beautifully put - and so true. . . i'm so tired of "news" - it's usually so negative. it's a bad influence as far as i'm concerned. but it is human nature at work, isn't it!? sigh. . .
I have seen several of this gentleman’s presentations. I must admit I thoroughly enjoy his most unique way of presenting his documentaries. From the camera shots to the most appropriate music selected. One can not help be caught up in the subject matter.
Little Dorrit I have no idea what you are talking about. I do know it is off the topic and says more about the person making such a left field statement then the presenter of this documentary.
Little Dorrit I have absolutely no idea of which you speak. The essence of who I am has nothing to do with any comments I make. And further more, I do not give ad hominem about people I have never met. It is very easy to throw statements out in the cover of darkness to faceless people. Have a nice day.
@@onitasanders7403 the ring is a thing LOL he wants us to see it and it's kind of childish, But I still like him and the content. As far as the essence of who you are has nothing to do with the comments you make though. Unless you are 'trolling' , which is fine. But otherwise it seems to be a logical disconnect to me
i love he is so low-tech as to point to pages in dictionaries and roll out a map on an unkempt shoreline --- just deliciously refreshing and old-school!
Professor Ward Perkins, in his book 'The fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation' states that in 380 AD the west was at a height of civilisation never seen before - Towns prospered, one could send a letter from York to Alexandria, villas prospered in the countryside, which was safe and free of banditry. Peasents and animals lived under tiled roofs, and ordinary people had access to quality, mass produced consumer items. By 430 AD all this had changed. All over the Western world buildings became smaller , made from perishable materials or reused stone and brick from demolished Roman buildings. Standing armies disbanded, and currencies went out of use. Huge tracts of farmland returned to forest, and roads fell into disuse. The term 'Dark Age' may be out of vogue at present, but there is no denying that after the Fall of the West there was a massive economic crash and population drop (concurrent to the political collapse of the central government) which did not level out until 800 AD. The economy and material culture of Western Europe did not return to 2nd century levels until the 14th century, and trans Mediterranean trade did not reach 2nd century levels until the early 18th century. This is a good documentary, but one cannot say, for example, 'How can this have been a Dark Age? Look at this lovely gold ornament made by the Huns'. Wonderful art can be created in any historical context, and does not neccesarily denote high civilisation. Moreover, the names of the craftsmen didn't make it to the historical record. The Mausoleum of Theodoric is a Roman building in every sense that matters. The regime in Italy may have been run by Ostrogoths, but the building itself shows all the signs of being designed and built in a classical style by experienced Roman builders - no doubt commissioned by the still functioning Roman Senate. High quality pottery may still have been made in a few places, but the general picture in Western Europe north of the Alps was a return to non wheel - turned pottery, of poor quality. Latin inscriptions, very common prior to 350 AD, lost their factual, archival nature and became mystical and church related. Also very rare. Mosaic production ended, stone buildings with tiled roofs did not reappear until 850, and bath houses became silted up and quarried for building stone. In the 530's an epidemic of the plague swept across the former western Roman Empire and its still existing eastern half, killing off an estimated 40 per cent of the population. This led to the final extinction of Roman material culture west of the Balkans, the rise of feudalism, and the conquest of all Roman provinces south of Anatolia by the Arabs. Commentators such as Gildas and Gregory of Tours were well aware that their world was a moribund and grim place compared to that of a century or so earlier. Interesting stuff may have happened, and wonderful art created, between 410 and 600 which paved the way for stuff that came later, but I'm afraid the Dark ages were actually a 'thing'. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iHduMbabjFM.html
Those doc's get old very quikly. Do not drust the narrative in whole! It is purely western vision that lefts out eastern aspect, and space of history. Enjoy, but be careful!
The Inca referred to gold as the sweat of the sun not the gods. This 'documentary' is full of inaccuracies and inconsistencies in just this episode alone, not to mention the rest of them..
I wear black. Cause i am orthodox munk living, and working in civilian, and i cant wear my robe on streets or in my workplace. Troublesome in streets, forbidden at work place in university. Some have thought that I am old Goth... or satanist (black)... what a fun is living in those modern times!
