Rest is History

The Human Story – Pre-Columbian America

Before the arrival of the Spanish to the Caribbean islands, people had been living in the Americas for between 13,000 and 15,000 years, after crossing the Beringia land bridge, which was formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea levels during the Last Glacial Period. These populations expanded south and rapidly spread throughout North and South America. Distinct cultures, such as the Clovis culture, began to develop as these early Americans probed further south and began settling down. A hallmark associated with the Clovis people, which began to appear around 11,500 years ago, was their use of the distinctly shaped, fluted-stone spear point, known today as the Clovis Point.

Throughout the millennia preceding 1492, several cultures, civilisations and empires sprang up throughout North America, Mesoamerica, and South America. Perhaps the three greatest and well known of which were the Maya, Aztec, and Inca. What was the difference between these groups of people? Once again, the Eurocentric view of history has blighted the modern understanding of non-European history. Too often the history of the Pre-Columbian American civilisations are only considered in so far as they relate to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Much is discussed about ritualistic human sacrifice and smallpox, but not so much about anything else, consequently leading these great and proud civilisations to blend together.

The reality could not be further from the truth; two continents with thousands of years of habitation can never, and should never, be boiled down to several decades of European expansion and colonialism. The societies that existed before the arrival of the conquistadors were extraordinarily complex and, of course, produced their own histories. They were also completely unique and distinct from one another; the Aztecs and Inca were as different from one another as the Ancient Egyptians were from Tang China.

The Mayan civilisation began in the Yucatan Peninsula around four thousand years ago and were subsistence farmers for much of their history; but their great cities had mostly disappeared by the time that the Spanish even arrived upon their shores. The Aztec Empire was born from a triple alliance of city-states in Central Mexico, and they built up an unbelievable capital city in Tenochtitlan. Unlike the Maya, the Aztecs were only around for one hundred years before the Spanish and their allies wiped them out. Finally, the Inca were from South America, not Mesoamerica like the Maya and the Aztecs, and they lived almost entirely in the western coastal Andean mountain range for over a century before Francisco Pizarro conquered them.

The Sources

For the most part, the archaeological work of these civilisations has unearthed much information, but the Maya and the Aztec also left written accounts, both of which used pictograph writing. Much of the Mayan texts that remain contain dynastic records, meaning that they recorded their own history. The reason that so much Mayan writing has been preserved is because they wrote a lot of it down on surfaces such as ceramics and temple walls, and even on staircases.

Aztec scripture has proven a little more problematic to decipher as they were not around long enough to produce a fully detailed writing system. From the codices that remain, it is clear that they appreciated the skill of writing; but unfortunately, the Spanish burned almost all of their texts. Most of what we know about the Aztecs comes from the first-hand accounts of the Spaniards who interacted with them.

The Inca, themselves, never created a system of writing that is familiar to us. Instead, they used a collection of knotted cords of differing lengths and colours called a khipu. These khipu were used for different types of numerical data collection, such as: measuring taxes; recording census’; and keeping track of dates and events. Rather than writing things down, the Inca relied on oral tradition, and as such, most of the information that we have today about the Inca comes from, again, the Spanish, and knowledge that has been passed down orally.

Spanish accounts of the peoples that they encountered in the New World are likely to portray the native Americans in either a negative or exoticized manner, but unfortunately these biased records are the best that there is to go on.

The Hydraulic Engineers

The Aztecs (1428 – 1521) and the Inca (1438 – 1533) were relatively late civilisations, as they only came along in the centuries immediately preceding the arrival of the conquistadors. To put this into perspective, these two civilisations were contemporaneous with the European Renaissance.

The Maya, however, were ancient; but not quite as ancient as the Olmec civilisation, the first civilisation in all of Mesoamerica, which flourished for nearly two thousand years between 1500 BCE and 400 CE. An abundance of Olmec art and statues have survived, and yet the Olmecs still remain a deeply mysterious people. Slightly less old than the Olmecs is the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan, which is similarly shrouded in mystery, although we do know that this was the first true metropolis of North America. The most famous building of this fabulously designed city is the Pyramid of the Sun, which was built around the turn of the third century CE. Aside from the structural remains of the city, little else is known of this wonder; not even who lived there. However, the presence of shattered and burned statues points to evidence of a popular uprising against the ruling class near the end of the city’s life. The city of Teotihuacan most likely laid the groundwork for and influenced the subsequent Mesoamerican cultures as we understand them, including the Maya.

Agriculture in the Yucatan Peninsula developed during the second millennium BCE, and by around 500 BCE large urban areas were beginning to appear. In the centuries following 250 CE, the Maya really began to hit their stride: building colossal monuments covered in writing; connecting cities through trade; and began to demonstrate significant intellectual and artistic development. The leaps forward made by the Maya during this golden age was made more impressive because the Yucatan Peninsula was not a hospitable area for humans to live. The Peninsula is a karst plain with a bedrock of limestone. The soils are poor, and the water table is too low to excavate without modern drilling equipment. On top of this, there are not many rivers and the rainfall is seasonal, with torrential downpours during the unpredictable wet season and the area often suffers long dry seasons. These geological and meteorological problems make it nearly impossible to farm conventionally. Instead, the Maya practised slash and burn agriculture, where the farmer would slash down vegetation and then burn it to infuse the soil with enough nutrients to sustain crops for a few years, before moving onto another plot of land and allowing the old forestry time to regrow.

Despite these challenges (or perhaps because of them) the Mayans built a remarkably complex culture in one of the world’s least hospitable regions, and they could never have done so without water management. Take Tikal for example. This was one of the major Mayan centres that still contains over three thousand structures in its 16 square kilometre footprint. The city, however, entirely lacked a natural supply of water. To supply water to the 60,000 people who lived and worked in Tikal, the Mayans created reservoirs. The reservoirs of Tikal are only one solution, but a diverse environment requires diverse answers to water shortages. At Edzna they built cisterns to capture rainwater and dug canals to connect water reservoirs to the central ceremonial complex. Again, at the city Palenque, in the lowlands Chiapas in modern Mexico, the Mayan engineers applied a local solution to a local problem, building aqueducts, dams, channels and drains to control the flooding caused by the streams that fed the city.

Much like the recurrent seasons that provided the Maya with precious water, their religion was also heavily cyclical. Mayans believed that the world went through cycles of creation and destruction, and that most of their deities were likewise bound to the cyclicity of the eternal universe. Consequently, the Mayans thought that no beginning or end was definite, and that when someone died, they went on a journey through the underworld and the heavens before being reincarnated back on earth. This helps to explain why they were so comfortable with the practice of human sacrifice, which was predominantly a priestly measure to delay the rebirth of the world and the collapse of the world as they knew it.

Whilst their mythology may have emphasised that nothing ever truly ended, history, with a little help from climate change, had other plans for the Mayan civilisation. A series of droughts led to a gradual decline of Mayan culture in the southern Yucatan Peninsula. Cities were mostly abandoned due to a likely mix of too many people and too little water, and the Maya began to recede into the northern Yucatan where water was more reliably available. Cities like Chichen Itza and Mayapan began to grow and develop into the dominant urban centres of the later Mayan civilisation. However, even these cities gave way in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries respectively, and so there was little left of the Mayan culture to conquer by the time that the Spanish arrived.

