, Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V signed the Concordat of Worms in/near the German city of Worms. The Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire agreed to regulate the appointment of bishops and abbots. It set an end to the Investiture Controversy, a struggle between the empire and the papacy over the control of church offices that began in the mid-11th century.
“This agreement stipulated that the pope was to appoint high church officials but gave the German king the right to veto the papal choices. Imperial control of Italy was lost for a time, and the imperial crown became dependent on the political support of competing aristocratic factions. Feudalism also became more widespread as freemen sought protection by swearing allegiance to a lord. These powerful local rulers, having thereby acquired extensive territories and large military retinues, took over administration within their territories and organized it around an increasing number of castles. The most powerful of these local rulers came to be called princes rather than dukes.
According to the laws of the German feudal system, the king had no claims on the vassals of the other princes, only on those living within his family’s territory. Lacking the support of the formerly independent vassals and weakened by the increasing hostility of the church, the monarchy lost its preeminence. Thus, the Investiture Contest strengthened local power in Germany in contrast to what was happening in France and England, where the growth of a centralized royal power was under way.
The Investiture Contest had an additional effect. The long struggle between emperor and pope hurt Germany’s intellectual life–in this period largely confined to monasteries–and Germany no longer led or even kept pace with developments occurring in France and Italy. For instance, no universities were founded in Germany until the fourteenth century.” German Culture
1128: “Hugh de Payens, the first Grand Master of the Knights, visited England to set up a branch of the Order.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded his visit:
The same year, Hugh of the Temple came from Jerusalem to the king in Normandy, and the king received him with much honour, and gave him much treasure in gold and silver, and afterwards he sent him into England, and there he was well received by all good men, and all gave him treasure, and in Scotland also, and they sent in all a great sum in gold and silver by him to Jerusalem, and there went with him and after him so great a number as never before since the days of Pope Urban.”
1129: The Catholic Church officially sanctioned the Knights Templar.
1138–1268: The Hohenstaufen Dynasty (1079–1268 CE) of Swabia, aka the Staufer dynasty, was the German dynasty that ruled over the Holy Roman Empire. Then again from 1212 to 1254, after a 4-year reign by Otto IV, duke of Aquitaine of the House of Welf.
1138: Following the death of the last of the Salian kings (Henry V) in Germany, “the dukes refused to elect his nephew because they feared that he might restore royal power. Instead, they elected a noble connected to the Saxon noble family Welf (often written as Guelf). This choice inflamed the Hohenstaufen family of Swabia, which also had a claim to the throne. Although a Hohenstaufen became king in 1138, the dynastic feud with the Welfs continued. The feud became international in nature when the Welfs sided with the papacy and its allies, most notably the cities of northern Italy, against the imperial ambitions of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty … The papacy and the prosperous city-states of northern Italy were traditional enemies, but the fear of imperial domination caused them to join ranks to fight Frederick I. Under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy … (as) the German princes became stronger and began a successful colonization of Slavic lands. Offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east as the area’s original inhabitants were killed or driven away.” German Culture
1139: Pope Innocent II issued a Papal Bull saying the Templars only answered to him. This allowed the Templars to pass freely through all Christian realms, exempt from taxes. They essentially became a money printing machine above the laws when not fighting.
1149: On July 15, 50 years to the day after the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was reconsecrated. Work continued on the building for some years afterward.
By 1150: Through an innovative way of issuing letters of credit, the Order’s original mission of guarding pilgrims changed to a mission of guarding their valuables. Pilgrims would visit a Templar house in their home country, deposit their deeds and valuables. The Templars would then give them a letter describing their holdings. While traveling, the pilgrims could present the letter to other Templars along the way to “withdraw” funds from their accounts. Not carrying valuables kept the pilgrims “safe” but that further increased the power of the Templars.
Although the church forbad the lending of money for interest, the Templars sidestepped this with loopholes such as stipulating they retained the rights to the production of a mortgaged property. As one Templar researcher puts it, “Since they weren’t allowed to charge interest, they charged rent instead.”
According to Jared A. Brock, rent and usury are one and the same:
“The German word for interest (zins) derives from rent. The French word for a public loan (rentes) originates with land-lording. The Finnish word ‘to rent’ (vuokrata) derives from interest. The Spanish word rentar derives from interest. The Dutch word for rent (huur) derives from interest. The Babylonian word for interest and rent were one and the same.”
“Usury was one of the major issues of the thirteenth century.” Jacques Le Goff, French historian
The soldier monks also brokered deals for the acquisition of property such as land and ensured property owners were fully paid.
1154–1189: On December 19, 1154, William the Conqueror’s great grandson was crowned King Henry II of England. The 21 year old had inherited his father’s duchy at 18 to become the Duke of Normandy. By 1172, the British Isles and Ireland acknowledged him as their overlord. He ruled more of France than any monarch since the Carolingian dynasty. It was Henry who set England (the Plantagenet/Angevin Empire) on becoming a global power.
Henry II reinvigorated England financially and laid the basis for English Common Law. Within the first two years of his reign, he retook power from powerful barons by undertaking a massive reconstruction of the royal government, overthrowing all changes made after the death of Henry I in 1135. He tore down almost half the castles that had been illegally constructed during the civil war. To stamp his authority on the nobility, new castles could only be built with his royal consent.
For roles traditionally played by the church, Henry II introduced his own courts and magistrates. After the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1161, he appointed his chancellor to the position so he could exert his control over the English church. However, Thomas Becket defended the church and its tradition and consistently quarreled with Henry over that.
By 1170, Henry’s relationship with Becket had deteriorated so much that during a royal court session, he was supposed to have said, “someone rid me of this turbulent priest.” Four knights proceeded to murder Becket.
The biggest threat to his reign came from his sons who opposed their father’s intention to split his lands equally amongst them. His eldest son, Henry the Young King, led a revolt assisted by his brother Richard, the kings of France and Scotland and many barons from England and Normandy.
