istoryworld
England sophisticated
By the time of Richard II the English kingdom can hold its own in learning and the arts. The university of Oxford, which earlier in the century has produced William of Ockham (one of the last great figures of medieval scholasticism), is now buzzing with the radical notions of John Wycliffe. He dies in 1384, but his writings have a profound influence in Europe during the build-up towards the Reformation. In art and literature there is the same excellence. Richard II commissions some of the ...
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Henry IV
Contrary to this principle, Henry decides to intervene in 1610 in a dispute over the inheritance of the duchy of Jülich, close to the sensitive border between the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands. The Habsburg emperor Rudolf II is about to seize the duchy, and Henry IV is about to march against him, when Henry is assassinated in a Paris street by François Ravaillac (a Catholic whose precise motives are unclear).Henry is one of France's most popular kings. Four years after his death a ...
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Eastern monasticism
The monastic tradition of eastern Christianity remains true to its ascetic origins, with the discomfort of the hermitage carried to extremes in the strange tradition of the stylites. Even today the monasteries of the Coptic church of Egypt and Ethiopia, together with the Greek Orthodox communities of Mount Athos and Meteora in Greece and of St Catherine's below Mount Sinai, give the impression of subsisting at the furthest possible remove from the everyday life of fertile valleys. Celtic monasticism in the west has the same ...
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Two Anglo-Afghan Wars
In January 1842 the British garrison of some 4500 troops withdraws from Kabul, leaving Shah Shuja to his fate (he is soon assassinated). Most of the retreating British and Indian soldiers are also killed during their attempt to regain the safety of India. A British army recaptures Kabul during the summer of 1842, more as a gesture of defiance than as a matter of practical policy - for the decision is subsequently taken to restore Dost Mohammed to his throne. He returns from India in ...
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Victoria, Albert and the Great Exhi....
The campaigns of the Chartists and of the Anti-Corn Law League take place during the years immediately after the accession to the throne of the 18-year-old Victoria, who succeeds her uncle William IV in 1837. Her reign of sixty-four years can later be seen as one of the defining periods of British history, matched only by that of another queen - Elizabeth I.Many elements contribute to the powerful brand image known as the 'Victorian age'. Some are economic, connected with Britain's leading role as the ...
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Re and Amen
The central divinity of Egyptian religion is the sun, and from early times the most important sun god is Re. He is believed to sail his boat under the world each night. Every time, during the journey, he has to defeat an evil spirit, Apophis, before he can reappear. At Thebes, which becomes the capital in about 2000 BC, another god, Amen, is of great importance. In about 1500 BC Amen combines with Re to become Amen-Re, who from then on is effectively the state ...
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Dutch and English houses
In 1689 a Dutch prince, William III, becomes king of England. His accession to the throne prompts a fashion for the Dutch style. England, like Holland, is rapidly becoming more prosperous. Streets of town houses are being built in London and many provincial towns, such as Bath. The English version of the Dutch house is more severe and classical, particularly when built in stone (as in Bath), but it has the same elegance deriving from a repeated vertical alignment and a generous display of sash ...
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Ashur and the Assyrians
Since about 2000 BC the Assyrians, a Semitic group, have worshipped their god Ashur at a shrine on the Tigris known by his name. The city of Ashur has had periods of influence, trading and conquering westwards into Turkey, but the Assyrians have also often been subject to more powerful groups from those regions, such as the Hittites. And they have tended to be overshadowed by their great neighbour to the south, Babylon. The balance changes markedly in Ashur's favour with the accession, in 883, ...
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The vaulted stone roof
Romanesque in the north tends to be more massive in style than the delicate arches of Vézelay. A good example is the interior of Durham cathedral - the glory of English Romanesque (often given the alternative name of Norman architecture). The chunky pillars of Durham, many of them decorated with deeply incised patterns, support a vaulted stone roof over the nave - a significant Romanesque innovation of this period. The construction of Durham begins in 1093, a few decades before the nave of Vézelay.
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Mongols
The aggressive energy of one man, Genghis Khan, lies behind the amazing eruption of the Mongols in the 13th century. In 1215 he reaches and captures Beijing. Samarkand and Bukhara are taken and sacked in 1220. The marauder then heads south and enters India, but he turns back from this rich prize when he reaches the Indus. By 1223 his armies have moved round the Caspian and up through the Caucasus mountains to plunder cities of the Crimea and southern Russia. This journey of conquest, ...