@@raunothomas that must actually be very funny to; being mistaken for a satanist, i imagine you silently chuckle in your own head and peoples ignorance. Sorry you are not free to wear what you like but also perhaps it is good that you respect the workplace and have an alternative to express yourself (I’m guessing not your native homeland) i know were talking religion but just for giggles, I’m sure we would all agree that we would not want the Nudist showing up in his preferred garb in the workplace!
@@judaprinxbeatz.8008 nah.. original goths came from todays Bosnia... if you ant to learn about real goths, you should learn Bosnia hystory, our anicent tomb stones Stecaks, about aour medival religion pre Islam we adhered Arijan Bosnian Church by the name of bogumilizam, i have video about that on my chanel... and there is our old alphabet caled Bosančica, it is the same alphabet like in this theodorics bible from 4st
I'm quite not on the same page, he's really beginning to annoy me, waddling about and speaking English like a Castillian speaks Spanish. I admire your Higher Mind.
My mother's maiden name is Beard...Barber... Barbarian... my grandfather told me they were nomads who eventually ended up in France/ the Franks, then later entering Great Britain and on to America. Ironically, my family was full of barber's and hair dressers.
Maybe learning proper English would help? What expertise do you have on the subject? How are you so sure that his map is wrong? Are you an archeologist? Are you a cartographer? No? Then your opinion means nothing.
@@MrKlingvall so just being a Swede is your only qualification? Guess what? That makes me an expert too, since my great grandfather emigrated from Sweden. Also, a quick internet search shows your "it's history" claim to be dubious, at best.
23:00 Attila drunk to death. Don’t you think this is also a made-up story? He was murdered by the new bride, Ildikó, who was NOT a hun. There are some other points I need to mark: you missed a very important point: the huns were just a part of the much earlier scythian empire from the period for several hundreds of years before. Alans, vandals and other folks were all scythians, and therefore their gold art was similar. Scythian/hun gold treasures exist from a period from long before the Romans. Scull deformation was used by the royals, yes -- but your reference to the Paracas scull maybe is a bit long fetched. Otherwise I am glad to see, that someone dares to talk about demonisation, wich still exist.
Well, Scythian were definitly indo-European, their language a subset of Iranian language, and they had very peculiar culture. None of those material is found in hunic world to the best of my knowledge. More evidenced point to more east, into Turkic-Mongolic world. Their horse archery, their armor and appearance is more eastern. Vandals were Germanic, can’t connect them to schytians.
What else, he shows Hun cauldrons in the Hungarian National Museum, rightly, but unfortunately he hasn't seen the SAME HUN cauldrons all over on China, where the so called Xiongnu people lived, so consequently he misses the origin of "European" Huns. They are the same!
Villo Varga - Xiongnu is the eastern huns in Chinese. Xiungali (the western huns) is Hungary in Chinese - today. He also missed the point that Attila could have destroyed Rome if he wanted, like other barbarians did - but unlike other barbarians he wanted and made peace with the Pope.
@@Csilla417 Attila could have destroyed the Romans like Napoleon could have destroyed Russia. They didn't because they couldn't and they didn't want to because it wasn't in their interest. As the great sage said, "if you go to war it will destroy a great army." Because warring is ultimately a bad thing.
I don't understand one thing about the feminine picture of Jesus, the same which was discussed in the first part of this documentary. In the first part, mr. Januszczak says that such appearance of Jesus is due to lack of female element in the religious system (The mother Mary wasn't involved yet), but here in the second part (at cca 42th min) he says that Jesus' look was based on arianistic doctrine saying that Jesus was less saint than his father - the God. Are both claims true or is it somehow a contradiction?
And FYI the "Dark Ages" are called "Dark" mostly beacuse they were "dark" for the barbaric kingdoms and their descendants. Everything was quite enlightened in Roman Empire. So they idea that barbarians are denied of their supposedly great culture is ridiculous. Their cultural achievement was adoption of Roman culture. In fact even the "barbarian" art, like jewelry, was made by Roman masters, lol, often as gifts, bribes, ransoms for the barbarian chiefs.
