O sistema de negociação do santo graal james windsor

O sistema de negociação do santo graal james windsor
por Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm., KCD, KT St A.
Extraído da revista Nexus.
Volume 6, Número 5 (agosto-setembro de 1999)
Para manter sua perseguição às dinastias e hereges do Graal, a Igreja se certificou de que subverteria as histórias que manteriam vivo o verdadeiro legado do Graal entre o povo.
Sobre o orador.
Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm, KCD, KT St A, é um genealogista soberano e cavalheirista internacionalmente conhecido. Ele ocupa o cargo de Prior da Igreja Celta do Sagrado Membro de Saint Columba, e se distingue como Le Chevalier Labran de Saint Germain e Preceptor dos Cavaleiros Templários de Santo Antônio. Sir Laurence é também um adido presidencial do Conselho Europeu dos Príncipes (um órgão consultivo constitucional criado em 1946) e Chanceler do Tribunal Imperial e Real da Soberania dos Dragões.
Ele é formalmente ligado à Guarda da Casa Nobre da Casa Real de Stuart, fundada em St Germain-en-Laye em 1692, é o Historiografista Real Jacobista por Nomeação, e é um membro da Sociedade de Antiquários da Escócia.
Parece que quase nenhuma vez desde que eu estava aqui. É apenas dez meses atrás, eu acho, mas nos últimos meses Genesis of the Grail Kings foi concluída, publicada e já está causando um impacto significativo na Grã-Bretanha, com lançamentos agora ocorrendo mais longe.
Não necessariamente que as organizações da Igreja estabelecidas gostem muito do movimento celta, mas esse é o caminho. Eu também sou apontado como um adido presidencial a uma organização chamada O Conselho Europeu dos Príncipes.
Como se verificou, não teve muito para ficar de olho e, uma vez que o Mercado Comum Europeu passou a existir, ele se tornou muito mais envolvido com isso a partir dos anos 1960. O Conselho gostou bastante da ideia dos acordos comerciais e da mutualidade geral, apesar de não gostar muito das coisas do modo como agora se desenvolveram na União Europeia.
Com a eventual criação do Parlamento Europeu, dificilmente poderia haver um Conselho de Governo também. De fato, o Conselho não era de modo algum um governo: era simplesmente um órgão consultivo composto por trinta e três casas reais européias. Estas poderiam ser casas reinantes, casas desapropriadas ou casas deposto, mas, seja qual for o caso, vários príncipes e princesas dessas famílias formaram o Concílio.
Por muito tempo agora, seu objetivo tem sido bastante simples, e é cuidar das cláusulas constitucionais nos vários estados-nação (os países europeus, com exceção da Grã-Bretanha, têm Constituições Escritas). E assim, quando o Parlamento Europeu decide aprovar essa nova lei ou impor esse novo ditame, o Conselho dos Príncipes pode dizer: "Olhe, você não pode realmente fazer isso porque infringe, digamos, a cláusula 7 da subseção ( b) da Constituição deste ou daquele país.
No entanto, no decurso da compilação desta genealogia e da sua fascinante história, surgiu o conceito de outro livro. Isso aconteceu mais pela demanda popular do que pelo planejamento estratégico, e fiquei tão entusiasmada com a idéia de que agora haverá quatro livros nesta série em particular. É, de fato, sobre este quarto livro (ao invés do sucessor imediato de Gênesis) que eu gostaria de falar hoje.
Vimos como os grandes vulcanos da época produziam a enigmática pedra de fogo alta (o pó branco de ouro monatômico) que era usada para alimentar os corpos de luz dos reis babilônios e faraós egípcios.
E vimos como essa substância, quando ingerida, produzia efeitos impressionantes no sistema endócrino do corpo. Em última análise, seguimos a linha sênior da descendência real (uma linha que foi geneticamente determinada pelo DNA mitocondrial das Rainhas Dragão) até o tempo de Moisés. E visitamos o Templo, descoberto em 1904, no alto do Monte Horeb da Bíblia, onde foi feita a pedra de fogo monatômica.
Então, hoje, estaremos olhando para o mundo do encantamento, com um pequeno mito, um pouco de magia e uma boa dose de fatos históricos, enquanto alguns dos personagens da lenda popular tomam seu lugar no palco da realidade. E, ao final desta palestra, abriremos as portas para um dos mais intrigantes, mas suprimidos, segredos de nossa herança.
Embora alguns dos temas tenham suas origens em tradições muito antigas, a maioria dos contos (como os conhecemos) foi recentemente inclinada da Idade das Trevas em diante, e especialmente dos tempos medievais, quando a perseguição da Igreja aos hereges do Graal estava em pleno andamento, levando à Inquisição Católica.
E eles, de acordo com a tradição do Dragão dos Senhores do Anel de Ouroboros, referiram-se à Linhagem Messiânica como a Raça dos Elfos. Como veremos, os termos "elfo", "fada", "pixie" e assim por diante eram todos representantes de várias castas dentro da sucessão real.
Alternativamente, com uma cruz posicionada acima do anel, torna-se o Orbe masculino de regalia soberana. E com a cruz posicionada dentro do anel, torna-se emblemático do próprio Santo Graal - identificado como a Copa do Orvalho, ou o Rosi-Crucis.
Foi por essa razão que, quando Simon de Montfort e os exércitos do papa Inocêncio III desceram à região em 1209, foi chamada Cruzada dos Albigenses.
Ao longo de 35 anos, dezenas de milhares de pessoas inocentes foram massacradas nesta campanha brutal - tudo porque os habitantes da região eram defensores do conceito original de realeza do Graal, contra o pseudo-estilo da monarquia que havia sido implementado pelo papa. máquina.
No antigo esquema das coisas, a realeza era automática porque era uma herança alquímica que, na prática, não tinha nada a ver com governar alguém ou em qualquer lugar. Em virtude de um ditame ilegal, no entanto, as monarquias foram colocadas sob o controle da Igreja e o Reino mágico dos Lordes do Anel foi suplantado pelos reinos materiais e territoriais dos reis papais.
Eles não eram apenas hereges: eram escolhidos para punição como feiticeiros e necromantes. E desde que eles não se conformavam com os ditames papais, eles eram claramente satanistas! As mulheres, claro, eram todas prostitutas, mas isso não era novidade; a Igreja Romana havia forjado essa classificação dogmática na época de sua constituição mais antiga!
Neste contexto, eu não uso a palavra & quot; importante & quot; levemente, porque a implementação deste documento em particular há cerca de 1.248 anos levou a quase todas as injustiças sociais que desde então têm sido experimentadas no mundo cristão. O documento ao qual me refiro chama-se "The Donation of Constantine". Toda a prática monárquica e governamental foi, durante séculos, baseada no preceito inicial desta carta, mas, como veremos, o preceito é totalmente inválido.
O período é apenas "escuro"; porque a Igreja e os soberanos imperiais decidiram evitá-lo do escrutínio, removendo provas documentais do ambiente educacional a fim de perpetuar o mito de que todos e tudo fora do establishment romano eram ignorantes e bárbaros.
Foi até mesmo datado e levou a suposta assinatura dele. O que o documento proclamava era que o papa era o representante eleito de Cristo na Terra, com o poder de "criar"; reis como seus subordinados. As provisões foram postas em prática pelo Vaticano em 751, após o que os merovíngios de longa data foram deposto e toda uma nova dinastia foi suplementada por meio de uma família que até então tinha sido prefeitos do Palácio Real (o equivalente a primeiros-ministros).
Eles foram apelidados de "carolíngios", e seu único rei de qualquer consequência (através de uns 236 anos) foi o lendário Carlos Magno.
Bem, há muitas razões, mas a mais óbvia é que as referências do Novo Testamento se referem à versão da Bíblia na Vulgata Latina. Esta edição foi traduzida e compilada por São Jerônimo, que não nasceu até o ano de 340, cerca de 26 anos depois de Constantino (que morreu, afinal, em 337) ter assinado o documento!
De fato, houve mais de meio século entre a alegada assinatura de Constantino e o aparecimento da Bíblia em latim particular que foi usada em seu conteúdo. Não obstante, a linguagem da Doação era, em qualquer caso, a do século VIII e não tinha relação com o estilo de escrita dos dias de Constantino.
Em virtude disso, eles também eram chamados de dragões. O Dragão, emblemático da sabedoria, era o epítome do Espírito Santo que, de acordo com o Livro do Gênesis, movia-se sobre as águas do tempo, enquanto o Graal era o Perpétuo Sangue Real - o Sangral. Originalmente, na antiga Mesopotâmia, era chamado de Gra-al - o Sangue Sagrado das Rainhas Dragões - e dizia-se ser o "néctar da suprema excelência". Os antigos gregos chamavam de ambrosia.
Três anéis para os reis élficos sob o céu.
Sete para os Senhores dos Anões em seus salões de pedra.
Nove para homens mortais condenados a morrer.
Um para o Lorde das Trevas em seu trono escuro,
Na Terra de Mordor, onde as sombras se encontram.
Um anel para governar todos eles.
Um anel para encontrá-los.
Um anel para trazer todos eles.
E na escuridão os amarram
Na Terra de Mordor, onde as sombras se encontram.
Por isso, é citado por Gandalf, o Mago, em O Senhor dos Anéis, de Tolkien, um dos contos mais populares de todos os tempos.
Este último foi ainda simbolizado pelo anel de cavaleiros vestidos de ferro que se sentaram na Távola Redonda - um anel que foi quebrado (levando a terra ao caos e ao desperdício) quando Artur abandonou o Código Celta em favor da persuasão romana (ou, como a versão cristianizada posterior da história explica diferentemente, quando Guinevere foi infiel a Arthur com Lancelot).
O que eles também reconheceram foi o fato de que tanto o Anel quanto o Graal poderiam trazer desastre, embora por diferentes meios. O poder do Anel tinha que ser suportado, caso contrário, ele escravizaria seu mestre, enquanto o poder do Graal retaliaria com vingança se mal utilizado. De qualquer forma, a moral é a mesma em que, em última análise, o poder é autodestrutivo quando atingido pela venda da alma. Assim, o Anel de Ouroboros pode ser um halo ou uma coroa, mas também pode se tornar um laço.
Mas a lenda dizia que, depois de muitas grandes vitórias, Carlos Magno estava condenado a derrotar a partir do momento em que perdeu a arma mágica. E assim foi em 30 de abril de 1945 - o mesmo dia em que o 7º Exército americano, sob o comando do General Patton, tomou a lança do Castelo de Nuremberg - Adolf Hitler aceitou sua derrota e [aparentemente] atirou em si mesmo.
Estas Relíquias foram representadas nos quatro naipes de Arcanos Menores do Tarô como Espadas, Copas, Pentagramas e Varinhas - posteriormente, para se tornarem Espadas, Copas, Diamantes e Clubes que conhecemos hoje.
No entanto, a Igreja há muito se apropria deste aspecto da cerimônia das Relíquias para se tornar sua arma de poder eucarística, supostamente para vincular seus seguidores à comunhão com o dogma eclesiástico. Mas, com o passar do tempo, esse mesmo poder está diminuindo à medida que as congregações diminuem na busca por verdades maiores e iluminação mais substancial de fontes legítimas.
Ele foi um membro fundador do Setor de Poesia e Magia da Corte do século XVI de Elizabeth Tudor - junto com Francis Bacon, John Dee, Edmund Spenser e outros da "corrente subterrânea" Rosacruz. que ajudou e guiou muito do trabalho de Shakespeare.
"a mais longa e mais ilustre linha de nobres que a Inglaterra já viu".
Sua ancestralidade era em conjunto a dos pictos e merovíngios, descendentes da antiga Casa do Graal de Scythia.
Aqui estava uma verdadeira linhagem real da Raça dos Elfos, e foi por essa razão que Oberon (uma variante de Aubrey / Albrey, o histórico Rei Elfo) tornou-se o Rei das Fadas de Shakespeare. Tal era a natureza translacional de toda a simbologia Rosacruz, seja retratada em histórias, obras de arte, marcas d'água ou no Tarot.
Os católicos tinham seu Grande Inquisidor Dominicano, Tom de Torquemada, e os Puritanos tinham seu equivalente em Matthew Hopkins, o Caçador de Bruxas.
Execuções favoráveis, em cada caso, estavam penduradas, se afogando ou queimando na fogueira, e o comando comum era:
"Mate todos eles - Deus conhecerá os seus!"
O conceito de conto de fadas era essencialmente voltado para histórias relacionadas a essas perseguições: relatos alegóricos da situação da verdadeira Família Real - os Senhores do Anel da Sangrão, cujas fadas e elfos (tendo sido manobrados do plano mortal da ortodoxia e do status quo) estavam confinados a uma existência aparentemente do Outro Mundo.
No curso de sua perseguição, as Donzelas Élficas foram feridas com cadarços, alimentadas com maçãs envenenadas ou condenadas à servidão - enquanto seus campeões nadavam grandes lagos, lutavam através de matagais e escalavam torres poderosas para assegurar e proteger a herança matrilinear dos albigens. . Eles incluem histórias bem conhecidas como A Bela Adormecida, Cinderela, Branca de Neve e Rapunzel.
Sempre, as histórias são reminiscentes da Noiva Perdida do Rei na Canção de Salomão do Antigo Testamento. Seu conteúdo também incorpora o aspecto abandonado de Maria Madalena, a noiva de Jesus, cuja herança real e herança materna foram tão minadas pelos bispos cristãos.
A história da Cinderela pode ser rastreada até a era carolíngia, com a sua primeira versão conhecida aparecendo no ano 850. Perrault publicou sua famosa edição em 1697 na França, enquanto Jacob e Wilhelm Grimm produziram sua versão alemã em 1812.
Carlos Magno, por outro lado, era um defensor da Igreja Romana, cujos adversários eram os defensores do estabelecimento merovíngio ilegalmente exterminado - um estabelecimento para o qual Aragorn teria sido pessoalmente bem adequado.
É, portanto, muito apropriado que um dos atuais candidatos esperançosos para a trilha sonora de O Senhor dos Anéis seja o próprio descendente de Richard Wagner, Adrian Wagner, que agora está em contato com a companhia cinematográfica a esse respeito.
Um fato aparente sobre o povo élfico de Tolkien é que, ao contrário dos fofinhos elfos de muitos contos infantis, esses personagens são na verdade maiores e mais poderosos que os mortais comuns. Eles também são dotados de maiores poderes de sabedoria, cavalgam cavalos mágicos e se parecem muito com a antiga tribo-rei irlandesa dos Tuatha DAN Danann. A este respeito, Tolkien foi bastante acurado com a sua avaliação dos Senhores dos Anjos originais dos Albi-gens que, nos longínquos anos aC, foram chamados os Senhores dos Sidhé (pronuncia-se "shee").
Antes de se estabelecerem na Irlanda (por volta de 800 aC), eles eram a raça mais nobre do mundo, ao lado dos primeiros reis do Egito, sendo os Príncipes de Scythia do Mar Negro (agora Ucrânia). Como os faraós dinásticos originais, eles traçaram sua descendência dos grandes Pendragons da Mesopotâmia; e deles surgiram as linhas reais do irlandês Bruithnigh e dos pictos da Caledônia da Escócia.
No País de Gales, eles fundaram a Casa Real de Gwynedd, enquanto na Cornualha, no sudoeste da Inglaterra, eles eram a nobreza sagrada conhecida como Pict-sidhé - da qual deriva o termo "pixie".
Mais tarde, nas regiões húngara e romena, a palavra ganhou a forma variante, Oupire.
Eles eram, portanto, bruxas, e a definição de Sidhé (Web of the Wise) tornou-se recentemente apelidada de "Web of the Weird".
Os bispos da Igreja e os frades da Inquisição suspeitavam que eles fossem os governantes supremos da Terra de Elphane - o reino crepuscular do ouro das fadas, das fontes mágicas e do conhecimento permanente da Floresta Verde, todos eles um anátema para a Igreja. Diziam que eles estavam perambulando pelas pessoas da noite, que consorciavam com espíritos malignos. Nesse estágio, uma nova palavra nasceu na linguagem da Europa cristã. A palavra, uma corrupção direta de Oupire, era "vampiro".
Mas a beleza de tudo isso era que isso tinha o efeito de fazer as pessoas se inclinarem mais pesadamente sobre a Igreja - a única rota percebida para a salvação. Esses vampiros e lobisomens, dizia-se, não poderiam ser mortos por meios convencionais.
Mesmo Deus estava fora de cena, pois somente o poder de Jesus Cristo (o Salvador da humanidade) poderia derrotar esses seres diabólicos. Eles foram retratados como demônios, demônios e emissários de Satanás, que tiveram que ser exorcizados e destruídos pelos monges e clérigos. E assim a Igreja estava no negócio com todo um novo gênero de folclore assustador para combater as lendas do Graal Quest e obras de arte esotéricas da "corrente subterrânea".
Mas em nenhum lugar nesses contos de encantamento um padre galante ou bispo jamais cavalgou em auxílio de uma donzela em perigo, pois a Igreja era, na prática, o adversário.
Nesta conferência da Igreja, os bispos estavam debatendo a natureza da Santíssima Trindade e de como Jesus não era simplesmente o Filho de Deus, mas também era Deus encarnado. O idoso sacerdote líbio, Arius de Alexandria, não ficou nada feliz com esse novo conceito e decidiu expressar seus sentimentos. Mas quando ele se levantou para falar, Nicholas of Myra imediatamente deu um soco na cara dele!
Até mesmo o último estabelecimento papal os considerava todos necromantes e feiticeiros, mas não é assim que as coisas são atualmente retratadas. Embora as profecias de Merlim tenham sido expressamente proibidas pelo Concílio de Trento, os ensinamentos de Davi, Patrick e Columba foram tão firmemente firmados na sociedade que a Igreja seguiu uma estratégia diferente de incorporação.
Não obstante este fato histórico, no entanto, os selos postais de aniversário e material substancialmente propagandista sensacionalista de 1997 retrataram esses dois arquiinimigos como se fossem irmãos de sangue em uma causa comum - provando, sem dúvida, que novos mitos da "igrejianidade" ainda estão sendo criados até hoje.
Seu animal totêmico era o lobo - assim como outras tribos eram representadas por, digamos, um javali ou um cavalo.
Esses totens não eram mais do que os primeiros predecessores da heráldica, segundo os quais as famílias eram identificadas pelos animais, plantas, conchas e outros dispositivos em suas bandeiras.
O culto de Barat An-na espalhou-se pela Síria até o reino fenício, onde começaram a retratá-la em suas moedas. Nestas representações, ela se sentou à beira do mar com uma tocha de fogo, e ao seu lado havia um escudo redondo com a cruz do Rosi-Crucis.
Sua imagem nas moedas mal se alterou, exceto que sua tocha flamejante se transformou em um farol, e a cruz Rosi-crucis de seu escudo foi alterada para se tornar a Union Jack. Mas, depois de todo esse tempo, ela ainda é a Deusa Mãe da terra, a Senhora da Pedra do Fogo: Britannia.
Estes santuários ("anéis de fada") eram chamados de Creachaire (tumbas do templo), e eles abrigavam as Raths, que eram moradias cobertas de grama construída sobre uma estrutura de postes. Em tempos posteriores, eles eram chamados de Tepes (pronuncia-se "tepesh") - dos quais derivava a tenda do índio americano - e eles eram considerados Portais para o Mundo Inferior, o domínio sagrado das almas ancestrais.
Desde o casamento de Maelo até a irmã de Carlos Magno, surgiram os Vere Counts of Guisnes que, como mencionado anteriormente, eram os reputados Reis Élficos e se tornaram os Grandes Chamberlains e Condes de Oxford da Inglaterra.
Dizia-se que a Fonte de Melusina estava localizada no fundo de um bosque em Anjou, e Melusina era frequentemente representada como uma sereia - como ainda é retratada em uma pintura antiga no Castelo de Bran do Conde Drácula na Romênia.
Foi ele quem, posteriormente estilizado como Robin Fitzooth, tornou-se o protótipo dos contos populares de Robin Hood.
A cerimônia foi conduzida na névoa da madrugada nas profundezas da Floresta de Windsor e, para facilitar a instalação, o costumeiro legado de Robin Hood da Casa de Vere foi posto em prática.
Este foi um estilo concedido a Maria Madalena quando ela se estabeleceu em Provença a partir de 44 dC
Essa herança era tão importante para a Igreja Celta que, quando o rei Kenneth MacAlpin uniu os escoceses e pictos em 844, seu documento de instalação existente fez menção especial à sua descendência das rainhas de Avallon.
Ygerna (às vezes chamada de Igraine na tradição do Graal) era a Alta Rainha dos reinos Celtas, e sua filha Morgaine (de seu primeiro marido, Gwyr Llew de Carlisle) era a Alta Sacerdotisa das Irmãs de Avallon.
Havia apenas um Arthur cuja mãe era Igraine de Avallon e cuja avó era a reconhecida Senhora do Lago. Havia apenas um Arthur com um filho chamado Modred, e havia apenas um Arthur com uma irmã chamada Morgaine (ou Morganna, como algumas das histórias se referem a ela).
Historicamente, e bem fora da mitologia propagandista cristã que envolve o personagem vampiro do famoso romance de Bram Stoker, Drácula era o príncipe Vlad III da Valáquia, que é muitas vezes referido como Vlad Tepes.
O que eles temiam era seu profundo conhecimento de alquimia e o fato de que ele era realmente um Oupire - um Venerado Overlord of the Rath, um Portal Guardian no antigo estilo Yulannu dos Senhores do Anel.
"O caldeirão sempre esteve em ebulição" ele disse. "Simplesmente adicionamos novos ingredientes à sopa."
A esse respeito, seu conto popular, embora cativante, não era de fato novo em conceito.
Desde os primórdios dos tempos europeus, dizia-se que o deus saxão Wotan (ou Odin, o equivalente ao sumério Anu) governava o mundo com oito anéis, tendo mais um, o nono anel (o Um Anel), para governar. os outros.
Uma delas era que a Virgem Maria só podia ser retratada de azul e branco (exatamente como é comumente descrita hoje). A razão para isso era que outras cores, especialmente o vermelho dos cardeais, poderiam ter sugerido que ela possuía alguma forma de ofício eclesiástico dentro de uma Igreja que não oferecia status clerical às mulheres.
Grande parte da língua da Europa, incluindo a língua inglesa, pode ser rastreada até a Fenícia, Síria, Egito, Índia e Mesopotâmia, com muitos dos vocábulos da palavra sendo milhares de anos de idade.
O ritual envolve dezenove músicos e, atrás deles, 200 monges, irradiando para fora em linhas (em grupos de cinco) em intervalos de cinco graus, voltados para uma caverna na montanha.
Os músicos usam treze tambores barril de tamanhos variados (pesando até 150 quilos cada), suspensos em molduras de madeira e direcionados para uma cavidade em forma de tigela na qual a pedra requerida é colocada, entre os músicos e a caverna. Além disso, há seis longos trompetes posicionados em intervalos entre os bateristas. No comando, os trompetes e os tambores começam, com os monges na parte traseira fornecendo um defletor enquanto cantam.
O intervalo de tempo antes de ocorrer a levitação da pedra é de quatro minutos e, desta maneira, as pedras foram levantadas cerca de 400 metros, para serem baixadas para as posições necessárias no templo da montanha.
Fechadas dentro dessa freqüência estão as frequências tão baixas que são inaudíveis para a percepção consciente, mas que ressoam diretamente com a freqüência da glândula pineal. Isso, como muitos de vocês saberão, é a glândula responsável pelos elevados estados de consciência e percepção.
Os cavaleiros deste ramo particular dos Templários (constituído pelo rei Baldwin de Jerusalém em 1118) foram chamados de Príncipes Guardiões do Segredo Real.
Posteriormente, no entanto, ela percebe seu erro e se lança sobre a pira funerária de Siegfried para estar com ele na eternidade. O Anel mágico que Siegfried deu a Brunilda é retirado das cinzas pelas Rhinemaidens, os legítimos Guardiões da Água do Ouro. E, em virtude disso, juntamente com o auto-sacrifício de Brunhilde, uma maldição até então (colocada sobre o Anel por Alberico, o Nibelungo, o Senhor Anão do Submundo) é levantada.
O anel de ouro em si (forjado a partir da pedra plana encantada do Rhinegold) tinha o poder de dar ao seu senhor o senhorio de todo o mundo, mas apenas ao custo de abandonar o amor e vender sua alma ao incrível poder do Anel.
O Anel de Salomão alcança sua queda através da ação do demônio Asmodaeus, enquanto Sauron é, na verdade, seu próprio demônio destrutivo.
Ninguém que não fosse um católico puro e sincero estava a salvo. Mas, tinha que haver alguma nova forma de classificação para puxar toda a presa para a rede em constante expansão.
O Grande Inquisidor da época era o brutal Toms de Torquemada, Confessor Sênior de Ferdinando II e Rainha Isabella da Espanha. Sob sua direção, a resposta foi encontrada e, muito em breve, os frades se voltaram para os "pagãos mais diabólicos que já conspiraram para derrubar a Igreja Romana".
Esse mal, mas imaginativo, trabalho deu detalhes completos do que foi percebido como a nova ameaça hedionda representada por todos os praticantes da magia satânica. O livro foi tão persuasivo que, dois anos depois, o papa Inocêncio VIII emitiu uma bula oficial para autorizar a supressão dessa seita blasfema.
Até então, o culto conhecido como Bruxaria (na medida em que existia) não constituía realmente uma ameaça para ninguém. Repousava principalmente na continuação do ritual pagão e dos ritos de fertilidade pelas classes camponesas. Em termos reais, era pouco mais do que o vestígio de uma crença primordial no poder divino das forças naturais, concentradas sobretudo em Pan, o perverso deus arcadiano dos pastores.
Durante um período de cerca de 250 anos, mais de um milhão de homens, mulheres e crianças inocentes foram assassinados pela autoridade delegada dos feiticeiros.
Esta era (com a sua altura no início dos anos 1500) foi a época em que Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael e Michelangelo desenvolveram a harmonia da arte clássica em sua forma mais elevada. E foi a época em que a excitação da erudição pagã ressurgiu em uma explosão de cores para cruzar novas fronteiras da ciência, arquitetura e design.
As publicações anunciavam uma nova Era de Iluminação e Libertação Hermética, na qual certos segredos universais seriam revelados e tornados conhecidos.
Música de cordas e trombetas é tocada por toda parte, e tudo é encoberto em uma atmosfera de cavalheirismo, enquanto Cavaleiros nas Ordens Sagradas presidem.
Oberon, portanto, significa "Over Reign", que é o mesmo que High King ou Pendragon.
O trabalho deles era realmente de tutela: eles eram guardiões da gnosis (o conhecimento) e da linhagem sagrada dos albigens. É por meio da distinção nobre (ou gnômica) que a Raça das Fadas em geral era chamada de Gentry - particularmente a casta Druídica dos Pict-sidhé (os Pixies) que eram os guardiões finais da lei e da cultura. Suas contrapartes femininas eram o Behn-sidhé (o Banshee), que, em irlandês antigo, significa simplesmente "as mulheres sábias".
Bem, isso foi precisamente o que a Igreja fez com a sucessão do Dragão - os Senhores do Anel dos Albigens, a Linhagem Sagrada do Santo Graal.
Por meio da redefinição de todos os nomes originais - Fadas, Elfos, Pixies, Gnomos, Duendes, Sprites, ou o que quer que seja - eles diminuíram o problema ao miniaturizar a significância nominal. Ao fazê-lo, a raça transcendental do Sidhé foi retratada como pequenas figuras diminutas e movida para o reino da mitologia. A doação fraudulenta de Constantino foi então posta em jogo e, doravante, somente a Igreja pôde determinar quem era e não era um rei!
Isso foi mais especificamente direcionado aos membros-chave da linhagem messiânica: a derradeira sucessão de Dragões dos Albi-gens - os reis e rainhas dinásticos da Sangrèal e seus principais Oupires. Essas pessoas eram reais e todos sabiam disso, de modo que não podiam ficar confinados ao reino superficial da fantasia. Eles poderiam, no entanto, ser retratados como se (sendo do sangue de Dragão) eles fossem de uma estranha variedade meio humana, além do pálido cristão.
Na melhor das hipóteses, eles eram talvez sereias e, na pior das hipóteses, eles eram vampiros, mas de qualquer forma eles eram os emissários do mal, mudando de forma de Satanás!
Por isso, foi apelidado de "Lemuria", colocando muitos entusiastas à procura de seu paradeiro afundado sob os oceanos Atlântico, Pacífico ou Índico, como se fosse a cidade perdida de Atlântida.
Talvez tal território oculto exista. No entanto, o fato é que (por qualquer nome que já tenha sido conhecido), o mais poderoso trato da terra lemuriana nunca foi perdido.
Foi o grande continente continental que ainda existe hoje, estendendo-se por toda a Europa oriental através da antiga União Soviética.
Bem, eles agora são completamente identificáveis ​​a partir de seus restos preservados, que foram escavados em vários locais de lugares tão distantes quanto a Transilvânia e o Tibete. Com seus cabelos castanho-claros a vermelhos e olhos pálidos, os homens vestidos de couro tinham pelo menos um metro e noventa e seis de altura, enquanto até as mulheres tinham mais de um metro e oitenta de altura. Sem dúvida, esses antepassados ​​dos Reis Altos Gaélicos e Celtas estavam entre os guerreiros mais impressionantes de toda a história.
De fato, agora se suspeita que a cultura Ubaid do sul da Mesopotâmia - a cultura que introduziu a estrutura municipal a partir de cerca de 5000 aC - era na verdade a cultura Uper-ad: a dos Senhores da Terra Cítios, os Upers ou Oupires.
E na linguagem da velha Irlanda - para onde muitas das castas migraram - a palavra sumaire significa "dragão".
Vem do longínquo Reino dos Senhores do Anel.

O sistema de negociação do santo graal james windsor
por Dean Henderson.
Dean Henderson é o autor de Big Oil & amp; Seus banqueiros no Golfo Pérsico: Quatro Cavaleiros, Oito Famílias & amp; Sua Inteligência Global, Narcóticos & amp; A Rede do Terror e o Grateful Unrich: Revolução em 50 Países. Seu blog Left Hook está em deanhenderson. wordpress.
As oito famílias.
Os Quatro Cavaleiros da Banca,
Banco da América.
JPMorgan Chase.
. possui os Quatro Cavaleiros do Petróleo,
BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris)
outros gigantes europeus do dinheiro velho.
Mas seu monopólio sobre a economia global não termina na beira do caminho do petróleo. De acordo com os registros da empresa 10K para a SEC, os Quatro Cavaleiros da Banca estão entre os dez maiores detentores de ações de praticamente todas as corporações da Fortune 500. [1]
Um recente diretor corporativo da US Trust e curador honorário foi Walter Rothschild.
Outros diretores incluídos:
Daniel Davison do JP Morgan Chase.
Richard Tucker da Exxon Mobil.
Daniel Roberts, do Citigroup.
Marshall Schwartz do Morgan Stanley [2]
JW McCallister, um membro da indústria petrolífera com conexões com a Casa de Saud, escreveu em The Grim Reaper que a informação que ele adquiriu de banqueiros sauditas citou 80% de propriedade do Banco Federal Reserve de Nova York - de longe a mais poderosa agência do Fed - por apenas oito famílias. quatro dos quais residem nos EUA.
o Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans e Kuhn Loebs de Nova York.
os Rothschilds de Paris e Londres.
os Warburgs de Hamburgo.
os Lazards de Paris.
o Israel Moisés Seifs de Roma.
O CPA Thomas D. Schauf corrobora as alegações de McCallister, acrescentando que dez bancos controlam todas as doze agências do Federal Reserve Bank.
N. M. Rothschild de Londres.
Banco Rothschild de Berlim.
Banco de Warburg de Hamburgo.
Banco de Warburg de Amsterdã.
Lehman Brothers de Nova York.
Irmãos Lazard de Paris.
Kuhn Loeb Bank, de Nova York.
Israel Moisés Seif Banco da Itália.
Goldman Sachs, de Nova York.
JP Morgan Chase Bank de Nova York.
Schauf lista William Rockefeller, Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff e James Stillman como indivíduos que possuem grandes ações do Fed. [3]
Os Schiffs são insiders em Kuhn Loeb. The Stillmans are Citigroup insiders, who married into the Rockefeller clan at the turn of the century.
Yet the facts remain.
The Federal Reserve Bank was born in 1913, the same year US banking scion J. Pierpont Morgan died and the Rockefeller Foundation was formed.
The House of Morgan presided over American finance from the corner of Wall Street and Broad, acting as quasi-US central bank since 1838, when George Peabody founded it in London.
Mullins wrote that the Rothschilds,
"…preferred to operate anonymously in the US behind the facade of J. P. Morgan & Company". [5]
Author Gabriel Kolko stated,
"Morgan's activities in 1895-1896 in selling US gold bonds in Europe were based on an alliance with the House of Rothschild." [6]
The Morgan financial octopus wrapped its tentacles quickly around the globe. Morgan Grenfell operated in London. Morgan et Ce ruled Paris. The Rothschild's Lambert cousins set up Drexel & Company in Philadelphia.
It financed the launch of AT&T, General Motors, General Electric and DuPont.
Like the London-based Rothschild and Barings banks, Morgan became part of the power structure in many countries.
J. Pierpont Morgan , who once stated,
"Competition is a sin", now opined gleefully, "Think of it. All competing railroad traffic west of St. Louis placed in the control of about thirty men." [8]
Morgan and Edward Harriman's banker Kuhn Loeb held a monopoly over the railroads, while banking dynasties Lehman, Goldman Sachs and Lazard joined the Rockefellers in controlling the US industrial base. [9]
The 1913 creation of the Fed fused the power of the Eight Families to the military and diplomatic might of the US government. If their overseas loans went unpaid, the oligarchs could now deploy US Marines to collect the debts.
Morgan, Chase and Citibank formed an international lending syndicate.
By 1895 Morgan controlled the flow of gold in and out of the US.
The first American wave of mergers was in its infancy and was being promoted by the bankers. In 1897 there were sixty-nine industrial mergers. By 1899 there were twelve-hundred. In 1904 John Moody - founder of Moody's Investor Services - said it was impossible to talk of Rockefeller and Morgan interests as separate. [10]
Teddy Roosevelt defeated Bryan in 1908, but was forced by this spreading populist wildfire to enact the Sherman Anti-Trust Act . He then went after the Standard Oil Trust.
Goaded by the Carnegie Foundation and other oligarchy fronts, Wilson accommodated.
As Charles Tansill wrote in America Goes to War ,
"Even before the clash of arms, the French firm of Rothschild Freres cabled to Morgan & Company in New York suggesting the flotation of a loan of $100 million, a substantial part of which was to be left in the US to pay for French purchases of American goods."
The House of Morgan financed half the US war effort, while receiving commissions for lining up contractors like GE, Du Pont, US Steel, Kennecott and ASARCO.
All were Morgan clients. Morgan also financed the British Boer War in South Africa and the Franco-Prussian War. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference was presided over by Morgan, which led both German and Allied reconstruction efforts. [11]
House Banking Committee Chairman Louis McFadden (D-NY) said of the Great Depression ,
"It was no accident. It was a carefully contrived occurrence. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so they might emerge as rulers of us all".
Sen. Gerald Nye (D-ND) chaired a munitions investigation in 1936.
Nye concluded that the House of Morgan had plunged the US into WWI to protect loans and create a booming arms industry. Nye later produced a document titled The Next War , which cynically referred to "the old goddess of democracy trick", through which Japan could be used to lure the US into WWII.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas decried,
"Morgan influence. the most pernicious one in industry and finance today."
Jack Morgan responded by nudging the US towards WWII.
Morgan had close relations with the Iwasaki and Dan families - Japan's two wealthiest clans - who have owned Mitsubishi and Mitsui, respectively, since the companies emerged from 17th Century shogunates.
When Japan invaded Manchuria, slaughtering Chinese peasants at Nanking, Morgan downplayed the incident. Morgan also had close relations with Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, while German Nazi Dr. Hjalmer Schacht was a Morgan Bank liaison during WWII.
After the war Morgan representatives met with Schacht at the Bank of International Settlements ( BIS ) in Basel, Switzerland. [13]
BIS is the most powerful bank in the world, a global central bank for the Eight Families who control the private central banks of almost all Western and developing nations.
The first President of BIS was Rockefeller banker Gates McGarrah - an official at Chase Manhattan and the Federal Reserve. McGarrah was the grandfather of former CIA director Richard Helms. The Rockefellers - like the Morgans - had close ties to London.
David Icke writes in Children of the Matrix , that the Rockefellers and Morgans were just "gofers" for the European Rothschilds. [14]
O Federal Reserve.
Banco da Inglaterra.
Banco Nacional da Suíça.
Historian Carroll Quigley wrote in his epic book Tragedy And Hope that BIS was part of a plan,
"to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements."
The US government had a historical distrust of BIS, lobbying unsuccessfully for its demise at the 1944 post-WWII Bretton Woods Conference .
Instead the Eight Families' power was exacerbated, with the Bretton Woods creation of the IMF and the World Bank . The US Federal Reserve only took shares in BIS in September 1994. [15]
Other institutions which the Eight Families control include,
the World Economic Forum.
the International Monetary Conference.
the World Trade Organization.
Bretton Woods was a boon to the Eight Families. The IMF and World Bank were central to this "new world order".
In 1944 the first World Bank bonds were floated by Morgan Stanley and First Boston. The French Lazard family became more involved in House of Morgan interests. Lazard Freres - France's biggest investment bank - is owned by the Lazard and David-Weill families - old Genoese banking scions represented by Michelle Davive. A recent Chairman and CEO of Citigroup was Sanford Weill.
Brussels serves as headquarters for the new European Central Bank and for NATO. In 1973 Morgan officials met secretly in Bermuda to illegally resurrect the old House of Morgan, twenty years before Glass Steagal Act was repealed. Morgan and the Rockefellers provided the financial backing for Merrill Lynch, boosting it into the Big 5 of US investment banking. Merrill is now part of Bank of America.
The Kuhn-Loeb's had financed - along with Rothschilds - Rockefeller's quest to become king of the oil patch. National City Bank of Cleveland provided John D. with the money needed to embark upon his monopolization of the US oil industry. The bank was identified in Congressional hearings as being one of three Rothschild-owned banks in the US during the 1870's, when Rockefeller first incorporated as Standard Oil of Ohio. [17]
Another was James Stillman , whose family controlled Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Both banks have merged under the JP Morgan Chase umbrella. Two of James Stillman's daughters married two of William Rockefeller's sons. The two families control a big chunk of Citigroup as well. [18]
Insurance companies - the first in the US was launched by Freemasons through their Woodman's of America - play a key role in the Bermuda drug money shuffle.
Companies under Rockefeller control include,
The Rockefeller Foundation has close financial ties to both Ford and Carnegie Foundations.
Other family philanthropic endeavors include,
Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
General Education Board.
University of Chicago - which churns out a steady stream of far right economists as apologists for international capital, including Milton Friedman.
The family owns 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where the national Christmas tree is lighted every year, and Rockefeller Center.
David Rockefeller was instrumental in the construction of the World Trade Center towers. The main Rockefeller family home is a hulking complex in upstate New York known as Pocantico Hills.
a 32-room 5th Avenue duplex in Manhattan.
a mansion in Washington, DC.
Monte Sacro Ranch in Venezuela.
coffee plantations in Ecuador.
several farms in Brazil.
an estate at Seal Harbor, Maine.
resorts in the Caribbean, Hawaii and Puerto Rico [20]
The Dulles and Rockefeller families are cousins.
Allen Dulles created the CIA, assisted the Nazis, covered up the Kennedy hit from his Warren Commission perch and struck a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood to create mind-controlled assassins. [21]
The family is a major funder of the eugenics movement which spawned Hitler, human cloning and the current DNA obsession in US scientific circles.
In an October 1975 interview with Playboy magazine, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller - who was also Governor of New York - articulated his family's patronizing worldview,
"I am a great believer in planning - economic, social, political, military, total world planning."
But of all the Rockefeller brothers, it is Trilateral Commission ( TC ) founder and Chase Manhattan Chairman David who has spearheaded the family's fascist agenda on a global scale.
the Shah of Iran.
the South African apartheid regime.
the Chilean Pinochet junta.
He was the biggest financier of the CFR, the TC and (during the Vietnam War) the Committee for an Effective and Durable Peace in Asia - a contract bonanza for those who made their living off the conflict.
Nixon asked him to be Secretary of Treasury, but Rockefeller declined the job, knowing his power was much greater at the helm of the Chase.
Author Gary Allen writes in The Rockefeller File that in 1973,
"David Rockefeller met with twenty-seven heads of state, including the rulers of Russia and Red China."
Following the 1975 Nugan Hand Bank /CIA coup against Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, his British Crown-appointed successor Malcolm Fraser sped to the US, where he met with President Gerald Ford after conferring with David Rockefeller. [24]
[1] 10K Filings of Fortune 500 Corporations to SEC. 3-91.
[2] 10K Filing of US Trust Corporation to SEC. 6-28-95.
[3] "The Federal Reserve ‘Fed Up'. Thomas Schauf. davidicke 1-02.
[4] The Secrets of the Federal Reserve. Eustace Mullins. Bankers Research Institute. Staunton, VA. 1983. p.179.
[6] The Triumph of Conservatism. Gabriel Kolko. MacMillan and Company New York. 1963. p.142.
[7] Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and the Great Pyramids. Jim Marrs. HarperCollins Publishers. Nova york. 2000. p.57.
[8] The House of Morgan. Ron Chernow. Atlantic Monthly Press NewYork 1990.
[10] Democracy for the Few. Michael Parenti. St. Martin's Press. Nova york. 1977. p.178.
[12] The Great Crash of 1929. John Kenneth Galbraith. Houghton, Mifflin Company. Boston. 1979. p.148.
[14] Children of the Matrix. David Icke. Bridge of Love. Scottsdale, AZ. 2000.
[15] The Confidence Game: How Un-Elected Central Bankers are Governing the Changed World Economy. Steven Solomon. Simon & Schuster. Nova york. 1995. p.112.
[18] The Money Lenders: The People and Politics of the World Banking Crisis. Anthony Sampson. Penguin Books. Nova york. 1981.
[19] The Rockefeller File. Gary Allen. '76 Press. Seal Beach, CA. 1977.
[21] Dope Inc.: The Book That Drove Kissinger Crazy. Editors of Executive Intelligence Review. Washington DC. 1992.
[23] The Rockefeller Syndrome. Ferdinand Lundberg. Lyle Stuart Inc. Secaucus, NJ. 1975. p.296.
Freemasons and The House of Rothschild.
In 1789 Alexander Hamilton became the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.
Hamilton was one of many Founding Fathers who were Freemasons. He had close relations with the Rothschild family which owns the Bank of England and leads the European Freemason movement.
Roger Livingston helped Sherman and Franklin write the Declaration of Independence.
He gave George Washington his oaths of office while he was Grand Master of the New York Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Washington himself was Grand Master of the Virginia Lodge. Of the General Officers in the Revolutionary Army, thirty-three were Masons. This was highly symbolic since 33rd Degree Masons become Illuminated. [1]
. none of whom were Masons, wanted to completely severe ties with the British Crown , but were overruled by the Masonic faction led by,
Joseph Warren, Grand Master of the St. Andrews Lodge in Boston General,
"defy Parliament but remain loyal to the Crown".
St. Andrews Lodge was the hub of New World Masonry and began issuing Knights Templar Degrees in 1769. [2]
General Joseph Warren.
All US Masonic lodges are to this day warranted by the British Crown, whom they serve as a global intelligence and counterrevolutionary subversion network.
Their most recent initiative is the Masonic Child Identification Program (CHIP). According to Wikipedia, the CHIP programs allow parents the opportunity to create a kit of identifying materials for their child, free of charge. The kit contains a fingerprint card, a physical description, a video, computer disk, or DVD of the child, a dental imprint, and a DNA sample.
The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775 under the Presidency of Freemason John Hancock . Peyton's brother William succeeded him as Virginia Lodge Grand Master and became the leading proponent of centralization and federalism at the First Constitutional Convention in 1787. The federalism at the heart of the US Constitution is identical to the federalism laid out in the Freemason's Anderson's Constitutions of 1723.
William Randolph became the nation's first Attorney General and Secretary of State under George Washington. His family returned to England loyal to the Crown. John Marshall, the nation's first Supreme Court Justice, was also a Mason. [3]
In 1776 Franklin became de facto Ambassador to France.
In 1779 he became Grand Master of the French Neuf Soeurs (Nine Sisters) Lodge, to which John Paul Jones and Voltaire belonged. Franklin was also a member of the more secretive Royal Lodge of Commanders of the Temple West of Carcasonne, whose members included Frederick Prince of Whales.
While Franklin preached temperance in the US, he cavorted wildly with his Lodge brothers in Europe. Franklin served as Postmaster General from the 1750's to 1775 - a role traditionally relegated to British spies. [4]
He died in a gun battle with Aaron Burr, who founded Bank of Manhattan with Kuhn Loeb financing.
Hamilton exemplified the contempt which the Eight Families hold towards common people, once stating,
"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the well born, the others the mass of the people. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge and determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share of government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second." [6]
Hamilton was only the first in a series of Eight Families cronies to hold the key position of Treasury Secretary.
In recent times,
Kennedy Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon came from Dillon Read (now part of UBS Warburg)
Nixon Treasury Secretaries David Kennedy and William Simon came from Continental Illinois Bank (now part of Bank of America) and Salomon Brothers (now part of Citigroup), respectively.
Carter Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal came from Goldman Sachs.
Reagan Treasury Secretary Donald Regan came from Merrill Lynch (now part of Bank of America)
Bush Sr. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady came from Dillon Read (UBS Warburg)
both Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Bush Jr. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came from Goldman Sachs.
Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner worked at Kissinger Associates and the New York Fed.
Thomas Jefferson argued that the United States needed a publicly-owned central bank so that European monarchs and aristocrats could not use the printing of money to control the affairs of the new nation.
"A country which expects to remain ignorant and free. expects that which has never been and that which will never be. There is scarcely a King in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh - get first all the people's money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever. banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy."
Jefferson watched as the Euro-banking conspiracy to control the United States unfolded, weighing in,
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period, unalterable through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery". [7]
But the Rothschild-sponsored Hamilton's arguments for a private US central bank carried the day.
In 1791 the Bank of the United States (BUS) was founded, with the Rothschilds as main owners. The bank's charter was to run out in 1811. Public opinion ran in favor of revoking the charter and replacing it with a Jeffersonian public central bank. The debate was postponed as the nation was plunged by the Euro-bankers into the War of 1812.
Amidst a climate of fear and economic hardship, Hamilton's bank got its charter renewed in 1816.
Old Hickory, Honest Abe & Camelot.
In 1828 Andrew Jackson took a run at the US Presidency.
Throughout his campaign he railed against the international bankers who controlled the BUS.
"You are a den of vipers. I intend to expose you and by Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people understood the rank injustices of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning."
Jackson won the election and revoked the bank's charter stating,
"The Act seems to be predicated on an erroneous idea that the present shareholders have a prescriptive right to not only the favor, but the bounty of the government. for their benefit does this Act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly.
Present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with government.
Should its influence be concentrated under the operation of such an Act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the independence of our country in war. controlling our currency, receiving our public monies and holding thousands of our citizens independence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government for selfish purposes. to make the rich richer and more powerful. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by acts of Congress.
I have done my duty to this country." [8]
Populism prevailed and Jackson was re-elected. In 1835 he was the target of an assassination attempt.
The gunman was Richard Lawrence , who confessed that he was,
"in touch with the powers in Europe". [9]
Still, in 1836 Jackson refused to renew the BUS charter.
Under his watch the US national debt went to zero for the first and last time in our nation's history. This angered the international bankers, whose primary income is derived from interest payments on debt. BUS President Nicholas Biddle cut off funding to the US government in 1842, plunging the US into a depression.
Biddle was an agent for the Paris-based Jacob Rothschild. [10]
"If that mischievous policy, which had its origins in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce.
It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." [11]
The Euro-banker-written Hazard Circular was exposed and circulated throughout the country by angry populists.
"The great debt that capitalists will see is made out of the war and must be used to control the valve of money. To accomplish this government bonds must be used as a banking basis.
We are now awaiting Secretary of Treasury Salmon Chase to make that recommendation. It will not allow Greenbacks to circulate as money as we cannot control that. We control bonds and through them banking issues".
The 1863 National Banking Act reinstated a private US central bank and Chase's war bonds were issued.
Lincoln was re-elected the next year, vowing to repeal the act after he took his January 1865 oaths of office. Before he could act, he was assassinated at the Ford Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Booth had major connections to the international bankers. His granddaughter wrote This One Mad Act, which details Booth's contact with "mysterious Europeans" just before the Lincoln assassination.
Booth was a KGC member and was connected through Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin to the House of Rothschild. Benjamin fled to England after the Civil War. [12]
His economic policies were publicly attacked by Fortune magazine, the Wall Street Journal and both David and Nelson Rockefeller. Even Kennedy's own Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, who came from the UBS Warburg-controlled Dillon Read investment bank, voiced opposition to the JFK proposals. [13]
The wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was conveniently gunned down by Jack Ruby before Ruby himself was shot, told author A. J. Weberman in 1994,
"The answer to the Kennedy assassination is with the Federal Reserve Bank. Don't underestimate that. It's wrong to blame it on Angleton and the CIA per se only. This is only one finger on the same hand. The people who supply the money are above the CIA". [14]
Fueled by incoming President Lyndon Johnson's immediate escalation of the Vietnam War, the US sank further into debt. Its citizens were terrorized into silence.
If they could kill the President they could kill anyone.
The Dutch House of Orange founded the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609 as the world's first central bank.
Prince William of Orange married into the English House of Windsor, taking King James II's daughter Mary as his bride. The Orange Order Brotherhood, which recently fomented Northern Ireland Protestant violence, put William III on the English throne where he ruled both Holland and Britain. In 1694 William III teamed up with the UK aristocracy to launch the private Bank of England.
As Bank of England Deputy Governor George Blunden put it,
"Fear is what makes the bank's powers so acceptable. The bank is able to exert its influence when people are dependent on us and fear losing their privileges or when they are frightened." [16]
Mayer Amschel Rothschild sold the British government German Hessian mercenaries to fight against American Revolutionaries, diverting the proceeds to his brother Nathan in London, where N. M. (Nathan and Mayer) Rothschild & Sons was established.
Mayer was a serious student of Cabala and launched his fortune on money embezzled from William IX - royal administrator of the Hesse-Kassel region and a prominent Freemason.
It financed the Louisiana Purchase. When several states defaulted on its loans, Barings bribed Daniel Webster to make speeches stressing the virtues of loan repayment. The states held their ground, so the House of Rothschild cut off the money spigot in 1842, plunging the US into a deep depression. It was often said that the wealth of the Rothschilds depended on the bankruptcy of nations.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild once said,
"I care not who controls a nation's political affairs, so long as I control her currency".
War didn't hurt the family fortune either.
The House of Rothschild financed,
the Prussian War.
the Crimean War.
the British attempt to seize the Suez Canal from the French.
Nathan Rothschild made a huge financial bet on Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, while also funding the Duke of Wellington's peninsular campaign against Napoleon.
Both the Mexican War and the Civil War were goldmines for the family.
One Rothschild family biography mentions a London meeting where an "International Banking Syndicate" decided to pit the American North against the South as part of a "divide and conquer" estratégia.
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once stated,
"The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War. These bankers were afraid that the United States. would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed."
Rothschild biographer Derek Wilson says the family was the official European banker to the US government and strong supporters of the Bank of the United States. [17]
He says all copies of outgoing letters written by the London Rothschilds during this Civil War period,
"were destroyed at the orders of successive partners". [18]
French and British troops had, at the height of the Civil War, encircled the US.
The British sent 11,000 troops to Crown-controlled Canada, which gave safe harbor to Confederate agents. France's Napoleon III installed Austrian Hapsburg family member Archduke Maximilian as his puppet emperor in Mexico, where French troops massed on the Texas border.
Only an 11 th - hour deployment of two Russian warship fleets by US ally Czar Alexander II in 1863 saved the United States from re-colonization. [19]
"Belmont (August Belmont was a US Rothschild agent and had a Triple Crown horse race named in his honor) and the Rothschilds. who have been buying up Confederate war bonds."
Salmon Rothschild said of a deceased President Lincoln,
"He rejects all forms of compromise. He has the appearance of a peasant and can only tell barroom stories."
Baron Jacob Rothschild was equally flattering towards the US citizenry.
He once commented to US Minister to Belgium Henry Sanford on the over half a million Americans who died during the Civil War,
"When your patient is desperately sick, you try desperate measures, even to bloodletting."
Salmon and Jacob were merely carrying forth a family tradition. A few generations earlier Mayer Amschel Rothschild bragged of his investment strategy,
"When the streets of Paris are running in blood, I buy". [20]
Mayer Rothschild's sons were known as the Frankfurt Five .
The eldest - Amschel - ran the family's Frankfurt bank with his father.
Nathan ran London operations.
Youngest son Jacob set up shop in Paris.
Salomon ran the Vienna branch.
Karl was off to Naples.
Author Frederick Morton estimates that by 1850 the Rothschilds were worth over $10 billion. [21]
Some researchers believe that their fortune today exceeds $100 trillion.
. have intermarried into one big happy banking family.
The Warburg family - which controls Deutsche Bank and BNP - tied up with the Rothschilds in 1814 in Hamburg, while Kuhn Loeb powerhouse Jacob Schiff shared quarters with Rothschilds in 1785.
Schiff immigrated to America in 1865. He joined forces with Abraham Kuhn and married Solomon Loeb's daughter. Loeb and Kuhn married each others sisters and the Kuhn Loeb dynasty was consummated. Felix Warburg married Jacob Schiff's daughter. Two Goldman daughters married two sons of the Sachs family, creating Goldman Sachs. In 1806 Nathan Rothschild married the oldest daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, a leading financier in London. [22]
Thus, Merrill Lynch super-bull Abby Joseph Cohen and Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen are likely descended from Rothschilds.
