nonconformist
Miserable
I stand corrected 
History questions not worth their own thread
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frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Slavic rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It deprived them of the widespread literacy/fluency in Latin that gave the West access to all sorts of Classical texts, spurring the Renaissance and the development of secular universities. There were, of course, Russians who could speak and read Latin, but there was no culture of speaking, writing, and learning in Latin.
Another factor was that the Russians didn't have alot of contact with the Islamic cultures. For Western Europe, contact with the Muslims via the Meditteranean and particularly via scholarly exchange in Iberia gave the Western Europeans a boost.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Some. But not as much, at least, not in terms of academic exchange. Via Spain, and the communities of scholars in places like Granada, Western Europeans had a great deal of academic contact. It's no accident that Arabic numerals weren't used in Russia until the 1700s, more than 200 years after they had been adopted in Western Europe.
Certainly, they had cultural and trade contact and exchanges with the Islamic cultures, but the academic exchange was quite limited compared to what went on in Western Europe. What academic exchange did occur was hampered by the fact that Russia was less fluent in the use of Latin.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Trotsky provides a very similar explanation, actually.
While the western barbarians settled in the ruins of Roman culture, where many an old stone lay ready as building material, the Slavs in the East found no inheritance upon their desolate plain: their predecessors had been on even a lower level of culture than they . . . Russia stood not only geographically, but also socially and historically, between Europe and Asia . . . Russia was unable to settle in the forms of the East because she was continually having to adapt herself to military and economic pressure from the West.
In other words, Trotsky's view is that Russia was backwards because (a) it didn't inheirit the Roman legacy and (b) it had insufficient contact with advanced Eastern civilizations.
Serutan
Eatibus Anythingibus
Not to mention Russia's most significant contact with an Eastern civilization was quite the catastrophe for Russia...
Vox de Villainy
Chieftain
What was the context of Marx's quote 'I am not a Marxist'?
Why did Europeans not 'discover' Africa much earlier than they did? (Apologies for the vague, infantile question)
Why did Europeans not 'discover' Africa much earlier than they did? (Apologies for the vague, infantile question)
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Er, what? They always knew about Africa.
Huayna Capac357
Deity
I think he means Sub-Saharan Africa.
1. Navigation technology
2. Preoccupation with the Americas.
1. Navigation technology
2. Preoccupation with the Americas.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Lack of interest, mostly, and also difficulties with navigation. The whole coast from Morocco to Guinea is desolate and offers no good harbors, nor supplies, nor trade. Beyond nothing was known of the continent. Apparently europeans were not particularly curious until the 15th century...
And the interior, as Huayna Capac357 mentioned, wasn't rich compared to the Americas. Nasty diseases and stronger native populations putting up more resistance to conquest also dissuaded adventures into the interior. Those traders who did explore the interior jealously guarded their knowledge and contacts. Trade depended on agreements with local rulers, until the end of the 19th century, and was restricted to ivory, slaves, some gold in certain areas, honey and wax, and little more.
Vox de Villainy
Chieftain
Yes, I mean Sub-Saharan Africa, not merely the Horn or Northern Africa.
By Navigation Technology, what do you mean? Surely ships capable of crossing the Atlantic could make it down the coast of Africa? Surely it was possible to cross the Sahara by land routes? (Presumably the natives had, and I believes the Arabs invaded several Sub-Saharan regions, although I may be wrong.)
EDIT: Unless of course, Africa was considered worthless...
EDIT 2: Not states.
By Navigation Technology, what do you mean? Surely ships capable of crossing the Atlantic could make it down the coast of Africa? Surely it was possible to cross the Sahara by land routes? (Presumably the natives had, and I believes the Arabs invaded several Sub-Saharan regions, although I may be wrong.)
EDIT: Unless of course, Africa was considered worthless...
EDIT 2: Not states.
innonimatu
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The african coast was explored before america, during the 15th century (america would be in the 16th). But the ships used were indeed of a newer type that the medieval ones.
West 36
Can count up to 4
The Europeans got what they wanted from sub-Saharan Africa through the trade routes that went across the Sahara (via who ever was ruling North Africa). And apparently they didn't want much from there. The America's offered more resources that were easier to get to with less resistance, the Europeans took more interest in Africa when they started buying slaves to fuel labor in the Americas. Once those lands were divided up and had gone on to become independent, then the Europeans looked inward at Africa and that takes us to the late 19th century, and even then it wasn't the same as American colonization, as with large native populations there wasn't so much settlement as there was exploitation of the resources and people. It also helped that the ratio of power the Europeans had vs the Africans in the 19th century was much greater than it was in the 15th. The African way of doing things is similar to their domination of Asia later.
civver_764
Deity
How religious were the monarchs of Europe in the Middle Ages? Did they see it as simply a means to control the population or did they genuinely believe in the stuff?
