Historical facts

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The concept of this thread is to cite a few interesting or surprising historical facts about any period of history.


- Charlemagne

Roland and Ronceveaux

Contrarily to idées reçues, it was not the Muslims of Spain who defeated the troops of Charlemagne at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, but the Basque people. Charlemagne had in fact been invited by the wali of Barcelona, Sulaiman Ibn Yakzan Ibn al-Arabi,, to help him fight the Emir of Cordoba. Very unusually for this time of deep religious conviction, the lord protector of Christianity was helping Muslim governor against its own Muslim prince.

The battle became famous through the Song of Roland, composed centuries later. Because of this song, there is a common misconception that Roland (who died in the battle) was the nephew of Charlemagne. This isn't true. They were not even related. Roland (or Hruoland, in fact) was the governor of Brittany.

Emperor

It is not known whether Charlemagne planned his coronation as Emperor of the Occident. It is more likely that Pope Leo III crowned him emperor to his own surprise, so as to make of the Frankish leader the official protector of the Church. The records mention him as "Roman Emperor", and Charlemagne was indeed seen as the heir of the Western Roman Empire by both the Catholic Church and by the Muslim world. Only the Byzantines refused to ackowledge him as such, as they saw him as a rival to their own power.


- French Revolution

The Bastille

14 July 1789 is one of the most important dates in French history. It is when the Parisian populace took the Bastille, marking the real start of the French Revolution. The Bastille was an enormous prison seen as the symbol of totalitarian power and arbitrary justice. What few people know, and few people knew even at the time, is that the Bastille was almost empty. It had only 4 prisoners, all petty criminals, and not a single political prisoners. Far from being a hellish place with prisoners attached by chains in dark and humid cells, the cells we actually quite spacious and comfortable. One prisoner reported that the food was not bad and that he could get as much paper and ink as he wanted to write. The prison even had a nice library !

The Terror

The practice of displaying severed heads on top of a pike or pitchfork started with the French Revolution. The governor of the Bastille was one of the first victims of this macabre practice.

During the Terror (September 1793 to July 1794), 18,500 to 40,000 people died, including about 16,000 guillotined.

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- Ancient Europe

Wine

The Greeks and Romans put water in their wine. The Celts didn't, which was seen as a barbaric practice by the Gallo-Romans.

Human sacrifices

The Celts practised human sacrifice to the gods, typically near water (lake, river, spring). They also decapitated the defeated after a battle, took the heads back home as trophies, and exposed the headless bodies hanging on wooden frames.

Sometimes, they replaced humans by huge amphoras of wine, and simulated the decapitation by cutting off the top of the amphora with a sword. The spilling wine would represent the blood.

Celtic culture vs genes

A common Celtic culture originating from the south-west of Germany spread to half of Europe, to the British Isles, around France, Switzerland and southern Germany, in northern Spain, and as far as Anatolia via the Danube region. They spoke a similar language, shared a same religion and beliefs, had traditions, the same arts and techniques.

However, DNA tests have not been able to find any common genes between the various areas once settled by the Celts, which leads to think that the cultures spread across a variety of ethnic groups.

The Romans did not refer to the Britons as Celts, probably because they looked different to them. For instance, continental Celts buried their war leaders with their chariots, a tradition virtually unknown in Celtic Britain.

Celtic technology

Before the Roman Conquest, the Celts were as developed as the Greeks and Romans. They invented the chainmail, and had swords and shield at least as strong as the Romans. The decoration of the weapons, chariots and artifacts was superior to those of many Mediterranean cultures.

The Celts traded actively with the Mediterranean world, exchanging notably their iron tools and weapons for wine and pottery.

Their defeat against the Romans was mainly due to the fact that they were disunited against the Roman ennemy, and victims of internal tribal struggles. Well before Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, the Celts had plundered Rome (390 BCE), and sacked Delphi (279 BCE).

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Catholic saints are typically depicted with an aureola above the head. Originally the aureola had no religious meaning; it was just a disk place above sculptures to protect them from pigeons' defecations. It is only later that it was associated with the protection of the Holy Ghost.

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Celtic technology and wealth

Recent studies have shown that the Celts were more advanced than the Romans in some scientific and economic aspects. Pre-Roman Celtic calendars were much more accurate than the Roman one. In fact, they were possibly more accurate than the Gregorian calendar in use nowadays.

The Celts were also immensely rich. We now know that Julius Caesar's main reason to conquer Gaul was to lay hands on Celtic gold. Over 400 Celtic gold mines were found in France alone. The Romans had little gold on their home territory, so the conquest of Gaul was a tremendous boost to their power. This is what allowed Julius Caesar to become so powerful politically - more than the generals who conquered any other part of the Roman Empire. It is estimated that Caesar massacred 1 out of 10 million of Celts in Gaul, and put another million into slavery. In modern terms, this would be called a genocide.

The Celts also preempted the Romans in their construction of a road network across the European continent. The Celtic world was very decentralised compared to the Roman one, but at least a dozen Celtic towns possessed high stone walls rivalling those of Rome at the time. The longest were 5km long.

Ancient Celtic society gave much more freedom and power to women than the Greeks and Romans did. Greco-Roman housewives were prohibited to do business and mostly sequestrated in their home under the supervision of male family members. Celtic women could sometimes become powerful tribe leaders.

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The Vandals

Nowadays the term "vandalism" means "wantonly destructive act". The term comes from the name of the East Germanic tribe that was pushed by the Huns into the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, and that finally settled in North Africa.

But were these people really so violent or barbaric to deserve to be remembered the way they are ? Many historians now believe that it was not the case.

It is true that the arrival of over a hundred thousands Vandals in Gaul caused great upheaval, as can be expected from such a large population movement inside a foreign land. This was not specific to the Vandals, but to any invaders. The Vandals did not have the choice, and pay a heavy price for escaping from the Huns. The allied Frankish and Roman armies killed one third of their population, who escaped southward. The Vandals were then attacked by the Visigoths in south-west France, and moved to Spain.

Despite being Christians, the Romans hated the Vandals more than the pagans. The reason is that the Vandals were not adept of Catholicism but Arianism, a version of Christianity ruled as heretic by Rome in 325.

Unable to remain peacefully in southern Spain (in Andalusia, which was probably named after the Vandals), King Geiseric ordered the construction of hundreds of ships and led his people across the Mediterranean to North Africa, then the breadbasket of the Western Roman Empire. The Romans were completely taken aback by this move, so that the Vandals did not meet any resistance in this prosperous, peaceful and remote part of the empire. They advanced as far as Carthage, one of the most important cities in the empire, and took the city without a fight.

Contrarily to popular beliefs, the Vandals did not destroy the cities they took, but preserved them and ruled peacefully over them. Many North Africans displeased with the corrupt Roman administration even greeted the new Vandal rule.

Geiseric gave freedom of religion to the Catholics, while insisting that the regime's elite follow Arianism. The common folk had low taxes under his reign, as most of the tax pressure was on the rich Roman families and the Catholic clergy.

It is interesting to note that the incidence of fair hair and eyes is still more common in some pockets of North Africa (e.g. at the border of Morocco and Algeria => see maps) than in southern Europe, due to Vandal settlements.

The only event that would have earned the Vandals their bad reputation is the sack of Rome in 455. The Vandals had previously signed a peace treaty with Emperor Valentinian III, who offered his daughter's hand in marriage to Geiseric's son. The assassination of Valentinian III by Petronius Maximus to usurp the throne caused Geiseric to bring his troops to Rome to avenge his father-in-law. Although they did pillage Rome, the Vandals did not destroy any building, as requested by Pope Leo I.

Although the Roman Empire disappeared, the Catholic Church continued to exist and prospered afterwards. As heir of the Christian Roman Empire, it is not surprising that the Catholic Church rewrote history from its biased point of view, describing the Vandals as destructive barbarians. Historians are now rediscovering that the Vandalic rule in North Africa was in fact one of exemplary rule (compared to the power in Rome at the time, at least) and refinement in the arts, such as poetry.

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A 9th-century Pope is said to have been a woman under the name of John (or Joan). She is said to have fooled everyone by wearing men's clothing. She got busted when she got pregnant and gave birth in the street while wearing her papal garments. The Catholic Church now refutes the existence of Pope Joan as a lie invented by heretics to discredit the Church. What else could they say ?

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Wow that's nice!!