[Steppes] Period Week in Review 07-16 thru 07-22-2006

[Mike]

Heilsa,

Hope the reader will enjoy this look at History
within Period - both from the past and the present
as it affects the history that is known today.

Week in Review 07-16 through 07-22:

July 16th:
Islam  0601 - 0700
On July 16th, 0622   Islamic Era began. The Prophet Mohammed
begins his Hijra from Mecca to Medina. This marks the beginning
of the Islamic calendar. Muhammad, preaching the doctrines of
one God (called Allah) and the threat of the Day of Judgment,
did not at first have much success in the city of Mecca. His tribe,
the Quraysh, which was in charge of the Kaaba, persecuted
and harassed him continuously. He and his followers
emigrated to the city of Yathrib, 320 km north of Mecca, in
September 622. Yathrib was soon renamed Madinat un-Nabi,
the City of the Prophet, Medina in English. The Muslim year
during which the Hijra occurred was designated the first year
of the Islamic calendar by Umar in 638, 17 AH (anno hegirae
= "in the year of the hijra"). In the following chronology the city
will be referred to as Medina, and the region surrounding it
as Yathrib. The Muslim dates are in the Islamic calendar
extended back in time. The Western dates are in the Julian
calendar. The Hijra is celebrated annually on 8 Rabi' I,
about 66 days after 1 Muharram, the first day of the Muslim
year. Many writers confuse the first day of the year of the Hijra
with the Hijra itself, erroneously stating that the Hijra occurred
on 1 Muharram AH 1 or 16 July 622.


July 17th:
Italy  1001 - 1100
On July 17th, 1048 - Damasus II appointed Pope. Damasus II,
born Poppo, Pope from July 17, 1048 to August 9, 1048, was
the second of the German pontiffs nominated by Emperor Henry III
(1039-56). A native of Bavaria, he was the third German to become
Pope. His original name was Poppo, and he was bishop of Brixen
when the Emperor raised him to the papacy. His pontificate,
however, was of short duration. After the brief space of
twenty-three days, he died at Palestrina, whither he had gone
shortly after the installation to escape the summer heat of Rome.
The Pope was buried in S. Lorenzo fuori le mura. The shortness
Damasus II's reign led to rumors that he had been poisoned,
but it is more likely that he died of malaria.


July18th:
Roman Empire  0401BC - 0300BC
On July 18th, 390 BC - Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia.
The Battle of the Allia was a battle of the first Gallic invasion of Italy.
The battle was fought near the Allia river: the defeat of the Roman
army opened the route for the Gauls to sack Rome. According to
the common (but incorrect) Varronian chronology, the battle took
place on July 18, 390 BC, but a more plausible date is 387.
About 40,000 Romans under Quintus Sulpicius fought against
the Senones, a Gallic tribe who were about equal in number,
under Brennus. The Romans, with six legions, took post on the
Allia to check the advance of the Senones on Rome. The
Roman army at this time was very similar to a Greek phalanx
battle line, with heavy hoplites in the center (representing the
richer Roman citizens) and extending to flanks with poorer and
poorly armed citizens (every soldier was required to supply his
own equipment). When the Gauls attacked, the Roman flanks
routed leaving the Roman center to be surrounded and
slaughtered. Many of Rome's older citizens made up this center
and they would be sorely missed in the coming calamity. It is
conjectured that there was no effective wall around the larger
city prior to the siege because Rome's earlier Etruscan rulers
may have forced the Romans to dismantle significant defenses.
As a result of the siege and near total destruction of Rome,
Rome built the much stronger Servian Wall. The Romans
also began restructuring their military organization: They ceased
using the Greek phalanx style spear and adopted the gladius and
better armor, such as replacing the bronze helmet for polished
iron, which caused swords to be deflected. The legions were
also reorganized. Recognizing the need for flexibility, the legion
was organized into three lines of soldiers: the hastati in front,
the principes in the middle, and the triarii in the rear. Now the
richer citizens, who made up the triarii would be safer as a
reserve, leaving the main fighting to younger men. These
reforms would be in place until Publius Cornelius Scipio.
The defeat at the hands of the Gauls was the last time that the
city of Rome was captured by non-Roman forces until the waning
days of the Roman Empire, more than seven centuries later.