Defeating the year-long rebellion was perhaps Henry’s greatest accomplishment. Just before the Battle of Alnwick with King William of Scotland, Henry publicly repented for Becket’s death, claiming the rebellion was his punishment. The resulting capture of William was seen as divine intervention. Henry’s dominance was recognized, with many seeking his alliance.
However, the family fractures never truly healed and the tensions accelerated in 1182. Open war broke out in Aquitaine which ended in a stalemate and Henry the Young King dying of illness. His brother Richard became King of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou on July 5, 1189. On Richard the Lionheart’s death a decade later, the throne was passed to his brother John.
1157: The term “Holy Empire” was first used by the ruling Staufer family to try to shift the emphasis from a monarch to a transpersonal holy empire that had already sanctified its divine mission and therefore, did not need approval from popes. But rather than Roman, it would seem more German than a direct continuation of the Roman Empire …
Around 1167: Oxford University began to develop rapidly.
1171: The Black Nobility aristocracy achieved complete control over Venice when the appointment of the Doge was transferred to the Great Council (i.e., members of the commercial aristocracy).
1176: The Lombard League defeated Frederick at the Battle of Legnano.
“European power centers coalesced into two camps: the Ghibellines, who supported the Emperors Hohenstaufen family; and the Guelphs (the Welfs), from Welf, the German prince who competed with Frederick for control of the Holy Roman Empire. The Pope allied himself with the Guelphs.
All modern history stems directly from the struggle between these two powers.
The Guelphs are also called the Neri, Black Guelphs, or Black Nobility, and supported William of Orange in his seizure of the throne of England, which eventually resulted in the formation of the Bank of England and the East India Company, which would rule the world from the 17th century.
The power of the Guelphs would extend through the Italian financial centers to the north of France in Lombardy (all Italian bankers were referred to as ‘Lombards’). Lombard in German means ‘deposit bank,’ and the Lombards were bankers to the entire medieval world. They would later transfer operations north to Hamburg, then to Amsterdam and finally to London.
The Guelphs would start the slave trade to the colonies. The Guelphs, in order to aid their control of finance and politics, would perpetuate gnostic cults which eventually developed into the Rosicrucians, Unitarians, Fabian Society and the World Council of Churches. The East India company, together with John Stuart Mill, would finance the University of London.” Wes Penre, Venetian Black Nobility and Committee of 300
Broadly, Guelphs tended to come from wealthy mercantile families, whereas the Ghibellines wealth was based on agricultural estates. Guelph cities tended to be in areas where the emperor was more of a threat to local interests than the pope, and Ghibelline cities tended to be in areas where the enlargement of the Papal States was the more immediate threat.
Essentially, the Ghibellines were “the imperial party,” while the Guelphs were “the church party.”
1177: Saladin/Salahadin was beaten by the Templars in the legendary Battle of Montgisard near Tiberias.
1179: With Christians banned from lending money for interest, Jews set up their own financial organizations.
Late 12th century: Did Chrétien de Troyes, a French poet and trouvère known for writing about Arthurian subjects and the Holy Grail, popularize the romantic image of the Knights Templar?
1180–1223: Philip II, aka Philip Augustus, was the first of the Capetian kings of medieval France to gradually reconquer French territories held by the kings of England and further the royal domains northward into Flanders and southward into Languedoc. He was a major figure in the Third Crusade to the Holy Land in 1191.
1184: “Pope Lucius III sent bishops to southern France to track down heretics called Catharists. These efforts continued into the 14th Century. During the same period, the church also pursued the Waldensians in Germany and Northern Italy. In 1231, Pope Gregory charged the Dominican and Franciscan Orders to take over the job of tracking down heretics.” History.com
1185: Built by the Knights Templar as their headquarters in the City of London, the Temple Church — London’s first bank — was consecrated on February 10th by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Run by a partnership of monks sworn to poverty, this private bank is owned by the Pope and allied to kings and princes across Europe.
Pilgrims could leave cash at the Temple Church and withdraw it in Jerusalem using a letter of credit.
In the 1200s, the Crown Jewels were kept at the Temple as security on a loan, with the Templars operating as a very high-end pawn broker. In Money Changes Everything, William Goetzmann described the range of recognizably modern financial services the Templars provided.
(Did the Templars lay the initial foundation of modern banking as we know it today?)
1187: The disastrous Battle of the Horns of Hattin on July 4th was a turning point in the Crusades. Gerard de Ridefort, the Grand Master of the Templars, was also involved. Venturing out without adequate supplies or water, the Templars were overcome by the heat within a day, and then surrounded and massacred by Saladin/Salahadin’s army.
1189–1190: As crusading forces besieged Acre, some German merchants from Bremen and Lübeck formed a fraternity called Teutonic Order/ Knights to nurse the sick. Formally known as the House of the Hospitalers of Saint Mary of the Teutons in Jerusalem, they took over a hospital in the town and after the 1191 capture of Acre, described themselves as the Hospital of St. Mary of the German House in Jerusalem. Approved by Pope Clement III, they adopted a rule similar to the original Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (i.e., the Knights of Malta).
1191–1198: Giacinto Orsini became Pope Celestine III “whose generosity to his nephews founded the territorial fortunes of the family. During the next 100 years, allegiance to the papacy developed into a firm, if profitable, tradition in the house of Orsini; they assumed leadership of pro-papal Guelf interest against the pro-imperial Ghibelline Colonna family, and for centuries afterward the savage rivalry of these two magnate families dominated the politics of Rome and its territory.” Britannica
1199: John, the youngest son of King Henry II of England, claimed the throne of England.