This is, by far, the best documentary I've seen about the dark ages. So rich with insight and fascinating perspectives, plus a touch of practical realism. That's probably an oxymoron btw.
@@trainwreck420ish oh here we go again, can't have anything with just white people in 🙄🙄 Bet if he done a documentary about let's say China, you wouldn't complain about the lack of white or black people would ya 🙄🙄.
@@trainwreck420ish The mosaics from Carthage at @30:27 speak for themselves, you can see some color differences... Considering that most of the "workers" in that mosaic were slaves, you get a much better idea of who was who.
You should really do some more studying. While entertaining this is more about entertainment. He chooses his facts selectively to persuade you to believe his point of view.
I had no idea that the Huns made such beautiful jewelry and ornaments. Also that they deformed their heads as some of the Incan ancestors did. Great documentary.
42:00 Dude in the *previous episode* you talked about this exact same mosaic and said the Jesus was feminized to bring a gender balance in prior to the Virgin Mary performing that function and Constantine changing his character model to one based on Zeus instead of Apollo, as this beardless, youthful, earlier version was. And now in the very next episode you've apparently forgotten all that and are claiming that his "flaccid" (rather than feminized) body was to make him more relatable to the Goths? Come on. Keep the story straight, or at least say that the Goths preferred the Apollo-based version because they found it more relatable (if the mosaic post-dates Constantine's upgrade), or that, as discussed in the previous episode *in some depth* that this was the earlier, Apollo-based version. But don't give two completely different, unrelated reasons for his look and act like each one is *the* definitive reason without referencing the other, especially the second time around. It makes it look like both designs were around concurrently and the Goths deliberately chose this version (or even came up with it!), and completely invalidates your previous statements about this mosaic's design.
In this short doc. He have not presented even a piece of facts we know. He is somewhat dangerous, if wiewrs think they know, after watching it. History changes as quikly as our own reality.
It's not a contradiction at all. Between the 'feminine' and 'flaccid' (or 'average-man') Jesus there is 200 years. The early Apollonian iconography comes before the catholicism, but the Vizigoth one is another cult the Arian christianity, which had choosen those imagery on theological purpose (Jesus: God, divine or human? - one of the first - and longest lasting - christian theological debates).
Roman chariot racing must have been a fabulous spectacle. The amount of horses per chariot, the light weight vehicles and confined oval course would have led to extreme speed and excitement. Even though death and injury were fairly common, if there was one sport I'd love to see reintroduced it would be this one.
@@XJonAye You'd think wrong, Rome even held enormous "sea" battles orchestrated on manmade lake colloseums. One of the larger ones even having been said to feature more combatants and combat ships than most actual sea battles at the time. Unless you're trying to say that the chariots you saw at the fair were probably not authentic, in that case you're most likely correct.
in portuguese, "barbarian" has a negative and a positive meaning as adjective. A "barbarian crime" is an awfully cruel crime. But something "barbarian" may be like "amazing, incredible, fascinating" used as an interjection or adjective. "The party was barbarian!" or you look at a masterpiece and exclaim: "wow! barbarian!". Not used by young people I must say
THE PRODUCERS of this show are wrong: Egyptians, Carthaginians, Greeks, were not considered Barabarians, but CIVILIZED. A Persian Emperor was even addressed as an EQUAL, as "brother" by a Roman Emperor.
I just stumbled on this series and I have to say I love this guy! (what a name eh?!) I think he is hysterical....I imagine he must be a hoot to have around the house...
I wish I was mature enough to watch this all of the way through without laughing Hysterically every time he Says Barf House. Took me a few times of his enunciaion to realize he was saying Bath House! I gotta get me a new brain!
I thought wimpy Jesus looked that way because they wanted more feminine representation? At least, that's what you said last time. But, that's none of my business, I suppose *sips tea*
I know it is a bit obnoxious to criticize someone’s grammar on the internet, but you need a closing comma around the parenthetical in the last sentence. I say this because it is such a charming sentence. Please forgive me!
@@isaachughes8130 I think that's a younger mosaic. It looks exactly like another very famous Jesus mosaic, I bet they just copied that one when it was in fashion. Much like the censored ostrogoths, basically nothing in that church is original except for that ceiling mosaic.