The City Beyond Dreams

To the northwest of where the Mayan people called home was land that the Aztecs inhabited. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a series of independent city-states began to appear around the Texcoco Lake Valley in what is today central Mexica. One such group of people, the Mexica, as they called themselves, settled into an island in the middle of the lake and founded the city of Tenochtitlan in 1325. Both the city and its culture began to spread over the next century, physically as the Mexica built artificial islands, and ideologically and commercially as trade with their neighbours increased and its religious influence grew along those trade routes.

In 1428, the Mexica formed an alliance with two nearby other peoples, forming the Aztec Empire which quickly began to expand its territory and conquer their neighbours. They achieved this relatively easily as their armies were large and the warriors were extremely skilled. Not only did the Aztecs conscript every adult male for warring, but they also absorbed the warriors from conquered territories as well as their allies into the Aztec army.

Although the Aztec venture had begun as an alliance of three equal parties, the Mexica people fast became the more equal of the three and took more of the spoils for themselves. While conquering and expanding deeper into southern Mexico, the Mexica city, Tenochtitlan, now capital of the Empire, became increasingly splendid. As an immensely wealthy city based within an island, much like Venice, Tenochtitlan was dotted with canals and huge places of worship, as well as botanical gardens and impressive zoos. At its zenith, it is estimated that the Aztec capital city would have been home to between 200,000 and 400,000 inhabitants, placing it amongst the largest cities of the time; and compared to the cities of Europe, only Paris, Venice and Constantinople may have rivalled it. Tenochtitlan was so massive and splendid that one Spanish soldier, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, wrote of the city:

“When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments… on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream?… I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about.”

Tenochtitlan was meticulously clean, free of pestilence, and well organised. The canal system was so intricate that most of the city could easily be traversed by canoe, and both these canals and the streets were cleaned every day by the forerunners of today’s garbage men. One thousand men were employed to clean the streets and “Garbage Boats” went from house to house carrying away refuse and human waste to be properly disposed of.

If living in this splendid city was not enough of a boon, the people of Tenochtitlan could also be entertained through sports. The Aztecs played a game that their Mayan and other Mesoamerican neighbours are known for, called ōllamalitzli. The rules of the game are long forgotten but judging from a descendent game of ōllamalitzli, the aim was likely to keep a rubber ball in play as long as possible, without letting it touch the ground. The game had important ritualistic and mythological aspects, and major ballgames would often have been held as ritual events. Large scale gambling would accompany the games that were staged frequently in the different city wards and markets. One early Spanish chronicler, Diego Duran, even said that “these wretches… sold their children in order to bet and even staked themselves and became slaves.”

The Empire in the Sky

On the edge of western South America, wedged between Earth’s driest desert, largest rainforest and second highest mountain range laid an expansive empire. The Inca, through ingenious engineering and strict central planning forged one of the world’s most unusual empires. Covering a massive two million square kilometres with a population of over ten million and an innumerable amount of ethnic groups and languages, the Incan Empire was the largest polity of the Pre-Columbian Americas. Incredibly, they achieved this without a written language, money, or even the wheel.

The Andean cultures developed in near isolation, so many of the things that were crucially vital to the Old World, such as the wheel and draft animals capable of pulling great weight were absent. Similarly, iron and steel were unknown to these cultures whilst gold, silver and bronze were masterfully worked.

The mighty Incan Empire exploded from the humble beginnings of one small kingdom, Cusco, located high in the mountains of modern Peru. The Kingdom of Cusco was founded under the leadership of Manco Capac at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the eighth king, Viracocha declared, upon taking the throne, that he would “conquer half the world.” He never did, but his son, Cusi Yupanqui, did; or at least half of the world known to them.

Cusi Yupanqui rose to power in the early fifteenth century. He was not the first in line to the throne of the Cusco kingdom, but after Cusco was besieged by their Chanka enemy, Viracocha, along with two of his sons, fled the city, and it was Cusi Yupanqui who organised a successful defence, winning the crown for himself in doing so. Before his reign, the Kingdom of Cusco held a small amount of territory around the city. He and his son, Topa Yupanqui, stretched their kingdom from present day Bolivia to Ecuador and Cusi Yupanqui adopted the name Pachacuti, or Earthshaker.

Using spies, Pachacuti would assess the military strength and wealth of other states in the region. After collecting this information, he would send envoys to the leaders of these states and attempt to persuade them to join his expanding empire. He promised that they would be allowed to keep their positions and only grow ever more powerful if they accepted his proposal and submit to his supremacy peacefully. If these leaders accepted the terms proposed to them, then their heirs would be sent to the Royal Court in Cusco, whereupon they were educated in an Incan fashion and raised to be ideal Incan leaders. Once their education was complete, they were sent home to their lands to rule in a thoroughly Incan manner. If, however, the terms were rejected, the huge multi-ethnic Incan armies built by Pachacuti were deployed to crush and subjugate.

Emperor Pachacuti reorganised the Kingdom of Cusco and the Incan Empire using a federalist system. He split his empire into four parts, called suyus, each managed by provincial governors who reported directly to the central government based in Cusco. The city itself was also transformed into a suitable Imperial City and centre for the new empire. The city was paved with perfectly cut stone and from its centre spread vast highways linking all the suyus. Just as all roads led to Rome within their empire, all roads led to Cusco within the Incan Empire. Along with these enormous infrastructure projects, Pachacuti also initiated the construction of huge royal estates and palaces, the most famous of which is Machu Pichu located 2,430 metres above sea level.

The rapid growth of this Andean empire was breath-taking, made all the more impressive by the fact that the Inca attempted to integrate conquered peoples into their empire rather than setting up mostly independent tributary states like that other great contemporary Pre-Columbian American empire, the Aztecs, had done. The Inca had utilised both their soft and hard power to expand their reach down the spine of South America, and in less than one hundred years had created the greatest empire in the Americas.

The Rest is History

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The Human Story – Age of Discovery

Everyone has heard of Christopher Columbus, who in 1492 sailed the ocean blue and “discovered” the Americas… a place that had previously been discovered by millions of its native inhabitants. But Columbus belonged to a period of history that is remembered for its daring adventurism and intrepid exploration: The Age of Discovery. Was Columbus the greatest sailor of this era though?

The Age of Discovery is a loosely defined term for European history in which extensive overseas exploration emerged as a powerful factor in European culture and which marked the beginning of globalisation and the widespread adoption of colonialism and the mercantilism which accompanied it.

Although in the west we tend to remember the Age of Discovery as being a uniquely European enterprise, this is not entirely true. This period of history was kick-started by a massive Chinese fleet, led by the admiral, Zheng He.

China’s Treasure Fleet

The Indian Ocean Trade network was dominated by Muslim merchants and involved ports in China, Indonesia, India, the Middle East and Africa and it made a lot of people rich beyond imagining. This last point explains why the sailors of the Age of Exploration were so eager to set sail.

