In the history of the Counter-Reformation, Jesuits are always mentioned as the main force behind it. They played an important role in education, in politics (as Kings' confessors), and in missionary works.

Why were they so successful, when the Catholic church was in a state of meltdown during the Reformation? It was like while the other orders such as Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians didn't have much to offer, in the face of Protestant challenges, the Jesuits pulled a miracle.

I had a moment of internet browsing through AskHistorians when I thought it would be interesting to look up 'journal entry' style writings form the distant past. To my befuddlement I could not easily find such repositories. Are there any open depositories of these kinds of primary documents that you, as a historian, pull on?

To be more specific, I'm mostly interested in antiquity to the late roman empire. It seems like formation hand-to-hand combat would be quite chaotic and stressful, but I've never (personally) heard of any period writings on the effects of combat on the mental wellbeing of the soldiers.

I asked this about a year ago, but didn't get far at all. I hope by now a subject matter expert can help me with this.

I'm writing an essay on the Great Famine and I wanted to know how the percentage of peasants (before they were killed) compared to that of everyone else/people living in cities.

My thinking is that when all of the regions previously controlled by the Roman Empire separated, Latin evolved differently in each area because they were no longer united under the empire. The language kept differentiating until today where the romantic languages are all that's left...

The exact quote:

"if we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire."

I just watched the movie Hysteria, and I know it's largely fictional, but it raised some questions I've had difficulty answering on my own.

I'm having a difficult time believing that Drs practising "pelvic massages" were unaware that their patients were receiving sexual pleasure from their treatments.

And I find it very far fetched to believe that the patients didn't realize they were experiencing sexual stimulation.

Did patients and doctors share a "nod and wink" type of relationship? Did women keep their pleasure a secret from their doctors (and medical science)? Or did both genuinely not know?

Thanks /r/askhistorians!

And special thanks to /u/caffarelli for assistance with my title.

It's my understanding the two coexisted at one point - what was the relationship between them both? Did the Byzantines view the Holy Roman Empire as a legitimate establishment, or did they see it as a "pretender"? Like Voltaire pointed out, it was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire.

Mainly antebellum american colleges

How many majors were there?

Did they have dorms?

What age did students enroll on average?

I'm doing a project for history and I can't find any information for this. I'd like to ask about Asian immigrants specifically.

Is true this story or just a myth around the goverment of this emperor?

So I am currently researching a historiographic paper on the decline of the Roman Empire (west) and have a few sources pointing to different reasonings. Among them are the misconceptions that the Barbarians were the cause: Christians being the cause (Gibbons chapter 15 and 16); economic reasons; and excessive government (but have yet to read all the way through).

So my question is, could anybody point me in the right direction to find more in-depth sources and other reasons in detail?

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On some miserable campaign somewhere, and I can see a canon ball skipping my way. Can I try to dodge? Get out of the way in anyway? Was this seen as breaking rank or something?

I've been looking for the answer to this question for a while now and I seem to have narrowed it down to three candidates. Those candidates are John (or is it William?) Blakey, Richard Trevithick and Oliver Evans. I'm not entirely sure about the details of Blakey's boiler beyond the fact he did use cylinders, though they were very small and I'm not sure if the case in which those cylinders were held was cylindrical or not. Richard Trevithick and Oliver Evans seem to have designed a cylindrical boiler at roughly the same time but different books give different dates, with one book claiming Evans invented the cylindrical boiler as early as 1792! Others claim Trevithick was first in about 1804, with Evans following shortly after. I've yet to see any really conclusive proof that any of these people was first so I was wondering if you guys could help me out here.

I have a student who is interested, but it isn't my field of specialty. Any recommendations will be passed along, and greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!