patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

Heavy Cavalry is rare in Western Europe until after 1000AD, and not of much account in the Dark Ages. I would agree Heavy Cavalry is a major part of Eastern warfare during this time.

Not sure why you bothered with the long quote on Frankish infantry of the late Roman time. Heavy Cavalry were around during Roman time, as in Knights and the Equestrian order. They were just not cost-effective, and nearly useless when sent up against opponents with powerful projectile weapons (like Crassus' doomed campaign). After Rome fell, all armies became vassals of the local 1099 free agent warlords. So they had to go through several stages in the arms race. Heavy cavalries were not useful until opponents use light cavalries and don't have strong projectile weapons.

Reality says

That works for 80% of the population, but not the 20% suffering from various degrees of sociopathy and are willing to take their chances against law enforcement for extraordinary gains. Criminal enterprises are often high profit opportunities as law enforcement essentially remove competition from non-sociopathic 80% of the population. What makes the math even more enticing for the sociopathic is that Law enforcement can only catch about 20% of criminals; any law enforcement system more draconian than that tend to attract sociopaths into the ranks of the law enforcement itself.

What a bunch of crap. There is not one hint of logic in what you are saying.
Let's see:
- so 20% of humanity suffers from incurable sociopathy?: Where do you get these numbers from, I wonder? So according to you 1.4 billions human beings must be manipulated en masse or bring down humanity to chaos? This is a gratuitous assertion supported by nothing. What can I say: you're a doomsayer of the human spirit.
- Criminal enterprises: they always existed in any regime, religious or not. The mafia existed for a long time in Italy among very religious people. If your talking of corruption, it existed on a massive scale in regimes like monarchies.
- Furthermore regimes are typically not brought down by criminality. This was certainly not the case for the examples of 'atheism' you cited above (communism, french revolution). Criminality is never eliminated but kept in check by law enforcement.

This sudden rant about criminality is logically unrelated to both religious and atheist regimes. Unrelated unsupported assertions. You're not exactly bringing a logically well constructed argument to prove your point.

SoftShell says

what "most people agree on" has changed dramatically throughout history.

So what? As almost every knowledge we have can be found later to be incorrect. Using that as an argument to say we don't know what we know is stupid.

SoftShell says

In this post, no, I'm not.

Indeed I don't think you were serious in most of your posts. It's hard to tell at what point you started being sarcastic. The thread was fairly serious at the start though.

In one sentence you say almost everything we know can be found later to be incorrect, and in the next sentence I verify that, and you call it stupid.
You are indirectly slamming your own post.

Heraclitusstudent says

SoftShell says

what "most people agree on" has changed dramatically throughout history.

So what? As almost every knowledge we have can be found later to be incorrect. Using that as an argument to say we don't know what we know is stupid

Yeah, I took a little sidetrack to irritate Dan with the police abuse video...
I know he likes those videos...

Heraclitusstudent says

SoftShell says

In this post, no, I'm not.

Indeed I don't think you were serious in most of your posts. It's hard to tell at what point you started being sarcastic. The thread was fairly serious at the start though.

Reality says

My answer for how to prevent one organized religion from gaining too much hold on the other 80% of the population is quite simple: let many different religions thrive and prosper in the same society, so there is no particular religious mono cultural conformity bias for the bulk of the society.

Having several religions, historically, was a recipe for civil war. Examples are easy to find.

We refuted the moral argument and you haven't given any other reason why manipulating people, and deceiving them about "God" or afterlife would, in any way, be a requirement to maintain civilized societies.

Why would we need to maintain a heavy propagandist machinery that serves no obvious purpose other than maintaining its own existence and that in the process damages people ability to think critically?

SoftShell says

In one sentence you say almost everything we know can be found later to be incorrect, and in the next sentence I verify that, and you call it stupid.

You are indirectly slamming your own post.

Well, you're not being agnostic about mine, so you slammed yours too.

What???
I'm not a student of HerClit, so could you put it in laymen's terms?

Heraclitusstudent says

SoftShell says

Well, you're not being agnostic about mine, so you slammed yours too.

Heraclitusstudent says

What a bunch of crap. There is not one hint of logic in what you are saying.

Let's see:

- so 20% of humanity suffers from incurable sociopathy?: Where do you get these numbers from, I wonder? So according to you 1.4 billions human beings must be manipulated en masse or bring down humanity to chaos? This is a gratuitous assertion supported by nothing. What can I say: you're a doomsayer of the human spirit.

The 20% number is probably under-estimate, as supposedly over 40% of young male in this country have arrest record.

