Popula Urbanum is Latin for People of the City. This is a history channel dedicated to the exploration of the medieval middle class and discussing re-enactment.
@@PopulaUrbanum perhaps. When I watch or listen to Aussies in media like podcasts or youtube they often don't say what region they're from so I couldn't say what accent I'm most familiar with hearing. Thanks for replying though. And good and informative video!
Discovered Barbara Tuchman as a History major in college during the 1980s. I still have A Distant Mirror. Such an expansive history of this era in Western Europe and particularly France. I just picked up Froissart’s Chrionicles in paperback today!
A Distant Mirror is a good read, there's a broad range of 14th century events in the book, I'm leaning heavily away from the cataclysmic 14th century view Tuchman presents these days, having more of a transitional view of the late medieval period myself. But she is an exciting writer, I find myself really getting into that book.
There are a few depictions of men with buttoned hoods in Guiron le Courtois. The BNF Nouvelle aquistion frascaise 5243 Guiron le Courtois folio 75r has two examples, and I can think that there may be a few other images in that manuscript.
very informative video thanks! I don't know if you mentioned it and I didn't hear it, but your bascinet has no visor in the video. Does it have no at all or did you remove it for the video? Did you make the helmet yourself or bought it from somewhere?
Nga Mihi, glad you enjoyed it. The helmet does have a visor but I didn't include it in the video because I couldn't get a clear shot of the inside. I bought the helmet secondhand from Piotr's Historical Workshop he's on Facebook.
Finally. Everything I'm finding on "usury" are some conspiracy theories gaslighting people with reductionism. Like, it wasn't like people were obligated to borrow money.
Finally someone that gets it and explains it quite well. The root of history is economics, war and politics are usually secondary or even tertiary in historic importance. On a side note you may be interested in the Bazacle Milling company. There's a great book about it called the Origins of the Corporation. Another interesting medieval topic to look into in terms of economic history is the Song Dynasty.
I have The Origins of the Corporation, it is sitting shamefully on my shelf at the moment. I find the root of economics and trade and its relationship to human cultures and history inseparable. Even as early as the Paleolithic, or earlier ( since that is not my wheelhouse) humanity has been trading commodities, war and politics were maybe developed to facilitate trade not the other way around?
@@PopulaUrbanum the primary focus of economics is production, consumption, and exchange. so yes, it is the root of all history. Even back before civilization as we know it came to be there were still those 3 elements at play. And it is impossible for war and politics to exist without economics. The very creation of an armed force, no matter how small, primitive, or temporary, is an economic process.
I think it’s worth mentioning that capitalism followed and is theorized to create better items through competition. Yet the example you gave of lead-free solder proves that to be false, as in the late 1800’s many people died from lead solder in tinware. So the lack of control led to lesser quality wares which led to death.
Right, Adam Smith asserted that a unregulated market will create competition and this competition will drive self regulation as poor products would be driven out of business, so it should not be restricted by regulation. Instead believing that consumers would somehow not buy inferior products instead of the market just being flooded by cheap inferior products. He saw one of the evils of the guilds as self regulating therefore interfering in free market forces. Guilds on the other hand knew that poor products resulted in poor business and loss of reputation and profits so sought to self regulate.
@@PopulaUrbanum and Smith’s ideas quickly brought upon what Twain termed the Gilded Age. I’d say Smith was way off on his assessment. And great video by the way, thank you
There are many sensible criticisms to be made about guilds and guild production, I agree that Smith's assessment on reliance on the so called invisible hand has not panned out. Glad you liked the video.
There seems to be a false narrative that feudal system collapsed due to unhappy peasants. Many today like to believe in this myth, when as you correctly said it was the lords with depleted knights and resources that could no longer offer protection. It meant for many peasants, the towns were the only place of protection left.
Would you have an idea of the actual proportion of people in the total population that received education, in the cathedral schools or municipal ones? Because it's not clear what an "increase" in something actually means, and how evenly did education permeate in society vs just the wealthy class.
Off the top of my head I'd not be able to say what any statistics would be I'm afraid without rereading the sourced materials being that it was such a long time since writing this video. If I remember the use of the term "increase" was a writing attempt to move past a information dump in which I'd had multiple examples of secular school attendances increasing. Not the best way to share information I know. As for how evenly was education spread, while the wealthy did educate their children education was not relegated to an elite few, the middle class was active in setting up secular schools and creating charitable schools for poor children and girls. Likewise the rural workers received schooling from traveling scholars and priests who were paid to teach village children basic literacy and numeracy.
