History questions not worth their own thread

[Plotinus]

Sounds a good idea. I took the liberty of starting it myself and shifting the relevant posts across, so it would make more sense. Head over here.

 

[Nerowannabe]

So how great are the chances the Minoans were actually the Atlanteans plato described?

 

[Plotinus]

The probability that the Minoans were the Atlanteans as Plato described them is vanishingly small. The probability that the Minoans were the origin of the legend that, in Plato, became the story of Atlantis is impossible to determine.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Note: Umar is the fourth Caliph.

Umar was the Second Caliph. Ali was the Fourth.

 

[Masada]

Umar was the Second Caliph. Ali was the Fourth.

My bad. I'm allowed to make mistakes sometimes

 

[LightSpectra]

What was the significance of the Holy Roman Emperor after the Peace of Westphalia? The title appeared to be somewhat valuable, seeing as how some significant trades were made to get it.

Furthermore, what was the significance of half of the Austrian Habsburg territories being within the boundaries of the HRE?

 

[Dachs]

Ceremonial, prestigious, symbolic, and still had the right to convene certain Imperial assemblies and at least in theory was the head of what was no longer even kind of a state but sort of like a big defensive alliance. The Emperor Franz I, for instance, was able to invoke his Imperial rights to induce much of the non-Prussian states in the Empire to contribute troops to fight the Prussians in the Seven Years' War.

What do you mean by "the significance"? Significant as it relates to what, exactly?

 

[Verbose]

What was the significance of the Holy Roman Emperor after the Peace of Westphalia? The title appeared to be somewhat valuable, seeing as how some significant trades were made to get it.

Furthermore, what was the significance of half of the Austrian Habsburg territories being within the boundaries of the HRE?

I just think either or both the HRE and/or the Peace of Westphalia would be worth their own threads actually.

But kudos to Dachs for tackling this in the short format.

 

[LightSpectra]

The Emperor Franz I, for instance, was able to invoke his Imperial rights to induce much of the non-Prussian states in the Empire to contribute troops to fight the Prussians in the Seven Years' War.

Was this actually in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to specific powers as the head of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty?

What do you mean by "the significance"? Significant as it relates to what, exactly?

Well, by that I mean, what was different about the half of the Austrian territories within the Empire's boundaries from the half that was not?

 

[Dachs]

Verbose: thanks...I think? Yeah, they probably should have their own threads.

Was this actually in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to specific powers as the head of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty?

I believe Franz had the Regensburg Reichstag declare Prussia an outlaw state after the invasion of Saxony in 1756, but I'm not entirely sure as to the precise method. It wasn't something inherent to the Habsburgs, though, more in accordance with the physical military and diplomatic power they possessed. For instance, Karl Albrecht/Charles VII was unable to form a similar semi-unified Imperial army during his short reign not because he was a dirty Wittelsbach but because the opposing side was far too powerful for the Kleinstaaterei to risk opposing it. Nobody's going to listen to an Emperor whose capital is being occupied by von Khevenhüller's Austrian army. Gang-raping Prussia along with the Swedes, French, Russians, and Austrians, though, that could get a 40,000-man commitment.

And anyway, the Habsburg dynasty, or any other dynasty for that matter, never secured legal hereditary rights in the Empire after the Golden Bull was passed. While in effect - with that one 1740s hiccup - the office was hereditary, legally it was not, and everybody had to go through the motions of election and so forth. No Imperial institutions were integrated into the Habsburg hereditary state's government, not even the Reichshofrat.

Well, by that I mean, what was different about the half of the Austrian territories within the Empire's boundaries from the half that was not?

Well, the inhabitants of the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary weren't subject to the Imperial law that did apply to inhabitants of the Empire, and didn't have representatives at Reichstage, or participate in the dual religious institutions of the later Empire, and so forth. So two magnates in Hungary couldn't bring their grievances before, say, the Reichshofrat, whereas two landowners in the Vorlande did have such access. Hungarians would not be subject to Imperial taxation, either, since they were not part of the Reichkreis system.

 

[Smidgey]

I have a question concerning Justinian's Code and it's re-appearance in Western civilisation.

Why was the Justinian Code re-discovered - surely it must have continued to exist in the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire during its supposed re-discovery? It was re-discovered around 1070, but the Byzantine Empire fell in 1453. Why didn't people know of the legal system from the Byzantine empire? Surely they had contact with it during the crusades and such?