For a series all about explicating culture, he wildly misrepresents modern goths who have no inherent association with Satanism. Also, they derive their name from later applications of the term "gothic" quite distant from the ancient tribes called "goths." And I don't for a moment believe he doesn't know all this. So, why be so determined to misrepresent modern culture while illuminating ancient cultures?
But generally speaking the horseshoe arch is accepted as having its origins in Spain in the fifth century - post Roman, pre-Islamic - of Visigoth design. Other examples elsewhere did not result in the form becoming common or standardised. Islamic architecture then improved and perfected the form.
Not true at all. Horseshoe arch has BYZANTINE origins, and was very typical of V-VI century style. It was adopted by Arabs when they conquered Middle East well before they invaded Spain. And coastal Spain (including Valencia) was reconquered by Justinian in VI century and held by Byzantine for another century.
The heroic "barbarians" had laws and made beautiful objects. The Celts and Gauls shod their horses, the Romans did not know what hoof irons were. The Celts invented chainmail and wore trousers, the Romans wore skirts. The Treviri invented a harvest machiene, the Romans used slaves. The Romans were wont to bury alive a man & woman from Gaul on the forum Boarii. The Romans severed the hands of rebelling tribes. Barbarians, eh?
“I discovered this was the site of Atilla’s palace just after I bought it so now I want to make it a tourist attraction”, is, uh, an interesting progression of events.
Take a trip to Transylvania. You'll never want to see another vampire movie again. Historical exploitation is a common theme in a lot of European countries. At least Americans have the decorum to create amusement attractions on swamp land with no historical value.
@@letolethe5878 one, read my comment again, it's called "sarcasm". Two, I was talking about amusement parks on American soil. Three, having literally traveled the world as an American, I can assure you that we aren't the most disliked tourists around the globe. The Chinese and French are pretty well disliked, as are a few other nationalities.
Atilla, "Scourge of God" and my 44th great-grandfather. Thrasamund, 4th king of the Vandals, my 43rd great-grandfather. Theodoric I "The Great", 47th great-grandfather.
And so the bloodline continues: J Turtle, the YT commenter. But seriously, not many people know their family tree, let alone it's roots, that's pretty interesting!
As a genealogist, I can tell you all that, if you are of European descent, you are likely a direct descendant of Charlemagne, Attila, and Emperor Constantine, etc. It's simple arithmetic.
Huh? Wait, you said in the first part of this series that the reason why Jesus looked so doughy and feminine in that mosaic is because the early Christians didn’t have a female deity to worship so they depicted Jesus and some androgynous person containing male and female qualities. So which is it? While these videos are entertaining, they seem to be very dubious factually😒
He was a European, not a Roman. Barbarian meant, as was pointed out in the documentary, "Anyone anywhere who wasn't a Roman." The Greeks had a similar definition during their time before the rise of Rome, and their artwork always portrayed barbarians as wearing trousers, something they thought was backwards and unnatural.
Whew, so many critics on this video! I actually find it interesting and informative. Plus, a good narrator and narrative will only whet your appetite for further research. But I guess the commenters who criticize don't need to do that because they already know everything there is to know about this fascinating, underrepresented period of European history.
@@tdsims1963 Unfortunately, most of the haters are hating because Waldemar's world class art history scholarship challenges their twisted religious beliefs told to them by tax avoiding preachers who have their own agenda
@01:19 The oldest known trousers were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang, western China and dated to the period between the 10th and the 13th centuries BC.
My guy who was helping his friend climb the statue in The Sack of Rome painting has some of the best post battle hair ever!!! Are we sure the didn't invent hairspray along with those trousers. I mean those curls were bouncing and behaving lol
*The Dark Ages: An Age of Light* All four episodes in one video: Waldemar Looks At The Dark Ages In A New Light | Age Of Light: Full Series | Perspective Episode one: Waldemar Januszczak Explores The Art Of The Dark Ages | Age of Light | Timeline Original title: "The Clash of the Gods" Episode two: Why Are The Barbarians So Misunderstood? | An Age Of Light | Timeline Original title: "What the Barbarians Did for Us" Episode three: The Wondrous Architecture Of The Dark Ages | An Age Of Light | Timeline Original title: "The Wonder of Islam" Episode four: The Hidden Wonders Of Dark Ages Craftsmanship | An Age Of Light | Timeline Original title: "The Men of the North"
yes, great documantry, love it. but there is one fact in this episode that is interpretated not correctly. germans in britain were not called huns because of geographic background, but for a speach their empiror held in 1900 to soldiers sent to an expedition in china. he told them to behave like the huns, not grant any pardon and make no prisoners.