It's wonderful to see you back- when I saw this video I was thrilled that you've felt ready to post again. It was a complicated topic- not one I know much about, so it was quite interesting to learn. I do find it funny that it seems to always have been the large hoarders of wealth, rather than not being so greedy, would foster and then vilifiy small-scale providers of money. Sure, just like now there would have been many dishonest ones, but the fact, just as now, still remains that if the few at the top didn't keep all the money out of the economy, there'd be no need an everything would run far better. Nothing really changes I guess LOL Anyway, I hope you don't need a super-long break after this one now- it must have been a LOT of work. Your channel is one of my very favourites as you do such a great job of explaining topics most don't even look at, in a wonderfully-presented, simple discussion kind of way.
It's good to be back thank you. I view wealth or resource hoarding more of a symptom of unjust hierarchies, those at the top of the hierarchy hoard resources to maintain power because there is a material connection between power and those resources, money for the wealthy ceases to be about money for purchasing power and becomes a mechanism of exerting political or physical power. Greed is eating all the biscuits at the table, this is more than greed, it's about weilding political control. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on how I feel about power structures. As for videos we are still producing just not one a week, looking to focus more on quality than on quantity.
@@PopulaUrbanum Good point. Keeping the majority in debt is another still current way to maintain control- so one can see why userers have been disliked over and over. It's complicated I guess... And sure, quality is better- plus nobody wants quantity to cause people to burn out ;)
I'd disagree with you on that matter, the roots of antisemitism can be traced back to the classical period, while the term may be modern the ideas and practices of medieval Europe definitely informed modern antisemitism. It is reasonable to discuss the past with a modern lens because this is how we understand the world.
@@PopulaUrbanum racial politics is modern if you are talking about distrusting a certain worldview then shure but thats different and i feel like antisemitism doesnt really mean anything usefull anymore 1 because it doesnt make sense because most jews are turkic european or ethiopian and most semites arent jewish and 2 it like other words that had weight like racist etc got so overused on cases that dont match at all that the syndrome effect took over (ie if everyone is fill in the blank then no one is) i feel like anti jewish is a better term although that would also unfairly lump in those who have honest critiques of their worldview sorry for the block text not trying to be one of those people wish it could have been written shorter
18:29 I think in your effort to give deference for Jews given the modern political climate you failed to offer fairness to the Church. It has been a consistent pattern of the Church to have reforms from time to time as Christians are not perfect and have a tendency to slip and loosen rules. The existence of Christian lenders did not invalidate the objective immorality of usury. Also the Jewish people did not also deserve to be castigated ex post facto for a behavior they had been permitted to do. P.S. the author you cited seems to be quite credible, but the sources he cited may have also been tainted by bias, for example as it relates to the character of Christopher Columbus most historians cite writings by his chief rival which were written to defame Columbus. Likewise the Church has many detractors spanning the centuries.
This was such a difficult topic to write about, not only about the basis of credit, but the churches anti- usuary law and the Jewish lending, I really had to learn a lot about topics I only had a passing knowledge of for future videos. I do agree that the church does internally reform, sometimes it can be very dynamic and progressive other times slow and conservative. Does the existence of Christian lenders invalidate the objective immortality of usuary? I don't see it as a double standard or even see usuary as immoral since credit and lending predates capitalism and monied economies. I think the church was attempting to enshrine a system of lending more akin to Muslim lending, much of what was happening was political and warped up in the ideological. The other key here is much of Christian Europe did listen to the church, but at the same time ignored it, especially when the rules and laws became difficult to living their lives. Politically powerful people would often be excommunicated or censured for their crimes against the church and continue to live a happy life, even though no other Christian was supposed to do business with them only to make penance when it was politically expedient. For the common person who often had little contact with the priesthood would have more contact with lay preachers and engage in group worship. Laws and rules from the church had little impact on their lives and were mostly observances unless you lived on feudal lands ruled by the church. This is why orders like the Franciscans were important because they went amongst the people which is why specifically mention them in this. I'll say that I find the early years of their order fascinating, their attempts to reform the church in the during the late 1200's and engage in poverty relief will be key to an upcoming video. Don't get me wrong, this is not a critique of the church and was intended to be an objective statement of historic events.
Absolutely agree with you, I appreciate the insight. I was really conscious of the megalithic nature of the church I had already cut 20 or so minutes off the script, so much gets lost in making these videos.
