Would you like to ask Dr Starkey a question? If so please join his brand new Subscribestar Members' Club www.subscribestar.com/david-starkey-talks Patreon Members' Club: www.patreon.com/davidstarkeytalks To make a donation visit www.davidstarkey.com Channel store shop.davidstarkey.com Thank you for watching.
It is worth considering the huge disadvantage in terms of game theory that Europeans now find themselves in when competing with more clannish immigrant groups. We are still operating as individuals whereas others are organising themselves from the basis of kinship networks.
I want you to enjoy a lovely Christmas and New Year Mr Starkey, but I l will also be waiting impatiently for your videos. You probably don’t know how much pleasure you bring to the lives of us ordinary folk. Cheers from Australia 🇦🇺
Food for thought. thank you. Likely coloured by my background in biology, anthropology, and medicine, I always regarded the nation state at it's most basic as an extension of the 'tribalism' that is hard-wired in to all us humans - perspective both affects and informs one's thinking. Therefore other perspectives, such as a historical one, are always worth perusing both for their own value and to widen one's understanding, even where one might think the answers are clear. As an aside 'racism', an important topic that has been both horribly devalued and made a far greater issue by much of today's "current day madness", is to my eye a consequence of our built-in tribalism - in large part manifested when a person perceives the group to which they feel belonging is under threat, and so looks to blame those most obviously not a part of their 'tribe'. Anyone who tells me they are not a 'racist' (or a bigot of some other flavour) is to me a liar, or at the very least has never felt 'their tribe' to be under threat... That is one of the many reasons why "current day madness" is so dangerous because it both threatens the otherwise content while actively presenting candidates upon which that feeling of threat can be blamed. (Marxist policy 101..?) I would suggest the best route to 'peace and understanding' is to recognise we are all fundamentally tribal at heart. You then go about taking steps to reassure people that it is 'ok to be a part of your tribe' and 'nobody is threatening it', while at the same time encouraging contact among the members of as many 'tribes' as possible... ...all, of course, the exact opposite of what the loudest voices in our society are attempting to do, in direct contradiction to what they say.
Canon 50 of the 4th Council of Lateran didn't seem to affect the marriage arrangements of some families; the Habsburgs come to mind. Why is it that these Catholic laws made more headway in England than elsewhere on the continent?
Why did Japan succeed where so many others failed? The Meiji Restoration broke the power of the old samurai clans. It drastically reduced the importance of the family unit in Japanese society, sufficiently much that the idea of loyalty to a larger entity could take root. That larger entity was the person of the emperor before 1945 and the nation afterwards. There are still profound differences of course, but like western Europe the idea of family and clan loyalty has been destroyed in contemporary Japanese society.
@Nick Morris erm no. The emperors were NOT dedicated to westernisation. They were still figureheads in the new regime. Japan headed western-wards up until about 1925. Then the millitarists took over. Then the differences began to come out with bushido and the fanatical death cult. Japan was still a nation-state at that point, hence being able to ravage China. However it was profoundly different in its outlook and actions than the UK or France or US. It was only after 1945 that things really changed. Even now the different culture means different outlook and emphasis.
Great stuff as always David, you keep saying the Middle Ages we’re more civilized in so many ways, the last two years has definitely proved it, they treated lepers better than we treat healthy teenagers without vaccine passports! 😂
@@bork2739 he's quite correct. What is the modern woke leftist movement? A religious cult. They have heresies and everything, including an inquisition. Thunberg is a modern version of a medieval child saint. It is a dreadful reversion to an earlier, worse way of doing things.
I believe Micheal Woodley has done a joint statistical study (with someone I can't remember I'm sorry) which demonstrates that the rate of cousin marriage has a direct inversre relationship to the establihment of democratic legal norms.
Does Nationhood not also arise from the need of families and tribes to band together against a common enemy? England is generally regarded, is it not, from the unity achieved by Alfred and Aethelstan to fight off the Vikings, and the roots they engendered survived the Norman Conquest - or so I understood from Robert Tombs's excellent book 'The English and Their History'.