 

[Dachs]

I don't know much about the code's 'rediscovery' in the West, but in the Empire it had actually been superseded several times by the eleventh century. In the eighth century, the Emperor Leōn III published the Ekloga, a revised selection from Justinian's Corpus, partly to bring the old laws up to date but in large part because knowledge of Latin had declined so much among the Byzantine legal community that Justinian's statutes were nearly unreadable. The laws were revised again under Basileios I in about 886, who had the Eisagoge ("Introduction") released as a preparatory step for a more general codification of the laws of Justinian and since. The Emperor's death later that year delayed the project somewhat, but in 888 his son Leōn VI and his logothete of the Dromos, Stylianos Zaoutzes, completed the translation of Justinian's Corpus into Greek (apparently it was sixty books in length), took out all of the obsolete stuff, and added in the Ekloga and the laws of the last 150 years in a few novels. That was called the Basilika. I don't believe the law was recodified within the Byzantine Empire between then and the late eleventh century.

So yes, Justinian's Corpus, after a fashion, was still around in the Empire, but apparently it wasn't in use in Italy and the rest of the West for awhile. I doubt that nobody in the West - certainly not in Italy, where the southern portion was actually controlled by the Byzantine Empire - knew about it, but maybe it wasn't seen as popular or necessary to govern a region with so few towns, people, or organized control. When North Italian urbanization started to kick off again in the eleventh century, a law code became useful and possible to implement again, so it was 'rediscovered' and implemented.

 

[flyingchicken]

I forget the exact details Dachs just posted but I vaguely recall Justinian's code being long and confusing so it was easily superseded by shorter codes of law later all over Europe, including at least one that was just an abbreviation of Justinian's thing (or some other Emperor's thing, whatevs), since the whole justice system is filled with lazy people on all sides.

Also tangentially apparently Justinian was a scary git, so later Emperors made less scary and more Christianly humane laws. But then a new dynasty came along and they were scary gits, too, and used bits if not a whole lot of Justinian's thing -- I think.

Completely irrelevant: This all reminds me of the fact that I'm racking up quite a massive debt with the library since I still haven't returned A.A. Vasiliev's book on the Byzantines!

 

[Dreadnought]

Quick question, just a curiosity of mine:

Had Henry V not died so suddenly at a (relatively) young age, would he have actually become king of France and England? If so, how long could such a monarchy last?

 

[LightSpectra]

I'm having trouble finding specific information on France in the pre-revolution period. I'm specifically looking for a few pieces of data: (1) France's GDP before and after the Seven Years' War; (2) France's debt and the interest paid on it before the revolution; (3) how much revenue was raised by taxes versus internal tariffs and trade; (4) a comparison of the funds expected to be raised through de Calonne's and Necker's reforms; and (5) a fiscal comparison between the Three Estates.

Most sources I've checked thus far give vague and unclear answers. So if somebody could point me in the right direction, that would be excellent.

 

[Masada]

That might prove slightly difficult that I anticipated, I was aware that French bookkeeping of the time was poor, I wasn't aware that it was this poor.

Net taxation on government account in France, presents, it need hardly be said, many more difficulties, since it is impossible to estimate accurately, even for any single year, because of the extreme confusion in the accounts of the French Government. It seems nevertheless possible to reach an approximate judgment, although it must be stressed that this cannot be used to convey more than an order of magnitude. The figures given below have been taken from the table which appears at the end of vol. II of Bailly's Histoire Financiere de la France. Though Bailly does not claim that his figures are accurate, they are nevertheless more comprehensive, and compiled with more care, and, it seems, with a more detailed knowledge of the subject and with more skill in handling this kind of material, than the figures given in Marion's Histoire financiere de la France. Bailly's work was published in i830 when he was In- specteur General des Finances. He chose the year I 786 for his analysis because it was the year when the accounts were least incomplete, as well as being the year which saw the Assembly of Notables and thus the beginning of the financial crisis which led directly to the summoning of the Estates General. In every case (for each of the 74 items in his table has long explanatory notes) he has explained in detail how he has arrived at the figures he gives. The principle on which he worked was, as he says, 'de ne rien omettre ni rien exagerer, et de passer sous silence tout ce qui presentait quelque incertitude.' In effect, thus, he claims that his figures are an underestimate. Though his estimate for taxation on govern- ment account (558 million livres) is larger than Marion's, this is not because of any significant differ- ences in the main items but only because he has included some items which Marion omits (but to which he refers without putting a figure on them). Bailly divided his table into three columns: taxes on government account, taxes for local purposes and taxes for the benefit of individuals, corporations or communities, for his object was to estimate the burden of the taxes on the community. The present writer, whose object is only to consider the sums raised on behalf of the Government, has therefore only made use of the first column. It seems never- theless advisable to point out, because of the emphasis always put on the burden of the poor rate, that the sums raised under the latter (about C2 million p.a. in the I 780's) were roughly the same as those which, according to Bailly, were raised in France for local purposes. Bailly does not distinguish between direct and indirect taxes, and the present writer has therefore regrouped his figures so as to make this distinction apparent. In the cases of the Rigie des domaines and the taxes levied in the Pays d'Etats the data Bailly provides is insufficient, and the writer must confess to having proceeded arbitrarily; the sums, however, are not large enough to make any likely mistakes significant. Bailly makes some (but as he himself admits an incomplete) allowance for costs of collection. The writer has subtracted these figures from his total, so as to get the French figures into line with the British. The writer has assumed that the population of France was approximately 25-5 million in 1786, and that of England, Scotland and Wales approximately 9-3 million; and that, as already explained, there were 23 livres to the C. On these assumptions - which, it must be stressed again, cannot be accurate but which could err considerably without upsetting the conclusions - direct taxation in Britain on government account was on an average 6/- per head and in France 8/-; indirect taxation was J i. 6. o in England and i o/- in France.

