What was Charlemagne's actual name?

I know his name is translated as Charles the Great, but the German translation is Karl der grosse. And that the Czech word for King, Král, comes from Charlemagne's name.

So if I was to meet The Emperor himself, would his name sound closer to Charles or Karl?

And as a little side branch question; besides Caesar becoming Kaiser and Tzar, and Karl/Charles becoming Král; Has any other individual personal names become titles or replaced old words for that position?

Here's a weird one... Did court jesters exist?

I mean, I'm sure they did but there's a lot myth around them. Lots of old pop culture shows a jester in a stupid hat, hopping on one leg while juggling for a corpulent King laughing hysterically with a turkey leg in his hands (not the ottoman kind)

Some newer stuff has the Jester as somekind of trusted philosopher; Who can tell hard truths to the King as satire or jokes.

So my question is really; What the hell was a court jester? Did they exist or would Kings, Kaisers, and all the lowly nobles have a rotating stable of entertainments and whoever was entertaining them at the moment would be the "court jester"?

(I think I read in Barbarossa a story of Henry II of England throwing a jester in the river on 2 separate occasions)

What are some entertaining medieval primary sources to read?

Im reading a book about the Hittites and the author mentions a nomadic group living north of them several times, they are always described as barbaric and uncivilized, that a partial reason for the constant state of war against them was due to the simple fact they had no ruler to sign a vassal contract, and that we dont know of any Hittite ruler that didn't go to war with them. However, I'm reading the book in my native language, Croatian, and they are called Gašge in the book (š is vocalized as sh in English, in case you don't know). What would be their name in English? I've tried typing in similar words into the search such as Gashge, Gasga, etc. but to no luck, so I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable about the Hittites can help

Anyone have some book recommendations for the german revolution of 1918-1919.

What did the clothing of 10th-11th (AD) century women in the Iberian peninsula look like?

And what are some good sources for learning more about historical clothing through time.

This feels like a very dumb question but reading about WW1 is getting me more confused than before I started reading and I kind of just want to see if I have the facts straight.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, which is in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and under Austrian control at the time. The assassin (Gavrilo Princip) was from Bosnia and an Austrian subject. So neither the location nor the assassin were Serbian. Right?

So why did any blame fall on Serbia in the first instance? We know now that some Serbians were indeed involved, but why would that be thought then?

Was the Aztec empire really as cruel as many people say?

Might be a very frequently asked question but I still have not found an answer

Hello, I'm interested in reading suggestions about prisons, penal colonies, and other forms of extreme punishment. Any culture, any pre-modern time period.

This is research for a fantasy novel, so I'm looking for more conceptual secondary sources that deal with the logistics or geopolitics of large prisons. There's a tendency for fiction to fall short of historical reality, or be based on a simplified view of the past. I'm looking for general reading to strengthen my overall understanding and uncover my "unknown unknowns" on this topic.

One of the most useful books I've found so far was The Fatal Shore (Robert Hughes). I appreciated how it covered so many aspect of Australia's founding, from the political reasoning to different prison models. I also enjoyed The Gulag Archipelago (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) - it was a bit diffuse for me, but had lots of great details about the daily inhumanity of such prisons. I've done some reading on the history of Newgate Prison, though nothing there has quite struck the balance I'm looking for. I'm also drawing inspiration from the Five Punishments and Ten Abominations, but that's more based on background cultural understanding, not any scholarly sources yet.

This is partially pleasure reading too, so I'm happy for any book on the topic that's interesting. ^-^ Thanks in advance for any suggestions offered!

I asked this question once before and received the suggestion of Michel Foucault, but I would gladly take more.

In the Era of American colonialism, did any countries experience a dramatic population decline as a result of emigration? Or did most countries have a stable enough population to not really be impacted by colonization?

So, I've heard that a lot of Native American agriculture was overlooked by European settlers because it didn't look like what they knew as agriculture. What I want to know more about and have no idea where to find credible info on is this: what did Native American agriculture look like, then? Specifically in the Amazon, the jungles of Mesoamerica, or any other heavily forested area. Was there slash-and-burn agriculture? Was it just "weed around the bits we want to eat"?