13th Century 1200s (1200–1299)
“By the thirteenth century, the Roman Curia was a robust and efficient institution, and the papacy was at the height of its influence. Powerful popes such as Innocent III and IV operated much like kings of powerful nations. The Church maintained its power amid the growing strength of Europe’s monarchies. People were Christians first, before they were French, English, or Saxon, and therefore, still answered to the Church’s authority. While most kings compromised as necessary in their dealings with the papacy, those who did not “were likely to find that the spiritual power of the pope was accompanied by earthly power asserted with force of arms.” Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages
“Venice can best be thought of as a kind of conveyor belt, transporting the Babylonian contagions of decadent antiquity smack dab into the world of modern states. Venice, never exceeding a few hundred thousand in population, rose to the status of Great Power in the thirteenth century, and kept that status until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
The primary basis for Venetian opulence was slavery.
The role of the Venetian merchant is that of the profiteering middleman who rooks both buyer and seller, backing up his monopolization of the distribution and transportation systems with the war galleys of the battle fleet.
During the 1200’s, the Venetians, now at the apex of their military and naval power, set out to create a new Roman Empire with its center at Venice. They expanded into the Greek islands, the Black Sea, and the Italian mainland. They helped to defeat the Hohenstaufen rulers of Germany and Italy. Venetian intelligence assisted Genghis Khan as he attacked and wiped out powers that had resisted Venice.” Webster G. Tarpley, The Venetian Conspiracy
12th and early 13th centuries: The clergy primarily taught law in the City of London. In 1218, a Papal Bull prohibited them from practicing in the secular courts (where the English common law system operated, as opposed to the Roman civil law functioning in the Church’s ecclesiastical courts).
Law began to be practiced and taught by laymen. To protect their schools from competition, first Henry II (r. 1154–1189) and later Henry III (r. 1216–1272) issued proclamations prohibiting the teaching of the civil law within the City of London. The common-law lawyers worked in guilds of law, modelled on trade guilds, which in time became the Inns of Court.
“The Inns of Court are ancient, unincorporated bodies of lawyers. For five centuries and more, the Inns have had the power to call to the Bar those of their members who have duly qualified for the rank of Barrister-at-Law. With the power of call goes the power to disbar and punish for misconduct, a power which has had to be exercised only infrequently. In modern times, education for call to the Bar and discipline are largely the business of joint bodies, but the four Inns of Court — Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple — remain distinct, as friendly rivals, each with its own property, duties, and functions.” Sir Robert Edgar Megarry, An Introduction To Lincoln’s Inn
1202: “In the Fourth Crusade of A.D. 1202, the Venetians used an army of French feudal knights to capture and loot Constantinople, the Orthodox Christian city which was the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo was declared the lord of one-quarter and one-half of one quarter of the Byzantine Empire, and the Venetians imposed a short-lived puppet state called the Latin Empire. By this point, Venice had replaced Byzantium as the bearer of the oligarchical heritage of the Roman Empire.” Webster G. Tarpley
1201–1204: “Venice had managed to run a coup on the Byzantine Empire with the pillage of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade. This was a masterstroke of evil genius that utilized fanatical European forces from France and the Holy Roman Empire who foolishly thought they were embarking on a Crusade to fight the Turks in the Holy Land. These fools were convinced to first pay debts they owed to Venice (for use of the latter’s transportation ships) by laying siege and looting the Christian City of Constantinople. This duplicitous scheme allowed Venice to not only destroy their older sister, but also took control of all her sea-based trade routes to boot. Venice also received a huge bribe from the Ottoman Empire for having kept Crusaders out of their way — thus freeing the Turks to destroy the remnants of the renaissance-Humanist culture of Baghdad in 1258.” Matthew Ehret
1204: “the oligarchic family parceled out feudal enclaves to their members, and from this epoch dates the great building-up of power and pressure until the government became a closed corporation of the leading Black Nobility families.” Dr. John Coleman
1208: England was placed under Papal interdict and King John was excommunicated as he refused to accept Stephen Langton, installed by the Vatican to rule England.
1208–1212: Otto IV, duke of Aquitaine of the House of Welf, ruled the Holy Roman Empire.
1209–1229: The Albigensian Crusade (aka Cathars’ Crusade) was called by Pope Innocent III specifically against gnostic Christians known as the Cathars of Languedoc, a small area in southern France. At that time, that region was more in sympathy with the kingdoms of eastern Spain.
“by the first decade of the 1200s CE, it was clear that many of the Languedoc lords were still supporting the Cathars as a less expensive alternative to the tax-loving Catholic authorities. Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216 CE), after an unsuccessful preaching campaign by his legates, decided it was time to eradicate the heretics by force. The final straw had been the murder of a Papal legate near Arles in 1208 CE, the deed done by a servant of the most powerful Languedoc lord, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (r. 1194–1222 CE).” World History
Led by Simon IV de Montfort, a French nobleman who had made a name for himself during the Fourth Crusade between 1202 and 1204, it pitted the nobility of northern France against those in the south, and eventually involved King Louis VIII of France who established his authority over the south.
“Simon de Montfort became leader of those who wanted to reassert the Magna Carta and force the king to surrender more power to the baronial council. In 1258, initiating the move toward reform, seven leading barons forced Henry to agree to the Provisions of Oxford, which effectively abolished the absolutist Anglo-Norman monarchy, giving power to a council of twenty-four barons to deal with the business of government, and providing for a great council in the form of a parliament every three years, to monitor their performance. Henry was forced to take part in the swearing of a collective oath to uphold the Provisions.” Wikipedia
“By the middle of the 12th century, control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land was no longer the only goal of the Crusades. Rather, Crusading became a special class of war called by the pope against the enemies of the faith, who were by no means confined to the Levant. Crusades continued in the Baltic region against pagans and in Spain against Muslims. Yet in the heart of Europe a more serious threat faced Christendom: heresy, which was viewed in the medieval world not as benign religious diversity but rather as a cancerous threat to the salvation of souls. It was held to be even more dangerous than the faraway Muslims, because it harmed the body of Christ from within. The most vibrant heresy in Europe was Catharism, also known as Albigensianism — for Albi, a city in southern France where it flourished.” Britannica
Was the religious justification an excuse for forming the kingdom of France, giving its king direct access to the Mediterranean?