Who said anything about being manipulated en masse? If you choose not to believe, leave other people who want to believe alone. Think about the institution called marriage: more than half of marriage fail, and vast majority of of the other half can barely tolerate each other in their old ages. Yet, people take life-long vows to get married. In most cases, they are not lying or manipulating each other or themselves when taking those vows. . . and marriage as an institution (regardless state or religious recognition or not) does give advantages to the offsprings that they bring up. If you don't want to get married, then don't. Don't get in the way of others indulging in it. IMHO, the chances of after-life may well be much higher than "live happily ever after" in a marriage; that's just my personal opinion.

Heraclitusstudent says

- Criminal enterprises: they always existed in any regime, religious or not. The mafia existed for a long time in Italy among very religious people. If your talking of corruption, it existed on a massive scale in regimes like monarchies.

Monarchies existed in both religious and atheistic context.

Even the mafia knows the need for allowing religion among members in order to have a relatively stable "society." Mafia is a form of government.

- Furthermore regimes are typically not brought down by criminality. This was certainly not the case for the examples of 'atheism' you cited above (communism, french revolution). Criminality is never eliminated but kept in check by law enforcement.

You are kidding yourself if you think criminality can be kept in check by law enforcement alone. The typical law enforcement catch less than 20% of criminals. The vast majority cases of theft and frauds are not even reported; among those reported, only a small fraction ever get solved by the law enforcement. Most regimes do eventually get brought down by corruption and attendant inefficiencies. The exact manifestation of it can be losing wars due to the same inefficiencies, and morale failure like the soviet union: people just got tired of the corruptions and duplicities that they witnessed every day, even for people among the management and leadership, especially their children losing faith in the system.

Heraclitusstudent says

This sudden rant about criminality is logically unrelated to both religious and atheist regimes. Unrelated unsupported assertions. You're not exactly bringing a logically well constructed argument to prove your point.

You are not comprehending the logic only because you are a knee-jerk certainty-zealot, just like a religious fundamentalist, incapable of thinking outside your own narrow perspective.

If you really think about it, less than 20% of criminals ever get caught, what's the law enforcement's real effect on the society? (besides being an extremely expensive burden). It serves as a warning, and puts up a myth that if you commit crime, you will get caught. That myth make people self-police. It is this self-policing that holds the society together! Likewise, religions make believers self-police. It's a very cost-effective institution in that regard, especially when it is self-funded without tax subsidty.

Heraclitusstudent says

Having several religions, historically, was a recipe for civil war. Examples are easy to find.

No. Having government endorsement for any particular denomination of religion or atheism over other denominations is a recipe for civil war and wars of aggression. Societies that embrace the freedom of religion (i.e. an agnostic government not endorsing any denomination, not even atheism, while allow believers and nonbelievers be themselves) do not go to civil war for religious reasons.

We refuted the moral argument

No you have not. You knee-jerkers keep thinking that I somehow was suggesting religions make people more morale then proceed to debate that. That's not the point that I made at all. I'm not even talking about what positive or negative effect religion may have on a well adjusted person. However, when dealing with people who are amoralistic, perhaps even sociopathic, the promises of reward and punishment offered by religions are much more cost-effective than those offered by tax-funded law enforcement alone, statistically speaking.

and you haven't given any other reason why manipulating people, and deceiving them about "God" or afterlife would, in any way, be a requirement to maintain civilized societies.

First of all, it's not manipulation per se, but simply letting those who do believe to promulgate their ideas. As to the effect of religions on the maintenance of civilized societies, it's more than just "reasoning" but factual observation proves the point: fall of civilizations and dark ages take place when people lose faith in the old faith. Civilizations only recover after the adoption of new faiths.

Why would we need to maintain a heavy propagandist machinery that serves no obvious purpose other than maintaining its own existence and that in the process damages people ability to think critically?

First of all, I do not advocate government tax funding of any religion at all. However, it would be even more stupid to waste taxpayer money on eradicating all religions. As for why some of the society's resources go to religions by individual choices, why do we have entertainment? why do have psychotherapists? why do we allow alcohol?

Reality says

Not sure why you bothered with the long quote on Frankish infantry of the late Roman time.

The Mid 500s is a century after the collapse of the Western Empire, well into the Merovingians. The Dark Ages.

The Middle Ages didn't start at 1000AD, not even medievalists propose that.

EDIT: I said "Eastern" by mistake.

thunderlips11 says

Reality says

Not sure why you bothered with the long quote on Frankish infantry of the late Roman time.

The Mid 500s is a century after the collapse of the Eastern Empire, well into the Merovingians. The Dark Ages.

The Middle Ages didn't start at 1000AD, not even medievalists propose that.

