"Allright, but apart from Universities, Magna Carta, end of slavery, trading, horseshoe, watermills, what the Medieval People have ever done for us ?"

@SonsOfLorgar

2 ай бұрын

Explosives?

@SamBarge1

2 ай бұрын

@@SonsOfLorgar "Alright, but apart from Universities, Magna Carta, end of slavery, trading, horseshoe, watermills, and explosives, what the Medieval People have ever done for us ?"

@cuttwice3905

2 ай бұрын

Taking the concept of the spinning wheel from the Islamic invaders and developing the flyer wheel.

@davidliddelow5704

2 ай бұрын

The Romans had water wheels, they were powered by the aqueduct water.

@henrymercer7671

2 ай бұрын

Jousting!

Max from Tasting History made a good point that almost all the Roman writing we have was by rich people about rich people. So of course the Romans seem more civilized and advanced

@RegebroRepairs

2 ай бұрын

Sure. But Romans had advanced technology and philosophy that disappeared and was forgotten. When it comes to technology, that's because there wasn't the money to do those things. When it comes to culture it's honestly largely because the Church oppressed everybody who didn't agree with them. So there was, honestly, dark ages in Western Europe. But medieval historians get angry when you say that. 😀

@tomlxyz

2 ай бұрын

@@RegebroRepairs it wasnt forgotten. It was adapted right away. There is no sharp line where the Roman period ended

@euansmith3699

2 ай бұрын

I love the letters found at Vindolanda, that are about frontier folk organizing visits to neighbours, and ordering socks from mum back home.

@RegebroRepairs

2 ай бұрын

@user-vo9wd6tx6c By medieval historians that doesn't like the name, yes.

@RegebroRepairs

2 ай бұрын

@@tomlxyz No, loads of technological advances the romans did was forgotten. That's a fact.

One strange quirk of growing up in Scandinavia was that this wasn’t really a question. Since we weren’t part of the Roman Empire, the pop culture version of history is pretty much a straight line of progress where the medieval era is perceived as obviously more advanced than what came before (it is when writing, cities and monumental buildings become a common thing). The whole mythology of a glorious precursor culture takes a lot more mental gymnastics to reclaim when the material culture they left behind is wooden ships and a couple of clay huts (not that it stopped the nazis, mind you.) So instead, the narrative you see more commonly is sort of a “noble savage” narrative about the vikings. You can’t claim they were more advanced than medieval people the way you can with the romans, so instead you get this narrative that they were stronger, freer and more socially equal than the cowed, superstitious christians that came after. Equally wrong, same impulse.

@scrattue

2 ай бұрын

This is really interesting, never thought about the perspective of a non-roman history culture

@evelynstarshine8561

Ай бұрын

sadly it's not being part of the roman empire, it's being part of a nation that chose the roman empire as it's justification for absolutism, racism and nationhood. Many colonial countries have no connection to roman empire, but are inflicted with 'dark age' and pro-roman view of history because it is the foundation stone of WASP white supremacy that was exported around the world, not because it was an empire that came before. The same way 'vikings' have been distorted into a superior ancestor before the corruption of eastern 'jewish' christianity by white nationalists, Rome isn't about it's historical fact or presence or being part of it, it's just about upholding modern concepts of race, hate and power.

@eligoldman9200

Ай бұрын

Alot of historians severely question the idea of straight forward progression. The Inca for example developed more advanced farming than 1500 Europe and yet had no writing system or horses. The idea that things developed in one way along a specific path is starting to be debunked.

@evelynstarshine8561

Ай бұрын

@@eligoldman9200 alot of or all? It's not starting to be debunked but was debunked over a century ago and since then holding to linear progress, whigusm, has been enough to disqualify from being a historian

@eligoldman9200

Ай бұрын

@@evelynstarshine8561 there is a minority of people who still believe this. It’s hard to explain but a lot of assumptions people support are rooted in this idea. Even when they reject the idea many ideas like writing being a key part in the current accepted definition of what defines a civilization to many prominent academics. There’s still a lot of ideas that we haven’t realized are predicated on this assumption.

The short answer is: With the Roman empire gone, the infrastructure and logistics a centralized empire would provide were also gone. People weren't stupid; their priorities were just different.

@Rynewulf

2 ай бұрын

and the money was short. Its easy for a continent to pay for a coliseum, but not for a regional tribal kingdom

@OtaBengaBokongo

2 ай бұрын

Constantinople and the Easter Roman Empire continue to work just fine. The difference is that in the East the Germans immigrants were not able to penetrate.

@Rynewulf

2 ай бұрын

@@OtaBengaBokongo Slavs conquered the majority of inland Greece early on, and contested the northern borders for the rest of its history occasionally beating them back to Constantinople. all African territories and Asian territories outside Anatolia were lost

@cmfrtblynmb02

2 ай бұрын

Yep. They also didn't have thousands of slaves at hand that they could use to build huge infrastructure projects. These projects required a lot of men power that was worked to death sometimes. It is hard to do with people who are relatively free.

@Rynewulf

2 ай бұрын

@@cmfrtblynmb02 Slaves were for dangerous manual labour like mining or plantation farming, architecture and engineering was something led by education specialists and largely built by dedicated craftsmen. An unwilling unskilled slave population has never been useful past the basic parts of construction, such as digging

“Medieval people got rid of slavery.” *The Age of Discovery disliked that*

@Ffourteen

2 ай бұрын

Let's not give Medieval people too much credit. William the Bastard did outlaw the trading of slaves, not slavery itself, but he did so with a fine, suggesting he was just trying to raise money, not end slavery. Though it did lead to slavery dying out in England and Wales.

@imcbocian

2 ай бұрын

This is not medieval times anymore. It's early modern period.

