We want to entertain people with history which is visually pleasing, grounded in scholarship, and properly researched at the same time.
Our golden rules: 1) We only use academic sources and always try to stick to the consensus opinion. 2) We always list our sources in description of our videos. 3) We make clear when we deviate from the prior two rules.
Education: Between the two of us we hold two Master's degrees in history from the university of Bern, Switzerland and one degree as a history teacher from the Bern University of Teacher Education. Both of us worked at the University of Bern as teaching assistants.
We wrote an article about our experience as content creators which was published in a collective volume edited by Dr. Kilian Baur and Robert Trautmannsberger: www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110792898-005/html
We also held a few talks about our journey on RU-vid at the universities of Eichstätt (Germany), Fribourg and Zürich (Switzerland).
what the heck are you on about this being the first mercenary company, mercenary armies have been obscenely commonplace since antiquity. all over ancient greek history. the army in xenophons anabasis is a mercenary army.
Mercenaries where arround since ancient times, maybe nto often as comapnies, but they existed. 2 examples: Medjay 1570-154 4 BCE, Mamertines 361-289 BC (the ones sparking for the first Punic War).
CORRECTION: what they shouted before attacking wasn’t “awake iron, lets kill, lets kill!” It was “Aur, aur... Desperta ferro” meaning: “listen, listen, awake iron!”, they also shouted: “Aragon, Aragon!” Their royal house And “San Jorge!” Meaning Saint George, their royal house saint protector.
Thank you for spending the time to research this and create a comprehensive video. Ive been very interested with this topic for a while now, but found most interesting sources in spanish!
I wish you showed the battles against the turks, or until they reached Cilicia. I always wondered how they overcame larger, more mobile and better equipped enemies. They knew how to adapt the terrain. Only another Iberian Company can beat an Iberian Company haha
Kind of a sad watch, seeing the death of walled cities. Also pretty wild thinking of these armies smashing apart walls that would now be considered priceless material history. My hometown in hungary has a medieval wall, and I love it so much.
Pretty much ahahahah in spanish catalan folklore we have a book, "Tirant lo Blanc" about a knightly guy fighting for honor in the byzantine empire and winning the hand of a princess, when it was all about money and killing just as almost any other medieval war
Given how you handle history, I bet "The first mercenary company in history" really just means "the first mercenary company in medieval Europe." I wouldn't be surprised if there were organized mercenary companies that preceded them in China or India or Persia, but to y'all history RU-vidrs if it didn't happen in or to Europe it just didn't happen.
Not our fault those cultures didn’t right anything down. It’s pathetic when other cultures hate on the west because we know and have appreciated our history for so long. We like history so much we invented archeology to learn what we didn’t know. Then we took those techniques to learn as much of world history as we can. And found the rest of the world doesn’t keep records and even care about history. Then you say we are racist because our history is known and yours is not. I find when other cultures are jealous of western culture they usually try to call us racist. And it’s everyone else in the world that is always trying to say things like we had great buildings when London was a fishing village. Making European history the benchmark culture of the world. People like you did that not Europeans. Instead of complaining about the lack of historical data for the rest of the world why don’t you go out and find evidence to fill in the blanks.
@@kennethmays8059I feel like it's the younger generation of countries who grew up on the Internet being fed with propaganda that the West is the most racist place in the world. Brainwash them when they're impressionable, and you get a stout fanatic.
@@hyperthulean8649 Medjay 1570-1544 BCE, Mamertines 361-289 BC (the ones sparking for the first Punic War). Mercenaries where arround since ancient times, maybe nto often as comapnies, but they existed.
The Almogavars are one of the most interesting military units in history. They were equipped as light infantry but they had the skills and the courage to confront and defeat all kinds of military units, including the most feared knights of the time. They fought large armies in open battle and conducted sieges, always successfully. The book from Muntaner is a fascinating account of their adventures.
Well, yes but actually no hahahaha we just became as soft and cosmopolite as any other Western society😅 You guys at least still have that fearlessness when doing manifestations like t'he almogàvers did when unpaid😂
While this channel has dedicated videos on Free Companies, a brief introduction and definition in this video would have been helpful. Especially since the Catalans are presented as a potentially the first Free Company. This would establish context and avoid any "um, actually-" moments from viewers who might not be familiar with the terms or ideas.
i get it, germans really really want to be the ones who "defeated" rome, but it was the ottomans and it was in 1453. now that you've been properly educated please act accordingly and stop calling the romans, "byzantines." signed: the rest of us who are not into german supremacy.
Ignore me being german, but you need to be able to distinguish the romans, the eastern romans and the by then mostly greek influenced byzantines, from a historian perspective, even though they allways called themselves Rhomaoi.
While I agree with what you're trying to say, which could have been a simple line of "Roman, not Byzantine", you wrote it in the most utterly neckbeard Redditor way humanely possible and have made everyone who reads your comment either laugh or embarrassed for you.
stop trying to sound clever... you're still a kid and you're making up a chymerical issue and throwing in silly pop culture phrases that have no basis in reality.
