Turks encroaching across Anatolia is cited as one of the reasons for the First Crusade. But how did the Byzantine Empire realize that this encroachment was a thing? Was there a census? Military reports? We're there other sources of demographic information? Was it common knowledge? How familiar would Pope Urban II be with this demographic information?
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I've been reading a lot about the Romans (around 150-50BC) so anything specific to them would be of particular interest, but I'd love to hear about the tactic in general. Thanks :)
Sorry if I don't reply immediately, I won't be online for a few hours but I will absolutely come back read everything asap.
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Was the movement seen as a revival of an older realist movement in Art/Painting?
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Title is sufficiently explanatory. Also, what other odd things people used to add to food and drink? Thank you for any answers.
Edit: WHAT THE HECK?! I’ve achieved reddit fame! I’ll read through all your answers shortly, thanks guys!
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In Annie Hall Woody Allen's character Alvy Singer asks a woman if she is a "like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, Red Diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself." Were socialist summer camps actually a thing in America? If so, what were they like?
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Does anyone have experience with this? I'm told one of my great-aunts went to a mental institution in the 1960s. From there I've heard differing stories, ranging to that she escaped or was let out. But whatever happened I'm told that my great-grandparents spent most of their savings on private investigators to locate her, to no avail. I'm trying to piece together myself what happened. Is there a way to determine what institution she went to? Thank you.
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In an excellent post about Native American cuisine, /u/Reedstilt suggests that the Ojibwe ate a lot of maple sap products:
Maple syrup takes a crazy amount of energy to make using modern methods, and sugar all the more so:
What process did the pre-European-contact Ojibwe use to manufacture maple sugar and syrup? How did they tap the trees? How did they collect the sap? And above all, how did they remove the water?
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Mainly, did the Nationalist Spanish Soldiers scour the country hunting small sects of Republican Spaniards? Are the ways the interacted in the compound correct? And would a family like the Main Characters be allowed/accepted in a military camp like they were?
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Was the publication of encirclment and destruction of the 6th army at Stalingrad censored in the media of the 3rd reich or was it openly discussed?
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This will require some long quoting, so please bear with me there.
I've just finished reading "Warriors of the Word: The World of the Scottish Highlanders" by Michael Newton (fantastic, by the way, if this subject is of interest to you).
The final chapter is on human ecology, and concludes with the following anecdote of the Cailleach, in form of a glastig.
A hunter was one day returning from Beinn Bhric and when he reached the bottom of the mountain, he thought he heard a sound like the cracking two rocks striking each other, or like a stag's horns when he rubs them against a rock. He continued walking until he came within sight of a large stone that lay at the side of the road, and there he saw at the base of the stone a woman with a green shawl around her shoulders. She held a deer shank in each hand and was constantly sriking them together. Even though he realized she was a glastig, he was bold enough to say to her, 'What are you doing there, poor woman?'
But the only answer that he got was, 'Since the forest was burnt! Since the forest was burnt!' And she kept repeating this refrain for as long as he could hear her.
Then, Newton gives his conclusions of this piece, that I don't quite follow.
[...] the Cailleach's natural home is at the top -- not bottom -- of the mountain; her deer herd are represented in this tale only by the bones of a dead animal; the road is a sign of human impact and 'progress'; the man is noted as being unusually lacking in fear of her. The beating of the bones in the Cailleach's hands echos the practice of the striking of the palms in the rituals of keening: it is clear that she is mourning the forest, which represents the wilderness in general. The tale indicates that humankind's adoption of modern rationality has dethroned the Cailleach and hence she can no longer function as a protector of nature.
So here, my questions are several and quite possibly beyond what this subreddit can answer.
First of all, I understand how the glastig is identified, but don't understand how Newton then comes to the conclusion that the glastig is actually the Cailleach Bheur.
I also find, generally, that his interpretation appears very modern and imposing a certain perspective, and wonder if this is a typical approach to folkloric stories (here I dredge up a four-year-old question and answer to show where I'm coming from there.
Finally, I'm wondering if it really is "clear" that she is mourning the forest, as there is no context given to indicate it's gone (unless that's the road?) and the paragraph before the cited segments indicate that it is "prophetic." Would such actions as beating bones be clearly recognizeable in the historic era (endnotes credit this as from a work by James McDougall in 1910) as mourning? Keening, I had understood, had died out/been suppressed before then.
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What I'm asking is how much did they know about the world outside Europe basically. Could they have heard about the pyramids for instance...or China...a mighty culture in the far east. Did they know of exotic animals like elephants, giraffes, crocodiles and lions?
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I find the concept of Jihad really confusing, since there seems to be a great deal of misinformation about it in my social cycle. What the Jihad meant when it was born, back in the early years of Islam? Is the Jihad of today the same as the Jihad of this period? If it is, then how come a religious idea last for so long? If it is not, then how it changed?
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So my, albeit limited, understanding of the Huns is that whether or not they were a concrete tribal or linguistic identity at one point is uncertain but that by the time they reached Europe, and later the territory of the Western Roman Empire, they were more an umbrella term applied to many groups that may have had little in common other than nomadic lifestyle and raiding Roman territory?
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Is secondary school and university we are taught more and more about the dynasties of Europe such as the Tutors, Bourbons, Romanovs, Osmans, etc. But we always typically refer to the countries at the different points as the _______ Empire, be it British, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Dutch, etc. Why do we call for instance China the _______ Dynasty, such as Wei, Tang, Song, Ming, etc?
In fact, when I mentioned Osman it reminded me that we even do it sometimes with other parts of Asia too, not just the far east. Except for the Turks it's dynasty name and "Empire" like a mix of east and west. And popular names for it seem to change too, between Ottoman Empire or Seljuk Sultanate. Why not call it the Turkish Empire or the Ottoman Dynasty or Sultanate? Similarly going back to my original question, why do we not usually just say Chinese Empire or Hapsburg Dynasty? Or Khan Dynasty instead of Mongol Empire?
(I feel I should add that I may have a skewed understanding of what the layman terms for these are as I am going to university for a history degree and hear most of these often enough. For instance, perhaps "Chinese Empire" is more common than I understand it to be, though I know "Hohenzollern Dynasty" is not a popular alternative to "German Empire" for instance.)
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There have been abundant scientific and medical "takes" on scurvy's causes and prevention over time, but I can't get a read on how individuals with no particular formal education would have understood the disease and its sometimes weird symptoms. Scurvy seems like it would have been a global concern, and some of its symptoms (stuff wounds re-opening and allegedly heightened senses) sound downright eerie -- are there any documented folk remedies or informal precautions undertaken by sailors of various nations/with various backgrounds?
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The claim he makes in this video is that "Hutu" just meant "peasants" and "Tutsi" meant "nobility," with the two groups being similar in culture, language, and religion. Superficial characteristics that German colonizers took as evidence of their being different races were just based on the Tutsi being taller and lighter, which, claims Feature History, were simply the marks of a privileged lifestyle rather than distinct ancestry.
I understand that ethnic and racial classifications are fluid, but would Hutu and Tutsi not have had any real conception of each other as "different" beyond wealth and lifestyle prior to European colonization? Or was it more akin to Norman rule in England, where ethnic and class distinctions were intertwined?
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