@Rynewulf

2 ай бұрын

except for places like Venice and Genoa supplying a lot of slaves down towards North Africa, and so many eastern europeans were enslaved by christians and sold on that there were several slavic exslave dynasties in Islamic Spain. And serfdom was so bad at times you had a very similar treatment and lack of rights of a slave. But we did it boys, we wrote some words in the Vatican and slavery is no more!

@carenann918

2 ай бұрын

@@Rynewulf fun stuff, but this comment ignores the limited parameters set by the speaker. Even within those parameters the statement is problematic as acknowledged by the speaker. But she definitely wasn't talking about Slavs or Islamic Spain or any area in mainland Europe outside of Britannia (or England).

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

"The medieval period got rid of slaves"HAHAHAHAHA COPE MORE

One of our Italian historians explained it very well: people from the medieval age brought today to visit our world would recognize our world much better than an early Roman citizen in the same position. He would recognize banks, universities, churches, etc etc. The medieval world was not what it is portrayed in movies.

@Minimmalmythicist

2 ай бұрын

"Medieval" is probably too broad a term to use, that´s the issue. Like the Early Middle Ages were a total mess, but Italy in 1300 is a very different story. One quibble I might make, is that the Romans did have equivalents of those institutions, they had philosophical academies which were more or less the same thing. They also had a banking system of sorts, but it was rather different to our one, which is more like the medieval model.

@andywomack3414

2 ай бұрын

How did the lives of the majority of people change from AD 200 to AD 500? Especially on the fringes of empire, like Britain?

@giacomopiccinini9157

2 ай бұрын

BARBERO REPRESENT

@Minimmalmythicist

2 ай бұрын

@@andywomack3414 oh Britain was one of the worst affected I would argue, literacy completely collapsed, the cities were utterly abandoned, people basically went back to living in the iron age.

@andywomack3414

2 ай бұрын

@@Minimmalmythicist Thanks. Good points.

like all Imperial powers, the Roman's spared no expense on their PR sector. They had poverty like any other time, in fact they technically would've had more poverty by square inch.

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

Theres many a proofs that the WRE was WAAY better than what came after it, after all, they wouldnt call it the fall of western civilization for nothing. Later on, it got revived by the renaissance, which was caused by none other than.... Cultural Reminders of Classical Antiquity and said scholarly work (that and the effect of the culture and scholarly work seen by the crusaders of the Golden Age of the Islam/Middle-East)

@derekskelton4187

Ай бұрын

Rome and the USA have quite a bit in common

@VisonsofFalseTruths

Ай бұрын

@@derekskelton4187and our politicians and some of our more brainless citizens see that comparison as a good thing. They have a massive boner for what they think Ancient Rome was.

@CHRB-nn6qp

29 күн бұрын

@@VisonsofFalseTruths The modern Roman Empire fans on the internet are idiots. They see how successful the military was and just think that the Romans were the absolute pinnacle of civilisation. They pay no mind to the many negatives.

@patrickporter1864

7 күн бұрын

Theyweponised pr look what they wrote about the carthoginians. As for caesar you could translate him to modern times without any loss of hair or anything. He would do well.

So I was just discussing with a friend how a good starter for a conversation would be ‘what’s a topic on which you could give a 30 min presentation completely unprepared’ and my answer to that was how the medieval people were really not as backwards as we think we are and how our civilisation owes them a great deal of debt; then this just pops up on my feed. Absolutely brilliant timing.

@gloriamontgomery6900

2 ай бұрын

I could absolutely go on for at least 30 minutes on the the European 14th century outbreak of bubonic plague-the likely region of origin, how it was spread , the life cycle of an infection, the vector(s) , the massive social changes, medical ideas of the time, and so on.

@AG-iu9lv

Ай бұрын

I could talk about the fact that human history is actually pathogen history for days.

This is great! I'm doing my PhD iron working on Post Roman Gaul and I whenever I explain my PhD, people assume that it can't possibly be as good as the Roman iron working, whilst in fact, in many cases it's pretty much identical, and sometimes it's even better. We need as many videos of this sort as possible, keep up the good work!

@Dadbro_

2 ай бұрын

That sounds incredibly interesting!! Best of luck!

@SonsOfLorgar

2 ай бұрын

Iirc, the Romans learned a lot of their iron working from the Gauls, and then did the Roman thing with it: Industrialisation.

@tobiasheal

2 ай бұрын

@@SonsOfLorgar not really I'm afraid, it's a popular story but the Romans brought a lot of iron working traditions with them. Sure, they incorporated iron working traditions from other places, including Gaul, but no more or less than any other empire did. And as for industrialisation, that kind of the same narrative as is being debunked in this video, that the Romans were inherently better than others. They weren't, and they didn't industrialise on any level that we'd identify today, it's just they had a broad network and they made use of it

@shryggur

2 ай бұрын

Interesting, it seems that less sedentary peoples were really good at small-scale metallurgy and metal working, and when it reached cities, it was bound to be scaled up. See Vinca culture first bronze, Seima-Turbino forges, etc. Is it just an uninformed bias? If not, what's the reason then? More time for handwork and decorative arts without much architecture? Some Eurasian Steppe knowledge conversion?

@rikusauske

2 ай бұрын

Wasn't gaul a foederati that just kept the roman institutions going after the collapse of the empire? It's not like these Germanic tribes just ate rocks, they really respected Rome even though they were sacking them

Thank you jenny for giving me a perfectly valid excuse to postpone all of the important stuff i should be doing for the next 20 minutes!

@dawnlizreads

2 ай бұрын

I am multitasking watching with doing important stuff (by which, I mean eating lunch)

@tonyharpur8383

2 ай бұрын

Hear, hear! 😅

i do think its amazing that in an era of truly enormously long video essays you said "i can talk for as long as i want" and then gave us a concise, well edited ~20 min video. amazing

@dougthedonkey1805

Ай бұрын

Agreed!