Zheng He was probably one of the greatest admirals that you have never heard of. Not because he brought glory to his country through battle, but because he brought glory and riches to his emperor through tributary missions. There are a couple of important things to consider first about Zheng He. He was a Muslim which may seem a little strange to us nowadays until you consider that by the late fourteenth century, China had long experience with Muslim merchants trading with them, particularly during the reign of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. The second is that he was a eunuch.

Zheng He rose from humble beginnings to become the greatest admiral in Chinese history. Between 1405 and 1433 he led seven voyages, each larger and more expensive than the previous one, throughout the Indian Ocean: the expeditions of the treasure ships. Columbus’ first voyage consisted of three ships, whereas Zheng He led an armada of over 300 ships crewed by 27,000 men: more than half of London’s population at the time. And some of these ships were huge! The flagships of Zheng He’s fleet were over 400 feet and had seven or more masts. To put this into perspective, Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria, was around 60 feet long.

Although he may have launched the Age of Discovery, Zheng He was not an explorer: the Indian Ocean Trade routes were already known to the Chinese. He did visit India, the Middle East and Africa and in a way the expeditions of Zheng He’s treasure ships were trade missions, but not really in the sense of filling the ships up with goods to be sold. At the time, China was the leading manufacturer of quality goods in the world and there was not anything that the empire particularly needed to import. What they valued above all else was prestige and respect so that China would continue to be viewed as the economic centre of the world. This desire for status led to a tribute system through which foreign rulers or their ambassadors would travel to China and engage in a demeaning ritual called the kowtow wherein they acknowledged the superiority of the Chinese emperor and offered him gifts in exchange for the right to trade with the Chinese empire. The opportunity to humble oneself before the emperor was so valuable that many a prince boarded Zheng He’s treasure ships and set sail to China. Also, these tributary missions brought back many things strange to the Chinese, including a zoo’s worth of exotic animals from Africa and India.

The Chinese were the world leaders in naval technology, and they could easily have dominated trade in the Indian Ocean if they so wanted to. So, why did these treasure expeditions end? Well, for starters Zheng He died in either 1433 or 1435 and his patron, the Yongle Emperor also died in 1424 and his successors were not as interested in maritime trade as he had been. They were more concerned with protecting China against its traditional enemies: nomads from the steppe regions. To do this they built, or expanded upon, their massive and imposing frontier fortifications. The Great Wall of China, as we see it today, was mostly built under the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) using resources that they had because they stopped building colossal ships. One of history’s great “what if” questions is what may have happened if the mighty Ming emperors had adopted a different strategy; one built on outreach and diplomacy instead of isolationism.

However, this was not to be and China retreated behind the walls of their empire. This along with Ottoman ascension set the stage for European exploration which would lead to European dominance of the globe.

Trading Post Empire

With the Ottomans controlling much of southeast Europe they established a navy which they used in the Black, Mediterranean and the other seas that their vast empire touched. Ottoman domination meant that European kingdoms and empires needed to find different paths to Afro-Eurasian trade routes which, ultimately, helped spark the voyages of explorers from the Iberian Peninsula.

Portugal in the fifteenth century was poor and became even more so as the Ottomans challenged their access to overland trade routes east. Luckily for the country the fourth son of King John I (1357 – 1433) was Prince Henry the Navigator, so called because he funded and encouraged exploration, the study of navigation and the development of tools to aid navigation. All this knowledge provided Portuguese sailors with a huge competitive advantage when it came to exploration.

In those days Africa was rich in salt, food, gold, and slaves. The Malian king Mansa Musa was a very inspiring figuring to the fifteenth century Portuguese and was viewed as the model of what the Portuguese hoped to become by venturing to Africa; that is, unimaginably wealthy.

Early expeditions saw Portuguese sailors locate Atlantic archipelagos like the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde. The explorers hugged the African coast, colonising selected areas, and worked their way south until in 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Soon, other sailors were following Dias’ path and pushing further into the Indian Ocean. Vasco da Gama became the first European to make it all the way to India via the seas, when in 1498 he landed at Calicut, a major trading port on the subcontinent’s west coast. When he arrived, the Muslim merchants asked him what he was looking for and he replied with three words: “Gold and Christians”. This pretty much summed up Portuguese motivations for exploration.

Once the Portuguese had penetrated the Indian Ocean, they did not create large colonies because there were already powerful empires in the region. Instead, they captured and controlled a number of coastal cities, creating what we now call a “trading post empire” (which lasted until 1999 when they handed Macau back to the People’s Republic of China). They could do this thanks to their well-armed, small, and agile ships known as caravels which could capture cities by firing cannonballs into city walls. Europe had arrived to the Indian Ocean and gone were the peaceful days of regional trade.

Seeing as the Indian Ocean is vast and its waves crash upon the shores of many countries and Portugal is a small country thousands of miles away, the Portuguese lacked the manpower and ships to control Indian Ocean trade. They relied, instead, on extortion. Portuguese merchant ships would capture other ships and force them to purchase a special naval license known as a cartaz. The main purpose of this license was to ensure that merchants paid the taxes in Portuguese trading posts, and directed them to these ports such as Goa, Malacca, and Ormuz. This guaranteed Portugal’s monopoly on the lucrative spice trade and other products of the region. To the merchants who had plied their trade with relative safety and freedom for centuries in the ocean, the Portuguese were nothing more than glorified pirates, extracting value from trade without adding to it.

The cartaz system worked for a while, but the Portuguese never really took control of Indian Ocean trade. They were successful enough, however, that their neighbours in Spain became interested in finding their own route to the Indies, which brings us to the Genoese born explorer Christopher Columbus.

Worlds Collide

Let us first dispel some myths about Columbus. He and his crews knew that the earth was round; they were simply wrong about the size. Using Ptolemy’s geography, Columbus ended up overestimating the size of Asia and underestimating the size of the oceans. Also, he never believed that he had made it to China; he called the people that he encountered “Indians” as he believed that he had reached the East Indies (modern Indonesia). And finally, Christopher Columbus was not some lucky idiot. He navigated completely unknown and uncharted waters by using a technique known as dead reckoning, in which one figures their position based on three pieces of information: the direction in which one is travelling; the speed; and the time which was figured out via hourglass.

The first of Columbus’ four journeys was tiny and he initially landed on a small Caribbean island, that he called San Salvador, in search of, like the Portuguese, gold and Christians. He found backing for his expedition from King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile who jointly ruled modern-day Spain by promising riches and the conversion of the natives. These two monarchs were finishing up the drive to expel Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, known as the Reconquista, and forcing Spanish Jews to convert to Christianity, and religious persecution did not come cheaply. Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to fund Columbus’ exploratory voyage as they were desperate to access the wealth of the spice trade and forge their own trading fortune for their combined kingdoms.

Columbus failed in finding riches, returning to Spain with neither gold nor spice, but he did succeed in creating some Christians. In terms of goal accomplishment, Columbus was far less successful than either Zheng He or Vasco da Gama, but within a couple generations after Columbus, Spain would become insanely wealthy and for a time were the leading power in Europe. His “discovery” of the Americas also had a largely negative impact on the people that the Spanish encountered as they further explored this “New World”, but it also led to another breakthrough when Spanish ships headed by Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe between 1519 and 1522.