“Accordingly, with the backing of the Church and Crown, and the promise that the lands of defeated barons would be confiscated, taxes were raised in northern and central France and an army assembled in 1209 CE. Although the French king was too preoccupied with his rivalry with King John of England (r. 1199–1216 CE), he did supply a royal contingent …” World History
This war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris (1229) which took away the independence of the southern princes and largely destroyed the culture of Provence. Raymond VII agreed to forfeit all of his ancestral lands to the monarchy upon his death. The Crusade caused much devastation and injustice but the Albigensian heresy lingered on into the 13th and 14th centuries and became the object of the Inquisition:
“ … its aim was to convert through argument, not violence; one of its effects being the establishment of a university at Toulouse in 1229 CE. This intellectual approach was slower but far more successful than the Crusades and by the first quarter of 14th century CE the Cathars ceased to exist as an organised and distinct body of believers.” World History
1209: Founded by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, the Franciscans were a group of related mendicant Christian religious orders within the Catholic Church.
“The Franciscans were created by the Venetians and the whole history of the Franciscans including Francis is unfortunately a huge myth sadly.” Frank O’Collins, former Jesuit priest
1212 to 1254: The German Hohenstaufen Dynasty (1079–1268 CE) of Swabia, aka the Staufer dynasty, regained control of the Holy Roman Empire.
1212–1250: Sicily under Frederick II Hohenstaufen:
“The last Staufer emperor, Frederick II (r. 1220–1250) made such an impression on his contemporaries that they called him stupor mundi, meaning “wonder of the world”. He spoke six languages and promoted poetry, philosophy, and medieval literature, also welcoming Muslim and Jewish scholars at his court in Palermo, Sicily. His religious tolerance, combined with his limitless territorial ambitions, brought him into a near-permanent state of conflict with the pope. Frederick was excommunicated three times over and Pope Innocent IV even called him ‘the Antichrist’. Nevertheless, Frederick saw himself as a paragon of Christianity and sailed to the Holy Land with the Sixth Crusade. Contrary to the aggressiveness which was — by now — characteristic for armies of the crusades, the emperor negotiated with the sultan, al-Kamil (r. 1218–1238), and regained control of Jerusalem. Where the Third Crusade had failed militarily, the Sixth succeeded with diplomacy.
The centrifugal issues that plagued the Holy Roman Empire were temporarily subdued by Frederick’s overbearing might. But when he died and the Staufer era came to an end in 1250, these challenges came to the fore with increased intensity. The Italian republics as well as the northern cities united in the Hanseatic League jumped into the power vacuum that Frederick’s death created and enlarged their political and economic autonomy. Inland, feudal lords squabbled over the imperial succession but none managed to subjugate the others. A new emperor was only crowned in 1312 — over 60 years after the end of the Staufer Dynasty. This period is known as the Interregnum, meaning “between reigns”. World History
When Frederick’s father died, he was three so his uncle, Philip, was chosen to serve in his place. His mother appointed Pope Innocent III as her son’s guardian cum regent of the Kingdom of Sicily because that was already under papal suzerainty.
“Other factions elected a Welf candidate, Otto IV, as counterking, and a long civil war began. Philip was murdered by Otto IV in 1208. Otto IV in turn was killed by the French at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214. Frederick returned to Germany in 1212 from Sicily, where he had grown up, and became king in 1215.
As Frederick II (r. 1215–50), he spent little time in Germany because his main concerns lay in Italy. Frederick made significant concessions to the German nobles, such as those put forth in an imperial statute of 1232, which made princes virtually independent rulers within their territories. The clergy also became more powerful. Although Frederick was one of the most energetic, imaginative, and capable rulers of the Middle Ages, he did nothing to draw the disparate forces in Germany together. His legacy was thus that local rulers had more authority after his reign than before it.
By the time of Frederick’s death in 1250, there was little centralized power in Germany.” German Culture
1213: To regain his stature, King John returned the title to his kingdoms (England and Ireland) to Pope Innocent III as vassals, and swore submission and loyalty to him. He accepted Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, and offered the Pope a vassal’s bond of fealty and homage.
Two months later, in July, King John was absolved of excommunication. On October 3rd, King John ratified the surrender of his kingdoms to the Pope as Vicar of Christ who claimed ownership of everything and everyone on earth.
(Two years before the Magna Carta, did King John and the Pope agree in the secret Treaty of 1213 that all the lands and seas become properties of the Church of Rome in perpetuity?)
1215: On June 10th, nobles (wealthy landowners) forced King John to sign the Magna Carta (originally called the Articles of the Barons) at Runnymede so he would govern by old English laws from before the Normans came. Content of the 37 English laws, some copied, some recollected, some old and some new, was drafted by Archbishop Stephen Langton and the most powerful Barons of England.
The Magna Carta demonstrated how the power of the king could be limited by a written grant and allowed for the formation of a powerful parliament. The barons renewed the Oath of Fealty to King John on June 15th. The Magna Carta became the basis for English rights down to the freeman but not for the serfs.
The royal chancery produced a formal royal grant and copies were distributed to bishops, sheriffs and other important people throughout England.
The first English Parliament was convened to establish the rights of barons to serve as consultants to the king on governmental matters in his Great Council. The barons were selected and appointed by the King. From this, all sovereignty of the British Crown under Christendom shifted to the Templar Crown Temple in the Chancery.
1217: After John’s death in 1216, the supporters of his young son Henry III defeated Louis of France’s men at Lincoln. On September 20th, the Treaty of Lambeth ratified the terms agreed at Kingston upon Thames. Louis abandoned all claims to the English throne and retired to France but was given 10,000 marks in compensation.