Also fun to mention that this transition wasn't the first of its kind, a very similar change occured in ancient Greece, where the bronze age collapsed into the iron age in a time where cities failed, people moved into the country side and didn't have time for big fancy structures and writing. They didn't even like iron, it was ugly and signified necessity and want opposed to the beauty and abundance they had under the bronze age when it didn't matter if the metal wasn't as efficient as long as it is pretty.

@voidify3

2 ай бұрын

Well bronze actually DOES make more durable and effective weapons and tools and armour than iron- it’s just that tin and copper aren’t found in the same place, so without trade you can’t make bronze. So when those trade networks broke down, people shifted to using iron for everything because it was easier to get and ALMOST as good. (And later, practical methods for making steel were invented and steel IS better than bronze for the things that bronze is good at)

@MalloonTarka

2 ай бұрын

@@voidify3 Iron also needs much higher temperatures to smelt, which means working it was much more difficult. People didn't start doing that until they didn't have a choice.

@mrjones2721

Ай бұрын

Writing vanished, most cities fell, government crumbled, and living within raiders’ reach of the sea became untenable. I’ve heard that a large portion of the population gave up settled life altogether and became nomadic. I’m trying to imagine the first generation of people who grew up in towns and took to nomadism, an alien way of being, because it was the only thing that could sustain life. The immediate aftermath must have been brutal. It’s amazing that what emerged from the Greek Dark Age was a story about kings going to war and dodging monsters on the way home, because you’d think the horror of surviving the end of the world as you knew it would be top on poets’ minds.

@joecurran2811

10 күн бұрын

​@mrjones2721 Are you talking exclusively about the end of the Greek Dark Age or the end of the Roman Empire or both?

@mrjones2721

10 күн бұрын

@@joecurran2811 The Greek Dark Ages. AFAIK the fall of the Roman Empire wasn't nearly as catastrophic.

There is a channel called Premodernist who has a couple long videos on “how to prepare and what to know if you travel to middle ages” which are very well made and debunk a lot of myths about the medieval times. The author is an historian, and the videos are in essence a covert lecture on travel and daily life in medieval Europe. Highly recommended as a follow up to this video.

@shaeisgae8952

2 ай бұрын

Love those videos. It's such a fun way to look at history

@dawnriddle-knowlton9932

2 ай бұрын

Yes!! Intriguing and complementary video and channel.

@gkcadadr

2 ай бұрын

@@dawnriddle-knowlton9932 The channel is lovely indeed. Recently I have been looking out for historian youtubers and it’s a very very rare breed sadly.

it does really feel like people snooze on the fact that labor was extremely plentiful during the Roman Empire (because of all the slavery), and that the collapse of the Roman Empire was also a demographic collapse. Medieval people compensated for the lack of extremely plentiful labor by: 1. Doing less with less 2. MACHINES. Windmills and Waterwheels + complex gearing mechanisms were its own Medieval Industrial Revolution The Romans could afford to throw away one army of 20,000 people after another in search of victory. The Medieval Europeans could barely scrounge a few thousand people together to go harass enemy territory, hence Medieval society going hard on labor-saving defense devices called castles, where a dozen well-trained and well-armed fighting man can hold off a siege.

@trickster721

2 ай бұрын

Similarly, Ancient China knew how to make automatic water-powered looms thousands of years ago, but they had no reason to develop the technology, because their expanding empire provided plenty of cheap or free labor for centuries... until it didn't. People in the past were smart enough to design machines, they just didn't have any economic motive to build them, except sometimes as toys to entertain kings.

@jeffreyquinn3820

2 ай бұрын

I"m not sure if it was slavery that caused the surplus labour of if it was it was the better-organized (if you're in the middle or top) & stratified society that allowed the surplus non-farming labour. That's was lost with the withdrawal of the Empire, not science or technology.

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

@@jeffreyquinn3820 Extremely wrong, their widespread access (and logistics to such) to tech and so many other aspects of life, was also lost. Theres a reason why the Dark ages and high middle ages was considered so lowly by historians

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

@@trickster721 This comment and Op's comment should have the award of most asinine in the comments. Slaves did the menial work. Didnt mean that slaves tools were never being advanced during Roman, it was just not as advanced as others in the same society, hence menial (as compared). Project managers want to get things done in best quickest way possible, and those in high authority created luxuries as their end goal, not as their tools 😑, Rome is known for thwir INSANE intelligent logistics and expertise, something the Dark Ages and high middle ages SEVERELY lacked

@evilsharkey8954

2 ай бұрын

The Ancient Romans had a LOT of machines. They were so proud of engineering, they put machines on some of their coinage. The big difference is post Roman English no longer had the vast resources of a giant empire to support them, so they couldn’t afford to keep a lot of Rome’s records and build the machines the Romans used in their own large projects. It’s kind of like how small towns don’t build giant infrastructure projects without getting help from the state or federal government in the US today. With the only literate people being the clergy, the clergy decided what knowledge to transcribe in books (which took a long time), and the science of antiquity didn’t always jive with early Christian beliefs, so it got left out and eventually forgotten. Something similar happened in a lot of Muslim cultures. The Golden Age of Islam was known for great advances in science, arts, technology, trade, etc., but the pressures of the Crusades and then the Mongol invasion and sack of Baghdad, along with the formation of many smaller states and subsequent fighting between them, resulted in loss of a lot of formerly centralized knowledge and a return to a “backwards” lifestyle like the Taliban, who forbid all things Western… except weapons and technology useful for war and oppression.

2:03 😈😈 _I can talk for AS LONG AS I LIKE!"_ 😂😂😂

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

I like her other vids, but as a Rome history expert (as compared to evwryone else here in the comments) she was incorrect on almost every 2nd sentence

@Nilguiri

2 ай бұрын

@@lyricofwise6894 Can you give a couple of the most egregious examples?