It's SUPPOSED to be humorous people! Geez. Wake up- historians of all sorts are rarely completely objective, if ever. It's impossible! And if he was, the production would bore you to death.
Really, How did you figure that? I see nothing funny in it, in fact a lot of it is ill informed twaddle. hisotry is not meant to be entertaining. It is emnat to be factual. This guy is full of pretentious opinions.
@@samdowner1792 - I think history can be factual and entertaining. In fact, I find real insight and scholarship very stimulating. Unfortunately, this documentary is just a bunch of hogwash. A lot of people love counterintuitive thinking and are easily convinced by assertions that dispute established facts. That's all this documentary is, and it's thoroughly inaccurate.
After watching so many history documentaries recently, I'm starting to think humans are addicted to controlling others. Control their day-to-do doings; relationships; thoughts and histories. Look at these peoples from older times, they spent a lot of time writing history books that only spoke about their good points, while trying to tear down others. When I was younger, I thought the Goths and Huns were really bad people, but now ... I don't think so at all. Maybe some of their tactics were quite brutal, but probably no worse than others of the time. We humans are pretty crazy lol.
| Maybe some of their tactics were quite brutal, but probably no worse than others of the time. We humans are pretty crazy lol. Well there were not many massacreing entire cities of populations upwards of a 100k and then torching them, at least not as consistently as the huns/mongolians. Don't get me wrong, it had a purpose, namely that they didn't have enough people to control their vast empire and as a deterrent (they would give very leasurely terms to cities that surrendered without a fight). But, overall it was an unseen amount of brutality.
Fun fact: they never found any documents and plans to organise and systematically exterminate millions of jews at the camps. It's all based off anecdotes of survivors at the camps and confessions forced by torture. History really is written by the victors, and this sense of guilt has been exploited to controll people for too long.
I'm writing this only 1/2 thru episode 2, and I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed the documentary so far. However, that said, there's a number of fallacies about this that is apparent. The most obvious is that, the host, in order to make his argument about focusing on the art of the 'dark ages' and that it wasn't at all 'dark' (certainly a compelling argument in and of itself -- he does have a point. This was a term coined by later historians referencing the fall of Rome), brushes past literary sources and other major historical facts in order to push his agenda/hypothesis. This leads to other false narratives and fallacies, though interesting points being made, but none the less misleading.
I think the context that is lost on these uploaded videos is that the presenter is an art critic. I watched these when they were originally broadcast on BBC4 and they were very much framed and introduced as 'An Art Critic looks at Art from the Dark Ages'. Here they are introduced as general history docs, and that is confusing a lot of people.
Here I was having my own ducktale about the origin of the word Barbarian, I imagined them to be a tribe of hairdressers and when a roman person had his hair cut too short he labeled the barber a barbarian >
The use of a raft to transport the slab for the roof of Theodoric's mausoleum is probably wrong. Rafts have little buoyancy. If it couldn't be loaded into a ship, a ship would have been built around it.
Even though there exists so much hogwash on youtube it is always possible to come across enlightening documentaries oozing with quality, such as this one . If the narrator is not American and the music is not overly dramatic then we might be in for a treat. Thank you.
And all these years I thought Barbarians was a Roman word for the 'Berbers' of North Africa and Tunisia, Catos' favorite speech ending phrase 'Carthago must die' BCE250 needed a broad pejorative for western civilizations first governmentally organized genocide.
It's NOT the (Visi) Goths in "SPAIN" because 'Spain" didn't exist then. History is a science and has no place for anachronisms. The geographic denomination is IBERIAN PENINSULA.