Following the end of the First Barons War and the Treaty of Lambeth, the Great Charter of Liberties was reissued to include the Charter of the Forest.
1217–1252: Spain under Ferdinand:
Ferdinand III, aka Saint Ferdinand, was one of the most successful kings of Castile. He secured the permanent union of the crowns of Castile and León and also masterminded the most expansive southward territorial campaign. His conquest of Lower Andalusia was the result of the disintegration of the Almohad state. The Castilians and other conquerors occupied the cities, driving out the Muslims and taking over vast estates.
“The establishment of a Castilian navy in the second half of the thirteenth century was in large part a result of this campaign. In addition to their own fleet, the Castilians acquired Seville’s great naval arsenal … they used Seville as a southern port, and Fernando’s son, Alfonso X (r. 1252–1284) built naval shipyards there.
The case of Seville is instructive because it was largely as a result of the Reconquest that Castile became a naval power …” Jennifer L. Green, The Development of Maritime Law in Medieval Spain: The Case of Castile and the Siete Partidas
Ferdinand married Elisabeth of Swabia, fourth daughter of Philip of Swabia, King of Germany, and Irene Angelina, daughter of Emperor Isaac II Angelos of the Byzantine Empire. His second wife was Joan of Ponthieu — their daughter Eleanor married the future Edward I of England in 1254.
Ferdinand was canonized in 1671 by Pope Clement X.
1224: Holy Roman emperor Frederick II founded the University of Naples, the first-ever state university in medieval Europe.
1225: When King Henry reached the age of majority, he was asked to reaffirm the previous charters and to issue new versions. This time, the Magna Carta was issued with 37 of the original articles. It was the first time the charter became English Law. The new Great Charter of Liberties included a statement that the king sealed it of his own free will.
1226–1270: France under Louis IX:
Louis IX, grandson of King Philip II of France and King Alfonso VIII of Castile and Toledo and maternal grand nephew of King Richard I of England and King John of England, was commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint. The best-known Capetian ruler, he was the only canonized king of France.
Crowned at the age of 12, his valiant half-English mother, Blanche of Castile, ruled the kingdom as regent until he reached maturity, and then remained his valued adviser until her death. Queen Blanche had instilled in him the most-prized ideals of kingship. During his childhood, she had fought off the French barons who wanted to take back the lands her deceased husband had seized from them.
At his coronation on November 29, 1226, the young French king solemnly vowed to serve God with all his heart, and to be as loyal to his subjects as a father would be. He also swore an oath to be a feudal king for the gospel of Christ. He realized Christianity established his religious legitimacy over his power to rule. It also sealed the right of succession he already owned.
This Saint King then distinguished himself by adhering to moral values and led by example to earn a reputation for fairness and wisdom. His reign was marked by consolidation, maturation, and reform.
Louis IX reformed the French legal process, creating a royal justice system in which petitioners could appeal judgments directly to the king. He banned trials by ordeal, tried to end private wars and introduced the presumption of innocence to criminal procedures. To enforce his new legal system, the king created provosts and bailiffs. He passed severe laws punishing blasphemy and targeted France’s Jews, including the burning of the Talmud after the Disputation of Paris. Louis enjoyed immense prestige throughout European Christendom.
A major highlight of his rule was the relative peace France enjoyed. Where other monarchs were quick to pull the sword, this French king would rather settle territorial disputes through diplomacy.
He started peace negotiations with Henry III of England, married to Eleanor of Provence, his sister-in-law. After years of lengthy discussions, a peace treaty was finally signed in 1259. In spite of his superior power and influence, Louis gave Henry III Aquitaine and the surrounding lands. On his part, Henry III proclaimed himself a villein of the French King in appreciation for his generosity.
“In Louis’s eyes this was the most important point, for in the 13th century the power of a sovereign was measured less by the extent of his possessions than by the number and importance of his vassals. A just and equitable ruler, Louis also wanted to create goodwill between his children and those of the Plantagenets. The king’s reputation for impartiality was so great that he was often called upon to arbitrate disputes outside France, as he once did in a violent dispute between Henry III and his barons.” Britannica
Honoring a vow he made while praying for recovery during a serious illness, Louis IX led the ill-fated Seventh Crusade and Eighth Crusade against the Muslim dynasties that ruled North Africa, Egypt and the Holy Land. He was captured and ransomed during the Seventh Crusade, and later died of dysentery during the Eighth Crusade. He was succeeded by his son Philip III, father of Philip the Fair.
1227: King Henry declared all future charters had to be sealed voluntarily by the monarch and called into question the validity of all the previous charters, most obviously Magna Carta 1215, which John had sealed at knife-point.
1235: Henry de Bracton, leading medieval English jurist wrote De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae
(“On the Laws and Customs of England”), one of the oldest systematic treatises on the common law.
Legibus is an ambitious work that attempts to describe the whole of English law. F.W. Maitland described it as “the crown and flower of English jurisprudence.”
Though attributed to Bracton, it is believed that other persons had also contributed as it showed the influence of several European continental jurists — notably Azzone (Azo), a Bolognese glossator of Roman law. Its style suggested he was trained at Oxford, the center for the study of civil law in England at that time.
While depending chiefly on English judicial decisions and the methods of pleading required by English judges, Bracton enlarged the common law with principles derived from both Roman (civil) law and canon law. Bracton on the divine right of the king:
“The king has no equal within his realm, nor a fortiori a superior, because he would then be subject to those subjected to him. The king must not be under man but under God and under the law, because law makes the king, for there is no rex where will rules rather than lex. Since he is the vicar of God, there ought to be no one in his kingdom who surpasses him in the doing of justice, but he ought to be the last, or almost so, to receive it, when he is plaintiff. If it is asked of him, since no writ runs against him there will [only] be opportunity for a petition, that he correct and amend his act; if he does not, it is punishment enough for him that he await God’s vengeance. No one may presume to question his acts, much less contravene them.”