The Eastern Empire did not collapse until the 14th century. In any case, I don't see the relevance of quoting a Roman's biased view of the crudeness of Frankish military. Whatever they were doing, the Franks were on their way to dominate Western Europe militarily while the WRE was about to be wiped off the map. That particular author apparently also belong to the school of knowing the benefit of everything but the cost of nothing. Perhaps the Franks' military simplicity allowed for individual initiative, just like the early Roman Republic soldier with a simple short sword winning "impossible victories" against over-developed mechanistic Greek armies.

Reality says

The Eastern Empire did not collapse until the 14th century.

That was a careless error on my part. In any case, the 500s are well after the collapse of the Western Empire, and thus the Dark Ages, by any Medievalists' reckoning.

I'm gonna get back to responding for your posts, but check this out:.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio
1.6 Billion, B for Billion, Gallons of Olive Oil, imported in massive, professionally made on an industrial scale and stamped with the various Maker's Marks, Amphorae. Just from circa 140-250AD.

You got any site in Western Europe in the Middle Ages that can match that?

There's just no way that the Dark Ages were anything like the Roman Empire in commerce, industry, agriculture, population, organization, military strength, etc. It's like comparing the PeeWee League to the 1986 Mets.

thunderlips11 says

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio

1.6 Billion, B for Billion, Gallons of Olive Oil, imported in massive, professionally made on an industrial scale and stamped with the various Maker's Marks, Amphorae. Just from circa 140-250AD.

You got any site in Western Europe in the Middle Ages that can match that?

There's just no way that the Dark Ages were anything like the Roman Empire in commerce, industry, agriculture, population, organization, military strength, etc. It's like comparing the PeeWee League to the 1986 Mets.

Roman Empire was the reason why the Dark Ages came along. Just look at those discarded Dressel 20 amphorae, they were not built to be re-useable like in the private sector probably because those containers were used primarily for the government dole and government subsidy olive oil to the bureaucrats and military.

What Roman Empire enjoyed, the prosperous commercial world of the Med, was the result of the previous Republic period and the maritime trade networks built by the Greeks and Carthagenians.

Reality says

Likewise, religions make believers self-police.

Reality says

the promises of reward and punishment offered by religions are much more cost-effective

That's the heart of your discourse and it is desperately weak.

Where is the evidence of criminals or sociopaths self-policing based on their religious beliefs? The greatest criminal organizations, such as the mafia, are made of mostly religious people. That apparently doesn't prevent them from reveling in vice. Mexico is a very religious country, and nonetheless has very high murder rates. Why is that?

The same applies to leaders of states pretending to believe religious teachings. G.W Bush cited Jesus as the philosopher that influenced him the most, but never bat an eye about sending people to their deaths.

As for corruption, countries like Poland, where 95% of the population is very catholic, are nonetheless highly corrupted. The same could be said of Pakistan and many other countries. Why is that?

Your entire thesis seem utterly unsupported by facts.

Reality says

The 20% number is probably under-estimate, as supposedly over 40% of young male in this country have arrest record.

Arrested for what? DUI? And a majority of these 40% are religious anyway, right?

Again where do you pull your numbers from? 20% sociopaths seems like an imagined figure. The idea that sociopaths ready to become criminals threatens civilization is just bizarre. Most people don't become criminals simply because the understand that they are part of a community and ultimately what hurts the community hurts them. Or they identify with the victims. Most people given the opportunity will develop a productive trade and not take an even 20% chance to end-up in prison. They don't need to believe they will end-up in hell.

Reality says

Mafia is a form of government.

Good one. Are criminals a form of government or are they threatening civilization? I'm starting to wonder.

Reality says

By then, it was late in the Empire, the Roman population had abandoned frontier lands and flocked to Rome for the dole. The federated German tribes were being hired as 1099 frontier defenders.

The estate holders don't seem to have fled, who had the most to lose. While those with the least to lose ran hundreds of miles away over a chaotic landscape to large cities where the dole that depended on imports could no longer be had, as the Vandals controlled North Africa and Spain and would only sell to their Roman enemies at top dollar (denarii?)

Reality says

No. Harold's shield wall was being picked apart due to his own infantry running off to chase retreating opponents in the mistaken belief that they were winning. Once seeing that, William's men deliberately rode up to then retreated from the shield wall, drawing away more and more elements of the infantry shield wall to be defeated in detail. Harold being shot happened later and forestalled any chance at rallying a doomed cause.

Didn't William move his archers around to encircle the shield wall, and thus the Saxon's weaker armor and shieldless flanks and backs exposed?

