The Better Part of Humankind: Aristocrats in Late Antiquity 

Yes we’ll talk about it in later videos. One of the key books on the subject is War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture

@@TheFallofRome Awesome, love the channel!

Yes there is definitely a mix. Christianity arises out of a strong blend of multiple cultures, not just Judaism

Yep. Starts with the Jews, goes to the Greeks, spreads through the Roman World, and then the Germanic tribes get involved. Going further, Christianity in the Americas, Africa, or Asia would be different than Christianity in Europe.

My first time seeing him as well, and I didn't know what to expect, but for some reason it wasn't this normal looking dude, with a voice like that I was expecting a very large specimen of a man... ;-)

While it is not the primary topic, they do discuss that at some length here. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZR-paFQ76HY.html

@@nevisysbryd7450 thanks, I'll check it out

It would take time for me to track down the actual sources, but we have many letters and other private documents, as well as sources like joke books etc which allow us to get insight into this topic. For a useful secondary source I’d suggest Sex and Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture by Skinner, and A History of Private Life by Vayne

Sure thing! I’ll add some in the description

I suggest Peter Brown’s 1978 book, “The Making of Late Antiquity.” It’s also a small book with a big impact. It discusses the shift in the world view of the urban aristocrat from a “classical” world of the city state and the immediacy of the gods, public and private, during the Republic and to the Late Roman world where power for the individual becomes distant and almighty vis a vis the State and the Christian God.

All identities of all types share a similar assumption. Less explicitly, sure.

@@spring-heeledjack3340 Indeed, it is human nature for each of us to believe we do what we do because in doing it it makes us better than all the other people who don't behave in that 'superior' manner. Even in claiming another person is being arrogance is in its own way an act of 'superiority', in that you believe yourself to be superior to the other because you do not think yourself to be 'arrogant'.

I see that simple division to be overly simplistic. Society, like any organisation (e.g. a corporation, a church, or any other structure of human beings) needs to have many layers of delegation of power from the top to the bottom. In a typical large industrial or financial corporation, you will have an executive, then many layers of management, and then the workers at the bottom of the layer (but even amongst the workers there will be a hierarchy). So too, with an empire (or other political entity) you need to have an executive (the Emperor), then layers of management (the nobility and aristocracy) and then various layers of workers below them (in the classical world, most of the workers would have been slaves, just as they would have been in the Ottoman empire, although many higher class slaves would have done 'white collar' work). I do agree that the notion of 'middle class' is itself a bit undefinable, because there is more of a continuum of delegation of responsibility, so whether you divide that continuum into two or the groups is equally as arbitrary. The American idea of 'middle class' is made even more ambiguous when one looks at the American Myth that assumes anybody can rise to the executive (i.e. even someone from the lowest rank can one day become 'President') and so within that myth everybody becomes 'middle class'.

Nvm, I got to the 20 minute mark and saw the explanation.

This is Late Rome Also, Cultures will shift constantly, with perhaps the striking main basis staying. I mean, I’m sure the culture has changed a lot from 8th Century B.C to the 4-5th Century AD