I’m doing the world building part of an animation project and have a question. Did old west companies use flags or branding in their gold rush parties? Or did cities and towns fly flags?

What examples are there of people from humble backgrounds who played an important role in the Middle Ages?

[META] This subreddit has the 20 year rule, meaning that we can't ask about things that happened in the last 20 years. With everything going on in Afghanistan recently, I'd like to be more informed on the history of the conflict. Is there another subreddit (or resource anywhere online, really) like AskHistorians but specifically for current events?

My grandad joined the us navy during the korean war. All I really know his time in was that he joined his junior year of high school, was a gunner on a ship that I think was sailing in rivers or coastal waters not open sea, the ship was isolated enough from normal commanders that they didn’t have to shave all that much which he preferred, and then after his tour he got discharged in San Diego and hitchhiked home to Kentucky. How can I find out more about his service and does all of that sound fairly accurate for naval service during Korea? Thanks for any insight

Do historians have a baseline or rule of thumb for how to record/analyze history to a certain standard of "English word difficulty"? How do historians' texts seek to account for the changing standards of education by which its readers are raised?

For example, if the general populace was raised to believe that "Republican" means "conservative" and "Democrat means "liberal" and only by their modern generally accepted definitions of those words, and they see a political party of the past that include both words hyphenated in the name, or they see "Federalist" but that wasn't taught in their school history course, how do historians if at all account for it - for the changing/disappearing understanding of words in their context? Do authors mentioning older texts use footnotes to clarify, or something more?

My grandfather wrote a memoir before his death and I would like to ask the best way to scan it for translation? The documents are about 40 years old and as I understand details his life living as a Communist in Poland and Russia/Siberia. None in our family can read it, except my father but he absolutely refuses to have anything to do with it.

The pages are both frail and it bears the mark of a lot of editing. Like these weird page overlays look like he wanted to put a new sentence in to a page already written. What would be the best way of scanning it for retention of most amount of knowledge for translation? And how should I keep the pages now? Right now they are all in a plastic bag in a drawer in my shelf.

https://imgur.com/a/XO1eO3I

I read Williams' biography of Huey Long and it would talk about an electoral/party organization without explaining what that means. It will say, for example, "he had no organization in New Orleans" or "his opponent had a rudimentary organization in the northern counties", that sort of thing. I'm wondering what exactly did "an organization" consist of in the 20s and 30s?

I am getting really interested in military and technology developments during the "interwar" period between WWI and WWII. Are there any "go to" historians, authors or sources for getting familiar with this stuff? Surface level stuff is fine - I need to start somewhere!

I'm really interested in the early 20th century period in the United States. What are some good books to read about this era?

Who was Ralph de Gaël (before 1042 – c. 1096)?

When William the Conqueror awarded Ralph de Gaël the earldom of Norfolk and Suffolk for his repulse of Norse invaders, did this mean the return of a Brythonic speaker to local rule for the first time in centuries? If so, to what degree might have Ralph recognized this about himself? Is there anything from contemporary or later chronicles relating Ralph to broader ‘Briton’ vs Anglo/Saxon/Norman invader tropes?

Did any civilizations/kings/rulers/etc intentionally have non-biological rules of succession? So instead of having a (eg) son automatically coming to power, the next ruler had to be appointed.

Why did Matthias Corvinus have such latin sounding name?

Hey, i'm looking for a particular essay on the topic of knowledge/ truth, knowing and the importance of the context in judging the truthfulness of an topic.

The essay discussed the history of exploration and inventions briefly, giving examples of the relativity of truth as judged by its historical context. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Did the parts of the Kingdom of Burgundy annexed by France in theory continue to be part of the HRE? At least from the perspective of the empire?

Does anyone know any good sources rental property in the late 19th/ early 20th century, ideally regarding imperial Germany. I have a plethora of sources regarding how much different income levels paid respectively and how the rental barracks were built, but I still have no clue how housing was found/ advertised and whether the landlords were primarily corporations or private individuals and how they received the rent.