But let's say what you say is what happened. It still means that infantry, not cavalry, determined the outcome. It was only because the Shield Wall became disorganized - either by breaking off to pursue or by faltering morale or exhaustion (fighting right after a forced march on a hot day) - that the Cavalry could act. William didn't use his cavalry until that happened.

Even Late Medieval Armies were largely infantry and I can't think of any major battle where unaccompanied medieval cavalry beat an opposing army, unless it was against some peasant revolt. The famed French Cavalry was massacred at Courtrai by Flemish Burghers. They also failed at Crecy, Agincourt and Poiters. Or at Bannockburn, when the English foolishly and contemptuously charged at Robert the Bruce's infantry, who had no heavy horse, but utterly smashed the English, killing 30+ Lords and countless English Knights. Not to be confused with his later ancestor, Lenny the Bruce.

And these are all "Heyday of the Armored Knight" battles.

In any case, the stirrup didn't penetrate the West until 900-1000AD. While well trained men could chase or ride down individual infantry, and wield light arms, they could not bear shields or heavy lances without the stirrup to help them resist impact shock.

Horses simply aren't suicidal and they won't charge a steady, compact mass of men, instead rearing or turning at the last minute - no matter how well trained - and tossing their riders into pole arms to be impaled.

As for Equestrian rank, that was a title stetching way back into several centuries BC, and in late antiquity one could well be Equestrian without ever touching a horse, much less being a trained cavalryman. It was a rank which one needed wealth, not military skill, to attain.

This all being said, the late middle ages were dominated by fortifications and sieges, which is why the French beat the English despite losing every major battle in the 100 Year's War, and almost all the decisive Crusading Battles were sieges.

Reality says

What Roman Empire enjoyed, the prosperous commercial world of the Med, was the result of the previous Republic period and the maritime trade networks built by the Greeks and Carthagenians.

I think it's more because ceramic pots are too heavy to ship back empty; they were used as ballast even in the 19th Century. Don't metal shipping containers pile up in the US from abroad?

Also, ceramic pots take on the flavors of what was in them. That's why glassware was beloved of the Romans. Hey, where IS all that beautiful Dark Ages glassware?
http://ancientglass.wordpress.com/historical-glass-periods/glass-of-the-middle-ages/

Looks like when the Dark Ages began, Western Europeans stopped making glassware for a long while.

Reality says

A classic case was inviting the far away Otto I to Rome to reduce the local warlords controlling lands around Rome, preventing the rise of a Rome based reunification power.

Wasn't there a King who was excommunicated while on Crusade?

Ah, Frederick II. Funny how those who rule Sicily or Naples near the Papal States get excommunicated often.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

Mafia is a form of government.

Good one. Are criminals a form of government or are they threatening civilization? I'm starting to wonder.

Politics is organized crime. Governments have their origins in organized plunder. Criminals, mafia (proto-government) and governments all threaten civilization with their plundering actions.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

Likewise, religions make believers self-police.

Reality says

the promises of reward and punishment offered by religions are much more cost-effective

That's the heart of your discourse and it is desperately weak.

Where is the evidence of criminals or sociopaths self-policing based on their religious beliefs? The greatest criminal organizations, such as the mafia, are made of mostly religious people. That apparently doesn't prevent them from reveling in vice.

The mafia (and its members) consider themselves the government, with territories! They operate on the same principles of "justified" initiation of violence and retaliations, just like government bureaucrats. When the mafia was religious in the old times, many of them did have strict code about not dealing drugs or not personally use drugs. On the topic of prostitution as vice, religious prescripts on both subjects are quite vague, probably because it was recognized a lot time ago that efforts to ban it would be quite futile.

Mexico is a very religious country, and nonetheless has very high murder rates. Why is that?

It would be even higher under the lucrative drug trade if not for the influence of religion. It's the corrupt state waging the drug war that's the problem. Many of the spontaneously organized local self-defense organizations to combat drug lords have very strong religious overtones.

Heraclitusstudent says

The same applies to leaders of states pretending to believe religious teachings. G.W Bush cited Jesus as the philosopher that influenced him the most, but never bat an eye about sending people to their deaths.

G.W was very much under the thumbs of Cheney and his crew when in office.

As for corruption, countries like Poland, where 95% of the population is very catholic, are nonetheless highly corrupted. The same could be said of Pakistan and many other countries. Why is that?

Poland and Pakistan are good illustrations of why having a state endorsing a particular brand of faith (or even atheism) is not a good idea. Most of the people just pretend to go along with whatever the government is promoting without much real personal conviction, in fact promoting duplicity. In case you did not know, the main appeal of Taliban to the local population was that they had real religious conviction and were not corrupt (or much less corrupt than those they displaced). Of course, Taliban's advocacy for theocracy would eventually lead to even more corruption. They fail to realize just like you do: that militantly religious people in a society trending towards secular materialism, and militant atheists in a society that is mostly religious are likely to be less corrupt not because of the -ism's that they believe but because they are the type of people who are willing to devote to their own convictions. State sponsorship of any faith would just dilute that zeal.