Conditions on the ships and Magellan’s no-nonsense discipline caused mutinies and other problems which were also handled harshly, executing, or marooning the rebellious captains of his fleet. Setting off from the Spanish port of Seville, Magellan’s fleet headed around the coast of West Africa and towards the tip of South America and across the Pacific Ocean and eventually returned to Spain, despite Magellan’s death in 1521 at the hands of local leaders in Mactan in what would later become the Philippines. Of an original crew of two hundred and thirty-seven men manning five ships, only eighteen men returned to Spain on one ship. But the voyage that had been arranged and headed by Ferdinand Magellan was a revelation, opening the world up to global transportation, exchange, settlement, and yes, global slavery, pandemic, warfare, and conquest.

The Iberians had initially been incentivised to set sail because of their poverty and Catholic faith, but they were disadvantaged by a comparative lack of manufacturing skills when it came to trade. To counter this, at least to begin with, they held an advantage in sailing technology and weaponry. The Iberian caravels were nimble and could be loaded with cannons and the Portuguese borrowed the use of triangular sails from the Arabs that they encountered in the Indian Ocean, and combined these with square rigged sails to make better use of the winds. Iberian sailors also employed a range of navigational instruments (usually taken from their other cultures) for determining latitude, whilst their on-board cartographers created charts and maps, indicating coastal dangers, hospitable harbours, and other details important to mariners.

With so much land, opportunity and wealth at stake, the success of the Iberian explorers naturally led to territorial disputes between the neighbouring countries. An Accord sponsored by the Church aimed at dividing trading and colonising rights for all newly discovered lands to the exclusion of all other European nations was agreed. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, provided a permanent line of demarcation, splitting the new world between Spain and Portugal, whilst the Treaty of Saragossa, signed in 1529, similarly recognised each country’s sphere of influence in Asia. With the backing of the Catholic Church, two relatively small countries from a peninsula in southwest Europe, who just several decades earlier had been impoverished, now carved the world between themselves.

The Rest is History

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The Human Story – The European Renaissance

The Renaissance was an eventful period of European cultural, political, artistic and economic “rebirth” following the miserable Middle Ages. Generally, described as taking place from the 14^th to 17^th centuries, the European Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, art and literature. Some of the greatest authors, statesman, thinkers and scientists in human history lived and flourished during this period of history, while global exploration opened new lands and cultures to European commerce. The Renaissance is credited with bridging the gap between Europe’s Middle Ages and modern society and ushering in an era of secularism, individualism and rationality.

However, this grand notion of the Renaissance can prove to be a little controversial. Why, is this? Well, the whole idea of the Renaissance presupposes that Europe was like an island unto itself, cast off from the rest of the world, that was briefly enlightened when the Greeks were philosophising and then lost its way before rediscovering its former glory. Was this really the case?

Essentially, the Renaissance was an explosion of arts, primarily visual, but also literary, and ideas in Europe that coincided with the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman culture. It is easiest to see this in the terms of visual art; Renaissance art tends to have a common theme of the human form, a form that was somewhat idealised by the Romans and especially the Greeks. This “classicising” is also apparent in the architecture of the Renaissance which featured Greek columns and Roman arches and domes.

In addition to “rediscovering” forgotten classical art forms, the Renaissance saw the revival of ancient Greek and Roman literature and ideas. This opened a whole new world for scholars looking to advance Europe’s wisdom and learning. The scholars who translated, studied and commented upon these writings were called humanists and they were concerned with wider worldly and human concerns. Because the Renaissance really was a revival, this rediscovered thought was based on learning about the old ways, especially the studies of the humanities: the three liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric and logic. This, in turn, led to the so-called sciences of theology, medicine, laws and philosophy.

It is important not to fall into the common, but incorrect, misconception that Renaissance scholars, writers and artists were secretly not all that pious due to their focus on the “humanities”. The truth is that Renaissance artists were deeply religious. If you want evidence of this then look no further than the subject matter of much of the masterpieces of the age: Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, Giotto’s The Lamentation and the countless depictions of the Madonna.

Funding the Renaissance

Although the Renaissance occurred all across Europe, we will focus primarily on Italy as this is where it really all kicked off and the Italian city-states were the nucleus of the Renaissance. What was it about Italy that lent itself to Renaissance? Italy was primed for Renaissance for one reason: money! A society must be incredibly wealthy to support artists, elaborate building projects and scholars enlightening the age. And the Italian city-states were vastly rich for two principle reasons:

Many of the city-states were miniature industrial powerhouses, each specialising in a specific industrial product. Florence, for example, spun fine textiles, Milan was famous for its metalwork and Urbino was known for beautiful ceramics.
The cities of Genoa and Venice were immensely wealthy from trade, with Genoa turning out fine sailors (including Christopher Columbus). It was Venice who became the richest city-state of them all, however. The Venetians were expert shipbuilders and sailors and the city was home to a merchant class who had figured out how to deal with the Islamic empires, including the greatest economic power of them all, the Ottoman Empire. Without trading in the Islamic world, especially in spices, the Venetians would never have been able to afford and fund the artists, scholars and building projects that defined the Renaissance.

Trade has often made appearances throughout the human story, but that is because trade is fantastic and binds the world together, enriching those who participate in it. However, not everyone wants to participate in fair trade, and this is exactly what one opportunistic Italian merchant and his godfather (who happened to be the Pope) had in mind when they sought to curb Ottoman economic power.

The Venetians exported lots of textiles to the Ottoman Empire. These stylish garments were usually woven in other cities, like Florence; and the reason that Florentine textiles were so valuable is because their colour remained vibrant. This was due to a process of dying the materials with a chemical called alum, which was primarily found in Anatolia, the heartland of the Ottoman Empire. To make the fabrics that the Ottomans craved, the Italian craftsmen required Ottoman alum, at least until 1461 that is. When Giovanni de Castro, Pope Pius II’s godson, discovered alunite, the source of alum, in Tolfa near Rome. He wrote to his godfather hoping to receive support to mine the alunite, arguing that the Ottomans would lose their profits, thus weakening the menacing power to the east, and filling the coffers of the Papacy. Pope Pius II accepted Castro’s offer and granted a monopoly in alunite mining rights to the Medici family from Florence. Critically, Italian alunite mines did not bring victory over the Ottoman Empire, or cause them to lose all their profits, as there will always be a need to trade commodities.

And without commodity trading enriching the Italian city-states there certainly would have been no European Renaissance. In these prosperous cities, artists, composers, writers and scholars thrived along with the commerce that paid for everything. Urban merchants and manufacturers built a vigorous business that brought in products and ideas from across Afro Eurasia, with some families accumulating obscene amounts of wealth which allowed them to support the world of Renaissance artists and thinkers in a system called patronage.

Banking institutions also sprang up, and bankers funded civic events and the construction of grand cathedrals. These bankers also backed or personally paid for the building of masterworks in the rediscovered classical style of the pre-Christian Roman Empire. They also financed artists who required funds to complete their works, including Botticelli and Michelangelo. City governments also proved to be important patrons of the Renaissance whilst individual leaders also spent much of their personal incomes on the arts.