@Little.MissDiagnosed

2 ай бұрын

Me as a professor. :) (about the talking not the wrongness comment above)

5:19 love how you look so bougie with the glass and then it’s just an energy drink :D

@overlookers

2 ай бұрын

_Toro Rosso White_ _Timette-Leali_ _c. 2019_

@madeleinedarnoco5190

2 ай бұрын

@@overlookers You’re amazing, thank you for this great contribution :D

@Setsunako6587

Ай бұрын

I thought it was absinthe in the intro 😂 Still iconic 💕

The Romans did in fact have horse shoes. It Is funny that they initially tried making literal shoes for horses, but they moved on to regular horse shoes pretty quickly.

@annfay6543

2 ай бұрын

Romans loved “borrowing” technology from wherever they went, but they also spread around, too.

@verenakremer6748

Ай бұрын

source?

@exosproudmamabear558

Ай бұрын

​@@verenakremer6748 Dont ask source in KZread, websites even pubmed is blocked from posted. The most they can give gou name of the book or article name

Love the intro, it perfectly encapsulates the perception of the medieval era in comparison with Rome. The line "romans drink wine because they were so sophisticated 😊, medieval people drank beer because the water was dirty 🤮" was the part that killed me lmao

@Philemaphobia

2 ай бұрын

Romans drank wine because the water from the aqueducts was full of lead. Same reason the whole empire was so aggressive.

@tau-5794

Ай бұрын

Yep. Wine was because the warm southern European climate is ideal for growing grapes, and both cultures used alcohol because of its antiseptic properties. Beer, mead, etc. are just ways of making alcohol out of things that can actually grow further north.

@Philemaphobia

Ай бұрын

@@tau-5794 or Roman’s also did not drink wine, but vinegar mixed with water (famous last drink of insignificant people like Buddy J)

@mrjones2721

Ай бұрын

@@tau-5794Exactly. Medievals loved wine. They don’t drink much because it was expensive, not because it was unavailable.

Definitely going to refer to my Monster as "the poor man's champagne" from now on

My favorite professor at university was a medievalist and he had this whole lecture about "the dark ages" being Renaissance propaganda and how many important advances were made during medieval times. He gave it to every class, every semester, so I heard it 4 or 5 times and every time he'd be so enthusiastic about his he'd be flailing about the classroom and practically shouting--it was highly entertaining and I still remember most of it 20 years later.

As a medievalist, I LOVE this comparison! I do wonder why people don'tt consider the magnificent Cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey when bemoaning the loss of Roman skills in making mosaic floors. 🤔

@derekskelton4187

Ай бұрын

PR mostly

@tonyharpur8383

Ай бұрын

@@derekskelton4187 true!

@mrjones2721

Ай бұрын

So often it’s not about skill, it’s about style. It’s no good looking at, say, glorious marble statues and saying we’ve lost the skill to make them. We have all the skill we need-it’s just that Roman-style marblework is out of style, so the people who could become master artisans are off doing something equally difficult that’s in style.

@Reverend_Salem

11 күн бұрын

​@@mrjones2721 although when something is "out of style" for long enough (like traditional timber frame houses, or plaster and lathe, or similar building related skills), and there are no areas with similarly applicable skils, societies do run the risk of losing those skills (at least outside of small communities). which, ignoring the entire debate around modern construction techniques vs traditional ones, and if one is better than the other, you can still run into issues, especially with repairs, and restoration (especially if the goal of the restoration is to restore an older building as close as possible) (i will get a bit into the debate around drywall vs plaster. Drywall alone is a good material for most things, and plaster and lathe honestly provides a better end result, especially since you can make the walls more square after the fact, however it is incredibly time consuming. a good middle ground is to use thinner drywall as the lathe, and plaster over it, making a far better end result than drywall alone, and a significant time saving than plaster and lathe.

I have always been shocked that people assume, that civilization always moves forward. There have been many societal collapses. The medieval period gave us the mortar board plow, which turned the soil over. The horse collar harness among other things.

@j.t.lennon177

2 ай бұрын

It's the little things that make life better that often get overlooked. :)

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

Those are nothing, the medieval period was a gigantic aocietal technological collapse

@kirkmorrison6131

2 ай бұрын

@@lyricofwise6894 in some ways in others that move things continued to move forward. Stirrups and other things appeared, that moved society forward.

@SebastianJVW

2 ай бұрын

Even just the idea that all of society moves forwards or backwards at once. Yes, we lost certain technologies, but like Jenny said, you were a lot less likely to be a slave in the mediaeval period, and if you were a woman (so fully half the population) you had more rights.

@tau-5794

Ай бұрын

Medieval technology was frankly better than Roman equivalents. Agricultural, medical, military advances were all significant, you cannot seriously believe that a legionary could beat a knight covered head to toe in steel plate armor. The church preserved incredible amounts of knowledge, started the first universities, and monasteries provided tons of charity work for the less well off in society.

"The Dark Ages" is also a term that doesn't always translate well from English to other European languagues, which I always found pretty interesting

@SidheKnight

2 ай бұрын

It's not so much that it doesn't translate well, it's just that other countries / languages don't use (nor are familiar with) the term. The use of the term "Dark Ages" to refer to medieval times seems to be a trope mostly within the anglosphere. If you asked a Spanish-speaking student about _"La Edad Oscura",_ they'd probably think you're talking about a videogame or fantasy series.

@XMysticHerox

Ай бұрын

Part of it is that Britain was legitimately hit quite hard. After all it was abandoned by the Romans likely taking most of the educated population with them. The same is simply not true for most of Europe.

@adrianblake8876

Ай бұрын

@@SidheKnight In fact, in Hebrew they use a semantically opposite term to refer to the Middle Ages, though specifically in the Islamic World and especially in Spain: תור הזהב (tor hazaháv, lit. "the golden era") Coincidentally, the year of 1492 is considered the end of the Middle Ages because the Jewish expulsion from Spain is literally the end of that era...

This channel is a better ad for Monster Energy than it ever deserved.

In the US, we’re experiencing a decline in roads. After WWII there was a great period of paving because we had surplus manpower, equipment, and an expectation that government did big things like roads. So backwoods roads got paved. Now we no longer have surpluses and those roads have fallen apart, but government can no longer afford to pave them and so the roads are going back to gravel. If you live in a big city you won’t see that. (City roads have their own problems.) As you move further away into the country, however, you start to see more gravel. And that’s just in 80 years.

@Brasswatchman

2 ай бұрын

Someone did the math at some point, and estimated that the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was the most expensive public works project of all time, considering all the work that still goes into its maintenance.

@Exgrmbl

2 ай бұрын

The money is there, it just goes to pay for foreign war adventures.

@XMysticHerox

Ай бұрын

It's mainly because suburbia is unsustainable and costs far more to maintain than it pays in taxes. Perhaps if taxes were increased but thats of course political suicide in the US. So things just sort of fall apart.

@motherlesschild102

Ай бұрын

Installing is one thing, maintaining is another. (I bet this would sound good in Latin!)

Can i just compliment you on your work? Not only is the content of your stories captivating but the way you set them up, where you are filming, your make-up and clothing, etc. I think it is just amazing! Thank you so much for educating me on Londons history and entertaining me at the same time!

@maxsonthonax1020

2 ай бұрын

Great staging, yes.

@CC-qx7hk

2 ай бұрын

It's very reminiscent of ContraPoints. It's a great style for a video essay lecture

The sheer amount of glee in “but you’re already sitting down….. and I can talk AS LONG AS I LIKE” is just wonderful

@motherlesschild102

Ай бұрын

And I can listen to it for AS LONG AS I LIKE.

I remember watching Mary Beard's documentary Meet the Romans and she, at a certain point, saying something to the effect of: "Living in Rome was amazing. Nut do you know WHY it was such a metropolitan city full of innovations for its time? Because all the constant plagues killing SO MANY every year or so, since everyone lived cramped in tiny spaces, they simply had to keep accepting a constant influx of immigrants and freeing their slaves just so that the city wouldnt get too depopulated to work. Rome ate people like no one's business." That was an eyey opener on the hidden prices of living in a Metropolis prior to modern medicine. And yeas, like you mentioned, most people DIDN'T live in villas. In Rome loads of them lived in dark, humid apartments shared between 4 or 5 families, like a semi-vertical slum that could (and did) catch on fire quite often, without fire scapes.

@henrikleppa7632

2 ай бұрын

Heck, in the city a rich person would live in a domus, which while nicer than an apartment (insula) is still pretty cramped, especially when you consider that you had to fit your family and all the servants in there too.

@knoll9812

2 ай бұрын

Later romAn empire managed to concentrate wealth I to top 1%. The other 99% did badly. For the bulk of people especially outside if cities the barbarians were easuerymaster Fter the initial few decades of chaos. I think this is a faction the fall. Mist people didn't have a good reasoneto fight Bd die

@mrjones2721

Ай бұрын

@@henrikleppa7632There’s a reason everyone from the middle class up tried to pretend they lived in a villa. Cities had their advantages, but country life was still the most comfortable. (For people with piles of cash and slaves.)

You're right, some of us never had the *Romans* as our imperial occupation... (Given that me living here in Canada is a product of the colonization I'm in a bit of a "glass houses" situation though). One interesting thing I found when looking through some older British archaeology documentaries here on KZread though was the point that during Victorian times, when the concept of The Dark Ages arose those in power (including, say... anyone who had the time and resources for academic pursuits) had a vested interest in (and a mindset that encouraged) a worldview that saw large empires as a stablizing force, that would leave a messy power vacuum if they were to disappear. There was some engineering (building) knowledge that was lost after the Roman era. HOWEVER, what a lot of people forget is that the modern technology and calculations we can do now aren't always necessary for engineering feats - I can do the force modelling to tell you if a certain chair design will work. But a medieval artisan who couldn't do more than basic arithmetic could also tell me if a design would work, based on knowledge of how to build chairs. (Like you say the access to that knowledge was less of a thing to the average person though - building engineering also wasn't that worth spending resources on, unlike blacksmithing.)

@violetskies14

2 ай бұрын

Yes and the elite saw themselves and the British Empire as the successors to Rome, you can even see it in their art, their building, the way they portrayed themselves to the world. I learnt about it in school but I never connected the dots to the 'dark ages' and the Victorian portrayal of medieval life.

Long-form jDraper content is really back!!!! Lets goooooo

Superb, thank you. I did know that there wasn’t an instant plunge into barbarism after the Romans left (though they have found a few villas that were built later), but your explanation of exactly why houses, sanitation, protection of lands, trade imports and exports, etc, became far more difficult was very interesting and enlightening.

"The Romans had gleaming white togas...", neatly sidestepping how they obtained the ammonia. *Hint - Urine, lots of urine*

@_oaktree_

2 ай бұрын

That's how everyone did bleaching back then.

@agbook2007

2 ай бұрын

An interesting fact that gives a whole new meaning to being “pissed off.” 🤣

@jakecavendish3470

Ай бұрын

Now we just put it in our body lotions instead

Honestly, you can make a argument that it isn't that Medieval times or Roman times sucked more or less, but that for 90% of people there is no difference in how they lived across periods. Because before industrialization everyone was a farmer. And while farming got better in the medieval period, everyone still farmed.

@lyricofwise6894

2 ай бұрын

You think way too superficially. There's poor farmers today as well, doesnt get rid of the fact that the barbarian christian kingdoms of the Dark Ages and high middle ages were a ENORMOUS step back, as compared to Rome, and in technological progress and quality of life in which much could benefit even later down the line (and the momentum of it). Western Europe had all the bad of Rome, severely none of the good.