Your entire thesis seem utterly unsupported by facts.

Only when you use meaningless labels instead of looking at the real facts under the labels.

thunderlips11 says

Ah, Frederick II. Funny how those who rule Sicily or Naples near the Papal States get excommunicated often.

Exactly, the Church had its own interest to protect . . . which meant preventing too much concentration of power by any military leader.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

The 20% number is probably under-estimate, as supposedly over 40% of young male in this country have arrest record.

Arrested for what? DUI? And a majority of these 40% are religious anyway, right?

The point is not whether they are religious or not, but the high percentage of people suffering from various degrees of sociopathy. DUI is certainly anti-social behavior.

Again where do you pull your numbers from? 20% sociopaths seems like an imagined figure.

At least 20%, probably higher.

The idea that sociopaths ready to become criminals threatens civilization is just bizarre. Most people don't become criminals simply because the understand that they are part of a community and ultimately what hurts the community hurts them. Or they identify with the victims. Most people given the opportunity will develop a productive trade and not take an even 20% chance to end-up in prison. They don't need to believe they will end-up in hell.

Like I said, you are still not understanding my argument, but debating against a strawman of your own erection.

"Most" means 51% or higher. I'm willing to put that number as high as 80%. What do you do with the remaining 20%? Evidence seems to show that people who are willing to pull a quick one on others when opportunity arises is higher than 20%. When that tendency is translated into visible action unrestrained by religion in a atheistic society, the dog-eat-dot behavior seem to be manifest from far higher than 20% of the population.

thunderlips11 says

I think it's more because ceramic pots are too heavy to ship back empty; they were used as ballast even in the 19th Century. Don't metal shipping containers pile up in the US from abroad?

Ceramic pots of different sizes were recycled or broken down into shards for paving walking paths. The particular type of pots used by the government distribution network was the reason why they ended up in a huge pile, never recycled or even used as clay shards for path paving.

thunderlips11 says

Hey, where IS all that beautiful Dark Ages glassware?

http://ancientglass.wordpress.com/historical-glass-periods/glass-of-the-middle-ages/

Looks like when the Dark Ages began, Western Europeans stopped making glassware for a long while.

The high taxation in late Roman Empire killed the trade networks in Western Europe, as free Romans had to give up freedom and attach themselves to estates in order to avoid high taxes. Productivity fell when trade stopped. It was probably not cost-effective to keep a glassblower inside a little estate, so the art/technology probably died out in Western Europe within a couple generations.

thunderlips11 says

The estate holders don't seem to have fled, who had the most to lose. While those with the least to lose ran hundreds of miles away over a chaotic landscape to large cities where the dole that depended on imports could no longer be had, as the Vandals controlled North Africa and Spain and would only sell to their Roman enemies at top dollar (denarii?)

You are talking about two different periods. Population in the city of Rome grew dramatically in the first few hundred years of the Roman Empire, obviously not from only local births, but massive immigration from the rest of the Empire, thanks to the dole and other government subsidies available in the big cities (at the expense of the rest of the empire). Towards the very end, when the empire was collapsing and the handouts trickled to stop, the city of Rome was depopulated to less than 10% of its peak population within a few generations.

Don't assume linearity in history.

thunderlips11 says

Didn't William move his archers around to encircle the shield wall, and thus the Saxon's weaker armor and shieldless flanks and backs exposed?

The archers did not have much success initially either.

But let's say what you say is what happened. It still means that infantry, not cavalry, determined the outcome.

If you want to say that the infantry's lack of mobility doomed themselves to failure . . . well, that was my original point anyway.

It was only because the Shield Wall became disorganized - either by breaking off to pursue or by faltering morale or exhaustion (fighting right after a forced march on a hot day) - that the Cavalry could act. William didn't use his cavalry until that happened.

William did use his cavalry early on, without much success. However, the initial failure led to the discovery that some of Harold's infantry were leaving the shield wall trying to exploit their perceived victory and that action gave the cavalry a chance to defeat slow moving infantry in detail. Mongols will later work that tactic to high perfection, and build the world's largest empire ever by area, stretching from German borders to Korea, and from Siberia to India.

thunderlips11 says

Even Late Medieval Armies were largely infantry and I can't think of any major battle where unaccompanied medieval cavalry beat an opposing army, unless it was against some peasant revolt. The famed French Cavalry was massacred at Courtrai by Flemish Burghers. They also failed at Crecy, Agincourt and Poiters. Or at Bannockburn, when the English foolishly and contemptuously charged at Robert the Bruce's infantry, who had no heavy horse, but utterly smashed the English, killing 30+ Lords and countless English Knights. Not to be confused with his later ancestor, Lenny the Bruce.