Today the Rothschild's control a far-flung financial empire, which includes majority stakes in most world central banks. The Edmond de Rothschild clan owns the Banque Privee SA in Lugano, Switzerland and the Rothschild Bank AG of Zurich. The family of Jacob Lord Rothschild owns the powerful Rothschild Italia in Milan.
They are founding members of the exclusive $10 trillion Club of the Isles - which controls corporate giants,
Royal Dutch Shell.
Imperial Chemical Industries.
Lloyds of London.
Anglo American DeBeers.
It dominates the world supply of petroleum, gold, diamonds, and many other vital raw materials. [23]
The Club of Isles is led by the Rothschilds and includes Queen Elizabeth II and other wealthy European aristocrats and Nobility . [24]
Is Palin the Rothschild choice in 2012?
[1] The Temple & the Lodge. Michael Bagent & Richard Leigh. Arcade Publishing. Nova york. 1989. p.259.
[5] The Robot's Rebellion: The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance. David Icke. Gateway Books. Bath, UK. 1994. p.156.
[6] Democracy for the Few. Michael Parenti. St. Martin's Press. Nova york. 1977. p.51.
[7] Fourth Reich of the Rich. Des Griffin. Emissary Publications. Pasadena, CA. 1978. p.171.
[9] Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and the Great Pyramids. Jim Marrs. HarperCollins Publishers. Nova york. 2000. p.68.
[10] The Secrets of the Federal Reserve. Eustace Mullins. Bankers Research Institute. Staunton, VA. 1983. p.179.
[11] Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More. David Icke. David Icke Books Ltd. Isle of Wight. REINO UNIDO. 2010. p.92.
[15] Icke. The Robot's Rebellion. p.114.
[17] Rothschild: The Wealth and Power of a Dynasty. Derek Wilson. Charles Schribner's Sons. Nova york. 1988. p.178.
[18] The House of Rothschild. Niall Ferguson. Viking Press New York 1998 p.28.
[21] "What You Didn't Know about Taxes and the Crown". Mark Owen. Paranoia. #41. Spring 2006. p.66.
[23] "The Coming Fall of the House of Windsor". The New Federalist. 1994.
[24] "The Secret Financial Network Behind ‘Wizard' George Soros". William Engdahl. Executive Intelligence Review. 11-1-96.
[26] "Murdoch, Rothschild Invest in Israeli Oil Shale". Jerusalem Post. November 22, 2010.
[27] "Sarah Palin hires chief of staff for PAC", Huffington Post. Fevereiro de 2011.
The Roundtable and The Illuminati.
According to former British intelligence agent John Coleman's book, The Committee of 300 , the Rothschilds exert political control through the secretive Business Roundtable, which they created in 1909 with the help of Lord Alfred Milner and South African industrialist Cecil Rhodes .
The Rhodes Scholarship is granted by Cambridge University, out of which oil industry propagandist Cambridge Energy Research Associates operates.
He founded Israeli General Bank and Paz Oil. He is considered by many the father of modern Israel. [2]
Lord Nathan Rothschild.
The Roundtable takes its name from the legendary knight of King Arthur, whose tale of the Holy Grail is paramount to the Illuminati notion of Sangreal or holy blood .
"Round Tablers armed with immense wealth from gold, diamond and drug monopolies fanned out throughout the world to take control of fiscal and monetary policies and political leadership in all countries where they operated."
While Cecil Rhodes and the Oppenheimers went to South Africa, the Kuhn Loebs were off to re-colonize America.
Rudyard Kipling was sent to India. The Schiffs and Warburgs manhandled Russia. The Rothschilds, Lazards and Israel Moses Seifs pushed into the Middle East. In Princeton, New Jersey the Round Table founded the Institute for Advanced Study ( IAS ) as partner to its All Souls College at Oxford.
IAS was funded by the Rockefeller's General Education Board.
. created the atomic bomb. [3]
In 1919 Rothschild's Business Roundtable spawned the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London.
The RIIA soon sponsored sister organizations around the globe, including.
the US Council on Foreign Relations ( CFR )
the Asian Institute of Pacific Relations.
the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.
the Brussels-based Institute des Relations Internationales.
the Danish Foreign Policy Society.
the Indian Council of World Affairs.
the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Other affiliates popped up in France, Turkey, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. [4]
The inner circle at RIIA is dominated by,
Knights of St. John Jerusalem.
33rd Degree Scottish Rite Freemasons.
The Knights of St. John were founded in 1070 and answer directly to the British House of Windsor. Their leading bloodline is the Villiers dynasty, which the Hong Kong Matheson family married into. The Lytton family also married into the Villiers gang. [5]
Seventy years later the Vril Society received ample mention in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Lytton's son became Viceroy to India in 1876 just before opium production spiked in that country. Lytton's good friend Rudyard Kipling worked under Lord Beaverbrook as Propaganda Minister, alongside Sir Charles Hambro of the Hambros banking dynasty. [6]
He supervised the Caribbean slave trade as Jamaican Governor General from 1842-1846. He was Britain's Ambassador to China during the Second Opium War. His brother Frederick was Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong during both Opium Wars . Both were prominent Freemasons. British Lord Palmerston, who ran the Opium Wars, was a blood relative of the Bruce monarchy, as was his Foreign Secretary John Russell , grandfather of Bertrand Russell. [7]
Wells headed British intelligence during WWI.
His books speak of a "one-world brain" and "a police of the mind". William Butler Yeats, another Sun member, was a pal of Aleister Crowley. The two formed an Isis Cult based on a Madam Blavatsky manuscript , which called on the British aristocracy to organize itself into an Isis Aryan priesthood. Most prominent writers of English literature came from the ranks of the Roundtable. All promoted Empire expansion, however subtly.
Blavatsky's Theosophical Society and Bulwer-Lytton's Rosicrucians joined forces to form the Thule Society out of which the Nazis emerged. [8]
Dulles received information from the Muslim Brotherhood House of Saudi regarding the creation of mind-controlled Assassins. Dulles' assistant was James Warburg. [9]
Another RIIA affiliate was United World Federalists (UWF) - founded by Norman Cousins and Dulles assistant James P. Warburg. UWF's motto was "One world or none". Its first president Cord Meyer stepped down to take a key position in Allen Dulles' CIA.
Meyer articulated UWF's goal,
"Once having joined the One-World Federated Government, no nation could secede or revolt. with the atom bomb in its possession the Federal Government would blow that nation off the face of the earth." [10]
In 1950 James Warburg, whose elders Max and Paul sat on the board of Nazi business combine IG Farben , testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
"We shall have world government whether or not you like it - by conquest or consent."
TC/CFR insider Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington , who most recently has argued for a "Clash of Civilizations" between the West and the Muslim world, wrote in the TC publication Crisis in Democracy,
& quot ;. a government which lacks authority will have little ability short of cataclysmic crisis to impose on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary." [12]
The Illuminati serves as ruling council to all secret societies.
Its roots go back to:
the Guardians of Light in Atlantis.
the Afghan Roshaniya.
the Egyptian Mystery Schools.
the Genoese families who bankrolled the Roman Empire.
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli , who "handled" mafia-founder and 33 rd Degree Mason Guiseppe Mazzini , alluded to the Illuminati in a speech before the House of Commons in 1856 warning,
"There is in Italy a power which we seldom mention. I mean the secret societies. Europa. is covered with a network of secret societies just as the surfaces of the earth are covered with a network of railroads." [13]
The Illuminati is to these secret societies what the Bank of International Settlements is to the Eight Families central bankers. And their constituencies are exactly the same.
They founded modern banking techniques and legitimized usury via interest payments.
Templars' bank branches popped up everywhere, backed by their ill-gotten gold. They charged up to 60% interest on loans, launched the concept of trust accounts and introduced a credit card system for Holy Land pilgrims. They acted as tax collectors, though themselves exempted by Roman authorities, and built the great cathedrals of Europe, having also found instructions regarding secret building techniques alongside the gold they pilfered beneath Solomon's Temple.
The stained glass used in the cathedrals resulted from a secret Gothic technique known by few. One who had perfected this art was Omar Khayvam, a good friend of Assassin founder Hasan bin Sabah . [14]
"Sion" is believed to be a transliteration of Zion, itself a transliteration for the ancient Hebrew name Jerusalem.
The Priory of Sion came into public view in July 1956. A 1981 notice in the French press listed 121 dignitaries as Priory members. All were bankers, royalty or members of the international political jet set.
Pierre Plantard was listed as Grand Master. Plantard is a direct descendent, through King Dagobert II, of the Merovingan Kings . Plantard, who owns property in the Rennes-le-Chateau area of southern France where the Priory of Sion is based, has stated that the order has in its possession lost treasure recovered from beneath Solomon's Temple and that it will be returned to Israel when the time is right. He also stated that in the near future monarchy would be restored to France and other nations.
The Templars claim to possess secret knowledge that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, fathered children to launch the Merovingan bloodline and was the son of Joseph of Arimathea. [15]
Accorder to British researcher David Icke , it's location on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah may have also been an Anunnaki flight control center . The Anunnaki are the reptilian/aliens revealed by the Sumerian clay tablets - the oldest written accounts of humankind known.
The Crusader Knights Templar looted their huge store of gold and numerous sacred artifacts from beneath the Temple. King Solomon was the son of King David - who during his 1015 BC reign massacred thousands of people.
The King focused on a Hebrew understanding of the Ancient Mysteries. The Order of Melchizedek became the secret society associated with the Cabala. King Solomon developed his vast wisdom studying the Sumerian Tables of Destiny which Abraham had possessed. Abraham may have also been of Anunnaki origin.
Those who understood these cryptic secrets, said to be encoded throughout the Old Testament, are referred to deferentially as Ram. The phrase is used in Celtic, Buddhist and Hindu spiritual circles as well. The Knights Templar brought Cabbalistic knowledge to Europe when they returned from their Middle East Crusade adventures. [16]
The French Lorraine dynasty, which descended from the Merovingans, married into the House of Hapsburg to acquire the throne of Austria.
The family accumulated its vast wealth issuing war bonds to Black Nobility for centuries, including,
the British Windsors.
the French Bourbons.
the German von Thurn und Taxis.
the Italian Savoys.
the Austrian and Spanish Hapsburgs.
The Eight Families have also intermarried with these royals.
"They (Rothschilds) had the crown heads of Europe in debt to them and this included the Black Nobility dynasty, the Hapsburgs, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire for 600 years. The Rothschilds also control the Bank of England. If there was a war, the Rothschilds were behind the scenes, creating conflict and funding both sides." [18]
The Rothschilds and the Warburgs are main stockholders of the German Bundesbank.
Rothschilds control Japan's biggest banking house Nomura Securities via a tie-up between Edmund Rothschild and Tsunao Okumura. The Rothschilds are the richest and most powerful family in the world. They are also inbred. According to several family biographers, over half of the last generation of Rothschild progeny married within the family, presumably to preserve their Sangreal. [19]
The 1782 Great Seal of the United States is loaded with Illuminati symbolism. So is the reverse side of the US $1 Federal Reserve Note, which was designed by Freemasons. The pyramid on the left side represents those in Egypt - possibly space beacon/energy source to the Anunnaki - whose Pharaohs oversaw the building of the pyramids using slave labor.
They employ Triads, Trilaterals and Trinities to create a society ruled by an elite Sangreal few presiding over the masses - as represented by a pyramid. The Brotherhood of the Snake worshiped a Trinity of Isis, Osirus and Horus - who may have been Anunnaki offspring.
The Brotherhood spread the concept of Trinity to,
Christian (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)
Hindu (Brahma, Shiva and Krishna)
Buddhist (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) faiths [20]
The reptilian eye atop the pyramid depicted on the $1 bill is the all-seeing eye of the Afghan Roshaniya , known alternately as The Order and Order of the Quest - names adopted by Skull & Bones , Germanorden and the JASON Society. [21]
Take a magnifying glass and look at the eye's pupil. There is an image of an alien inside the pupil. Eu não estou brincando.
Above the eagle on the right side of the note are the words E Pluribus Unum, Latin for "out of many one". The eagle clutches 13 arrows and 13 olive branches, while 13 stars appear above the eagle's head. America was founded with 13 colonies. Templar pirate Jaques deMolay was executed on Friday the 13 th .
According to the late researcher William Cooper , the Bilderberger Group has a powerful Policy Committee of 13 members. It is one of 3 committees of 13 which answered (until his recent death) to Prince Bernhard - member of the Hapsburg family and leader of the Black Nobility.
The Bilderberg Policy Committee answers to a Rothschild Round Table of 9. [22]
[1] "The Secret Financial Network Behind ‘Wizard' George Soros". William Engdahl. Executive Intelligence Review. 11-1-96.
[2] Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and the Great Pyramids. Jim Marrs. HarperCollins Publishers. Nova york. 2000. p.83.
[4] Fourth Reich of the Rich. Des Griffin. Emissary Publications. Pasadena, CA. 1978. p.77.
[5] The Robot's Rebellion : The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance. David Icke. Gateway Books. Bath, UK. 1994. p.195.
[7] Dope Inc .: The Book that Drove Kissinger Crazy. The Editors of Executive Intelligence Review. Washington DC. 1992. p.264.
[14] Bloodline of the Holy Grail. Laurence Gardner . Element Books, Inc. Rockport, MA. 1996.
[15] Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Michael Bagent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Dell Publishing Company New York. 1983.
[17] Behold a Pale Horse. William Cooper . Light Technology Press. Sedona, AZ. 1991. p.79.
[18] Children of the Matrix . David Icke. Bridge of Love Publishing. Scottsdale, AZ. 2000.
[20] Icke. 1994. p.42.
A Financial Parasite.
United World Federalists founder James Warburg's father was Paul Warburg, who financed Hitler with help from Brown Brothers Harriman partner Prescott Bush. [1]
Garrison wrote in Roosevelt, Wilson and the Federal Reserve ,
"Paul Warburg was the man who got the Federal Reserve Act together after the Aldrich Plan aroused such nationwide resentment and opposition. The mastermind of both plans was Baron Alfred Rothschild of London."
The Aldrich Plan was hatched at a secret 1910 meeting at JP Morgan's private resort on Jekyl Island, SC between Rockefeller lieutenant Nelson Aldrich and Paul Warburg of the German Warburg banking dynasty.
Aldrich, a New York congressman, later married into the Rockefeller family . His son Winthrop Aldrich chaired Chase Manhattan Bank. While the bankers met, Colonel Edward House, another Rockefeller stooge and close confidant of President Woodrow Wilson, was busy convincing Wilson of the importance of a private central bank and the introduction of a national income tax.
A member of House's staff was British MI6 Permindex insider General Julius Klein . [2]
Wilson's main focus was on overcoming public distrust of the bankers, which New York City Mayor John Hylan echoed in 1922 when he argued,
"The real menace to our republic is the invisible government which, like a giant octopus, sprawls its slimy length over our city, state and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses, generally referred to as the international bankers". [4]
In 1913 the Federal Reserve Bank was born, with Paul Warburg its first Governor. Four years later the US entered World War I, after a secret society known as the Black Hand assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his Hapsburg wife.
The Archduke's friend Count Czerin later said,
"A year before the war he informed me that the Masons had resolved upon his death." [5]
That same year, Bolsheviks overthrew the Hohehzollern monarchy in Russia with help from Max Warburg and Jacob Schiff, while the Balfour Declaration leading to the creation of Israel was penned to Zionist Second Lord Rothschild.
Klein diverted Marshall Plan aid to Europe to Zionist terror cells in Palestine after WWII, channeling the funds through the Sonneborn Institute, which was controlled by Baltimore chemical magnate Rudolph Sonneborn.
His wife Dorothy Schiff is related to the Warburgs. [6]
The Montefiores have carried out the dirty work of Genoese nobility since the 13 th Century.
The di Spadaforas served that function for the Italian House of Savoy, which was bankrolled by the Israel Moses Seif family for which Israel is named.
Lord Harold Sebag Montefiore is current head of the Jerusalem Foundation, the Zionist wing of the Knights of St. John's Jerusalem.
The Bronfmans (the name means "liquorman" in Yiddish) tied up with Arnold Rothstein , a product of the Rothschild's dry goods empire, to found organized crime in New York City.
Rothstein was succeeded by Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Robert Vesco and Santos Trafficante. The Bronfmans are intermarried with the Rothschilds, Loebs and Lamberts. [7]
Four years earlier the Rockefeller Foundation was launched, to shield family wealth from the new income tax provisions, while steering public opinion through social engineering. One of its tentacles was the General Education Board.
"In our dreams we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions fade from their minds and, unhampered by tradition, we will work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.
We shall try not to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science…of whom we have ample supply." [9]
Though most Americans think of the Federal Reserve as a government institution, it is privately held by the Eight Families. The Secret Service is employed, not by the Executive Branch, but by the Federal Reserve . [10]
Volcker, puffing on a cigar, responded cavalierly,
"That's probably true. But I believe it was intentionally designed this way". [11]
Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) put it to Volcker that,
"People realize that what that board of yours does has a very profound impact on their pocketbooks, and yet it is a group of people basically inaccessible to them and unaccountable to them."
President Wilson spoke of,
"a power so organized, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breaths when they speak in condemnation of it."
Rep. Charles Lindberg (D-NY) was more blunt, railing against Wilson's Federal Reserve Act, which had cleverly been dubbed the "People's Bill".
Lindberg declared that the Act would,
"…establish the most gigantic trust on earth… When the president signs this act, the invisible government by the money power will be legitimized. The law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.
The invisible government by the money power, proven to exist by the Money Trust Investigation, will be legalized. The whole central bank concept was engineered by the very group it was supposed to strip of power". [12]
The Fed is made up of most every bank in the US, but the New York Federal Reserve Bank controls the Fed by virtue of its enormous capital resources.
The true center of power within the Fed is the Federal Open Market Committee ( FOMC ), on which only the NY Fed President holds a permanent voting seat. The FOMC issues directives on monetary policy which are implemented from the 8 th Floor of the NY Fed, a fortress modeled after the Bank of England. [13]
. held a 43% stake in the New York Fed.
By 1983 these same five banks owned 53% of the NY Fed. By year 2000, the newly merged Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank combines owned even bigger chunks, as did the European faction of the Eight Families. Collectively they own majority stock in every Fortune 500 corporation and do the bulk of stock and bond trading. In 1955 the above five banks accounted for 15% of all stock trades.
By 1985 they were involved in 85% of all stock transactions. [15]
In 1982, while Morgan bankers presided over negotiations between Britain and Argentina after the Falklands War, President Reagan pushed through SEC Rule 415, which helped consolidate securities underwriting in the hands of six large investment houses owned by the Eight Families:
These banks further consolidated their power via the merger mania of 1980s and 1990s.
Salomon Brothers nabbed Philbro from the South African Oppenheimer family, then bought Smith Barney. All three then became part of Traveler's Group, headed by Sandy Weill of the David-Weill family, which controls Lazard Freres through senior partner Michel David-Weill. Citibank then bought Travelers to form Citigroup.
S. G. Warburg, of which Oppenheimer's Chartered Consolidated owns a 9% stake, joined the old money Banque Paribas - which merged into Merrill Lynch in 1984. Union Bank of Switzerland acquired Paine Webber, while Morgan Stanley ate up Dean Witter and purchased Discover credit card operations from Sears.
Swiss Banking Corporation merged with London's biggest investment house S. G. Warburg to create SBC Warburg, while Warburg became more intertwined with Merrill Lynch through their 1998 Mercury Assets tie up. The Warburg's formed another venture with Union Bank of Switzerland, creating powerhouse UBS Warburg.
Deutsche Bank bought Banker's Trust and Alex Brown to briefly become the world's largest bank with $882 billion in assets. With repeal of Glass-Steagal, the line between investment, commercial and private banking disappeared.
Their activities include advising Third World debt negotiations, handling mergers and breakups, creating companies to fill a perceived economic void through the launching of initial public stock offerings (IPOs), underwriting all stocks, underwriting all corporate and government bond issuance, and pulling the bandwagon down the road of privatization and globalization of the world economy.
Merrill Lynch handled 26.8% of all global bank mergers.
Morgan Stanley did 16.8%
Goldman Sachs 16.3%
Lehman Brothers 16.1%
Credit Suisse First Boston 14.5%
Morgan Stanley did $60 billion in corporate mergers in 1989.
By 2007, reflecting the repeal of Glass-Steagel, the top ten NMA advisers in order were:
JPMorgan Chase.
In the IPO stock underwriting field for 1991 the top four were Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and CS First Boston.
In the arena of global privatization for years 1985-1995,
Goldman Sachs led the way doing $13.3 billion worth of deals.
UBS Warburg did $8.2 billion.
BNP Paribas $6.8 billion.
CS First Boston $4.9 billion.
Paribas-owner Merrill Lynch $4.4 billion [17]
In 2006 BNP Paribas bought the notorious Banca Nacionale de Lavoro (BNL), which led the charge in arming Saddam Hussein. According to Global Finance, it is now the world's largest bank with nearly $3 trillion in assets.
The top three municipal debt underwriters that year were,
UBS Paine Webber.
In the euro-market the top four underwriters in 1995 were,
Goldman Sachs [18]
Deutsche Bank's Morgan Grenfell branch engineered the corporate takeover binge in Europe.
In 2002 Enron Online was auctioned off by a bankruptcy court to UBS Warburg for $0. UBS was to share monopoly Enron Online profits with Lehman Brothers after the first two years of the deal. [19] With Lehman's 2008 demise, its new owner Barclays will get their cut.
For pennies on the dollar,
JP Morgan Chase was handed Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.
Bank of America commandeered Merrill Lynch and Countrywide.
Wells Fargo seized control over the reeling #5 US bank Wachovia.
Barclays got a sweetheart deal for the remains of Lehman Brothers.
Former House Banking Committee Chairman Wright Patman (D-TX), declared of Federal Reserve Eight Families owners,
"The United States today has in effect two governments. We are the duly constituted government. Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution". [20]
Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, US debt (mostly owed to the Eight Families) has skyrocketed from $1 billion to nearly $14 trillion today.
This far surpasses the total of all Third World country debt combined, debt which is mostly owed to these same Eight Families, who own most all the world's central banks.
"International bankers make money by extending credit to governments. The greater the debt of the political state, the larger the interest returned to lenders. The national banks of Europe are (also) owned and controlled by private interests. We recognize in a hazy sort of way that the Rothschilds and the Warburgs of Europe and the houses of JP Morgan, Kuhn Loeb & Co., Schiff, Lehman and Rockefeller possess and control vast wealth. How they acquire this vast financial power and employ it is a mystery to most of us." [21]
[1] Behold a Pale Horse. William Cooper. Light Technology Press. Sedona, AZ. 1991. p.81.
[2] Dope Inc.: The Book that Drove Kissinger Crazy. The Editors of Executive Intelligence Review. Washington DC. 1992.
[3] Democracy for the Few. Michael Parenti. St. Martin's Press. Nova york. 1977. p.67.
[4] Descent into Slavery. Des Griffin. Emissary Publications. Pasadena 1991.
[5] The Robot's Rebellion: The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance. David Icke. Gateway Books. Bath, UK. 1994. p.158.
[6] The Editors of Executive Intelligence Review. p.504.
[10] "Secrets of the Federal Reserve". Discovery Channel. January 2002.
[11] The Confidence Game: How Un-Elected Central Bankers are Governing the Changed World Economy. Steven Solomon. Simon & Schuster. Nova york. 1995. p.26.
[15] The Corporate Reapers: The Book of Agribusiness. A. V. Krebs. Essential Books. Washington DC. 1992. p.166.
[16] The Editors of Executive Intelligence Review. p.79.
[17] "Playing the Middle". Anita Raghavan and Bridget O'Brian. Wall Street Journal. 10-2-95.
[18] Securities Data Corporation. 1995.
[19] CNN Headline News. 1-11-02.
[20] The Rockefeller File. Gary Allen. '76 Press. Seal Beach, CA. 1977. p.156.
[21] Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and the Great Pyramids. Jim Marrs. HarperCollins Publishers. Nova york. 2000. p.77.
Thomas Jefferson opined of the Rothschild-led Eight Families central banking cartel which came to control the United States,
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period, unalterable through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery".
Two centuries and a few decades later this same cabal of trillionaire money changers - mysteriously immune from their own calls for "broad sacrifice" - utilizes the debt lever to ring concessions from the people of,
and now the United States.
In their never-ending quest to subjugate the planet, the bankers' IMF enforcer - chronic harasser of Third World governments - has turned its sites on the developed world.
To further advance their dizzying concentration of economic power, the whining banksters take a giant wrecking ball to the global middle class as they prepare to eat their young.
Meanwhile, the Eight Families financial octopus feeds mightily at the public trough be it,
the SEC (rich investors)
the FCC (Gulfstream jet fliers)
the USDA (the richest farmers get the biggest checks)
Medicaid (insurance fraud, Big Pharma gouging)
the Pentagon (Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Blackwater)
Still, $14 trillion is an insurmountable debt.
Increasing taxes on the super-rich combined with a global American military withdrawal from its current role as Hessianized mercenary force for the City of London banksters, while welcome, will not be enough to deal with this monster debt, what Jefferson termed, this "deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery".
Is it any wonder the financial parasite class is now clamoring for QE3?
These should be done concurrently as part of a single sweeping financial reform bill. Modeled after last week's release of strategic petroleum reserves by twenty-seven nations, this measure should be enacted in tandem with as many willing nations as possible. The same Rothschild-led cabal controls the central banks of most every nation and there is power in numbers.
If these measures are enacted separately or by only one nation, the Eight Families cartel will use their financial clout to target and destroy the US:
Introduce a Treasury Department-administered infrastructure investment fund, which workers should be strongly encouraged to opt into using accrued funds from their private 401K plans.
This is important because the banker's stock market casino will crash due to the next nine steps and workers must be shielded from this event. This fund can be used to rebuild America's infrastructure, with American workers acting as lenders and receiving a fair rate of interest in return.
The US needs to withdraw from the Bank of International Settlements , the World Trade Organization, the World Bank , the IMF and all Eight Families-controlled multilateral lending facilities. We would save billions funding these banker welfare schemes while freeing ourselves from rules which prevent our financial emancipation.
De-link the dollar from all currency baskets and IMF special drawing rights. Ban trade in dollars on all global exchanges. This will create a demand for dollars and strengthen our badly devalued currency.
Impose currency controls by fixing the dollar at,
1:1 euro, Chinese yuan, Canadian dollar and Swiss franc.
100:1 Japanese yen.
During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad fixed the nation's currency - the ringit . It was the only currency in the region that did not crash when Rothschild front-man George Soros took aim at the region.
Nationalize the Federal Reserve. According to a London barrister I have been in contact with, under the Federal Reserve Act there is a provision that allows for the US government to buy back the Fed's charter for $4 billion. We should pay this fee, revoke the Fed charter and launch a new US dollar issued by the Treasury Department. With the dollar fixed, the vampires cannot crash it.
Cancel the $10 trillion debt to the Illuminati bankers. Debt obligations to foreign governments and small bond-holders should be honored at par.
Arrest the perpetrators. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all fraudulent transactions involving the Fed cartel. Send the FBI to the New York Fed. Seize all documents. Confiscate the world's largest gold reserves which are stored there. These were stolen from various governments including from our own Ft. Knox reserves.
Forget just repealing the Bush tax cuts on the rich. The top tax rate on people who make more than $1 million/year should be raised to 75%. People making more than $500,000/year should pay 50%. All tax brackets below $75,000/year should see tax cuts. If you get more from government you need to pay for it, instead of soaking the middle-class and blaming it on the poor.
Slash Pentagon spending. Shut down all US military bases on foreign soil, including those in Europe, Japan and South Korea. Withdraw ALL troops from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. Use the savings to pay off government and small bond-holders.
Outlaw offshore banking by US citizens and corporations. Bring your money home and pay taxes on it or surrender your US passport/corporate charter. The dramatic increase in tax revenue would be enough to pay off the remaining debt to sovereign governments and small bond-holders, while keeping our obligations to the Social Security trust fund.
Introduce single-payer health care and price controls on prescription drugs. The current corporate for-profit health care bonanza depends upon sickness and ill health for its hefty profits.
In 2006 Canada government spent $3,678 per person for free single-payer coverage for all its citizens. The US government spent $6,714 per person covering the insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and AMA cartels.
The savings attained from eliminating insurance/pharmaceutical/hospital chain/doctor-perpetrated Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security fraud will save the US Treasury billions. It is the only solution to skyrocketing and unsustainable health care costs.
Using this methodology the US could wipe out both its deficit and its debt within a year.
These measures should be planned in secret and introduced swiftly and in rapid succession. Social security and Medicare will be saved. The middle class will see their tax rates go down, while their retirement fund finances the rebuilding of a 21 st Century America.
Manufacturing jobs will come home, since the Chinese yuan will have seen a dramatic appreciation. Our national security will be enhanced by withdrawing from the role of global policeman.
Then why should Americans or any other nation pay a fraudulent debt foisted upon them by con-men?
It is time for Obama and the Congress to get a backbone and force the criminal Federal Reserve cartel to make the "broad sacrifices".

sembrouthes.
Truth & Conhecimento.
the Venetian Black Nobility – Uma história.
& # 8211; From: the Neuschwabenland Times.
(Posted at illuminati-news Jan.23,2004 by Wes Penre)
These people earned the title of “Black” nobility from their ruthless lack of scruple. They employed murder, rape, kidnapping, assassination, robbery, and all manner of deceit on a grand scale, brooking no opposition to attaining their objectives. These all have immense wealth. And money is power.
The most powerful of the Black Nobility families are located in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Holland and Greece in that order. Their roots may be traced back to the Venetian oligarchs, who are of Khazar extraction, and married into these royal houses in the early part of the twelfth century. (Following a great Khazar victory over the Arabs, the future Emperor, Constantine V, married a Khazar princess and their son became Emperor Leo IV, also known as “Leo the Khazar”. The Medecci popes, Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), and John Paul II were Khazars.. Not all Black Nobility are royal houses, and many of the royal families no longer have kingdoms. According to researcher and author Dr. John Coleman, a “Committee of 300” was established early in the eighteenth century, “although it did not take on its present form until around 1897”, (when the China opium trade was legalised)
Documentary proof as to the existence of the Committee of 300 is not forthcoming, and it may be no more than a convenient phrase to describe certain key players. Socialist politician and financial adviser to the Rothschilds, Walter Rathenau, writing in the Wiener Press (24 December, 1921) said, “Only 300 men, each of whom knows all others govern the fate of Europe. They select their successors from their own entourage. These men have the means in their hands of putting an end to the form of State which they find unreasonable.” Exactly six months after publication, Rathenau was assassinated.
Dr. Coleman’s work opens the door to further studies on named members of the ruling elite, particularly in America. Whereas the English have a long history and are very aware of their ancestry, certain families of “blue-bloods” in the United States that have historic ties with the British through blood and money.
These “noble” families are behind most if not all of the so-called pro-environmental movements that are actually intended to curb the population growth of ALL nations. Prince Philip and Prince Charles are the most visible symbols of this movement, and are a true part of this conspiracy to destroy industry and take the world back to a New Dark Age.
Most if not all the crowned and uncrowned heads of these dynasties enjoy huge incomes from ground rents. All favor Global 2000 Report to the President that’s calculated to end all industrial progress, and by famine, disease and wars, eliminate the excess population industry supports. All oppose nuclear power that can produce clean cheap electricity, the key to economic development and prosperity in the Third World. They ardently desire a return to the feudal system where they will once again be absolute rulers.
While professing Christianity, the oligarchical families, for the greater part, actually despise it in secret. Masonry provides their religious fulfillment. And without faith, they have no belief in reward or punishment and a world to come. They live for the here and now.
Many of these oligarchies are in the drug and arms trade through well-distanced intermediaries (like so many of the large banks).
In 1815 the Jesuits and their Freemason allies among the crowned heads of Europe held the Congress of Vienna, whereby Swiss neutrality (already sanctioned by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648) was forever guaranteed; and no matter how many wars are provoked in which the common man has to do the fighting, the money of the Nobility in Switzerland should always be free from plunder. It’s part of Rothschild’s meticulous long-range planning, and why Switzerland exists to this day. But that doesn’t mean to say your money would be safe. Some US$280 billion p. a. in flight capital and drug money flows into the Swiss accounts of the Black Nobility.
The place of Freemasonry in the power structure of the Elites is quite evident as they carried through Adam Weishaupt’s conspiracy to avenge the Jesuits after their abolition in 1773 by short-lived Pope Clement XIV as “immoral and a menace to the Church and the Faith”. By launching the French Revolution and directing Napoleon’s conquest of Catholic Europe, and by revolts against the church in Mexico and Latin America, they cut-off Vatican income.
Nathan Rothschild’s financing of Britain resulted in the defeat of Rome’s enemy Napoleon, (as well as being the source of his wealth and influence). Since Gregory XVI conferred a Papal decoration on Kalman Rothschild for loaning the Vatican five million pounds in a period of difficulty, the Rothschilds have been the fiscal agents of the Vatican. With Vatican interests at heart, the Rothschilds extended their financial and political dominion in the United States. The Vatican’s interest in the US was clearly revealed in the secret 1822 Treaty of Verona between Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia whereby the Jesuit Order pledged itself as the price of reinstatement to destroy “the works of Satan” it had established in setting-up, by revolution, representative governments such as the republics and “democracies” of France and the USA, replacing them with the only form of government approved by the church, rule by “divine right”, as declared by the Vatican (Daniel 2:42-43; Revelation 17:12-13).
As Senator Robert Owen pointed out to the US Senate in 1916, the prime target to which the Vatican and the “Holy Alliance” directed the subversive and destructive activities of the Society of Jesus, is the United States, and other republics in the Western hemisphere. This plot, he claimed, was the target at which the Monroe Doctrine was directed. What the Senator did not realize is that the Monroe Doctrine protects the interests of “The City of London”.
The Rothschild-Vatican cabal unsuccessfully attempted to gain control over the power of the purse in the US through the First and Second Bank of the United States. They were established under emergency powers granted to the President by the Constitution, as temporary institutions to tide the country through the periods of financial stress occasioned by the Revolutionary and 1812 Wars. But the aims of the conspirators to establish a banking monopoly were thwarted by the Constitution. Until the FED.
It is said the Black Nobility promised a neutral Germany if Soviet Russia allowed East and West Germany to reunite. And that Russia promised to see that all royal houses are restored to the rightful heirs if they decouple Europe from the American Alliance.
Imperial nobility enjoy a more elevated status than the nobilities of the German successor states and, indeed, of the Italian states. The descendants of Italian Holy Roman Empire titles have formed an Association to which all male line descendants of someone ennobled by Imperial Patent is entitled to belong. And the Principality of Liechtenstein has also claimed the ability to confirm a succession to Imperial titles, and has confirmed the right of a Spanish noble man to heir such a title for purposes of the Spanish law requiring the successor state to confirm that the claimant to a particular title is in fact the heir. Thus there is a remaining jurisdiction, even though no Imperial titles have been conferred since 1806.
In 1963, the Holy Roman Empire Association (Associzioni dei Nobili del Sacro Romano Impero) was established to unite male descendants in its membership who are invested with nobility of the Holy Roman Empire. It also includes a number of honorary members.
The Black Nobility belong to the “Committee of 300” that controls the UN. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands has the power to veto the Vatican’s choice of any pope it selects. This may explain the untimely end to Pope John Paul I’s 33-day pontificate. The Prince has veto power because his family, the Habsburgs, are descended directly from the last Roman emperor. (The Habsburg Frederick III was the last emperor to be crowned in Rome; his great-grandson Charles V was the last to be crowned by a pope). This is the civil equivalent of the Pope’s claimed “apostolic succession” from Saint Peter.
Prince Bernhard is leader of the Black Families and he also claims descent from the House of David through the Merovingian dynasty, a claim that was acknowledged to be valid by the Carolingian dynasty that supplanted them, by other monarchs and by the Roman Church of that time. Thus he can truly say that he is “related to Jesus”.
Prince Bernhard’s House of Orange had its origins in France. The Habsburgs are related through marriage with the Merovingians, who are said to have descended from the Tribe of Benjamin who went into exile following war with the other eleven Tribes — see Judges chapter 21. Exile took them to Arcadia in the central Peloponnese, Greece. Here they aligned with the Arcadian royal line and towards the advent of the Christian era, migrated up the Danube and Rhine, through marriage engendering the Sicambrian Franks — the immediate forebears of the Merovingians, who were ultimately of Semitic origin, and descendants of King Saul.
They are identified with the Spartans, and both books of Maccabees link the Spartans with the Jews. I Maccabees 12 tells of Jonathan sending a letter to the Lacedemonians (Spartan Greeks) asking for their help, since they were brethren. The Spartans replied, “It is found in writing, that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren and that they are of the stock of Abraham” (verse 21). It is assumed by some writers that this means the Spartans were Israelites, but the Spartans were not Israelites they were Edomites descended from Bela son of Beor and brother of Baalim, and king of Edom (Genesis 36:32; I Chronicles 1:43). Edom was the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham who sold his birthright, and bred his posterity off the Book of Life.
Early in the fifth century the Merovingians established themselves in what is now Belgium and northern France. There they adopted the Cabalistic pseudo-Christianity of the Cathars, a dualistic religion that holds there are two eternal gods, the god of Good and the god of Evil. It is revealing that this Luciferian belief is held by Masons of high degree and those who would be Masters of this world today, and who claim that Lucifer will ultimately be victorious.
Under Clovis I, who reigned from 481-511, the Franks converted to Roman Catholicism. Through him, Rome began to establish undisputed supremacy in Western Europe. In return for being the sword of Rome whereby the church would manifest her power and impose a spiritual dominion, Clovis was granted the title of “New Constantine” and to preside over a unified “Holy Roman Empire” based on the church and administered on the secular level in perpetuity by the Merovingian bloodline. Like “the sure mercies of David”, this was a pact that could be modified, but not revoked, broken or betrayed.
When in 496 the church pledged itself in perpetuity to the Merovingian bloodline it was presumably in full knowledge of their claimed identity. This would explain why Clovis was offered the status of Holy Roman Emperor, and why he was not created but only “crowned” king. In 754 the church clandestinely betrayed its pact.
The Prieure de Sion is the name of the secret order which created the Knight Templars as its military and administrative arm. (It should be remembered that the Knight Templars were the forerunners of Freemasonry). The Prieure de Sion continues to function through the centuries, acting in the shadows, and has orchestrated certain critical events in Western history.
It exists today and is still operative. Its declared objective is the restoration of the Merovingian dynasty and bloodline to the throne not only of France, but of other European nations as well, a restoration that is sanctioned and justifiable, both legally and morally.
There is strong evidence to suggest that this order was the author of Freemasonry, and “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Sion”, as well as the Rosicrucians. There is abundant evidence to suggest that Nostradamus was one of their secret agents, and there is no question that numerous quatrains which refer to the advent of “le Grand Monarch” indicate that this sovereign will ultimately derive from the Merovingian dynasty. Implying a double hegemony of the Papacy and the Empire, of the Vatican and of the Habsburgs. He frequently referred quite explicitly to the Knights Templars and to the house of Lorraine which is now synonymous with the Habsburgs.
Although deposed in the eighth century, the Merovingian bloodline did not become extinct. On the contrary it perpetuated itself in a direct line from Dagobert II and his son Sigisbert IV. By dint of dynastic alliances and intermarriages, this line came to include Godfroi de Bouillon, who captured Jerusalem in 1099, and various other noble and royal families, past and present — Blanchefort, Gisors, Saint-Clair (Sinclair in England), Montesquieu, Montpezat, Poher, Luisignan, Plantard and Habsburg-Lorraine. At present, the Merovingian bloodline enjoys a legitimate claim to its heritage.
The crown of Charlemagne — a replica of which is now part of the imperial Habsburg regalia — is said to have borne the inscription “Rex Salomon” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th Ed., 1972, Crown and Regalia, Fig. 2). And the “Spear of Destiny”, which is said to have pierced Christ, reside today in the Treasure House, Vienna, awaiting another Holy Roman Emperor (The Rigby Joy of Knowledge Library. History and Culture I, 1977:160; The Holy Roman Empire, Friedrich Heer, p. 284). It is clear why the “Protocols of the Elders of Sion” speak of a new king “of the Holy seed of David”, (Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln). Otto von Habsburg is today the titular Duke of Lorraine and King of Jerusalem.
The Prieure de Sion claim to hold the lost treasure of the Temple of Jerusalem plundered by Titus in AD70 which would be returned to Israel “when the time was right”. This might explain why Rome must defer to the “kings of the earth” and how she will seal a covenant with the Jews who have long hidden behind the shield of baptism.
Prince Bernhard is in fact related to the Khazars, and therefore a Gentile. Revelation 2:9, “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but you are rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.”
Assisted by the CIA, Prince Bernhard has brought the hidden ruling body of the Illuminati into public knowledge as De Bilderberg Group. (Established in 1954, its headquarters is 1 Smidswater, Den Haag, Nederlands). At the heart of the Bilderberg Group are 39 members of the Illuminati chosen from three committees drawn from the members of all the secret groups that comprise the Illuminati: the Freemasons, the Vatican and the Black Nobility. This committee works year round in offices in Switzerland.
The Committee of 300 now call themselves World Government Founders for the NWO. A reference no doubt to their hereditary claim to the “Divine Right of Kings”. It is imperative that we realize that privately, the Black Nobility refuse to ever recognize any government other than their own inherited and divine right to rule. They believe the United States still belongs to England. And work diligently behind the scenes to cause conditions whereby they might regain their crowns. Every royal and so-called noble dynasty past and present of Europe have seats on the Committee of 300, most often by nominees. There are just too many of these “royal” families for them each to have representatives on the Committee of 300. Precedence is determined by rank: first royal family members, then dukes, earls, marquises and lords, then finally “commoners”, who usually get the title of “Sir”. (Conspirator’s Hierarchy: The Committee of 300″, Dr. John Coleman).
In Carthage, the Canaanites called themselves Punics.
Rome attacked Carthage in full force, beginning in 264BC and completed their task after killing or enslaving every Carthaginian, by sowing the land to salt so that nothing could ever grow there again.
The Edomites descended from Esau later intermarried with the Turks to produce a Turco-Edomite mixture which later became known as Chazars (Khazars) – who are the present occupants of Israel. These Canaanites eventually adopted the name “Sepharvaim” for deceptive purposes. They later became known as Venetians, and by marrying into European royalty and aristocracy, the “black nobility.”
The Venetians today control the Federal Reserve system in the US.
Around AD1400, European power centers coalesced into two camps: the Ghibellines, who supported the Emperors Hohenstaufen family; and the Guelphs (the Welfs), from Welf, the German prince who competed with Frederick for control of the Holy Roman Empire. The Pope allied himself with the Guelphs. All modern history stems directly from the struggle between these two powers.
The Guelphs are also called the Neri, Black Guelphs, or Black Nobility, and supported William of Orange in his seizure of the throne of England, which eventually resulted in the formation of the Bank of England and the East India Company, which would rule the world from the 17th century. All coup d’etats, revolutions and wars in the 19th and 20th centuries are centered in the battle of the Guelphs to hold and enhance their power, which is now the New World Order.
The power of the Guelphs would extend through the Italian financial centers to the north of France in Lombardy (all Italian bankers were referred to as “Lombards”). Lombard in German means “deposit bank”, and the Lombards were bankers to the entire Medieval world. They would later transfer operations north to Hamburg, then to Amsterdam and finally to London.
The Guelphs would start the slave trade to the colonies. The Guelphs, in order to aid their control of finance and politics, would perpetuate gnostic cults which eventually developed into the Rosicrucians, Unitarians, Fabian Society and the World Council of Churches. The East India company, together with John Stuart Mill, would finance the University of London.
A friend of Mill, historian George Grote, a founder of London University donated £6000 for the study of “mental health”, which began the worldwide “mental health” movement.
Banks large and small in the thousands are in the Committee of 300 network, including:
& # 8211; The Netherlands Bank.
& # 8211; Banco de Colombia.
Of special interest is Banca del la Svizzeria Italiana (BSI) – since it handles flight capital investments to and from the United States – primarily in dollars and US bonds – located and isolated in “neutral” Lugano, the flight capital center for the Venetian Black Nobility.
Lugano is not in Italy or in Switzerland, and is a kind of twilight zone for shady flight capital operations. George Ball, who owns a large block of stock in BSI, is a prominent “insider” and the bank’s US representative.
In the secret 1822 Treaty of Verona (between Austria, France, Prussia and Russia) the Jesuits agreed to smash the US Constitution and suppress the freedom of the US. Their methods included destroying free speech, destroying and suppressing the press, universal censorship, sustaining the cooperation of the Pope and clergy to use religion to help keep nations in passive obedience and financing wars against countries with representative governments.
The monarchs who signed this treaty were ultimately deposed. Most of these families are very wealthy and may be more powerful today than when they sat upon thrones. They are known collectively as the Black Nobility. Privately these families refuse to recognize any right to rule except their own .
The fact that this treaty was made long ago does not mean it is void. The treaty was placed in the Congressional Record on April 25, 1916 by Senator Owen.
In 1948 George H. W. Bush graduated from Yale University and the Skull and Bones. He is a distant cousin of the Queen of England, part of the Black Nobility which traces its power back 5,000 years.
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands created a group that became known as the Bilderbergers. Many “conservative” researchers have come to recognize the Bilderbergers as an important force for the “New World Order.”
(Note: Since the Bildebergers, according to former British Intelligence agent John Coleman, serve as a BINDING force between the three major ’one world government’ forces – the Wicca-Masons (i. e. Communism); the Black Nobility descendants of the early Roman emperors; and the Maltese Jesuits… each of which have 13 respective representatives on the 39-member Bildeberger board – and since a Nazi SS stormtrooper was responsible for developing this “New World Order” coordination council, and since Adolph Hitler’s second book was titled [believe it or not] “The New World Order.” No wonder Adolph Hitler’s dream – and that of his predecessors the “Kaisers”, a German translation of “Caesars” – was the revival of the Roman empire).
According to former British Intelligence agent Dr. John Coleman, the three world power groups: the Wicca-Masons (i. e. Communism), the Maltese-Jesuits and the Black-Nobility (’Black’ in this context refers to their character, not their skin color) all work for and under the central Command of the Bavarian Illuminati which binds them together.
The Bavarians created the Bilderberg society for this purpose, the core of which is a council of 13 members from each of the three ’groups’ or 39 in all.
The old-line ruling families believe that they have the right to rule the world because they are descended from the Emperors of the ancient Roman Empire, and/or the Emperors of the so-called ’holy’ Roman Empire descended from the Merovingian Dynasty, consist of 13-15 ’blue blood’ families.
Prominent on the board of two insurance giants are Committee of 300 members:
& # 8211; the Giustiniani family, Black Nobility of Rome and Venice who trace their lineage to the Emperor Justianian.
& # 8211; Sir Jocelyn Hambro of Hambros (Merchant) Bank.
& # 8211; Pierpaolo Luzzatti Fequiz, whose lineage dates back six centuries to the most ancient Luzzatos, the Black Nobility of Venice.
& # 8211; Umberto Ortolani of the ancient Black Nobility family of the same name.
Other old Venetian Black Nobility Committee of 300 members and board members of ASG and RAS are:
& # 8211; the Doria family, the financiers of the Spanish Hapsburgs.
& # 8211; Elie de Rothschild of the French Rothschild family.
& # 8211; Baron August von Finck (Finck, the second richest man in Germany now deceased)
& # 8211; Franco Orsini Bonacassi of the ancient Orsini Black Nobility that traces its lineage to an ancient Roman senator of the same name.
& # 8211; the Alba family whose lineage dates back to the great Duke of Alba.
& # 8211; Baron Pierre Lambert, a cousin of the Belgian Rothschild family.
Italy was chosen as a test-target by the Committee of 300.
Italy is important to the conspirators’ plans because it is the closest European country to the Middle East, and linked to Middle East economics and politics. It is also the home of the Catholic Church, which Weishaupt ordered destroyed, and home for some of Europe’s most powerful oligarchical families of the ancient Black Nobility.
Should Italy have been weakened by Aldo Moro’s death, it would have had repercussions in the Middle East which would have weakened US influence in the region. Italy is important for another reason; it is a gateway for drugs entering Europe from Iran and Lebanon.
Various groups combined under the name of socialism to bring about the downfall of several Italian governments since the Club of Rome was established in 1968. Among these are the Black Nobility of Venice and Genoa, P2 Masonry and the Red Brigades, all working for the same goals. Police investigators in Rome working on the Red Brigades-Aldo Moro case came across the names of several very prominent Italian families working closely with this terrorist group.
The police also discovered evidence that in at least a dozen cases, these powerful and prominent families had allowed their homes and/or property to be used as safe houses for Red Brigades cells.
Peccei headed the Atlantic Institute’s Economic Council for three decades while he was the Chief Executive Officer for Giovanni Agnellis’ Fiat Motor Company. Agnelli, a member of an ancient Italian Black Nobility family of the same name, was one of the most important members of the Committee of 300. He played a leading role in development projects in the Soviet Union.
The Club of Rome is a conspiratorial umbrella organization, a marriage between Anglo-American financiers and the old Black Nobility families of Europe, particularly the so-called “nobility” of London, Venice and Genoa.
The list of the Anglo-American financiers consist’s of the following families:
& # 8211; Others that have not been mentioned are more ’powerful’ than others.
These names will get you started if you wish to track down the present-day inner core of the conspiracy. The history of the Bilderberg group itself, a cover for the Bavarian Illuminati, and its Nazi connections, would probably be the best place to start.
The key to the successful control of the world is their ability to create and manage savage economic recessions and eventual depressions.
The Committee of 300 looks to social convulsions on a global scale, followed by depressions, as a softening-up technique for bigger things to come, as its principal method of creating masses of people all over the world who will become its “welfare” recipients of the future.
To introduce new cults and continue to boost those already functioning which includes rock “music” gangsters such as the filthy, degenerate Mick Jagger’s “Rolling Stones” (a gangster group much favored by European Black Nobility) and all of the Tavistock-created “rock” groups which began with “The Beatles.”
To continue to build up the cult of Christian fundamentalism begun by the British East India Company’s servant, Darby, which will be misused to strengthen the Zionist state of Israel through identifying with the Jews through the myth of “God’s Chosen People” and by donating very substantial amounts of money to what they mistakenly believe is a religious cause in the furtherance of Christianity.
Brzezinski was not writing as a private citizen but as Carter’s National Security Advisor and a leading member of the Club of Rome and a member of the Committee of 300, a member of the CFR and as a member of the old Polish Black Nobility. His book explains how America must leave its industrial base behind and enter into what he called “a distinct new historical era.”
In this regard a French Black Nobility member, Etienne D’Avignon, as a member of the Committee of 300, was assigned the task of collapsing the steel industry in the US. It is doubtful that any of the hundreds of thousands of steel workers and shipyard workers who have been without jobs for the past decade have ever heard of D’Avignon.
A second assassination bureau is located in Switzerland and was until recently run by a shadowy figure of whom no photographs existed after 1941. The operations were and probably still are financed by the Oltramaire family – Swiss Black Nobility, owners of the Lombard Odier Bank of Geneva, a Committee of 300 operation.
The primary contact man was Jacques Soustelle – this according to US Army-G2 intelligence files. This group was also closely allied with Allen Dulles and Jean de Menil, an important member of the Committee of 300 and a very prominent name in the oil industry in Texas.
Army-G2 records show that the group was heavily involved in the arms trade in the Middle East, but more than that, the assassination bureau made no less than 30 attempts to kill General de Gaulle, in which Jacques Soustelle was directly involved.
The same Soustelle was the contact man for the Sendero Luminoso-Shining Pathway guerilla group protecting the Committee’s Peruvian cocaine producers.
Richard Gardner was sent to Rome on a special assignment. Gardner married into one of the oldest Black Nobility families of Venice, thus providing the Venetian aristocracy a direct line to the White House. The late Averill Harriman was another of the committee’s direct links with the Kremlin and the White House, a position inherited by Kissinger after Harriman’s death.
In 1986 in “The Order of St. John of Jerusalem” Dr. Coleman wrote:
“It is therefore not a secret society, except where its purposes have been perverted in the inner councils like the Order of the Garter, which is a prostituted oligarchical creation of the British royal family, which makes a mockery of what the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem stands for.
As an example, we find the atheist Lord Peter Carrington, who pretends to be an Anglican Christian but who is a member of the Order of Osiris and other demonic sects, including Freemasonry, installed as a Knight of the Garter at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of England, of the Black Nobility Guelphs, also head of the Anglican Church, which she thoroughly despises.”
$15.8 billion is one realistic estimate of the Queen’s worth – tax exempt – BOE.
THE COMMITTEE OF 300 – A BRIEF HISTORY OF WORLD POWER.
Roots of Today’s Ruling Oligarchy by Dr. John Coleman.
“Three hundred men, all of whom know one another, direct the economic destiny of Europe and choose their successors from among themselves.” –Walter Rathenau, 1909, founder of the mammoth German General Electric Corporation.
The Committee of 300 is a product of the British East India Company’s Council of 300. The East India Company was chartered by the British royal family in 1600. It made vast fortunes in the opium drug trade with China and became the largest company on earth in its time. Today, through many powerful alliances, the Committee of 300 rules the world and is the driving force behind the criminal agenda to create a “New World Order”, under a “Totalitarian Global Government”. There is no need to use “they” or “the enemy” except as shorthand. We know who “they”, the enemy, is. The Committee of 300 with its “aristocracy”, its ownership of the U. S. Federal Reserve banking system, insurance companies, giant corporations, foundations, communications networks, presided over by a hierarchy of conspirators—this is the enemy. Secret societies exist by deception. Each is a hierarchy with an inner circle at the top, who deceives those below with lies, such as claiming a noble agenda; thus, duping them into following a web of compartmentalized complicity. The inner circle of the Committee of 300 is the Order of the Garter, headed by Queen Elizabeth Windsor II. It is interesting to note that the Windsor’s changed their name from the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha during WWI, because of anti-German sentiment.