@miguelpadeiro762

2 ай бұрын

Not every farmer was born equal (and lets not forget the city class of people who weren't farmers, but bankers, artisans, merchants, etc). You had free men, you had serfs. They didn't live the same life. And their welfare in life different from period to period and from place to place.

@dandy-lions5788

2 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, that 10% who were affected did all the writing 😔

@dekumarademosater2762

2 ай бұрын

Yes. And no. A strong Empire and its army could chase away invaders or raiders, or make them decide to go elsewhere. A weak Empire's army, not so much. Hundreds of scattered feuding local headmen and warrior cohorts meant a bad time for peasants. Some consolidation, and a few kings expecting loyalty and fighters from their lords who expected loyalty and fighters from their knights when needed, and the peasants can often farm in peace and sometimes generate plenty. The Peace Dividend, and its absence, are real and have been for millennia.

@XMysticHerox

Ай бұрын

That really depends on where we are talking about. In italy this is very true. The way rural Italians lived basically did not change. The Italian system of villas remained basically unchanged until modernity. If we are talking about say France or Britain though thats another story. Sure they still farmed but how they organized, who they answered to etc all changed. The collapse of cities also certainly did impact rural cities. Noone was really maintianing the infrastructure anymore for instance. Outside the largest cities anyways.

You make historical comparisons and contrasts much clearer than I have ever heard, better than any university professor (or don) explain. Perhaps it is because you have the luxury to be briefer. By the way, your acting intoxicated was an excellent method for using scorn for emphasis. It is such good acting that one does not notice it is acting until you forget and stop using it. You don’t forget when you wish to be forceful. Thank you for everything I have seen, which you have made, but thank you particularly for these two periods and their intersection. What I have learned in my reading I would never learned unless I had read about both. Thank you for confirming much of it and for adding more to it in such an excellent manner. I hope you continue in the same manner. It makes me feel as though I’m talking with an old friend who is telling me stories he shouldn’t after we had had a few too many.

@dawnriddle-knowlton9932

2 ай бұрын

Well put. I completely concur!

the can of monster appearing from the globe and being drunk from a wine glass killed me 😂

@katanaki3059

Ай бұрын

And it seemed to make her tipsy!

Changing “Chapter IV” to “Chapter Four” was a nice touch

The quick snappy answer: you're comparing the average rich people experience to the average peasant experience. Additionally, international trade networks virtually collapsed, so it was partially about resources.

@BradloRaul

Ай бұрын

Exactly. Average folk in both periods ate a lot of grain, lived in mud huts and worked at hard labor until they died. Rich medieval folk lacked free standing statuary and paintings executed with perspective, etc..

Queen Draper laying it DOWNNNNN and filling in the gaps of history I was too terribly in the dark ages about within the depths of my own mind.

You are bloody well serving it in that sac, J! Fantastic video! You are interesting and informative and funny, as always.

It's common to presume previous eras were less intelligent, to be more brutish, but what these presumptions forget is that we have been always human. Sure medieval people were less knowledgeable then a modern person. But that doesn't mean they were stupid. We are their descendants after all. They had failings just like we do. But they also had virtues, just like us.

@_oaktree_

2 ай бұрын

And what's more, while we have knowledge they lacked, they had knowledge most of us have forgotten. Do you know how to make a fire and cook 2-3 meals a day for your family on that fire? How about milling flour? What about safely and effectively gathering food from the land around your home? Making clothing? Building a house? And so on. Of course the knowledge of how to do these things isn't lost to humanity, but the vast majority of people in the "developed world" don't know how to do much, if any, of this. However, in the Medieval world all of it was common knowledge.

I spent the last 2 days in London and tried to use as much information I got from you❤!

Brilliantly told! Especially liked the bit where you took off the toga and immediately became Vesta Tilley.

Very good talk on history. I read somewhere that one of the reasons the period was called the Dark Ages was because of the lack of written evidence compared to other periods. Hence dark. Not because it was more primitive or savage or whatever. Apart from that there were plenty of artifacts that decried a high level of skill working with metals (as an example) or ornate stonework.

@tau-5794

Ай бұрын

It was called the dark ages because enlightenment thinkers wanted to prop themselves and the Romans up as paragons of wisdom and rationality, as if they had not been advanced to that level by the millennia of societal evolution preceding them.

It's good to point out that we all expect things to get better progressively, but remember it only takes one bad leader to collapse a nation.

@shaeisgae8952

2 ай бұрын

Does it? Or does it take a bad leader combined with outside pressures and a society ready to end the current system? There are lots of examples of a nation or kingdom, etc. with a completely garbage leader surviving incredible circumstances. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong I just personally feel that it's more of a (I can't remember the name rn, but the reverse of the concept of "great men") lmao

@mattjk5299

2 ай бұрын

That's quite the claim lol. Are you sure we aren't just trying to blame a whole lot of shit on a handful of individuals?

@Nazuiko

2 ай бұрын

It took dozens of bad leaders, and countless assassinations, for Rome to fall.

@Interrobang212

2 ай бұрын

The fall of Rome was a very slow process that took centuries and was a chain reaction of leadership failure, invasion, economic failure, plagues, and much more. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither did it fall.

@slytlygufy

2 ай бұрын

True...just look at the damage Biden has done in three years.

Barely watched the intro, but it already looks amazing! Love the costume and the set design

You cracking open a modern cold one in period accurate historical dress is always a sure sign of an excellent incoming video

You're back! You had me worried for a bit ❤

Ah!!! wooden houses with ceramic tile roofs explains why I find so many roof tiles in the fields around here (North Kent, near Watling Street), but little sign of substantial structures.

Some people are obviously under the impression that Cicero's villa in Tuscany was like the minimum standard. While believing that the archbishop of Canterbury used to sleep in a pig pen.