And these are all "Heyday of the Armored Knight" battles.

Why should that be a surprise to anyone who has learned proper military tactics? Knights were the equivalent of tanks of their days. Contrary to the idiocy fed to the peanut gallery designed to inspire awe and submission from them, the primary effect of armor/tanks/knights is in the exploitation phase, where the most casualties are inflicted on the enemy anyway even in pure infantry battles. Armor/tanks/knights are not to be committed unless the enemy is already ripe for exploitation. Head on "cavalry" charge into a strong opponent is always suicidal. Yet keep in mind that the effectiveness of exploitation is what decides campaigns and wars (preventing the enemy from rallying), just as logistics not tactics per se is what decides wars.

Pitched infantry battles were simply cost-ineffective compared to cavalry raids and exploitations. That's how cavalry rose to pre-eminence in Western Europe after the fall of WRE. Then many generations later, some of the offsprings of early cavlaries forgot what cavalry was for and fell for their own propaganda designed to cower peasants, ending up dying in silly head-on charges.

thunderlips11 says

This all being said, the late middle ages were dominated by fortifications and sieges, which is why the French beat the English despite losing every major battle in the 100 Year's War, and almost all the decisive Crusading Battles were sieges.

Siege warfare came into eminence because cavalry was sweeping the field outside the castles. If mass infantry warfare had been the norm, there wouldn't enough room in the castles to house the infantry. We are not talking about Chinese or Roman style continuous walls along frontiers, but castles built at isolated points.

The French did not lose nearly every battle in the 100yr War. They had major successes late in the war after a chance massacre of numerous unready English (Welsh) archers in a battle where the English cavalry failed to scout properly and detect French cavalry nearby. Longbow archers took decades to train, and the English simply couldn't replace the loss, and the war went down hill for them from then on. The arrival of artillery also helped French as that both negated English advantage in projectile weapons (longbow archers could fire 3-5 times as fast as crossbow archers) also gave the French an advantage in breaking sieges.

thunderlips11 says

Reality says

A classic case was inviting the far away Otto I to Rome to reduce the local warlords controlling lands around Rome, preventing the rise of a Rome based reunification power.

Wasn't there a King who was excommunicated while on Crusade?

The Kings also kidnapped each other. The Crusade may well have been the church's successful attempt at preventing consolidation in Western Europe by top warlords.

Greenland Icecaps Reveal Pollution in the Past

Judging from the Greenland ice core, the smelting of lead-bearing ore declined sharply after the fall of the Roman Empire but gradually increased during the Renaissance. By 1523, the last year for which Dr. Rosman's group conducted its Greenland ice analysis, atmospheric lead pollution had reached nearly the same level recorded for the year 79 B.C., at the peak of Roman mining pollution.

The 1523 date for *nearly* the same level, puts us solidly in the Renaissance, about a generation after Columbus' voyage of 1492 and a few years after Martin Luther's 99 Theses of 1517.

Reality says

Towards the very end, when the empire was collapsing and the handouts trickled to stop, the city of Rome was depopulated to less than 10% of its peak population within a few generations.

I've seen figures for 400AD Rome as low as 170,000 and as high as 500,000. There's no doubt Rome was shrinking, but it's relative to the growth of Constantinople, the newer capital with a fabulous port and the new darling of the Emperor's eye. Rome is looted of art in the 4th Century for Constantine's Byzantium Project. People followed the money.

According to Peter Heather, the archaeological evidence is that the Eastern Empire's towns and farmland actually expanded during the 5th and 6th Centuries, particularly in the East. Funny how all the depopulation and deurbanization in the 5th Century is in the West, with those 1099 Contracted German Managers simply changing management with a minimum of violence and disruption as the revisionists claim.

Reality says

, the primary effect of armor/tanks/knights is in the exploitation phase, where the most casualties are inflicted on the enemy anyway even in pure infantry battle

Yep, Heavy Cav pushes a wavering line over; it doesn't make the line waver - unless the infantry is very undisciplined to begin with. I imagine after the first few defeats, a European Warlords quickly revised their use, and armament of infantry. This is not the era of Clausewitzian total war or Roman total subjugation, either.

The Hallmark of the Late Medieval Era is fortification building, and armies generally become less willing to duke it out in the open.