The enemy is clearly identifiable as the Committee of 300 and its front organizations, such as the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House), the Club of Rome, NATO, U. N., the Black Nobility, the Tavistock Institute, CFR and all its affiliated organizations, the think tanks and research institutions controlled by Stanford and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and last, but certainly not least, the military establishment.
The Committee of 300 is the ultimate secret society made up of an untouchable ruling class, which includes the Queen of the United Kingdom (Elizabeth II), the Queen of the Netherlands, the Queen of Denmark and the royal families of Europe. These aristocrats decided at the death of Queen Victoria, the matriarch of the Venetian Black Guelphs that, in order to gain world-wide control, it would be necessary for its aristocratic members to “go into business” with the non-aristocratic but extremely powerful leaders of corporate business on a global scale, and so the doors to ultimate power were opened to what the Queen of England likes to refer to as “the commoners”. Through their illicit banking cartel, they own the stock of the Federal Reserve, which is a private for profit corporation that violates U. S. Constitution and is a ROOT of the problem.
The decadent American families of the unholy partnership, thoroughly corrupted and wallowing in tainted opium money, went on to become what we know today as the Eastern Liberal Establishment. Its members, under the careful guidance and direction of the British Crown, and subsequently, its foreign policy executive arm, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), now known as Chatham House, located in England (across St. James’s Square from the Astors), ran the United States from top to bottom through their secret upper-level, parallel government, which is tightly meshed with the Committee of 300, the ultimate secret society. That secret, all-powerful government is more in control of the United States in 2006 than ever before.
Some notable members of the Committee of 300 include: The British royal family, Dutch royal family, House of Hapsburg, House of Orange, Duke of Alba, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Lord Carrington, Lord Halifax, Lord Alfred Milner, John Jacob and Waldorf of the Astor Illuminati bloodline, Winston Churchill, Cecil Rhodes, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Juliana, Queen Beatrix, Queen Magreta, King Haakon of Norway, Colonel Mandel House, Aldous Huxley, John Forbes, Averill Harriman, William and McGeorge Bundy, George Bush, Prescott Bush, Henry Kissinger, J. P. Morgan, Maurice Strong, David Rockefeller, David and Evelyn Rothschild, Paul, Max and Felix Warburg, Ormsby and Al Gore, Bertrand Russell, Sir Earnest and Harry of the Oppenheimer Illuminati bloodline, Warren Buffet, Giuseppe Mazzini, Sir William Hesse, George Schultz, H. G. Wells, and Ted Turner.
In the Committee of 300, which has a 150-year history, we have some of the most brilliant intellects assembled to form a completely totalitarian, absolutely controlled “new” society only it isn’t new, having drawn most of its ideas from the Clubs of Cultus Diabolicus. It strives toward a One World Government rather well described by one of its late members, H. G. Wells, in his work commissioned by the Committee which Wells boldly called: “The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution”.
Most of the Committee of 300’s immense wealth arose out of the opium trade with China and India. Obscene profits went straight into the royal coffers, and into the pockets of the nobility, the oligarchs and plutocrats, and made them billionaires. The ordinary people of China, India, and England profited nothing from “opium revenues”. In the same way the people of South Africa, black and white, never profited from the gold mining industry, whose revenues were piped directly into the City of London banks and Merchant banks. The Committee of 300 is responsible for the phony drug wars here in the U. S. These phony drug wars were to get us to give away our constitutional rights. Asset forfeiture is a prime example, where huge assets can be seized without trail and no proof of guilt needed. Also the Committee of 300 long ago decreed that there shall be a smaller-much smaller-and better world, that is, their idea of what constitutes a better world. The myriads of useless eaters consuming scarce natural resources were to be culled by up to 99%. Industrial progress supports population growth. Therefore the command to multiply and subdue the earth found in Genesis had to be subverted. This called for an attack upon Christianity; the slow but sure disintegration of industrial nation states; the destruction of billions of people, referred to by the Committee of 300 as “surplus population,” and the removal of any leader who dared to stand in the way of the Committee’s global planning to reach the foregoing objectives. Not that the U. S. government didn’t know, but as it was part of the conspiracy, it helped to keep the lid on information rather than let the truth be known. Queen, Elizabeth II, is the head of the Committee of 300. The Committee of 300 looks to social convulsions on a global scale, followed by depressions, as a softening-up technique for bigger things to come, as its principal method of creating masses of people all over the world who will become its “welfare” recipients of the future.
The current criminal agenda of the Committee of 300 is further evidenced by recently leaked Club of Rome documents, as they describe how they will use drugs to help stifle resistance to their New World Order scheme: “…having been failed by Christianity, and with unemployment rife on every hand, those who have been without jobs for five years or more, will turn away from the church and seek solace in drugs. By then, full control of the drug trade must be completed in order that the government of all countries who are under our jurisdiction have a monopoly in place which we will control by controlling supplies reaching the market… Drug bars will take care of the unruly and the discontented. Would-be revolutionaries will be turned into harmless addicts with no will of their own…” The crowned cobras of Europe and their Eastern Liberal Establishment families will not tolerate any true war against drugs. The war on drugs, which the Bush administration was allegedly fighting, was for the legalization of all types and classes of drugs. Such drugs are not solely a social aberration, but a full-scale attempt to gain control of the minds of the people of the United States. At present, this is the principal task of the Committee of 300. Nothing has changed in the opium-heroin-cocaine trade. It is still in the hands of the same “upper class” families in Britain and the United States. It is still a fabulously profitable trade where what appear to be big losses through sometimes seizures of drug shipments are actually small interlopers trying to break into the preserves of the drug trade hierarchy, who sit in paneled board rooms in New York, Hong Kong and London over port and cigars and congratulate another success in the eradication of “competitors.”
Included in the Committee of 300 membership are the old families of the European Black Nobility, the American Eastern Liberal Establishment (in Freemason hierarchy and the Order of Skull and Bones), the Illuminati, or as it is known by the Committee “MORIAH CONQUERING WIND,” the Mumma Group, The National and World Council of Churches, the Circle of Initiates, the Nine Unknown Men, Lucis Trust, Jesuit Liberation Theologists, The Order of the Elders of Zion, the Nasi Princes, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the United Nations (U. N.), the Central, British Quator Coronati, Italian P2 Masonry—especially those in the Vatican hierarchy—the Central Intelligence Agency, Tavistock Institute selected personnel, various members of leading foundations and insurance companies, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the Milner Group-Round Table, Cini Foundation, German Marshall Fund, Ditchley Foundation, NATO, Club of Rome, Environmentalists, The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, One World Government Church, Socialist International, Black Order, Thule Society, Anenherbe-Rosicrucianists, The Great Superior Ones and literally HUNDREDS of other organizations.
In the case of John F. Kennedy, the assassination was carried out with great attendant publicity and with the utmost brutality to serve as a warning to world leaders not to get out of line. Pope John Paul I was quietly murdered because he was getting close to the Committee of 300 through Freemasons in the Vatican hierarchy. His successor, Pope John Paul II, was publicly humiliated as a warning to cease and desist—which he has done. As we shall see, certain Vatican leaders are today seated on the Committee of 300.
The Committee of 300 appears to base much of its important decisions affecting mankind on the philosophy of Polish aristocrat, Felix Dzerzinski, who regarded mankind as being slightly above the level of cattle. As a close friend of British intelligence agent Sydney Reilly (Reilly was actually Dzerzinski’s controller during the Bolshevik Revolution’s formative years), he often confided in Reilly during his drinking bouts. Dzerzinski was, of course, the beast who ran the Red Terror apparatus. He once told Reilly, while the two were on a drinking binge, that “Man is of no importance. Look at what happens when you starve him. He begins to eat his dead companions to stay alive. Man is only interested in his own survival. That is all that counts. All the Spinoza stuff is a lot of rubbish.”
The roots of the East India Company (chartered by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600 and dissolved in 1873) sprout from the European Black Nobility. The Black Nobility are the oligarchic families of Venice and Genoa, who in the 12th century held the privileged trading rights (monopolies). The first of three crusades, from 1063 to 1123, established the power of the Venetian Black Nobility and solidified the power of the wealthy ruling class. The Black Nobility aristocracy achieved complete control over Venice in 1171, when the appointment of the doge was transferred to what was known as the Great Council, which consisted of members of the commercial aristocracy, a complete triumph for them. Venice has remained in their hands ever since, but the power and influence of the Venetian Black Nobility extends far beyond its borders, and today, is felt in every corner of the globe. In 1204 the oligarchic families parceled out feudal enclaves to their members, and from this epoch dates the great building-up of power and pressure until the government became a closed corporation of the leading Black Nobility families.
It is important to note that the European Black Nobility is responsible for the insidious entanglements of numerous secret societies, lodges, and organizations, which are backed with high finance and powerful political connections. Such organizations include: Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group (German version of CFR), Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), United Nations (founded by CFR), Illuminati order Skull & Bones (inner circle of the CFR), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Bank of International Settlement, Club of Rome, Chatham House (formally the Royal Institute of International Affairs – RIIA), Round Table, Tavistock Institute for Human Studies (England’s psychological warfare think tank), Associated Press, Reuters (Rothschild owned news monopoly used for brainwashing the masses), and many others, all of which, whether they are dupes or adapts, work in favor of Great Britain’s aristocracy and their one world government agenda. Although there is a wide cross-section, all roads lead to the Queen of England. The technique for keeping their illicit scheme secret is compartmentalization. Only the people in the inner circle, who are part of the capstone at the top of the pyramid, know the entire extent of the fraud. Adepts are few and dupes many. Typically, the dupes are told lies that their involvement is benevolent; thus, they become unwitting accomplices in crime. This is why it is imperative to expose this diabolical ring of power. Illicit secret societies cannot withstand the light of day. Once exposed, the cabal and their minions will fall like a house of cards.
The European Black Nobility earned its title through dirty tricks, so when the population revolted against the monopolies in government, as anywhere else, the leaders of the uprising were quickly seized and brutally hanged. They use secret assassinations, murder, the bankrupting of opposing citizens or companies, kidnapping and rape. All the families listed are connected with the House of Guelph [senior line of the House of Este], one of the original Black Nobility families of Venice from which the House of Windsor and thus the present Queen of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II, descends.
–Dr. John Coleman, former British Intelligence Officer, The Conspirator’s Hierarchy: The Committee of 300.

An Ethiopian Journal.
"Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters"
Tagged with Ancient Ethiopia.
Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization.
A Critical Review of the Evidence of Archaeology, Anthropology, History and Comparative Religion: According to the Most Reliable Sources and Authorities.
Much more could be said on this subject, but since this essay is addressed mainly to readers who have little time for the study of history, it must be made as concise as possible. The numerous citations from standard scientific and historical works, it is hoped, will be of some benefit to students who are out of reach of large public libraries, or who lack the leisure time necessary for reading and research along these lines.
“It is pretty well settled that the city is the Negro’s great contribution to civilization, for it was in Africa where the first cities grew up.” E. Haldeman-Julius.
“Those piles of ruins which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. & # 8230; There a people, now forgotten, discovered while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe.” Count Volney.
“The accident of the predominance of white men in modern times should not give us supercilious ideas about color or persuade us to listen to superficial theories about the innate superiority of the white-skinned man. Four thousand years ago, when civilization was already one or two thousand years old, white men were just a bunch of semi-savages on the outskirts of the civilized world. If there had been anthropologists in Crete, Egypt, and Babylonia, they would have pronounced the white race obviously inferior, and might have discoursed learnedly on the superior germ-plasm or glands of colored folk.” Joseph McCabe.
The late Professor George A. Dorsey noted that “H. G. Wells’ heart beats faster in nearly every chapter of his Outline of History, because he cannot forget that he is Nordic, Aryan,
English British, white, civilized.” (Why We Behave Like Human Beings, p. 40.) This patriotic zeal of Mr. Wells’ has, in truth, caused him to suppress certain facts that do not.
fit into his pet theories. In the latest edition of his Outline of History, Mr. Wells ends his.
chapter on The Early Empires with the following remarks: “No less an authority than Sir.
Flinders Petrie gives countenance to the idea that there was some very early connection.
between Colchis (the country to the south of the Caucasus) and prehistoric Egypt. Herodotus remarked upon a series of resemblances between the Colchians and the.
Egyptians.” (Wells’ New and Revised Outline of History, p. 184, Garden City, 1931.) It.
would have been proper for Wells to have quoted the remarks of Herodotus, so as to give.
us precise information on the series of resemblances between the Cholchians and the.
Egyptians. Why he did not do so we shall now see. In Book II, Section - 104, of his.
celebrated History, Herodotus states: “For my part I believe the Colchi to be a colony of.
Egyptians, because like them they have black skins and frizzled hair.” (See any English.
translation of The History of Herodotus. The translation by Professor George Rawlinson.
is the best. See also W. E.B. DuBois, The Negro, p. 31, and Count Volney’s Travels in.
Egypt and Syria, Vol. I. pp. 80-81.) After discussing the civilizations of Egypt, Babylonia and India, Wells had already referred to them as a “triple system of white man.
civilizations.” (Outline of History, Chap. XIII, Sect. 5, p. 175) On concluding that the.
civilization of Egypt was a white man civilization, he naturally would be careful not to.
quote the above passage from Herodotus.
Most history texts, especially the ones on ancient history, start off by telling us that there.
are either three, four or five races of man, but that of those races only one has been.
responsible for civilization, culture, progress and all other good things. The one race is of.
course the white race, and particularly that branch of said race known as the Nordic or.
Aryan. The reason for this is obvious; the writers of these textbooks are as a rule Nordics,
or so consider themselves. However, prejudice alone will not account for this sort of.
coisa. There is a confusion among historians and anthropologists concerning the proper.
classification of races, and this confusion is used by biased writers to bolster up their.
preconceptions. It is therefore necessary that we discuss the subject of race classification.
in a rational manner before proceeding further.
The early scientific classifications of the varieties of the human species were geographical in nature. The celebrated naturalist, Linneaus (1708-1778), for instance, listed four races, according to continent, namely: (1) European (white), (2) African (black), (3) Asiatic (yellow), and (4) American (red). Blumenback, in 1775, added a fifth type, the Ocieanic or brown race. This classification is still used in some grammar school Geographies, where the races of man are tabulated as: Ethiopian (black), Caucasian (white), American (red), Mongolian (yellow) and Malayan (brown). During the year 1 800, the French naturalist, Cuvier, announced the hypothesis that all ethnic types were traceable to Ham, Chem and Japhet, the three sons of Noah. After that date race classification developed into an amazing contest; a struggle which still rages. By 1873, Haeckel had found no less than twelve distinct races of mankind; and to show the indefatigable nature of his researches, he annexed twenty-two more races a few years later, bringing the grand total of human types up to thirty-four. Deniker, in 1900, presented to the world a very imposing system of race classification. He conceived of the human species existing in the form of six grand divisions, seventeen divisions and twenty-nine races. And despite all this industry among anthropologists, ethnologists and the like, there is yet no agreement on the classification of races. Where one anthropologist finds three racial types, another can spot thirty-three without the least difficulty.
The Classifiers of race, however, regardless of how abundantly they disagreed with each.
other as to the correct groupings of human types, were of unanimous accord in the belief.
that the white peoples of the world were far superior to the darker races. This opinion in.
still very popular, but modern science is making it hard for intelligent people to accept.
the fallacy. Many years ago the German philosopher, Schopenhauer, remarked that,
“there is no such thing as a white race, much as this is talked of, but every white man is a.
faded or bleached one.” Schopenhauer possessed keen and sagacious foresight on this.
ponto. For example, the English scholar, Joseph McCabe, expresses the following view as.
the consensus of opinion among modern anthropologists: “There is strong reason to think.
that man was at first very dark of skin, woolly-haired and flat-nosed, and, as he wandered into different climates, the branches of the race diverged and developed their characteristics.” (Key to Culture, No. 11, p. 10.)
Professor Franz Boas, the nestor of American anthropologists, has divided the whole.
human race into only two divisions. This classification of Boas’ is admirably explained.
by Professor George A. Dorsey:
Open your atlas to a map of the world. Look at the Indian Ocean: on the west, Africa; on the north, the three great southern peninsulas of Asia: on the east, a chain of great islands terminating in Australia. Wherever that Indian Ocean touches land, it finds dark-skinned people with strongly.
developed jaws, relatively long arms and kinky or frizzly hair. Call that the Indian Ocean or Negroid division of the human race.
Now look at the Pacific Ocean: on one side, the two Americas; on the other, Asia. (Geographically, Europe is a tail to the Asiatic kite.) The aboriginal population of the Americas and of Asia north of its southern peninsula was a light-skinned people with straight hair, relatively short arms, and a face without prominent jaws. Call that the Pacific Ocean or Mongoloid division. (Why We Behave Like Human Beings, pp. 44-45.)
Professors A. L. Kroeber and Fay-Cooper Cole are of the opinion that the peoples of.
Europe have (been) bleached out enough to merit classification as a distinct race. This.
would add a European or Caucasoid division to the Negroid and Mongoloid races of the.
classification proposed by Professor Boas. If we accept this three-fold division of the.
human species, our classification ought to read as follows: the races of man are three in.
number; (1) the Negroid, or Ethiopian or black race; (2) the Mongoloid, or Mongolian or.
yellow race; and (3) the Caucasoid or European or white race. This is the very latest.
scheme of race classification.
Now that we have straightened out ourselves on the issue of the classification of races,
we may property turn to the main subject matter of this essay, i. e., the ancient Ethiopians.
and their widespread influence on the early history of civilization. In discussing the origin.
of civilization in the ancient Near East, Professor Charles Seignobos in his History of.
Ancient Civilization, notes that the first civilized inhabitants of the Nile and Tigris-
Euphrates valleys, were a dark-skinned people with short hair and prominent lips; e.
that they are referred to by some scholars as Cushites (Ethiopians), and as Hamites by.
outras. This ancient civilization of the Cushites, out of which the earliest cultures of.
Egypt and Mesopotamia grew, was not confined to the Near East. Traces of it have been.
found all over the world. Dr. W. J. Perry refers to it as the Archaic Civilization. Senhor.
Grafton Elliot Smith terms it the Neolithic Heliolithic Culture of the Brunet-Browns. Mr.
Wells alludes to this early civilization in his Outline of History, and dates its beginnings.
as far back as 15,000 years B. C. “This peculiar development of the Neolithic culture,”
says Mr. Wells, “which Elliot Smith called the Heliolithic (sun-stone) culture, included.
many or all of the following odd practices: (1) Circumcision, (2) the queer custom of.
sending the father to bed when a child is born, known as Couvade, (3) the practice of Massage, (4) the making of Mummies, (5) Megalithic monuments (i. e. Stonehenge), (6)
artificial deformation of the heads of the young by bandages, (7) Tattooing, (8) religious.
association of the Sun and the Serpent, and (9) the use of the symbol known as the.
Swastika for good luck. . . . Elliot Smith traces these associated practices in a sort of.
constellation all over this great Mediterranean / Indian Ocean-Pacific area. Where one.
occurs, most of the others occur. They link Brittany with Borneo and Peru. But this.
constellation of practices does not crop up in the primitive home of Nordic or Mongolian.
peoples, nor does it extend southward much beyond equatorial Africa. & # 8230; O primeiro.
civilizations in Egypt and the Euphrates-Tigris valley probably developed directly out of.
this widespread culture.” (Outline of History, pp. 141-143).
This ancient civilization is called NEOLITHIC by Wells. This is a mistake; for we have.
overwhelming evidence that these ancient peoples had long passed out of the New Stone.
Age stage of culture, and were erecting edifices which could only have been constructed.
by means of hard metal tools. Iron is the very backbone of civilization, and the Iron Age.
began very anciently in Africa. The researches of scholars like Boas, Torday and DuBois.
would lead us to believe that the art of mining iron was first developed in the interior of.
Africa, and that the knowledge of it passed through Egypt to the rest of the world. (See.
W. E.B. DuBois, The Negro, pp. 114-116, Home University Library, New York and.
In modern geography the name Ethiopia is confined to the country known as Abyssinia,
an extensive territory in East Africa. In ancient times Ethiopia extended over vast.
domains in both Africa and Asia. “It seems certain,” declares Sir E. A. Wallis Budge,
“that classical historians and geographers called the whole region from India to Egypt,
both countries inclusive, by the name of Ethiopia, and in consequence they regarded all.
the dark-skinned and black peoples who inhabited it as Ethiopians. Mention is made of.
Eastern and Western Ethiopians and it is probable that the Easterners were Asiatics and.
the Westerners Africans.” (History of Ethiopia, Vol. I., Preface, by Sir E. A. Wallis.
Budge.) In addition Budge notes that, “Homer and Herodotus call all the peoples of the.
Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Western Asia and India Ethiopians.” (Ibid., p. 2.)
Herodotus wrote in his celebrated History that both the Western Ethiopians, who lived in.
Africa, and the Eastern Ethiopians who dwelled in India, were black in complexion, but.
that the Africans had curly hair, while the Indians were straight-haired. (The aboriginal.
black inhabitants of India are generally referred to as the Dravidians, of whom more will.
be said as we proceed.) Another classical historian who wrote about the Ethiopians was.
Strabo, from whom we quote the following: “I assert that the ancient Greeks, in the same.
way as they classed all the northern nations with which they were familiar as Scythians,
etc., so, I affirm, they designated as Ethiopia the whole of the southern countries toward.
the ocean.” Strabo adds that “if the moderns have confined the appellation Ethiopians to.
those only who dwell near Egypt, this must not be allowed to interfere with the meaning.
of the ancients.” Ephorus says that: “The Ethiopians were considered as occupying all the.
south coasts of both Asia and Africa,” and adds that “this is an ancient opinion of the of.
the Greeks.” Then we have the view of Stephanus of Byzantium, that: “Ethiopia was the.
first established country on earth; and the Ethiopians were the first who introduced the.
worship of the gods, and who established laws.” The vestiges of this early civilization have been found in Nubia, the Egyptian Sudan, West Africa, Egypt, Mashonaland, India,
Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, South America, Central America, Mexico, and the United.
States. Any student who doubts this will find ample evidence in such works as The Voice.
of Africa, by Dr. Leo Froebenius; Prehistoric Nations, and Ancient America, by John D.
Baldwin; Rivers of Life, by Major-General J. G. R. Forlong; A Book of the Beginnings by.
Gerald Massey; Children of the Sun and The Growth of Civilization, by W. J. Perry; O.
Negro by Professor W. E.B. DuBois; The Anacalypsis, by Sir Godfrey Higgins; Isis.
Unveiled by Madam H. P. Blavatsky; The Diffusion of Culture, by Sir Grafton Elliot.
Smith; The Mediterranean Race, by Professor Sergi; The Ruins of Empires, by Count.
Volney; The Races of Europe, by Professor William Z. Ripley; and last but not least, the.
brilliant monographs of Mr. Maynard Shipley: New Light on Prehistoric Cultures and.
Americans of a Million Years Age. (See also Shipley’s Sex and the Garden of Eden Myth,
a collection of essays, the best of the lot being one entitled: Christian Doctrines In Pre-
Christian America.) These productions of Mr. Shipley, have been issued in pamphlet.
form in the Little Blue Book Series, published by Mr. E. Haldeman - Julius, of Girard,
The efforts of certain historians to classify these ancient Cushites as Caucasoids does not.
deceive honest historical students any longer. This may well be illustrated by a passage.
from the pen of our scholarly friend Bishop William Montgomery Brown: “For the first.
two or three thousand years of civilization, there was not a civilized white man on the.
earth. Civilization was founded and developed by the swarthy races of Mesopotamia,
Syria and Egypt, and the white race remained so barbaric that in those days an Egyptian.
or a Babylonian priest would have said that the riffraff of white tribes a few hundred.
miles to the north of their civilization were hopelessly incapable of acquiring the.
knowledge requisite to progress. It was southern colored peoples everywhere, in China,
in Central America, in India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt and Crete who gave the.
northern white peoples civilization.” (The Bankruptcy of Christian Supernaturalism, Vol.,
Quite a few Egyptologists have defended the idea that the ancient Egyptians.
originally came from Asia. There never was any evidence to back up this view; e a.
only reason it was adopted, was because it was fashionable to believe that no African.
people was capable of developing a great civilization. Geoffrey Parsons refers to.
Egyptian civilization in his Stream of History, p. 154, New York & London, 1932, as.
“genuinely African in its origin and development.” Herodotus came to the same.
conclusion over 2,000 years ago, but he is not taken seriously by the majority of modern.
historians, except where his facts agree with certain theories of said historians. Theories.
are more precious to some scholars than facts, even when the facts flatly contradict their.
theories. Dr. Froebenious, the great German anthropologist, has examined the ruins of.
ancient cultures in southern, eastern and western Africa, of an antiquity rivaling those of.
Egypt and Sumer. Sir John Marshall and Dr. E. Mackay have uncovered the remains of a.
great Dravidian civilization in India, which rose to its peak over 5,000 years ago. O.
newspaper generally report these discoveries as startling and unexpected. They tell us.
that nobody ever dreamed that these ancient nations ever existed. This novelty, however,
does not exist for real students. Anyone familiar with the works of G. Elliot Smith, W. J. Perry, Sir Godfrey Higgins, Dr. H. R. Hall, Sir Henry Rawlinson, John D. Baldwin,
Gerald Massey and General Forlong, will not be surprised at the very novel.
archaeological discoveries announced by the press. Since we are dealing with historical.
sources and authorities, a study of the researches of Sir Henry Rawlinson, the Father of.
Assyriology, on the Ethiopians in the ancient East, is in order. The following extract is.
condensed from an essay entitled: On the Early History of Babylonia:
1 The system of writing which they brought with them has the closest.
affinity with that of Egypt — in many cases indeed, there is an absolute.
identity between the two alphabets.
2. In the Biblical genealogies, Cush (Ethiopia) and Mizraim (Egypt) are.
brothers, while from the former sprang Nimrod (Babylonia.)
3. In regard to the language of the primitive Babylonians, the vocabulary is.
undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian, belonging to that stock of tongues.
which in the sequel were everywhere more or less mixed up with the.
Semitic languages, but of which we have probably the purest modern.
specimens in the Mahra of Southern Arabia and the Galla of Abyssinia.
4. All the traditions of Babylonia and Assyria point to a connection in very.
early times between Ethiopia, Southern Arabia and the cities on the lower.
5. In further proof of the connection between Ethiopia and Chaldea, we must.
remember the Greek tradition both of Cepheus and Memnon, which.
sometimes applied to Africa, and sometimes to the countries at the mouth.
of the Euphrates; and we must also consider the geographical names of.
Cush and Phut, which, although of African origin, are applied to races.
bordering on Chaldea, both in the Bible and in the Inscriptions of Darius.
(Essay - VI, Appendix, Book-I, History of Herodotus, translated by.
Professor George Rawlinson, with essays and notes by Sir Henry.
Rawlinson and Sir J. G. Wilkinson.)
The opinions of Sir Henry Rawlinson are reinforced by the researches of his equally.
distinguished brother, Professor George Rawlinson, in his essay On the Ethnic Affinities.
of the Races of Western Asia, which directs our attention to: “the uniform voice of.
primitive antiquity, which spoke of the Ethiopians as a single race, dwelling along the.
shores of the Southern Ocean from India to the Pillars of Hercules.”
Livro. I., Appendix, Essay XL, Section-5.) Rawlinson adds an explanatory note to this.
section of his essay, which we here reproduce: “Recent linguistic discovery tends to show.
that a Cushite or Ethiopian race did in the earliest times extend itself along the shores of.
the Southern Ocean from Abyssinia to India. The whole peninsula of India was peopled.
by a race of their character before the influx of the Aryans; it extended from the Indus.
along the seacoast through the modern Beluchistan and Kerman, which was the proper.
country of the Asiatic Ethiopians; the cities on the northern shores of the Persian Gulf are.
shown by the brick inscriptions found among their ruins to have belonged to this race; isto.
was dominant in Susiana and Babylonia, until overpowered in the one country by Aryan,
in the other by Semitic intrusion; it can be traced both by dialect and tradition throughout.
the whole south coast of the Arabian peninsula.”
In the study of ancient affairs, folklore and tradition throw an invaluable light on.
historical records. In Greek mythology we read of the great Ethiopian king, Cepheus,
whose fame was so great that he and his family were immortalized in the stars. The wife.
of King Cepheus was Queen Cassiopeia, and his daughter, Princess Andromeda. The star.
groups of the celestial sphere, which are named after them are called the ROYAL.
family — (the constellations: cepheus, CASSIOPEIA and ANDROMEDA.) It may seem.
strange that legendary rulers of ancient Ethiopia should still have their names graven on.
our star maps, but the voice of history gives us a clue. A book on astrology attributed to.
Lucian declares that: “The Ethiopians were the first who invented the science of stars,
and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the.
qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed,
still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians.” The Ethiopian origin of astronomy is.
beautifully explained by Count Volney in a passage in his Ruins of Empires, which is one.
of the glories of modern literature, and his argument is not based on guesses. He invokes.
the weighty authority of Charles F. Dupuis, whose three monumental works, The Origin.
of Constellations, The Origin of Worship and The Chronological Zodiac, are marvels of.
meticulous research. Dupuis placed the origin of the zodiac as far back as 15,000 B. C.,
which would give the world’s oldest picture book an antiquity of 17,000 years. (This.
estimate is not as excessive as it might at first appear, since the American ast5ronomer.
and mathematician, Professor Arthur M. Harding, traces back the origin of the zodiac to.
about 26,000 B. C) In discussing star worship and idolatry, Volney gives the following.
glowing description of the scientific achievements of the ancient Ethiopians, and of how.
they mapped out the signs of the zodiac on the star-spangled dome of the heavens:
Should it be asked at what epoch this system took its birth, we shall answer on the testimony of the monuments of astronomy itself, that its principles appear with certainty to have been established about seventeen thousand years ago, and if it be asked to what people it is to be attributed, we shall answer that the same monuments, supported by unanimous traditions, attribute it to the first tribes of Egypt; and reason finds in that country all the circumstances which could lead to such a system; when it finds there a zone of sky, bordering on the tropic, equally free from the rains of the equator and the fogs of the north; when it finds there a central point of the sphere of the ancients, a salubrious climate, a great but manageable river, a soil fertile without art or labor, inundated without morbid exhalations, and placed between two seas which communicate with the richest countries; it conceives that the inhabitant of the Nile, addicted to agriculture from the facility of communications, to astronomy from the state of his sky, always open to observation, must have been the first to pass from the savage to the social state; and consequently to attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life.
It was, then, on the borders of the upper Nile, among a black race of men, that was organized the complicated system of the worship of the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labors of agriculture. & # 8230; Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes named stars of inundation, or Aquarius, those stars under which the Nile began to overflow; stars of the ox or bull, those under which they began to plow, stars of the lion, those under which that animal, driven from the desert by thirst, appeared on the banks of the Nile; stars of the sheaf, or of the harvest virgin, those of the.
reaping season; stars of the lamb, stars of the two kids, those under which these precious animals were brought forth. & # 8230; Thus the same Ethiopian having observed that the return of the inundation always corresponded with the rising of a beautiful star which appeared towards the source of the.
Nile, and seemed to warn the husbandman against the coming waters, he compared this action to that of the animal who, by his barking, gives notice of danger, and he called this star the dog, the barker (Sirius). In the same manner he named the stars of the crab, those where the sun, having.
arrived at the tropic, retreated by a slow retrograde motion like the crab of Cancer. He named stars of the wild goat, or Capricorn, those where the sun, having reached the highest point in his annuary tract, . . . imitates the goat, who delights to climb to the summit of the rocks. He named stars of the balance, or Libra, those where the days and nights being equal, seemed in equilibrium, like that instrument; and stars of the scorpion, those where certain periodical winds bring vapors, burning like the venom of the scorpion. (Volney’s Ruins of Empires, pp. 120-122, New York, 1926)
The traditions concerning Memnon are interesting as well as instructive. He was claimed.
as a king by the Ethiopians, and identified with the Pharaoh Amunoph or Amenhotep, by.
the Egyptians. A fine statue of him is located in the British Museum, in London. Charles.
Darwin makes a reference to this statue on his Descent of Man which is well worth.
reproducing: “When I looked at the statue of Amunoph III, I agreed with two officers of.
the establishment, both competent judges, that he had a strongly marked Negro type of.
features.” The features of Akhnaton (Amennhotep IV), are even more Negroid than those.
of his illustrious predecessor. That the earliest Egyptians were African Ethiopians.
(Nilotic Negroes), is obvious to all unbiased students of oriental history. Breasted’s claim.
that the early civilized inhabitants of the Nile Valley and Western Asia were members of.
a Great White Race, is utterly false, and is supported by no facts whatsoever. A similar.
racial bias is shown by Elliot Smith in his work, The Ancient Egyptians and Their.
Influence Upon the Civilization of Europe, p. 30, New York & London, 1911. “Not a few.
writers,” says he, “like the traveler Volney in the 18 th century, have expressed the belief.
that the ancient Egyptians were Negroes, or at any rate strongly Negroid. In recent times.
even a writer so discriminating as Ripley usually is has given his adhesion to this view.”
(The writers referred to here, are Count Volney, the French Orientalist and Professor.
William Z. Ripley, of Harvard University, an eminent American Anthropologist.)
Professor Smith is convinced that these men are wrong, because he holds that there is a.
“profound gap that separates the Negro from the rest of mankind, including the.
Egyptian.” (Ancient Egyptians, p. 74.) Another English scholar, Philip Smith, is far more.
rational in discussing this point:
No people have bequeathed to us so many memorials of its form complexion and physiognomy as the Egyptians. & # 8230; If we were left to form an opinion on the subject by the description of the Egyptians left by the Greek writers we should conclude that they were, if not Negroes, at least.
closely akin to the Negro race. That they were much darker in coloring than the neighboring Asiatics; that they had their frizzled either by nature or art; that their lips were thick and projecting, and their limbs slender, rests upon the authority of eye-witnesses who had traveled in the country and who could have had no motive to deceive. . . . The fullness of the lips seen in the Sphinx of the Pyramids and in the portraits of the kings is characteristic of the Negro. (The Ancient History of the East, pp. 25-26, London, 1881.)
We read of Memnon, King of Ethiopia, in Greek mythology, to be exact in Homer’s Iliad,
where he leads an army of Elamites and Ethiopians to the assistance of King Priam in the.
Trojan War. His expedition is said to have started from the African Ethiopia and to have.
passed through Egypt on the way to Troy. According to Herodotus, Memnon was the.
founder of Susa, the chief city of the Elamites. “There were places called Memnonia,”
asserts Professor Rawlinson, “supposed to have been built by him both in Egypt and at.
Susa; and there was a tribe called Memnones at Moroe. Memnon thus unites the eastern.
with the western Ethiopians, and the less we regard him as an historical personage the.
more must we view him as personifying the ethnic identity of the two races.” (Ancient.
Monarchies, Vol. I, Chap. 3.) The ancient peoples of Mesopotamia are sometimes called.
the Chaldeans, but this is inaccurate and confusing. Before the Chaldean rule in.
Mesopotamia, there were the empires of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and.
Assyrians. The earliest civilization of Mesopotamia was that of the Sumerians. Eles são.
designated in the Assyrio-Babylonian inscriptions as the black-heads or black-faced.
people, and they are shown on the monuments as beardless and with shaven heads. This.
easily distinguishes them from the Semitic Babylonians, who are shown with beards and.
long hair. From the myths and traditions of the Babylonians we learn that their culture.
came originally from the south. Sir Henry Rawlinson concluded from this and other.
evidence that the first civilized inhabitants of Sumer and Akkad were immigrants from.
the African Ethiopia. John D. Baldwin, the American Orientalist, on the other hand,
claims that since ancient Arabia was also known as Ethiopia, they could have just as well.
come from that country. These theories are rejected by Dr. II. R. Hall, of the Dept. Of.
Egyptian & Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum, who contends that Mesopotamia.
was civilized by a migration from India. “The ethnic type of the Sumerians, so strongly.
marked in their statues and reliefs,” says Dr. Hall, “was as different from those of the.
races which surrounded them as was their language from those of the Semites, Aryans, or.
others; they were decidedly Indian in type. The face-type of the average Indian of today.
is no doubt much the same as that of his Dravidian race ancestors thousands of years ago.
. . . And it is to this Dravidian ethnic type of India that the ancient Sumerian bears most.
resemblance, so far as we can judge from his monuments. & # 8230; And it is by no means.
improbable that the Sumerians were an Indian race which passed, certainly by land,
perhaps also by sea, through Persia to the valley of the Two Rivers. It was in the Indian.
home (perhaps the Indus valley) that we suppose for them that their culture developed. . . On the way they left the seeds of their culture in Elam. . . . There is little doubt that India.
must have been one of the earliest centers of human civilization, and it seems natural to suppose that the strange un-Semitic, un-Aryan people who came from the East to civilize.
the West were of Indian origin, especially when we see with our own eyes how very.
London, 1916.) Hall is opposed in his theory of Sumerian origins by Dr. W. J. Perry, the.
great anthropologist, of the University of London. “The Sumerian stories or origins.
themselves tell a very different tale,” Perry points out, “for from their beginnings the.
Sumerians seem to have been in touch with Egypt. Some of their early texts mention.
Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha. . . . Dilmun was the first settlement that was made by the.
god Enki, who was the founder of Sumerian civilization. & # 8230; Magan was famous among.
the Sumerians as a place whence they got diorite and copper, Meluhha as a place whence.
they got gold. Dilmun has been identified with some place or other in the Persian Gulf,
perhaps the Bahrein Islands, perhaps a land on the eastern shore of the Gulf. & # 8230; In a late.
inscription of the Assyrians it is said that Magan and Meluhha were the archaic names for.
Egypt and Ethiopia, the latter being the south-western part of Somaliand that lay.
Middlesex, England, 1937, Published by Penguin Books, Ltd.)
Another great nation of Ethiopian origin was Elam, a country which stretched from the.
Tigris River to the Zagros Mountains of Persia. Its capital was the famous city of Susa,
which was founded about 4,000 B. C., and flourished from that date to its destruction by.
Moslem invaders about the year 650 C. E. (Christian Era). In speaking of the Elamites, H.
G. Wells H. H. Johnston, to have been Negroid in type. There is a strong Negroid strain.
favors this view. Reginald S. Poole, the English Egyptologist noted that: “There is one.
portrait of an Elamite (Cushite) king on a vase found at Susa; he is painted black and thus.
belongs to the Cushite race.” (Quoted by Professor Alfred C. Haddon, in his History of.
Anthropology, p. 6, London, 1934. Thinker’s Library Edition, published by Watts & Co.,
5 & ​​amp; 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet St., London, E. c-4, England.)
We cannot devote much space to the early inhabitants of India, though they were beyond.
all doubt an Ethiopic ethnic type. They are described by Professor Lynn Thorndike as.
York, 1936.) Dr. Will Durant pictures these early Hindus as “a dark-skinned, broad-nosed.
people whom, without knowing the origin or the word, we call Dravidians.”
History of Civilization, Part I, p. 396, New York, 1935.) The student is advised to consult.
pp. 650-666, of the new edition of Sir John A. Hammerton’s Wonders of the Past, in.
which there is an instructive article, with fine illustrations, by S. G. Blaxland Stubbs,
entitled: Wonder Cities of Most Ancient India. That Mr. Stubbs is a candid writer may be.
seen from the following excerpt:
The early Aryan literature of India, the Hymns of the Rigveda, which, it is commonly agreed, date from about 1,000 B. C., speak of the people whom the proud Aryan invaders found in India as black-skinned barbarians, Dasas or slaves. But Aryan pride of race has received something of a shock from archaeological investigations carried out by Sir John Marshall and, more recently, by Dr. E. Mackay in the valley of the Indus. Here ample evidence has been found of a race whose complex civilization and high culture were equal, and in some respects superior to those of early Mesopotamia and Egypt.
These Asiatic black men were not confined to the mainland, for we are informed by no less an authority than Sir Harry H. Johnston, that:
In former times this Asiatic Negro spread, we can scarcely explain how, unless the land connections of those days were more extended, through Eastern Australia to Tasmania, and from the Solomon Island to New Caledonia and even New Zealand, to Fiji and Hawaii. The Negroid element in Burma and Annam is, therefore, easily to be explained by supposing that in ancient times Southern Asia had a Negro population ranging from the Persian Gulf to Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago.
(See An Introduction to African Civilizations, by Willis N. Huggins. Ph. D. and John G. Jackson, pp. 188-190, New York, 1937.)
Most readers of history know about the Celts, ancient inhabitants of Europe, whose.
priests were known as the Druids. It is generally thought that these Celts were.
Caucasoids, but Sir Godfrey Higgins, after much study came to the conclusion that they.
were a Negroid people. Higgins wrote a ponderous volume entitled The Celtic Druids. Dentro.
the following passage from his Anacalypsis he modestly refers to it as an essay: “In my.
essay on the Celtic Druids, I have shown that a great nation called Celtae, of whom the.
Druids were the priests, spread themselves almost over the whole earth, and are to be.
traced in their rude gigantic monuments from India to the extremity of Britain. O.
religion of Buddha of India is well known to have been very ancient.” (Higgins is here.
referring to the first Buddha, who is supposed to have lived between 5,000 and 6,000.
years ago, and not to Gautama Buddha who lived about 600 years B. C. There were at.
least ten Buddhas mentioned in the sacred books of India.) “Who these can have been but.
the early individuals of the black nation of whom we have been treating I know not, and.
in this opinion I am not singular. The learned Maurice says Cuthies (Cushites), i. e. Celts,
built the great temples in India and Britain, and excavated the caves of the former; e.
the learned mathematician, Reuben Burrow, has no hesitation in pronouncing Stonehenge.
IV, New York, 1927.)
Though it is generally believed that Columbus discovered America, it is now definitely.
known to students of American archaeology that Columbus came late. Professor Leo.
Weiner has written a three volume work, Africa and the Discovery of America, in which.
he argues that the New World was discovered by Africans long before the time of.
Columbus. Professor Weiner was led to this conclusion partly from the following.
1. African works in American Indian languages.
2. Vases and pipe-bowls found in the ruins of the Mound-Builders, showing.
Negro faces on their surfaces.
3. The presence of African foods in America, such the peanut and the yam.
4. The totemic organization of the Amerindians tribes, very similar to.
African totemism. (Totemism is a sort of primitive theory of evolution.
For instance, certain tribes are divided into clans, and each clan is, as a.
rule named after some species of animal. Let us suppose a tribe is divided.
into four clans, bearing the following names: (1) eagle, (2) Bear, (3) Crow.
and (4) Wolf. A member of the Bear Clan will consider himself as.
descended from bears, a member of the Wolf Clan will tell you that he is a.
wolf and that all of his ancestors were wolves, and so on; this clan.
ancestor being known as the Totem. There are numerous definitions of.
totemism, the best I have come across being the following one by.
Professor A. VB. Haddon: “Totemism, as Dr. Frazer and I understand it in.
its fully developed condition, implies the division of a people into several.
totem kins, or as they are usually termed, totem clans, each of which has.
one or sometimes more that one totem. The totem is usually a species of.
animal, sometimes a species of plant, occasionally a natural object or.
phenomenon, very rarely a manufactured article. . . . The totems are.
regarded as kinsfolk or protectors of the kinsmen, who respect them and.
refrain from killing and eating them. There is thus a recognition of mutual.
rights and obligations between the members of the kin and their totem.
The totem is the crest of symbol of the Kin.” We see vestiges of totemism.
in our political organizations; for example, the Democratic DONKEY and.
the republican ELEPHANT. Baseball clubs present an even better example.
of totemistic atavism; for instance, who has not heard of baseball teams.
bearing such names as: tigers, cardinals, bears, bees, bisons, etc.)
Weiner’s theories have not been kindly received by his colleagues.
Professor H. J. Spinden sneers sarcastically in the following condensed.
extract from Culture, the Diffusion Controversy, pp. 53-54, New York,
“Professor Weiner solves the riddle of old American civilizations with an Arabico-Mandingo lexicon and derives everything of importance in the New World from the highly civilized coast of.
Gambia and Sierra Leone. From brightest Africa came the principal American food plants, the Mayan calendar and the Mexican religion. It may be added that Professor Weiner swarms.
his Negroes across the Atlantic in no less than fifty voyages before Columbus.”
The Indian was not the original American. Professor Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution, as authority on the Amerinds, contends that the ancestors of the Indians came from Asia via Bering Strait 10,000 years ago. American civilization is older than that. The ruins of Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, according to Dr. Rudolph Muller, a noted German astronomer, are between 10,000 and 14,000 years old. The remains of this ancient city show that it was inhabited by a highly civilized people. (See an article entitled “The.
Oldest City in the World,” by A. H. Verrill, in the N. Y. Herald-Tribune Magazine, July 31, 1932.) Excavations in Mexico have produced equally startling results. Dr. Maximus Neumayer, a distinguished Brazilian archaeologist, in cooperation with a group of Mexican archaeologists, has made a very thorough study of the pyramids and monuments in the vicinity of Mexico City. He estimates the monument of Cuicuilco to be about 13,000 years old. An interesting feature of this structure is that it resembles the Assyrio-Babylonian type of architecture, bearing a striking resemblance to the Tower of Babel as it has been restored by the Assyriologists. Dr. Neumayer also examined the pyramids of Teotihuacan, which he estimates to be 4,500 years of age. He thinks that these pyramids were built by a people akin to the Egyptians; and from their arrangement, suggests that they form a sort of model of the solar system, with a pedestal in the center, representing the sun. We must also mention the discoveries of Professor Ramon Mena, Curator of the Department of Archaeology of the Mexican Government. This scientist explored the ruins of the great city of Palenque, and concluded that the ancient metropolis was built over 10,000 years ago. He also found that the inhabitants of the city were familiar with the manufacture and use of Stucco. The celebrated French archaeologist, Desiree Charnay, unearthed statues around Mexico City, more than fifty years ago, with faces showing Negroid features. Pictures of some of them may be seen in Ignatius Donelley’s Atlantis, pp. 174-175. Donnelly also has illustrations of two similar statues, one from Palenque and the other from Vera Cruz. Finding that the Indians show both Mongoloid and Negroid ethnic traces, Charnay justly concluded that the Amerinds were a mixed race of both Asiatic and African ancestry. (See The Ancient Cities of the New World, by Desiree Charnay.) We have perfectly reliable proof of the presence of men of the Ethiopian race in pre-Columbian America. Father Roman, one of he first Catholic missionaries to arrive in the New World, records that a tribe of black men came from the south and landed in Haiti, and that they were armed with darts of guanin (a composition of gold, silver and copper), and were known as the black Guaninis. “These might have been the Negroes of Quareca, mentioned by Peter Martyr d Angleria, or some other American Negro nation,” asserts De Roo, “the like of which there were many, as we may see in Rafinesque’s Account of the Ancient Black Nations of America. Such are the Charruas of Brazil, the black Carabees of St. Vincent in the Gulf of Mexico, the Jamassi of Florida, the dark complexioned Californians who are perhaps the dark men mentioned in the Quiche traditions and by some old Spanish adventures. Such, again, is the tribe of which Balboa saw some representatives in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in the year 1513. It would seem from the expressions made use of by Gomara, that these were Negroes.”
Most of us are familiar with the Mayan civilization of Yucatan and Central America, since American archaeologists have devoted many years of intensive research to these territories. Among the speculations concerning the origin of this culture, those of LePlongeon and Raquena are the most valuable. Professor Rafael Requena, a Venezuelan archaeologist, holds that there was once an island in the Atlantic Ocean, of continental dimensions, known to the ancients as Atlantis, that this island was settled by Egyptians, who in turn established colonies in America before the submergence of Atlantis. The findings of Professor Augustus LePlongeon are of great interest. This Franco-American archaeologist discovered the ruins of a palace in Chichen Itza in 1 874. He found in this structure, known as Prince Coh’s Palace, pictographs and inscriptions which he was able.
to decipher. The story, as unraveled by LePlongeon, may be read by the student in Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx, where the professor gives his interpretation of the inscriptions and reproductions of the pictographs. Mrs. LePlongeon’s work, Queen Moo’s Talisman, might also be consulted. The story runs roughly as follows:
About 1 1,000 years ago, two brothers Princes of Yucatan, sought the hand of the ruling monarch of the land, Queen Moo, in marriage. The brothers were named Coh and Aac, respectively. Prince Coh was the successful suitor; which so enraged Prince Aac that he stabbed his brother through the heart with a stone knife, which, needless to say, caused his death. Then Aac attempted to force Queen Moo to wed him. The Queen, rather than submit, decided to flee to Atlantis. On reaching the coast she learned that great earthquakes had submerged Atlantis beneath the sea; so she sailed for Africa instead, and ended her journey in Egypt. There she was hailed as Queen, and erected the Sphinx as a memorial to her slain husband.
The foregoing story sounds like a fable, but there is probably a core of fact in it. If the Sphinx, with its Ethiopian face, is a memorial to an ancient Mayan prince, it shows that the Mayas were of African origin.
Where flows the river Nile,
The queen found rest;
There once again her days.
With peace were blessed.
Did Moo a giant Sphinx from.
Out of the ground.
Cause to arise, and.
Did she immortalize.
That Atlantis was connected with the history of ancient Ethiopia there can be little doubt. The Greek philosopher, Proclus, stated in his works that he could present evidence that Atlantis at one time actually existed. He cited as his authority The Ethiopian History of Marcellus. In referring to Ethiopian history to prove the existence of Atlantis, Proclus plainly infers that Atlantis was a part of Ethiopia. (See Cory’s Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Other Authors, London, 1876. See also, Maynard Shipley’s New Light on Prehistoric Cultures and Bramwell’s Lost.
Atlantis.) Although there is scientific evidence that an island of continental dimensions once existed in what is now the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, many students of the problem of Atlantis have located it in other parts of the globe, particularly in Central America and Africa. Count deProrok ways that Atlantis, in the dimness of antiquity, covered the region now occupied by the Sahara Desert. Kirchmaier placed it in South Africa and Froebenius in West Africa. In reviewing James Bramwell’s Lost Atlantis, Mr. Lewis Gannett states that: “The German anthropologist Frobenius definitely locates it in Nigeria, whose ancient civilization he relates to that of the Etruscans and the Assyrians.”
The new age that began after the disappearance of Atlantis was marked at first by the world-wide dominance of Ethiopian representatives of the black race. They were supreme in Africa and Asia . . . and they even infiltrated through Southern Europe. . . . During the present era — that is the last 10,000 years — the white race… has come to possess the world. According to the occult tradition, Semitic peoples developed wherever the immigrating white colonists from the north were subjugated by the black ruling class, and inter-mixture occurred, as in oldest Egypt, Chaldea,
So far we have given little or no attention to the evidence of comparative religion. The study of ancient religious history is important, for religion, like philosophy, changes but slowly. Institutional religion, being conservative and static in its outlook, has preserved much ancient lore that would have otherwise been lost to the modern student. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes (572-480 B. C.), pointed out a profound truth when he observed that the gods men worship very closely resemble the worshippers. In the words of this ancient sage: “Each man represents the gods as he himself is. The Ethiopian as black and.
flat-nosed the Thracian as red-haired and blue-eyed; and if horses and oxen could paint, they would no doubt depict the gods as horses and oxen.” This being the case; when we find the great nations of the world, both past and present, worshipping black gods, then we logically conclude that these peoples are either members of the black race, or that they originally received their religion in toto or in part from black people. The proofs are abundant. The ancient gods of India are shown with Ethiopian crowns on their heads. According to the Old Testament, Moses first met Jehovah during his sojourn among the Midianites, who were an Ethiopian tribe. We learn from Hellenic tradition that Zeus, king.
of the Grecian gods, so cherished the friendship of the Ethiopians that he traveled to their country twice a year to attend banquets. “All the gods and goddesses of Greece were black,” asserts Sir Godfrey Higgins, “at least this was the case with Jupiter, Baccus, Hercules, Apollo, Ammon. The goddesses Benum, Isis, Hecate, Diana, Juno, Metis, Ceres, Cybele were black.” (Anacalypsis, Vol. I, Book IV, Chap. I.) Even the Romans, who received their religion mainly from the Greeks, admitted their debt to Egypt and Ethiopia. This may be well illustrated by the following passage from The Golden Ass or Metamorphosis, by Apuleius. The author, as an initiate of the Isis cult is represented as being addressed by that goddess: “I am present; I who am Nature, the parent of things, queen of all the elements . . . the primitive Phrygians called me Press imunitica, the mother or the gods; the native Athenians, Ceropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus … the inhabitants of Eleusis, the ancient goddess Ceres. Some again have invoked me as Juno, others as Bellona, others as Hecate, and others Rhamnusia; and those who are enlightened by the emerging rays of the rising sun, the Ethiopians, Ariians and Egyptians, powerful in ancient learning, who reverence by divinity with ceremonies perfectly proper, call me by my true appellation, Queen Isis.” (Doane’s Bible Myths, Note, p. 478.)