Why was so much spent on art and architecture? Well, for much the same reasons that rich people today often fund art and buildings: for status, for recognition, and possibly even for the love of beauty. Also, funding public artworks and churches served to legitimise the wealth of the families. The Church could hardly condemn merchant wealth if it were being spent on building and decorating churches, nor could the governments that came to depend on that wealth. We see this cycle again and again throughout history; wealth supporting institutions that, in turn, legitimises that same wealth.

Art, Science & Exploration

Through the sponsorship of the patrons, art, architecture and science became intricately linked together during the Renaissance. In fact, it was a rather unique period of history when these fields of study seemed to seamlessly intertwine. For instance, artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo incorporated scientific principles, such as anatomy, into their works so that they could recreate the human body with extraordinary precision. There is speculation that Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, one of the frescoes that adorns the roof of the Sistine Chapel, displays an anatomically correct human brain. How did these artists gain such precise knowledge of the workings of the inner human body? They dissected cadavers, of course; no stone was left unturned in the pursuit of perfection in their chosen discipline. After all, Renaissance art was characterised by realism and naturalism and artists strived to depict people and objects in as true a way as possible, using perspective, shadows and light to add depth to their work, and infuse emotion into their artwork.

Scientific discoveries led to major shifts in thinking: Galileo Galilei and Renee Descartes presented a new view of astronomy and mathematics, whilst the Polish polymath, Nicolaus Copernicus, arguably the Renaissance’s greatest mind (with fields of study including astronomy, law, medicine, mathematics and economics; very much a “Renaissance Man”), figured out that the earth was not the centre of the universe. However, it is very unlikely that he did not figure this out on his own. There is no way to be sure whether he had access to Islamic scholarship on this topic, but one of his diagrams is so suspiciously similar to one found in an Islamic mathematics thesis that it seems unlikely that he did not have access to it.

While many artists and scholars used their talents to express new ideas, some other Europeans took to the seas to learn more about the world around them. The era known as the “Age of Discovery”, a period of several vitally important explorations, was kickstarted during the European Renaissance. Voyages were launched to travel the entire globe, discovering new shipping routes to the Americas, India and the Far East with explorers journeying across areas that were not yet fully mapped. Famous journeys were taken by the likes of Marco Polo (the merchant who documented his travels across the Silk Road), Christopher Columbus (the explorer credited with “discovering” the Americas), Amerigo Vespucci (after whom the Americas are named), Ferdinand Magellan (who organised the first circumnavigation of the globe, although he never completed it himself and was killed in battle on the island of Mactan), and many other explorers.

Was the Renaissance Even a “Thing”?

One of the main problems with the idea of the European Renaissance is its longevity. It was not like the Norman Invasion of England or the American Revolution were people were aware that the world around them was changing and that they were living amid history being made. No one was aware that they were living through a glorious age when man’s relationship to learning was changing. Most people living in Europe throughout the European Renaissance were unaware of the Renaissance because its art and learned scholarship only affected a tiny proportion of the continent’s population. In a bitter twist of irony, life expectancy in many areas of Europe went down during this period. The art and learning that defined this period of European history did not filter down to most people in the way that technology filters down to us today and for this reason the Renaissance was only ever really, truly, experienced by the richest of the rich and those people, like painters and architects, that served them.

There were, of course, some extra commercial opportunities above the usual, like binding books and framing paintings, but these were not available to most Europeans who still lived on farms as peasants or tenants. The rediscovery of Aristotelian thought did not change their lives in any way, which were governed for the most part by the rising and setting of the sun, and by the rationality of the Catholic Church.

The reason that the Renaissance is so important is not because it was central to the lives of Europeans living at the time but because it is important to us. We have retroactively applied such importance to the period because we care about the musings of Aristotle and Plato, the heliocentric model of the solar system, the Mona Lisa and the concept of individualism. At the time, Europe was rather insignificant and led the world in very little, so it is important to us that we highlight this period of European rediscovery. Because these things provide a narrative that makes sense: Europe was enlightened by the free-thought of the Greeks; Europe was un-enlightened with the fall of the Western Roman Empire; and Europe was re-enlightened with the rediscovery of the ideas of the ancient Greeks, and has remained alight ever since.

It is true that many of the ideas that were introduced to Europe during the period of the Renaissance became extraordinarily important to western thought, art and culture, but it is also crucial to remember that this extended period of time lasted for hundreds of years. The Florentine sculptor Donatello and the Bolognese female sculptor, Properzia de’ Rossi were born 104 years apart, whilst 325 years separates the birth of the Florentine humanist Petrarch and the death of the Scottish humanist David Hume of Godscroft.

Whilst the exact timing and overall impact of the European Renaissance is sometimes debated, there is little dispute that the events of the period ultimately led to advances that changed the way some people understood and interpreted the world around them. The real question to ask is whether the Renaissance was truly one “thing”, or whether it was a lot of mutually interdependent “things” occurring throughout the continent over an extended period?

The Rest is History

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Napoleon Bonaparte

“I found the crown of France in the gutter, and I picked it up.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

The word revolution literally means a full 360-degree turn, but when talking of revolutions in a historical context, the definition of revolution dramatically changes; a stark departure from the political scene that was, to the messy, and often violent, embrace of a new world.

The French Revolution was, in different ways, both kinds of revolution. In the end, an absolutist government replaced an absolutist government, but the change that sprung from the revolution was genuine and enduring. It helped usher in a world where people saw themselves as citizens of a wider community rather than subjects of a king. Eventually, a rising military man of unfathomable drive and ambition would prove that being the son of the king of France was not the only way to become ruler of France.

Rising Star

In the Spring of 1769, the tiny nation island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea, was under siege from the French military. A tiny band of Corsican patriots were determined to repel the invaders, but they never stood a chance and were defeated after a year of fighting. One opponent of the French occupation was a trainee attorney, Carlo Buonaparte, whose wife, Letizia, gave birth to the couple’s second surviving child, Napoleon, on 15 August 1769. Carlo would soon come to realise and appreciate the benefit of French rule.

Napoleon grew up on the island and loved reading and his father was able to secure him a scholarship to the Royal Military College at Brienne. The young Napoleon first set foot on the French mainland in the winter 1778. As a child he had spoken Italian and Corsican and did not begin learning French until he was 10 years old (his mother never even bothered to learn the language). Whilst at Brienne, Napoleon was ridiculed for his accent; but contrary to popular belief he was not bullied for his shortness, as the man grew up to be around 5’ 7” which was around average height for an eighteenth century man.

At the age of 16 Napoleon served as a second lieutenant with one of the country’s most elite artillery units and he began to gradually rise through the ranks of the army through the early years of the tumultuous French Revolution, which erupted in 1789 in Paris. At the age of just 24 in 1793 Napoleon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general, after proving himself against the British at Toulon, working under the Committee for Public Safety which ironically ended up killing a lot of people in the name of public safety.