Reality says

Pitched infantry battles were simply cost-ineffective compared to cavalry raids and exploitations. That's how cavalry rose to pre-eminence in Western Europe after the fall of WRE. Then many generations later, some of the offsprings of early cavlaries forgot what cavalry was for and fell for their own propaganda designed to cower peasants, ending up dying in silly head-on charges.

Here's my problem: The Franks are conquering the Saxons and other German Tribes in heavily wooded, pre deforestation and pre-drainage Dark Age Germany where the roads, when they exist, are basically goat trails. So the Franks take the German tribes with cavalry-heavy army?

Take the battle of the Teutoburg forest. Yeah, different era I know - but the same enemy (Tribal Pagan Germans) and similar terrain (German heavily forested/marshy areas). If the Romans had more Kataphracts or even Light Horse, do you think the battle would have went much differently?

Tanks are also not so great in built up, rough, or heavily forested terrain, either.

Reality says

If mass infantry warfare had been the norm, there wouldn't enough room in the castles to house the infantry. We are not talking about Chinese or Roman style continuous walls along frontiers, but castles built at isolated points.

Yeah, we're talking walled towns, fortified bridges, as well as castles. Hell, Castile means "Castle" and there's a big castle on the Castilian Arms.

Why is there this orgy of fortification, not only in Northern France but in Italy, Germany, and of course Southern France and during the Reconquista? Surely, they serve some purpose. This is the cornerstone of medieval warfare.

By the First Crusade, Europeans have plenty of experience fighting sieges, both on attack and defense, and generate very complicated defenses and counters to those defenses. The fortifications they build are much more than just a show of power or protection against raiders, although that was probably the initial spur before their use was realized for intra-European fighting.

Raiders seldom do sieges, they want plunder and easy pickings, so why all the increasingly complicated defenses of murder holes, arrow slits, ditches, complicated gate defenses, circular towers, etc.? A Viking sees a fortified bridge, tests it's defenses, realize he can't get past it, goes back out to sea to find easier pickings. But squabbling nieghbors have every reason to start a siege.

We know from the Church's attempt at a "Peace of God" than intra-European warfare was endemic. We know that chivalry was bullshit, and if you couldn't cough up a ransom, you were often killed or at least maimed. Chivalry was only for the nobility.

The Heavily Horsed Knight of the Dark Ages as the predominant mover of military clashes is largely a die hard myth from the Romantic Period of the 19th Century that has found it's way into textbooks. Infantry was always the predominant arm of European militaries, from the Greek Hoplite to the Roman Legion to Frankish Axe-Throwers to English Longbowmen, Genoese Crossbowmen, and Swiss Pikemen.

Reality says

Siege warfare came into eminence because cavalry was sweeping the field outside the castles. If mass infantry warfare had been the norm, there wouldn't enough room in the castles to house the infantry.

The Infantry are feudal levies, not a standing army. Castles are garrisoned by a lord and his retinue. Walled towns by urban militia.

As for cavalry sweeping the fight, we've talked about Tours, Hastings, Marienburg, Crecy, Agincourt, Poiters, Bannockburn.

Reality says

Mongols will later work that tactic to high perfection, and build the world's largest empire ever by area, stretching from German borders to Korea, and from Siberia to India.

Damn annoying horse archers. Basically, herding infantry. Even used the same crescent formation they used to herd animals. Their compound bows often outranged the archers of the victims' infantry.

thunderlips11 says

Why is there this orgy of fortification, not only in Northern France but in Italy, Germany, and of course Southern France and during the Reconquista? Surely, they serve some purpose.

Eonomy of force. Fortification was/is a force multiplier. When rising market economy made human life more expensive than worthless in market terms relative to the lord's own capital, hordes of infant to flood the open field was not longer an option, in contrast to the prior period when Greek and Romans flooded the field with hordes of citizens and slaves, or the latter period when "democracy" allowed Napoleon to have 30,000 lives to spend every month at no cost to himself. Feudal armies meant either paid mercenaries or levies for which the lord/prince was forgoing other productive output of the same people.

thunderlips11 says

The Infantry are feudal levies, not a standing army. Castles are garrisoned by a lord and his retinue. Walled towns by urban militia.

Feudal levies were not useful field divisions. At the best, they were the equivalent of security divisions to deal with enemy infiltrators and fortification divisions with little initiative. Heck they couldn't even be counted on as fortification divisions, lest they sell the castle to invaders. The Lord/Prince's own retinue had to hold the fort.

As for cavalry sweeping the fight, we've talked about Tours, Hastings, Marienburg, Crecy, Agincourt, Poiters, Bannockburn.