I will answer this (title question) in one sentence, before watching, it is very simple. Because every empire just adopted that term to mean anyone or group without an army big enough to overthrow them no matter where they were from.
Be weary ye who reads on "newest", silliness prevails in the comments southward. Risk ye mind for humor, yes? Tread cautiously for fragile masculinity and modern politics dot the path. 🧙♂️
Barbarian comes from Berber, what ultimately comes from the word bearded. Not people who spoke babbel. Nobody ever begged the Romans for anything but their lives.
Pythagoras wore trousers, almost a thousand years prior to the VisiGoths appearing in the historical record, claiming they invented trousers rather throws everything else into suspicion.
Trousers (anaxyrides) where known to nomadic peoples and to their descendents the Persians. The Goths where in contact with the steppe peoples and Pythagoras was for a time a slave in Babylon, under Persian rule. From there he took his pants, his theories and his magics and presented them to the ignorant Greeks.
@@pseudomantis Bravo! You beat me to it. Pythagoras,the father of Western music,had some very Eastern ideas. I'm sure we could have a good,deep conversation on the Greeks/Persian influence,centuries before Alexander. Again,Bravo.
@@whothefoxcares he was working out the Angle of the Dangle....then he had a bath...No, that was Archimedes....(no wonder I failed Maths...too busy having a laugh. But that was well spotted.
In North America, the Indigenous people were called savages. Its the same story everywhere. Subjugated people, the enemy, are always referred to in dehumanizing terms. Nothing to do with Christianity. The Goths were not Christian nor were the Romans.
9:36 - this is one of the most beautiful crown i have ever seen - simple and glorious. . . 46:20 - incredibly beautiful musics. and all in tact. imagine what the ones we see in pieces must have been like before the entropy of time. . . 54:59 the crown - so beautiful - intricate and the colors of the stones. . . ao meaningful just in its being. . . not overdone nor plastered in precious stones, just simple design. the art - "something real and untutored, as if for the first time, we're hearing from the common man." 56:20
Susan and I were privelidged to spend 3 months in Budapest.. Some things you find out in only a short time that are not "tourist based.. The Hungarians are not Huns; they are Magyars. If you believe them' If you walk to the end of Andrassy St (modeled after the Champs Elysee) you will find "Hero's Square" They bear the stamp of the Holy Roman Empire. They were part of the Hapsburg dynasty but somewhat and independent. They competed for wonderful architecture and urban infrastructure with Vienna. As a result, they still think of Napoleon as a liberator. They claim that they were never complicit with the Nazi's. They were They claim that they were never complicit with the Soviets. They were. We lived in an one bedroom apartment on the 4th floor of a building dating from the 1880,s. All amenities included, the rent was about $30 per month. The most expensive and elaborate meal we had, including wine, cost less than the first meal we had at an American Chain restaurant on our return to N.J. Budapest is a very "walkable" City. at the end of 3 months, the last day we were there, we were finding new public art and new experiences.
10:00 When you speak of the hypnotic power of gold I understand exactly. Ive stared at the jewelry passed down in my family, thinking of how beautiful it is, how old the gold may actually well be recycled an untold amount of times and the death and bloodshed it may have been around. There is something strange about our attraction to it.
“Conan, what is the meaning of life?” Conan: “To CRUSH your enemy, and see them driven before you. And to hear the lamentation of their women and children.”
Nicely done, but the "misunderstood" barbarians theme is pushed too far. OK, the Huns were skilled goldsmiths, the Vandals enjoyed Roman baths (which they hired conquered Romans to build for them), but they left nothing in the way of literature, science, or any institution that lasted--because they were nomadic peoples at a lower stage of development, so were absorbed by the superior culture around them. Their principle achievement was the destruction of Western Rome, but Eastern Rome outlasted and outshone them easily.
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British ppl purposely mispronouncing foreign words, we all know they do this to try to feel superior but... “Geezer-Rick?” Taking it too far, bruh. The only geezer in this vid is the host/presenter.
When i saw that first time in tv - it was like fresh wind! Now, after digging more, and more into subject cause of my thesis.... I must say it is quite awful actually.
