History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

A continuation of this and its predecessors.

Please keep spam, trolling, and flaming to a minimum. And endless retreads of arguments we've already had.

Subscription post for me, with a question that I should remember the answer to but don't.

What are the "big disagreements" so to speak, between mainstream Christianity and Arianism, and between the mainstream and Gnosticism? Are there any other major heresies from the early years (say, up to 800 CE?). I know I have read several pages on this from different books, but nothing seems to stick.

That's a question worth its own thread if ever I saw one. There are vast numbers of heresies from the first eight centuries, even if you only count the major ones.

On Arianism, "Arianism" is a name given (by their opponents) to several different schools of thought in the fourth century, which disagreed with each other sometimes more virulently than they did with the non-Arians. But what they had in common was that they thought that the Son does not share the Father's divine nature. Some of them thought that he shares everything else that the Father has, and some of them thought that he's quite dissimilar. The Nicenes, by contrast, thought that the Father and Son are one in nature although they are distinct in person. Their view won out at the council of Constantinople in 381.

There were, similarly, many different groups clumped under the heading "gnostic", and the picture is further confused by the fact that some Christians now considered "mainstream" called themselves "gnostics" even while they attacked the people we now call "gnostics" (Clement of Alexandria is an example). But basically gnosticism proper involved the claim that the physical world is fundamentally wrong, a mistake or evil, and salvation consists of escaping from it, armed with special saving knowledge; it typically involved complex mythologies to explain how the world came to be, often involving many divine or quasi-divine beings; and there was always a strong distinction between those "in the know" and the ignorant sheeplike people who didn't have access to these special teachings. Mainstream Christianity (to the extent that one can talk about such a thing at that time), by contrast, taught that the world is the good creation of God, that there is only one God, and that the true teachings of Christ and his apostles - and the salvation they make possible - are publicly available to everyone.

I feel like you can get a good idea of how Arianism differed from mainstream Christianity by comparing the Nicene Creed to the Apostles' Creed (sans Filioque). Certainly an oversimplification, but it was a response to all that and a way to codify orthodoxy as it was now seen. Things like "of one substance with the father" are the key parts.

It's still anachronistic to talk about "mainstream" Christianity in this context, though. Remember that for much of the fourth century, Arianism (or at least Homoianism) was mainstream Christianity, at least in the eastern empire, and it continued to be for the barbarians for some time afterwards.

How do large families (like the Carolingians, Hohenstaufens) die out so quickly?

madviking said:

How do large families (like the Carolingians, Hohenstaufens) die out so quickly?

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Lack of sons and/or getting killed

Lines branching out and starting their own dynasties under another name also happens.

Is there a consensus by historians on whether the Mongols could have conquered Europe to the Atlantic?

Mouthwash said:

Is there a consensus by historians on whether the Mongols could have conquered Europe to the Atlantic?

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Yes.

Unlikely.

Is there a consensus by historians on whether the Mongols could have conquered Europe to the Atlantic?

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Yes.

Unlikely.

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Why unlikely?

The Mongols conquered powerful, populous and huge empires such as China, the Khwarezmian Shahdom, etc.

Russian principalities, although divided, were also not an easy target to conquer (and Rus was allied with Cumans - a militarily skilled nomadic peoples considered strong regional power at that time). We can't rule out the possibility that the Mongols would have been able to conquer entire Europe.

Europe contained no any equivalents of as powerful empires as China or Khwarezm in the 13th century.

Europe was more fragmented and much less centralized than China or Khwarezm, which on one hand made them unable to mobilize as huge armies at a time, but on the other hand made this territory harder to control after the conquest (there would have been many rebellions in various places).

Perhaps imposing a tribute and / or some sort of subordination was more likely achievable for them, than establishing Mongol administration.

Ruthenian principalities, after all, were also never directly subordinated to Mongol administration, but were only paying tribute (Yoke).

Hungary and Poland were rolled over by Mongol armies, but were not subordinated or forced to pay tribute to them in any way whatsoever. But in case of continued efforts and further military campaigns, that was achievable. Hungary was very devastated already after the first Mongol invasion.

It is also not true, that the Mongols were unskilled in capturing fortified places like forts, strongholds, castles, towns or cities.

In general it is not true that cavalry-based armies are unable to do this. There are examples of cavalry-based armies transporting siege engines with them on horse-drawn vehicles (or constructing siege engines after arriving at a certain place) and then capturing strongholds with their use.

Mongol army is one of such examples. And Teutonic Order also did this in many of their raids carried out by cavalry + support of siege engines.

Domen said:

Europe was more fragmented and much less centralized than China or Khwarezm, which on one hand made them unable to mobilize as huge armies at a time, but on the other hand made this territory harder to control after the conquest (there would have been many rebellions in various places).