Nearly every single one of those was considered a big "upset" (i.e. surprising outcomes) by their contemporaries. They ran against the general expected outcome, except for Hastings, where the combined arms with cavalry component did win against the pure infantry army.

thunderlips11 says

Reality says

Mongols will later work that tactic to high perfection, and build the world's largest empire ever by area, stretching from German borders to Korea, and from Siberia to India.

Damn annoying horse archers. Basically, herding infantry. Even used the same crescent formation they used to herd animals. Their compound bows often outranged the archers of the victims' infantry.

The enemy infantries were useless as soon as the nomadic archers disposed of the enemy mounted forces. The vast Roman army under Crassus was slaughtered by Cythian mounted archers the same way 1200 years before the Mongols. Superior range and superior mobility, that's how Aircraft Carriers won against Battleships. The side with initiative can intentionally sea-saw the battle and prevent the slower moving side from ever using their weapons or concentration of force effective, provided there is enough room for manuever. That's another reason why fortifications were built in Western Europe: limit room for manuever so as to infantry a chance against cavalry without being sliced and diced in detail in manuever battles. Longbowmen were not infantry, but more like artillery force, or the medieval version of Katusha rocket launchers with rapidly delivred area bombardment.

Reality says

Eonomy of force. Fortification was/is a force multiplier.

Yep - and a territory marker, an impediment to raiders, mark of subjugation (esp in the Baltic Crusades and in Norman England), and most importantly, a way of preventing your neighbor from ambushing your men and taking over your lands in the endemic warfare of the Dark (and Middle) Ages. Until the rise of gunpowder, a well-supplied fortification required a substantial investment of time and effort to take.
Reality says

When rising market economy made human life more expensive than worthless in market terms relative to the lord's own capital

I think it was more the MWP increasing yields and finally making some surplus production possible given all the lost abilities of a deurbanized, depopulated, warlord-led Europe.

Can you point me to any sociologist, historian, or economist that argues the a civilization that is less urban and less populated tends to be more advanced than civilizations that are more urbanized and more populated? Or one that argues that deurbanization and depopulation isn't a clear marker of a civilization in decline?

Reality says

hordes of infant to flood the open field was not longer an option,

Infantry is a helluva lot cheaper than horsemen.

If you can't afford infantry, you definitely can't afford mounted knights, who not only need warhorses to charge with, but several other horses to ride off the battlefield, as only in D&D or Skyrim can a Lord Falkenhoof the Half-Elven Paladin in AC4 Armor ride the same horse for 16 hours straight. Then there's all the sundry goods needed to keep a heavy cavalryman in the field (horseshoes, bridles, stirrups, fodder, etc.) and for his and his squire's (at least, probably more in the entourage) person and baggage as well.

I think this is one of the stronger arguments against the alleged dominance of Cavalry in the Dark Ages, which was poorer than the ages that preceded it or followed it.
Reality says

hordes of infant to flood the open field was not longer an option, in contrast to the prior period when Greek and Romans flooded the field with hordes of citizens and slaves,

I don't recall Greek or Roman armies using slaves on a regular basis in battles.
Reality says

Feudal levies were not useful field divisions. At the best, they were the equivalent of security divisions to deal with enemy infiltrators and fortification divisions with little initiative. Heck they couldn't even be counted on as fortification divisions, lest they sell the castle to invaders. The Lord/Prince's own retinue had to hold the fort.

Okay... I take it you agreeing with me when I said...
thunderlips11 says

The Infantry are feudal levies, not a standing army. Castles are garrisoned by a lord and his retinue. Walled towns by urban militia.

Reality says

That's another reason why fortifications were built in Western Europe: limit room for manuever so as to infantry a chance against cavalry without being sliced and diced in detail in manuever battles.

I agree with much of what you wrote except this. Equipping soldiers were expensive, so infantry predominated. I can find no evidence that between 500-1000AD, Heavy Horse was the decisive weapon of European Armies, as opposed to Light Cav or Horse Archers with the Arab or Eurasian peoples. Furthermore, I'm asserting that heavy cav wasn't even the decisive arm in the Late Middle Ages, either.

With all the previous examples I've given, I can't see how one can compare the Knight to the Carrier. There is no example of a Battleship - or even a surface combat task force without air cover - defeating a Carrier Force. We have many examples of infantry and archers slaughtering heavy cavalry over multiple battles that span multiple centuries.

As for any battles where the Cavalry pursues and runs down the losers, or attacks open flanks or from the rear, that's been happening long before the Middle Ages. The Greeks and Romans used Cavalry the same way in their battles. No Medieval Innovation there.

Great minds think alike.

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