I am curious to know how that happened and how often did knights use other weapons, such as mace's, war hammer's, flail's and so on.

I am an amateur historian in my local genealogical chapter. I recently came across a situation where I discovered that records of a small ethnic church were missing after the church closed years ago. I started the investigation by contacting the historical society for said church to no avail, and then contacting the last remaining members of that congregation who held leadership positions and they had no idea where those records would be, pointing to each other essentially. It is my suspicion that the vertical files as well as baptismal, marriage, and other records of this church may still be inside of it. The congregation was down to 4 people when it was closed and it was closed in a hurry and sold off to a private owner, who’s information I obtained through public record.

I would like to know what the best way to approach a private owner of a historical property as an amateur historian would be, to ask that person for either a guided tour or permission to search the property for the missing records, document them, and ask if it’s okay to return the records to the relevant historical society for future generations if they are able to be found.

Edit: just a slight addition. If permission were to be obtained to conduct a search and documentation of this church, where might be the most common places such records would be stored?

It's well known that when Hitler was living in Vienna, he attempted twice to get into the prestigeous art academy there, and failed both times. It must have been a tough blow to his ego. There was plenty of antisemitism in Vienna at the time, so Hitler must have been exposed to it. It makes me wonder if that fact, plus his disappointment over art school may have started his antisemitic fires going. In the bio I read about Hitler (by John Toland), it doesn't mention any antisemitism when he was very young in school, hanging out with his friend, August Kubizek (granted I haven't read Kubizek's book). But the info about his time in Vienna makes me wonder if maybe someone on the board at the Vienna Art Academy was Jewish, and that perhaps the twice rejection of Hitler may have started Hitler's irrational hatred brewing.

I'm just confused. The Yemeni Jews were their brethren. If such a large portion of early modern Israel was made up of Holocaust survivors, then why did no one pause to consider how they were treating non-European Jews? Wouldn't they want to welcome them with open arms?

I mean no animosity towards victims of the Shoah. It just appears to be a big gap between 1946 and the era in which the Yemenis were mistreated. Did I miss something? What happened?

I have read my university's reading lists for Chinese and Russian topics and rarely, if ever, do they seem to recommend reading books which were written by academics in either country. This is interesting, as you'd assume they'd have more ready access to primary source material. At my university, this is true not only for modern historical topics (Soviet Union, China since 1900) but also for papers looking at Ming Chinese art and culture and the medieval 'Slavic world.'

Is this a problem of translation? Are there problems with the work written in China/Russia? Are we working on the same things in relative isolation?

I have asked specifically about Russia and China because of personal experience, but also because of potential issues stemming from current political problems (the same question could equally be asked of native Iranian scholarship). I'm also interested to hear how historians in any of these countries work on European and American history and whether we engage with their conclusions, and if any of their approaches might jump out at us.

And I know I'm supposed to keep it clear and specific, but I'm also interested in hearing about how the West engages with the native historiography of really any country, if anyone is able to provide any information.

Thanks in advance!

I'm currently trying to decifer a middle dutch text from around 1300 for an assignment for history course at university. In it there are several mentions of xvj. d par. I'm sure that these give a monitary value (16) and that the d stands for dinarii, but I'm not sure what the par. stands for. Can someone explain, or give a source where I can find more context.

Many thanks

I’ve read countless articles recounting the military genius of Napoleon and how he changed how warfare was waged. He had generals emulating him for generations to come. What I haven’t seen are material examples of how and what he did differently. What specifically did Napoleon excel at that made him so successful? I understand that his logistical skills were first rate and he was able to field massive professional armies but what battlefield innovations did he invent/enhance, if any?

I'm guessing they didn't say much about Poland, but what about the invasion of France or the Battle of Britain, for example?

For example, I read about a duel in which a British officer was fatally wounded by a Hessian officer during the American Revolutionary War. The Hessian was then pardoned by a British general. These two fought on the same side, and most likely the British officer was in some level of the aristocracy. Now his men are without their commanding officer, his family potentially destroyed, and there is a potential for bad blood to fester even more among the ranks. Honor aside, needlessly losing an officer, especially deployed during active war, has to have been recognized as a detriment to the army and a terrible waste of human life. Why were these duels not forbidden by military leaders?

Okay, I know this one is going to be a weird question if the title and NSFW tag didn't already hint at that.

Between July 1879 and December 1880, there was a magazine published in London called The Pearl which included erotic stories, jokes, limericks, and nursery rhymes, which I stumbled upon while looking for an origin for the "there once was a man from Nantucket" limerick (which, side note, the magazine published dozens of these humorous little rhymes about men from all different places). While going through the nursery rhyme sections, I ran across this one in volume 6 published in December 1879:

"A sailor on board the Duke of Edinburgh's yacht had a reputation as an impromptu poet. The following was one of his efforts before the Duchess:

He was a bloody sparrow. Lived up a bloody spout; There came a bloody thunderstorm. And washed the bugger out.

But in a bloody minute, They stopped the bloody rain; So the bloody little sparrow. Went up the spout again.

After which, he said: "I don't think much of it myself, marm, but my mates say it's bloody fine." "

The dirty little nursery rhyme is clearly similar to the itsy bitsy spider climbing up the water spout, being washed out by a storm, the rain stops, and up it goes again.

So, I tried looking up the origins of the itsy-bitsy spider, but the earliest I can find a reference to it is in 1910, which is 31 years after this version in The Pearl was published.

So I'm wondering if anyone knows of an earlier reference to the spider, or could it be that the innocent song we teach to children derived from a dirty joke?

As I understand it, the French strategy in World War II was to engage the Wehrmacht defensively on Belgian fortifications. The best case scenario is that the line is held and thus France is unmolested at the cost of many lives. The worst case scenario is that the defence is overrun by the Wehrmacht and France is invaded.

Considering this, why would they not play it safe and simply extend the Maginot Line to the ocean?

Additionally, what made the French believe the Ardennes was impassible by the Wehrmaht and what was it about the Wehrmacht that made the French so wrong?

Finally, if the Ardennes was indeed impassible by the Wehrmacht, would it really have mattered; would the French and Belgian forces have realistically been able to hold off the Wehrmacht?