My understanding of medieval succession is VERY limited, but my understanding is that in Feudal societies the concept of one person taking all titles was a late invention? Say I have two sons, and one is just TOTALLY incompetent, unfit to rule in my eyes. The other is a paragon of virtue and someone who I feel would keep the realm stable. How do I ensure my one son is the undisputed successor without resorting to drastic things like murdering the other one?

tl;dr how did medieval monarchs LEGALLY disinherit their children who they felt were unfit to rule.

One trope I can’t help but notice in period pieces from Antiquity: if there’s ever a market or feast scene, the bread shown is always flat, unleavened, like a modern day pita or lavash or else similar to naan. Doesn’t matter if we’re in Homeric Greece, the Levant, Persia, Rome itself, etc. it’s always that same basic form of bread. Which, obviously, was and is widespread, but surely not the only thing available right? What else would I expect to find in a Roman bakery besides the ubiquitous flatbreads?

Indian devanagari and it's derivatives, Middle Eastern scripts (Arabic and derivatives, Hebrew, Aramaic) and European scripts (Latin, Greek, Armenian, Georgian and Cyrillic) share a common ancestor in Fenician script.

However, only European scripts use capital letters. With few exceptions, capitalisation is also very consistent along scripts and languages (proper names and beginning of a sentence).

How did capital letters arise from a script that didn't have them and why didn't the practise extend to the other Fenician-derived scripts?

I am trying to learn more about medieval Jewish women's religious life. I know that the Bat Mitzvah is a relatively recent concept, and still not practiced in all denominations of contemporary Judaism, let alone the advent of female rabbis. As well, most of the research I could find focuses on lay life, such as the amazing Licoricia of Winchester. I know Christian women had opportunities to dedicate their lives and intellects entirely to the Church, and numerous such writings survive. If there are similar primary sources in Hebrew (or any of the vernaculars) I haven't come across any. For the sake of the question, let's say the 13th c. in England before the expulsion. But any information/books recs/primary sources would be very appreciated.

With all the warm weather and increased beach visits recently it got me thinking. Did people go to the beach for leisure in the medieval times? If they did was this something that was limited to a certain class of people? I don’t know if peasants for example had much leisure time. And what sort of things would they have done? Was swimming in the sea an option or would that have been something maybe only for the men as women would have been wearing dresses not really appropriate.

This question came from something I’ve thought about recently: what would Shaq be in Ancient Rome. That made me wonder if there were “Shaqs” in ancient armies. Either people who were physically exceptional (taller/bigger than everyone else) or exceptional in terms of their skills. Sports teams will gear their offence to let their star players excel. I wonder if ancient armies did the same: if they had specific strategies to leverage their best soldiers. I realize that the ratio is different (1 star basketball player out of a 5 person lineup vs 1 star soldier out of a thousand person unit), but I’m still curious.

So I guess I have two questions:

Were there physically exceptional soldiers in ancient armies that stood out for being taller or bigger than everyone else.

Did the army’s strategy revolve around them.

The Tridentine Mass has recently attracted a lot of attention in the Catholic World, with Pope Francis placing some restrictions on the traditional liturgy.

Since the Tridentine Mass was adopted after the Council of Trento, how was the Catholic liturgy celebrated before that? Did it have any similarity with the Orthodox liturgy of St. John Chrysostom? Was there even an unified liturgical tradition? Also, did any sort of movement to preserve old liturgical tradition exist after the establishment of the Tridentine Mass, similar to the reactions to Vatican II Council?

I'm watching the Netflix docu-series Greatest Events of WWII In Color. One of the later episodes is focused around the treatment of the Jewish community, which is no secret in regards to Nazi Germany. But I was ignorant to the fact that there seemed to be a similar sentiment in many other civilized counties around the world, even two of the most prominent Allied countries, Britain and the US. Other countries with an antisemitic undercurrent mentioned include Poland, Italy, and most of Europe. Even Cuba turned away Jewish refugees, resulting in many of those Jews ending up in Nazi concentration camps.