A study of the images of ancient deities of both the Old and New Worlds reveal their Ethiopic origin. This is noted by Kenneth R. H. Mackezie in T. A. Buckley’s Cities of the Ancient World, p. 180: “From the wooly texture of the hair, I am inclined to assign to the Buddha of India, the Fuhi of China, the Sommonacom of the Siamese, the Zaha of the Japanese, and the Quetzalcoatl of the Mexicans, the same, and indeed an African, or rather Nubian, origin.” Most of these black gods were regarded as crucified saviors who died to save mankind by being nailed to a cross, or tied to a tree with arms outstretched as if on a cross, or slain violently in some other manner. Of these crucified saviors, the most prominent were Osiris and Horus of Egypt, Krishna of India, Mithra of Persia, Quetazlcoatl of Mexico, Adonis of Babylonia and Attis of Phrygia. Nearly all of these slain savior-gods have the following stories related about them: They are born of a virgin, on or near Dec. 25 th (Christmas); their births are heralded by a star; they are born either in a cave or stable; they are slain, commonly by crucifixion; they descend into hell, and rise from the dead at the beginning of Spring (Easter), and finally ascend into heaven. The parallels between the legendary lives of these pagan messiahs and the life of Jesus Christ.
as recorded in the Bible are so similar that progressive Bible scholars now admit that stories of these heathen Christs have been woven into the life-story of Jesus. (These remarkable parallels are discussed and interpreted in a pamphlet, Christianity Before Christ, by John G. Jackson, New York, 1938.)
The late Mr. Maynard Shipley, President of The Science League of America, made a very scholarly study of the various mythologies and religions of the world, and in the concluding passage of a brilliant essay, Christian Doctrines in Pre-Christian America, he offers a profoundly thought-provoking statement:
That the ancient pagan creeds, legends and myths — part of the universal mythos — should be found embodied in the religion of the ancient Mexicans, and that all these again are found to be but the original sources of the modern orthodox Christian religion, is by no means inexplicable, and need not be attribute to the subtlety of the Ubiquitous Devil. The explanation is that all religions and all languages of the civilized races of men had a common origin in an older seat of civilization.
Where that original center of culture was is another story.
The evidence seems to show that the “original center of culture,” referred to by Mr. Shipley, was that vast domain known to the classical geographers and historians as Ethiopia. A study of religious images throws much light on this early civilization. The tau (T-shaped) cross is thought by many Christians to be a unique emblem of their faith. The fact is that this cross is of ancient Ethiopian origin. In the words of an outstanding student of symbolism: “The Ethiopic form of the tau is an exact prototype of the conventional Christian cross; or, to state the fact in its chronological relation, the Christian cross is made in the exact image of the Ethiopian tau.” (Sex Symbolism. P. 9, by William J, Fielding, Little Blue Book No. 904.) The cross was known to all the great ancient nations, and was sometimes shown with the image of a man upon it. The Church Father, Minucius Felix, writing in the early part of the third century, severely rebukes the Pagans for their adoration of crosses: “I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them; you it is ye Pagans … for what else are your ensigns, flags and standards, but crosses gilt and beautiful. Your victorious trophies not only represent a cross, but a cross.
with a man upon it.” Commenting on the preceding extract, the American scholar, T. W. Doane, notes that:
It is very evident that this celebrated Christian Father alludes to some Gentle mystery, of which the prudence of his successors has deprived us. When we compare this with the fact that for centuries after the time assigned for the birth of Jesus Christ, he was not represented as a man on a cross, and that the Christians did not have such a thing as a crucifix, we are inclined to think that the effigies of a black or dark-skinned crucified man, which were to be seen in many places in Italy even during the last century, may have had something to do with it. (Bible Myths, p. 197, 7 th.
The same writer also refers to “the Mexican crucified god being sometimes represented as black,” and that “crosses were also found in Yucatan, as well as Mexico, with a man upon them.” (Ibid., p. 201.)
The numerous black madonnas and infants in European cathedrals are discussed in detail by Sir Godfrey Higgins in The Anacalypsis, Vol. I, Book JV, Chap. I, to which the interested student is referred. However, the remarks of Mr. Shipley on this point are worthy of our attention:
Very suggestive is the fact that representations of the virgin mother and infant savior are often black. This is true in the case of the paintings and images of Isis and Horus, of Devaki and Krishna, and in many cases of Mary and Jesus. The most ancient pictures and statues in Italy and other.
parts of Europe, which are adored by the faithful as representations of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, reveal the infant draped in white, but with face black and in the arms of a black mother. . . . How does it happen that the Virgin Mother of the Mexican Savior-God so closely resembled the Black Virgins of Egypt and Europe? Had they not all a common origin?” (Sex and The Garden of Eden Myth, pp. 50-51, by Maynard Shipley, Little Blue Book No. 1 188.)
Mr. A. H. Verrill, an American archaeologist, visited an Indian shrine in a small town in Guatemala a few years ago, and found that on a special festival day Indians traveled to this.
little church to bow down to the image of a Black Christ. From the attendant ceremonies, Verrill judged the rite to be of Mayan origin, (see Verrill’s Old Civilizations of the New World, New York, 1938.) The Mayas possessed knowledge of the arts and sciences equivalent to that of the ancients of the Old World, but upon that we cannot dwell, since.
limitations of space forbid it. The reader is referred to Professor Paul Radin’s fine book on the American Indians, where after surveying the marvelous scientific achievements of the Mayas of Yucatan and Central America , Dr. Radin admits that: “No excavations have ever revealed to us any civilization of a simpler nature from which this very elaborate culture.
could possibly have been developed.” (The Story of the American Indian, p. 77, Garden City, 1937.) Egypt and Western Asia tell the same story. “In each case we have a standard or measuring-rod of authentic historical record,” declares Samuel Laing, “of certainly not less than 8,000 and more probably 9,000 or 10,000 years, from the present time; and in each case we find ourselves at this remote date, in the presence, not of rude beginnings, but of a civilization already ancient and far advanced. We have populous cities, celebrated temples, an organized priesthood, an advanced state of agriculture and of the industrial and fine arts; writing and books so long known that their origin is lost in myth; religions in which advanced philosophical and moral ideas are already developed; astronomical systems which imply a long course of accurate observations. How long this prehistoric age may have lasted, and how many centuries it may have taken to develop such a civilization, from the primitive beginnings of Neolithic and Paleolithic origins, is a matter of conjecture. All we can infer is, that it must have required an immense time, much longer than that embraced by the subsequent period of historical record.”
(Human Origins, by Samuel Laing, p. 30, London, 1913.)
Much more could be said on this subject, but since this essay is addressed mainly to readers who have little time for the study of history, it must be made as concise as possible. The numerous citations from standard scientific and historical works, it is hoped, will be of some benefit to students who are out of reach of large public libraries, or who lack the leisure time necessary for reading and research along these lines.
Ethiopia: Escape to the Land of Origins.
The Brussels Times Magazine.
Deir Sultan, Ethiopia and the Black World.
By Negussay Ayele.
Background to Deir Sultan at a glance.
Unknown by much of the world, monks and nuns of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, have for centuries quietly maintained the only presence by black people in one of Christianity’s holiest sites—the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. Through the vagaries and vicissitudes of millennial history and landlord changes in Jerusalem and the Middle East region, Ethiopian monks have retained their monastic convent in what has come to be known as Deir Sultan or the Monastery of the Sultan for more than a thousand years. Likewise, others that have their respective presences in the area at different periods, include Armenian, Russian, Syrian, Egyptian and Greek Orthodox/Coptic Churches as well as the Holy See. As one writer put it recently , “For more than 1500 years, the Church of Ethiopia survived in Jerusalem. Its survival has not, in the last resort, been dependent on politics, but on the faith of individual monks that we should look for the vindication of the Church’s presence in Jerusalem….They are attracted in Jerusalem not by a hope for material gain or comfort, but by faith.” It is hoped that public discussion on this all-important subject will be joined by individuals and groups from all over the world, particularly the African Diaspora. At this time, I will confine myself to offering a brief profile of the Ethiopian presence in Jerusalem and its current state of turmoil. I hope that others with more detailed and/or first hand knowledge about the subject will join in the discussion.
Accounts of Ethiopian presence in Jerusalem invoke the Bible to establish the origin of Ethiopian presence in Jerusalem. Accordingly, some Ethiopians refer to the story of the encounter in Jerusalem between Queen of Sheba–believed to have been a ruler in Ethiopia and environs–and King Solomon, cited, for instance, in I Kings 10: 1-13. According to this version, Ethiopia’s presence in the region was already established about 1000 B. C. possibly through land grant to the visiting Queen, and that later transformation into Ethiopian Orthodox Christian monastery is an extension of that same property. Others refer to the New Testament account of Acts 8: 26-40 which relates the conversion to Christianity of the envoy of Ethiopia’s Queen Candace (Hendeke) to Jerusalem in the first century A. D., thereby signaling the early phase of Ethiopia’s adoption of Christianity. This event may have led to the probable establishment of a center of worship in Jerusalem for Ethiopian pilgrims, priests, monks and nuns.
Keeping these renditions as a backdrop, what can be said for certain is the following. Ethiopian monastic activities in Jerusalem were observed and reported by contemporary residents and sojourners during the early years of the Christian era. By the time of the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem and the region (634-644 A. D.) khalif Omar is said to have confirmed Ethiopian physical presence in Jerusalem’s Christian holy places, including the Church of St. Helena which encompasses the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord Jesus Christ. His firman or directive of 636 declared that “the Iberian and Abyssinian communities remain there” while also recognizing the rights of other Christian communities to make pilgrimages in the Christian holy places of Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem and the region around it, has been subjected to frequent invasions and changing landlords, stakes in the holy places were often part of the political whims of respective powers that be. Subsequently, upon their conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the Crusaders, had kicked out Orthodox/Coptic monks from the monasteries and installed Augustine monks instead. However, when in 1187 Salaheddin wrested Jerusalem from the Crusaders, he restored the presence of the Ethiopian and other Orthodox/Coptic monks in the holy places. When political powers were not playing havoc with their claims to the holy places, the different Christian sects would often carry on their own internecine conflicts among themselves, at times with violent results.
“For more than 1500 years, the Church of Ethiopia survived in Jerusalem. Its survival has not, in the last resort, been dependent on politics, but on the faith of individual monks that we should look for the vindication of the Church’s presence in Jerusalem….They are attracted in Jerusalem not by a hope for material gain or comfort, but by faith.”
Contemporary records and reports indicate that the Ethiopian presence in the holy places in Jerusalem was rather much more substantial throughout much of the period up to the 18 th and 19 th centuries. For example, an Italian pilgrim, Barbore Morsini, is cited as having written in 1614 that “the Chapels of St. Mary of Golgotha and of St. Paul…the grotto of David on Mount Sion and an altar at Bethelheim…” among others were in the possession of the Ethiopians. From the 16 th to the middle of the 19 th centuries, virtually the whole of the Middle East was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. When one of the Zagwe kings in Ethiopia, King Lalibela (1190-1225), had trouble maintaining unhampered contacts with the monks in Jerusalem, he decided to build a new Jerusalem in his land. In the process he left behind one of the true architectural wonders known as the Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela. The Ottomans also controlled Egypt and much of the Red Sea littoral and thereby circumscribed Christian Ethiopia’s communication with the outside world, including Jerusalem. Besides, they had also tried but failed to subdue Ethiopia altogether. Though Ethiopia’s independent existence was continuously under duress not only from the Ottomans but also their colonial surrogate, Egypt as well as from the dervishes in the Sudan, the Ethiopian monastery somehow survived during this period. Whenever they could, Ethiopian rulers and other personages as well as church establishments sent subsidies and even bought plots of land where in time churches and residential buildings for Ethiopian pilgrims were built in and around Jerusalem. Church leaders in Jerusalem often represented the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in ecumenical councils and meetings in Florence and other fora.
During the 16 th and 17 th centuries the Ottoman rulers of the region including Palestine and, of course, Jerusalem, tried to stabilize the continuing clamor and bickering among the Christian sects claiming sites in the Christian holy places. To that effect, Ottoman rulers including Sultan Selim I (1512-1520) and Suleiman “the Magnificent” (1520-1566) as well as later ones in the 19 th century, issued edicts or firmans regulating and detailing by name which group of monks would be housed where and the protocol governing their respective religious ceremonies. These edicts are called firmans of the Status Quo for all Christian claimants in Jerusalem’s holy places including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which came to be called Deir Sultan or the monastery (place) of the Sultan. Ethiopians referred to it endearingly as Debre Sultan. Most observers of the scene in the latter part of the 19 th Century as well as honest spokesmen for some of the sects attest to the fact that from time immemorial the Ethiopian monks had pride of place in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Deir Sultan). Despite their meager existence and pressures from fellow monks from other countries, the Ethiopian monks survived through the difficult periods their country was going through such as the period of feudal autarchy (1769-1855). Still, in every document or reference since the opening of the Christian era, Ethiopia and Ethiopian monks have been mentioned in connection with Christian holy places in Jerusalem, by all alternating landlords and powers that be in the region.
As surrogates of the weakening Ottomans, the Egyptians were temporarily in control of Jerusalem (1831-1840). It was at this time, in 1838, that a plague is said to have occurred in the holy places which in some mysterious ways of Byzantine proportions, claimed the lives of all Ethiopian monks. The Ethiopians at this time were ensconced in a chapel of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Deir Sultan) as well as in other locales nearby. Immediately thereafter, the Egyptian authorities gave the keys of the Church to the Egyptian Coptic monks. The Egyptian ruler, Ibrahim Pasha, then ordered that all thousands of very precious Ethiopian holy books and documents, including historical and ecclesiastical materials related to property deeds and rights, be burned—alleging conveniently that the plague was spawned by the Ethiopian parchments. Monasteries are traditionally important hubs of learning and, given its location and its opportunity for interaction with the wider family of Christiandom, the Ethiopian monastery in Jerusalem was even more so than others. That is how Ethiopians lost their choice possession in Deir Sultan. By the time other monks arrived in Jerusalem, the Copts claimed their squatter’s rights, the new Ethiopian arrivals were eventually pushed off onto the open rooftop of the church, thanks largely to the machinations of the Egyptian Coptic church.
Although efforts on behalf of Ethiopian monks in Jerusalem started in mid-19 th Century with Ras Ali and Dejach Wube, it was the rise of Emperor Tewodros in 1855 in Ethiopia that put the Jerusalem monastery issue back onto international focus. When Ethiopian monks numbering a hundred or so congregated in Jerusalem at the time, the Armenians had assumed superiority in the holy places. The Anglican bishop in Jerusalem then, Bishop Samuel Gobat witnessed the unholy attitude and behavior of the Armenians and the Copts towards their fellow Christian Ethiopians who were trying to reclaim their rights to the holy places in Jerusalem. He wrote that the Ethiopian monks, nuns and pilgrims “were both intelligent and respectable, yet they were treated like slaves, or rather like beasts by the Copts and the Armenians combined…(the Ethiopians) could never enter their own chapel but when it pleased the Armenians to open it. …On one occasion, they could not get their chapel opened to perform funeral service for one of their members. The key to their convent being in the hands of their oppressors, they were locked up in their convent in the evening until it pleased their Coptic jailer to open it in the morning, so that in any severe attacks of illness, which are frequent there, they had no means of going out to call a physician.’’ It was awareness of such indignities suffered by Ethiopian monks in Jerusalem that is said to have impelled Emperor Tewodros to have visions of clearing the path between his domain and Jerusalem from Turkish/Egyptian control, and establishing something more than monastic presence there. In the event, one of the issues which contributed to the clash with British colonialists that consumed his life 1868, was the quest for adequate protection of the Ethiopian monks and their monastery in Jerusalem.
Emperor Yohannes IV (1872-1889), the priestly warrior king, used his relatively cordial relations with the British who were holding sway in the region then, to make representations on behalf of the Ethiopian monastery in Jerusalem. He carried on regular pen-pal communications with the monks even before he became Emperor. He sent them money, he counseled them and he always asked them to pray for him and the country, saying, “For the prayers of the righteous help and serve in all matters. By the prayers of the righteous a country is saved.” He used some war booty from his battles with Ottomans and their Egyptian surrogates, to buy land and started to build a church in Jerusalem. As he died fighting Sudanese/Dervish expansionists in 1889, his successor, Emperor Menelik completed the construction of the Church named Debre Gennet located on what was called “Ethiopian Street.” During this period more monasteries, churches and residences were also built Empresses Tayitu, Zewditu, Menen as well as by several other personages including Afe Negus Nessibu, Dejazmach Balcha, Woizeros Amarech Walelu, Beyenech Gebru, Altayeworq. As of the end of the 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th Century the numbers of Ethiopian monks and nuns increased and so did overall Ethiopian pilgimage and presence in Jerusalem. In 1903, Emperor Menelikput $200, 000 thalers in a (Credileone?) Bank in the region and ordained that interests from that savings be used exclusively as subsidy for the sustenance of the Ethiopian monks and nuns and the upkeep of Deir Sultan. Emperor Menelik’s 6-point edict also ordained that no one be allowed to draw from the capital in whole or in part. Land was also purchased at various localities and a number of personalities including Empress Tayitu, and later Empress Menen, built churches there. British authorities supported a study on the history of the issue since at least the time of kalifa (Calif) Omar ((636) and correspondences and firmans and reaffirmations of Ethiopian rights in 1852, in an effort to resolve the chronic problems of conflicting claims to the holy sites in Jerusalm. The 1925 study concluded that ”the Abyssinian (Ethiopian ) community in Palestine ought to be considered the only possessor of the convent Deir Es Sultan at Jerusalem with the Chapels which are there and the free and exclusive use of the doors which give entrance to the convent, the free use of the keys being understood.”
Until the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930’s when Mussolini confiscated Ethiopian accounts and possessions everywhere, including in Jerusalem, the Ethiopian presence in Jerusalem had shown some semblance of stability and security, despite continuing intrigues by Copts, Armenians and their overlords in the region. This was a most difficult and trying time for the Ethiopian monks in Jerusalem who were confronted with a situation never experienced in the country’s history, namely its occupation by a foreign power. And, just like some of their compatriots including Church leaders at home, some paid allegiance to the Fascist rulers albeit for the brief (1936-1941) interregnum. Emperor Haile Sellassie was also a notable patron of the monastery cause, and the only monarch to have made several trips to Jerusalem, including en route to his self-exile to London in May, 1936. Since at least the 1950s there was an Ethiopian Association for Jerusalem in Addis Ababa which coordinated annual Easter pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Hundreds of Ethiopians and other persons from Ethiopia and the Diaspora took advantage of its good offices to go there for absolution, supplication or felicitation, and the practice continues today. Against all odds, historical, ecclesiastical and cultural bonding between Ethiopia and Jerusalem waxed over the years. The Ethiopian presence expanded beyond Deir Sultan including also numerous Ethiopian Churches, chapels, convents and properties. This condition required that the Patriarchate of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church designate Jerusalem as a major diocese to be administered under its own Archbishop.
Contemporary developments related to Deir Sultan.
The foregoing pages should give the reader some idea of the deeply rooted but checkered and sinewy Ethiopian tenure in Jerusalem’s Deir Sultan. That the Ethiopian monastery has survived so far against all odds, is nothing short of a miracle. The different powers played havoc with the Ethiopian monks and nuns in Deir Sultan, taking away their key to their own chapel, changing locks on them, burning their precious religious materials, beating and mistreating them and eventually pushing them out of their central holdings in the main chapel of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher onto the rooftop of the Church. Still, they remained there making their own thatched roofs, linoleum ceiling covers, plants for shades, water well and makeshift cookeries and bathrooms. There they stayed fasting, praying, singing hymnals in the style of David of old. They also carried on their religious rituals and ceremonies in accordance with the practices and requisites of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Throughout its history the Ethiopian monastery has been a political football for Egyptian Copts and Armenian Orthodox in particular and the Turks and other overlords of the region in general. Most of the time, the Ethiopian state, was not in a position to do much on behalf of the Deir Sultan Ethiopian monks, as it was itself struggling for its survival and sovereignty in a hostile environment. Only towards the end of the 19 th Century, did the Ethiopian state and the Metropolitan in Addis Ababa start making some difference in stabilizing whatever could be salvaged from centuries of Egyptian/Coptic usurpation sustained by the Ethiopian monastery.
Egyptian government/Coptic cabal against Ethiopian/black presence in Jerusalem became even more politicized and more pronounced after the 1950’s when the Ethiopian Orthodox Church opted to be autocephalous, thereby ending the centuries old tutelage of the Alexandrian Coptic Church, which had until then provided the Metropolitan or Patriarch for the Ethiopian Church. The Egyptian Copts never got over that act of self-determination by the Ethiopian Church, and they were quick to peg their petty or greedy quest for complete takeover of all Ethiopian properties and possessions in the holy places, especially the prized Church of the Holy Sepulcher. To that end, they have leaned on the Egyptian government to pressure different landlords of Jerusalem including the Jordanians until 1967 and the Israelis since then. In one form or another, therefore, the question of Deir Sultan has become intertwined with the larger issue of Arab/Palestinian an Israeli conflict in the region. Technically, the Status Quo firmans issued in earlier times, as adumbrated in foregoing pages, are supposed to govern possessions of the holy places in question and relations among the Christian claimants of same. These firmans are not only rigorous and stringent, but it is also incumbent on all landlords that be–such as Turks, British, Jordanian or Israeli—to enforce them strictly to the letter. A recent report points out, for example, that the Status Quo “prohibits simple renovations, removal of fallen debris from the decaying ceiling, even sweeping has to be done in the dark or the Ethiopians risk being reported to the authorities by their Christian neighbors.” Despite such strict provisions, it is, as we have seen heretofore, the rights and footholds of the Ethiopian monks that have been continuously usurped, to benefit mainly the Egyptian Copts and then the Armenians and to some extent other groups as well. The Ethiopian monks are even victims of internecine rivalries and jockeying for advantages among the other Christian usual suspects.
When in 1948, the State of Israel came into existence in Palestine, Jerusalem was still part of the Kingdom of Jordan. The ever irksome Copts provoked a confrontation with Ethiopian monks in Deir Sultan which required Jordanian intervention or, more properly enforcement of the age-old Status Quo provisions. Given the somewhat frigid relations then between Egypt and Jordan on the one hand and the nascent cordiality between Emperor Haile Sellassie and King Hussein on the other at that moment, the Jordanian government ordered that the Egyptian Copts hand over the keys to Deir Sultan to the Ethiopians. When the Copts failed to comply with the order, the Jordanians went ahead and changed the locks and gave the new keys to the Ethiopians. This was, however, short lived as newfound courtship between Egyptian President Nasser and Jordanian king Hussein resulted in a Jordanian volte-face which reversed their earlier ruling and the keys were once again given to the Copts. As is well known, in its sweeping military victory over its Arab antagonists in the 1967 war, Israel occupied territories of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. More importantly, Israel wrested Jerusalem from Jordanian control and became henceforth the new landlord of the Christian holy places as well. And so, the problem of Deir Sultan was now squarely on Israel’s shoulders. And, it did not take long for their judgment to be tested. The chronic tug-of-war between the Copts and Ethiopian Orthodox monks flared up again in 1970, when the Israeli government is said to have changed the locks and given the keys to the Ethiopians. The Copts, as expected, did not take this lying down. They decided to take the matter to the Israeli courts where they filed papers alleging that they were the sole owners of Deir Sultan and that at best the Ethiopians were only guests with no property rights to the holy places. In 1971, the Israeli High Court is said to have ruled in favour of the Coptic claim and ordered that the government turn over the keys to the Copts. It is reported that the Israeli government did not comply with the court order insisting that “its dispute with the Copts was political and not legal and that the judiciary should desist from pressuring the government to resolve the case in court.” It is to be remembered that through all this, the Egyptian Copts have already usurped the main floor and chapel of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Ethiopians are pushed to the rooftop of the Church. What the Copts want is for the Ethiopians to disappear once and for all from the scene, from the last vestige of presence they have maintained for nearly two thousand years altogether. With such Christian charity who needs enemies.
Despite the fact that the government of Emperor Haile Sellassie broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973, in solidarity with Egypt (an OAU member) which lost its Sinai territory, the Israeli government did not at this time retaliate by siding with the Egyptian Copts. To be sure, the Israelis were, and some say they still are, annoyed by Ethiopia’s decision which they regard as ‘betrayal’ and which also spawned an avalanche of diplomatic break off of ties with Israel by several other African countries, they did not retaliate on Deir Sultan for several reasons. One reason was that in the larger Arab-Israeli scheme of things, Deir Sultan does not figure big either for Egypt, the Arabs or for Israel. Sinai, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Red Sea littoral and most importantly, sovereignty over Jerusalem as a whole and, when all is said and done, Palestinian/Arab and Israeli peaceful coexistence in the region are the most important issues. At best, the Deir Sultan issue is a nuisance to them as it has been for all landlords of Jerusalem historically.
Another reason for the Israeli reluctance to tackle the Deir Sultan dispute between mainly the Copts and the Ethiopian monks has to do with yet a different factor in the mix embedded in millennial history of the region. For a very long time, it was recognized by Zionist elements that several thousands of Ethiopians referred to in Ethiopia as falashas and now named bete Israelis as being more or less Jews and in the early 1970’s the rabbinical authorities had authenticated as Jews in exile from one of the lost tribes and therefore eligible for the right of return or aliyah to Israel. Thus, for several years Jewish groups in North America, Europe and Israel had been working painstakingly to safely facilitate the return of the Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and the Israeli government was well advised not to jeopardize this process by antagonizing the Ethiopian government(s) on the Deir Sultan issue. In the event, between the mid-1980’s and 1991 more than 60, 000 Ethiopian Jews have arrived in Israel.
It appears that the Egyptian government and the Copts have left no stone unturned to divest the Ethiopian Church of its rightful heritage in Jerusalem which is as much, if not more, legitimate as that of the Copts and other Christian sects. It is to be recalled that in 1978, then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat were negotiating land for peace through the good offices of U. S. president Jimmy Carter at Camp David. It is believed that in the course of those negotiations, Sadat privately raised the Deir Sultan issue on behalf of the Copts under his suzerainty, and it is intimated that Begin made some kind of personal promise to him. Inasmuch as what transpired or what exactly was promised was all personal, private and unregistered or not declared publicly at the time, one wonders if any responsible state or government would deem to be duty bound to act upon such informal exchanges. The Egyptians are said to have also raised the matter of Deir Sultan at the Israeli-Egyptian Normalization talks in 1986. What is of interest to us here in all of the above litany of Egyptian/Coptic pleas and goadings, is how relentless and dogged the Egyptians/Copts have been in their hostility to Ethiopian/black Christian presence in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.
This brings us to the latest physical clashes perpetrated by the Egyptian Coptic clerics in the Deir Sultan holy site in Jerusalem, which has been the subject of several reports by British, American, Israeli and Arab papers.
Unholy violence occurred in Christianity’s holiest place in Jerusalem at the end of July 2002, when an Egyptian Coptic priest, Father Abdel Malek, decided to bring a chair, go up to the rooftop of the Church, which is the last remaining preserve of the Ethiopian monks, and proceeded to sit there under the shade of a tree in clear violation of the Status Quo. It is to be remembered that, the cleric and his colleagues would not allow Ethiopians to visit, sit or worship in the Coptic chapels. The details are sketchy in terms who did what and when. However, it appears that when Ethiopians naturally tried to resist this wanton violation of their rights to their space by the impudent Copt, violent clashes erupted involving also Israeli policemen. In the melee, nearly a dozen monks, mostly Ethiopians suffered injuries and lascerations. After all that, it is reported that, escorted by Israeli police daily, Coptic cleric Abdel Malek continued to perch at the Ethiopian property, presumably until the Ministry of Religious Affairs issues a ruling on the matter. A question that comes on loudly to an interested observer is, “Why did the Copts choose this particular time to force a confrontation on Deir Sultan?” It seems that, given the volatile and bloody situation in Palestinian and Israeli relations, the Egyptians/Copts may have assumed that the Israelis may at the moment be ready to cave in and Deir Sultan’s rooftop may just be the kind of bone they can throw to them to elicit a possible or putative mediating role vis-à-vis the Palestinians. And the Egyptians/Copts continue to put pressure on Israel by inflaming Arab opinion. Egyptian President Mubarak is said to have boycotted an important regional meeting recently protesting the Deir Sultan affair. An Arab paper reported that earlier on, Pope Shenuda III of Alexandria lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Israel Sharon, calling on the Arab world to unite and put more effective pressure on Israel, inserting his pet agenda and saying, “the Israelis are occupying since 1970, the Deir Al Sultan church in east Jerusalem by force, and did not implement a ruling issued by the Jewish Supreme Court in favor of the (his Coptic) church.”
Since these shameful events, several deputations and representations to the Israeli authorities have been made by a newly formed “Ethiopian Association for Jerusalem” in the United States. These deputations took the form of written communications to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D. C., and also in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Other concerned groups including the longstanding Association in Ethiopia and individuals of Ethiopian origin are, no doubt making efforts to let the authorities in Israel know their concern on the issue. It is also hoped that the black Jews from Ethiopia and elsewhere will also weigh in on the matter. Though the current regime in Addis Ababa is better known for its systematic destruction of Ethiopian history, culture, and integrity, it sent a delegation to Israel for perfunctory reasons and with no avail on behalf of the Ethiopian monks or the monastery. Given the split of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Addis Ababa and in the Diaspora, the Church’s effectiveness in successfully challenging the Egyptian Coptic pressures to eliminate Ethiopian, hence black presence in Jerusalem is a matter of serious concern.
Ethiopia and Black Heritage In Jerusalem.
For hundreds of years, the name or concept of Ethiopia has been a beacon for black/African identity liberty and dignity throughout the Diaspora. The Biblical (Psalm 68:31) verse , “…Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God” has been universally taken to mean African people, black people at large, stretch out their hands to God (and only to God) in supplication, in felicitation or in absolution. As Daniel Thwaite put it, for the Black man Ethiopia was always “…an incarnation of African independence.” And today, Ethiopian monastic presence in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or Deir Sultan in Jerusalem, is the only Black presence in the holiest place on earth for Christians. For much of its history, Ethiopian Christianity was largely hemmed in by alternating powers in the region. Likewise, Ethiopia used its own indigenous Ethiopic languages for liturgical and other purposes within its own territorial confines, instead of colonial or other lingua franca used in extended geographical spaces of the globe. For these and other reasons, Ethiopia was not able to communicate effectively with the wider Black world in the past. Given the fact that until recently, most of the Black world within Africa and in the Diaspora was also under colonial tutelage or under slavery, it was not easy to appreciate the significance of Ethiopian presence in Jerusalem. Consequently, even though Ethiopian/Black presence in Jerusalem has been maintained through untold sacrifices for centuries, the rest of the Black world outside of Ethiopia has not taken part in its blessings through pilgrimages to the holy sites and thereby develop concomitant bonding with the Ethiopian monastery in Jerusalem. Apropos to this theme, there is an initiative afoot by a few individuals to launch a “Forum for African Heritage in Jerusalem” website that can serve as a forum for education, dialogue and/or action by any and all concerned on Deir Sultan and the sustenance of Black presence there.
For nearly two millennia now, the Ethiopian Church and its adherent monks and priests have miraculously maintained custodianship of Deir Sultan, suffering through and surviving all the struggles we have glanced at in these pages. In fact, the survival of Ethiopian/Black presence in Christianity’s holy places in Jerusalem is matched only by the “Survival Ethiopian Independence” itself. Indeed, Ethiopian presence in Deir Sultan represents not just Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity but all African/black Christians of all denominations who value the sacred legacy that the holy places of Jerusalem represent for Christians everywhere. It represents also the affirmation of the fact that Jerusalem is the birthplace of Christianity, just as adherents of Judaism and Islam claim it also. The Ethiopian foothold at the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the only form of Black presence in Christianity’s holy places of Jerusalem. It ought to be secure, hallowed and sanctified ground by and for all Black folks everywhere who value it. The saga of Deir Sultan also represents part of Ethiopian history and culture. And that too is part of African/black history and culture regardless of religious orientation.
When a few years ago, an Ethiopian monk was asked by a writer why he had come to Jerusalem to face all the daily vicissitudes and indignities, he answered, “because it is Jerusalem.” And the writer makes the perceptive observation that “The Ethiopian church in Jerusalem itself resembles a plant which in Jerusalem has found poor soil, but has continued to grow in defiance of the laws of probability and to survive the hardest winters and the hottest summers.” The number of Ethiopian monks and nuns domiciled in Deir Sultan today has shrank drastically from several hundreds at the turn of the century to a few dozens today. And they are of the view that “if they are forced to leave Deir as-Sultan Monastery, blacks will never again be represented in the sacred place.” It is hoped that henceforth not only Ethiopians but all other Black folks from every land in the African continent and in the Diaspora will embark on annual pilgrimages to the Ethiopian convent of Deir Sultan and assert their rights of representation in this holiest of holy Christian shrines in Jerusalem.
8 November 2002.
Banned from the Bible: Canonical Gospels of the Ethiopian Church.
Dazzling jewels from an Ethiopian grave reveal 2,000-year-old link to Rome.
Published June 7 2015 – By Dalya Alberge.
British archaeology team uncovers stunning Aksumite and Roman artefacts.
The grave in Ethiopia where the woman dubbed ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was discovered. Photograph: Graeme Laidlaw.
Spectacular 2,000-year-old treasures from the Roman empire and the Aksumite kingdom, which ruled parts of north-east Africa for several centuries before 940AD, have been discovered by British archaeologists in northern Ethiopia.
Louise Schofield, a former British Museum curator, headed a major six-week excavation of the ancient city of Aksum where her team of 11 uncovered graves with “extraordinary” artefacts dating from the first and second centuries. They offer evidence that the Romans were trading there hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.
Schofield told the Observer : “Every day we had shed-loads of treasure coming out of all the graves. I was blown away: I’d been confident we’d find something, but not on this scale.”
She was particularly excited about the grave of a woman she has named “Sleeping Beauty”. The way the body and its grave goods had been positioned suggest that she had been beautiful and much-loved.
Schofield said: “She was curled up on her side, with her chin resting on her hand, wearing a beautiful bronze ring. She was buried gazing into an extraordinary Roman bronze mirror. She had next to her a beautiful and incredibly ornate bronze cosmetics spoon with a lump of kohl eyeliner.”
The woman was also wearing a necklace of thousands of tiny beads, and a beaded belt. The quality of the jewellery suggests that she was a person of very high status, able to command the very best luxurious goods. Other artefacts with her include Roman glass vessels – two perfectly preserved drinking beakers and a flask to catch the tears of the dead.
There was also a clay jug. Schofield hopes that its contents can be analysed. She believes it would have contained food and drink for the afterlife.
Although “Sleeping Beauty” was covered only with soil, her grave was cut into a rock overhang, which is why the finds survived intact.
The team also found buried warriors, with each skeleton wearing large iron bangles. They may have been killed in nearby battlefields.
Other finds include another female skeleton with a valuable necklace of 1,065 coloured glass beads, and, elsewhere, a striking glass perfume flask.
Perfume flask found at the site.
In 2012, the Observer reported that Schofield’s earlier excavations in the region had discovered an ancient goldmine that may solve the mystery of from where the Queen of Sheba of biblical legend derived her fabled treasures.
Aksum, the capital of the Aksumite kingdom, was a major trading power from the first to the seventh centuries, linking the Roman Empire and India. Aksumites were a literate people. Yet little is known about this so-called “lost”’ civilisation.
“Ethiopia is a mysterious place steeped in legend, but nobody knows very much about it,” said Schofield. “We know from the later Aksumite period – the fourth and fifth centuries, when they adopted Christianity – that they were trading very intensely with Rome. But our finds are from much earlier. So it shows that extraordinarily precious things were travelling from the Roman Empire through this region centuries before.”
In return, the Romans sought ivory tusks, frankincense and metals. Schofield’s excavations also found evidence of iron working.
The finds will go to a new German-funded museum, opening in October. Schofield hopes to organise a loan to the British Museum, but first the finds must be conserved: the mirror, for example, is corroded and slightly buckled. Germany is sending nine conservators.
Excavations were paid for by the Sainsbury family’s Headley Trust and the Tigray Trust, a charity that promotes sustainability in the region; and by individual donations.

The holy grail trading system james windsor

King Solomon's Temple.
compiled by Dee Finney.
Old Testament prophet Ezekiel once said of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre,
"You have corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor and power."
"Wine is strong, the King is stronger, women are strongest, the TRUTH conquers all."
Have nothing to do with the evil deeds of darkness,
DREAM: I was working in a large corporation. It was a Sunday and few people were expected to be there.
I started to talk to another secretary and our conversation pointed to the fact that the President of the company was one of the top evil guys of the world. The President of the company was a very tall man, over 7 feet tall. He always wore black.
I wouldn't have told anyone this information about our boss, but a 7 foot tall man, dressed all in black with a black hat, who was a friend of the boss came in and heard us talking and he emphatically told me that if I didn't get all my stuff out of there within 24 hours and if I got another job anywhere in the same business, he would put out the word against me, and if he saw me anywhere, he wouldn't hesitate to take me out right where I stood.
He left then and I knew he meant what he said. He had the mean evil look to go along with his words and deeds.
So, immediately I tried to find someone to help me move. Everyone I asked said they had other obligations to attend to. As a last resort I called 'the teacher', who was an old friend who had moved to his own apartment a few years earlier. I dialed the number 423-4326.
A young woman with a baby answered. I overheard her say that her husband was down in the basement doing the laundry.
So I didn't even tell the woman who I was. I assumed that 'the teacher' had moved again and told no one about it.
I went out into the hallway and spotted the 'expeditor' from where I worked at A-C back in the 70's and 80's. When he saw me coming, he did fast cartwheels backwards down the hall to get away from me. He knew I was going to ask for a favor.
I begged him to help me and he finally came with me.
Just then my old engineering boss Gene Fohr came along the hall and I asked him if he would be willing to hear my story and he said, "Yes!" (Both of these men are about 5' tall) The two men went into a side office to wait for me.
I felt so relieved that someone was willing to listen to what I had to say, that I actually felt happy, even though I still had an ordeal to go through in my life.
I went back to my office and for some reason I had a one room apartment next to the bosses office.
I decided I wouldn't even take the bed frame with me, only and blankets and quilts. I could buy a new bed when I got another job somewhere.
I was thinking maybe I could get a job selling makeup at a department store or something since I had some experience with that in the past.
Just then, the other secretary came in and I told her I felt so relieved, that I finally found someone to help me.
Her boyfriend came in then. He was a young man from India. He said a strange word that sounded with an 'O'. It sounded like 'Ommmmm'.
Then I knew, this was all about Queen Elizabeth of Tyre.
Who were the Phoenicians?
In order to accept the thesis, you must be willing to believe in a conspiracy theory of the highest order. The assumption is that later Hebrew scribes did a cover-up job to eliminate all the links with Egypt. However, it is crucial for Ellis’ thesis that sufficient bits of information can be gleaned from much later sources such as the Egyptian historian Manetho, the Jewish writer Josephus, the New Testament, the Ethiopian tradition and the secrets of the Masons. These secondary authors provide the new sources for constructing the "alternative history". So in his reconstruction, characters and places in the Bible are never what they seem. Bathsheba (the mother of Solomon) is also the mysterious Queen of Sheba, who later marries her own son and has a child by him. She enjoys a colorful life as the daughter/wife of David and as the mother/wife of Solomon. Places in Jordan become sites in the Delta of Egypt, and Tyre is not the city in Lebanon but is another name for Tanis. The temple that Solomon builds is not in Jerusalem but is the now ruined complex at Tanis – in other words, Zion is equivalent to the biblical city of Zoan which we know from the Greeks as Tanis.
Egyptian history: Ellis does not accept the revisionist interpretation of chronology put forward by David Rohl, which is partly based on the Tanis tombs.
By and large Ellis sticks with the conventional dates.
However, in order to bring the biblical names and the Egyptian ones into line he has to re-order some of the kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty. Much more seriously, he has to eliminate altogether the forty-nine year reign of Psusennes I. This is because, while most scholars think the Tomb at Tanis was occupied by Psusennes I ( c. 1040- 990) Ellis contends it belongs to Psusennes II ( c. 960-45). In the same way, the brilliant silver hawk-shaped sarcophagus normally ascribed to Sheshonq II (890-889) is said to belong to Sheshonq I (945-924). The two burials thus become those of father and son – in biblical terms David and Solomon.
However we also need to remember that Psusennes was the last king of Manetho’s Twenty-first Dynasty and Sheshonq was the first ruler of the Twenty-second. All standard Egyptian text books see Sheshonq as a Libyan ruler, introducing a new family dynasty. Ellis has therefore to deny that Sheshonq was a Libyan at all. Rather he is a leader of the Shasu who are identified as descendants of the Hyksos. Also I am not sure that the idea of "Solomon-Sheshonq" marrying "Bathsheba/Queen of Sheba = God’s wife of Amun Mutemhat" is plausible. Egyptian kings may have married their sister or daughter, but is there any evidence of a Pharaoh marrying his own mother? It will be clear, therefore, that this history is radically "alternative" and is likely to prove unacceptable to both biblical and Egyptological purists. It is very detailed and certainly provoking.
Cyrus Gordon's Riddles In History (New York, 1974) in which he translates some Phoenician inscriptions that had been collected in Brazil in the nineteenth century, which indicated that Phoenicians had been blown ashore in Brazil during a storm at the time of Solomon/King Hiram of Tyre:
We are sons of Canaan from Sidon, the city of the king. Commerce has cast us on this distant shore, a land of mountains We sacrificed a youth for the exalted gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of Hiram. our mighty king We embarked from Ezion-Geber into the Red Sea and voyaged with ten ships. We were at sea together for two years, around the land belonging to Ham [Africa], but were separated from the hand of Baal and we were no long with our companions So we have come here. twelve men and three women, on a. shore which I, the Admiral, control. But auspiciously may the exalted gods and goddesses favor us!
King Solomon making a pact with the same Hiram of Tyre to build ships for him to go to Ophir in search of gold:
Volumes of speculation have been written about the exact location of Ophir. but its location has never been determined.
The King's name is variously spelt as Hiram, Hirom and Huram, and was probably Ahi-ram. Josephus says that letters between Solomon and this king were preserved in the Tyrian archives. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, ch. viii) He also quotes the historians Dius and Menander of Ephesus, who say that Hiram was the son of King Abi-baal.
One might merely think that the Phoenicians who landed in Brazil were killed by natives and that was the end of the affair, but, as a matter of fact the New World is explicitly mentioned by ancient geographers who say that the Phoenicians not only knew about it but wanted to conceal its existence from others so it could serve as a "retreat" for them:
There lies out in the deep off Libya an island of considerable size and situated as it is in the ocean it is distant from Libya a voyage of a number of days to the west.
In ancient times this island remained undiscovered because of its distance from the entire inhabited world, but it was discovered at a later period for the following reason. The Phoenicians. from ancient times traded throughout Libya and not a few as well in the western parts of Europe. And since their ventures turned out according to their expectations they amassed great wealth and essayed to voyage beyond the Pillars of Heracles into the sea which men call the ocean.
The Phoenicians, while exploring the coast outside the Pillars. were driven by strong winds a great distance out into the ocean. And after being storm-tossed for many days they were carried ashore on the island we mentioned above.
Consequently the Tyrians, at the time when they were masters of the sea, proposed to dispatch a colony to it; but the Carthaginians prevented their doing so, partly out of concern lest many inhabitants of Carthage should remove there because of the excellence of the island, and partly in order to have ready in it a place in which to seek refuge against an incalculable turn of fortune, in case some total disaster should overtake Carthage For it was their thought that, since they were masters of the sea, they would thus be able to move, households and all, to an island which was unknown to their conquerors.
(Diodorus Siculus, COMPLETE WORKS, V. 19-20.Loeb Edition Heinemann. 1933-67.)
In Phoenician times, Tyre was famous for its export of richly dyed purple textiles, using a dye extracted from the murex sea snail. Because of its rarity, the color was typically worn by royalty. The Tyrean purple dye was so highly valued that the Greeks named the people living in the city state “Phoenicians,” after the Greek word for “purple.”
Tyre’s list of former rulers and conquerors reads likes a Who’s-Who from Antiquity. From King Hiram (980 BC), who supplied Lebanese cedars to King Solomon for the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem; to the Phoenician Princess Elissa (also known as Dido), who left Tyre to found the famous city of Carthage (814 BC); to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, who laid siege to the city for 13 years (500 BC); to Alexander the Great, who conquered Tyre by building a causeway to connect the island city to the mainland (332 BC) –
This is how it really was: Princess Elissa, who was ousted by her brother. Her brother, Pygmalion king of Tyre,
murdered her husband. The high priest left the city with some of her followers.
They went to the west and stopped at Cyprus. It's said that some priests and maidens of Cyprus joined them.
After several years, they finally arrived in Tunis harbor. Elissa decided to settle in there. It's said it was 814 B. C.
when the new city Carthage was built. The name 'Carthage' comes from Phoenician word 'Qart-Haddasht,'
which means 'New City."
Details of her life are sketchy and confusing, however, following is what one can deduce from various sources. According to Justin, Princess Elissar was the daughter of King Matten or Muttoial of Tyre (Belus II of classical literature). After his death, the throne was jointly bequeathed to her and her brother, Pygmalian. She was married to her uncle Acherbas (Sychaeus of classical literature), High Priest of Melqart and a man of authority and riches like that of a king. Tyrannical Pygmalion, a lover of gold and intrigue, was eager to be acquire the authority and fortune of Acherbas. He assassinated him in the Temple and kept his evil deed a secret for a long time from his sister. He cheated her with fictions about his death. Meanwhile, the people of Tyre were pressing for a single sovereign that caused dissensions within the royal family.
Legend has it that the ghost of Acherbas appeared to Elissar in a dream and told her what had happened to him. Further, he told her where she could find his treasure. Further, he advised her to leave Tyre for fear of her life. Elissar and her supporters seized the treasure of gold. However, because she was threatened and frightened, Elissar decided to trick and flee her brother.
Not to awaken her brother's suspicions, she made it known that she wanted to travel and send him offerings. Acherbas approved thinking that Elissar would send him riches. He provided her with ships. During the night, Elissar had her treasures of gold hidden in the hold of the ships and had bags filled with sands laid out onboard, also. Once at sea she had the sand bags thrown overboard, calling that an offering in memory of her murdered husband. The servants feared that loss of the treasure would enrage the king against and they would suffer his reprisal. Consequently, they decided to pay allegiance to Elissar and accompany her on a voyage. Elissar's supports, as well as additional senators and priests of Melqart joined the group. Consequently, they left the country in secret, leaving behind their homeland forever.
They traveled first to the island of Cyprus to get supplies for a longer journey. There, twenty virgins who were devoted to serve in the Temple of Ashtarte (Venus) as vestal virgins, renounced their vows, and married in the Tyrinian entourage that accompanied the princess. Thereafter, Elissar and her company, "the vagrants" (a. k.a. Dido the 'wanderer' faced the open sea in search for a new place to settle.
Elissar and her Tyrinian entourage, including her priests and temple maidens of Ashtarte, crossed the length of the Mediterranean in several ships and settled the shores of what's today modern Tunisia. Her expedition came and negotiated with the local inhabitants on purchasing a piece of land. Sailing into the Gulf of Tunis she spied a headland that would be the perfect spot for a city and chose the very site called Cambe or Caccabe which was an ancient Sidonian Phoenician trading post. However, some records indicate that the goddess Tanit (Juno in Latin) indicated the spot were to found the city. The natives there weren't too happy about the newcomers, but Elissar was able to make a deal with their king Japon: she promised him a fair amount of money and rent for many years for as much land as she could mark out with a bull's skin.
The king thought he was getting the better end of the deal, but he soon noticed that the woman he was dealing with was smarter than he had expected. This purchase contained some intrigue while the size of the land was thought not to exceed a "Bull's Hide," it actually was a lot larger then ever thought. The trick she and her expedition employed was that they cutup a bull's hide into very thin which they sewed together into one long string. Then they took the seashore as one edge for the piece of land and laid the skin into a half-circle. Consequently, Elissar and her company got a much bigger piece of land than the king had thought possible. The Carthaginians continued to pay rent for the land until the 6 th century BC. That hilltop today is called the "Byrsa." Byrsa means "ox hide." However, there is some confusion over the word; some believe that it refers to the Phoenician word borsa which means citadel or fortress.
King Japon was very impressed by Elissar's great mathematical talents and asked her to marry him. She refused, so he had a huge university built, hoping to find another young lady with similar talents instead. On that "carved" site, Elissar and her colonial entourage founded a new city ca. 814 BC. 3 They called it 'Qart-Haddasht' (Carthage) which comes from two Phoenician words that mean 'New Land." In memory of their Tyrinian origin, the people of Carthage paid an annual tribute to the temple of Melqart of Tyre in Phoenicia.
The city of Carthage slowly gained its independence from Tyre though it was initially controlled by its own magistrates carrying the title of suffetes It kept close links with Tyre, the metropolis, until 332 BC.
The colonization of Carthage, and thereafter, the territories around the western Mediterranean were a very successful endeavor that gave rise to the powerful Phoenician Punic dominions. A western Mediterranean Phoenicians become known as Carthaginians. Later, Punic, a name used by the Romans to refer to western Mediterranean Phoenicians, was applied to all Carthaginians and the 300 city states and lands they came to occupy.
The Carthaginian were very captivated with their queen and many believe that she was thought to be a goddess who came to be known Tanit.
Like the historical Elissar, Vergil's Elissar fled from her brother and founded Carthage after buying some land in Africa. As the gods would have it, Aeneas, a great hero who had fled from the burning Troy, stranded near Carthage not much later. Elissar fell madly in love with the hero (here Amor played his part) and completely forgot to take care of her people. The gods, however, still had plans for Aeneas to found Rome, so he had to leave. Elissar then killed herself because she had not only failed to rule over her people, but she hadn't even been able to keep a man there who could have taken over that job.
In our version, Elissar is probably saved from her suicidal death for the first time. Also, the king could show himself from his good side. Instead of being jealous of Elissar's success, he turns history around and founds the first university where women have free access to study. And this was 2700 years before women first were admitted to universities with equal rights.
Founded at the start of the third millennium B. C., Tyre originally consisted of a mainland settlement and a modest island city that lay a short distance off shore. But it was not until the first millennium B. C. that the city experienced its golden age.
In the absence of any complete Phoenician history, the first ruler of Tyre of whom we have definite knowledge is that Hiram, or Huram, of whom the Bible tells as a contemporary of David and Solomon. From other sources we learn that Hiram came to the throne about 980 B. C. as a youth of nineteen, and ruled for nearly forty years. We should not think of him merely as the ally of the Hebrew kings, sending them cedars from Lebanon for the construction of their temple and palaces. It seems clear that the Hebrews looked up to Hiram and his Phoenicians with admiration as a more cultured race. Hiram dispatched to Jerusalem a numerous body of Phoenician artists and overseers, who directed almost every step of Solomon's buildings. Hence, both the art and architecture of the Hebrews were chiefly Tyrian.
According to the author of the Second Book of Chronicles (Chap. ii.) Solomon sent messengers to Hiram, King of Tyre, to acquaint that friendly sovereign with the fact that he contemplated erecting a Temple, and inviting him to furnish men and materials for the prosecution of the work. Solomon's first demand was for a specially gifted craftsman.
"Send me now," he says, "a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah, and in Jerusalem:" The King of Tyre received the embassy with cordiality, and returned a. favourable answer to Solomon.
"I have sent a cunning man," he says, "endued with understanding. . . The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was ''a man of Tyre."
The account given. in the First Book of the Kings (Chap. VII.) differs somewhat so far as the parentage of the man is concerned. There it is stated that he was "a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali." The author or editor of Kings agrees with the Chronicler that Hiram's father was a Tyrian, adding that he was "a worker in brass." Josephus describes him as of Naphtali on his mother's side, his father being Ur of the stock of Israel. It is not easy to reconcile these differences. One Biblical student - Giesebrecht - suggests that the dislike felt by the editor of Kings to the idea of the Temple being built by a half-Phoenician caused him to insert the words "a widow of the tribe of Naphtali," the alteration of the phrase "of the daughters of Dan" into "of the tribe of Naphtali," being the more permissible, since Dan lay in the territory of Naphtali.
The clear points that emerge are that Hiram was of mixed race, the son of a brassworker, and a man so high in his profession as to have secured the patronage of his King, and to have been deemed worthy to uphold the reputation of his country. His exalted position is inferred from the description given by the author of the Chronicles who alludes to him as "Hiram Abi," and the word "Abi," meaning "my father," is usually taken in the sense of "master," a title of respect and distinction.
The Builders of King Solomon's Temple.
Something both of the inner powers and of the Egyptian rituals had been faithfully handed down from generation to generation from the days of Moses until King Solomon came to the throne of his father David. There is some truth in the tradition preserved in the Bible, although there are exaggerations and mistakes in the accounts which have come down to us, and much of the inner meaning of the symbols have been forgotten. King Solomon seems to have been a man of considerable force of character and some occult knowledge, and the great ambition of his life was to weld his people into a strong and respected kingdom , able to take an influential place among the nations around. To that end he built a temple in Jerusalem to be the centre of the religious worship of his people and a symbol of their national unity; it was perhaps not quite so magnificent as tradition relates, but the King was nevertheless extremely proud of it and considered it to be one of the great achievements of the age.
In this work he was assisted by his ally, Hiram King of Tyre, who supplied a quantity of material for the building, and lent many clever craftsman to aid in the work; for the Phoenicians were more skilled in building than the Jews, who were chiefly a pastoral people. Also about fifty years before some of the wandering bands of Masons who called themselves the Dionysian Artificers had settled in Phoenicia so King Hiram was able to supply many expert workmen.
Hiram Abiff was also a real personage, though he did not meet his death in the manner recorded in Masonic tradition. He was a decorator rather than the actual Architect of the Temple, as the biblical records clearly tell us. "He was filled with wisdom and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass." He was "skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him" (Chronicles ii, 14 )
Josephus confirms the tradition that he was an artist and a craftsman rather than an architect: "This man was skillful in all sorts of work, but his chief skill lay in working in gold and silver and brass, and he did all the curious work about the temple as the King wished." (Josephus, Ant. viii)
He was the son of a widow in Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass before him. Since so much responsibility rested in his hands, and he was so skillful an artist, he appears to have been in the close confidence of King Solomon, and a member of his council. He was evidently treated as an equal by the two Kings, and that is one of the reasons which influenced Bro. Ward to translate Hiram Abiff as "Hiram his father." and to represent the King of Tyre as sending his abdicated father to superintend the decoration of the temple.
But King Solomon's plans for the consolidation of his people were not yet complete; by building of his temple he had formed at outer center of national worship, and he now desired that the Mysteries, the heart of the people's religion and the centre of their spirit consciousness should also be purely Jewish in form. The ceremonial handed down from the days of Moses was still Egyptian, and the initiates of the mysteries were yet symbolically engaged in building the great pyramid 'The House of Light', and in celebrating the death and resurrection of Osiris. Even though it had no corresponding halls of initiation, King Solomon desired that for the future his temple should take the place of the 'House of Light', and become the spiritual centre of the Jewish Mysteries. King Hiram warmly supported this idea: he himself had inherited initiatory rites which had been derived from the Mysteries of Chaldaea, a very ancient line of tradition running parallel with the Mysteries of Egypt from Atlantean days, and having its own chief halls of initiation in Babylon. He too, felt that a centre nearer home and in friendly hands was eminently desirable, and he therefore co-operated in the plan of Judaizing the ancient rites and focusing them upon the temple in Jerusalem.
At first, it appears the two Kings went an embassy to Egypt to consult the Pharaoh in the matter, telling him of the temple which they had built, and asking for some recognition of the Jewish branch of the Mysteries. The Pharaoh did not accept their proposals with any degree of enthusiasm, but rather implied that no foreigner could possibly understand the Mysteries of Egypt. The Egyptians of the period seem to have regarded their Jewish brethren with something of the same feeling that the Grand Lodge of England might have towards the Grand Orient of Hayti if should propose alterations in the ritual, and their interest in the new venture was decidedly cold.
The Mingling of Traditions.
On the return of their embassy from Egypt King Solomon and King Hiram called together the council at Jerusalem, and it was decided that they should proceed immediately with the work of recasting the rituals into Jewish form. It is an interesting fact that three distinct lines of tradition were represented in the persons of the three chief members of the council, and of each of these we can find traces in our modern workings.
King Solomon himself had inherited the Egyptian line of succession derived from Moses; King Hiram of Tyre preserved the Chaldean descent; while Hiram Abiff brought with him another line of tradition, not derived from either of these sources.
This last line was strange and terrible - a line probably perpetuated through savage and primitive tribes, who had bloodthirsty customs of mutilation and human sacrifice."
There is much evidence to show that our traditional history is based upon the myth of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, and is in reality an account of the ritual murder of one of the Priest-Kings of that religion. In earlier times a representative was really killed and offered up as a sacrifice to ensure fertility. The tribes in the area of Judea were all addicted to the worship of the deity.
"Solomon himself was by no means definitely monotheistic, and his people betrayed a distinct tendency to run after strange gods. There seems much evidence to prove that the love-song attributed to him in the Bible is really a ritual hymn to Astarte, for whom he built a temple quite near to that of Jehovah. There is considerable uncertainty as to whether Balkis, Queen of Sheba, was a real person, or only a personification of Astarte.
Brother Ward explains that the festivals of the two patron saints of Freemasonry, St. John the Baptist in summer and St. John the Evangelist in winter, are only a perpetuation of the feats of the old fertility cult at the summer and winter solstices; that similar cultural rites are found in other lands, Teutonic, Celtic and Greek, that they also survived among the Essenes and that the Knights Templars brought back from Syria a story very similar to that of the 3rd degree. The tale of Jonah, he remarks has always been understood as a myth of death and resurrection, and he also was sacrificed to appease a deity, and obtain salvation for others, just as was the Priest King of old. He quotes many instances of foundation and consecration sacrifices; and holding as he does that Hiram Abiff was the father of that other Hiram who was King of Tyre, he writes:
& quot; The Phoenician and Jewish followers of the old Tammuz cult no doubt felt.
that the Great Goddess had been cheated of her just dues when Hiram Abiff.
was not slain, according to ancient custom, on the accession of his son, and.
were confident that if he were not sacrificed when the temple was completed.
its future and stability would be endangered. So I consider that the Phoenician.
workmen, with or without the consent of Solomon, killed the old King of Tyre,
Abibaal or Hiram Abiff, as a Consecration Sacrifice."
In the book 'The Templar Revelation, Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ, by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, on page 132 says:
French Freemasons have a curious legend about 'Maitre Jacques', a mythical figure who was patron of the French medieval stonemason's guilds. He was according to the story, one of the master masons who worked on Solomon's Temple. After the death of Hiram Abiff he left Palestine and, together with thirteen journeyman, sailed to Marselles. The followers of his great enemy, the master mason Father Soubise, determined ot kill him, so he hid in the cave at Sainte-Baume - the same one that was later occupied by Mary Magdalene. All to no avail: he was betrayed and killed. The Masons still observe a pilgrimage to the site every July 22nd.
On page 128, they tell us: "Rosslyn Chapel itself contains some apparent anomalies in its decoration. Every square inch of the chapels interior is covered in carved symbols and the building as a whole is designed to accord with the high ideals of sacred geometry. Much of this is undeniably Masonic. It boasts the "Apprentice Pillar', an explicit parallel with the Masonic myth of Hiram Abiff., and the apprentice depicted on it is known as 'the Son of the Widow., a highly significant Masonic term. The lintel next to this pillar bears the inscription:
Wine is strong, the King is stronger, women are strongest, the TRUTH conquers all."
The master mason having received from his patron the model of a pillar of exquisite workmanship and design, hesitated to carry it out until he had been to Rome or some such foreign part. and seen the original. He went abroad, and in his absence, an apprentice, having dreamed the finished pillar, at once set to work and carried out the design as it now stands, a perfect marvel of workmanship. The master mason on his return was so stung with envy that he asked who had dared to do it in his absence. On being told it was his own apprentice, he was so inflamed with rage and passion, that he struck him with his mallet, killed him on the spot, and paid the penalty for his rash and cruel act."
The design and workmanship displayed by this strange carving, surpass in skill the vast majority of the other inspired sculptures of even this mystical church. It is alleged that the apprentice himself originally came from the Orkneys and the pillar for which he gave his life represents the Yggdrasil tree of Norse mythology, the world Ash which binds together heaven, earth and hell. The crown of this tree comprises the twelve constellations of the Zodiac, the spiralling branches symbolise the planets and the roots of the trunk dig deeply into the elements of the earth. At the bottom of the pillar the dragons of Neifelheim can be seen gnawing at the roots of the tree to rob it of its fruitfulness. 'The pillar itself represents a kind of transformation of an ancient pagan conception into the Christian Tree of Life. Thus to the curious mixture of Celtic, Pagan, Greek and Medieval Christian spiritual references present in this unique chapel, we now have to add Norse influences as well.
Scotland, The Templars' Protector.
century Senechals of Dol in Brittany.
The Knights Templar in Scotland did not share the teachings of de Molay. They remained stead-fast in the original teachings of Bron the Blessed. The Templar were taught sciences and math that had been.
misconstrued as Black Calabas. The Scots Templar did use the arcana system from the old Judaism teachings of priesthood.
"Scotland's Royal House of Stewart arose from a marital union of the hereditary lines of Jesus and his brother James -- springing from the Merovingians' own source on the one hand, and from the Celtic Kings of Britain on the other. The Stewarts emerged, therefore, as a truly unique Grail dynasty and have long been known as the 'House of Unicorns'. ..Along with the David Lion of Judah and the Franco-Judaic fleur-de-lys , the Desposynic Unicorn was incorporated in the Royal Arms of Scotland." [Gardiner, Bloodline, p. 315]
The earliest known member of the House of Stewart was Flaald I (Flaald the Seneschal), an 11th century Breton noble who was a follower of the Lord of Dol and Combourg. Flaald and his immediate descendants held the hereditary and honorary post of Dapifer (food bearer) in the Lord of Dol's household. His grandson Flaald II was a supporter of Henry I of England and made the crucial move from Brittany to Britain, which was where the future fortunes of the Stewarts lay.
Walter the Steward (died 1177), the grandson of Flaald II, was born in Shropshire. Along with his brother William, ancestor of the Fitzalan family (the Earls of Arundel), he supported Empress Maud during the Anarchy. Maud was aided by her uncle, David I of Scotland, and Walter followed David north in 1141, after Maud had been usurped by Stephen. Walter was granted land in Renfrewshire and the position of Lord High Steward. Malcolm IV made the position hereditary and it was inherited by Walter's son, who took the surname Stewart.
The sixth High Steward of Scotland, Walter Stewart (1293-1326), married Majory, daughter of Robert the Bruce. Their son Robert was heir to the House of Bruce; he eventually inherited the Scottish throne when his uncle David II of Scotland died childless in 1371.
In 1503, James IV of Scotland attempted to secure peace with England by marrying Henry VII's daughter, Margaret Tudor. The birth of their son, later James V, brought the House of Stewart into the line of descent of the House of Tudor, and the English throne. Margaret Tudor later married Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and their daughter, Margaret Douglas, was the mother of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In 1565, Darnley married his half-cousin Mary, the daughter of James V. Darnley's father was Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, a direct descendant of Alexander Stewart, the fourth High Steward, and Mary's heir presumptive, who had changed the spelling of his surname whilst at the English court. Therefore Darnley was also related to Mary on his father's side, and at the time of their marriage was himself second in line to the Scottish throne. Because of this connection, Mary's heirs remained part of the House of Stewart.
Dapifers of Dol.
Flaald I (died c.1080) Alan I (died ?) Alan II (died 1095) Flaald II (died c.1101-02) Alan III (died c.1121)
High Stewards of Scotland.
Walter the Steward, 1st High Steward of Scotland (died 1177) Alan Stewart, 2nd High Steward of Scotland (died 1204) Walter Stewart, 3rd High Steward of Scotland (died 1246) Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland (died 1283) James Stewart, 5th High Steward of Scotland (died 1309) Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland (died 1326) Robert Stewart, 7th High Steward of Scotland (afterwards, Robert II)
Robert II (1371-1390)
called "the Steward", a title that gave the name to the House of Stewart (or Stuart).
Robert was the sole son of Walter, the 6th High Steward of Scotland (d. 1326), and Marjorie (d. 1316 in childbirth), daughter of King Robert the Bruce.
In 1318 the Scottish parliament decreed that if King Robert died without sons the crown should pass to his grandson; but the birth of a son afterwards, King David II, to Bruce in 1324 postponed the accession of Robert for nearly forty-two years. Soon after the infant David became king in 1329, the Steward began to take a prominent part in the affairs of Scotland. He was one of the leaders of the Scottish army at the battle of Halidon Hill in July 1333; and after gaining some successes over the adherents of Edward Balliol in the west of Scotland, he and John Randolph, 3rd Earl of Moray (d. 1346), were chosen as regents of the kingdom, while David sought safety in France.
The colleagues soon quarrelled; then Randolph fell into the hands of the English and Robert became sole regent, meeting with such success in his efforts to restore the royal authority that the king was able to return to Scotland in 1341. Having handed over the duties of government to David, the Steward escaped from the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, and was again chosen regent while the king was a captive in England. Soon after this event some friction arose between Robert and his royal uncle. Accused, probably without truth, of desertion at Neville's Cross, the Steward as heir-presumptive was greatly chagrined by the king's proposal to make Edward III of England, or one of his sons, the heir to the Scottish throne, and by David's marriage with Margaret Logie.
In 1363 he rose in rebellion, and after having made his submission was seized and imprisoned together with four of his sons, being only released a short time before David's death in February 1371. By the terms of the decree of 1318 Robert now succeeded to the throne, and was crowned at Scone in March 1371. He was not a particularly active king. Some steps were taken by the nobles to control the royal authority. In 1378 a war broke out with England; but the king took no part in the fighting, which included the burning of Edinburgh and the Scottish victory at the Battle of Otterbourne in 1388.
As age and infirmity were telling upon him, the estates in 1389 appointed his second surviving son Robert, Earl of Fife, afterwards Duke of Albany, guardian of the kingdom. The king died at Dundonald in 1390, and was buried at Scone.
His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Adam Mure of Rowallan, a lady who had formerly been his mistress. Robert had married her in 1336, but as the marriage had been criticised as uncanonical, he remarried her in 1349. By her he had at least four sons, including Alexander of Buchan, Robert of Albany, his successor Robert III, and six daughters. By his second wife, Euphemia, daughter of Hugh, 6th Earl of Ross, and widow of the 3rd Earl of Moray, formerly his colleague as regent, he had two sons and several daughters.
The confusion about the circumstances of his first marriage would later lead to conflict amongst the descendants of his first marriage (which included James I of Scotland) and the unquestionably legitimate descendants of his second marriage.
Robert had also eight illegitimate children, mostly by unknown mothers.
Robert III (1390-1406) m. Annabella.
Robert III told his wife, Annabella, that his epitaph should be: "Here lies the worst of kings and the most wretched of men in the whole realm." He said he should be buried on a rubbish heap.
(It is possibe an illegimate child of his named Lady Jean married first to Sir John Keith, second to Sr. John Lyon and third to Sir James Sandilands was the ancestor of H. M. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
James I (1406-1437) m. Joan, daughter of John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (grandson of Edward III)
James II (1437-1460) m. Marie, daughter of Arnold, Duke of Gueldres.
James III (1460-1488) m. Margaret, daughter of King of Denmark.
James IV (1488-1513) m. Margaret, daughter of Henry VII.
James V (1513-1542) m. Madelein, daughter of King of France and then Mary, daughter of Duke of Guise.
Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1567) m. King of France, Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley), James Hepburn (Earl of Bothwell)
James VI (1567-1625) became James I of England (1603-1625) m. Anne, daughter of King of Denmark.
This tapestry was woven after William and Mary were crowned. When William and Mary were crowned they became king and queen of England, Scotland, Ireland and France. The claim to France dated from the Middle Ages, it was by now a fiction but continued until 1801. Scotland and England were brought under one crown in 1603 and Ireland, which had been fought over since 1171, was finally subdued by William in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne. king and queen on 11 April 1689 - 21 April 1689. Different dates are sometimes quoted for historical events since the reform of the calender presented by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 was not adopted everywhere simultaneously. The switch to the Gregorian calender involved an adjustment of ten days and the removal of the start of the year to 1 January, instead of Christmas, Easter or, as in Britain, Annunciation Day. While the New Style calendar soon replaced the Old Style or Julian calender in most of the Dutch provinces, the British waited until in 1752: 31 December 1751 was followed by 1 January 1752 (instead of 1 January 1751, as it would have been) and 2 September 1752 by 14 September 1752 (the difference had by then increased to eleven days). - and before Mary died in 1695.
HOUSE OF UNICORN.
Job 39:9 "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?
10: Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys before thee? 11: Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave they labour to him? 12: Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"
The assertion is advanced that the word " unicorn " as found in Job 39:9-12 is a " mistranslation ." It is further argued that " unicorn " should have been translated " wild-ox " because " The Jews have never taught on unicorns. & quot; The article goes on to state that the " unicorn " was " …a mythical creature… a creature unknown to be indigenous to the earth …" It is claimed that " …this misrepresentation …is accountable to King James. The unjustified identification… "
The writer further postulates that the beast in question was so obviously a " wild-ox " that the fact that " …Jesus [didn’t] enlighten the Hebrew’s understanding of this passage at His first coming … " is further proof of his thesis, especially "… since the idea of a unicorn is so far removed from what the Jews understood the creature to be? & quot; The author concludes by writing that " We believe the answer for King James’ introduction of the mythological unicorn into the Scriptures is once again found in the king’s commitment to British Israelism. & quot;
In parting our misinformed littйrateur states quite emphatically " King James Charles Stuart VI & I (Scotland’s Royal House of Stuart were long known as the ‘House of Unicorns’ and to this very day the ‘Unicorn’ along with the ‘Davidc Lion of Judah’ are incorporated in the Royal Arms Great Seal of Scotland and the British Coat of Arms… "
Two things, first, if indeed the " unicorn " is so far removed from Jewish understanding, then why would King James wish to employ a " mythological " creature to symbolize something that it had no true identification with? This simply makes no sense.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the author if this article seems to be confused as well as grossly mistaken. Let us briefly consult some standard reference works on Heraldry to illuminate the topic properly.
& quot; The Unicorn, however, it is not easy to resolve into an original basis, because until the seventeenth century every one fondly believed in the existence of the animal ."
& quot; There was a time - not so long ago - when the existence of the unicorn was as implicitly believed in as the camel or any other animal not seen in these latitudes; and the translators of the Bible set their seal upon the legend by translating the Hebrew word reem (which probably meant a rhinoceros) as ‘unicorn.’ Thus the worthy Thomas Fuller came to consider the existence of the unicorn clearly proved by the mention of Scripture . It is interesting to note Fuller cites Pliny’s description in addition to his own.
Various theories have been advanced as to what precisely the unicorn actually was. Candidates range from " wild antelopes (or goats) of Syria and Palestine " para & quot; rhinoceros " However, the legend of the unicorn traces itself far back into history as the story " …is at least as old as Pliny. & quot; There are ancient depictions of the beast recorded in drawings and illuminations.
And during the first year of Elizabeth I, as well as in that of " …Shakespeare’s time at Windsor Castle the ‘horn of a unicorn of above eight spans and a half in length, valued at above Ј10,000/’ This may be been the one now at Buckingham Palace ." There are contemporary accounts describing this horn in the archives.
& quot; ’Nor is belief in the unicorn confined to Europe. By Chinese writers it is characterised as a ‘spiritual beast’ The existence of the unicorn is firmly credited by the most intelligent natives and by not a few Europeans. A very trustworthy observer, the Abbй Huc, speaks very positively on the subject: ‘The unicorn really exists in Tibet…We had for a long time a small Mongol treatise on Natural History, for the use of children, in which a unicorn formed one of the pictorial illustrations. ’"
As we have seen King James did not personally introduce this beast into Holy Scripture, and as we shall see shortly nor was the unicorn confined to the House of Stuart, as it is properly known and which is its precise nomenclature, contrary to the assertion of it being known as the " House of Unicorn ."
To this end we must note clearly that " The Unicorn, famous as the Scottish royal supporter, … " was a symbol of Scotland, the Kings of Scotland, and never as any symbol of " British Israelism " as supposed. Furthermore, if one consults the famous standard reference work Burke’s Peerage one will find the remarks above to be true.
On page lxxx under " The Royal Lineage " for the " Kings Of Scotland " one can clearly see as reproduced below that unicorns stand as bilateral supporters of the Royal Arms.
Hunt of the Unicorn.
The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries dating from 1495-1505 are on display in New York at The Cloisters, which houses the medieval collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries are widely accepted as some of the finest Medieval tapestries in the world.
There are seven tapestries in the Hunt of the Unicorn series. One of the tapestries is made up of two separate fragments.
Inventories dating from the reign of James V show that there were more than 100 tapestries in the royal collection by 1539. Among these is listed a set of six pieces depicting ‘the historie of the unicorne’. This set may have told the same story as the tapestries of the same period which are now in New York.
The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries were gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1937 by John D Rockefeller Jr. The Rockefeller family purchased the tapestries in 1922.
The early history of the tapestries is unknown. It is not until 1680 that they are recorded in any surviving documentation. In that year they appear in the inventory of Francois VI de la Rochefoucauld, a wealthy French duke.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Haile Selassie I - 1935.
Stone of Scone (Destiny)
Traditionally it is said to have been Jacob's pillow when he saw the angels of Bethel. Another legend suggests it was brought to Scotland by Scotia, daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh. The most likely explanation is that it was a royal stone brought from Antrim to Argyll and then to Scone by Kenneth MacAlpin, the 36th King of Dalriada.
heart of Scotland's history. The chroniclers tell us of Druids,
of Romans, of fantastic glimpses of kings and king-making .
Carried away from Scotland by English King Edward I in 1296, the 400-pound Stone of Scone (pronounced SKOON) reputedly was the coronation seat of ancient kings of Scotland and Ireland -- and, some say, the pillow of the patriarch Jacob. Some say that the stone placed beneath the Coronation Chair was a fake, the true Stone of Scone having been hastily hidden by the monks in an underground chamber. The truth may never be known.
Scottish Nationalists removed the Stone from Westminster in 1950 and returned it to Scotland. It was recovered in the grounds of Arbroath Abbey four months later.
The Stone of Scone was last used at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II - and so it still performs its ancient duty, and to far great effect, making not only the monarch of the Scots but of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
British Government Returned the Stone to Scotland.
On November 15, 1996, the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings had been crowned since time immemorial, was brought back to Scotland 700 years after the army of King Edward I of England carted it off to Westminster Abbey in London. Now safely ensconced in Edinburgh Castle, the 152 kg rock popularly known outside Scotland as the "Stone of Scone" has joined the other Scottish royal regalia -- crown, sceptre, sword and jewels -- in a closely-guarded museum.
The Stone was last used in a coronation in Scotland in 1292, when John Balliol was proclaimed King. Four years later, in 1296, the English monarch, Edward I (infamous as the "hammer of the Scots," and nemesis of Scottish national hero William Wallace ) invaded Scotland. Among the booty that Edward's army removed was the legendary Stone, which the English king apparently regarded as an important symbol of Scottish sovereignty. The present Coronation Throne was made to house the stone in 1301.
- was kept at Scone for nearly 500 years. It was placed.
upon the Moot Hill and used in the coronations of the Kings.
of Scots until the end of the 13th century, when it was.
removed to Westminster Abbey.
But is the stone that finally rests securely in Edinburgh Castle the real Stone of Destiny? After so many centuries, it is impossible to know. According to one legend, the Stone never left Ireland at all. One tale suggests that the original Stone of Destiny was white marble, carved with decorative figures -- in no way resembling the plain slab of yellow sandstone with a single Latin cross carved on it that sat beneath the throne in Westminster Abbey for these past seven centuries. To make matters more confusing, there may have been several copies made down through the ages! It is entirely within the realm of possibility that some canny Scots fobbed off a fake on Edward I, seven hundred years ago, hiding the original coronation stone where it would never be found. One story particularly satisfying to Scottish nationalists with long memories claims that Edward actually took the rough rock used to hold down the cover of the cess-pit at Scone Castle, and that subsequent English monarchs have ceremoniously seated themselves on this medieval plumbing accessory for their coronations ever since 1308! At least one acknowledged copy of the "Westminster" Stone exists, on public display at beautiful Scone Palace in Perthshire, where it serves as a favorite roost for the elegant peacocks and camera-toting tourists who stroll the grounds.
Edward I was aware of the sacred Stone of Scotland and its strange history connecting it with Empire. He knew the Scots venerated the Stone and were willing to die for it. He knew the Scottish nation and believed there was an aura of fatality, inseparable from their ancient Stone, which convinced them that their monarchy could not be shaken while the relic was in the land; but it would suffer great changes were the Stone removed. So he took the Stone after defeating them in battle. [This was one of the causes of the rebellion led by William Wallace several years later].
'On the surface he wanted to persuade the Scots that the time for the dissolution of their kingdom had come, and so dampen their hopes of ever recovering their national liberty. But inwardly Edward dreamed of an Empire, and he its sovereign lord. Was there truth in the prophecy about the Stone; he wanted it! To ensure that his secret desire was not flawed, he had all the Scottish monuments destroyed, and books and records burned.
'This detestable act was abhorred by all who knew of it ('History of England,' by M. Rapine de Thoyras, page 427). Refering to this, de Thoyras wrote 'Those records were such a loss to the nation, to their posterity and to the world, as time could never replace.' And he revealed that in a similar manner and from similar motives many valuable Irish records were also consumed.
Most of European Royalty is directly traceable to Biblical times. Most claim to be directly descended from King David, son of Jesse and the Royal house of Judah.
The ties between Jesus and England are many. The traditions surrounding Glastonbury make it certain that Jesus spent much time there. God has been "grooming" England all through history. From the arrival of Brutus in 1103 BC, Jeremiah in Ireland in 583 BC, the Druid (Hebrew) Priests, the Megalith Builders of prehistory, and the endless waves of Celts and Scythians that migrated to that area. We can conclude that England has a part in God's plan.
By the 4th century, some Jews had managed to make their way back to the city. In the 5th century, under early Christian rule, Jews were, at various times, either more or less free to practice their religion. At this time, few non-Christian communities remained in the country, apart from the Jews. Theodosius II (408-450) deprived the Jews of their relative autonomy and their right to hold public positions. Jewish courts were forbidden to sit on mixed Jewish-Christian cases and the construction of new synagogues was prohibited. Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem except on one day a year, to mourn the destruction of the Temple.
At the beginning of the 7th century, the Jews looked to the Persians for salvation. Hoping to be permitted to worship freely once the Byzantine oppression had been removed, the Jews encouraged the Persians' conquest of Acre and Jerusalem, and a Jewish community was subsequently allowed to settle and worship in Jerusalem (614-17), though it was later expelled. Under early Arab rule, a Jewish community was reestablished in Jerusalem and flourished in the 8th century. Jews were even among those who guarded the walls of the Dome of the Rock. In return, they were absolved from paying the poll-tax imposed on all non-Muslims. In the 10th and 11th centuries, however, harsh measures were imposed against the Jews by the Fatimids, who seized power in 969. Though the Jewish academy (Yeshiva) of Jerusalem was compelled by Caliph Al-Hakim to reestablish itself in Ramle, entry to Jerusalem was revived by the "Mourners of Zion", Diaspora Jews who did not cease to lament the destruction of the Temple. This movement, which held that "aliyah" -- ascent to the Land -- would hasten the resurrection of Israel, was at its peak in the 9th-11th centuries. Many Jews came from Byzantium and Iraq and established communities.
The Crusader period in the 12th century brought terrible massacres of Jews by Christians, and the prohibition against living in Jerusalem. After the conquest of the country by Saladin late in the century, the Jewish community in Jerusalem again grew considerably.
In 1211, three hundred rabbis from France and England immigrated as a group, many settling in Jerusalem. After the Mamluks took power in 1250, the famous Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman (Nahmanides), traveled from Spain and settled in Jerusalem.
Jewish communities existed in Jerusalem throughout the Middle Ages, though under economic stress, and religious and social discrimination. During this period, the Jews in the city were supported in large measure by the tourist trade, commerce and contributions from Jews abroad (Europe, the Mediterranean countries and North Africa), who did what they could to help maintain the center of the Jewish People. The Expulsion from Spain and Portugal, in the late 15th century, led to an influx of Jews into the Land, including Jerusalem.
The 16th and 17th centuries were times of economic hardship for the Jews, during which the population of Jerusalem was somewhat reduced. By the end of the 17th century, however, Jerusalem again emerged as the largest central community of the Jews in the Land. Large numbers of Jews immigrated in the 18th century as a result of the messianic-Shabbatean movement, many coming from Eastern and Central Europe, Italy, and other places. Even so, the majority of Jews in the Land in the 17th and 18th centuries were Sephardic Jews, descendants of those expelled from Spain, and immigrants from Turkey and the Balkan countries.
During the 19th century, immigration increased and the establishment of the modern Zionist movement revitalized the Jewish community throughout Israel. Jerusalem, which in 1800 numbered about 2,000 Jews (out of a total population of 8,750), grew to 11,000 by 1870 (out of 22,000), and 40,000 (out of 60,000) by 1905. It is the political, cultural and religious center of the State of Israel and of the Jewish People around the world.
The Second Fall of Jerusalem.
After Herod's death, Judea became a Roman province (6 AD). Jerusalem was governed by Roman procurators residing in Caesarea, and ceased to function as the capital of Judea -- although the municipal government remained in the hands of the Jewish high priest and Sanhedrin (rabbinical council), which fulfilled the functions of a municipal council.
The next few decades were marked by the eruption of sporadic riots in Jerusalem, usually resulting in clashes with Roman troops. By the middle of the 1st century AD, the Jews of Israel had again fought to liberate their country and capital -- but their war against the Romans ended in 70 AD, when the armies of Titus conquered the city and destroyed the Temple. Most residents of Jerusalem had either been killed or had perished from hunger during the Roman siege, and the survivors were sold into slavery or executed. Virtually the entire city was destroyed.
Subsequently, in 130, Emperor Hadrian decided to rebuild Jerusalem as a city -- thus provoking the Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans. Under the leadership of Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kokhba, Jerusalem was once again liberated, although only for two years. Ultimately, Rome crushed the revolt and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina. Later, in the 4th century, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. It was then that Queen Helena and her son, Emperor Constantine, transformed Jerusalem into a Christian center.
Arab and Crusader Eras.
In 638, the Muslim army of Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem. Initially, Muslim rule was tolerant and brought prosperity. In 691, Caliph Abd al - Malik of the Umayyad dynasty constructed the Dome of the Rock on the site of the Jewish Temple. The Dome was intended to compete with the shrines in Arabia, which were under the rule of his political opponents. Significantly, Jerusalem ranked only third in the hierarchy of Muslim religious sanctity, subordinate to Mecca and Medina.
Afterward, the First Crusade (1099) conquered Jerusalem, massacring tens of thousands of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. Jerusalem was established as the capital of the Latin Kingdom in the Holy Land. This Kingdom, however, collapsed some decades later. In 1187, Sultan Salah a-Din arrived from Egypt and besieged Jerusalem, ultimately gaining control of the city. Jews began to return to Jerusalem in 1210, ending the short and temporary exile from the city, which had been imposed by the Crusaders. In fact, the Jewish community in Jerusalem continued to expand as Jews immigrated from Europe and the Maghreb.
The Mamluk and Ottoman Periods.
By the 13th century, Jerusalem had become a marginal part of a large kingdom ruled from Aleppo and Damascus -- and, by the end of the century, the Mamluks of Egypt had taken control. Mamluk rule lasted for the next 200 years. During their rule, Jerusalem first belonged to the province of Damascus, then became a separate province. The Sultan appointed the provincial head directly, often selling the post to the highest bidder. Jerusalem's economy was devastated, owing to the imposition of excessive taxes by the Mamluks, who also engaged in frequent Muslim civil wars.
In 1517, Jerusalem fell to the Turks, whose rule was to last for exactly four centuries. Initially, Ottoman rule was energetic and beneficent. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the walls and gates of the Old City. However, the death of Suleiman was almost immediately followed by pervasive internal decay which beset the empire, and during the 17th and 18th centuries, Jerusalem experienced the least impressive period of its illustrious past.
In the 19th century, Jerusalem blossomed into an urban center. Demographic, political and technological factors contributed to the gradual process of urbanization -- largely reflecting the competition raging between European states and the declining Ottoman Empire. Moreover, world politics and economics were intermingled with religion in Jerusalem; France backed the Catholics, Prussia and England founded Protestant Bishoprics, and the Czar of Russia extended his aegis to the Greek Orthodox.
Jerusalem entered the 19th century with about 9,000 inhabitants. In 1840, Jews became the largest single community in the city -- accounting for a majority of Jerusalem's residents by 1880. In 1860, Anglo-Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore established the Mishkenot Sha'ananim neighborhood, the first quarter outside the Old City walls. Eventually, this project was followed by many others. In 1900, the city's population reached 55,000; 60% of whom were Jews.
In the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, Britain declared that:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Following the World War I victory of the Allies in the Middle East, Britain occupied Mandatory Palestine -- including what is now Jordan, which was separated from the rest of Mandatory Palestine by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill and given to the Hashemite family of Arabia in 1921 -- assuming military and administrative control for the area.
This situation was endorsed by the international community, and in 1922 Britain was awarded the Mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations -- which entailed, among other things, the fostering of a Jewish National Home in the territory, as proposed by the Balfour Declaration.
During their Mandatory administration of Jerusalem, the British did demonstrate considerable concern for the special character and atmosphere of Jerusalem. The British did, however, pursue policies which promoted conflict between the various populations of Jerusalem -- such as always appointing Arab mayors, although the Jews had long constituted the city's majority.
Between 1920 and 1940, Arab hostility to Jewish immigration and toward the majority Jewish presence in Jerusalem was expressed in increasingly violent attacks against Jewish residents. In 1929, a mob of 2,000 Arabs attacked Jews at the Western Wall and throughout the city, killing six. Continual Arab rioting, mostly violent, led the British government to issue its White Paper of May 1939, which severely restricted Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. Meanwhile, the Arabs continued to reject all attempts to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
All attempts to internationalize Jerusalem were also flatly rejected by the Arabs. This approach was best personified by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the British-appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who directed the violent suppression of Jewish religious and political rights. His views found their ultimate expression during World War II, in his active support for the Nazis and their genocide against the Jews.
The British ultimately forfeited the Mandate, and departed on 15 May 1948. United Nations Approves Partition On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states -- and to make Jerusalem a "separate body" (corpus separatum) under a special international regime, with "suitable guarantees for the protection of Holy Places."
The Jews accepted the resolution, but the Arabs -- both those living inside and beyond the territory of the Mandate -- rejected the partition resolution and the plan to internationalize Jerusalem, thereby nullifying the proposal.
Between November 1947 and April 1948, Arab bands attacked Jews in Jerusalem itself and on all roads into the city, killing 296. The Arabs also imposed a blockade on the city -- denying food, water and medical supplies to its Jewish population.
In 1948, following the United Nations decision, the British Mandate ended and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Arab armies attacked the fledgling state, starting the first Arab-Israeli war. Three Arab armies -- those of Egypt, Iraq and the Arab Legion from Jordan -- together with Syrian troops, surrounded Jerusalem, bombarded the city and tried to occupy it. In four weeks, 170 Jewish civilians were killed by Arab shellfire; another 1,000 were wounded. In the ten months of fighting, many Jews and Arabs fled Jerusalem, and all Jewish residents of the Old City were driven from their homes by Jordanian forces.
Following an armistice signed in April 1949 between Israel and Jordan, Jerusalem was divided for the first time in its millennia-old history. The city was split along the cease-fire lines of the Israeli and Jordanian forces, with several "no-man's land" areas and two demilitarized zones separating the two sides. Still, in breach of the cease-fire agreements, which called for Jewish access to the Jordanian-held areas, the armistice lines ultimately functioned as a frontier dividing the two previously intermingled communities. Mount Scopus was cut off from Israel and, despite the commitments undertaken in the armistice agreement, only minimal Israeli access was allowed. Jordan would not permit the Hebrew University, the library or Hadassah Hospital to operate.
What had been intended as an interim period prior to the reunification of Jerusalem became, for the next 19 years, a border of minefields and barbed wire traversing the city. The Jordanians systematically destroyed the synagogues in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, desecrated the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives and denied Jews the right to worship at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall. While concentrating its efforts in the expansion of its capital, Amman, Jordan implemented policies which led to the stagnation of east Jerusalem. Its historical and holy sites became inaccessible to all Jews, as well as to Israeli Christians and Muslims. Meanwhile, west Jerusalem -- the declared capital of Israel -- thrived and developed.
In June 1967, King Hussein of Jordan ignored Israel's pleas (communicated through the UN) to maintain the cease-fire, and Jordan joined other Arab countries in initiating a war against Israel. The Arabs heavily shelled Jewish neighborhoods and their ground forces occupied strategic positions in "no-man's land" areas -- in preparation for further attacks.
In defending itself, Israel gained control of the eastern part of Jerusalem by 7 June; Jerusalem was reunited and Jews were once again able to pray at the Western Wall. The current municipal borders were defined that June, and contemporary Jerusalem began to evolve. The city was opened to all worshippers. Unprecedented development was achieved in the spheres of economics, health, education, art and culture, and the general welfare of its inhabitants. In 1967, the total population of Jerusalem stood at 267,800 -- 196,500 Jews, 60,500 Muslims and 10,800 Christians. In December 1993, there were 567,700 residents of the city -- 406,800 Jews and 160,900 non-Jews.
From a legal perspective, the departure of the British in May 1948 left Jerusalem's status undetermined. The end of the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war found the western part of the city in Israeli hands, and the eastern part (including the Old City) controlled by Jordan. In 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an armistice, dividing Jerusalem into two demarcated zones. These lines, however, were seen by both sides to be temporary -- until a peace treaty could be concluded; neither party viewed the cease-fire lines as permanent borders.
The Palestinian Claim to Jerusalem.
Similarly, the claim to make Jerusalem (or at least its eastern part) capital of a Palestinian state is unfounded. Palestinian leaders often call for Jerusalem (or "Arab Jerusalem") to be "restored" to the Palestinian people, but there is no legal basis for this claim.
First, not only has Jerusalem never been the capital of an Arab state, but there has never been any state of Palestine. When the Arabs first controlled the region in the Middle Ages, they established their capital in Ramle. Subsequent Arab and Mamluk empires chose to rule from Baghdad and Damascus. The Ottoman sultan resided in Constantinople, now Istanbul. More recently, the Jordanians -- who held the eastern part of the city from 1948 to 1967 -- designated Amman as their capital city.
Second, prior to 1948, Palestinian Arabs refused to accept any of the proposed solutions to the Arab-Jewish conflict. They would not consent to anything short of establishing Arab rule in all of the Palestine Mandate -- and expelling, or killing, all Jews living in that area. In an effort to achieve that objective, the Palestinian Arabs (and the surrounding Arab states) initiated a war against the newly proclaimed State of Israel, hoping to destroy the new country before it could establish itself.
On 30 July 1980, the Knesset adopted the Basic Law: Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel, which states, among other things, that:
Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel. Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government, and the Supreme Court. The holy places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation, and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.
Israel has been charged with annexing Jerusalem, either the entire city or at least its eastern side. However, the term "annexation" is an inappropriate description of the measures implemented to apply Israeli law, administration and jurisdiction to any areas of Israel -- including Jerusalem -- because the State of Israel cannot "annex" areas which, until 1948, constituted a part of Mandatory Palestine. Israel neither regards its standing in these areas to be that of an occupying power, nor has it ever regarded the Arab states that invaded Israel in May 1948 as sovereign in the areas of Israel that they seized; the Arab states were, at best, merely belligerent occupants. The Arab residents of those territories, including eastern Jerusalem, became citizens of the country which conquered the territory, Jordan; they never constituted a separate political entity.
Under Knesset legislation, Israel amended the 1967 Municipalities Ordinance to recognize the enlarged area of Jerusalem (in the wake of the Six-Day War) as part of the Municipality of Jerusalem. Accordingly, it is clear that Israel sought to emphasize both that it did not consider itself an occupying power in Jerusalem, and that the status of Jerusalem was different from that of Judea and Samaria -- which are administered under a different legal system.
Moreover, immediately following Israel's reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, Arab residents of Jerusalem were offered full Israeli citizenship. The majority of the Arabs living in Jerusalem chose not to accept Israeli citizenship, but nevertheless, as residents of the city, they were given -- and still retain -- the right to participate in municipal elections and enjoy all economic, cultural and social benefits afforded to Israeli citizens (e. g. membership in Israel's labor federation and national insurance system). Furthermore, Israel's democratic legal system grants equal protection of property, civil and human rights to all residents of Jerusalem.
Thus, the application of Israeli law to eastern Jerusalem is no different in substance from its application in the other parts of Israel that lie beyond the boundaries recommended by the United Nations in 1947.
Possible Solutions to the Issue of Jerusalem's Status Following Jerusalem's reunification, four approaches to resolving the issue of the city's status evolved. The first approach is to redivide the city. The second proposes dividing the city into cantons, according to which population constitutes a majority. The third entails international control over Jerusalem. The fourth proposes recognizing the sovereignty of one nation, while guaranteeing open access and the internal administration of religious places by their adherents.
Redividing the city today is not a viable option. The 19 years between 1948 and 1967, when the city was scarred by barbed wire, walls, and armed troops dividing the population, were unbearable for its residents, limited Jerusalem's natural development, and contrasts with the openness, tolerance and neighborliness of the city since 1967. Any division of the city, even a solely administrative one, is likely to exacerbate tensions among the population and undercut the progress that has been made in so many spheres. Likewise, cantonization would unnaturally divide Jerusalem into enclaves spread throughout the city. The reality is that neighborhoods are not uniformly linked to form exclusively "Jewish" and "Arab" áreas. Attempting to combine separate neighborhoods into different municipal units would unravel the social fabric which has been woven in Jerusalem, not to mention lower the quality of municipal services provided to city residents. Similarly, the infrastructure simply does not exist to enable multiple governments to serve residents adequately, in a patchwork of separate cantons located in different sections of the city.
The internationalization proposal appears to be in eclipse. In the late 1960s however, the Arab states (with the exception of Jordan) indicated their preference for that solution -- since it seemed most likely to put an end to Israeli control.
The Vatican, which initially also professed to support the concept, subsequently changed its views in favor of "international guarantees" for the holy places. The practical problems of internationalization would be too numerous to make it feasible -- nothing would be more likely to disrupt the life of a city and its population, than imposing upon it a system of divided, external government, with each factor seeking to further its own, rather than the city's, interests.
In discussing the fourth solution -- recognizing the sovereignty of one nation -- the question of the parties' primary objectives in Jerusalem must be addressed. Israel believes that Jerusalem must function as an increasingly tolerant, peaceful and prosperous city, where a diverse, multi-cultural population may live and work. Israel is committed to ensuring that Jerusalem remains safe and attractive, and that the atmosphere of the city facilitates tourism and worship. The Government of Israel has stated that it is ready to sign international commitments enshrining these principles.
Provided by the Government Press Office.
REBUILDING SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
Rebuilding the Temple today.
Standing today in the historical location of the Temple is the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine. The Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, is located just to its south.
To attempt to tear down and replace these Muslim shrines with a Jewish Temple is impossible in today's political and religious climate. The very idea of doing so at any point in the future constitutes a seemingly unresolvable problem. Nonetheless, the idea of rebuilding the Temple somewhere else is difficult for Jews to accept.
For the last 1900 years, Jews have prayed that God would allow for the rebuilding of the Temple. This prayer is a formal part of the thrice daily Jewish prayer services.
However, not all rabbis agree on what would happen in a rebuilt Temple. It has traditionally been assumed that some sort of animal sacrifices would be reinstituted, in accord with the rules in Leviticus and the Talmud. However there is another opinion, beginning with Maimonides, that God deliberately has moved Jews away from sacrifices towards prayer, as prayer is a higher form of worship. Thus, some rabbis hold that sacrifices would not take place in a rebuilt Temple. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi of the Jewish community in pre-state Israel, holds that sacrifices will not be reinstituted.
A few, very small, Jewish groups support constructing a Third Temple today, but most Jews oppose this, for a variety of reasons. Most religious Jews feel that the Temple should only be rebuilt in the messianic era, and that it would be presumptuous of people to force God's hand, as it were. Furthermore, there are many ritual impurity constrictions that are difficult to resolve, making the building's construction a practical impossibility.
Additionally, many Jews are against rebuilding the Temple due to the enormously hostile reaction from Muslims that would likely result — even were the building to be complementary to those holy to Islam, there would be high suspicion that such a building project would ultimately end with the destruction of these and the rebuilding of the Temple on its original spot.
3/16/97 - Sunday Telegraph (London)
According to London's Sunday Telegraph of March 16, 1997, a team of rabbinical experts have confirmed the birth of a red heifer. Such an animal is necessary for purification of the temple site according to Numbers 19:2-7.
Rabbinical teaching states that, since Herod's Temple was destroyed in 70 A. D., no flawless red heifer has been born in Israel.
According to the article, the heifer, which is 6 months old now, must be at least 3 years old before it can be used in a ritual sacrifice. [Arutz-7 article below says 2 years old.]
Here is more confirmation of this fascinating development.: Tuesday, March 18, 1997.
Date: 97-03-18 13:17:18 EST.
From: editor7@jer1.co. il (Arutz-7 Daily News) [Israel]
The birth of a red heifer (cow) in a farm in the religious youth village of Kfar Hasidim (near Haifa) has excited sectors in the religious community. A delegation of some 25 experts, including Rabbis Yisrael Ariel and Yoseph Elboim, visited the farm last week to examine the six-month old cow, and concluded that it is in fact an acceptable red heifer, according to Torah requirements. However, the cow must be at least two years old before it can be used. Until then, the cow will be carefully watched to ensure that nothing occurs to invalidate its status. According to Biblical law, the cow's ashes are used for purification from certain forms of impurity, and is therefore a prerequisite for the renewal of Holy Temple service.
Arutz Sheva News Service Tuesday, March 18, 1997 / Adar Bet 9, 5757.
DAILY NEWS FROM ISRAEL - ISSUE 237 - 16th March 1997.
THE RED HEIFER. compiled by Dee Finney. OUR SURPRISE VISITORS updated.
2-14-04. . This latter container holds the Ashes of the Red Heifer. .
Matthew 24:15 Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in THE HOLY PLACE (let the reader understand).
The abomination of desolation is when the antichrist stands in the holy place of the rebuilt Temple and falsely declares to the world that he is God. This occurs in the middle of the 7 year end-times period. So if the peace treaty between Israel and the PLO signed on September 13, 1993 was the peace treaty of prophecy, then on February 24, 1997, the abomination of desolation should have occurred in the Temple in Jerusalem. There is no Temple in Jerusalem, and no world leader has declared himself to be God, so we know with 100% certainty that the September 13, 1993 peace treaty was not the peace treaty of prophecy. Let's go back to the book of Daniel to further expand on Jesus' words in the Olivet Discourse.
Daniel 9:27 And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.
the Day of the Lord which comes after the rapture will not occur unless two major discernible events happen. There will be a great apostasy or falling away from the faith, and the antichrist will sit in the Temple in Jerusalem and falsely declare himself to be God. Are there other scriptures which confirm that the abomination of desolation happens in the middle of the end-times 7 year period? Yes, in Daniel 12, the Angel was told to further elaborate.
Daniel 12:11-12 And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days. How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1335 days.
Here we are shown again as in Daniel 9:27, that the stopping of the sacrifices and the abomination occur nearly simultaneously. From the abomination of desolation until the Messiah comes in power to reign on the earth is 1290 days (approximately 3.5 years or half of the week of years mentioned in Daniel 9:27). Then 45 days later (the 1335 days), the fulfillment of Yom Kippur as prophecy takes place. Messiah will judge Judah and Israel and forgive their sins after the terrible time they went through during the Days of Awe, and they will be made into one nation again.
This abomination of desolation takes place on earth not in heaven. If you've ever seen it, the Temple in heaven is built into the throne of God our Father, which is why it is written that His train fills the Temple. His seat is above the most holy place of the Temple in heaven, and is the eternal mercy seat, of which the mercy seat on top of the ark of the covenant was a pale representation. There is no way that Satan or the antichrist can be in heaven and take over the throne area of God. If they could, then God wouldn't be capable of maintaining even the area around His throne. Because Jesus sits there at the right hand of God our Father, then the impossible occurs as Satan would be able to triumph over Jesus at His very throne. There is no possible way that the abomination of desolation could take place in heaven unless Jesus and God our Father were not omnipotent. The reason this last paragraph is included is that some have thought that perhaps these events take place in heaven rather than literally on earth. Satan cannot even approach the throne of God let alone triumph over Him.

SUCCESSORS OF ROME:
Kings and Emperors of the Franks,
France, Burgundy, Italy, and Germany.
Introdução.
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and the occupation of much of Gaul by the Franks , Roman power never returned far enough to come into conflict with the Frankish kingdom (except, to an extent, in the South of Italy). Instead, as the advent of Islâm permanently ended the possibility of further Roman revival, when Pope Stephen III met Pepin the Short (753) and obtained help against the Lombards, we get a passing of the torch from Constantinople to the Franks. By 774, the Franks were virtually the only organized Christian kingdom between Islâm in Spain, the pagan powers to the east and north, and Romania -- the remaining Roman Empire, now Greek in character -- to the southeast. The core of Christian Western Europe thus became Francia . While forms of this name, from Francia in Spanish to France in French, have settled on what was originally West Francia -- Francia Occidentalis -- German allows a differentiation, with Frankenreich , the "Kingdom of the Franks," for the full extent of the Carolingian state, and Frankreich for the modern France. In English, where "France" is also used for modern France, "Francia" may be used without ambiguity for Frankenreich and for the greater Periphery of Francia.
Indeed, to many beyond Francia the Franks now were all the Western European states as far as ran the writ of the Pope and the use of the Latin language. In Greek, the Franks are the , Phrangoi . Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus even refers to the empire of Charlemagne as , "Great Francia." Liutprand of Cremona (c.920-972) says that in 968 the Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas "made fun of the Franks -- under which name he understood both the Latins and the Germanic [peoples]," Ex Francis , quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones comprehendit, ludum habuit [ Liudprandi Legatio , XXXIII, 25-26]. The words for "European" in Arabic, al-'Ifranj , , "the Franks," 'Ifranjî , , "a Frank, Frankish, European," and Persian, farangi , , preserve the word -- as does even Thai, , fàràng , and Laotian, , farang or falang , "foreign, European, Caucasian" or just "French." In these terms, it should be remembered that Muslim sources distinguished between Franks and , ar-Rûm , i. e. Romans -- the Christians (such as Constantine VII and Nicephorus Phocas) of the surviving Roman Empire. But as Romania faded from memory, all Europeans became "Franks." The word "Frank" even appears in Ming China, with the arrival of the Portuguese, as . Initially, Christians and Jews coming to China where grouped with the , meaning Turks, Uighurs, and Chinese Muslims.
In European languages, "frank" can mean open, forthright, and sincere, i. e. with the noble qualities of the Frank. It also can mean "free," as in the "franking" privilege of sending free mail, or as in "franchise," which is the grant of some privilege or immunity. "Frankish" -- Latin "Franciscus," masculine, and "Francisca," feminine -- also occurs as a very common given name in Western European languages, from "Francesco/Francesca" in Italian,
In two of the Star Trek series, Star Trek, the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine , we encounter extraterrestrials called the "Ferengi," a word which looks like the Hindi, , version of the Persian . Since the Ferengi are obsessed with profit and under no scruple to only obtain it honestly, the use of the term may refect the leftist and anti-capitalist ideology of the Star Trek series -- not to mention an attendant cultural self-hatred on the part of the producers or writers.
Comparing Francia of Charlemagne's day to Romania, i. e. the remaining Roman Empire around Constantinople, usually called the "Byzantine" Empire by historians, it is noteworthy that while the cultural and religious center of the West is at Rome, that City would never again be the actual political capital of Western Europe. Indeed, the Popes ruled their own little domain, the Papal States, and prevented the unification of Italy until the 19th century. While they then wielded much influence in the West, and they wanted to install and dispose of secular rulers at their whim, it was only rarely that Papal political power amounted to much. Although it was sometimes used to humble even the Kings of England and France, and the German Emperor, its power drained quickly when overused. After Philip IV of France sent a gang of thuggish operatives to kidnap and rough up Pope Boniface VIII in his own palace, the Papal leviathan seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon. Meanwhile, Constantinople was a real capital, with resident Emperors of legally absolute power. The Western Emperor, elected by German princes who became increasingly sovereign, the non-resident ruler of increasingly detached and uncontrollable states like Italy and Burgundy,
In the treatment here, "Francia" will mean all of Europe that in the Mediaeval period was subject to the Roman Catholic Church , with its Latin liturgy, headed by the Pope , the Bishop of Rome . (The Schism of 1054 separated the Latin Church from the Orthodox Churches of the East.) Since the Pope retained the right to crown Emperors in the area subject to his Church, the Emperors in Charlemagne's line retained an implicit primacy, if not sovereignty, over all of Roman Catholic Europe, however little actual authority they may have exercised.
For many centuries, Latin was the principal, sometimes the only , written language over an area, "greater" Francia, that came to stretch from Norway to Portugal and from Iceland to Catholic parts of the Ukraine. A Swede like Karl von Linné would be known by a Latinized name as Carolus Linnaeus , a Pole like Mikolaj Kopernik as Nicolaus Copernicus , and an Italian like Christoforo Columbo (Cristóbal Colón in Spanish) as Christophorus(-er) Columbus . These men were even, significantly, figures getting into the modern period, not of the deep Middle Ages. One consequence of the dominance of Latin was the universal use of the Latin alphabet, and the borrowing of Latin vocabulary for vernacular languages from Norwegian to Hungarian. In an age when alphabets went with religions, the only exception to this was the use of the Hebrew alphabet to write Spanish (Ladino) and German (Yiddish) by European Jews. Islâm was not tolerated in Mediaeval Francia, except in unusual circumstances, mainly in Spain and Sicily. The alphabet that had been developed to write Gothic disappeared with its language. The old Runic alphabet also largely disappeared with the Christianization of Germany and Scandinavia, though its values were not forgotten. The use of Latin and its alphabet contrasts with the official use of Greek and its alphabet in Romania (together with other special alphabets, like Armenian) and the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia. Today, the cultural predominance of Europe has led to the use of the Latin alphabet for many languages around the world, including Indonesian/Malaysian (Malay), Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Samoan, languages in Africa like Swahili, and many others. World languages with their own traditional writing, like Chinese and Japanese, use Romanization extensively, both officially and unofficially.
The use of the Latin alphabet in Francia often goes along with languages, the Romance languages, that are themselves descended from Latin, like Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. On the other hand, Francia was the result of the West Roman Empire collapsing under the inroads of Germans and then of a new identity being formulated by the Germanic Franks. Even the major wars of the 20th century can be thought of as continuing conflict along the Romance/Germanic boundary in the heart of Francia. The balance of power then, however, ended up being determined by another Germanic speaking power, England, coming in on the side of Romance speaking France. Meanwhile, the language family that was displaced by the Romans in Gaul and by the Angles and Saxons in Britain persists in the "Celtic Fringe" of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, including Brittany, which was actually colonized with refugees from Celtic Britain. Welsh betrays its heritage as the language of Roman Britain with Latin days of the week and other borrowings. In the East, the Slavic languages represent another boundary productive of conflict. After the initial migration of Slavic speakers that pushed Germans behind the Elbe and replaced large areas of indigenous languages in the Balkans, German speakers moved steadily east until World War II, after which the Russians expelled many Germans and returned the boundary to about where it was in the 12th century. Between the northern and southern Slavs, however, is a Romance speaking remnant in the Balkans, Romania, and the Hungarians, who were the only steppe people to first invade Europe but then settle down and even retain their linguistic identity, despite their country often being called after the earlier and unrelated Huns. The only other languages in Francia related to Hungarian, which is not an Indo-European language, are Finnish and Estonian, which are probably at the western end of a very ancient distribution of the Uralic languages. The language that has the best claim to being the autochthonous language of Francia is Basque , which has no established affinities with any other language in the world and whose people have been determined by genetic studies to have been in the area since the Pleistocene. On the southern edge of the map is a little bit of Francia, Malta, where a language is spoken, Maltese, that is descended from Arabic and so unrelated to other modern languages in Francia. This is a remnant of the Aghlabid conquest of Sicily, although now the Maltese have long been Catholic, and the language is written, of course, in the Latin alphabet.
The orange area on the map above merits special notice. Lithuanian and Lativian are the remaining Baltic languages. They are more closely related to the Slavic languages than to the others, but are significant for their conservatism. Lithuanian is the only surviving Indo-European language with a tone accent . Today, a tone accent is most conspicuous in Chinese. Of early Indo-European languages, tones are attested only in the similarly conservative Classical Greek and Sanskrit -- indeed, the accents used for several purposes by many languages, the ácute, gràve, and circûmflex, originally wrote the tones of Greek. Historically, Lithuania holds the prize as the last country in Europe to become Christian, not definitively converting until the Grand Duke Jagiello (1377-1434). Meanwhile, for a good two centuries it had played the role of a frontier, and a wild one, between Catholic Europe in the West and both Orthodoxy Muscovy and the Mongol Golden Horde in the East. In converting to Catholicism and marrying the Queen of Poland, Jagiello joined Lithuania to the West. In doing so, however, he defeated what had previously represented the frontier of the West, the Teutonic Knights. The Knights had occupied the territory of the Prussians and converted them, while their compatriots, the Livonian Knights, had occupied the territory of the Latvians and converted them . The Prussian language was also part of the Baltic group, but eventually the Prussians themselves became German speaking. Today, the original land of Prussia is divided between Poland and Russia, with most of the German speakers, including those who would have been ethnic Prussians, expelled. Modern Latvia, like Lithuania, has at long last again become independent.
The original core of Francia, the Frankish Kingdom that came to dominate the West under Charlemagne, can be identified as those areas upon whose ruler the Pope at one time or another conferred a crown as the Roman Emperor . Part of the Mediaeval theory of Papal power came to include this ultimate authority to create and legitimate secular authority. Outlying areas, Spain, Britain, Scandinavia, etc., are considered separately as the Periphery of Francia. Charlemagne himself ruled modern France, northern Italy, and most of modern Germany. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, the imperial title was fitfully conferred on Kings of Italy, and then lapsed entirely in 922. The descent of King Otto I of Germany into Italy ushered in new combinations of territory and a new line of Emperors, as the Pope crowned Otto in 962.
The "Empire" came to be regarded as consisting of four crowns: (1) East Francia, or Germany, (2) Lombardy (the "Iron Crown"), or Italy, (3) Rome, and, after 1032, (4) Burgundy. Lorraine, which had been a separate kingdom in the inheritance of Charlemagne, soon become part of the system of "Stem Duchies" in Germany. Most of the Stem Duchies, like Saxony, Franconia, and Bavaria, corresponded to preexisting German tribes. The title dux ("leader"), which was the Roman title of a frontier military commander, thus achieves its elevated Mediaeval meaning as a feudal title in relation to these units. A duke is only inferior to a sovereign prince. The next highest title, marquis or margrave ( Markgraf ), signified the count ( comes , Graf , or "earl" in English) of a march ( Mark ) territory. The marches were border territories that involved a great deal of fighting. In Charlemagne's day, that included marches in Spain contesting the Islâmic advance. Later, the German marches north and south of Bohemia extended German settlement far to the east. Brandenburg became the most famous northern march, remaining a margravate until becoming the Kingdom of Prussia. Austria ( Österreich , the "eastern realm") was the most famous southern march, becoming a duchy, then the only "archduchy," and finally an empire.
As the authority of the German Emperors declined, and that of the Kings of France grew, the "Middle Kingdom" (Francia Media) of Lorraine, Burgundy, and Italy began to pass either from German to French control (Upper Lorraine, Burgundy) or from German control to separate status (Lower Lorraine, i. e. the Netherlands and Belgium, and Italy). This process continued well into the modern period, when we see a multiplication of kingdoms, reaching five in Germany (not counting Bohemia) and two in Lower Lorraine. The Dukes of Savoy, beginning with a county in Burgundy, acquired more land and a capital (Turin) in Italy, named their new Kingdom after Sardinia and ultimately succeeded as the modern Kings of Italy. After Mussolini conquered Ethiopia in 1936, one King of Italy was briefly, and fatally, associated with this as the Emperor of Ethiopia. Without otherwise going outside of Francia, we certainly see enough emperors.
The Holy Roman Emperors, especially after the title became nearly hereditary with the Hapsburgs, became less and less concerned with confirming their crown with the Pope. The last time the Pope was called upon to crown an Emperor was when Napoleon decided to reclaim the title for the Western Franks, the French (and himself), in 1804. Napoleon knew better, however, than to allow that the Pope really had the kind of authority that the coronation of Charlemagne implied: Napoleon took the crown from the Pope's hands and crowned himself. The Hapsburgs were not going to be left behind by this: They elevated Austria to the status of Empire without any help from the Pope -- apparently on the principle that they had a right to the status to which they had become accustomed. Napoleon then abolished the Holy Roman Empire, leaving a French and an Austrian Emperor in Francia. After Napoleon's fall, the French title was later revived by Napoleon III, but then in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and his fall, Otto von Bismarck decided to transfer the dignity to a newly reunited Germany , with the King of Prussia as a new, entirely German and not even Catholic, German Emperor, ruling over Prussia and the three other remaining kingdoms (Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg -- Hanover had been absorbed into Prussia).
Except for the brief episode with Mussolini, emperors vanished from Francia, and from Russia, in the Götterdämmerung of World War I. This did not mean, unfortunately, the immediate triumph of democracy and liberty. Instead, the conservative oppression of regimes like Austria, which were said to be "despotism tempered by inefficiency," was followed by the far more oppressive, sinister, and murderous "evil empires" of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, both founded on 20th century totalitarian, collectivist ideology -- though Hitler did like to think of his regime as a "Third Reich" continuing the German empires of the past. Lenin and Stalin had no use for such historical romance, though their power would have been the envy of any Tsar and did continue police state devices begun by the Tsars. It is post-Communist Russia, struggling with corrupt democracy and a struggling economy, that now may be the most susceptible to Fascist romances about the Tsars.
The development of the core of Francia can be represented in this flow chart. Of the eight modern states of the region (not counting Monaco, San Marino, and Liechtenstein), France has the most continuous historical tradition. The Mediaeval Empire at one point drew in all of Francia Media, except for the French Duchy of Burgundy, but then slowly broke up. Parts of Lower Lorraine, assembled by the Dukes of Burgundy, have come down as the Low Countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The original Kingdom of Burgundy, giving rise to Switzerland and Savoy, has mostly fallen to France, while Savoy went on to unite Italy. The principal German speaking states left over from the Empire, Prussia and Austria, assembled their own Empires, leading to the reduced modern republics of Germany and Austria, while Upper Lorraine is now entirely in the hands of France. Each kingdom and empire here is indicated with a crown, as in the Francia maps above. The colors here more or less match the color of the corresponding table of rulers and, to an extent, the map colors. This chart illustrates well, like the "early Mediaeval" core of Francia map above, the fact that for a long time there was only one Empire, Rome . France (i. e. Napoleon) and Austria broke that understanding, followed by the German Empire, which, like Napoleonic France, saw itself following Charlemagne. The "Third Reich," of course, had no Emperor. The only Empires external to Francia evident here are Mexico and that of Italy in Ethiopia. Mexico, however, was not a European possession, except that French troops supported the Emperor Maximilian, brother of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. When the troops withdrew, he was overthrown and killed.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 Kelley L. Ross, Ph. D. Todos os direitos reservados.
The sources for all these tables are varied and now sometimes hard to keep track of, since my own notes made from years ago do not always indicate their origin. References and difficulties in specific areas, as with Flanders, are usually discussed at the appropriate place. Here I will mention a few general sources. Some of the earliest lists are from An Encyclopedia of World History; Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged , compiled and edited by William L. Langer [Houghton, Mifflin, Company; the Riverside Press, Boston, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1960]. This one volume compendium I borrowed from a high school friend in the Sixties and recently consulted it again when it turned out that a colleague at Valley College had a copy. Amazon has now found a used copy for me after some months of searching. At lot of this, however, now looks a bit dated. That drawback is remedied by a new edition by Peter N. Stearns, The Encyclopedia of World History; Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged [Sixth Edition, Houghton Miffilin Company, 2001]. While Stearns' version has much of the genealogical information, and more, of the original, it does seems to be missing the chart of the Capetian descent of the Bourbons which Langer had -- it also drops rather than updates the lists of British Prime Ministers, French Presidents and Premiers, and Italian Prime Ministers that Langer included. This Encyclopedia is to be distinguished from the Encyclopedia of World History , by Patrick K. O'Brien et al. [George Philip Limited, Facts on File, 2000], which is arranged alphabetically -- including various lists of world leaders such as were dropped from the Stearns Encyclopedia . Other more recent information and extensive genealogies are in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume II, c.700-c.900 [Cambridge University Press, 1995] and The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume III, c.900-c.1024 [Timothy Reuter, editor, Cambridge, 1999]. The most comprehensive lists of rulers I have found in print are in Kingdoms of Europe , by Gene Gurney [Crown Publishers, New York, 1982]. Gurney has some errors and obscurities, but I have not found any other work that has put so much together in one volume. I have also found a nice genealogical presentation, a chart, Kings & Queens of Europe , compiled by Anne Tauté [University of North Carolina Press, 1989]. This is not as comprehensive as Gurney, but seems to exhibit more careful scholarship.
Among prose histories, one which is of the most longstanding value has been a textbook I originally had for a class in Beirut, Medieval Europe , by Martin Scott [Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., London, 1967]. It is hard to know what other such subsequent books to list. A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman [Ballantine Book, 1978] is a marvelous history of the 14th century, a period not otherwise noted in most surveys except for the Black Death. Otherwise, some of the most comprehensive treatments and enjoyable historical reading I have ever had involved a couple different history of Europe series that used to be published by Harper Torchbooks. In one series, I had several of the books as textbooks in classes: Reformation Europe, 1517-1559 , by G. R. Elton [Harper Torchbooks, 1963], Europe Divided, 1559-1598 , by J. H. Elliott [1968], Europe of the Ancient Régime, 1715-1783 , by David Ogg, and Revolutionary Europe, 1783-1815 , by George Rudé [this was in the Harper series, but I have a British edition published as the "Fontana History of Europe," the same as the Harper books, Fontana Library, Collins, 1964]. Of another Harper Torchbook series, "The Rise of Modern Europe," I had a couple of volumes in classes but then took some pains to acquire many of the rest. These include, The Age of the Baroque, 1610-1660 , by Carl J. Friedrich [Harper Torchbooks, 1962], The Triumph of Science and Reason, 1660-1685 , by Frederick L. Nussbaum [1962], The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715 , by John B. Wolf [1962], The Quest for Security, 1715-1740 , by Penfield Roberts [1963], Competition for Empire, 1740-1763 , by Walter L. Dorn [1963], From Despotism to Revolution, 1763-1789 , by Leo Gershoy [1963], A Decade of Revolution, 1789-1799 , by Crane Brinton [1963], Europe and the French Imperium, 1799-1814 , by Geoffrey Bruun [1965], Reaction and Revolution, 1814-1832 , by Frederick B. Artz [1963], Political and Social Unpheaval, 1832-1852 , by William L. Langer [1969], Realism and Nationalism, 1852-1871 , by Robert C. Binkley [1963], and A Generation of Materialism, 1871-1900 , by Carlton J. H. Hayes [1963]. All by different authors, it can be imagined that the literary quality of these books is uneven. The Age of the Baroque, 1610-1660 and The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715 are very fine books. Many were also written even a couple of decades before the Sixties editions that I have. Some of the material might therefore be a little dated now; but there is also the virtue that these histories are going to be largely innocent of the brainless Marxism and the kinds of politically correct "race, class, and gender" analyses that have become popular in "post modern" academia.
On the internet, Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble genealogy is invaluable, and the lists of the Dukes of Lorraine and of several other German dynasties were originally compiled using little else. The only drawbacks are that (1) Thompsett's lists are, indeed, genealogical, which means it is sometimes hard to find unrelated rulers in a succession, and (2) the entries are very summary, without any explanation of may be happening as, for instance, domains are divided among multiple heirs. Some of these drawbacks can now be remedied with Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. Gordon's chronological lists are no help with genealogy, or with events, but do give all of the successors. Gordon also has a large bibliographical page. Now there is also WW-Person, A WWW Data base of European nobility, which combines genealogy with chronological lists. This site, however, sometimes returns blank pages, and not every chronological page includes a link to the corresponding genealogical page, which means a great deal of hunting around is sometimes necessary to find the genealogical connection, and usually there is even less in the way of additional information on a page than in Thompsett. Nevertheless, this site does have genealogy that is missing with Thompsett.
Many of these genealogical sources themselves go back to German Stammtafeln editions. Since I've been able to obtain several volumes of the recent Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte , revisions and additions have been proceeding based on this, as noted where applicable. This source includes Volume I, Parts 1 & 2, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs - und Grafenhäuser I & II [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997], Volume II, Parts 1 & 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs - und Fürstenhäuser I Westeuropa & II Nord-, Ost - und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 1, Third Edition, 2001, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997], and Volume III, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs - und Fürstenhäuser, Ergänzungsband [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Second Edition, 2001]. This is a marvelous resource, but stupefyingly dense and, of course, in German. I have also recently drawn on the Regentenlisten und Stammtafeln zur Geschischte Europas , by Michael F. Feldkamp [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 2002].
The maps are originally those of Tony Belmonte, edited to eliminate references to "Byzantium" and with corrections and additions. Tony's historical atlas (with Tony) has disappeared from the Web. It was painstakingly reassembled by Jack Lupic, but then his site has disappeared also. Corrections and additions are based on The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1961), The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1992), The Penguin Atlas of Modern History (to 1815) (Colin McEvedy, 1972), The Penguin Atlas of Recent History (Europe since 1815) (Colin McEvedy, 1982), The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1974), The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume II (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1978), The Times Concise Atlas of World History (edited by Geoffrey Barraclough & Geoffrey Parker, Hammond Inc., Times Books Ltd., 1982, 1988, 1993, 1996), and various prose histories. My graphics programs do not seem to be quite as sophisticated as Tony's, so maps I have modified may not look as professionally done as his originals.
The flags are also based on several sources. Flags Through the Ages and Across the World , by Whitney Smith [McGraw-Hill, 1975], is a splendid book, as is The International Flag Book in Color , by Christian Fogd Pedersen, Wilhelm Petersen, and Lieu.-Commander John Bedells, Hon. F. H.S., R. N. [William Morrow & Company, 1971]. These books were originally recommended to me by Professor Norman Martin, for whom I was a teaching assistant at the University of Texas. Besides being a professor of philosophy (logic), computer science, and electrical engineering, Professor Martin was expertly knowledgeable about flags and military uniforms. More recent developments are covered by Flags, The Illustrated Identifier to flags of the world , by Eve Devereux [Chartwell Books, 1994, 1998]. I have been unable to reproduce some flags with complete accuracy, given the limitations of my graphics programs and artistic ability. On the Internet, almost all flags can be found at Flags of the World, with considerable history and discussion of each.
The Merovingian Franks, 447-751.
The Franks [ ] are not nomads, as some barbarians are, but their politeia [ , res publica ] and laws are modeled on the Roman pattern, apart from which they uphold similar standards with regard to contracts, marriage and religious observance. They are in fact all Christians and adhere to the strictest orthodoxy. They also have magistrates in their cities and priests and celebrate the feasts in the same way as we do; and, for a barbarian people, strike me as extremely well-bred and civilized and as practically the same as us except for their uncouth [ , barbarikòn ] style of dress and peculiar [ , idiázon ] language. I admire them for their other attributes and especially for the spirit of justice and harmony which prevails amongst them.
Agathias of Myrina (c.532-c.582 AD), Histories , 1.2.3-5, quoted by Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic, People and Power in New Rome [Harvard University Press, 2015, pp.67 & 222], cf. Gibbon on the "Greeks"
The foundation of Frankish power, and of the future identity of Francia, was laid by Clovis ( Chlodwig , whose name independently, by way of Ludwig , also gives us the modern names "Louis" and "Lewis"). Some Franks had long been living in Roman territory. After the Caesar and future Emperor Julian defeated them in 358, he had settled some on the left bank of the Rhine as foederati of Rome. As the Western Empire collapsed, they expanded slowly at first. Then Clovis not only occupied northern Gaul (486), absorbed the Alemanni (505), and defeated the Visigoths (507), but actually converted to orthodox Catholicism, making the Franks the first major German tribe to accept the spiritual authority of the Roman Church (others were Arian Christians) and so, as the closest Patriarch, the Pope in Rome itself. This was later viewed as a portent for Frankish greatness, and it was later believed that a vial of oil descended from heaven to anoint and sanctify Clovis as King. The thus "anointed" Kings of France later stoutly maintained that their authority was directly from God, without the mediation of either the Emperor or the Pope (both of whom had different ideas).
The division of the Kingdom, in time honored Germanic fashion, between the four sons of Clovis, fragmented Frankish power and slowed its growth. In the table above, sub-domains are abbreviated, "Aus" for Austrasia, "Neu" for Neustria, and "Bur" for Burgundy. After the conquest of the Thuringians (531), the Burgundians (534), Provence (536), and the Bavarians (555), there was little expansion of the Kingdom for the remaining period of the Merovingian Dynasty. As external threats appeared, like the inroads of Islâm from Spain, power began to pass to the Mayors of the Palace like Charles Martel, who retroactively can be called "Carolingian," though this, of course, is to name them after Charlemagne, who hasn't lived yet.
Since the Merovingian dynasty had been hallowed by time, and the kingship was consequently not thought of as elective, a change of dynasty was not a step to be undertaken lightly -- but the last King is so ephemeral that it is not even certain who his parents were. Beginning as full pagans, the Merovingians maintained an aura of the numinous and divine. They wore their hair long, and this became a characteristic of their status. The Carolingians had a great deal to overcome in replacing them. Getting the sanction of the Pope helped, though this might dangerously imply a Papal derivation of royal authority.
Curiously, now that the Merovingians are as long gone and forgotten as anything in history, their numinosity has been revived: It is already a matter of popular culture, thanks to a book, a mystery novel, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown [2003]. There we get the story that traditional Christianity has perpetrated a fraud. The truth is that Jesus wasn't God, that he married Mary Magdalene, and that they had children who subsequently became, or married, the Merovingian Kings. This "bloodline" was the true meaning of the Holy Grail (Sang Real, "royal blood," instead of San Greal). In bringing the Holy Grail to Gaul and Britain, Joseph of Arimathea was not bringing a cup or bowl, as is the old Grail legend, but Mary Magdalene herself. This "bloodline" story now seems to be a popular take on the Grail legends.
As part of a story that debunks traditional Christianity, the "bloodline" legend curiously and ironically implies that there is some mystical quality or status to the descendents of Jesus and Mary, as though they are the proper rulers of France or the world ("her family's rightful claim to power," in Brown's words), or at least numinous authorities in true religion, like the Imâms of Shi'ite Islâm. Either way, it would put the Merovingians in a very different light. Without this mystical quality, or without an ideology of the Divine Right of Kings, it is not clear why the "bloodline" is important, except as a historical curiosity.
Even if Jesus was married and had children, it is not obvious why this would prevent him from being the Savior and the Son of God -- though when Brown says that Jews in his day were expected to marry, this is false, since we know of virtual monasticism among the Essenes . The evidence for any of this, however, is slim to none; and Brown's clear ignorance of the Jewish sects and their practices at the time of Jesus does not inspire confidence.
Part of the argument is the importance given to Mary Magdalene in the Gnostic Gospels, but then their interpretation is ambiguous and disputed -- and they mention no children. The Merovingian Kingdom itself is fully part of the Dark Ages. Its history is thinly documented and obscure. Where the "bloodline" legend depends on Merovingian marriages, the marriages are in fact very poorly attested. While there may be some historical information on descendants of the Merovingians, people who would continue the "bloodline," I haven't noticed any in reputable sources.
This is especially striking in relation to the Carolingians. The long years of association between the Merovingian Kings and the Carolingian Mayors of the Palace should have resulted in some intermarriage -- it would have at any other point in European history -- but I do not see anything of the sort in, for instance, the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte . The absence of information, of course, makes it possible to claim anything, or to imagine possibilities and become convinced of their truth. If the Merovingians were indeed the family of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, it does seem like they should have behaved in some way different from other Dark Age German tribal rulers. It isn't discernable that they did. They were better at killing and conquest (for a while), but this might not be the difference we would expect.
The "bloodline" legend continues with the idea that Godfrey (or Godefroi) of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade and first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was himself a descendant of the Merovingians, specifically of Dagobert II. Brown even identifies Godfrey as a "King of France." Unfortunately for our confidence in Brown's scholarship, already shaken, Godfrey was not a King of France (that would have been the Capetian Philip I), simply the Duke of Lower Lorraine. There is no evidence that Godfrey was of royal descent, or, for that matter, that there were any descendants of Dagobert II at all -- the Merovingian succession passes to his cousins, even as some writers remarkably seem to think he was the last Merovingian.
All in all, much of the "bloodline" legend, including unattested genealogies of the Merovingians, apparently is the fraudulent invention of a single crackpot French anti-Semite and monarchist named Pierre Plantard (d.2000), who finally had to admit before a French judge in 1993 that he had made it all up. The implication that the "bloodline" descendants ought to be the Kings of France is perfectly consistent with this, and perhaps Plantard expected himself to be recognized as a Merovingian, and to be offered the Throne, which he would then humbly accept. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the wild claims now have taken on a life of their own, with the eagerness of the modern atheist and conspiracy theorist to discredit all things Christian. At the same time, this has all made the fortune of Dan Brown, whose financies suffer not the least from the problems with his stories.
These tables are based on Edward James, The Franks [Basil Blackwell, 1988], and Patrick J. Geary, Before France & Germany [Oxford U. Press, 1988]. Merovingian genealogy is also covered in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte , Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs - und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997].
The Carolingian Franks, 628-1005.
CAROLINGIAN MAYORS, KINGS, & EMPERORS.
Burgundy, Italy, & Empire.
The Lombards would not stay defeated, and Pepin's son Charles eventually had to conquer them and annex their kingdom (774). His conquest of the pagan Saxons (782-804) and expansion in other directions began to turn the Frankish Kingdom into a superstate. This gave Charles and the Pope ideas, especially when the Empress Irene deposed and blinded her son, Constantine VI, in 797, assuming sole rule: the first time a woman ruled Romania in her own name. The Westerners were little disposed to regard a woman as a legitimate emperor -- women could not rule in the law of the Salic Franks (hence the "Salic Law" against female succession). So, on Christmas Day in the year 800 (this may actually mean 799 -- when 800 began is a little fluid), the Pope crowned Charles Roman Emperor, taking for himself a role and an authority that he had never had anything to do with before. In taking the title from the Pope, Charles (now "the Great," "Carolus Magnus," or "Charlemagne") fatefully assumed both pretensions, to Empire, and an obligation, to Popes, that would prove a source of endless dispute, grief, and hybris in the future.
In the tables of rulers an icon is used of an imperial crown with a yellow nimbus: . This indicates Emperors crowned by the Pope. This is not used in the genealogical tables until the German Emperors, since it is only then that we begin to speak of "Emperors" even if they were never crowned by the Pope. This is discussed below. While Charlemagne probably was not going to think of the Imperial dignity as contingent on the approval of the Pope, this is how the matter developed, in line with increasing claims of Papal authority.
While Charlemagne himself supposedly never quite learned to read and write, there was a revival of learning at his Court, enough to earn the characterization "Carolingian Renaissance." One permanent effect that could not have been anticipated at the time is that when printing was invented centuries later in the actual Renaissance (1440's), the uncial characters written in the Carolingian period would be adopted as the font for lower case letters (minuscules) in printing, while block Latin characters became upper case letters (majuscules). Written characters as they actually developed during the Middle Ages are now dismissed as "Gothic" and used only for special purposes -- although they were widely used in Germany ( Fraktur ) until recently.
While aspects of the Carolingian Renaissance look ahead to the future, other things remind us that the decline from Rome hasn't quite bottomed out yet. One of these was the coinage introduced by Charlemagne. This consisted of two coins, a silver denarius and half-denarius, the obolus -- which see at left in their later, British, copper versions. The most obvious and important thing about this, symbolic and substantive, is that both gold and copper coinage is missing. The lack of the former means that large capital transactions don't exist, and of the latter that a cash economy simply doesn't exist either for the daily life of most people. A cash economy, indeed, had been collapsing, in a wave spreading from West to East, since the 5th century. Nevertheless, German states, like Lombardy, had maintained a gold coinage. What finally drove things down to the bottom was the Arab Conquest, which crippled or destroyed trade in the Mediterranean, as this had been carried on by Romania. In Charlemagne's world, Francia was cut off from most international trade, in an economy of subsistent agriculture and taxes in produce and labor. Neither serious nor trivial money was necessary. With Charlemagne's coins, the denarius borrows its name from the silver coin of the early Empire, which had long been debased to nothing, while the obolus was originally a division of the Athenian drachma. The standard gold coin, the "dollar of the Middle Ages," had been the Roman solidus , which was minted without debasement from the days of Constantine until the reign of the Emperor Michael IV, in Constantinople, in the 11th century. There were supposed to be 12 denarii of Charlemagne for one gold solidus from Romania (i. e. 12d = 1s, twelve pence to a shilling). A practical gold coinage would not be revived in Francia until the 13th century.
Athough Charlemagne's obolus was soon forgotten, the denarius long survived, as the denier in France until the French Revolution. A different word was used in the Germanic languages, penny in English and Pfennig in German. The English penny was the direct descendant of the Carolingian denarius until, of all things, 1970. The character, history, and values of these coins and their successors is examined elsewhere.
The breakup of Charlemagne's kingdom was fateful to the history of Western Europe for centuries to come. Although soon surrounded by independent Christian states, in Britain and Ireland to the northwest, Spain in the southwest, Hungary and Poland in the east, and the Scandinavian states in the north (i. e. the Periphery of Francia), the Frankish kingdoms remained the central tentpole (we might even say the axis mundi ) of European politics ( axis Franciae ). As neat halves of Charlemagne's empire eventually formed, France in the West and Germany in the East, the stage for the greatest battles of modern war in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries would be set along the seam, from Nieuwpoort (1600) to Ramillies (1706), Waterloo (1815), Verdun (1916), and the Bulge (1944).
sack of Ostia & Rome by the Aghlabids, 846.
Charles the Bald and Louis the German combined against their brother Lothar to produce a more equal division of the Empire. They defeated him in 841 and then pledged a common front against him with the Oaths of Strasbourg in 842. The Oaths provide us with one of the most striking documents of European history. Charles and Louis each swore their Oath in the spoken language of the domain of the other , and then the retainers of each swore an oath in their own language to honor the Oaths even if their own ruler broke them. I give the oaths sworn by the retainers below. The text derives from the historian Nithard (790-845), who of course was writing otherwise in Latin, where Charles is Karolus , Louis Lodhuvicus and Lothar Lodharius .
siege of Paris, 885-886, plunder of Burgundy , 886;
Charles discredited, deposed, 887.
Italy & Emperor, 896-899.
The text and translation here are taken off Wikipedia, which does not credit the original translator. It was frustrating over the years to have European history books that would talk about the Oaths but then not quote them in the original languages.
Soon enough this combination led to a settlement, the Treaty of Verdun (843), heavy with portent for the future. The division was equal enough, Charles the Bald in the West ( Francia Occidentalis ), Louis the German in the East ( Francia Orientalis ), and Lothar in the Middle and South ( Francia Media ). The domain of Charles would become France, and that of Louis Germany. It was a while, however, before the arrangement would evolve into such modern identities. All Charles and Louis were really doing was enforcing the ancient Frankish rules of succession. It need not have been permanent, as indeed it would not look to be when Charles III reunited nearly the whole Empire. His incompetence, however, allowed the reassertion of the centrifugal forces already evident at Strasbourg.
Italy and Burgundy were prestigious possessions for Lothar, but they were not centers of Frankish power, and the northern area looks precariously and ominously sandwiched between the compact realms of his brothers. This turned out to be especially unfortunate when Lothar not only predeceased his brothers by a good margin but left behind him his own problem of multiple sons. Natural fragments were distributed between them. Louis, who now became the Emperor Louis II, needed to have Rome and so received Italy. Charles got Burgundy, and Lothar got the rest, i. e. that precarious northern area, with which Lothar's name was now permanently associated: It became Lotharingia , reduced to Lothringen in German and Lorraine in French (and, usually, English).
None of the sons of Lothar I managed to outlive their uncles. But the older men pounced even while the Emperor Louis II still lived, dividing Lorraine between them and depriving Louis of part of Burgundy. All of Lorraine and Burgundy, of course, should have reverted to him. This reveals the relative strength of the Western and Eastern Frankish kingdoms, and the persistent ruthlessness of Charles the Bald and Louis the German. When the Emperor Louis then died, Charles got into Italy, to Rome, and to the Imperial crown first.
Charles the Bald and Louis the German did not last long after the death of the Emperor Louis II. Germany was divided between three brothers, and the West Frankish kingdom, after the brief reign of Louis (II) the Stammerer, passed to his two young sons. Again, this was bad news for the strength and stability of the Frankish realm. Italy ended up in the hands of one of the German heirs, Charles the Fat, who attained the Imperial honor after a brief hiatus (877-881). Meanwhile, part of Burgundy had been detached by a son-in-law of the Emperor Louis II. It is a sad comment on the state of the Carolingian dynasty that Charles the Fat should have ended up as the most vigorous and successful member of his generation.
defeat of Charles, sack of Paris, 845.
Meanwhile, Burgundy and Italy spun off to more local Carolingian in-laws, among whom the title of Emperor was passed around for a time. After Berengar (I of Italy), however, the title simply lapsed. Since the Popes could have bought some influence with an Imperial coronation, it is a good question why they stopped bothering. There was thus an Imperial interregnum from 922 to 962.
With the last of the main lines of the Carolingians, one connection that intrigued me involved the sister of Otto of Lorraine. Most histories don't even show a sister (if they even show Otto), but she originally came to my attention in From Scythia to Camelot by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor [Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 1994, p.298]. Littleton and Malcor identify her as "Irmengard," who married Albert of Namur. Their daughter, Hedwig, then marries Gerhard, Duke of Upper Lorraine; and their son, Dietrich, marries Gertrude, heiress of Flanders. Their descendants are subsequent Counts of Flanders. For some time this was the only source where I found this connection attested. Now, however, I have found it in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte , Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs - und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, p.64]. There the sister of Otto is given as "Adelheid," not "Irmengard," but the marriage to Albert, Count of Namur, is shown. Their daughter, Hedwig (with a question mark), is then shown on page 66, married to Gerhard of Lorraine, as in Littleton and Malcor.
Charles the Simple's most famous and important deed was to cede some land, which became Normandy, to the Norse chieftain Rollo in 911. This was also about the time that the last Carolingian in Germany, Louis the Child, died, and the Germans turned to Conrad of Franconian. That was the end of the Carolingians in East Francia. The nobility of Lorraine decided to uphold Carolingian legitimacy by attaching themselves to the Western kingdom; but soon it looked like West Francia would follow the East, when Charles, as much over his head as his cousin Charles the Fat had been, was deposed and Robert of Paris, Odo's brother, was elected. Robert was followed by his son-in-law, Rudolf of Burgundy, but then the West Franks turned to the Carolingians again, bringing Louis IV back from exile in England ("outre mer").
This started to look like Carolingians getting established again, since one of Louis's son, Charles, even became the ruler of the new "duchy" of Lorraine (no longer a separate kindom, and in fact now divided; the Carolingians got Lower Lorraine). But these were not strong rulers, and the monarchy itself was becoming weaker and weaker.
The Carolingians of Lorraine did not last much longer than the royal lines, though their blood continued in their in-laws among the local nobility, most importantly the house of Alsace, which succeeded to the Duchy of Lorraine and the County of Flanders.
The Carolingians of Lorraine were not alone as the last Carolingians. A line descended from Bernard, King of Italy, who had been killed in 818, became the Counts of Vermandois.
I was unaware of the descendants of Bernard of Italy until finding the book The Carolingians, A Family Who Forged Europe , by Pierre Riché [University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993, translated by Michael Idomir Allen from Les Carolingiens, une famille qui fit l'Europe , Hachette, 1983]. Brian Tompsett confirms the descent of the Counts of Vermandois as Carolingians, but WW-Person, A WWW Data base of European nobility does not. Riché ends the male descent of Vermandois with Herbert III of Vermandois, Herbert the Younger of Troyes, and Herbert of Meaux, which left Otto of Lorraine in place as the last Carolingian. However, both Tompsett and WW-Person list Stephen Count of Champagne, Meaux, and Troyes (Tompsett twice, as son of both Herbert the Elder and Herbert, Count of Meaux, identified as "Herbert the Younger"). Stephen beats out Otto.
But WW-Person shows Carolingian descent even beyond this, with descendants of Herbert III of Vermandois all the way down to the heiress Adelaide who marries Hugh, a son of King Henry I of France. There is also a line shown of Counts of Soissons, beginning with Guy I, given as a brother of Herbert III. This also ends with an heiress named Adelaide. If this is all correct, then the Carolingians continue for a century longer than I would have previously thought.
I have now been able to compare this previous information with the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte , Volume II, Part 1, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs - und Fürstenhäuser I Westeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 1, Third Edition, 2001]. The Carolingian descent is confirmed. Guy I of Soissons is given, but with a note of uncertainty. Most importantly, many more descendants of Adelaide and Hugh the Great are given, including Capetian Counts of Vermandois down to 1214.
The many heiresses in this diagram, of course, continue Carolingian descent through their marriages, especially to the houses of Anjou, Flanders, and Blois. Descendants of all of these marriages continue until the present day.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 Kelley L. Ross, Ph. D. Todos os direitos reservados.
FRANCIA AFTER THE CAROLINGIANS.
Francia after the Carolingians most importantly means political divisions much more permanent and significant than the earlier ones. Of all those, the division at the death of Lothar I in 855 produced large elements that define much of what happens in later Mediaeval history.
FRANCIA OCCIDENTALIS,
The western part of the great Frankish kingdom is the domain to which the Frankish name ended up sticking, as "France" -- even rendered faithfully as Frankreich in German. There is some irony in this, since the Germanic Franks there came to speak the local Romance language, descended from Latin, a language which then took its name, like the kingdom, from the Franks, as Français ("French" in English).
forfeit, 1202; Battle of.
Bouvines, fiefs north of.
Loire secured, 1214;
1229; Sixth Crusade,
abandons claims outside.
1259; Seventh Crusade,
Louis dies, 1270.
Jacques de Molay,
tortured & burned, 1314.
heavy rain for five.
years, famine, 1315-1320.
By the time the Carolingians died out and Hugh was elected, little remained of the Royal Domain but the miniscule Île de France . However, this was held together and, without succession problems, the Capetians settled into legitimacy and bided their time.
After Philip defeated John "Lackland" and his allies, including the Papal counter-Emperor, Otto (IV) of Brunswick, at Bouvines (1214), the English lost their possessions north of the Loire and thereafter steadily retreated in the south, until much diminished holdings were confirmed in 1259.
Meanwhile, Pope Innocent III had declared a "Crusade" against the heretical Cathari (or Albigensians) in the south of France (or Languedoc). One of the most infamous episodes of the Middle Ages, the Crusade was largely against and at the expense of the Count of Toulouse. In the settlement of 1229, much of the Count's land reverted to the Crown and his daughter and heiress, Joanna, married a son of Louis VIII. When they died without issue, all of Toulouse reverted to the Crown. Meanwhile, much of the distinctive and thriving Provençal culture had been destroyed.
The map above gives dates at least by which the indicated territories, those of England and of Toulouse, were recovered by the Crown. The boundaries south of the Loire should be taken as approximate, since I find disagreements in my sources -- at best an indication that boundaries were often redrawn during the period, at worst that they are not well understood. The second map shows the vast domains conferred on the brothers Charles and Alphonse of Louis IX. Charles acquired Provence by his marriage, and the conquered much in Italy by invitation of the Pope.
The success and prestige of Louis IX was matched only by his reputation for holiness, which won him canonization as early as 1297. His life ended, however, on one of his ill-advised and unsuccessful Crusades. Soon a very different kind of King was on the Throne: Philip (IV) "the Fair." Both the ruthlessness and success of Philip were extraordinary. The Crusading Order of the Knights Templars, who had essentially become bankers, was destroyed, its wealth seized, and its members tortured and judicially murdered (1307-1314). Meanwhile, Pope Boniface VIII had been asserting the strongest claims yet of Papal supremacy and power. Philip sent agents to capture and humiliate the Pope, who then died (1303). The election of a French Pope then led to the relocation of the Papacy to Avignon (1309) and the beginning of the "Babylonian Captivity" (1309-1377), during which few were deceived that the Popes had essentially become agents of the French Crown.
If the crimes of Philip IV merited divine retribution, this was visited only in the form of the extinction of his heirs, at least the male heirs. Thus, following the Salic Law, the French succession eventually jumped to Philip's nephew, Philip (VI) of Valois. However, Philip IV had married Jeanne I, the Queen of Navarre, and his grand-
daughter, Jeanne II, inherited that Kingdom. Her descendants would eventually return to the Throne of France through the Bourbons. His daughter Isabelle, married to Edward II of England, would also be the ancestor of subsequent Kings of England. So divine retribution seems somewhat imperfect in this respect.
Meanwhile, however, other mischief had been done. The brothers of Charles V had all been given major Duchies to rule, and the Royal cousins in Burgundy soon proved themselves a Royal pain for the Monarchy, attempting to reconstruct Francia Media , often as allies of the English. There would be hell to pay for this; but, strangely enough, by the end of the Valois period France was larger and stronger than at the beginning. Even during the reign of Philip VI a major step was taken in chipping away at the Empire to the east. Later France would take most of the 18th century to acquire Alsace and Lorraine, but most of the Imperial Kingdom of Burgundy would be acquired by the reign of Henry IV (numbers in blue are the dates of acquisition by France). The greatest and most fateful early French acquisition was of the Dauphiné. In 1349 Count Humbert II (d.1355), the "Dauphin," simply sold the territory to the grandson of Philip VI, the prince who would later become Charles V. Thus, Charles became the first "Dauphin" of France, and as he was the Crown Prince from 1350-1364, this now became the traditional title of the Heir Apparent of France. For some time, however, the Dauphiné was still legally part of the Kingdom of Burgundy rather than France and was held as a personal possession by the Dauphin. The Emperor Charles IV was still formally crowned as King of Burgundy at Arles in 1365. When the future Louis XI acted somewhat too independently, however, Charles VII (1422-1461) formally annexed the Dauphiné to the Royal domain of France (1457). (Other details of this map are described in relation to the Counts & Dukes of Savoy.)
Amid all the setbacks of the Hundred Years War, this was a portent for the future. The biggest break came when Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was killed in 1477 and Louis XI was able to secure the return of large parts of the Burgundian domain to France, since the heiress Mary of Burgundy would not inherit under the Salic Law. Mary's husband, however, the Emperor Maximillian of Hapsburg, was going to contest this. He was successful in the return of the Free County (Franche Comté) of Burgundy, which was not a fief of France, and of Artois, which was. In fact, Flanders, which had always been a fief of France, was now lost forever. Later, Louis XIV got back the Free County and part of Artois but failed to secure more of what later became Belgium. The Hapsburgs became the principal enemy of France until 1756.
Other major fiefs accrued to the French Crown by the end of this period. After the deaths of René the Good (1480), whose male heirs had predeceased him, and of Charles III, René's nephew, Louis XI secured the return of the Duchy of Anjou, the County of Provence, and, according to some sources, the French part of the Duchy of Bar. Provence was not a fief of France but, like the Dauphiné, of the Kingdom of Burgundy; but René's grandfather, Duke Louis I, had it gotten from Joanna I of Anjou. René's heirs were left with the (Imperial) Duchy of Lorraine, the (Imperial) Duchy of Bar, and the County of Guise. Anne, heiress and Duchess of Brittany (1488-1514), married King Charles VIII in 1491 and then Louis XII in 1499. The understanding was that Brittany would be enfeoffed to a junior line; but after Anne's daughter Claudia (Claude) died in 1524, her husband, King Francis I, kept the Duchy and incorporated it into the Royal domain in 1532.
In 1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy in order to retrieve the Kingdom of Naples for France. The Anjevian line ruling Naples had died out in 1435, and while Queen Joanna II willed the country to Duke René the Good of Anjou and Lorraine, by 1442 it was in the hands of Alfonso V of Aragón. As the possessions of the House of Anjou fell to the French Throne in 1481, Charles decided to go after Naples, which had been left by Alfonso to his illegitimate son Ferdinand. Charles raised hell in Italy and managed to occupy Naples until being forced back in 1495. This brief episode, however, is often considered one of the events, like the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and Columbus's Discovery of America in 1492, marking the beginning of Modern History. It did this is in a double revelation: one that the Italian city states were so weak, and two that a national state like France had become so strong. It was the end of Mediaeval Italy. The sequel, however, was just as astounding: the French would be defeated by Spain, which in Charles's day had just managed to complete the Reconquista . But the matter was not settled easily.
St. Quentin, bankruptcy,
1557; Calais taken from.
English, 1558; Peace of.
Although the Orléans and Angoulême Kings are usually still considered part of the House of Valois, they were nevertheless more distantly related to the last Kings of the main succession than Philip VI was to the last Capetians. Francis I was only a third cousin of Charles VIII, marrying his second cousin, Claudia, the daughter of Louis XII. The House of Orléans was also descended from the Visconti of Milan, which helped motivate Louis XII's and Francis I's invasions of Italy, pursuing a claim to Milan. Louis's sister Marie married into the House of Foix and Navarre, but then his brilliant nephew, Gaston de Foix, was killed in what was actually a French victory at Ravenna in 1512. Amazingly, the many children of Henry II were mostly childless. This set the stage for a succession crisis with the largest element of civil war.
Following the precedent of Charles VIII, Louis XII invaded Italy again in 1499 to press his claim to Milan as well as to Naples. This was at first successful. The French held Milan 1499-1512. Louis then went on against Naples and obtained an agreement in 1500 to divide the Kingdom. But Ferdinand of Aragón was not going to leave that alone. He deposed his cousin, Frederick IV of Naples, in 1501 and then defeated the French at Garigliano in 1503. Louis was driven out of Italy altogether in 1512. When Francis I became King in 1515, he immediately invaded Italy again, defeating the Swiss, and occupying Milan (1515-1522, 1524-1525). French possession of Milan was confirmed by Spain with the Treaty of Noyon in 1516. However, the new King of Spain, Charles I (in 1519 Emperor Charles V), repudiated the Treaty. In 1525 Charles not only defeated but captured Francis at the Battle of Pavia. Francis agreed to the Peace of Madrid in 1526, was released, and immediately broke the treaty, as well as his parole, and went back to war. The mutinous Spanish army sacked Rome in 1527 (Pope Clement VII was allied to the French), Francis again occupied Milan in 1528, but then Charles crushed the combined French forces at Landriano in 1529. The French adventure in Italy, and one of the first great exercises in modern power politics, was largely over. There were, indeed, some further wars until the French defeat at St. Quentin in 1557 and Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, but this netted France only Calais and some toeholds in Lorraine (garrisons at Metz, Toul, & Verdun), not any gains in Italy (though Savoy was occupied, 1536-1559).
with the King's ring.
Meanwhile, Henry had had a number of children by his mistress, Gabrielle Estrées (d.1599). Gabrielle appears, together with her sister in their bath, in an intriguing painting in the Louvre. There are obscure allegorical features to this painting, but what probably catches the attention of the modern is that Gabrielle, who holds Henry's ring, is having her nipple pinched by her sister. It is not clear to me what contemporaries would have thought of this, or if the casual depiction of the women's breasts, let alone some sort of sexual contact, would have seemed improper.
Of all the royal succession crises in the history of France, the greatest was certainly the one that raged as the prospective death of Henry III would end the succession of the house of Angoulême. The famous "Three Henries" contending at the time were King Henry III, Henry Duke of Guise, the Candidate of the fire eating Catholics, and Henry of Navarre -- actually King Henry III of Navarre -- of the House of Bourbon and Vendôme, who was, most inconveniently for that era, a Protestant. Not just civil war was the problem, but invasion by Spain.
Since I have rarely come across the full illustration of Bourbon descent, it is given here. The line of the Kings of Navarre, although going all the way back to King Louis X of France, is given separately under Spain as a note on "The French Kings of Navarre."
Henry of Guise was of the house of Anjou and Lorraine, descendants of King John II of France. Henry of Navarre's connection was more distant, as the Dukes of Bourbon were descendants of King St. Louis IX, but their line was then more senior. The Catholics also put hope in Navarre's uncle, Charles the Cardinal of Bourbon, but he died just a year after the King. The line of the Bourbon House of Condé is continued in a separate popup.
Henry of Navarre had a much more immediate claim on the throne than Guise. His grandmother was a sister of King Francis I, so he was actually the second cousin of the Kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III, all brothers. Although the female connections couldn't pass muster of the Salic Law governing the French succession, the close relationships helped, as was confirmed when he married Margaret, sister of the then King Charles IX. But this reconciliation was followed shortly by the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when perhaps as many as 10,000 French Protestants were killed. Civil war raged again. In 1588, just as the Catholics and the Duke of Guise seized Paris and humiliated King Henry, the Duke and his brother, the Cardinal of Guise, were murdered on the King's orders. The King himself was then assassinated (1589), and Henry of Navarre became King, followed by a Spanish invasion of France.
Henry then suddenly (1593) disarmed the opposition by converting to Catholicism. Cynicism was widely suspected -- Paris vaut bien une messe , "Paris is worth a Mass" -- but the move was effective, especially as the opposition was seen as agents of Spain. A similar bon mot is attributed to Henry, although I am unable to verify it or even find an original version in French. This was supposed to have been Henry saying, "No believes that Elizabeth of England is a virgin, that the Archduke Albert is a good general, or that I am a Catholic." Whether or not this was really said by Henry, it should have been. Although Henry himself was subsequently assassinated, the Bourbons were firmly on the Throne -- until the fateful events of 1789. At the same time, theories exist that the assassination of Henry was arranged by the old Catholic faction, with the participation of no less than Queen Marie herself, who stood to rule, as she did, for many years as regent (1610-1617). Henry's cynicism, or pragmatism, or statecraft were not forgotten or forgiven. Yet, in the end, Marie was rebuked by her own son, Louis XIII, who allowed the full flood of Realpolitik of Richelieu.
Louis XIV, who completed and consolidated France's position, foreign and domestic, and under whom the prosperity, power, and splendor of the country, and his Court, became the envy and admiration of Europe, nevertheless began to dissipate and undermine these achievements, mainly through the series of incessant wars that he began in 1667 and that continued nearly to his death. These wars in fact resulted in permanent additions of territory to the Kingdom (and the installation of a Bourbon line in Spain), long the object of French policy, but the cost was permanent damage to the prosperity of the country and the finances of the government -- and Louis topped it off, forgetting raison d'état , by revoking the Edict of Nantes (1685) and expelling the Huguenots, who immediately added their considerable enterprise to his Protestant enemies.
Those who didn't live in the eighteenth century before the Revolution do not know the sweetness of living.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand - Périgord.
The France of Louis XV then had nothing like the position in Europe that Louis XIV had once had. Now England was waxing in power. French naval power and colonial possessions in America and India were permanently broken and subordinated in the Seven Years War (1756-1763). Meanwhile, Madame de Pompadour developed for the King a veritable production line of young mistresses, whom he would visit at the notorious "Deer Park" ( Parc aux Cerfs ), with their many bastards pensioned off.
The cost of the continuing wars was ultimately beyond the resources of the government, and the French Revolution began when Louis XVI merely called the Estates General to try and get more revenue (1789). New revenue there would be, the first example of national mobilization for total war, but Louis XVI would derive no benefit from it. Republican France then lept into European hegemony, of a kind that had not been seen in many centuries, perhaps not since Charlemagne, a precedent not lost on Napoleon. The opposition, however, still led by England, ground this down. The Bourbons were restored, to rather underwhelming enthusiasm. They could never again be accepted as truly representing the Nation, rather than an imposition on it. The "bourgeois" King, Louis Philippe, with the Liberal tradition of the House of Orléans behind him, was one way of trying to resolve this, but the Royal monarchy ended with its failure in 1848. The Pretenders to the French Monarchy are today still of the line of Orléans.
In the Court of Louis XVI was the court painter Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), one of the great artists of the day. Her portrait at left is of Charles Alexandre, Vicomte de Calonne (1734-1802). When I first saw this painting, it struck me that de Calonne was a dead ringer for political comedian Bill Maher, at right. Separated at birth? Reincarnation? Nunca se sabe. The nose and mouth are a little different.
Vigée Le Brun lived a long and fascinating life. Of humble origin, her talent vaulted her to the most rarified level of portrait painting. The patronage of Marie Antoinette herself made her the principle Court artist but also put her in danger once the Revolution started. More prudent than many others, including de Calonne, who died on the guillotine, Vigée Le Brun promptly decamped for Italy, where her ability continued in demand. She then moved on to St. Petersburg, to similar success. Returning to France under Napoleon, she did a fine portrait of one of Napoleon's sisters but otherwise did not seem to be a favorite, or perhaps a fan, of the Bonapartes. Her long life left a body of hundreds of extraordinary images of her contemporaries.
The French Revolution had two major unexpected results, the Reign of Terror and the dictatorship of Napoleon. Thomas Jefferson thought that the violence might actually be worth it, if only one man and woman were left, to get rid of the Old Regime. However, he then realized that the power of the Terrorists was not, after all, being used for any worthy end. Napoleon at first "saved the Revolution" but then produced his own version of the Old Regime. Beethoven, who had dedicated the Third Symphony to Napoleon, tore off the dedication and almost destroyed the whole work. It seems unlikely that the extraordinary dirge in the second movement was part of the original idea.
In 1803 Napoleon began handing out new Imperial Electorships to his supporters (e. g. Baden, Württemberg) in Germany, perhaps looking forward to being elected Holy Roman Emperor. However, his patience with this didn't last more than a year. He would have had a long time to wait, since the Emperor Francis II lived until 1835 (though, to be sure, he might have been deprived of his crown, or his life, a bit earlier if Napoleon had really wanted either). Instead, with the blessing, but not the authority, of the Pope, he crowned himself Emperor, as the new Charlemagne, in 1804. He soon abolished the old Empire (1806), gave his supporters elevated titles (Baden became a Grand Duchy, Württemberg a Kingdom, etc.), and established other monarchies, often for his relatives, in the territories brought under the control of France. The Revolution had already begun to radically transform the map of Europe, but under Napoleon especially the familiar boundaries of European states appeared to melt and run with an alarming fluidity and frequency.
The symbolism of the new tricolore flag of the Republic can have many explanations. However, one coincidence is that the three colors match the colors of the three principal dynasties in French history. The banner of Charlemagne and so the Carolingians was the red oriflamme . The Capetians may have begun with red, but blue became the background of their "Banner of France." Finally, the Bourbons quite formally and explicitly used white, even for military uniforms. It seems improbable that the Revolutionaries wanted a flag to commemorate the French monarchy, and they may have just liked the colors, but then the Kings had liked these colors also.
At right was see Thérèse Tallien (1773-1835, née Cabarrús) in the Greek revival clothing that soon became the Empire style of high waisted dresses. Tallien is a good representative of the influence of French woman on both culture and politics in both the Ancien Régime and the Revolutionary period.
1804-1814, 1815; last Emperor crowned by Pope, d.1821.
Second Empire, 1852-1870.
The 19th century image of Napoleon at right has the Emperor contemplating Charlemagne's Throne at Aachen, with Charlemagne's crown, the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which is of Byzantine form, on the seat [Henri-Paul Motte (1846-1922), Napoléon au trône de Charlemagne , "Napoleon at Charlemagne's Throne," 1898, detail]. Actually, this crown is either imaginary or a copy, since the original remained in the hands of the Hapsburgs. While Napoleon did explicitly see himself as Charlemagne's successor, it is not clear that this particular moment occurred. He abolished the Empire rather than arranging for his own election, as seemed likely for a while.
A memorable example of Napoleon's ruthlessness was his kidnapping and execution of the Duke of Enghien, the heir of the Bourbon House of Condé. Enghien was a young, handsome, appealing, and largely apolitical Royal, living quietly in neutral Baden (which was itself was made one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803). Frustrated over Royalist plots, Napoleon decided, or was misinformed, that Enghien was involved in them, and sent a force secretly to get him. Fetched to Vincennes, Enghien, after a perfunctory "trial," was shot and buried.
Even Napoleon, however, began to run up against the limits of French power. The British "nation of shopkeepers" frustrated him at sea and poured arms, money, and men into Spain to help in the 1808 national rising against the French -- something rather like the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. Looking to perfect his Continental boycott of Britain, Napoleon unfortunately (for him) turned on an uncooperative Russia. The size of Russia and the punishing winter (or, as it happens, just the autumn -- by December Napoleon was already back in France) destroyed Napoleon's Grande Armée . While the parallel with Hitler's invasion of Russia is oft noted, it is less often recognized that each of them, wanting to ultimately defeat Britain, nevertheless turned resources away from active combat with the British. In Napoleon's case this was in Spain, as in Hitler's it was in North Africa. The result in each case was to forfeit the Mediterranean theater of the general European War while taking on an impossible strategic task in Russia.
With everyone allied against Napoleon, and losing the "Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig in 1813, the collapse then came rapidly enough. Abdicating, Napoleon was unhappy as the Prince of Elba (1814-1815), tried to return to power, and was defeated at Waterloo after only 100 days. His few remaining days were then spent on distant St. Helena, dying in only his 52nd year (1769-1821).
In 1840 Napoleon's body was brought back from St. Helena and enshrined in the Hôtel des Invalides, Louis XIV's home for disabled veterans. Napoleon II, the "King of Rome," was only 21 when he died of tuberculosis. Buried with his Hapsburg family in Vienna, France vainly sought reburial with his father. This was finally effected, in a remarkable show of Imperial collegial affection, by no less than Adolf Hitler, who united son with father in December 1940.
New France (1605-1763) Louisiana (1699-1762, 1800-1803) Martinique (1635-present) Guadaloupe (1635-present) St. Martin (1648-present) St. Barthélemy St. Lucia (1650-1814) Haiti (1697-1804) French Guiana Algeria (1830-1962) Morocco (1912-1956) Tunisia (1881-1956) Syria (1920-1943) Lebanon (1920-1943) French West Africa (-1960) French Equatorial Africa (-1960) French Cameroon (1919-1960) Togo (1919-1960) French Somaliland (1891) Madagascar (1896-1960) Comoro Islands Réunion Island New Amsterdam Island St. Paul Island Kerguelen Islands French India Chandernagore (1673-1950) Yanam (Yanaon) (-1954) Pondicherry (1699-1954) Karikal (-1954) Mahé (-1954) French Indo-China Vietnam (1883-1954) Laos (1893-1954) Cambodia (1863-1954) French China Kwangchouwan.
The 19th century French colonial activity was mainly in Africa and East Asia. A fateful move came in 1830, when forces began to occupy Algeria, in great measure to end the piracy that had plagued the Mediterranean for decades. In time this led to the settlement of a French colonial population. A few French possessions on the coast of West Africa led, in the "scramble for Africa" in the 1880's to the huge domains of French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. Notions that these West African territories might be linked to French Somaliland led to the confrontation of an expedition under Jean Baptiste Marchand with the British at Fashoda in the Sudan in 1898. The British, however, had an army, Lord Kitchener's, on the spot, and there was little France could do.
Another focus of French activity was in Indochina. Involvement in Vietnam even at the beginning of the century was extended to control, not just over Vietnam but, at the expense of Siam, over Cambodia and Laos. This all would come to a catastrophic end at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
In the Pacific, France came into possession of the heart of Polynesia -- Tahiti and all the surrounding islands. When independence was offered in 1960, French Polynesia voted to remain part of France.
The New Hebridies had one of the most curious arrangements in all of imperialism, the Anglo-French "Condominium," or join rule. The islands became independent in 1980 as Vanuatu. Nearby New Caledonia remains part of France.
Some final additions to French possessions came with the end of World War I. The German colonies of Togo and Cameroon were both divided between Britain and France, with the French getting the larger shares (since Tanganyika went to Britain and Southwest Africa to South Africa). Similarly, the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement with Britain gave the French a free hand in Syria, which the British had taken from Turkey. The French regarded themselves as the particular protectors of Lebanese Christians. In 1920 they occupied all of Syria by force, and.
While French colonialism may have had less of the racism and racial separateness that now seem characteristic of British practice, it nevertheless was rather more intent on imposing French "civilization" and less tolerant of taking "no" for an answer -- while the British condescended to allow quaint native customs and institutions to survive, within limits. Thus, the French history with Syria contrasts with the British relationship to Egypt, where the British penchant for indirect rule reached its highest state (Egypt was thus never more than a British Protectorate, and that only from 1914-1922 -- the military occupation of 1882 had not ended de jure Ottoman suzerainty and the pretext of local Egyptian autonomy). France, to be sure, had tolerated the continuation of.
Overseas Territory, 1958-1960.
The Kings of Tahiti are from a website of Tatihian history by Christopher Buyers. The Kings of Madagascar are from the Oxford Dynasties of the World , by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002, p.237]. Although the names do not look very similar, the languages of Tahiti and Madagascar are actually, like Hawaiian, Malayo-Polynesian.
At left we have the French governors of Kwangchouwan (Kuang-chow-wan, Guangzhouwan, modern Chankiang or Zhanjiang), which France leased from China in 1898. This anchored the French sphere of influence and Treaty Ports in southern China. After the fall of France in 1940, the Governor placed his loyalty in the Free French. The Japanese weren't going to like that, but then it didn't make much difference anyway. The Japanese also occupied Vichy controlled territories, and eventually they got around to occupying Kwangchouwan. After the War, the city was simply returned to China. The list of Governors is from a page at the World Statesmen site.
A curious survival of French colonialism is the French Foreign Legion , the Légion Etrangère . This was formed in 1831, soon after the occupation of Algeria, and its headquarters remained in Algeria as long as that was a French possession. It is now based in the south of France, but with installations in French Guiana, Djibouti (no longer a French colony, but requiring French protection from claims by surrounding countries, Ethiopia and Somalia), and elsewhere. French nationals are not allowed to enlist in the Legion, although it is mostly commanded by French officers. Up to one hundred different nationalities are found among the men. Knowledge of French is not necessary, but the men are expected to learn French quickly, under the Legion's demanding instruction. On entering the Legion, one is given a new identity, and this has always meant that anyone with a criminal background could find sanctuary. A harsh kind of sanctuary, since enlistment is for five years, discipline is harsh, and the danger is considerable. France, even now, feels less concern about sending the Legion into dangerous situations, rather than French Army units consisting of French citizens. Historically, about 10% of the Legion have died in service. Although much of the 19th century romance of the Legion is associated with its desert duty in the Sahara (as in the many movie versions of the novel Beau Geste , 1926, 1933, & 1966, at least), its most famous battle has probably been the catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Nevertheless, now it has the reputation of an elite and tough unit without peer. It was among French forces in the Gulf War that liberated Kuwait. On completion of successful service, a Legionaire can return to his former national identity, or he can claim French citizenship under the new identity. Reenlistment and career service can lead to retirement at the Legion's own soldiers home.
The French Second Empire developed when Napoleon's nephew, Louis Napoleon, transformed himself from the President of the Second Republic to the Emperor of the Second Empire. Napoleon III's France was a much more conventional, politic, and durable state than Napoleon I's. Napoleon III ironically obtained territorial additions to France from his ally , Sardinia, after defeating their mutual enemy, Austria. He was even an ally of England in the Crimean War (1853-1856), though there was otherwise a great deal of friction with France's ancient enemy. In short, the Second Empire was no upheaval of Europe the way that the First Republic and the First Empire had been. The end of Napoleon III, however, was the consequence of Otto von Bismarck's plan for the coming German upheaval. Defeated by Prussia, Napoleon abdicated and left France to its fate, but at least his last years of exile, in England itself, were rather more comfortable and honorable than Napoleon I's had been; but his son, sadly, died fighting the Zulus in the British Army.
The Imperial crown for Napoleon is shown with an orange nimbus. This is to indicate that Napoleon was crowned by the Pope (Pius VII), as with the Mediaeval Emperors, but with the irregularity that it was not in Rome and, well, Napoleon actually took the crown out of the Pope's hands and crowned himself. This was to avoid the kind of claims that the Popes had made since Charlemagne, that the imperial title was the Pope's to bestow, but it was a bit gratuitous at a time when everyone knew that Napoleon was the kind of ruler who might have killed the Pope as easily as invited him to his nice coronation -- though at this point, to be sure, Napoleon was making a bid for legitimacy and trying to find a place for himself among the traditional families and authorities of Europe. By the time of Napoleon III, the Pope (Pius IX) was dependent on French troops holding Rome for him against the new Kingdom of Italy. When the French withdrew to fight Prussia in 1870, the Italians rolled in and made Rome the capital of Italy. This officially ended the existence of the Papal State, after 1114 years (756-1870). The Popes then regarded themselves as hostages in the Vatican until, of all people, Mussolini worked out a treaty in 1929 establishing the independence and boundaries of the Vatican City.
After Napoleon III allowed himself to be tricked into declaring war on Prussia, and then abdicated after disastrous defeat, France, although few would have guessed it at the time, was through with both Kings and Emperors. With the Third Republic, France settled in to a modern democratic normalcy. Eventually the great enemy even ceased to be England. A dangerous and aggressive unified Germany drew France into alliances with Russia and then England.
Unfortunately, the job would have to be done all over again, and France was not quite up to it. Defeatism and even Fascist sympathizers drained the élan vital that, in 1914, the French had once thought was all they needed to win wars. Enough it was not, but its absence altogether was disastrous. In 1940 Hitler accomplished the swift and crushing victory that the Kaiser had only dreamed about in 1914.
The humiliation and the mortification of the Germans marching into Paris was almost more than the French spirit could bear, but, what's worse, there were plenty who were more than happy to welcome Fascism and cooperate with the German occupation and the harrowing of the Jews. The old anti-Semitism that had once framed Alfred Dreyfus as a spy for Germany now joined with Germany to continue the project. The Free French of Charles de Gaulle, who used the "Cross of Lorraine" as their symbol, were almost an embarrassment. Indeed, when the British attacked elements of the French fleet in 1940, fearful that the Germans would gain control over them, many French may have remembered older fulminations about "perfidious Albion." But de Gaulle organized whole Free French units to fight with the Allies. They landed at Normandy and were later able to liberate Paris -- after the French had scuttled their own fleet in 1942 when the Germans moved to occupy all of France. With the Liberation, Vichi was gone and the French could rejoin the Allies as, more or less, equals -- although de Gaulle was really never treated as an equal, to his mortification. In the Allied propaganda poster at right, I have no difficulty making out the flags of Greece, Norway, Belgium, Poland and even Brazil and Mexico, but I don't think I see France.
Liberation was a confused combination of relief, joy, shame, and the dangerous temptation of a pro-Soviet French Communist Party. Disastrous defeat in Indo-China, another nasty war in Algeria, along with raging inflation, served to discredit the new Fourth Republic.
Leszek Ko akowski (1927-2009), Is God Happy? Selected Essays , Basic Books, 2013, p.47.
The tension over Algerian immigration, besides some inevitable cultural friction, has in great measure been the result of the high unemployment and poor to negative economic growth that have followed from the heavy burden of socialist economic policies. The 1990's (and now half the 2000's) were very nearly a decade that never happened for the French economy, despite all the fireworks over European unification and freer trade. This is perhaps France's greatest challenge today, a crushing tax burden (54% on as little as $45,000, plus 16% social security), labor unions that evidently would prefer a mediaeval guild system, and farcical policies like prohibiting people from working more than a certain number of hours (even for themselves). Ironically, the French seemed to like America best, despite their own socialist President Mitterrand, when Ronald Reagan was President, despite his standing for almost everything that France wasn't. While America had its Reagan, and Britain its Thatcher, France is still waiting for a leader who can save the country from itself. Meanwhile, the new woman to be chosen "Marianne," the symbol of France, model Laetitia Casta (as seen at right), immediately moved to Britain to avoid French taxes. Smart girl. French resistance and obstruction leading up to the American campaign against Iraq in 2003 has resulted in considerable anti-French feeling in the United States, probably matched by anti-American feeling in France. It would not be so bad if French foreign policy didn't look so much like it did in 1938 -- and if attacks against synagogues were not something considerably more frequent in France than in the United States. What is missing in contemporary France and Germany both is an appreciation for classical liberalism -- i. e. free markets as well as social tolerance. It is noteworthy that "liberalism" (or "neo-liberalism") is a bad word in nearly all fashionable ideology, whether derived from Hegel, Nietzsche, or Marx. Napoleon's contempt for Britain as a "nation of shopkeepers" continues today in countries that could stand a great deal more shopkeepers; but the French and Germans know that the "Anglo-Saxon" model of liberalism is what contradicts their stupefying socialist institutions. They resent and envy it even as they feel a moral superiority for their own circumstances, however awkward for them those are. Since nearly every evil of the 20th century resulted from a rejection of liberalism, this all reflects a continuing unwillingness to learn from history that is astounding in its obstinacy and folly.
Laetitia Casta represents something else of some danger to France. She is Corsican. Indeed, Napoleon's mother was named "Laetitia" also. Coriscan nationalism, or perhaps Italian irredentism as expressed by Corsicans (only part of France since 1768), simmers pretty constantly on the island, occasionally expressing itself in riots or minor terrorism, like Basque nationalism in Spain. Late in 2005 there were major strikes and riots on Corsica, which began with protests against the French government privatizing the ferry service that runs to the island, but quickly reached a severity out of proportion, even given the popularity of socialist principles, to such a proposal. As with similar ethnic separatism in Brittany, the French government is never in too tolerant a mood with such things, and any real autonomy or independence is probably beyond consideration.
In late March 2006 there were demonstrations in Paris, this time over a minor attempt by the government to reform labor law. The idea that workers younger than 26 might be fired without cause within the first two years of employment provoked great indignation, including sympathy strikes by transport workers across France. When general unemployment in France hovers around 10% and youth unemployment is something like 22%, this popular response to so timid a liberalization is a tragicomic tribute to the level of folly in French political culture. The socialist rejection of liberal economics is now so instinctive and fundamental to French identity that there is even a word for it, dirigisme , "interventionism." The word is related to the word "dirigible," from Latin dirigere , "to arrange, direct" (an so by implication, "steer"). We get the word "direct" from the participle. Indeed, an image of the Hindenberg might be apt for the French economy and society. The demonstrators know, of course, that the success of a small initial reform might lead to others, and others, and perhaps ultimately to an American free market in labor. They can't have that.
In 2007 we now get something (entirely?) different, the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, a "conservative" of Hungarian Jewish ancestry, as President of the Republic. However much a free market reformer or friend of America Sarkozy may prove to be, socialists, anarchists, and Muslim radicals immediately rioted. Always a hopeful sign. It will be nice if Sarkozy has the courage to deal both with the radicals and with the follies of the French economy and foreign policy.
As of 2012, although forming a united front with Germany for the European debt crisis, France has not done nearly as well as Germany in the areas of economic reform and performance. French unemployment remains high (9.9% in December 2011), and growth poor (1.5% for 2011), in contrast to Germany, where unemployment is way down and growth way up. This continuing stagnation has made Sarközy unpopular, although I do not know whether he really tried reforms and failed or just didn't try very hard. Nevertheless, if the Socialists are returned to power in the next election, we can only expect more of the same, with snide dismissals of the cruelty of Anglo-Saxon(-German?) liberalism. Or the Socialists may quietly do a Nixon-goes-to-China and follow Germany in supply-side reforms. That seems unlikely, as the Socialist candidate, François Hollande, has promised a 75% tax rate on the "rich" and publicly stated "We need more regulation everywhere," as though dirigisme were entirely new to him. Veremos.
Early in 2013, we are indeed beginning to see; and there is nothing of the "Nixon goes to China" about François Hollande. He is all about taxing and regulating, and the French economy has responded with unemployment up above 10% again. Meanwhile, actor Gerard Depardieu has left the country, quite openly to avoid the taxes. Premier Jean-Marc Ayrault faults Depardieu for lack of patriotism; but Depardieu thinks that enough is enough. At first the actor simply moved to Belgium; but his subsequent actions raise questions about his judgment in general, regardless of his patriotism. Russian semi-dictatorial President Vladmir Putin offered Depardieu Russian citizenship. He went for it, which may mean that he has not been following the news from Russia very closely, or that he is as brainless as a lot of other actors, at least outside his own finances.
By 2014, unemployment in France was above 11% and the Socialists began losing elections. According to some polls, Mr. Hollande had become the most unpopular President of the Fifth Republic -- with an approval rating down to 16% (cf. "Vive la Reine!" The Economist , June 14, 2014, p.47). He was forced to accept a new Government with more market friendly politicians. Perhaps in response, unemployment by June of 2014 has dipped below 10% -- although back up again later in the month. This is an extraordinary business considering the lack of popularity of Capitalism in France, as we have seen above ("A bas le capitalisme!").
There is a reason the most passionate foes of income inequality tend to be very affluent but not super rich, intellectuals like Paul Krugman and other journalists eager to set the threshold for confiscatory tax rates just beyond their own income levels.
Piketty's argument. is a warrant to empower those who think they are smarter than the market -- and who feel superior to those most richly rewarded by it.
Jonah Goldberg, "Mr. Piketty's Big Book of Marxiness", Commentary , July/August 2014, p.29.
The experience of Mr. Hollande is cold comfort for the Left in the United States. In the anti-American universe, the French are the good guys and know what they're doing. The persistent high unemployment and poor growth of the French economy, even before Mr. Hollande, is systematically ignored. But Hollande's experience has to be particularly galling, since we can say that he was doing no more than following the advice of French economist Thomas Piketty .
The American Left (and even the Papacy) has been getting the vapors over Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century [in English, Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2014 -- Le capital au XXIe siècle , Seuil, 2013], which feeds their craving for high taxes, big spending, and big "redistributionist" government. Piketty's thesis fits in with the current Democrat Party Line that "income inequality" is the bane of the age -- a claim voiced by Barack Obama himself. Piketty, who evidently has not even left Paris in years (like Kant in Königsberg), argues that over time return on capital has outstripped the income of workers. So we have the Marxist thesis that the rich are getting richer, at least relative to everyone else. This should be corrected with something like an 80% income tax on high incomes and even a world-wide "wealth" tax on the general holdings of the rich. In its own way, compared to proper Marxism, these are modest proposals. That Mr. Hollande set out to put something of the sort into practice, almost contemporaneous with the publication of the book in France, to disastrous results, is equally disastrous to the whole Leftist worldview -- although the logical connection between Hollande and Piketty has not been highlighted in American public discourse, even by free market commentators.
But everyone should know that the evidence has long been in already. As noted, high taxes in France, and high unemployment, did not originate with Mr. Hollande. In the United States, high unemployment and poor growth have similarly characterized "Blue" States like New York, California, and New Jersey, while low unemployment, good growth, and substantial job creation have characterized low tax "Red" States like Texas and the Dakotas. Indeed, Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder recently cited statistics showing that income inequality , supposedly the fruit of laissez-faire capitalism,
Thomas Sowell, "Random thoughts on the passing scene," May 27, 2014.
Piketty's thesis that return on capital has increased has itself been disputed [Martin Feldstein, "Piketty's Numbers Don't Add Up," The Wall Street Journal , May 14, 2014], although even if Piketty were correct, the proper response should be "So what?" or even "Good!" By wishing to turn capital into politically distributed income, Piketty demonstrated a lack of understanding of what capital is even for.
Thomas F. Cooley and Lee E. Ohanian, "The Bush Tax Cuts Never Went Far Enough," The Wall Street Journal , Wednesday, December 8, 2010.
It remains to be seen whether the French will ever become sufficiently disillusioned with the follies evident in François Hollande and Thomas Piketty. In the United States, where there is fierce resistance to such ideas, and palpable evidence of their failures (e. g. Detroit), along with examples of the success of the free market, it is noteworthy that American intellectuals continue to be seduced by ideas from Europe that not only are anti-American in effect, but that tend to become discredited in Europe just as their American disciples get excited about them. The black and white color of most American police cars, derived from the heraldric colors of the Prussian police state, remain as enduring testimony to the poor judgment of 19th century American "reformers" who introduced police forces into the United States, which now have taken on the appearance of armies of occupation -- with drug raid SWAT teams throwing incendiary grenades into baby cribs.
Sohrab Ahmari, The Weekend Interview with (French Prime Minister) Manuel Valls, "France's Anti-Terror, Free-Market Socialist," The Wall Street Journal , February 28-March 1, 2015.
In one area Mr. Hollande has surprised us. French forces have intervened in Mali to prevent a Jihadist takeover of the country and recover lost territory for the government. After liberating Timbuktu, it became evident that the Jihadists had been destroying the Mediaeval libraries preserved in the city. There had already been some evidence that this had been happening. Since these libraries were treasures of Islamic Civilization, this again exposes the ignorance, barbarity, and savagery of the Islamist movement. The French have also sent forces to some other African countries, perhaps in part conscious of their lack of action during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
In January 2016, François Hollande announced that France was in a state of "economic emergency." Indeed, France was facing an "uncertain economic climate and persistent unemployment," and there was an "economic and social emergency." The French unemployment rate is 10.6%, against a European Union average of 9.8% and 4.2% in Germany.
Our country has been faced with structural unemployment for two to three decades and this requires that creating jobs becomes our one and only fight.
This sounds like the first time that Hollande has noticed that employment in France has been a problem for "two or three decades" -- more like three or four, if not more. His big plan when coming to power, to raise taxes and crush the rich, not only didn't do any good but was not so different from the policies of the previous "two or three decades." High taxes and the stifflying regulations of dirigisme have been the French way for a long time.
Hollande may have given up on taxes, but his ideas are still all about spending. Thus, he wants to spend Ђ2 billion for "job creation." Smaller businesses will get subsidies for hiring, and money will go into "vocational training." This is the sort of thing that has already never worked anywhere. French businesses, large and small, will hire again when French labor law is liberalized, so that people can be fired as well as hired, and when businesses can invest and benefit from their profits without the government looting it. Hollande doesn't seem to understand this sort of thing, or intend to do anything about it. The Japanese recently have been talking a good game about reform but also have been doing nothing that has made any difference -- except making things worse by raising taxes. Hollande at least may have understood that raising taxes again will not help, and his spending plans will supposedly be financed by cuts elsewhere, although governments have generally looked to borrowing rather than any spending cuts -- that would be "austerity."
Alain Juppé, former Prime Minister, 2016.
As France plays out this tragedy, with the added problem of rampant murderous terrorists, American Democrats are still falling all over themselves proposing higher taxes and more regulation in the United States. As we know, every social and economic evil is because the government isn't spending enough money, is not controlling business and finance strongly enough, and is not taking enough money away from those evil capitalists and corporations. All the new spending, regulation, and taxation since 2008 apparently just isn't enough. More is always needed. And to justify this, the Democrats keep looking to Europe (or Cuba) as the shining City on the Hill, with all the practices that we should seek to emulate. Chances are, they tuned out Hollande's confession of "economic and social emergency." If they admitted that the French socialist "way" has failed, their whole world would collapse -- except for Cuba.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 Kelley L. Ross, Ph. D. Todos os direitos reservados.
FRANCIA MEDIA.
The central kingdom of the Emperor Lothar I did not survive him. Divided between his three sons, each part went its separate way. All, as it happened, end up for a while in the hands of the German Emperors, but only parts of Lower Lorraine are today part of Germany,
FRANCIA MEDIA, BURGUNDY.
"Burgundy" is a name that has applied to many things. In his The Holy Roman Empire [1904, Schocken Books, 1961, 1964], James Bryce lists ten different applications. Bryce's list of ten Burgundies has been expanded to fifteen by Norman Davies, in the Burgundy chapter, "Burgundia: Five, Six or Seven Kingdoms ( c. 411-1795)" in Vanished Kingdoms, The Rise and Fall of States and Nations [Viking, 2011, p.143]. The five extra domains identified by Davies are shown below as sub-entries under Bryce's list. Note that in the schematic at right, the Duchy of Burgundy is not shown because is was part of Francia Occidentalis, while, inconsistently, Switzerland beyond the Reuss is shown, even though it was part of Francia Orientalis.
The Kingdom of the German tribe of Burgundians , regnum Burgundorum . They were important players in the last days of the Western Roman Empire, but were then conquered by the Franks. It is possible to define two separate Kingdoms of the tribe in Roman territory. The first was established around Worms ( Borbetomagus ) on the Rhine, after the Burgundians crossed the frozen river on 1 January 407 with the Vandals, Suevi, and (the Iranian) Alans. This was eliminated by the Romans in 437.
Soon, however, in 443, lands were granted in Sapaudia (Savoy), the tribe was accepted as Roman foederati , and a substandial Kingdom grew up around it, until the Frankish conquest in 532. This Kingdom was not only more durable, but its territory defined the heartland upon which most subsequent forms of Burgundy were based.
The Merovingian Kingdom of Burgundy, regnum Burgundiae , one of the divisions of the larger Merovingian Frankish domain. This was shuffled around with Austrasia and Neustria, the other divisions, among the merry-go-round of Merovingian heirs. As founded by Gunthchramn (St. Guntram, Guntramnus) in 561, this Burgundian domain briefly dominated Francia and began to look like it would develop into an independent Kingdom. However, the line of separate heirs died out in 613, and Burgundy passed to the vigorous Chlothar II, whence it continued down the main line of Merovingian succession.
The Kingdom of Lower Burgundy or Provence, regnum Burgundiae seu Provinciae , resulting from the breakup of the Carolingian Kingdom, shown as follows. Sometimes inaccurately called "Cisjurane" Burgundy.
The Kingdom of Upper Burgundy or "Jurane" Burgundy, regnum Jurense . Although also called "Transjurane Burgundy," Burgundia Transiurensis , the Kingdom actually straddled the Jura Mountains, which now form the border between France and Switzerland. Yes, the Jurassic Period is named after the Jura Mountains.
The Kingdom of Burgundy , Arles or the Arelate, regnum Burgundiae , regnum Arelatense . This was the result of the union of Lower and Upper Burgundy, shown as follows.
A distinct phase of the Arelate can be identified in the form and the history of the Kingdom after.
The Lesser Duchy of Burgundy, Burgundia Minor , or klein Burgund , also called the "Duchy of the House of Zähringen." This was essentially modern Switzerland west of the river Reuss, excluding Geneva and French speaking Valais (the Rhône below Sion to Lake Geneva), and would most properly be "Transjurane" Burgundy, on the east side of the Jura Mountains. Bryce says that it "disappears from history after the extinction of the house of Zähringen in the thirteenth century" [p.464]. However, Zähringen holdings extended outside Burgundy from Basel up to Freiburg and Breisgau, and a collateral line did not become extinct but continued to rule the Margravate and then the Grand Duchy of Baden until the 20th century. The City of Bern (Berne), which had been founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, is the capital of the Swiss Canton of Bern, and the ( de facto ) capital of Switzerland. Bern, which joined the Swiss Confederation in 1353, is the second largest Swiss Canton, with an area of 5,959 km 2 , after Graubünden (Grisons, Grigioni, Grischun, at 7,105 km 2 ), and the second most populous Canton, at 979,802 (in 2009), after Zürich (1,390,124). The Canton still looks a bit like the Lesser Duchy, minus peripheral areas that tend to fall away from feudal domains anyway.
The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy, the Franche-Comté , Freigrafschaft . This is more properly "Cisjurane" Burgundy, since it is over the Jura Mountains, to the west, from "Transjurane" Burgundy. By marriage, the Free County went to France, the Dukes of Burgundy, the Hapsburgs, Spain, and finally, by force in 1678, back to France.
The Landgravate of Burgundy, Landgrafschaft . Bryce says this was "on both sides of the Aar [Aare river], between Thun and Solothurn" in Western Switzerland. This would largely be territory around the modern city of Bern (Berne). Part of the Lesser Duchy, it disappeared along with it.
The Circle of Burgundy , Kreis Burgund . Established by the Emperor Charles V in 1548 as a division of the entire Empire, to try and organize the now fragmented autonomous states of the whole. Because of the possessions of the Dukes of Burgundy inherited by Charles, the "Circle" included the Free County and all the Hapsburg possessions in the Netherlands, whose origin was in Lorraine rather than Burgundy. As a political or administrative entity, this never amounted to much and in short order one hears nothing about it.
The Duchy of Burgundy, Bourgogne . This was detached from the rest of the Kingdom of Burgundy early under the Carolingians and thereafter always remained a fief of Francia Occidentalis . In modern terms, this may be all that sources now mean by "Burgundy," and it is indeed the homeland of Burgundy wines. The capital, Dijon, is also associated with a style of mustard.
The Valois Dukes of Burgundy amassed great holdings and became arbiters of the region North into the Netherlands in the 15th century. Their possession of the Free Country made them at once Dukes and Counts of Burgundy, stradling the boundary between Francia Media and Francia Occidentalis. They even had ambitions of reviving the Arelate Kingdom proper and being crowned monarchs -- an aspiration that died on the battlefield at Nancy in 1477. Because of this period, Burgundian identity came to overlay much of what was properly Lower Lorraine. Although the Duchy proper reverted to France, most of the rest of the Burgundian holdings passing to the Hapsburgs, whose subsequent acquisition of Spain meant that elements of Burgundian identity, such as the knotty ("raguly") Cross of St. Andrew, ended up used by the Spanish. The Cross was even used as a patch on Spanish uniforms.
When the Duchy of Burgundy reverted to the French Throne in 1477, it became a Province of the Kingdom that survived until the French Revolution. Then the country was divided into Departments, precisely to erase old regional loyalties and identities. For the time being, "Burgundy" entirely disappeared from the map of Europe.
In 1982 France grouped its Departments into "Regions," which look a whole lot like the old Royal Provinces. The Duchy of Burgundy thus has become reborn as the "Region" of Burgundy ( Bourgogne ). The Franche-Comté has also been reborn as a Region, without, however, any recognition that it was a historic part of Burgundy also. That Western Switzerland, Savoy, the Dauphiné, Provence, and Monaco were also parts of the Burgundian heartland is almost entirely forgotten.
While it might sound nice to have been "Conrad the Peaceful" ( Conradus Pacificus , Konrad der Friedfertiger ), this was really not an era to have been peaceful in, and especially through such a long reign. However, Conrad may have been wiser than contemporaries gave him credit for, since he seems to have arranged for the Magyars to attack the Arabs even while he was arranging for the Arabs to attack the Magyars. He then was able to clear out Arab bases in Provence with his own forces. Also, Conrad at one point received some unexpected help, from Constantinople. The Roman Navy destroyed an Arab pirate fleet off Provence in 941 -- although this was for the benefit of Hugh of Arles, who by this time was King of Italy. This may be the last time that serious power was projected from Romania so far west.
Burgundy was never a strong kingdom, never had a distinct cultural or national identity, and was not much of a player in larger European politics, although geographically it may largely be defined by the Rhône/Saône system and their Eastern tributaries. After the inheritance of the whole by the Emperor Conrad II, the most successful dynasty to come out of the area was the House of Savoy, which went on to unify Italy but, ironically, lose Savoy itself in the process. The role of the House in Italy, while the place of its origin passes to France, bespeaks the liminal or betwixt-and-between place of Burgundy in the histories of France and Italy. Modern nationalism demand a sharp break and boundary, but this is false to the history and to the cultural situation on the ground.
The story of the independence and unification of the Kingdom of Burgundy is a little complicated. The Duchy of Burgundy had been detached, permanently, as part of the Treaty of Ribemont in 880 (or, already, in the Treaty of Verdun, in 843). The Lower Kingdom (or Provence) broke away with a Carolingian in-law, Boso (a son-in-law of the Emperor Louis II), in 879. Boso had trouble maintaining his position, and was not effectively in power for the last five years of his life. His son Louis was not able to secure the Kingdom until 890.
By then, the last unity of the Carolingian domains was lost with the death of the ineffectual Charles the Fat in 888, Upper Burgundy became independent under local nobility, Rudolf of Auxerre, a member of the house of Welf whose cousins continued for centuries as major players in German history.
Boso's son, Louis, ended up involved in Italy (899-905), after King Arnulf of Germany had come and gone. This won him the Imperial crown from the Pope (901) and, according to some sources, a Roman wife, a daughter of the Emperor Leo VI in Constantinople. That was the extent of his good fortune, however. He lost the throne of Italy to one of the local players, Berengar I (a grandson of Louis the Pious), who also blinded him. Living out his years in Burgundy, he was unable to pass the throne to his son; and Lower Burgundy went to a cousin, Hugh of Arles (928). Meanwhile, Rudolf II of Upper Burgundy had entered Italy himself and overthrown Berengar (922), and Hugh had already made his own claim there too (926).
The conflict between Rudolf and Hugh was fixed up amicably enough (933). Hugh kept Italy, Rudolf got Lower Burgundy, and Hugh's son married Rudolf's daughter. Ruldolf, however, seems to have been slow to exert authority over Lower Burgundy, where Hugh's brother Boso ruled as Count of Arles. After Hugh's death, however, Rudolf's son, Conrad, reunited the Kingdom (often called the "Arelate" after the new capital of Arles). Hugh also ended up with a Roman connection, with his daughter Bertha wed to the young Emperor Constantine VII. Hugh's son, King Lothar II of Italy (the Emperor Lothar I had been King Lothar I of Italy), was later overthrown by Berengar II, who, just like the villains of the old silent movie cliff-hangers, tried to force the widowed Queen, Adelaide, into marrying him. To prevent this outrage, the German King Otto I rode to the rescue, killed the villain, married the Queen himself, and then was crowned Emperor by the Pope. They became the ancestors of all the German Emperors until Conrad IV. Adelaide didn't get along with the Greek wife of her son, Otto II, and spent some years with her brother Conrad back in Burgundy. Later (1097), she was Canonized.
Burgundy lost its independence just because of the failure of the male line -- the sort of problem we see in monogamous Europe but not in polygamous Islam or China. Rudolf III's heir became his niece, Gisela, who had married the Emperor Conrad II, who was himself a descendant of Adelaide and Otto I. This put together the classic Holy Roman Empire of the "four crowns," but it also made Burgundy a peripheral concern of its titular ruler. The feudal fragmentation of the Kingdom began to erase its identity, and when parts of it began to be acquired by Aragon and then France, the process started whereby most of it would end up French. The House of Savoy, indeed, ended up with the throne of Italy, but Savoy itself was then lost to France. Only Switzerland and Monaco are today independent fragments of what had been the Kingdom of Burgundy.
The Franco-Provençal Language.
There was one salient and distinguishing cultural characteristic about Burgundy. Mostly within its borders was one of the distinctive regions of the French language, consisting of the dialects of Franco-Provençal or Arpitan . These contrasted with the other principal linguistic regions of Mediaeval France, the Langue d'oïl of the North and the Langue d'oc ( Lenga d'òc ) or Occitan of the South. From the Langue d'oïl (named after the word for "yes" which has become oui ) of the North, we get the standard Parisian dialect of Modern French. The Langue d'oc , as "Languedoc," gave its name to a province or even to the whole South, particularly associated with the literary culture of the Provençal dialect and the political culture of the County of Toulouse. The status of the language and the power of Toulouse were broken by the infamous Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229). The Franco-Provençal dialects (where "yes" is ouè ) can be distinguished from both the Langue d'oïl and the Langue d'oc . The name "Franco-Provençal" was meant to indicate an intermediate position between French and Provençal but unfortunately tends to have the implication that the language is a form of Provençal. But the usage is now established. On the map we see how the dialect area covers the central lands of Burgundy, including all of Savoy (the Savoyard dialect), the French speaking part of Switzerland (the Romand dialect), much of the Dauphiné and the Franche Comté, and a slice of the Duchy of Burgundy. The areas around Aosta and Susa, originally part of Burgundy and Savoy, and today in Italy, nevertheless retain, to some extent, their Franco-Provençal language. Indeed, Aosta has received autonomous status within Italy, with legal privileges and protections for its language -- Valdôtain. This is unique in the Franco-Provençal area, where the language often has little prestige or recognition.
Mostly, Parisian French has been replacing Franco-Provençal, even in Switzerland. The most prestigious form of Franco-Provençal was the dialect of Lyon (sometimes "Lyons" in English). Lyon is now one of the principal cities of France, but this has provided no leverage for the survival of its Mediaeval language. The political triumph of Parisian French leaves one with the impression that Burgundy, as a Francophone region, properly belongs, of course, to France. However, this is the result rather than the cause. As with the Langue d'oc , what was originally a distinct language has been supressed by the dominance of a government that was based in the North and imposed its language. The loss of the Franco-Provençal language is thus of a piece with the loss of Burgundian identity within the French State. I see that some dialect maps of France put the jurassien language with the Northern dialects rather than with Franco-Provençal. The dialect map of The Romance Languages , edited by Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent [Oxford University Press, 1988, map V, p.481], shows the Jura region within the Franco-Provençal area. Indeed, it shows more of the Franche Comté, all the way up to Alsace, with Franco-Provençal than I see on other maps. Otherwise, the Franche Comté has its own dialect of Langue d'oïl , the franc comtois , as the Duchy of Burgundy also has its own dialect, bourguignon .
As examples of the differences between Franco-Provençal and Parisian French, masculine "the" is lo , singlular, and los , plural, in Franco-Provençal rather than le and les as in French, "cheese" is fromâjo in Franco-Provençal but fromage in French, "brother" is frâre in Franco-Provençal but frère in French, "left hand" is man gôcho in Franco-Provençal but main gauche in French, "woman" in Franco-Provençal is fena but femme in French, and "moon" is lna in Savoyard but lune in French. A characteristic here seems to be that Franco-Provençal has retained clearer final vowels, as in Italian or Spanish, rather than reducing them, ultimately to silence, as in French.
Culmen Franciae.
A striking feature of the Kingdom of Burgundy is that it contained all of the highest mountains in Western Europe -- in Francia. They are the peaks of the Pennine Alps , the range south of the Rhône River before it flows into Lake Geneva (the Swiss Canton of Wallis/Valais). The highest point is Mt. Blanc ( Monte Blanco in Italian), at 15,771 ft. (4807 meters), now on the border between France and Italy but formerly well within the County (later Duchy) of Savoy. Como o Monte Blanc is the highest point in both France and Italy, the highest point in Switzerland is Mt. Rosa , Monte Rosa in Italian (the peak of the Dufourspitze in German), at 15,203 ft. (4634 m), about fifty miles east of Mt. Blanc. The origin of "Rosa" is not what we might expect, but it derives from the Franco-Provençal word rouese , "glacier," which at times has been rendered Bosa , Biosa , or Boso . From the Swiss, German speaking side, the mountain was formerly known as the Gornerhorn .
At Mt. Rosa the eastern boundary of Burgundy would more or less have followed north the present Swiss-Italian border, by the Simplon Pass and around the headwaters of the Rhône. Note that the valley of Aosta was part of Burgundy, and Savoy, though it is now in Italy. Sometimes Mt. Blanc is regarded as separate from the Pennines, although it is contiguous with that range and with no others. This is high country, perhaps not in comparison to the Andes or the Pamirs, but certainly in relation to Colorado or California. (Click on the map for a better resolution popup.) There are at least five other peaks in the Swiss Pennines that are higher than the highest point in the 48 States (Mt. Whitney, 14,494 ft.): the Matterhorn (Mt. Cervino), 14,690 ft., Täschhorn , 14,733 ft., Weisshorn , 14,780 ft., Liskamm (Lyskamm), 14,852 ft., and Dom , 14,913 ft. Around Mt. Blanc are subsidiary peaks that can be counted also. Three of them are higher than Mt. Whitney: Mont Blanc de Courmayeur , 15,577 ft., Pointe Luis-Amadeo , 14,662 ft., and Mont Maudit , 14,649 ft. Mt. Rosa (whose principal peak in Italian is Punta Dufour ) also has a subsidiary peak, Punta Ghifetti , 14,941 ft. On the other hand, Liskamm and the Täschhorn can be considered subsidiary peaks of Mt. Rosa and Mt. Dom, respectively. Burgundy also contained the Bernese Alps , north of the Rhône Valley, which rise to 14,026 ft. (4274 m) at the Finsteraarhorn (about the same height as Mt. Langley in the Sierra Nevada) -- though the Jungfrau at 13,642 ft. is more conspicuous from the north.
Apart from the Pennines and Bernese Alps, There are no other 14,000+ ft. peaks in Western Europe. If the Kingdom of Burgundy had survived until today, it could present itself as the Culmen Franciae -- in Latin, or in Greek -- the "Roof" or "Summit" of Francia -- not the Culmen Europae , since peaks in the Caucasus are the highest in Europe as a whole, albeit at the very edge, between Europe and South-West Asia.
Just as noteworthy as the peaks are the passes. The Simplon Pass , at 6592 ft. (2006 m), is at the east end of the Pennines (to the east is the St. Gotthard Pass, near the sources of the Rhine, the Rhône, the Reuss, and the Aare, where a tunnel was completed in 1882 at a cost of 310 lives). My only visit to the area involved a train trip through the Simplon Tunnel, 12.45 miles long, passing from Italy to Switzerland. At the west end of the Pennines is the Little St. Bernard Pass , at 7170 ft. (2188 m). The only real road over the Pennines, even now, is the historic Great St. Bernard Pass , which reaches 8110 ft. (2469 m -- though a tunnel now bypasses the actual summit). The comparison with the Sierra Nevada is interesting. The most famous Sierra pass is Donner Summit, at 7239 ft. This, however, is north of the really high parts of the Sierra. There, the last usable pass before a very long stretch south is Tioga Pass, at 9941 ft., which leaves Yosemite National Park to the east. I have driven across that and the Monitor Pass, at 8314 ft., which is roughly halfway between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe.
The higher passes are all, of course, closed in Winter. Keeping Donner Pass open often requires heroic snowplowing. I had long assumed that the St. Bernard passes were named after the illustrious St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), but this is not the case. St. Bernard of Montjoux (c.996-c.1081), a much more obscure figure historically, is the eponym of the passes. A canon in Aosta, this St. Bernard had the care of the Alpine passes and did his job in a vigorous and epic fashion, founding hospices at the very summit of both St. Bernard passes and staffing them with Augustinian monks, who henceforth welcomed and rescued travelers. The familiar St. Bernard dogs were bred by the monks for help in their mountain patrols and rescues. These institutions still exist, though there is now certainly much less need for them. At the east end of the Bernese Alps, at the edge of the Kingdom of Burgundy, there is a knot of high passes that link the watersheds of the Rhine, the Rhône, the Reuss, the Aare, and the Ticino. These may be examined on a popup map linked in the treatment below of Switzerland. The highest of those passes is the Furkapass , at 7,969 ft. (2429 m), which crosses from the headwaters of the Rhône to those of the Reuss.
The subsequent history of the Kingdom of Burgundy is covered by pages on the Counts of Burgundy, the Free County, the Counts of Viennois and Dauphiné, the Counts of Provence, the Counts & Dukes of Savoy and the Grimaldi Princes of Monaco. As it happens, Rudolf I of Burgundy was from the German House of Welf. In time, his cousins would play a large part in the history of Germany, become the Dukes of Brunswick and the Electors and Kings of Hanover, and finally Kings of England. The last British Welf was, of all people, Queen Victoria.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2017 Kelley L. Ross, Ph. D. Todos os direitos reservados.
FRANCIA MEDIA, ITALY.
III of Italy, Burgundy, & Emperor.
This ended the independent existence of the Kingdom of Italy, which would not be revived in similar form until Napoleon. Now the German Kings would become the nearly permanent protectors and/or antagonists of the Popes, mainly serving in the long run to inhibit the growth of local power that might threaten Papal independence. This also served to keep Italy split between North and South, with the South continuing to interact more strongly with Romania and Islâm.
The genealogical diagram leaves out the Emperor Arnulf and Rudolf II of Burgundy. Their descent can be examined under the Carolingians and Burgundy, respectively. St. Adelaide, it should be noted, was a daughter of Rudolf II. Since the succession jumps around so much, the Kings of Italy are numbered, next to the green crown, from Berengar I to Berengar II. An anomaly I now find in my sources is that Gisela is listed as a daughter of Lothar I by The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume III, c.900-c.1014 [Timothy Reuter, editor, 1999, p.702]. This contradicts Volume II of the History [Rosamond McKitterick, editor, 1995, p.858], which showed Gisela as the daughter of Louis the Pious. Now I have found confirmation of Gisela as the daughter of Louis the Pious in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte , Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs - und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, p.9]. I had previously gathered that a daughter of Lothar, Rothilde, married Wido of Spoleto, King of Italy, but I now find this contradicted in that volume [p.9] and in Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs - und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost - und Südeuropa [Second Edition, 1997, p.169], where "Rotrud" is shown married to Lambert II of Nantes, an uncle of Wido.
Lombardy ceded by Austria, 1859;
Rome occupied, Quirinal Palace official residence of the King of Italy, 1870.
Unfortunately, as ideology had tempted the Italians into a disastrous love of Mussolini in the 20's, Italian development remained hampered by the popularity of communism after World War II. That the country has grown greatly anyway is a tribute, in part, to the ability of Italians to ignore the government and run entire businesses in an underground economy. Because of this, it is hard to know exactly how large the economy is and what the true level of employment is. On the other hand, this does not make for as secure an environment as would be necessary for Italy to reach its true potential. There is also the lingering problem of the cultural differences between North and South, where gangsterism, rather than entrepreneurialism, while troubling the North through its ideological political manifestations (both fascist and communist), troubles the South in the far cruder form of the continuing traditional Mafia. Extortion and blood feuds do not make for a modern economy, much less a liberal society.
Italy's first attempt to acquire colonial possessions netted Eritrea and Somalia (1889) but then encountered an ignominious check when defeated in an attempt to conquer Ethiopia in 1896. The threat to Ethiopia was renewed and conquest effected in 1936, but by then Ethiopia was a member of the League of Nations, which was supposed to prevent such aggression. Italy was then, not just one among many in a general scramble for Africa, as in the earlier era, but a nasty dictatorship waging unprovoked war against an innocent nation. The economic sanctions against Italy promoted by Britain and France were ineffective, and the whole business began to define the policy of "appeasement" which was going to give Hitler the chance to rearm Germany to a dangerous level and then to begin World War II on his own terms. After the earlier failure against Ethiopia, Italy had turned to the dismemberment of Turkey. War in 1911 won Libya, and in 1912 the Dodecanese Islands of the Aegean also. The Italians had their hands full just subduing the Libyans. This turned out to be a mixed blessing.
When Italy entered World War II, the possession of Libya gave Mussolini an opportunity to invade Egypt and take the Suez Canal. The Italian army, however, was thoroughly defeated and driven entirely out of Cyrenaica. This embarrassment was redeemed by Hitler, who sent some German troups, henceforth the Afrika Korps , with a brilliant commander, Erwin Rommel. This was more than a match for the British, and more than once Rommel looked on the verge of taking Alexandria. The British knew how serious this threat was, but apparently Hitler didn't. North Africa was always a sideshow to him, despite the fact that it was the only place he was actually fighting British ground forces; and resources that would end up wasted in Russia were never diverted to a campaign that could have overturned the strategic balance in the Middle East and gravely affected the course of the War.
When the United States entered the War, and then invaded North Africa in November 1942, Rommel was overwhelmed both in Egypt and in his rear. Libya itself ended up abandoned as he retreated into Tunisia, where the final battles of the campaign were fought. Significantly, the Italians fought better under Rommel than they ever had under their own commanders. Meanwhile, Mussolini had tried invading Greece, jumping off from Albania, which he conquered in 1939. Again, this was more than the Italians could handle, and Hitler delayed his invasion of Russia just to conquer Yugoslavia and Greece. This all was strategically a lot less important than North Africa, and it meant that the Germans did not come within sight of Moscow until snow started falling. Thus, Mussolini, through his ill considered attacks, brought Hitler one strategic opportunity, that was not sufficiency exploited, and perhaps fatally compromised Hitler's own (and ill considered) pet operation against Russia. Meanwhile, a British expedition in 1941 returned Haile Sellassie to power in Ethiopia. After the War, Italy was divested of all foreign possessions, except for a brief administration of Somaliland.
Of interest about the list of Prime Ministers is that the brief tenure so familiar in post-War Ministries has been consistently the case ever since the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Few Prime Ministers have ever served more than a couple of years. The great exception, of course, was Benito Mussolini, who styled himself il Duce , "the Leader," but who constitutionally was never more than Prime Minister. This formally and de jure subordinate position later led Italians to blame the King for tolerating the dictatorship. Tolerate it the King may have done, but it is not clear just what he was expected to do if he had not. King Constantine of Greece was blamed for the Greek dictatorship even thought he supported an attempted coup against it and had to flee the country. A frequent Prime Minister before Mussolini, Giovanni Giolitti (1842-1928), who never had tenure more than three years, was once asked whether it was difficult to govern Italy. "Not at all," he replied. "But it's useless." This remark is often attributed to Mussolini himself.
After the loss of Sicily to the Allies, Mussolini was overthrown and the new government immediately offered to surrender to the Allies. The scepticism and dithering of the Allies gave the Germans the opportunity to occupy most of Italy and restore Mussolini as dictator in the North. The Germans, however, now treated the Italians as enemies rather than true allies, and many Italians who had fought with the Germans in North Africa and Sicily now actually found themselves in German prison camps (cf. the Lina Wertmüller movie, Seven Beauties , 1976). The Italian surrender, however, did mean a continuity of government, unlike the later complete abolition of the government in Germany under the Allied Occupation. Mussolini himself met a grisly end, summarily tried and shot by partisans, then hung up by the heals, with his mistress, in Milan. Unlike Hitler, he was given a proper burial. His granddaughter Alessandra, interestingly, has become active in Italian politics.
The post-War power of the Communist Party in Italian politics, together with the instability of the governments and the volatility of Italian politics in general, with periods of terrorist violence and kidnappings (like the kidnapping and then actual murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978), not to mention the grim reign of the Mafia in Sicily, has been a continuing source of concern for both all Italians and the Western Allies. The geopolitical danger of the Communists has passed, but their evil influence continues, and there really seems to be no more in the way of stability and consensus in Italian politics than there ever has been. Some regions, like Venice, are beginning to talk about independence.
After the tenure of a former Communist, Massimo d'Alema, in 2001 Italians voted back in colorful millionaire Silvio Berlusconi. As the Left in Italian politics reminds us of Communism, the Right reminds us of Fascism. Berlusconi was betrayed by Rightist allies in his first tenure as Prime Minister, and they actually lost power in the 2001 election. It was possible that Berlusconi would even push Liberal, free market policies, to the distress of the leftist governments in most of the European Union; but both the future and the man were very unpredictable. Italian Prime Ministers have typically failed to serve more than a year or two, but Berlusconi, serving five, seemed to spend most of his time staying out of jail.
Berlusconi's finest moment may have been a statement he made, quoted below right, after the attack on America on 9/11/01, asserting the superiority of Western civilization in comparison to the present state of Islamic countries. This assertion of the plain truth was regarded as outrageous, however, both by the self-hating European Left and by those in the Islâmic world either self-deceived on the issue of its backwardness or infected with the poison of Islâmic Fascism (which had led to the attack itself). Berlusconi apologized, apparently for his ethno-centrism, but there is no good reason why he should have. Meanwhile, Berlusconi managed to get a law passed protecting him from judicial inquiry into his shady or corrupt business practices. This did not exactly strengthen his reputation, though it may have helped him stay in office.
27 September 2001.
Berlusconi's luck finally ran out in 2011. Surviving no-confidence votes, he nevertheless resigned because of the continuing sovereign debt crisis involving the PIIGS. In 2011, this has now resulted in new governments in all the PIIGS countries, with changes of leadership in Greece, Italy, and Spain all within a month. Whether this will really make any difference remains to be seen. The temptation to raise taxes rather than cut spending or reform labor law and business regulation is politically viable on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, it is still possible to deceive the voters enough to make the privileges and undue influence of public employee unions acceptable, even though they represent an interest totally adverse to the citizens and supportive of the otherwise unpopular Big Government. The situation can only be worse given the political culture of Europe.
While Mussolini's ambition was really to recreate the Roman Empire, it has often been noted that modern Italians seem to have little of the stoicism, discipline, and ferocity of the Romans. They seem, indeed, rather more like the Etruscans, as we know them from their tombs -- enjoying life, prizing decorative style, and, in general, just more excitable. Italy is now distinguished for art, architecture, music, food, and fashion, but also for the irrational vendetta, the Mafia, and even just for loud, demonstrative arguments. Why things should have come out this way, and Italian cultural habits developed the way they did, is a good question. As it happened, the Italians ended up as the most sensible members of the Axis. By 1943, when the cause was obviously lost, Mussolini was overthrown and surrender tendered, while the Germans and Japanese fought on until their countries were devastated. Most of the damage to Italy proper resulted from German resistance to the Allies, after the Italian surrender. Indeed, Mussolini himself had seemed a responsible enough person that politically naive Americans, like Ezra Pound, were enamoured of both him and his regime. Mussolini, who had originally been hostile to Hitler's annexation of Austria, was done in by his opportunism, stabbing France in the back after Hitler was clearly the winner in 1940. Hitler's genuine admiration for the founder of Fascism then temped Mussolini away from his own better nature, such as it was. With nothing whatever against the Jews, indeed at one time a bit of a Zionist, Mussolini eventually went along with Hitler's plans and allowed Italian Jews to be rounded up -- mainly after the German occupation, when Mussolini had almost no leverage against German wishes (as memorably seen in the movie, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis , 1971). He ended up paying a terrible price, as did all Italians -- not to mention Italian Jews -- though, as it happened, to the credit of Italians again, about 85% of Italian Jews were sheltered from the Nazis.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 Kelley L. Ross, Ph. D. Todos os direitos reservados.
FRANCIA ORIENTALIS,
The eastern part of the great Frankish kingdom has undergone great ebbs and flows in its fortunes, in its borders, in its identity, and in its reputation -- alternatively admired as a source of the highest culture (Mozart, Kant, Beethoven, Goethe, Thomas Mann, etc.) and the most nauseating tyranny and barbarism (Naziism).
Otto was strong enough to interfere in Italy, attaching its affairs to Germany for centuries, and to receive the Imperial Crown from the Pope. Thus, Otto created the classic Mediaeval Empire, whose very identity is a lesson in confusion and retrospection. The easiest thing is to call it "Germany," but that was not done at the time. The Kingdom was East Francia, and the Empire was the Roman Empire, both of which now sound confusing. More confusing, the Kingdom was soon called that of the Romans , as a way for the Kings to expess their claim on the Empire even before being crowned by the Pope, without which they were not legally Emperors. This is discussed more thoroughly below, but it is convenient to resolve that the Kingdom is what became Germany. The Empire is also conveniently called, retroactively, the "Holy Roman Empire" ( Sacrum Imperium Romanum ), though it was in practice, as the Germans themselves later thought, Germany also (claims to Italy and Burgundy were formally surrendered in 1648).