In the spring of 1795 Napoleon visited Paris, his ambitions burning brighter than ever. Whilst there he was charged with subjugating the Parisian mobs by any means necessary. Gathering cannon and muskets to equip his poorly armed forces, Napoleon set his guns up in the Tuileries Palace in positions that made it pretty much impregnable. When the attack came, Napoleon ordered his mean to hold their fire until the whites of the aggressors’ eyes could be seen before unleashing a hail of merciless fire upon them. The artillerymen’s grapeshot decimated the attacking mob. Napoleon wrote to his brother, “The enemy attacked us. We killed a great many of them. Now, all is quiet. I could not be happier.” After this action, the triumphant Napoleon Bonaparte was elevated to the rank of full general and at the age of 26 was made the Commander of the Army of the Interior. Soon, he was given command of French armies in Italy and was tasked with defeating the Austrians along with their Italian allies.

Meanwhile, other European powers had become increasingly worried about the political situation in France. The execution of their king and queen led to fears that the French experiment in democracy would spill over into their territories and threaten their own kingdoms. They moved against the new French government which led to a series of wars between Revolutionary France and most of the European major powers.

Young General Bonaparte had built his army into the most efficient conquering force on the European mainland, and over the next three years he brought stunning victory after stunning victory; not just in Italy but also in Austria and as far as North Africa and the Middle-East. His 1798 North African campaign was a calculated move against the British, who used Egypt as a trading route. In addition to an army, Napoleon also brought many scientists, linguists, and other scholars to advance knowledge as well as carry off Egyptian riches. The Egyptians were impressed by the openness of these scholars, but generally the French completely appalled the local populace with their crude ways and drunkenness. Even as Napoleon flattered Egyptians by declaring himself as a worshipper of Islam, he ultimately stole and desecrated many Egyptian artefacts.

Seizing Power

Napoleon was forced to return to France in 1799 as his army and navy were defeated by British and Egyptian forces and disease. This timing turned out to be perfect: The Directory, which was a five-person committee governing France after the collapse of Maximilien Robespierre’s Committee for Public Safety, was overseeing a still-floundering economy, and fighting wars on multiple fronts. Napoleon assisted in overthrowing The Directory and helped establish a three-person Consulship; himself being one of the Consuls. He quickly became the “First Consul”, and then mended relations with the Catholic Church as one of his first tasks.

He agreed to the Concordant of 1801, which recognised Catholicism as the primary French religion (religion had been frowned upon during the revolutionary governments). It also validated the sale of Church lands and the state’s payment of clergymen’s salaries if they agreed to uphold the French government. This was important to Napoleon as it ensured him the support of one of France’s most important institutions. However, it is also worth noting that Napoleon would eventually be excommunicated by the Catholic Church for annexing Papal lands for France.

Napoleon also proved to be extremely popular with the people. After all, he offered a solution to years of political upheaval and economic decline. He won majorities when he had his candidacy for office and other decisions approved by plebiscite cast by men over the age of 21.

In 1802, he had himself declared Consul for life. Soon after, on 2 December 1804 Napoleon was crowned as Emperor of the French at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In all but name and place, it was just like the coronations of the kings of old, with one key difference. Napoleon, the controller of his own destiny, placed the crown upon his own head. At 35 years of age, Napoleon Bonaparte had risen from his humble Corsican background to become the most powerful man in all of Europe.

The leaders of the French Revolution had promoted the ancient Roman idea of virtus: the sacrifice of personal interest for the good of the republic. Napoleon continued the Roman imagery but switched from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. This can be seen in his journey from Consul to Emperor; he is portrayed in paintings wearing lavish costumes and crowned with the laurel leaves of a conquering hero.

Napoleon also viewed himself as a modern Justinian, the famed lawgiver of the Eastern Roman Empire. He employed the most celebrated jurists, under his guidance, to produce a rational code of laws. Completed in 1804, the Napoleonic Code standardised the laws of citizenship, family, and property. The Code also set the rules for financial transfers, mortgages and for other legal transactions concerning property standards across France instead of differing from province to province. And legal standardisation facilitated modern economic development. But the other two sections, on family and citizenship, proved rather regressive for women and curtailed many of their rights. Under the Napoleonic Code, women had no right to own their own property once they were married; not even any wages that they earned themselves. They were barred from serving as witnesses in court and did not even have control over the guardianship of their own children. If they committed adultery, they were to be jailed, but men, in contrast, would only be charged of the crime if they brought a sexual partner into their family home.

The regressive nature of Napoleonic family law aside, by creating laws that specifically targeted the economy, the empire was paving the way for modernisation. Other institutions followed suit: individual schools were founded for higher education in engineering, science, and technology. Napoleon also sponsored the creation of lycées, or high schools, and countries across Europe and across the globe imitated the French legal and educational systems as they strove to modernise too. This brought many new opportunities in France, but it is worth remembering that half of the population – women – were not only being denied these opportunities but had also lost many of the rights that they had previously enjoyed.

Europe’s Dictator

Napoleon had initially succeeded in France because he quelled the political chaos by making himself an emblem of authority and order (just like any other opportunistic dictator worth their salt). He also created a sort of police state with strict censorship and spies operating in everyday life. The monarchical system of aristocratic titles was also restored, even giving back the pre-revolution titles to some of the old aristocracy who Napoleon believed could help revive the appearance of ceremonial grandeur. In all these ways, Napoleon was reverting to the absolutism power, previously held by the Bourbons. The French Revolution had turned all the way around, ending where it had started.

Whilst members of Napoleon’s family and his friends often became fantastically wealthy and titled, including monarchs of conquered countries, his enemies were frequently exiled from France. One of his most famous political enemies was Germaine de Stael, one of the wealthiest and most accomplished women in all of Europe at the time. De Stael never stopped criticising the dictator and was one of the first to uncover his brutish nature. Her constant criticism of him, forced Napoleon to drive her from France; Napoleon preferred people to like him and Germain de Stael made it clear that she neither liked nor respected him. When de Stael’s son, Auguste, asked Napoleon to allow his mother back into Paris, Napoleon replied, “Paris is… where I live. I don’t want anyone there who doesn’t like me.”

Napoleon did not just have designs on France, he wanted to conquer the whole of Europe and the British Isles. He amassed a huge army by drafting men between the ages of 20 and 24, then he earned their complete devotion by fighting alongside them in over sixty battles. As he conquered German and Austrian territory, he drafted men from those areas into his armies too. By 1806, he had ended the 1,000-year-old Holy Roman Empire after defeating the Austrians in several battles, most thoroughly at Austerlitz in 1805. On the first anniversary of his imperial coronation, 2 December 1805, Napoleon’s 68,000 strong army crushed the combined forces of Austria and Russia, killing, wounding, or capturing around 36,000 of the enemy and taking over 180 artillery pieces. He then went on to defeat the Prussians in 1806 and Russia in 1807 after they declared war on France in succession.

Napoleon then forced or inspired reforms such as the end of serfdom, legislating religious tolerance and creating schools to advance scientific and technological study within the subjugated territories. He unified the German territories, excluding Austria, into the Confederation of the Rhine, and he imposed the Napoleonic Code, the metric system, and other foundations of standardisation that helped to unify Europe and solidify French authority.