Another constructive take on a complex issue, though it overlooks something that discussions of the classics clean/Middle Ages dirty canard often ignore - medieval people spent a millennium mourning the loss of the classical world and trying to put it back together. A look at that whole process would be a great follow-up to this.

Also good to see you pointing out the Romans weren’t the peak of civilization and without them we fell into “the dark ages” and death of science etc. So great to see the other side of Roman “civilization”. 😊

Thanks for this juicy, thought-provoking topic. For far too long, people have not actually gained from the past what it has actually offered: wisdom from true comparison and assessment.

I love your videos! Can’t wait to watch this one. When I visit London someday I’ll most definitely be taking one of your tours.(I’m on the states btw)

Looking very dapper, Ms Draper ❤

The energy drink in the champagne coupe is exactly the kind of vibe I need in my life! ❤😂

Love love LOVE when I see there's a longer form video from you, and this was an excellent one. On one of my favorite topics, too!

That's a snazzy white tie getup. And thank you for the perspective on Roman to Medieval differences.

I love your enthusiasm as you teach us! 💕 🌸My favourite History teacher in High School was passionate about teaching us detailed information about The Medieval Period in particular. 🌸 Love 💕 to Ms. Catchpole. 💕🌸💕

Good to see another video from you! Love your aesthetic and your points of view. Thanks!

Not only did the Romans not have horse shoes for their horses, they also didn’t have the stirrups on their saddles, or develop the horse collar which vastly improved the ability of horses to pull loads. Nor did they develop the rudder for ships or multi masted ships, and the romans only had one sort of arch unlike the medieval period where they developed numerous different sorts of arches.

@bdnnijs192

22 күн бұрын

The romans had early steam engines, nut found no use for them.

@undertakernumberone1

9 күн бұрын

@@bdnnijs192 because they had something else to do all that labor. Slaves. Why make work more efficient? It'd just mean you have a lot of slaves with nothing to do.

@bdnnijs192

9 күн бұрын

@@undertakernumberone1 Bottom Line: Rome had steam engines. That's pretty damn impressive technological feat. According to prof. Wikipedia tThe middle ages had a steam powered orchan in the 12th century but the idea of turing steam to labour was lost untill DaVinci. note: The development of steam engines and the industrial revolution happened the same time as the Trans Atlantic Slavetrade. And slavery has it's own issues. Ever heard of Spartacus? Occasional Slaver Uprisings are inefficent in their own right. Another alternative history is Rome collapsed before they could find use for the steam engine, and therefore never got around to abolishing slavery

@alicev5496

6 күн бұрын

@@bdnnijs192 sure but the steam engines were small technological tricks, they didn't have the technology to make steam engines that could be used for anything practical, and especially not on a large scale. It wasn't just that they had no use for it, they lacked the technology to make use of then

@bdnnijs192

5 күн бұрын

@@alicev5496 "but the steam engines were small technological tricks" You're downplaying the achievement of (early stage) steam engines. What technology do you think Rome lacked for an early Industrial. In other words, if a time traveler wanted to make a steam engine in ancient Rome what would've been the limiting technology(ies)? I'd guess metalurgical. However that might be compensated by other technologies.

I see no reason for not wearing one's white tie whilst attending the supermarket for the purpose of acquiring one's weekly provisions. One would perhaps confine one's custom to either Waitrose or Sainsbury's. One is not entirely sure the patronage at Wm. Morrisons or Asda would appreciate the effort one made with their attire in that kind of establishment.

@Brasswatchman

2 ай бұрын

But more importantly, how will those noble souls pursuing custom at one's local Tesco react? 😆

The production value is just fabulous! A real joy to watch and very informative!

I thoroughly enjoyed your video. Thank you for taking the time to share 🌞

So good to see you back!! It’s been awhile!!

Someone FINALLY explained what happened to all the KZreadrs after the Roman’s left!!!!! Loved the video.

Even in a brown sack, Draper is always dapper.

i always love watching your videos, theyre so well made and informative! and theyre comforting in a way, like watching your favourite teacher go off on a tangent

Well reasoned and well presented. Thanks for putting it all in perspective.

One of the greatest fictions of colonialism is that empire is "civilized" while its lack is considered chaos. Most of the societies that hold up the Roman Empire as a height of "civilization" -- the Holy Roman Empire, Victorian England, America pretty much from start to the present--were also violent colonial enterprises & empires themselves. What a society chooses to idealize often says more about that society than the one being remembered.

The history of history and how cultures use the study of the past is fascinating. 'Pray tell me again how a centralised power that extracted wealth from Empire and was built on the backs of slaves was actually a good thing. Also, look at my massive column!'

@watchdominion7356

2 ай бұрын

Your name…

@miguelpadeiro762

2 ай бұрын

Our reverance of any empire is contradictory to our own moral beliefs, it's quite ridiculous. Julius Caesar? We love him right. Let's just forget the part where he undermines the republican apparatus of his nation and genocided over a million Gaulish Celts in his conquest of Gaul.

@garyphisher7375

2 ай бұрын

You live in absolute luxury. You have clean water on tap. You have energy in every home. You have never gone hungry. You can buy a teabag for a penny. You are safe to leave your home and travel almost anywhere without fear. That seems a good thing. Now you do the negatives.

@anais5191

2 ай бұрын

@@garyphisher7375 false on all counts for a lot of people in the world today lol each of those statements on their own are pretty big assumptions to make about strangers on the Internet and less than even chance gambles individually much less all together.

@garyphisher7375

2 ай бұрын

@@anais5191 I can determine where a poster is from by the language they use. I can recognise a white saviour from halfway across the world.

Great video! Thank you for sharing. Well thought out and articulate.

Captivating presentation as always! I have never seen anyone deal with this issue! AWESOME and fascinating! Thank you!

I looooove your videos! They're always SO well done, and your presenting skills are top notch. The BBC should give you your own show already!