What was going to be the continuing problem for this new Empire was just money . Without much in the way of trade, cities, or industry, there just wasn't any . Without money there could be no paid army or paid administrators. For military force the Kings were thus dependant on feudal loyalty, which was rarely entirely reliable and depended on the personality of individual rulers. For administration, however, the Kings could long use the Church, educated and self-supporting, until the Popes decided that the Church should be independent. Thus, feudalism came rather later to Germany than it did to France, but when it did come, it was with a thoroughness that made it all the more difficult for the monarchy to recover.
Even worse, where the male line of Capetians never failed in France (where even the last Kings, of the House of Orléans, were still direct male heirs of Hugh Capet), Germany was periodically left without a male heir. This preserved the elective principle of the Throne where, in the Middle Ages, nothing was easier than that any office or holding should become hereditary, as it did in France, as long as there was an obvious hereditary candidate. The shift from the Saxons to the Salians and then to the Hohenstaufen was bad enough, but the end of the Hohenstaufen left the country without leadership altogether. The elective principle became permanent, even after the effective hereditary succession of the Hapsburgs. This rendered Germany as a whole ungovernable, as it would remain until 1871.
One might wonder what the problem was with the German Emperors failing to produce heirs. Part of it may have been their adventures in Italy, where the climate was not healthy for them and resulted in some early deaths, such as Otto II. The Capetians stuck close to home. Then there was Otto III, who failed to produce an heir in twenty years of reign. What was his problem? Was he sickly, celibate, attracted to men, distracted? We don't know, but the result was the end of the main Saxon line, and he was obviously far too distracted by Southern Italy, probably because of his Byzantine mother.
Henry V achieved what looked like a favorable compromise to the Controversy, but the damage had been done and the precedents set. The Imperial grip in both Germany and Italy had been loosened, many concerns neglected, and the Popes knew what they could do to preserve their independence and powers, however little they were able to maintain themselves sometimes even against the people of the city of Rome. The spirit of resistance in both Germany and Italy was heartened; the German Church began to exercise even its own territorial sovereignty (with independent states, like that of the Archbishop of Salzburg, that persisted until Napoleon); and subsequent history would be a steadily losing battle for the Monarchy. Just as bad, the lapse again of the male line perpetuated the elective principle of the Throne, which never became truly hereditary, as it had in France (in truth, nothing was easier in the Middle Ages than for things to become hereditary, if only obvious heirs existed). The elections then became a drain on the finances and even the powers of the Emperors, since sovereign concessions as well as money could be used to buy votes.
Third Crusade, 1189-1192;
sacks Seljuk capital of Konya,
but dies fording a river, 1190.
An Imperial Party, however, existed even in Italy, deriving its name, Ghibelline from the Waiblingen castle of the Hohenstaufen. The Papal Party, in turn, got its name Guelf , from the Welf house of Germany. When a Welf candidate, Otto of Brunswick (son of Henry the Lion), finally was elected Emperor, however, the Popes were not much better pleased at his pursuit of Imperial interests. This, however, paled beside the position of the next Hohenstaufen, Frederick II, who inherited the domain of the Popes' erstwhile allies, the Normans of Sicily and Naples. Frederick all but abandoned the position of the Throne in Germany, in order to take advantage of his powerful southern Kingdom. This worked well enough in his lifetime, but writing off Germany was of no benefit at all, and the southern Kingdom, eventually in the hands of his bastard son Manfred, was the target of every device that the Popes could bring to bear. Before long that meant Charles of Anjou, whose French invasion extinguished the house of Hohenstaufen.
The end of the Hohenstaufen makes a natural break in the history of Germany and Italy. The German princes did not want to elect a new Emperor, and the Popes would just as soon not deal with one again. Also, the genealogy of all the Emperors to this point forms a natural unit, since they are all related, at least by marriage. A distinction is introduced in this chart not seen with the earlier, Carolingian and Italian, Emperors. The Emperors actually crowned by the Pope are indicated in the genealogical diagrams by a little yellow (Papal) nimbus around the cross of their Imperial Crown -- -- while those never crowned are shown without the nimbus. In the tables of ruleraar an icon of Crown and nimbus is only given with those actually crowned -- with date of coronation, usually somewhat later than the beginning of the reign, since a trip down to Rome was usually an involved and difficult undertaking. On the basis of the practice introduced with Charlemagne, no king was an Emperor without being crowned by the Pope. While Charlemagne probably was not going to think of the Imperial dignity as contingent on the approval of the Pope, this is how the matter developed, in line with increasing claims of Papal authority. As the Empire became traditional in Germany, however, the customary idea became established (no small thing, to say the least, in the Middle Ages) that the King was Emperor by right, with the crowning by the Pope a legal formality. It was never that much of a formality, since the Popes made demands, and it became increasingly difficult to exert authority in Italy, because of the resistance both of the Italians and of the Popes themselves. Consequently, so as to assert their claim without the presumption of prematurely calling themselves "Emperor," the Kings of the Eastern Franks began to call themselves "King of the Romans" ( Rex Romanorum ) on election. Between Henry II and Henry IV this became standard. As the title "Rex Francorum Orientalium" lapsed, the "Rex Francorum Occidentalium" became increasingly, to himself and to others, simply the "Rex Franciae," King of France. By 1353 a German bishop was complaining about this presumption by the Western King. Eventually, the Emperors found themselves with no business and no interest in Italy, so in 1508 Maximilian I got permission from the Pope to call himself "Imperator electus." This became the official title on election from then on, and is in effect retroactively applied to the earlier uncrowned Emperors, just because we commonly call them "Emperors," which they would not have been by the practice of their own day. Maximilian also, for the first time, called himself "Germaniae Rex," King of Germany, and so may be thought of as beginning the retrospective view that the Mediaeval Empire was the German Empire , i. e. the "First Reich," to be followed by the Hohenzollern "Second Reich" and the Hitlerian "Third." With more modest retrospection, we can simply equate "Germany" with the old East Frankish kingdom ( Francia Orientalis ).
The crown of Lombardy, or Italy, involved no Italian institutions or effective power and was assumed perfunctorily with the Imperial crown; so it is not indicated after Otto I acquired it through his marriage to the Italian heiress Adelaide, who had been imprisoned after her husband, Lothar II of Italy, had been murdered by Berengar II of Ivrea. Of potentially greater value was the crown of Burgundy, claimed by Conrad II by inheritance in 1032. The Kingdom, however, was off the beaten track and was neglected by the Emperors. Only four were ever actually crowned in Arles, ending with Charles IV in 1365. The other two, besides Conrad II himself, were Henry III and Frederick I, both indicated in the chart with the numbered Burgundian crown. Burgundy soon was largely in the hands of France, with Savoy and Switzerland heading for independence, though this was not formally recognized until 1648.
Holy Roman Empire.
A fifth crown, obtained by Henry VI through marriage to Constance, daughter of Roger II of Sicily and Naples (the Regnum ), was a great strategic coup. The Popes had been cultivating the Normans in southern Italy and Sicily as a counterweight to the Emperors, but now the Emperors would have that very power. The real center of the rule of Frederick II, the Stupor Mundi , "Wonder of the World," became Palermo. Unfortunately, this meant neglect of Germany, where power flowed easily to local princes, and it persuaded the Popes that the Hohenstaufen must be destroyed at all costs. Eventually, Charles of Anjou was recruited and killed Frederick's son Manfred and grandson Conradin. Charles' triumph was brief, however, as one of the most dramatic events of the Middle Ages, the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers (1282), tore Sicily from his grasp. Peter III of Aragón, who had married Manfred's daughter Constance, jumped in and was offered the crown of Sicily. There was little the Pope, let alone non-existent Emperors, could do about this. Sicily and Naples, never formally part of the Empire, now passed back into the dynamic of Mediterranean politics. An Emperor, Charles V, returned later only because both Sicily and Naples passed to him from his Aragonese inheritance.
The crowns of the Emperors, usually thought of as just the first three, were the subject of considerable symbolic discussion. The Sachsenspiegel ( Saxon Mirror ), a legal text of 1230, described them this way:
Dy erste ist tho Aken: dar kronet men mit der Yseren Krone, so is he Konig over alle Dudesche Ryke. Dy andere tho Meylan, de is Sulvern, so is he Here der Walen. Dy drüdde is tho Rome; dy is guilden, so is he Keyser over alle dy Werlt.
This is quoted by James Bryce [ The Holy Roman Empire , 1904, Schocken Books, 1961, p.194], who doesn't bother to give a translation. Perhaps he thought everyone has on hand a dictionary for 13th century Low German. The charm of the passage, however, is that it sounds just enough like English to make it look like a parody of modern German. Of interest here is that the first crown is already said to be of the "Dudesche Ryke," i. e. the German Reich (here clearly "kingdom" or "realm," not "Empire") -- "Aken" is Aachen, the capital of Charlemagne. Italy is called "Wales" (Walen), for the same reason, being non-Germanic, as the word is used in Britain. Milan (Meylan), in Lombardy, was one of the places for the Lombard/Italian coronation. "Here" is Herr , originally "Lord," in Modern German. Although the German crown is said to be iron and the Milanese silver, this was sometimes reversed, and the latter was typically called the "Iron Crown of Lombardy" in any case because it was supposed to contain a Nail from the True Cross. The Roman crown (gold) conferred rule of "alle dy Werlt." Unmentioned here, Burgundy was widely recognized as providing a "fourth crown"; but the Regnum of Sicily and Naples, although in effect providing a fifth crown for Henry VI, Frederick II, and Conrad IV, was not an Imperial possession long enough for this to become a traditional claim.
Philip of Swabia, son of Frederick Barbarossa, who contended with Otto of Brunswick for the Empire, had no sons; but the marriages of his four daughters are among the most interesting in European history. In a reconciliation of their feud, his oldest daughter, Beatrice, married Otto himself. But they had no children. The younger daughters, Kunigunde, Marie, and Elizabeth, married King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, Duke Henry III of Lower Lorraine and Brabant, and King & St. Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon, respectively. All of these marriages produced children with living descendants, especially among the Hapsburgs and the royal families of Spain, as can be traced at the linked genealogies. This is all of particular interest because of Philip's wife, Irene, who was a daughter of the Roman Emperor Isaac II Angelus. Isaac, a disastrous Emperor, himself was a great-grandson of the outstanding Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, the restorer of Romania after the Turkish invasion. This means that a large part of modern European royalty have been descendants of the Comneni. My impression is that Roman (Byzantine) Imperial descent for recent royalty has often been claimed through the Macedonians, but the only genuine line seems to be from Macedonian in-laws. On the other hand, descent from the Comneni appears to be well attested and with multiple lines, all from Irene Angelina.
With the Elective principle of the German Monarchy now firmly established, Charles IV, through the Golden Bull , at least rendered the process regular and comprehensible. Seven Electors were specified, four secular and three ecclesiastical. As noted below, the Duke of Bavaria would eventually be added as an Elector (1623), initially as a replacement for the Prince Palatinate (1621-1648), who had been in rebellion at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. The Duke of Hanover would be made an Elector (1692), right in the middle of the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697).
Without having any real effect on the history of the Empire, Napoleon added the Margrave of Baden, the Duke of Württemberg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the Archbishop of Salzburg, all as Electors in 1803. In the same year, however, the original eccelesiastical Electorates, Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, were all annexed by France. The Archbhishop of Salzburg was actually Ferdinand III, Duke of Tuscany, who had lost his realm in one of Napoleon's rearrangements. He would get rearranged again, as Napoleon removed him from Salzburg and installed him as Elector of Würzburg in 1806. Adding the Electorates was apparently in preparation for Napoleon being elected Holy Roman Empire, but then Napoleon simply crowned himself Emperor of the French and abolished the Empire in 1806. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel rather liked his new title and so kept it even after the end of the Empire. Ferdinand of Tuscany become Grand Duke of Würzburg until restored to Tuscany in 1814.
During this period we see the rise of the Swiss . The "Forest Cantons" of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden united (1291) against the expansion of the Hapsburgs (remembered in legends like that of William Tell) and soon were able to defeat them (1315). This may have seemed like a fluke, but then the Duke Leopold III was actually killed at the Battle of Sempach (1386). O que estava acontecendo? It was, indeed, the greatest triumph in history of "a well regulated Militia," and the proof of infantry with a new weapon, the pike, against the Mediaeval levy of cavalry. This created a sensation, and for more than a century Swiss mercenaries were considered essential for any serious army. Swiss arms reached their peak of influence on European history when a Swiss army defeated and killed Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy (1477). This turned to the benefit of Charles' son-in-law, Maximilian of Hapsburg, who obtained most of the Burgundian lands and in short order (1499) accepted Swiss autonomy. The prestige of Swiss arms reached a check when the Swiss were defeated by Francis I of France at Marignano in 1515. It was then agreed that the Swiss would henceforth only fight with France; but then Francis and the Swiss were defeated at Biocca in 1522. The Swiss decided not to fight for anyone. Since then, Switzerland has avoided external conflicts and has maintained its independence (recognized in 1648) and neutrality against all except Revolutionary France (1798-1815). The neutral policy of Switzerland has made it the headquarters over the years of various international organizations, such as the International Red Cross, the League of Nations, and certain United Nations agencies. The old reputation of the Swiss in battle, however, lingers in the symbolic "Swiss Guard" of the Popes. Since Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Raeto-Romansch), its name is often given in Latin, as the Confoederatio Helvetica (C. H.), from the local pre-Roman Celtic tribe of the Helvetii .
French Occupation, 1798-1803, Treaty with Napoleon, 1803-1815.
Switzerland west of the Reuss River encompasses most of what remains independent of the Kingdom of Burgundy (other parts of which may be found in Monaco and a couple regions in Italy). It also encompasses most of the Culmen Franciae and the sources of the watershed of much of the Core of Francia. The Swiss rivers, lakes, principal mountain passes may be examined in a popup map. Lake Lucerne, or the Vierwaldstätter See , "Four Forest States Lake," is called that in German because it is surrounded by the original Three Forest Cantons of 1291, plus the City of Lucerne, which was the next Canton to join the Swiss Confederation. The Three Cantons alone defeated the Hapsburgs in 1315, but there were already eight Cantons by the Battle of Sempach in 1386. Some areas were actually conquered by the Swiss, like the Aargau in 1415, others were long time allies, such as Geneva, which freed itself from Savoy in 1526.
The principal rivals of the Hapsburgs turned out to be the house of Luxemburg. It was the Luxemburg Emperor Charles IV who regularized the system of Election, and then his son Sigismund who revived the role of no less than Constantine in calling a general Church Council to end the Great Schism. All this came to naught, however, with the failure of the male line. The heiress of Luxemburg, Elizabeth of Hungary, then married a Hapsburg. That line of Hapsburgs also died out but, yes, there were others.
The election of Frederick III, who became the last Emperor crowned at Rome by the Pope, put the Hapsburgs in virtual hereditary possession of the title, with but one exception, for the rest of its history. The marriages then contracted for Maximilian and his heirs, with Burgundy, Spain, and Hungary, made the Hapsburgs for long the preeminant ruling family of all of Europe, turning Vienna into one of the great cities of history and one of the great centers in the history of philosophy.
of "Holy Roman Empire of the.
German Nation," German.
crowned at Rome.
Imperator Electus, 1508.
last German Emperor.
crowned by Pope,
at Bologna; d.1558.
cuius regio, eius religio ;
Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.
"The strong wage wars. You, happy Austria, marry. Thus the kingdoms that Mars gives to others, Venus gives to you." This put in the hands of Charles V the inheritance of Austria, Burgundy (meaning the French Dukes of Burgundy, of course), and the recently united Spain, with which came the empire and revenue of the New World. His own marriage to Isabella of Portugal led to his son, Philip II, claiming the throne of that country. His brother Ferdinand's marriage to Anna of Hungary led to his claim to Hungary and Bohemia.
With his vast inheritance, Charles, the last Emperor crowned by the Pope (in Bologna [1530], to avoid the awkward reminder that his Spanish army had recently sacked Rome [1527]), had to contend with France , with the Protestant Reformation , and with the Turks . The first he handled pretty well, even capturing King Francis I in battle at one point (1525), but did less well with the second, irritated that he had to mess with it at all, since he wanted the religious issues settled at a general Church Council (which became the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent, 1545-1563). As Emperor, he could have called his own Council, like Constantine or Sigismund, but he deferred to the Pope, who only wanted a Council to argue orthodoxy and defend the Church against heresy, not reconcile Protestants. Charles defeated the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the Battle of Mülhberg in 1547, but then suffered a surprise attack in the Tyrol by his own erstwhile (Protestant) ally, Maurice of Saxony in 1552. The Treaty of Passau restored the Protestant position in Germany, and then in the end Charles conceded, in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), that German princes could establish whatever Church they wanted (well, either Lutheran or Catholic, at first), on the famous principle cuius regio, eius religio , "of whom the realm, of him the religion."
Here we see a great portrait, by Titian (d.1576) from 1548, of Charles V, the most powerful Emperor since Charlemagne, and the first, as well as the last, with vast Imperial possessions beyond Europe. He is showing some evidence of the large lower "Hapsburg Lip." Otherwise, his short hair and beard are characteristic of the 16th century -- long hair and goatees or Vandykes would take over in the 17th century.
Although Charles died in Spain and is thought of as German, he grew up in the Low Countries. His facility with the languages of his various possessions is commemorated in an interesting quote attributed to him, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse" ( Je parle espagnol à Dieu, italien aux femmes, français aux hommes, et allemand à mon cheval ). German doesn't seem to come out too well in this. While one might suppose that Charles learned some Dutch (now called "Flemish" in Belgium) in his childhood, and indeed he is often known as "Charles of Ghent" or the Kezer Karel in Flemish, the first language of the Court was probably French. Nevertheless, the books that Charles is supposed to have kept by his bedside, besides the Bible (in Latin?), were The Courtier [1528], by Baldassare Castiglione, and The Prince [1532], by Niccolò Machiavelli. Both of these were in Italian -- Il Cortegiano and Il Principe , respectively. Presumably Charles was not discussing courtly manners and politics just with women.
When Charles became King of Spain in 1516, he moved to Spain and founded his own capital, the hitherto unimportant town of Madrid , the meaning of whose very (Arabic) name ( , Majrît. ) is uncertain. This place had little to recommend it, except that it was centrally located. And Charles thought it would be healthy. Others weren't even sure about that, saying that it had "nine months of winter, three of hell." It began as an Omayyad fortress in the 9th century, overlooking the Manzanares River, to guard approaches to the Tagus (Tajo) valley, which contained the original Visigothic capital of Spain, Toledo. Madrid was then made the permanent capital of Spain by Philip II in 1561. Meanwhile, Charles's brother Ferdinand had grown up in Spain, with a Spanish name. His eponymous grandfather, Ferdinand II of Aragón (V of Spain), toyed with the idea of leaving Aragón independently to Ferdinand, which was in his power to do. But his dislike of foreigners (Hapsburgs) ruling Spain was not as strong as his desire to preserve the unity and power of the country. Since Charles was now in charge in Spain (although his insane mother Juana, the last of the Trastámarans, remained the nominal sovereign until her death in 1555), he sent off Ferdinand to take over the German Hapsburg possessions (i. e. Austria). Although Charles got Ferdinand crowned King of the Romans, making him Heir Apparent to the Empire, he may not have intended for Ferdinand to detach the German domains from the Spanish; but this is what happened, in part because Charles was unable pay much attention to Austria and its dependencies and also because the Germans wanted (the Spanish speaking) Ferdinand and not some foreigner(!). Also, Ferdinand, with claims to Bohemia and Hungary from his wife, Anna of Hungary, liked what he had.
Charles's third problem turned out to be a fiasco, since the Ottomans actually conquered most of Hungary (1526). This got the Hungarian and Bohemian inheritance, after some hard fighting, for Ferdinand, who had to withstand the epic siege of Vienna in 1529. Vienna thus stood as the high water mark for the Turks, as it had been centuries earlier for the Mongols (1242). But the Ottomans were at the time far too powerful to be really defeated or chased back whence they came. This would be an unsolved problem for some time -- more than a century and a half.
Charles' power, although considerable, turned out to be less effective than one might think, since his great inheritance was of many constitutionally independent realms, each with its own history, its own laws, its own local parliaments, and its own local tax systems. This made organizing a uniform and unified power a nightmare -- a problem that would persist all the days of the Hapsburgs, right down to the "dual monarchy" of Austria and Hungary. There were even limitations on the vast stream of silver that soon poured in from Mexico and Peru, since the Spanish economy literally was not large enough to absorb it, and a raging inflation resulted. Even so, Charles still had to borrow. This broke the Fuggers banking house when Spain defaulted on its debts in 1557. Wearied by all this, Charles retired, one of the few historic monarchs, and perhaps the first Emperor since Diocletian, to do so.
Since Charles was ruling when Mexico was conquered in 1521 and Peru in 1533, we might wonder what curiosity he might have had about these new civilizations, unknown to either the Ancient or Mediaeval worlds. It looks like he had none. When he was shown a great engraved golden plate from Mexico, he instructed that such things simply be melted down and not shown to him. Today this seems a shocking callousness and criminal vandalism. But at the time, nothing the Aztecs or Incas had to offer would have seemed like anything less than works of the Devil. In the same spirit Aztec priests, red with the blood of human sacrifice, were slaughtered, and Aztec and Mayan codices (bound books) were burned. The loss to history is appalling and incalculable, however unlikely it was that people of the era would have had a disinterested curiosity or respect for such things.
Dutch Independence, separation of Italy.
and Burgundy from Empire, 1648.
Conquest of Hungary, 1686-1697;
War of the League of Augsburg.
(Nine Years War), 1688-1697;
Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736),
supreme commander of Imperial Armies, 1697;
War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-1713;
9. Duke of Hanover Elector, 1692.
War of the Polish Succession, 1733-1735.
last "Holy Roman" Emperor.
12. Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel Elector, 1803.
13. Archbishop of Salzburg Elector, 1803-1806.
13. Duke of Würzburg Elector, 1806.
Napoleon abolishes Empire, 1806.
When the French defeated the Spanish Army at Rocroi in 1643, it was, at the least, the symbolic end of Spanish hegemony and the beginning of French predominance in Europe. I sometimes see comments, and have repeated them myself, that the Spanish tercios were broken at Rocroi, when actually they held against both French artillery and cavalry and were allowed to leave the field with their flags and weapons. But the battle did mark the maturity of the French Army and the end of Spanish supremacy. For Austria, it then became a matter of holding off France, especially once Louis XIV began his wars. This was eventually effected in alliance with England, in the course of the War of the League of Augsburg (or Nine Years War, 1688-1697) and the great War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713). This was at the cost of the Spanish Hapsburg line; but the failed second siege of Vienna in 1683, directed in support of France, resulted in Hungary being liberated from the Ottomans and thus rebounded with new power, possessions, and prestige for the Hapsburgs, whose domain now grew into the "Danubian" Monarchy.
A nasty surprise subsequently came from Prussia. With so much of Germany outside effective control of the Throne, it was inevitable that a rival should arise. At first, it looked like this would be Bavaria, which went over to the French in the War of the Spanish Succession (until smashed by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy), and then which briefly obtained the Imperial Crown in the War of the Austrian Succession. But when Frederick II fell on Silesia in 1740, starting the War of the Austrian Succession, on the (Machiavellian) pretext of disputing the female succession of Maria Theresa to Austrian possessions, it became clear who the real rival would be. It was because of Prussian arms that the Imperial election was subverted, with Charles VII of Bavaria becoming the only non-Hapsburg Emperor after Sigismund of Luxemburg -- later, a new Imperial Germany would be the creation of Prussia. After retrieving the situation only at the cost of Silesia, Maria Theresa effected an epic "revolution in alliances," trading Britain for France, to surround Prussia with enemies -- including Russia & Sweden. The resulting Seven Years War (1756-1763) was a near thing for Frederick the Great of Prussia, but it did not defeat him. What it damaged the most was France, which lost its colonial empire and its solvency -- the seed of the French Revolution. The last years of the Empire then left the Emperors uncomfortably sharing Great Power status with a Kingdom, Prussia, that was formally a vassal. But soon enough, the old system was swept away by Napoleon, and the Hapsburgs would reduce their pretensions to the possessions of Austria.
The Imperial crown shown for Charles V has an orange rather than a yellow nimbus. This is to indicate that he was in fact crowned Emperor by the Pope, the last one, but there was the irregularity that this was done in Bologna rather than in Rome.
The infamous intermarriage of the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs can been seen on the chart. After two Kings of Spain had married their own nieces, the result was the deformed, sickly, and sterile Charles II. It has been said that Charles V and Philip II were great Kings, that Philip III and Philip IV at least looked like Kings (with Philip IV immortalized by the great portraits of Velázquez), but that Charles II was scarcely a man . The intermarriages produced several infirmities, but most conspicuously exaggerated the swollen, even grotesque, "Hapsburg Lip." The succession dispute could be seen coming a long way off; and when it came, as the War of the Spanish Succession, it was possibly the greatest European war until the Revolutionary Era, and comparable in some ways to the World Wars of the 20th Century.
The Emperor Charles VI, originally the Hapsburg Pretender to Spain, was left without male heirs, and spent a good part of his time getting everyone to agree to the "Pragmatic Sanction," whereby the Salic Law was set aside and his daughter, Maria Theresa, could inherit the possessions of Austria. Accepted by all, Maria Theresa's succession was nevertheless cynically disputed by Frederick of Prussia once it could be seen to provide a pretext for aggression (the War of the Austrian Succession). Despite the loss of Silesia, the Empress otherwise maintained the Austrian position and proved herself a great leader in her own right, completely eclipsing her weak husband, Francis I. With the end of the Empire, Austria continued as an independent Great Power, and Germany was reorganized as the German Confederation.
The contempt and derision of historians for the Austro-Hungarian Empire is often palpable. The multi-national, polyglot personal domain of the Hapsburgs -- "despotism tempered by inefficiency" -- came to seem so anachronistic, unnatural, and absurd in the 20th Century that its continuation so long is taken as an offense against every rational criterion of history. This attitude began before the demise of the Empire, since its "Royal and Imperial" ( Königlich Kaiserlich ) abbreviation, K. K. ("Ka Ka" in German), began to be used as a term for absurdity both in and outside the Empire. This then gets confused with kâkâ in Hawaiian, which can mean "excrement," though this is glossed by Pukui and Elbert as "a euphemism, taught to children" [Mary Kawena Pukui & Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary, Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian , University of Hawaii Press, 1973, "kâkâ," pp.109-110].
The breakup of the Empire after World War I, however, led to consequences, down to the present, that hardly seem a vindication of the alternative political arrangements that followed. Instead, one might remember Tallyrand's remark that if Austria didn't exist, we would have to invent it. The messiness of states based on ethnicity or language, in an area of great mixtures and interpenetrations of ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities, has produced a record of conflict whose rationality is in no way evidently superior to the personal union of the communities under the venerable Hapsburgs. And while the Empire may be thought of as tottering, weak, and vulnerable because of its defeat by Prussia in 1866 and its collapse after World War I, a case can also be made that, although it was not a first rate power, it really wasn't all that weak. Thus, although quickly defeated by Prussia in 1866, Austria had no difficulty fighting a second front and inflicting decisive defeats, on land and sea, against Italy.
One of those 1866 victories was the most important naval battle that occurred between Trafalgar in 1805 and Tsushima in 1905: the Battle of Lissa , which was the first fleet action between armored and steam driven warships. The climax of the battle came when the Austrian flagship, the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max , rammed and sank the Italian flagship Re d'Italia .
of "Austrian Empire"
assassinated by anarchist, 1898.
Union with Germany, 1919.
If Austria did just fine against an arguably more "modern" state like Italy in 1866, its performance in World War I still looks reasonable. Unlike any other combatant, Austria-Hungary had to fight a war on three fronts: with the Italians again, the Russians, and against the Allied states, like Greece and Serbia, in the Balkans. Again, even after fifty years of development, the Italians made no headway. The Russians did rather better, but then German victories helped take off some of the pressure. In the Balkans, Austria initially was unable to successfully invade Serbia. German help was required; but then Austria and Bulgaria managed to occupy most of Romania and Albania, all of Serbia and Montenegro, and a bit of Greece. This was rather better than what Italy alone would be able to do in World War II in the same area, and was accomplished despite what one might imagine as ethnic dissention, if not sabotage, in the Austrian army. Late in the war, the addition of a couple of German divisions on the Italian front made for a breakthrough that almost reached Venice. Austria's constant need for German help, however, left the Germans with the feeling that Austria as a ally was almost as bad as Austria as an enemy. One bitter German remark was that it was like carrying a corpse. The end of the War, indeed, swiftly led to death being pronounced for the Empire.
If Austria managed to stumble through a few years of World War I without collapse, it began with a terrible failure in what used to be its forte -- diplomacy. The whole war started because Austria would not take "yes" for an answer from the Serbs. Serbia had been wisely advised by the Russians to accept the Austrian ultimatum that had followed the assassination, with Serbian complicity, of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914, however outrageous and humiliating it was. The Serbs did not unequivocally accept the whole ultimatum, but it was enough that it should have at least mollified the Austrians. The Austrians, however, made outrageous and humiliating demands in the expectation that they would be refused. When they weren't entirely, Austria went to war anyway -- the Austrian ambassador had actually left Belgrade before the deadline of the ultimatum. This would be a war that was ultimately Germany's to lose and America's to win. No one, of course, knew how catastrophic the conflict would be, but it is hard to imagine the Austria of Metternich deliberately setting off a conflict of such proportions just to get something more than what had even been asked for. The real absurdity of the "Dual Monarchy" was not its incommensurability with nationalism (however much the tide of the age), but this finally embarrassing and blockheaded statesmanship. After Metternich had helped negotiate a century of general peace in 1815, the failures of 1914 and 1919 must have been particularly galling to his spirit -- even apart from the mass death that attended them.
It is hard now to think of the last days of Austria-Hungary without recollecting the intellectual productivity of Vienna. The Logical Positivism of the "Vienna Circle" was no blessing, and the heritage of Ludwig Wittgenstein was really little better, but both Karl Popper and F. A. Hayek were not only great philosophers but thinkers with a Friesian connection. All of these men, along with Sigmund Freud and Ludwig von Mises (whose personal papers were successively stolen by the Germans and then by the Russians, to reappear after the fall of the Soviet Union), thought better of living in Austria after the Nazis had taken over the country.
Austria-Hungary had only one colonial possession. This was grandly named Franz Josef Land , but its value seems commensurable with all the other absurdities customarily associated with the Dual Monarchy. For Franz Josef Land, as it happens, was a group of Arctic islands almost entirely above 80 degrees latitude, at the northern end of the Barents Sea, beyond Norwegian Spitsbergen and the long Russian island of Novaya Zemlya. This is about the same latitude as the northern end of Greenland and cannot have offered any advantages to its owner, unless as an advanced base for Arctic exploration. Merely surviving the winter would be a challenge for anyone staying there. After the breakup of the Austrian state, Franz Josef Land fell to the Soviet Union, and now to Russia.
of German "Second Reich,"
only non-Catholic Emperors in Francia.
loss of Alsace-Lorraine, West Prussia, etc., 1918.
The genealogy of the Hohenzollern Emperors can be found under the treatment of Brandenburg and Prussia. The further genealogy of the Hohenzollern family can be seen under The Descent of the Hohenzollern and Counts & Princes of Hohenzollern Henchingen-Sigmaringen.
After unification, Germany swiftly grew into the strongest state on the Continent. Although Bismarck wasn't enthusiastic, a modest colonial Empire was even assembled. Unfortunately, peace and prosperity evidently weren't good enough. A dream of crushing France again, apparently just for the hell of it, and something little short of envy against Britain, which had been an ally of Prussia since 1756, began to poison German policy and preparations. Ironically, much of this began to flow from an Emperor who was actually the grandson of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm II. His father, Frederick III, who had married Victoria's eldest child, also Victoria, had all the liberal instincts of this English connection. Tragically, cancer took him after less than a calendar year on the Throne, and Wilhelm had no sympathy with British ways, except that he wanted a navy as big as his grandmother's. This ill considered aspiration soon turned a traditional ally into a bitter rival in one of the greatest arms races in history, driving the British into the arms of their own traditional enemies, France and Russia. When the ball dropped, over some damn thing in the Balkans (as Bismarck had predicted), the Germans declared war on Russia and so, logically, attacked France, dragging a reluctant Britain into the war by invading Belgium (to get at France), violating guarantees of neutrality that had been in force since 1830.
This pointless exercise brought on the, until then, worst war in history, with more than a million dead each in France, Germany, Russia, and Austria, and nearly a million each in Britain and Turkey. For the first time ever, the United States became an active belligerent in a European war, throwing its weight decisively against Germany -- something that would be done all over again twenty-four years later. Both winners and losers, except the United States and Japan, were all but destroyed. Russia collapsed into anarchy and then totalitarian terror for decades, Britain was hurt, staggered, and bankrupted as never before, and Austria disintegrated into a confusion of petty states. All this (very nearly) just so that the Kaiser could have boats like grandmother. Sadly, all the folly and horror of the war were merely a preview of what the 20th century had to offer. And the damn things are still going on in the Balkans.
Germany was quite late in the competition for colonial possessions, and it shows. It wasn't too late in the "scramble for Africa," however, and the most substantial acquisitions are found there. Tanganyika was probably the prize, and in German hands it foiled the British ambition for continuous territories from Cape Town to Cairo -- Cecil Rhodes had wanted to build a railroad between just those cities, something that has still never been done. Outside Africa, the Germans got a city in China and, otherwise, nothing outside the Pacific. There, the most extensive acquisitions were simply a purchase from Spain of her three islands groups, the Marianas, Carolines, and Marshalls, east of the Philippines (which the United States took in 1898). In 1884 Germany divided eastern New Guinea with Britain, taking the northeastern part, renamed Kaiser Wilhelmsland . The adjacent island group then became the Bismarck Archipelago , a name that has stuck since. To the Bismarcks Germany was able to attach the northernmost of the Solomon Islands, Bougainville. In World War I, most German possessions were rapidly overrun. An exception was Tanganyika, where the German commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (d.1964), managed to elude defeat or capture for the entire period of the war, raiding into Portuguese Mozambique when the British made Tanganyika itself too hot for him, and in the process of invading Rhodesia when the war ended. This little known but striking episode bespeaks a remarkable devotion on the part of his African troups, whom otherwise we do not gather were treated so well by Germans. That the Japanese scooped up most German islands in the Pacific was bad news for the future, since it gave them a strategically advanced position for expansion in World War II. Also, when the Japanese occupied the formerly German Bismarcks and Bougainville in that later war, they found the locals less hostile, as having only recently come under British rule (after World War I, of course), than further down in the Solomons.
The last days of World War I, with the men out of the trenches, retreating (Germans) and pursuing (Allies), were among the bloodiest of the War. While trench warfare is properly remembered as a horror, the trenches nevertheless did protect the men more than when they were just running around out in the open. This is why more than 100,000 Americans died (as much as in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined), even though the United States was only in the War for 19 months. The slaughter was called to a halt at 11:00 hrs on 11 November 1918. The Armistice was more than just a cease fire, since it required Germany to withdraw from its occupation of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg and surrender its fleet for internment by Britain.
The subsequent Treaty of Versailles in 1919 may instructively be compared to the work of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) which had settled Europe in the wake of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era. Since there was not a general war in Europe for a century, the work of the Congress of Vienna in that respect may be considered a success. Since Versailles was followed within twenty years by a World War even more terrible than the first, it cannot be said to have been as successful.
The most conspicuous difference between Vienna and Versailles is the treatment of the defeated Power. France was restored to Louis XVIII with the full sovereignty and territory that it had had under Louis XVI -- in fact more, since Avignon was not returned to the Papacy. This made perfect sense. Louis XVIII was not responsible for what France had done under the Republic and the Empire, and it would not have helped his legitimacy or popularity to have been restored under punitive conditions. By the same token, the Germany that was represented at Versailles was no longer the one that had started and waged World War I. The Kaiser had abdicated, a Republic declared, and a parliamentary government sent representatives to the Allies. This was supposedly what Woodrow Wilson wanted out of the War: the triumph of democracy.
Unfortunately, France, Italy, and Britain wanted revenge and spoils. The peace would be punitive, and the Weimar Republic would suffer in legitimacy and popularity because of it -- providing more than enough ammunition of grievance for people like Adolf Hitler to discredit democracy and the Peace. Where Louis XVIII was respected, helped, and protected, the new Sovereign People of Germany would not be. Indeed, the representatives of German democracy were not even allowed to attend at Versailles, and the Treaty was subsequently presented to them, in the words of people like Hitler, as a Diktat whose rejection would precipitate a renewal of the War. How different from Vienna, where France was represented by the brilliant Talleyrand . Although the victorious Powers of 1814 did indeed contemplate marginalizing the French representative, in short order Talleyrand maneuvered himself into full participation. I doubt that the Germans of 1919 had a diplomat available of the genius of Talleyrand (who had survived and served all of the regimes since Louis XVI), but even a lesser man might have talked some sense into the Allies, or at least awakened Wilson to the spirit of his own promises.
Germany was deprived of territory through plebicites, but there was no appeal to popular will in the territories taken by France, Italy, or Britain. The sizes of the German Army and Navy were severely limited, with the Army forbidden tanks and aircraft, and the Navy forbidden ships larger than 10,000 tons. Louis XVIII labored under no such curtailment of his sovereignty. And Germany faced massive reparations. This reciprocated the reparations imposed by Prussia on France in 1871, but, of course, nothing of the sort had been expected of France in 1815. The reparations led the German government to a massive inflation of the currency, which broke the economy, wiped out the savings of the middle classes, and created the conditions that, with the addition of the Great Depression, produced a level of misery that popularized the previously insignificant Nazis. Ironically, much of the reparations ended up being paid with loans from the United States.
The approach at Versailles proved to involve a high order of folly. This was not unappreciated at the time. John Maynard Keynes, later an influential economist, called the Treaty a "Carthaginian" peace ("The Economic Consequences of the Peace," 1919) -- like the treaties imposed by Rome on Carthage, before her complete destruction. Keynes may not have known that German commanders were already speaking of a "Second Punic War," hoping, like Hannibal, to avenge the defeat of the First. Curiously, although later a staunch foe of Appeasement, Winston Churchill agreed with the assessment of Keynes. The terrible War that began with the folly of Austrian diplomacy thus ended with the folly of Allied diplomacy.
Having helped discredit democracy in Germany, the Allies then compounded the problem by choosing an Appeasement policy with Hitler. The British, especially, were having second thoughts about the justice of Versailles, and in conjunction with a popular Pacifist movement, this led to one folly being heaped upon the other.
Niccolò Machiavelli , The Prince [Daniel Donno translation, Bantam Books, 1981, p. 20]
As it happened, Hitler, although finally losing as did Hannibal in the original Second Punic War, would prove to be a far more terrible enemy and would inflict an unprecedented level of suffering, destruction, and carnage on Europe and her peoples -- thanks in great measure to the advantages he enjoyed from the fecklessness of the Allies. The only consistent feature in Allied policy from Vienna to Versailles was, perhaps, a deference to autocrats, Louis XVIII and Hitler, in comparison to democratic representatives, who were cut off at the knees.
The Germans had often behaved badly under the Kaiser, but this was the merest foretaste of what would aptly be called the "crimes against humanity" of World War II. The taste for revenge of the Allies in World War I would thus rebound upon them with unimaginable ferocity. They had little taste for it after World War II, though by then they realized that they wanted a democratic Germany as an ally against the remaining, and triumphant, totalitarian power, the Soviet Union. Truncated by Russian conquest, the Federal Republic of Germany nevertheless emerged as a sovereign and equal Power in the modern world.
The Iron Cross -- -- came to be used to symbolize, not only the German Empire, but every single regime in modern Germany since then -- the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, and the Federal Republic of Germany -- with sole exception of Communist East Germany. There actually had not been much call for such a symbol before the introduction of aircraft. Armies and navies had always used flags for recognition, as with the Imperial German Naval Ensign at right. A flag, however, is not going to work very well on an aircraft, and during World War I we see the introduction of special insignia painted on wings and fuselage. Considering the radical changes in regime, from Empire, to Republic, to Dictatorship, to Republic again, the Iron Cross represents an extraordinary constant in Germany identity despite all the other changes in symbolism. As it happens, however, the Iron Cross has nothing to do with the earlier history of Germany in general. It was inherited by the Margravate of Brandenburg, as the Kingdom of Prussia, from the Duchy of Prussia, which itself derived from the domain of the Teutonic Knights. With the Knights, the Cross was simply the standard Cross of a Crusader, and the black on white colors were just a variation of those used by other Crusading Orders. For instance, the Hospitallers used white on red, , or white on black, . There was no particular symbolism in the choice of colors for the Teutonic Knights. The only symbolism it would ever have, a particularly unfortunate one, would be for the Nazis with death . This has now been conveniently, and not inappropriately, forgotten.
German Democratic Republic, 1949-1990.
(joins Federal Republic, 1990)
Unlike the French Revolution and Napoleon, the theory and the practice already existed for what Hitler did. He had the venerable precedent of Mussolini for a nationalistic dictatorship with economic controls by the State (where the controls actually inspired Franklin Roosevelt's quasi-fascist "National Recovery Act," wisely declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935), but he also had the practice of Lenin in creating a totalitarian police state, where everything is expected to serve the political ends of the Party, and opposition is ruthlessly suppressed. When Hitler started his great war, the boundaries of Europe again began to melt and run, as they had with the French. Napoleon, however, although not above murders and massacres, by no means had the project of mass murder and genocide in mind that Hitler did. Thus, Winston Churchill said, "I certainly deprecate any comparison between Herr Hitler and Napoleon: I do not wish to insult the dead." Easy comparisons there are, however, between the two, as explored in Desmond Seward's Napoleon and Hitler, a Comparative Biography [Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, 1988]. Comparisons are also easy between Hitler and the mirror image leftist dictator and mass murderer of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin -- see Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives , by Alan Bullock [Alfred A. Knopf, 1992] and The Dictators, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia , by Richard Overy [W. W. Norton & Company, 2004].
When Hitler came to power, Albert Einstein was visiting for a semester (for the third time) at the California Institute of Technology. He had already arranged to take up a position at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, but did return to Europe that summer. Hearing that the Nazis had already searched his residences, including his beloved summer house, Einstein never returned to Germany. His holiday, largely in the Netherlands, included a quiet visit to Winston Churchill in England. Churchill, who almost alone knew what Hitler was all about, was out of the government and out of favor at the time as some kind of warmonger. Yet, Einstein, a life long pacifist, agreed with Churchill's assessment and suspended his pacifism for the duration. I don't know if Einstein and Churchill ever met again. It must have been an extraordinary moment.
It is noteworthy that Hitler's outright territorial annexations to Germany in the west were relatively modest, just Alsace and Lorraine from France, as in 1871. He did not have the racial animus against his western enemies that he did against the eastern -- it is there, where Germans were supposed to find their Lebensraum (after enslaving or sweeping away the Slavic or Jewish Untermenschen who were there already), that the boundaries display the same degree of rearrangement conspicuous in Revolutionary Europe and that Germany assumes the same kind of bloated and unnatural outline as Napoleonic France. In a way, Hitler's heart just really wasn't in the project of subduing England. His restless ambition in the East is then what brought him down. He couldn't wait to invade Russia, but then ran into many of the same problems as Napoleon. Like Plato's classic case of the "tyrannical" personality, neither Hitler nor Napoleon had the patience to limit their goals and limit their risks. Stalin, in the end, did, and so became the most successful of all such dictators, despite the very same hatred of democracy and Liberal society.
On this 1942 map of the "high water mark" of Nazi Germany, several points of strategic failure are noteworthy. While Napoleon could not have invaded England without naval control of the English Channel for a few days, Hitler, with no strategic navy, could have accomplished the same job with air power. The air Blitz against England came close to doing this, by attacking Royal Air Force bases and the radar sites that directed British aircraft. However, a British bombing raid on Berlin infuriated Hitler. He redirected attacks to London and civilian targets. Although spectacular, this was strategically ineffective, and spared the military means that the British had to preclude German air superiority. Without such superiority, an invasion could not be attempted. So Hitler turned on Russia. Meanwhile, he regarded the only place where there was ground combat with British forces, in North Africa, as a sideshow. Deep in Egypt, within hailing distance of Alexandria and the Suez Canal, Erwin Rommel , the "Desert Fox," if he had had only a tithe of the forces in the Balkans, could have taken the heart out of British Imperial communications and put the whole Middle East, with its strategic oil reserves, into the hands of pro-Nazi Arabs. Instead, Rommel's own communications could not be secured, as the German airborne forces that could have taken Malta were ruined in a Pyrrhic victory on Crete. Substantial German forces were only committed to North Africa after the Americans landed in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942. With Rommel already in retreat, the result was simply the surrender of another German Army (May 1943). Meanwhile, Stalingrad (16 September 1942 to 2 February 1943) had really broken the ability of Germany to mount any other large or effective offensives. Despite the undoubted importance of Stalingrad, where 250,000 Germans had been trapped and killed or captured, it should be remembered that a good 350,000 Germans and Italians had been killed or captured in North Africa. Rommel himself is one of the more intriguing characters of the War. He made a name in the brilliant campaigns of 1940 and secured military immortality in North Africa; but he then was ineffective against the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944. Suspected of involvement in plots against Hitler, Rommel was allowed to commit suicide and then celebrated as a great hero of the Third Reich. In the end, he symbolizes the questionable moral commitments and futile genius of the professional German military.
If the Western Allies had lost their taste for revenge in 1945, quite the opposite would be the case in the East. If Keynes had been concerned about a "Carthaginian Peace," and if the German Army wanted a "Second Punic War," what Germany got from the Russians in the East was a Third Punic War and a genuinely Carthaginian "Peace," i. e. the Russians actually treated East Prussia and Königsberg the way the Romans had treated Carthage. That is how Whittaker Chambers saw it in 1952, when he referred to "the Carthaginian mangling of Europe" [ Witness , Regnery, p.332]. Königsberg was largely destroyed, the population was deported or annihilated (perhaps 100,000 civilians were "disappeared"), Prussia was divided with Poland, and Russian colonists were brought in to give birth to a generation that often was not even told in the schools that where they lived used to be part of Germany (and had never been part of Russia). To be sure, this is no less than what the Nazis wanted to do to Russia; so if our moral principle is collective guilt and an eye-for-an-eye retribution, the Germans got what they deserved. However, if the Soviet Union was doing what the Nazis wanted to do just because that is the way they operated anyway, and we reject the collective guilt of the German citizens of East Prussia -- not to mention the other lands in Eastern Europe from which ethnic Germans were expelled or disappeared -- then World War II ended as it began, with the war crimes of two, not one, ruthless and totalitarian powers.
The Soviets were not even following their own ideology, since they did not distinguish between German capitalist warmongers and the innocent German proletariat. All Germans were blamed; all German women were raped; and so what it looked like was not good Marxist class enemies, but precisely the sort of race enemies already infamous from Nazi ideology. It was not a German class liquidated East of the Oder; it was the German people liquidated East of the Oder; and this only made sense in terms of the pan-Slavic ambitions that had already been expressed by Tsarist Russia in 1914, with practices that were already infamously associated with Russian Cossack cavalry. In short order, the democracies realized that the Soviet Union was simply picking up again the practice of the tyrannies in which it had been happy to cooperate with the Germans until June 1941.
And it was not only Germans who experienced Soviet terror in 1945. In the Baltic states, Poland, and elsewhere a police state apparatus shut down the restoration of pre-War governments. The Soviets deported many populations as well as those of Germans, both to create "realities" to match the post-war borders drawn by Stalin, and to punish populations, like the Crimean Tartars and Chechens, believed to have cooperated with the Germans. Poland, an active Ally whose partition by Germany and Russia began the War, and whose citizens had fought heroically in Allied armies and air forces throughout, was left to the merciless process of transformation into a Soviet puppet state. That the democracies more or less acquiesced to Soviet domination in Poland rendered the casus belli of 1939 and the whole moral content of Allied war aims vacuous. To rescue Poland from murderous German Nazis, it was betrayed to murderous Russian Communists -- even as Soviet and Marxist propaganda undermined the confidence of the democracies in their own principles, a process that, long after the fall of the Soviet Union, continues to corrupt and undermine the political, economic, intellectual, and moral health of the West. In other words, Leninism is alive and well in American universities; and American Communists who spied for the Soviet Union and betrayed, not just their country, but humanity and civilization, are celebrated as heroes and martyrs.
As of 2012, Germany is in a curious positon. Angela Merkel has indeed effectively been reforming the economy, with good growth and unemployment down to 5.5% -- much better than the United States, which has regressed and stalled under the Welfare State and Keynesian tax-and-spend ideology of the Democrats elected in 2008 -- people who think that the older, stagnant Germany, or perhaps France, was a success to be copied. Curiously enough, reform in Germany had begun under Gerhard Schroeder, who, although perhaps elected for more socialism, did the opposite, even cutting back the power of the unions and reducing the time allowed for unemployment benefits -- a strategy successful elsewhere, such as in Denmark, but politically taboo in the United States. This even cost Mr. Schroeder his office, but with the ironic benefit of the election going to Merkel. The success of Germany is not lost on the new Prime Ministers of Italy, Mario Monti, and Spain, Mariano Rajoy.
At the same time, the success of Germany has saddled it with the European debt crisis, the responsibility for which has mainly fallen on Germany and France, which want to both guard against the collapse of Euro and protect their banks from the bad debt of the PIIGS -- Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. It looks like Ireland will have the least trouble recovering from the credit collapse set off by the mortgage bubble in the United States; and the leadership, and even the electorate, of Italy, Spain, and Portugal now look like they are ready for supply-side reforms of their economies. Germany, after all, has now obviously led the way in the emulation of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Greece may be another matter. The best strategy for the rest of Europe may be to let Greece become a "failed state," i. e. let it default, leave the Euro zone, and inflate its way out of its overpriced system of government. But Greece, although a headache, does not have a large enough economy -- about the size of Boston -- to seriously burden the rest of Europe. Without much effort, the EU can keep bailing out Greece for a while, in that hope it will sober up to real reform, before giving up and cutting it loose.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018 Kelley L. Ross, Ph. D. Todos os direitos reservados.
Francia, Note 1.
I have received a complaint about this statement that Germany "had never known real democracy," since there had been Mediaeval commercial republics, like the cities of the Hanseatic League. Isso é verdade. And there is a modern descendant of Mediaeval German republicanism: It is called "Switzerland." But the Mediaeval republicanism was not particularly democratic -- more oligarchic. And Germany itself lost all historical connection to it. Modern German states owed more to 17th century absolutism, as found in Prussia and Austria, than to any form of republicanism. After the Congress of Vienna, when there were only four Free Cities left, Prussia and Austria moved to suppress nationalist and republican opinion and activism. 1848 didn't alter the success of that very much. The ideology of Imperial Germany and the German universities was all of statism, authority, and obedience. This was not good material for the Weimar Republic. Indeed, German statist ideology, as formulated from Hegel to Heidegger, has now compromised and undermined the liberal theory of government in states with real democratic traditions, like Britain and the United States. The practice of American government now owes more to Otto von Bismarck than to Thomas Jefferson.
Francia, Note 2.
Another recent correspondent (April 2002) has informed me that the German economy is not in such bad shape and that conflict with immigrants is not a problem. Well, the German Federal Statistical Office shows national unemployment in February 2002 as 10.4%. Unemployment in the former East Germany is 19.2% and in the former West Germany 8.3%. These numbers are up from last year, since there has been a recession, and are slightly higher than in January 2001 (10.0%, 18.7%, and 8.0% respectively). The former East has thus been suffering depression levels of unemployment. There is going to be dissatisfaction and trouble over that, whether it is with immigrants or not. But even the original area of the Federal Republic has the typical Euro-socialist levels of high unemployment. When American unemployment was 6% in the middle of 1930, Herbert Hoover thought that drastic action was needed (so he drove it up to 18%). But now in European terms even 8% is looking good. Since it has been more than a decade since the reunification of Germany, something is clearly not working in East Germany. A decade after World War II, West Germany had very nearly rebuilt its industry and infrastructure, despite being bombed back to the Stone Age during the War. But the wisdom that removed price controls to allow Germany growth then has now been forgotten. Indeed, for six years, Germany has had one of the lowest growth rates in Europe (where the average annual European Union growth since 1995 has only been 2.6%), and there are actually laws prohibiting companies from cutting prices without government permission. Some are willing to eat the fines and cut prices anyway, but the insanity of such rules almost defies belief -- though it does sound like the miserable Nehruist "Licence Raj" regime that India has finally been trying to get rid off. Comparison with discredited Indian economics is something that should really trouble Germans.
After the reelection of Mr. Schröder late in 2002, he backed away from promises of labor and other economic reform. It was a "bait and switch" election, which has disillusioned many with the Social Democrats. The Economist [November 30th - December 6th, p.45] says, "only the unions seem happy," with slow growth, high unemployment, and high taxes. Indeed, a union leader, Michael Sommer, is quoted as saying, "The government is on the right path. Germany is now on the way to being modernised in a socially just way." The only way this makes any sense is if Mr. Sommer is looking forward to ever more socialism, if not sovietism. This is the "modernisation" that a rent-seeking labor movement looks for. Some have even begun to call Germany the "Sick Man of Europe" -- a term originally applied to the Ottoman Empire, and just over 20 years ago to pre-Thatcherite Britain.
In 2005 a more conservative government, with an implicit promise of reform, was elected, headed by Angela Merkel. While the German economy seems to be doing better (as of 2007), it is not clear how far reforms have, or are likely to have, gone.