Why were the Northern Forts near Liepāja destroyed?

The tourism sites say "realised that building them was a strategic mistake", but do not elaborate.

If so, why was such an expensive mistake made?

I can't find any works about/by John Laurens and really want to read more about him. Any recommendations besides his father's book?

Was Biphasic sleep ever a part of human history.

Islamic history question: I’m confused about Surah 96:1. I’ve seen the first word of the Surah translated as both “Read” as well as “Recite”. From what I understand, what later became the Quran first existed as a series of recitations which were preserved orally until being committed to writing some years after Muhammad’s death. Thus, Gabriel telling Muhammad to “recite” would make sense. However, it is also translated as “Read”, which would be consistent with Muhammad’s response to the angel that he could not read. So, which is it? Some clarification on this would be great.

Were there, besides Napoleon I, other European kings/emperors rejected the tradition of the Pope crowning them?

I'm looking for books on the history of the Irish language and/or its revival. So far, I have read

• The Irish Language in Ireland: From Goídel to Globalisation, by Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost
• A History of the Irish Language: From the Norman Invasion to Independence, by Aidan Doyle
• Globalizing Language Policy and Planning: An Irish Language Perspective, by Máiréad Moriarty

If anyone is aware of any more, please let me know!

I am trying to recall the name of this person, and am having trouble just using google. There's a possibility that he wasn't in Salem witch trials, but that's what i seem to remember. Here's what else I remember:

•he accused his ex-wife of witchcraft (100% on this one)

•his new wife helped him in accusing her

•he tried to take back his accusation but it was too late

Thank you for any help you can give me!

Why was Henrietta d'Oultremont nicknamed Henriëtta Thundermouth?

Anyone knows?

I asked this as a question but it was removed by the mods and was told to post it here

Italian Genealogy question: is there a specific reason (other than the usual economic motives you hear) that immediately jumps out why an ancestor might have left Vaglio Basilicata, Potenza in the 1890s for New York City?

So, my friends were just wandering around the streets and then they found this.

I asked them if i could have it, they said yes and here we are.

Ps: Yes, i live in Italy.

I came across the word "commipary" in an 18th century US archive. Does anyone know what it means? Here's the quote:

During this term of service, he was employed in guarding prisoners at Stanton and Albimarie and acted as commipary.

Anyone have any good book recommendations on Ryoma Sakamoto in English? Likewise for Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Do we have any population estimates for ancient and late antique South Arabia? And is there any literature on the subject? (Doesnt have to be in English, French and German are fine too)

When was the historic Province of Lochaber in Scotland founded?

A recent post in this subreddit stated that taliban is the Pashto word for student. Does it have the same connotation in Afghanistan/Pakistan as in the West? If so, what are regular students called to differentiate themselves from the extremist group?

Was Frederick II really as skeptical about religion as described? Or was this more an exaggeration of his contemporary, vindictive chroniclers?

Has anyone on r/AskHistorians ever heard of this guy named Miles Mathis? He claims that using simple logic (and wikipedia) he can prove that many events were hoaxes/staged/faked. I find some of his theories rather convincing, but I am really interested in larger stuff such as the battle of France or the background and biograhies of people like Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin. I want to know if his historical theories hold any water.

Are there any records of Incas using infantry square tactics against the Spanish?

I am curious. From a historian's standpoint, What museums should be on someone's bucket list? How does it present history in a way the general public can easily understand? What exhibit at the museum stands out to you the most?

Edit What research do you recommend to do before going to the museum?

When did asking for a lawyer become the norm while dealing with the police?

What happened to the plaintiffs in Pace v. Alabama after they served their sentences? Did they travel to a different state to get married or did they end up marring somebody else?

[Meta] Did the Weekly Newsletter end? The latest I got was sent on July 25.

How were the Beaches in Normandy called before D-Day?

Is it safe to assume that children in late 17th Century Scotland would have been familiar with shepherd's slings and/or been well-versed in using them?