Interesting view on this form:
“With respect to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, this doctrine was the principal force restraining the authority of the Popes in James’ time and thereafter…[W]ithout the doctrine of the Divine Right, Roman Catholicism would have dominated history well beyond its current employment in the Dark Ages. Furthermore, Divine Right made it possible for the Protestant Reformation in England to take place, mature and spread to the rest of the globe.” Stephen Coston
1236: The Great Council was first referred to as “Parliament.”
1237: Both of Henry’s charters were finally confirmed and granted in perpetuity, in return for a tax burden on the people, which the barons collected for the king.
1238: The division of the Bible into chapters and verses occurred at different dates in history and were done by different individuals. In the early 13th century, Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro developed different schemas for the systematic division of the Bible. The modern chapter divisions of the Bible are based on the system of Archbishop Langton.
1239: “a Venetian-controlled faction, known as the Guelph League, centered around the powerful Este family of Ferrara, launched a series of wars throughout Europe, against the then-existing trends toward the establishment of European nation-states, in order to consolidate an ultra-feudalist, usurious world order. This was part of a sweeping change in the correlation of forces in Europe, following financier-oligarchical Venice’s successful exploitation of its control over the Fourth Crusade (1202–04).” William F. Wertz, Jr.
1241: “… as senator of Rome, Matteo Orsini (d. 1246) saved the city from capture by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II and the Colonna. As the 13th century advanced, the Orsini acquired increasing influence in church policy and administration; four of the family were chosen cardinals, and one of them, Giovanni, also became pope, as Nicholas III, in 1277. Their Guelf allegiance also brought them land and lordships in the Angevin kingdom of Naples, where several long-lived lines of the family took root among the nobility. At the end of the 13th century, the Orsini were among the principal supporters of Pope Boniface VIII in his attacks on the Colonna family and were rewarded for their services with the grant of Nepi in fee.” Britannica
1244: European Christians completely lost control of Jerusalem.
1246: “As the popes began to claim more territories through such donations, ultimately controlling the large belt of land known as the Papal States, they came to stake their temporal authority to the story of Constantine’s gift.
By the thirteenth century, the Donatio had become the centerpiece of the rhetoric backing the papacy’s struggle for territories and alliances against the Holy Roman Empire, a contest called the ‘Guelph-Ghibelline’ conflicts. It is in this context of papal political propaganda that the Chapel of San Silvestro, consecrated in 1246, and its hagiographic frescoes should be understood.” Joseph Williams
From 1250: Frederick II’s death ushered in the Great Interregnum in Germany as succession to the Holy Roman Empire was contested and fought over between pro-and anti-Hohenstaufen factions.
Conflict over who was the rightful emperor and the King of the Romans continued into the 1300s when Charles IV of Luxembourg was elected emperor and secured succession for his son Wenceslaus.
Meanwhile, a multitude of emperors and kings were elected or propped up by rival factions and princes, many having short reigns or reigns that became heavily contested by rival claimants.
The efforts of the Houses of Welf and Hohenstaufen to expand the power of the emperor and to ensure a clear line of succession between family members was difficult as many elections went from one family to another family as electors deliberately tried to prevent a consolidation of power.
This supposedly ended the centralization of the imperial monarchy and the fragmentation of power toward the princes and prince-electors.
1252–1284: Spain under Alfonse the Wise:
Alfonso X (aka the Wise and sometimes, the Astrologer) was King of Castile, León and Galicia. His scientific interests led him to sponsor the creation of the Alfonsine tables. The Alphonsus crater on the moon is named after him. He also sponsored the work of historians, who for the first time placed Spain — he would have called it that — in the context of world history.
Alfonso X fostered the development of a cosmopolitan court where Jews, Muslims and Christians had prominent roles. He encouraged the translation of works from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin and Castilian. Many intellectual changes took place, including the use of Castilian as a primary language of higher learning, science and law.
Inspired by Roman law, he established the Siete Partidas law code in Castile.
In 1273, Alfonso created the Mesta, an association of some 3,000 petty and great sheep holders in Castile, in reaction to less wool being exported from England.
Its original function was to separate the fields from the sheep-ways linking grazing areas but the organization later became exceedingly powerful. Wool/”white gold” became Castile’s first major exportable commodity. with a trade surplus. However, its privileges eventually proved deadly for the Castilian economy. One side effect of the quickly expanding sheep herds was the decimation to the Castilian farmland through which the sheep grazed.
Alfonso was a prolific author of Galician poetry, such as the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which are equally notable for their musical content as for their literary merit.
He fought a successful war with Portugal, but a less successful one with Granada.
The end of his reign was marred by a civil war with his eldest surviving son, the future Sancho IV, which continued after his death.
1254: The death of Hohenstaufen Conrad IV, Frederick II’s son, left William II of Holland, one of two anti-kings elected by the leading ecclesiastical princes at the behest of the papacy, without a rival.
Alfonso X signed a treaty of alliance with King Henry III of England, supporting him in the war against King Louis IX of France. That year, Alfonso’s half-sister, Eleanor, married Henry’s son Edward. With this, Alfonso renounced forever all claim to the Duchy of Gascony, to which Castile had been a pretender since the marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile with Eleanor of England.
1256: When William died, Alfonso X had a claim through the Hohenstaufen line via Elisabeth his mother, the daughter of Philip of Swabia. Pope Alexander IV forbade the election of a Hohenstaufen but left a small group of influential German princes, lay and ecclesiastical to act out of self-interest. None desired a ruler powerful enough to threaten their growing independence as territorial princes nor did they single out a German candidate who might be as uncontrollable as William.
Alfonso never traveled to Germany and his alliance with the Italian Ghibelline Lord Ezzelino IV da Romano also deprived him of the initial support of Pope Alexander IV.