That certainly fits with my line of thinking. Author and title duly noted, thank you. There is also probably acknowledged therein; the pre-conquest unity with Normandy whereupon it was agreed that neither would harbour said vikings following raid upon the other. From this closer relationship along similar lines eventually came William's claim (amongst several) to the crown. The Norman monarchs very soon proudly adopted the title King of England under which they then set about expanding into Ireland a century later although as we know that didn't quite go to plan. But the crucial factor for me is as I understand it that the Normans maintained much of the established structure which had developed from Alfred's time. It was a prize they invested much in acquiring. This was not merely rivalry or plunder nor typical colonising. Domesday Book was largely a tidying up exercise showing what they already knew people owned during the reign of Edward and whose hands it had passed into now with the exception of areas laid to waste but still entered. It was a continuation with a stricter, more organised group at the helm. And they had been here a while by 1215. Arguably the boldest act of any English King in relation to the papacy prior to Henry VIII was that of Henry II overstepping his own authority by appointing Becket as Archbishop. For me it is the rise of the lawyers who came out of the baronial class who still want to take credit for moulding the nation including, crucially, parliament. Well up to not long before covid they did, they are generally rather quiet now. This is of course one reason why people are currently debating the state of their nation. 1688/9 weighted as it was by 1215 is more significant as the nascent secular state currently effecting an ever reducing royal influence and increasing identity crisis. Does somebody benefit from this or is it just circumstantial to be rebuilt at some later date? I have it firmly fixed in my mind that this supposed insurance against tyranny was also something of a boast of levels of freedom enjoyed by the English. There are increasing murmurings about Common Law even the local potheads seem to understand what this means. This leads to a question I have: was the concept of nation all just part of one big con? Back to Henry II again. It is the duty of all men to bear arms. The much vaunted American constitution was a modification when it comes to the corresponding amendment. I wonder where that leaves a certain Tony Blair in relation to the nation.
The Greeks devised the concept of a nation that goes beyond family/clan/tribe, and of course the Romans built on top of that and planted the seeds for modern nations.
The Italians were not automatically Roman citizens. Rome was a unitary identity, there was a wall around it and the people with bona fides exerted influence beyond that walled area by virtue of the power and wealth they inherited - still pretty tribal in a way.
Not quite. Greeks were very clannish about their own kinship groups as the epic rivalries between Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Epirus etc. all demonstrated. The real key here was that they were able to ethnically identify with each other when it came to being attacked by outsider groups the most notable of which were the Persians. This also extended to the Macedonians to the North who were perceived as not being descended from Mycenaeans but from the Barbarian groups further North in Dacia and Thrace. So arguably one could say that the Greeks did recognise a "Greek nation" but not in the way Alfred the Great would later perceive of an "English nation". In Alfred's case it was a genuine concept that encompassed all "Angles" both in response to outsider threat (the Norse) but also as a way to centralise and exert power.
How many 'modern' nations are there in the world? Essentially, there is the US which is multiethnic after they all but exterminated the indigenous people of their land. Family - tribe - common culture is deeper than the shallower 'constitutions' as can be seen in the US at the moment.
What a fabulous observation this video makes. I always ascribed the loss of tribalism to industrialisation. But on reflection nobody was quite as industrialised as the Scots. I suspect there is a new or perhaps subtly modified role for the monarchy that arose from 1215. They appear to perform the role of the matriarch or patriarch of the tribe, welding influence not through fiat, but by appealing to decency and fidelity as markers of decency.
Tribalism still exists in heavily industrialised nations. Just look at countries like Mexico, Thailand or China. Close kinship groups remain as important there as they did 200 years ago and limits their potential ability to reach the heights that NW-Europe did.
It's naive to think that we can impose our values of democracy and law onto other nations. Just shows how important the to understanding of history is. It's easy for people to forget these days what a long and bloody struggle it has been to get to where we are today.
@@musashidanmcgrath yes but the important difference is Rome conquered the land of the people who they were trying to impose their values on and often had to crash rebellious natives, even after that romanization would be a slow and gradual process that would take generations to complete Gaul and England being the first examples to come to mind.