Monster is not the poor man's champagne, that's frosty Jack's :P brilliant video

Brilliant! I love how you combine thoughtful, interesting, historical and humorous. You are amazing. Thank you so much for making this kind of content❤

Legitimately the best thing I've seen in ages! Thank you!

leeches are still used in modern medicine! particularly in the reattachment of severed fingers.

@shaeisgae8952

2 ай бұрын

Really? Please tell me more

@DavidChong

2 ай бұрын

@@shaeisgae8952 youtube has a habit of auto deleting comments with links but if you google "leeches severed finger treatment vox" you should turn up an article. (I'll try to post the link in a reply to this but chances are it won't take)

@DavidChong

2 ай бұрын

@@shaeisgae8952 youtube is deleting my replies containing a link but if you google "leeches treatment vox" it should turn up an article

@edisonlima4647

2 ай бұрын

​@@shaeisgae8952 By drinking the blood, they force the small veins and capilars to circle the blood. They are like tinny pumps, helping capilarity and impeding the newly attached limbs from rotting out of lack of blood flowing inside and avoid cianosis by making said blood flow, since the blood carries oxygen. English is not my native language, so I might have oversimplified and mistyped, but I hope it made sense.

@kevindoran9389

2 ай бұрын

Take 2 leaches twice a day with water, those fingers will grow back in no time.

I would love to see a philosophy tube collab.

I love your content so damn much!! Well made, well sourced, always thoughts, and always entertaining! I also enjoyed the post-credit peek behind the curtains (pun fully intended). Keep it up, please and thank you 😁😁

Your videos are treasures, and awaken my love of history. Thank you for creating them. Thank you for sharing them.

I LOVE Time Team, and I really enjoy watching regardless of whether they find a Roman mosaic or Anglo-Saxon post holes. If I had thought about it, I would have realized this, but the fact that the Anglo-Saxon period is _after_ the Roman period does feel very strange, and in my head I think I would have put them the other way around. Thank you for that mental readjustment.

10 points for knowing how to tie a bow tie without getting noticeable finger oil on it.

Every time someone brings up the underfloor heating, I always ask if they have it. Like, we all know we are smart enough and technologically advanced enough for underfloor heating, but almost nobody and nowhere has it. Because it's expensive. And usually required specialized labor. I'm a lot of fun at parties 😂

Lovely video! I appreciate the dispelling of so many myths, and with such style. Also, you look quite dapper in that white tie.

If you ask anybody about going back in time and which era they'd like to live in they invariably assume they'd be in the historical top 1% of whatever era they choose. (The same tends to occur, but to a lesser extent, with people who claim to remember their past lives.) By sheer weight of numbers, the odds are you'd most likely be a peasant experiencing the violence inherit in the system rather than Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England. However, it's only natural to assume the latter.

6:07 "drained into the river that they used to swim in and drink from". Looks like it's living up to the "cloaca" name. One watering hole for everything.

@titanuranus3095

2 ай бұрын

Please don't fuck the sewer outlet.

Great video. Very thought provoking. Great outtakes.

Great show! Many thanks.

Hey, don't laugh about the Hipposandal! In 1970, the first modern protective horse boot was created--the Easyboot. It's the same principle but with wire, rubber and current technology. I think the French even call it a "Hipposandale Easyboot" 🙂

One of the other thing is Stone Villas made sense in somewhere warm like Rome. But in the UK with the technology the romans and early Medieval people had was just jot good enough for a home. Until they could make stone buildings comfortable, people aren't going to build them. That is why it starts with churches, because you only have to be in them for a few hours. Then defensive strutures as they are very expensive and therefore can afford to make them warm enough.

I never quite noticed the enormity of the situation before now... but Ms. Draper fixed all that in less than 2 minutes at the start of this video. It's so refreshing to hear all the history I've discovered in the last four years laid out in just 21 minutes!

Thank you for that. I hope this will become a series.

Finally, the perfect thumbnail!

When we see the celebrated creations of, say, the Roman empire, we are seeing the fruits of an extreme entrenched heirarchy and inequality supported by an extensive bureacracy and enforced by violent coersion. They necessitated the curbing of many basic freedoms for your average citizen, all ultimately in service of a distant emperor. The end of the Roman empire would have seen power structures becoming a lot more local, equal and participatory; the emperor and senate would be replaced by the folkmoot. As a political end, I see this as very much preferable.

I just love your videos, this one was especially good. Thank you

Well done. Love your channel.

Rome was a humongous empire, with the wealth of countless cultures flowing into a few major cities. Medieval Europe was far more divided so there couldn't be such a grand concentration of wealth. But if you look at the few cities that could achieve it, Paris, Rome, Byzantium, Venice (north Italy in general really) you see a lot of the same grandeur built during the empire. I always like pointing out the fact that the first building taller than the pyramids was Lincoln cathedral of all places, demonstrating that the grandeur of old empires still existed in the medieval era if you know where to look for it. Rather than one city with a thousand great landmarks you see a thousand cities with one great landmark each. It's also worth noting that the Roman slave Economy & Medieval Feudal economy served different purposes. The Roman economy was focused on constant expansion and staying afloat through the brute force of an ever expanding slave workforce. Meanwhile the Medieval economy was far more about doing the most with the land you had. Medieval farms were lightyears more efficient and advanced than Roman ones, they weren't as large but that's because they didn't have to be. The amount of people you could support on a few acres of land increased dramatically through the period. That's where a lot of technological advancement was focused, alas agriculture isn't as sexy as aqueducts.

I'm having a hard time trying not to notice the lens smudges sitting right on top of your face throughout the video...

Thanks! Always asked myself that question or these questions but never thought that looking it up would provide a good answer.

I love history

@TheReferrer72

2 ай бұрын

I love Drapers take on it.

@shaeisgae8952

2 ай бұрын

I was literally saying this to myself and then I scrolled down and read this. I LOVE HISTORY IT'S SO COOL