The prince-electors also misled Alfonso into complicated schemes involving excessive expense. To obtain money, he debased the coinage to finance his claim to the German crown. He then endeavored to prevent a rise in prices by an arbitrary tariff and this deeply offended the burghers and peasants.
(His nobles, who he tried to cow by sporadic acts of violence, rebelled against him in 1272.)
1257: Archbishop Conrad of Cologne approached Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III of England who went to Germany and was formally elected and crowned German king at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle).
Three months after his election, Alfonso X of Castile, who aspired to strengthen his foothold in Italy, was chosen in similar fashion by the archbishop of Trier, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg and the duplicitous Otakar. Both appealed to the papacy for confirmation of their election.
Papal diplomacy persuaded Alfonso X to abandon his pretensions to the throne, but Otakar denounced the election.
1256–1273: The Great Interregnum was when there was no emperor and German princes vied for individual advantage:
“the German nobility managed to strip many powers away from the already diminished monarchy. Rather than establish sovereign states, however, many nobles tended to look after their families. Their many heirs created more and smaller estates. A largely free class of officials also formed, many of whom eventually acquired hereditary rights to administrative and legal offices. These trends compounded political fragmentation within Germany.
The Great Interregnum (1256–73), a period of anarchy in which there was no emperor and German princes vied for individual advantage, followed the death of Frederick’s son Conrad IV in 1254. In this short period, the German nobility managed to strip many powers away from the already diminished monarchy. Rather than establish sovereign states, however, many nobles tended to look after their families. Their many heirs created more and smaller estates. A largely free class of officials also formed, many of whom eventually acquired hereditary rights to administrative and legal offices. These trends compounded political fragmentation within Germany …
Colonization of the east also continued in the thirteenth century, most notably through the efforts of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, a society of soldier-monks. German merchants also began trading extensively on the Baltic.” German Culture
1258: Henry III, bankrupted by a suspect venture in Sicily, summoned Parliament in the spring (the Easter Parliament, or the so-called Mad Parliament). In return for a badly needed grant of revenue, he grudgingly agreed to abide by a program of reform to be formulated by a 24-man royal commission, half of whom were to be chosen by the king, half by the baronial party.
The report of the commission (issued c. June 10th) is known as the Provisions of Oxford.
“The Provisions of Oxford was another move away from the unwritten and thus spoken common law and into the hands of the written word after the conquest. Though a sure advancement in the rights of those other than the king, it was a move to protect the Barons forming an Aristocracy down to the freemen by written contract, it was a move to remove the system of Aldermen, it was not about freeing the English people from the yoke of serfdom.
It can however be seen as the first move to form a Parliament with the sole aim of protecting the rights and property of Barony and to break from the old laws on Usury and to perform a service of interest payments through taxation to that end.” The Bridge
“Henry III of England in the years after 1255 became insolvent after taking huge Lombard loans to finance foreign wars at 120–180 percent interest. These transactions created the basis for the Venetian Party in England. When the Lombard bankers went bankrupt because the English failed to pay, a breakdown crisis of the European economy ensued. This led to a new collapse of European civilization, including the onset of the Black Plague, which depopulated the continent.
In the midst of the chaos, the Venetians encouraged their ally Edward III of England, to wage war against France in the conflict that became the Hundred Years War (1339–1453), which hurled France into chaos before St. Joan of Arc defeated the English. This was then followed by the Wars of the Roses in England. As a result of Venetian domination, the Fourteenth century had become a catastrophe for civilization.” Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley & James Higham
1259: On December 4th, Louis IX, King of France and Henry III, King of England agreed to end 100 years of conflicts between the Capetian and Plantagenet dynasties with the Treaty of Paris (aka the Treaty of Abbeville).
1259: The Provisions of Westminster were part of a series of legislative constitutional reforms that arose out of power struggles between Henry III of England and his barons. The King’s failed campaigns in France in 1230 and 1242, and his choice of friends and advisers, together with the cost of his failed scheme to make one of his younger sons King of Sicily and help the Pope against the Holy Roman Emperor, led to further disputes with the barons and united opposition in Church and State.
Henry’s lifestyle was extravagant and his tax demands were widely resented. The King’s accounts show a list of many charitable donations and payments for building works, including the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, begun in 1245.
The Provisions themselves were an enlarged scheme of governmental reform drawn up by the committee of 24 barons who had been originally appointed under the Provisions of Oxford, which the Provisions of Westminster superseded. The new document largely reinforced many of the provisions of the earlier Provisions of Oxford, but also provided for additional inheritance and taxation reforms, including the first statutory provisions relating to Mortmain.
1263: Urban IV’s bull Qui coelum assumed that the exclusive right of election lay with the seven leading princes involved in the double election of 1257.
1266: “After the killing of both Manfred and Conradin Hohenstaufen in 1266, the Black Guelph unleashed chaos, economic ruin, and the rising power of a group of Venice-sponsored “Lombard bankers,” typified by the House of Bardi, throughout Europe. Through feudal wars, and “free trade”-linked financial speculation, Europe’s culture and economy collapsed, and death rates skyrocketted. The collapse of the resulting debt bubble and ensuing bankruptcy of the House of Bardi, unleashed the final stage of that decay.
The primary political consequence of Tuchman’s failure to identify the seeds of the Fourteenth-century Dark Age in the political ascendency of the Guelph in the mid-Thirteenth century, is to potentially blind us today to their descendants’ role in fostering the subsequent collapse. The Este, one of the leading families of the Guelph party, are represented today by their distant cousins, the royal family of Britain (the Hanover branch of the Bavarian Welf [Guelf] family), primus inter pares of the modern oligarchical faction; and, by such right-wing pro-feudalist families as the Pallavicini and the Colonna, who are today arrayed against Pope John Paul II and the tradition of Pope Leo XIII within the Catholic Church, as well as against the forces associated with Lyndon LaRouche globally. In other words, because of the continued “species existence” of Europe’s oligarchical families, today’s potential new Dark Age is being engineered by the descendants of the architects of the last one.” William F. Wertz, Jr.