One unintended consequence of Napoleon’s European ambitions was that it inspired nationalism among his new subjects, who mostly opposed his dictatorial regime. Most of these newly conquered lands were being run by one of Napoleon’s brothers serving as a surrogate monarch, and this is important as some people began to think of themselves as, for example Italian or German for the first time because they did not want to think of themselves as French. This would play a massive role in European and world history later in the nineteenth century with the creation of both Italy and Germany as one nation rather than many principalities and city-states.

Napoleon’s goal had been to conquer the entire continent, and he largely succeeded, but Spain and Portugal remained unconquered and thwarting his plans of a Continental System (Napoleon’s foreign policy for denying European trade with the United Kingdom). In 1807 Napoleon crossed the Pyrenees with 100,000 men, and both the Spanish and Portuguese royal families fled their capitals and headed for their colonial territories. Napoleon installed his older brother, Joseph, on the throne of Spain and resistance for this usurper swelled. With help from British and Portuguese soldiers led by Sir Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, the Spanish Guerreros terrorised the occupying French forces, forcing Napoleon to commit tens of thousands of troops to occupy the conquered kingdom.

Downfall

Despite ongoing problems, Napoleon became determined to conquer and absorb Russia into his sphere of influence, particularly as it had decided to opt out of his Continental System. He built a massive army of some 685,000 men from across his empire and began the invasion in June 1812.

Having marched for hundreds of miles, the soldiers were exhausted and overwhelmed by the heat, and the Russians refused to engage in battle. Instead they continued to retreat, practising “scorched-earth tactics”, so called because they burned and destroyed all resources that could have been of use to the advancing French army, including food and livestock.

Finally, near Borodino, less than 130 kilometres from Moscow, the two sides engaged in the bloodiest single day of combat in military history until the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The Battle of Borodino ultimately proved to be a costly victory for the French, who lost around 30,000 men compared to Russia’s roughly 45,000 casualties. The French were thousands of miles from home territory along difficult resupply lines and non-French soldiers, who were not as loyal to Napoleon, began to melt away as winter approached and conditions within Napoleon’s Grande Armee worsened. The massively depleted army marched to Moscow, but upon reaching their destination found the city in flames, and once again shelter and supplies proved scarce.

Napoleon waited for Tsar Alexander I to surrender and come to terms now that he had captured the Russian capital. However, the Tsar failed to acknowledge defeat, and Napoleon was forced to lead his depleted, starving, demoralised and freezing army westward to friendly Poland. Many had died and many more had deserted, and the retreating French force was harassed all the way to Poland by Russian cavalry.

Smelling blood in the water, the European powers formed a coalition that included Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Sweden and in 1813 their armies, backed by British financing, defeated the French forces at the Battle of Leipzig. This battle was waged because Napoleon refused to accept the allies’ terms which, initially, would have allowed Napoleon to continue ruling a much-weakened France. Simultaneously, as the allies were advancing from the east, the British, Portuguese and Spanish pushed the French in the Iberian Peninsula back over the Pyrenees.

In early 1814, Napoleon abdicated and headed for exile on the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba. However, a year later on 26 February 1815, Napoleon somehow managed to sneak past his guards and set sail for France in a small boat with loyal supporters, avoiding Britain’s Royal Navy who patrolled the area. After six days, he and his small company of supporters were halted by an infantry regiment under strict orders to detain him. Napoleon stood in their midst and declared, “Soldiers, if there is one among you who wants to kill your general and emperor, here I am.” Once again, his charisma shown through and instead of taking him prisoner, the infantry broke out into rapturous applause and joined him. As he zeroed in on Paris, he drew more support as troops defected to the rebel army and the restored Bourbon king Louis XVIII fled his capital. Bonaparte was welcomed into Paris as a redeemed hero.

Across Europe the allies were in shock and disbelief and forced to unite once again to stop this upstart general. This time, however, they knew they would have to destroy the French Emperor utterly. On 18 June 1815, a French army of 72,000 soldiers faced a 68,000 strong allied force under the now Duke of Wellington. Napoleon made several uncharacteristic tactical errors, including waiting until midday to order the attack. This provided Prussian forces, under Marshal Gebhard von Blucher, enough time to arrive and smash into Napoleon’s right flank and the battle was lost.

Four days later, Napoleon, once again, abdicated and this time he was sent into exile on the remote British colony of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic under close guard. At 46, Napoleon was simply a man with no future. The man of unstoppable ambition and action was reduced to reading the newspapers and gardening.

On 5 May 1821, exactly 32 years to the day since the meeting of the Estates General that set the French Revolution into motion, Napoleon died at 51 years of age, most likely from stomach cancer. When you consider all that had happened in those short 32 years, you will understand why this period of French history is so important to world history.

The Rest is History

The Human Story – Rise of the Bear: Early Russia

Russia is the largest country on earth, spanning an incredible 17 million square kilometres. It not only takes the title of largest and most populous country in Europe but extends over the Ural mountain range and into Asia.

How did the story of this massive country with its complex and rich history begin?

The Kievan Rus and the Foundations of Russia

The principle history of eastern Europe began with people that the Greek writers called the “Slavs” and the first Russian state was founded when Oleg of Novgorod seized power of the Viking state in the Dnieper River basin in 882. In doing this, he united the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one authority and lay the foundation of the powerful state of the Kievan Rus.

We know that trade was hugely important to the Kievan Rus and almost of their wars ended with trade concessions and trade treaties. In fact, their law codes were unusually devoted to the subject of commerce. The Rus traded raw materials like wax, fur and slaves. They also relied heavily upon agriculture and a person’s relationship to the land determined both their social status and tax burden. If someone ever fell into tax debt, which a lot of peasants did, then that person would become bonded to the land that they farmed for the rest of their life, essentially becoming a slave to the master of the land.

There was no higher master in the Kievan Rus than the Grand Prince who ruled the state and became the model for future Russian kings and emperors. The early Grand Princes made a fateful decision and decided to convert to Byzantine Christianity, following the example of their Bulgarian neighbours. The Patriarch of the Church, being prudent, decided to send a bishop from Constantinople north to guide the Rus in their flirtation with Christianity. However, it was not until the year 988 that the definitive Christianisation of the Kievan Rus occurred when Vladimir the Great was baptised and proceeded to baptise his family and the people of Kiev. The legend goes that he elected to convert the Rus to Byzantine Christianity over Islam because of Islam’s prohibition of alcohol.

Mongol Russia and Vassalage

In 1240 the Mongols, or the Tatars as the Russians called them, conquered the Kievan Rus, beginning a new chapter of Russian history known as Appanage Russia (an appendage was a princedom). This period is best remembered for the many Russian princes vying for control over territory, which is not usually a recipe for solid political stability or economic growth.

So, just how important were the Tatars to Russia? Well, they did set up the delightfully named Khanate of the Golden Horde in Russia, but this did not leave any lasting imprint on the institutions of the region, which had already been set up by the Kievan Rus. However, the establishment of the Golden Horde did bring about a massive population shift, away from the south, where the city of Kiev was located, and toward the north-east. This was, in part, to escape from the marauding Tatars and their initial massacring. However, once the dust had settled the Tatars proved to be comparatively light rulers who were content to live in their yurts and collect tributes from the ever-bickering Russian princes. All that these feuding princes had to do in exchange for their relative freedom was recognise the Mongol Khans as their overlords and allow the Tatars to select the Grand Prince from amongst them.

