Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
The close identification between the authority of Church and State – the most striking peculiarity of medieval Europe – gave its ruling elites a depth of social control unmatched in other parts of Eurasia.
John Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton • Orthodoxy
He ranked truth above custom, and justice above the law.
Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges • The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Illustrated)
The age of historical criticism had begun.
Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges • The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Illustrated)
How the fall of Constantinople in 1453 triggered the Renaissance by forcing Greek scholars westward into Europe
TRANSCRIPT
And then, you know, Martin Luther, well, first you have Erasmus. The Muslims are invading Greece, and the Greek scholars flee west.
Sultan Mehmed II conquers Constantinople, the largest Christian city in Europe, in 1453, turns the largest Christian church in the world, the Hagia Sophia, 160 feet high and 102 foot across, turns it into a mosque,
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