Well yes it wasnthe ottomans who defeated rome it wasnt in 1453 it was in 1457 when athens was conquered as that was the last roman hold out. If you wanna do an uhm ackthually comment make sure its right
Catalans can visit Mount Athos again since year 2000, after Catalan government paid 200k as war reparations. We don't forget nor forgive the despicable Greek betrayal
Excellent thesis, fantastic presentation, and a very good defence of it. I differ in thought, and humbly submit a different hypothesis in the spirit of mutual academic respect and goodwill. The male chromosome we have today lived in Neanderthal populations while the first wave of Homo sapiens out of Africa went extinct. It was picked back up in the second wave of Homo Sapiens emigration. Denisovan dna has been identified in Neanderthals and an actual hybrid was discovered. This suggests the possibility of a more than tangential interbreeding of species. When we also compare behaviour of the closest genetic species to human, they have entered the Stone Age, and war is unknown along with homicides, while the hunting of other species for meat is a common occurrence. Pan Paniscus make love and not war. Resources in their environment are abundant so when separate groups meet, the extreme brutal violence that Pan Troglodyte exhibit is absent, and the free mixing of genetic material helped prevent genetic bottlenecks. I hypothesize that war entered our species when access to resources became precarious and social value transitioned from the ability to acquire resources and share them, to one’s ability to acquire resources and cache them. When a wild animal is taken from its natural environment, it will not behave like it does in its natural environment, as it is with humans. Thank you for the time I spent thinking about this topic, I really appreciate it.
@blakebailey22 At what point did they use AI art??? SandRhoman History is well known for their exceptional, historically accurate, and well-crafted soldier/character designs and artworks. They pay a lot of money for the designs, and their quality reflects that
0:53 In 1250 Biscay, Guipuzcoa and Alava were not part of the Kingdom of Navarra. Biscay became part of the Castilian Crown in 1184. Guipuzcoa and Alava in 1200.
@@fedecano7362 A ver, para empezar se llamaba Corona de ARAGON, por algo, y no meramente porque la "A" de "Aragon viniera antes que la "C" de "Cataluña". Segundo, se le olvida que la Corona de ARAGON estaba tambien conformada, aparte de por Aragon y Cataluña, por Valencia, las Baleares,los condados del sur de Francia, Sicilia y Napoles (aunque la ultima se incorporara posteriormente). De verdad esta intentando dar a entender que TODOS esos lugares no eran sino un oscuro paramo intelectual y cultural, alumbrados por la centelleante cultura y marea de ideas generadas en Cataluña? Hagaselo mirar, por favor...... Finalmente, y puesto que TODAVIA estabamos en la edad media, y llegada del estado-nacion aun se haria esperar una temporada, le recuerdo que CATALUÑA, como entidad politica, no existia, ni se la esperaba. Se trataba de una serie de estados feudales (el mas importante de lo cuales era el condado de Barcelona), con una cultura y lengua comun, conectados por un complicado entramado de lealtades personales, a cuya cabeza resultaba estar el rey de ARAGON (y antes de salte usted, ya le confirmo que España, tenia la misma entidad que Cataluña en esa epoca, o sea, NINGUNA) Pretender que Cataluña (o España) era(n) un pais en aquella epoca es como decir que Grecia era un pais durante las guerras medicas. No hijo, no.......... La historia, ya es una disciplina lo suficiemente imprecisa como para que encima venga aqui el personal a manipularla para adecuarla a sus humedos sueños adolescentes de naciones milenarias que, a lo mas que llegan es a 300 o 400 años de antiguedad (que tampoco esta mal, oiga!). Si quiere usted pertencer a una nacion milenaria cuyo origen se pierda en la niebla del tiempo, le recomiendo China, o Egipto.
@@jorgebarriosmur no se llamaba corona de aragon, ese nombre aparece hasta el siglo XVII. bastante mas tarde que los hechos descritos, se llamaban por separado por que eran estados diferentes, tanto aragon como cataluña como valencia etc.. la compañia se llamo catalana por que esta fue impuslada i financiada por la burgesia barcelonesa.(era una compañia de mercenarios no un ejercito regular) de ahi el nombre, aunque si hubo aragoneses y valencianos en la compañia no les parecio importar mucho el nombre entonces, no como ahora. ademas el principado de cataluña ya existia en ese tiempo. y ese nombre ya aparece en la cronica de ramon muntaner, haciendo alusion como catalanes a veces, hasta los valencianos por lo que puedo leer sabes bastante poco sobre el tema en cuestion, pero de pedanteria sabes mucho mas
It's misleading to discuss the Catalan Grand Company as the first mercenary company in history. True mercenary companies, not just ad hoc aggregations of mercenaries, had been present in Europe for over one hundred years. In thirteenth century Italy, there are a plethora of examples of city states signing condotte with mercenary leaders who led autonomous bands of soldiers. Perhaps more interesting, however, are some of the bands of Brabançon mercenaries who demonstrated more continuity than English language scholarship has afforded them in the past. One particular band was led by a relapsed cleric or former notary, William of Cambrai, for ten years. The band first appears in 1167 under the service of Frederick Barbarossa during his campaign into Italy in which it notably fought in the Battle of Tusculum. The band reappears in sources in 1177, still under the leadership of William, suffering a defeat at Malemort in which William was killed. Even after this, however, the band continued under the leadership of Lobar the Wolf, who was possibly the predecessor to the more famous Mercadier.
I think this video is a great introduction to the Catalan great company, but it is a bit too cursory to cover such an interesting topic. Wish more had been said regarding the fascinating background of Roger de Flor. Also, I think you negated to mention important political factors in the assassination of Roger by not mentioning Michael IX Palaiologos and his jealousy of Roger as well as the the disgruntled nature of the Alan mercenaries and their leader, Gircon. For anyone interested in getting a true overview of the Catalan Grand Company, I would recommend reading Muntaner's great chronicle.
I see so many people commenting that he’s dumb and there are mercenaries before him. He’s talking about the first literal business company that someone started as mercenaries as a business. Read the title use your brain.