For the next century or so, little seems to have happened in Russia. In fact, given the tribute that was demanded by the Tatars, there was not much money available for building, military campaigns or anything else. With the Mongols off to the southwest, the northeastern cities began to gain more influence, first Tver and then, around the turn of the 14th century, Moscow. As a sign of the city’s importance, the patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church moved to Moscow, transforming it into the spiritual capital of Russia.

On top of this holy pivot towards Moscow the Mongols would often elect Muscovite princes to the position of Grand Prince. One of the privileges of the Grand Prince was to collect tribute on behalf of the Khan from the other princes. This proved to be an easy income source as the Grand Prince could easily skim a little off the top before forwarding it to their Tatar overlords. This little trick of redistribution was exactly how the Muscovite princes enriched themselves and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. By the latter part of the century, Moscow felt strong enough to challenge the Tatars directly, and in 1380 a Muscovite prince named Dmitri Donskoy attacked the Mongols and inflicted the first major defeat on them in Russia. His decisive victory at the Battle of Kulikovo Field proved that the Golden Horde were not invincible and immediately made Donskoy a popular hero (even though the Mongols maintained their rule over the city and captured and burned it two years later). Proving that an imperial force has vulnerabilities rarely has good outcomes for that force and Donskoy’s victory helped to strengthen the idea of a unified Russia. However, it was not until a full century had passed, in 1480, that Moscow was strong enough to throw off the weakened Tatar yoke for good. Moscow’s ruler at the time was Grand Duke Ivan III, better known as Ivan the Great.

A Tale of Two Ivans

Ivan the Great massively expanded Moscow’s power, first by subjugating most of Moscow’s city rivals and then by asserting Russia’s independence from the Tatars. By the time that he stopped paying tribute to the Mongols in 1476 and famously tore up the charter binding Moscow to them he was effectively in control of the entire country. Then he went further; he purchased, negotiated for or downright conquered further appanages, thus expanding Muscovite power even further and tripled the size of its territory, laying the foundations of what later became the Russian state.

Ivan later declared himself sovereign over all Russians and married the niece, Zoe Palaeogina, of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, giving his claim more legitimacy. He also took the title of Czar, which means Caesar. Ivan then invited top architects from southeastern Europe to turn Moscow into an imperial capital, reconstructing the Moscow Kremlin, the Dormition Cathedral, and the Annunciation Cathedral. With his Eastern Roman wife, Eastern Romanised imperial capital and new title, Ivan formulated the idea that Moscow was the Third Rome. The idea of a Third Rome is the concept of a hypothetical successor of the Roman Empire via either the Byzantine Empire or through the Holy Roman Empire. Many cities and states have claimed to be the Third Rome, including late Medieval Russia. Ivan and his Grand Duchy of Moscow argued that there could be traced three interrelated fields of ideas:

• A linked religion through the unity of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
• The social politics that derived from the feeling of unity in East Slavic territories being historically tied through the Church and Slavic culture.
• A state doctrine which suggested that the Moscow Prince should act as the supreme sovereign of Christian Orthodox nations and become a defender of the Church.

Basically, Ivan the Great created the first centralised Russian state and fabricated a tale of its being the heir to the Roman Empire in an effort to legitimise his efforts. And for these efforts he probably does deserve the title “The Great”.

While Ivan III consolidated Muscovite power, the undeniable brutal streak that has run through Russian governance comes not from the Mongols but from Ivan III’s grandson, Ivan IV, better known as Ivan the Terrible.

Ivan the Terrible succeeded his father Vasili III as Grand Duke of Moscow in 1533 at the tender age of three. His mother served as regent until she too died when Ivan was just eight. For the next eight years, the young Grand Duke endured a series of regents chosen from amongst the boyars (the nobility). Finally, at the age of sixteen, in 1547 he adopted the title of Czar and his ascension to the throne represented the end of princely power and the beginning of autocracy that Russia has since became famed for.

In the beginning of the young Czar’s reign, however, Ivan proved to be an innovative leader and worked with a group of advisors collectively known as the Chosen Council. He also called the first meeting of the Zemsky Sobor, the first Russian parliament of the Feudal Estates (which proved to be like the Estates General that would become important to France two hundred years later). Ivan also introduced local self-governance to rural regions, mainly in the northeast of Russia which was heavily populated by the state peasantry. In addition to this he also revised the law codes and founded a permanent standing army, emphasising the new technology of the time: musketry. Basically, the early part of Ivan the Terrible’s reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernisation. Not all that terrible, really.

In 1552 he conquered and sacked Kazan, and in 1556 Astrakhan, destroying any lingering power that the Golden Horde possessed in the area. Ivan’s Tatar campaigns opened vast new areas for Russian expansion, and it was during Ivan IV’s reign that the conquest and colonisation of Siberia began. In 1580, Russia began its campaign to conquer the Khanates of Siber, marking the first time that Russia had expanded its borders east of the Ural Mountains and into Asia.

After all these modernising reforms, securing Russia’s borders and then expanding frontiers, why is it that Ivan IV is remembered as being so “Terrible”? Well, as he grew older his temper worsened and he set out to break the power of the boyars, carrying out a particularly brutal campaign, confiscating their land and executing or exiling those who displeased him. The boyars were the last connection to the earlier days of princely rule and with them out of the way Ivan the Terrible had Russia fully under the fist. To aid him in his ruthless rule, Ivan established the Oprichniki which were sort of like a personal bodyguard who dressed in black and rode black horses with severed dog’s heads attached to their saddles: an homage to their task of sniffing out treason and enemies of the Czar. The group was known to terrorize civilian populations and in one particularly brutal attack upon the city of Novgorod in 1570 it is estimated that the Oprichniki killed around 1,500 boyars with thousands more slain.

Ivan’s campaigns of terror were effectively the first of Russia’s purges that have been a hallmark of Russia’s history and existence ever since. During the latter half of Ivan’s reign, whole towns were destroyed and the whole period was, in effect, a civil war without any resistance: a civil massacre, if you will.

Ivan the Terrible’s temper grew so monstrous that he even killed his son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, by striking him with his sceptre in a fit of rage. The Czar is reported to have thrown himself upon his son’s body in an attempt to stop the bleeding, whilst repeatedly crying, “May I be dammed! I’ve killed my son! I’ve killed my son!”

In the end, Ivan IV established the absolute control of the Czar over all of the Russian people, but he also set the precedent of accomplishing this through terror, suspension of law and the Oprichniki (a forerunner of Russia’s secret police). This absolute control of the population through terror would echo through the ages of Russian history until today. Hence, the stereotypes of Russian brutality and barbarism, but here is the truth; western Europe knew a lot about brutality too. However, for centuries, Russia was viewed by western Europe as being both European and simultaneously not European; an “Other” that was both doubly feared because it was not fully “Other”.

When we think of all these historical stereotypes about Russia, it is worth remembering that what one person sees as barbaric about others is often what the others see as barbaric about the viewee.

The Rest is History

Enjoy this? Then check out the rest of the series in the links below: