Fear was always balanced by hope. Those who concealed their valuables in the ground when danger threatened evidently did so in the hope of recovering them once the threat had passed, and it seems likely that this was the intention of whoever buried the Hoxne Hoard.
Hoards, then, in the words of the historian John Maddicott, are ‘reliable barometers of unrest’.
As the popular saying had it, potatoes planted “in for Paddy” came “up for Billy.” That is to say potatoes planted before the feast of St. Patrick on March 17 were edible on the feast day of William of Orange
In the late sixteenth century, we start to come across accusations of non-belief. Physicians were often labelled atheists because they seemed to be trying to stop God from punishing someone with an illness, which logically meant they were deliberately acting against God’s will. Whether there were many irreligious physicians is not the point: the key issue is that the concept of atheism now existed.
ordinary Englishmen found they were able to devastate enemy armies with the massed use of the longbow, as mentioned in chapter two. When a peasant earning perhaps £3 per year could bring down and kill a knight whose horse and armour alone were worth £50 or more, it was only natural that he and his kind should question the social order:
If the king could shrug off his obedience to the pope, why couldn’t ordinary people deal with their superiors in a similar manner? As we have already seen in the case of Clement Armstrong, some reckoned they could.
One of the most important developments of the last thousand years – if not the most important – is the shift from trusting God to safeguard our interests to trusting our fellow human beings when they have gained a professional competence in their field.
A positive view of solitude is very modern.
Yalnız kalmak, kendi başına geçinmek artık ekonomik olarak kendi ayakların üzerinde durabilmek olarak görülüyor. Ortaçağda yalnızlık ölüm demektir. Tek başına tarla biçemezsin, kendini savunamazsın. Bir köy, aile veya klan olarak dış tehditlere (doğal veya beşeri) karşı savunman lazım. Yalnızlar ayrıca dışlanır ve korkulur, haydut hırsız olabilir.
For the Chinese as for the Roman, the barbarians and tribes began precisely where taxes and sovereignty stopped.
Bu ikisi imparatorluk ve vergilendirme var. Bunların sınırlarının ötesi ise tribal kekomançiler.
One is reminded in this context of Owen Lattimore’s admonition that the great walls of China were built as much to keep Chinese taxpayers in as to keep the barbarians out.
The nude was invented by the Greeks. Christianity brought back the naked.