1272: When Richard died, the German princes were spurred into action by Pope Gregory X, who desired the election of a German monarch sympathetic toward a Crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. Dreading an overly powerful king, the princes rejected the advances of Philip III of France and Otakar.
1273: The princes chose Count Rudolf of Swabia, a wealthy German noble, to be the Holy Roman Emperor because he lacked the strength to regain the crown domains the electors had usurped during the Great Interregnum. Rudolf I was the first King of Germany from the House of Habsburg — the first of the count-kings of Germany.
(Historian Bernd Schneidmüller used the term, “count-kings” to describe rulers of the Holy Roman Empire between the end of the Great Interregnum and the final acquisition of the royal throne by the Habsburg dynasty in 1438.)
“Germany’s emperors came from three powerful dynastic houses: Luxemburg (in Bohemia), Wittelsbach (in Bavaria), and Habsburg (in Austria). These families alternated on the imperial throne until the crown returned in the mid-fifteenth century to the Habsburgs, who retained it with only one short break until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.”
1277: As Orsini acquired increasing influence in church policy and administration, Giovanni became Pope Nicholas III on Nov. 25. The first pope to make the Vatican his residence, this member of the Orsini family initiated an administrative reform of the Papal States.
1278: Rudolf I allied himself with the Wittelsbach family of Bavaria and others to defeat and slay Otakar. In Britain, 269 Jews were hanged for stealing gold through coin clipping.
1279: Pope Nicholas III issued a bull to revoke the concessions concerning the use of money made by Pope Innocent IV to clarify that all possessions of the order, except those reserved by the donors, belonged to the papacy.
1282: Otakar’s duchies of Austria and Styria were declared vacant and conferred jointly on Rudolf’s sons Albert and Rudolf.
These acquisitions placed the Habsburgs in the first rank of the German territorial princes and lent impetus to a gradual shift in the political center of gravity from the Rhineland to eastern and southern Germany.
1285: Philip IV of France found himself in a desperate need for funds to fight the English and their allies in Flanders. At first, he tried to take over local Jews’ loan collection business but then turned to the Templars — to whom he was substantially indebted.
1287: Edward I of England began to expel all Jews, confiscating their property to boost his war coffers and appease the Church who regarded the moneylenders as a threat.
1290: Edward I’s edict resulted in almost all 2,000 Jews in the kingdom leaving.
1291: The Kingdom of Jerusalem was finally dissolved with the fall of Acre and the end of the Crusades.
(Even after the Crusader States ceased to exist, the title of “King of Jerusalem” was claimed by European noble houses descended from the kings of Cyprus or of Naples, and claimed by the current king of Spain.)
“The British monarch is not the Crown, the office of monarch is the head of state and exists in the fiction. The Crown is the bankers and attorneys who are the priestcraft or wizards that administer the will of the Templar Crown which is commanded by the hidden bloodlines, or what we can call the Big Houses of old money. The heads of the Solomon Templars made base in Switzerland in 1291 from which European micro states were born as the system spread.” The Bridge
1291: The bankers operate under the Swiss Crown created by the Templar aristocratic nest. It is the center for all mercenary forces that have been hired out and used by Commercial monarchs to defend and invade other nations. From this format the Templar elite have been able to enter all nations and set up the secret society networks to undermine the land law administered by the Vatican. Through its control of the Vatican, the Holy See has acted contrary to the canon law from the shadows, slowly yoking the Vatican to the law of the sea, or piracy and its Legal system.
1292: According to The Bridge, the Templars had made a pact with Salahadin.
1295: Marco Polo, Venetian merchant and adventurer, arrived in China and stayed there for 17 years. The Polo family were friends of Pope Gregory X who provided them with credentials for the Mongol emperor.
1297: “Magna Carta and the Charter of Liberties of 1225 were re-issued by Edward I, who set about imposing English domination upon the Catholic Scots, who were still living under their laws and an ancient unbroken royal lineage. Magna Carta 1297 was nevertheless committed to the statute book.” The Bridge
End of the 13th century: The earliest extant accounting records that follow the modern double-entry system originated from Amatino Manucci. He was employed by Giovannino Farolfi & Company, a mercantile partnership based in Florence that acted as moneylenders to the Archbishop of Arles, their most important customer.
The firm’s ledger of 1299–1300 evidenced full double-entry bookkeeping. Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici may even have introduced this method for the Medici bank in the 14th century.
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients.
Freemason Albert Churchward on The Origin and Evolution of Freemasonry: Connected with the Origin and Evolution of the Human Race.
Until the Next Article
If you have read this far, bravo!! But DO take your time to work out how the dots connect — PLEASE also do your own research.
It would appear the earlier centuries were how “a few” had jostled for power and control using law and whatever they could to legally self-organize humanity into creating and living this first truly GLOBAL experiment based on the Thirty Tyrants’ paradigm.
Plato’s concepts of a philosopher king and the “common good” are back again but in a paradigm that’s now legally more pro corporations (artificial persons/legal fictions) than real people, are they not mere BAU brandings for absolute control?
Also, are bloodlines descended from the most ruthless tyrants?
Check out the links below for earlier articles in this mini-series under the Hacking mindsets series:
It takes a lot to research/draft articles like this so PLEASE indicate you would like to read more by subscribing, liking and sharing. 🙏
References
History of the Wars, Books V and VI
The Fall of the West; Vandals, Goths and Huns
Plato’s Republic: Just Society or Totalitarian State?
Core and Periphery: The Holy Roman Empire as a Communication(s) Universe
Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy
A History of the Holy Roman Empire
The Intellectual and Cultural World of the Early Modern Inns of Court
Acquiring Empire by Law: From Roman Doctrine to Early Modern European Practice