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I think that makes it even more unlikely. There was no king to defeat, just a bunch of lords with their own castles. They would have had to go through most of them.

Plotinus said:

It's still anachronistic to talk about "mainstream" Christianity in this context, though. Remember that for much of the fourth century, Arianism (or at least Homoianism) was mainstream Christianity, at least in the eastern empire, and it continued to be for the barbarians for some time afterwards.

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Eh, I used the word out of convenience and because I thought it would be clear what I was talking about. I wasn't trying to editorialize or attach any weight to the word used.

There's now a whole thread on this subject, so I would appreciate any more thoughts you have to give about this subject.

I think that makes it even more unlikely. There was no king to defeat, just a bunch of lords with their own castles.

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Political fragmentation indeed makes control after conquest more difficult, but on the other hand a well-developed network of infrastructure (such as castles which you mentioned), makes it easier. So 0 plus 1 minus 1 = 0. To summ up - control would have been "moderately difficult".

But let's not forget that Mongol rules in China lasted for less than 100 years and subordination of most of Rus to the Khan for some 200 years.

So the Mongol Empire generally proved unable to exercise control over most of their conquests for more than a couple of centuries.

Which means that even if entire Europe was conquered by the Mongols, its subjugation to the Mongols would not have lasted forever.

It's kind of hard to face the thousands of castles in the Holy Roman Empire alone that the Mongols would have faced should they have tried to conquer Europe, let alone other obstacles like terrain, armies, and weather.

It's kind of hard to face the thousands of castles in the Holy Roman Empire alone

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Most of those "castles" were earth-wooden strongholds or small motte-and-bailley type domiciles of knights.

Not every single knight had enough money and enough of skilled workforce to build a stone-or-brick castle for himself.

Info about "thousands of stone castles" in 13th century HRE are surely exaggeration - how many of them survived to modern times?

Building large stone / brick castles was an investment that only rich magnates, organizations (such as Orders of Knights) or kings themselves could afford.

Even out of stone-made or brick-made castles, majority were just relatively small strongpoints - consisting of a defensive keep and stone wall around it.

Such small castles (one keep + one ring of wall around it + maybe one additional tower for archers) weren't able to hold out for more than few days.

And you did not need entire army to capture such a small castle - 50 or 100 men with food supply for 1 - 2 weeks was enough.

Large castles which could hold out against a real siege and resist for a few or more years, could be counted on the fingers of just one man.

The factor that really made the Mongols dominant was multiple horses per man. The further you get into Europe, the harder it is to feed that. So their advantage was lost.

The further you get into Europe, the harder it is to feed that.

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How so? Do horses only feed on grass? As far as I know they do not even mainly feed on grass (at least European horses did not - and Mongol horses could also eat something different than grass - oats, corn, etc. - even if they were accustomed to eating mostly grass due to their steppe environment).

If you slaughter local population, you will have enough grain left for your multiple hordes of horses...

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What did Mongol horses eat in China - rice ??? They had to eat something there. China has plenty of mountains and not many steppes, AFAIK.

Especially 13th century China had rice fields rather than steppes.

let alone other obstacles like terrain, armies, and weather.

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Don't tell me that in Khwarezm and in China they did not face obstacles like terrain, armies, and weather.

In Japan they really faced obstacles like weather (see those "Kamikaze" storms which decimated the Mongol invasion fleet).

As for castles - even the Great Wall of China (or rather several such walls, since there used to be more than one in the past) did not stop them.

BTW:

Mongols acually experienced failures and defeats while trying to capture several fortified places in Hungary, Poland and Rus (for example Klis Castle in Croatia, Legnica Castle in Poland, city of Racibórz in Poland where according to Polish chronicles 400 Mongols including officer Tin-Fu were killed, etc., etc.).

Klis Fortress in Croatia, which repulsed the Mongols in 1242 (at that time Croatia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary):



Legnica Castle in Poland (which repulsed the Mongol attempt of taking it in 1241, after the end of the battle of Legnica):



But - somehow - nobody today remembers about those Mongol failures and defeats, and these Mongol campaigns are generally considered as their victories. What does it suggest? That castles were inefficient as means to defeat the Mongols (even if sometimes they could repulse their initial assaults).

If this was not the case, stories of their successful defence would be more widely-recognized.

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Spis Castle in Hungary - I don't know if Mongols took it or not, but it looks impressive (I don't know if it was also so large already in 1241, probably not):

According to wikipedia it was built already in the 12th century (but usually castles were built and then gradually expanded over many centuries):

The real answer was that it simply wasn't going to happen. Europe was too far away from the Mongol court, and no one there could be arsed to go conquer it. Finishing the conquest of Southern China, far closer and far wealthier, was a much higher priority.

Didn't we have the same discussion 6 months ago?