I was ignorant to the antisemitism I mentioned above outside of Nazi Germany, so my question is when and where did these antisemitic views originate? I've heard it mentioned in passing that there has been a persecution of Jews for centuries, but what was the initial cause of antisemitism all those years ago that culminated in the Holocaust centuries later?

I heard in a podcast that Rome was assumed to have anywhere between 2 and 3 million people at its height with cities like Syracuse and Athens having similarly wild numbers compared to anything after the fall of Rome up until the 1700s, which to me seems like an incredibly long time.

Did I make a mistake? If not, why were European cities really that much smaller for a millenium? What were the reasons for this disparity?

Thanks in advance :)

I'm thinking of things along the lines of how "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" came to be so widespread and adapted from a play (as I understand) or when people began denying the Moon Landing, the Holocaust, etc. I'm particularly interested in how these ideas are initially disseminated and elevated from fringe to dogma for some. This question is inspired by the guy with the Holocaust Denier father in law.

Ignoring the moral abomination of using slaves in this way, it would seem like a wise investment for Northern business owners to make a deal with Southern slave owners for cheap labor to produce materials in new factories in the South, especially since the cotton gin was invented over 60 years prior to the start of the war. So what stifled Southern industrialization?

I was looking at the Wikipedia page for the Soviet Union and it was striking how the Soviet Union had a very high human development index score with a low Gini score. I was just wondering whether the Human Development Score was based on falsified data and what the true Human Development Score was

From my understanding Japan seemed to have a very close relationship with China for centuries leading up to the 19th century. Many elements of Japanese culture are either heavily influenced or borrowed from the Tang Dynasty, from architecture to even Kanji used in written Japanese. How did a nation that once viewed their neighbor in admiration eventually turn into animosity?

I have a mid 18th century British coin with "paine warranted" imprinted across the face of the coin. Its been handed down the family from the oldest child to the oldest child, at least that's what I've been told. Does this mean anything to anyone ? Google doesn't help.

I am currently on vacation with my girlfriend’s family and her dad has always been a bit extreme. For stories sake I will call him Bill. Bill is very intelligent and spends most of his time studying history in the Middle East.

Tonight we checked into a new Airbnb and I found a stack of DVDs in the room I am staying in (sadly I have the pullout in the living room.) To wind down I put on the first DVD of a 6 part WWII documentary. Roughly 15 minutes in, Bill insists that I need to turn it off as it’s all American propaganda to pity Jews and to despise the German people. Bill quickly changes his mind and starts using it as a tool to teach me what really happened in WWII…

Fast forward 2 hours of me being stuck in a room being lectured by Bill.

According to Bill’s own research, America joined WWI because of the Balfour Declaration and the Jews claimed that they would be able to persuade the Americans to join the war if Britain promised them Palestine. Somewhere down the road the Jews were given Palestine and were partnered with the German democrats who agreed to the treaty of Versailles. Thus the difficulties and poverty in Germany following WWI was ultimately the Jews fault.

Bill believes that the Jews were forced out of Germany during this time period leading up to WWII and flooded Turkey and the Middle East. Jews who remained worked in factories for the war.

Bill believes that footage we have of concentration camps were Hollywood’s attempt to rally American troops towards the war efforts and were staged. The bodies of skeletons were those who suffered of typhoid fever or of homosexuals who were disposed of (who are equally as manipulative as the Jews.) Numbers and tattoos on the bodies were for sick count to research and study typhoid.

Bill also believes that testimonies aren’t usually factual and were paid off. What historical evidence do we have that is irrefutable and can help me properly keep my sanity? Sources and documents (preferably from German record during the time period) would be greatly appreciated.

It seems like Germany would have been adamantly against a fellow Axis power attacking a sleeping giant who, up until that point, had largely remained isolated.