(1) France's GDP before and after the Seven Years' War

I'm not sure that how accurate it would be, but I could certainly find rough figures for you if you'd like.

(2) France's debt and the interest paid on it before the revolution

Easy. Have a look at The Financial Market and Government Debt Policy in France, 1746-1793, François R. Velde and David R. Weir, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 1-39 on JSTOR. It has most of what you need in a highly dispersed form, I suspect you won't get better.

(3) how much revenue was raised by taxes versus internal tariffs and trade

I'm not sure if that's going to be easy to find, I would check the footnotes of Velde & Weir to see if it has anything on it, or failing that have a hunt for Bailly's Histoire Financiere de la France if you have a reasonable history department its probably in there. It is after-all a classic.

(4) a comparison of the funds expected to be raised through de Calonne's and Necker's reforms

Pay special attention to the conclusion of the Velde and Weir it includes a very useful sentence which you can use. It also includes some rough and ready calculations, but I'm not sure if you'll find a detailed account of the probable effects of the reforms. I'm not personally aware of any, I can suggest some journals which might have that kind of thing, but I don't know if you'll have access to them.

(5) a fiscal comparison between the Three Estates.

That's not quite so easy, the division between the three isn't all together precise, it's discussed in detail in Behrens which also notes that the precise amount collected in receipts by the French government is at best an estimation. You might be able to find quick approximations or be able to find some inferences on the likely burden of taxes on the basis of land ownership and some of the other taxes which are readily apportionable. I'm not however so sure about that.

 

[ParkCungHee]

France's GDP before and after the Seven Years' War;

Essentially impossible to accurately judge. You have to understand, statistics (along with economics) were in their infancy, at best at the time.

Here's a question I've been wondering: Did the Welsh or Bretons ever make use of the Tánaistry system?

 

[Steph]

If you are ready to invest 15€

État, finances et économie pendant la Révolution française


or

L'économie de la Révolution française

 

[Masada]

Essentially impossible to accurately judge. You have to understand, statistics (along with economics) were in their infancy, at best at the time.

Depends on your definition of accuracy, its still common in many smaller jurisdictions and countries to have an error margin in excess of 20%. That's definitely within the tolerances I'd expect for France, not only do you have the official records, which while error ridden are likely to be relatively consistent in their errors across the period. It's therefore possible to say that while error ridden the difference between the actual and estimated for any given year's figures should be similar. Call it a carry over error if you will.

I'd also contest the second part, the ability to raise revenue is contingent on one thing really, the ability to raise the revenue. Its very rare that a government will look at the rate of the tax before it looks at the amount needed to be levied. To ascertain the possibility of raising this amount it generally paid to have a reasonable knowledge of the ability of your taxpayers to pay. States often had a reasonable understanding of how much they could milk the cow before it went dry.

Property being the primary store of wealth, made for a reasonably easy estimate, something that France excelled thanks to its truly labyrinthine system of taxes levied on property. It was also fairly good at setting wages and conditions when required, so that provides a means of calculating the wages of the lower classes (the number of which it also assiduously collected for poll tax). The list goes on and on. It isn't exactly perfect but it probably captured more economic activity than many third world country.

 

[Verbose]

Quick question, just a curiosity of mine:

Had Henry V not died so suddenly at a (relatively) young age, would he have actually become king of France and England? If so, how long could such a monarchy last?

Well, him and his possible successor/s would have ensured a personal union between France and England, i.e. retaining these as separate states, united by the person of the monarch.

15th c. demographics and economics says that if the situation doesn't fall apart soon, these monarchs will shift focus from England to France, being richer, more populous and larger.