July 19th:
Modern Day  England
On July 19th, 2006   British outbred by Anglo-Saxon 'apartheid'.
Britain - The Anglo-Saxons who conquered England in the fifth
century set up a system of apartheid that enabled them to master
and outbreed the native British majority, according to gene
research published on Wednesday. In less than 15 generations,
more than half of the population in England had the genes of the
invaders, investigators say. The Anglo-Saxons - Germanic tribes
who lived in present-day Germany, northern Holland and
Denmark - invaded Britain in 450 AD after the fall of the Roman
empire. They conquered England but were unable to penetrate
far into the Celtic fringes of what are now Wales and Scotland.
They coincidentally prompted an exodus of Britons to what is
now Brittany, France. The population of England at that time
was probably around two million while the number of
Anglo-Saxons was minute: the lowest estimate puts the number
of migrants at less than than 10 000 some 200 years after the
invasion, although others put it at more than 100 000. How could
such a tiny minority have ruled a country so emphatically? How
could it skirt assimilation with the native British majority and
impose a language, laws, economy and culture whose stamp
is visible today? The answer, suggest Thomas and colleagues:
an "apartheid-like social structure" that enshrined Anglo-Saxons
as the master and the native Britons (called "Welshmen", from
the Germanic word for slave) as the servants. Evidence for this
comes from ancient texts, including the laws of Ine, the late
seventh-century ruler of Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in
western England. Ine set down payments of "wergild", or blood
money, that was payable to a family for the killing of one of its
members in order to prevent a blood feud. If an Anglo-Saxon
was killed, the wergild was between two and five times more
than the fine payable for the life of a "Welshman" of comparable
status. Burial sites also provide a pointer about economic and
social disparity. The skeletal remains of men believed to be
Anglo-Saxons are often found alongside a weapon or other
precious artefacts, whereas those of native Britons are usually
weaponless and have only one or two objects. Apartheid is best
known today for the notorious racial segregation that prevailed
in white-minority South Africa. But the authors point out that
there are many other examples in history, when conquerors
or settlers used such controls to avoid assimilation, nurture
their identity and maintain their political, military or economic
supremacy over an ethnic majority. By the time of King Alfred
the Great in the ninth century, the differences in legal status
between Anglo-Saxons and Britons had faded out altogether.
Two centuries later, the Normans invaded England and
imposed their own apartheid, giving themselves higher legal
status than the Britons and allowing Norman men to marry
native women but preventing native men from marrying Norman women.


July 20th:
Germany  1301 - 1400
On July 20th, 1351  Margaretha Ebner, German visionary died.
Born of rich parents at Donauworth, in 1291, she received a
thorough classical education in her home, and later entered the
Dominican order convent at Maria-Medingen near Dillingen,
where she was received 1306. In 1312 she was dangerously
ill for three years, and subsequently for a period of nearly
seven years she was most of the time at the point of death.
Hence she could exercise her desire for penance only by
abstinence from wine, fruit, and the bath. On her return from
home, whither she had gone during the campaign of Louis the
Bavarian, her nurse died, and Margaretha grieved inconsolably,
until Henry of Nördlingen assumed her spiritual direction in 1332.
The correspondence that passed between them is the first
collection of this kind in the German language. At his command
she wrote with her own hand a full account of all her revelations
and intercourse with the Infant Christ, as also all answers which
she received from Him even in her sleep. This diary is preserved
in a manuscript of the year 1353 at Medingen. She also had
extensive correspondance with Johannes Tauler. From her letters
and diary we learn that she never abandoned her adhesion to
Louis the Bavarian, whose soul she learned in a vision had
been saved.


July 21st:
Byzantine  1401 -1500
On July 21st, 1425, Manuel Palaeologus, was Byzantine emperor
from 1391 to 1425. and writer, died. Manuel II stood on friendly
terms with the victor in the Ottoman civil war, Mehmed I
(1402-1421), but his attempts to meddle in the next contested
succession led to a new assault on Constantinople by Murad II
(1421-1451) in 1422. During the last years of his life, Manuel II
relinquished most official duties to his son and heir John VIII
Palaiologos, and in 1424 they were forced to sign a peace
treaty with the Ottoman Turks, whereby the Byzantine Empire
undertook to pay tribute to the sultan. Manuel II was the author
of numerous works of varied character, including letters, poems,
a Saints' Life, treatises on theology and rhetoric, and an
epitaph for his brother Theodore I Palaiologos.


July 22nd:
Switzerland  1401 - 1500
On July 22nd, 1499   Battle of Dornach - The Swiss decisively
defeat the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I. This concluded
 the Swabian War, between the Swiss and the Swabian League,
and amounted to de-facto independence of Switzerland from
the Holy Roman Empire, acknowledged by Maximilian in the
Treaty of Basel on 22 September (the independence was
however not formally recognized until the Peace of Westphalia
of 1648). On 19 July, Imperial troops marching on Dorneck
castle are sighted, and Solothurn calls Berne for help. Berne
sent 5000 troops, Zurich 400, and smaller contingents from
Uri, Unterwalden and Zug also started to move to Dornach.
On 20 July 600 troops left Lucerne. The first attacks on
July 22 are executed by the troops of Berne, Zurich and
Solothurn, but they are beaten back. Only with the arrival
of the reinforcements from Lucerne and Zug, which
suddenly break out of the woods "with horns and shouting"
are the Imperial troops turned to flight, after several hours'
fighting. The commander of the Imperial troops, Heinrich
von Fürstenberg, was killed at the early stages of fighting.
When Maximilian in Überlingen heard about the lost battle,
he was reportedly devastated by the news. The battle of
Dornach was the last armed conflict between the Swiss
and the Holy Roman Empire.


YIS,

Lord Michael Kettering
 Combat Archer for the Condottieri