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The roots of Chinese culture
Most of the elaborate bronze vessels made in Shang times are for use in temples or shrines to ancestors. The richly decorated urns are for cooking the meat of the sacrificed animals. The most characteristic design is the li, with its curved base extended into three hollow protuberances - enabling maximum heat to reach the sacrificial stew. The bronze jugs, often fantastically shaped into weird animals and birds, are for pouring a liquid offering to the ancestor - usually a hot alcoholic concoction brewed from ...
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The conqueror's declining years
In 1401, in Syria, Timur defeats a Mameluke army from Egypt. He then takes and destroys Damascus, despatching a new consignment of talented craftsmen back to Samarkand. Later in the same year Baghdad is stormed and sacked, and 20,000 of its population massacred. In 1402 the aged warrior advances into Anatolia. He defeats an army of Ottoman Turks near Ankara, capturing their sultan, Bayazid I (who dies in Timur's care). He then moves on west, as far as the Aegean, to take Izmir from the ...
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War in the west
At first the thrust of the German armies through Belgium and south into France seems to fulfil the Schlieffen Plan. 'Victory by Christmas' does indeed seem possible (though the German high command is not alone in making this promise to its citizens - all the other combatants are professing equal optimism).The Belgian army puts up a heroic resistance but is unable to prevent the Germans from taking Liège on August 16, Brusssels on the 20th and Namur on the 23rd. Meanwhile a small British Expeditionary ...
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Mute monuments
Some pre-literate societies have left tantalizing traces of their religion. Stonehenge in southern England, constructed from about 3000 BC (and therefore contemporary with the start of Egyptian civilization), has prompted endless speculation about its original purpose. Similarly, from around 1000 BC, the temple platforms and the pyramids of the Olmecs, in America, provide evidence of religion without our knowing precisely what that religion was. Climbing up to a temple or altar, as also in the ziggurats of Mesopotamia from about 2000 BC onwards, is a ...
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Voyages of Captain Cook
The voyages of James Cook are the first examples of exploration undertaken on scientific principles. His first expedition, sailing in the Endeavour from Plymouth in 1768, has a scientific task as its central mission. It is known to the astronomers of the day that in June 1769 the planet Venus will pass directly between the earth and the sun. An international effort is made to time the precise details of this transit, as seen from different parts of the world, in the hope of calculating ...
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Abdication of Charles V
Early in 1557 Charles retires to a residence close to the monastery of Yuste in Spain. For the emperor, still only in his late 50s, this is an unprecedented period of seclusion, in holy surroundings, at the end of a life of constant travel, turmoil and warfare. For his son Philip, by contrast, seclusion in a monastery becomes almost a style of government. He returns to Spain from the Netherlands in 1559; in the remaining thirty-nine years of his life he never again leaves the ...
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A year of high drama AD 1066
Edward the Confessor dies on January 5. He is buried the next day in his new abbey church at Westminster, which has been consecrated only the previous week. On the same day as the funeral there is a coronation, almost certainly carried out in the abbey. Harold, earl of Wessex, named as his successor by the dying Edward, is now king. His reign will last ten months. And it will include a strange omen - a bright long-haired star moving through the sky. The succession ...
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The sculptures of Chartres
The figures in the north porch of Chartres are added half a century later, from about 1195 to 1220. Recognizably in the same style, they are still unusually tall and thin. But instead of being ethereal figures, they are beginning to stir themselves as human beings. Their predecessors in the west porch are aligned with their pillars, as if pinned to them like rare butterflies. The new figures stand more naturally between the pillars. And they look about. They make gestures. Their creators are beginning ...
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A new Rome
Constantine, now in firm command of the entire Roman empire (the first man for a long while to be in that position), is planning another initiative as significant as his adoption of Christianity. Immediately after the defeat of Licinius he sets about rebuilding Byzantium as a Christian capital city - one in which pagan sacrifice, the central rite of imperial Rome until this time, is specifically forbidden. The city is ready by AD 330 for a ceremony of inauguration. Byzantium acquires two new names - ...
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Moghul domes
The first dome of this kind surmounts the tomb of Humayun in Delhi, built between 1564 and 1573. The style is then overlooked for a while - no doubt because of Akbar's preference for Hindu architecture, as in Fatehpur Sikri - until Shah Jahan, the greatest builder of the dynasty, develops it in the 17th century with vigour and sophistication. His first attempt in this line is also his masterpiece - a building which has become the most famous in the world, for its beauty ...
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