The reason I ask is because some of stuff they did and supported...didn't seem so in line with Biblical morality.
edit: I'm aware that obviously some were more religious than others. I'm talking in general here.
The reason I ask is because some of stuff they did and supported...didn't seem so in line with Biblical morality.
edit: I'm aware that obviously some were more religious than others. I'm talking in general here.
flyingchicken
Deity
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Nasty heretic.civver_764 said:
Verbose
Deity
Depends.
"Atheists" in any kind of modern sense you positively would not find.
Those who were lukewarm Christians, going through the motions, except there would be rather a lot of motions (daily mass etc.) I think we can assume.
Then there would be rather a lot of kings and nobles with no end of arguments and conflicts with the Church itself, though perhaps not with God.
Also there would be a lot more heretical fiddling with the faith in many parts of Medieval Europe, at least on an intermittent basis, that we might always retrospectively be aware of. Southern France might have been rife with Catharism, even touching the ruling class, which triggered the Papacy's Albigensian Crusade. Otoh apparently the free-wheeling city states of northern Italy were even more infested, but didn't trigger a crusade, but were dealt with gradually through persuasion and the Inquisition, first created to deal with the problem in southern France.
Otoh, a royalty displaying special religious fervour did tend to stand out. Louis XIII, king of France, quickly became St. Louis after his death. And that wasn't normal practice.
Probably the closest to a God-denying monarch one can find, would seem to be Emperor Frederick II. He had very good relations with his Muslim counterparts, who otoh did call him and "atheist" when realizing his lack of religious ardour. And he fought the papacy tooth and nail for most of his reign, becoming excommunicated no less than three times, the last time being declared a "heresiarch", and to be The Beast himself no less.
That's otoh the problem with assessing Frederick; Papal smear campaigns. There is a supposed quote by Frederick, according to which he regarde Moses, Christ and Mohammed as the three greatest impostors to ever plague humanity. Real sentiment, or Papal smearing? Who knows. There seems to be a better case from Muslim sources that Frederick regarded the division between Pope and Emperor stupid, and declared himself in favour of the Muslim system of Caliphs, in which case he would of course be the Christian Caliph, and don't have to deal with the Papacy.
Harvin87
The Youth
How did Britain's economy went in the inmediate years after WWI and WWII ?
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Biblical morality, even in christian kingdoms, was only really formally codified and forced upon the general population after the reformation. I don't know whether protestantism caused the reformation, or if the tightening of of religious precepts by the church, which characterized the reformation, caused protestantism to spread, but the difference in the scale of the conflicts around it before and after (the 16th century) is striking.
Before that rise of christian fanaticism on all sides of those religious wars, rulers did not found religion a useful tool of control. The ideology of a divinely inspired order which should not be challenged was certainly useful as a support to feudalism, but that didn't particularly strengthen monarchs. Monarchs played the feudal game, where the clergy also had temporal power, controlled vast lands and its population and behaved in a feudal way towards the monarch. Kings often got into conflict with the pope, including excommunication and "interdictions" (the forbidding of regular religious services within the whole kingdom) which could last for decades. Usually the pope was forced to give in because the local monarch could always find "amenable" clerics within the kingdom and work around the pope's decrees. Real power rested with the great feudal lords and their armies, and those might ally with Rome, with the monarch, or pursue their won interests openly.
As for the people, it trusted the local clergy, but cared little for the church hierarchy or for the distant figure of the pope. Christian doctrine was not as inflexible as it would later become, in fact local rites for the religious services existed until the 12th century at least, and I dare say that the only thing capable of attracting a "crusade" against heretics was a rebellion against the feudal order, not simply the ignorance of the church's official doctrine. The countryside population and the clergy which served it cared little for stirring unnecessary religious controversies, and many bishops might prefer things that way - popular enthusiasm with religion often produced bad results: Peter the Hermit, Konrad Schmidt, Jacob and the Pastoureaux, Martin Huska, etc. - not to mention all the madness unleashed during the later religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries when whole communities rebelled against both the secular powers and the clergy, led by local "divinely-inspired prophets"...
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