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 Yes, but ultimately Gaul and Britain were very successful Romanisation campaigns. This greatly accelerated the advancement of progression in Europe. Of course they conquered. That's what humans have being doing for as long as the next tribe over had something you wanted.
Romanisation only happened fully in the Western part where tribes had a common language, culture and religion but no common history and were less developed than Rome. Still, Rome succeded only by consistently doing something that only the Americans and Spanish did - any tribe that rebelled after the initial conquest was eradicated. It is estimated that the Gallic Rebellion of Vercingetorix cost 1/3 of a Gauls their life and another 1/3 became slavescand were hauled off to Italy. Brutal but effective - afterwards the Gauls never rose again, not even when Rome's presence in the region was very weak like during the civil war from 44 BC to 30BC. In the East, with exception of the Jews, large scale rebellions of natives (not Roman civil wars) hardly happened and as such the hellenized local cultures survived much more intact. The English crown used that method only once, after the Jacobite rebellion of some Highlander clans i 1746. Thry killed or expulsed hundreds of thousands of highlanders, including women and children. It worked, very much like it did with Ceasar in Gaul. This merciless strategy broke the local clan system for good, ensured government sponsored magnates and colonist with their diffetent culture could take over and most of the survivors assimilated quickly to avoid further retaliations. Ruthless but efficient. Where the English failed to pursue these "you are eith me or you ate dead or a slave/indentured servant" policies like in Aquitaine or Normandy (well they couldn't really as the nobility felt and lived more like their French cousins than the Anglo-Saxon plebs to the 15th century) they could not hold the land and instead of peace constant warfare followed. Had European colonial powers used the Roman methods fully in Africa, they only transferred culture, they nay still rule there. India was like Roman Greece alteady too self-aware and developed to fully "anglicise", but a Anglo-Indian entity akin to Byzantium could have emerged if the English would have read Caesar's works more carefully. Just saying...
@@privatesmith1560 Yes, but the difference is that Roman expansion wasn't accompanied with colonist settlement in the same way that America or the Spanish were(and of course the ancient Greeks) Roman provinces were garrisoned and ruled under Roman law, but Rome wasn't a tradtional colonial expansion.
Wonderful fully enjoyed that. On the why weren't we "successful" in Afghanistan...I know it's a little off topic...but I believe it's simply because those fighting for or supporting the Taliban simply reverted to getting on with civilian life...or else moved over the borders of Afghanistan into places like Pakistan until such a time as we went home again.
Who says 'we' weren't 'sucessful'? All depends on what you consider the aim was. If it was to root out Al Quieda and demonstrate they couldn't fly jet liners into American skyscrapers without impunity then it could be regarded as a success. The Americans have never been much chop at overt colonisation, they are much better at 'gunboat' and 'fiscal' diplomacy as methods for arranging things in foreign lands.
As any Highland Scot that served in Afghanistan should have realised, that is a clan based society, not a Western nuclear family by any means ! The Russians failed to realise that in their 1980 invasion (not they tried to see or even cared) as we, the USA and little old England also failed (to realise) in 2001 onwards.
Pope forbidding cousin marriage did not stop it, could not stop it. Aristos continued to marry aristos; Peasants continued to marry people from the same village. There was no-one else available. The Pope's fatwa against cousin marriage was so he could demand bribes.
I don’t know if I’d attribute the whole shift of Western Europe away from family politics towards the formation of the nation state just on the prohibition of beyond first generational cousin marriages, though it does go a long way as to explaining why such an concept is not as abhorrent to other civilisations as it does to westerners.
It's more that such a proclamation does signal a change, one that had already been going on for thousands of years previous to the Lateran Council. NW-Europeans has already demonstrated different family formation and breeding habits than the rest of the world arguably by the late Bronze Age but definitely by the Iron Age. If you're interested in this early development I'd recommend looking up the Hajnal Line and Manoralism. The link between the two is very strong and suggests the change in council in NW-Europe far before the 13th century.
Perhaps family remained important in those parts of the world where cooking is most delicious. Once again, obviously, we must treat Scotland as a different thing.
Or should it be wrapped up in pig skins like it's awful haggis & thrown to the wolves called EU?🤔 That would certainly please the English who are currently PAYING for these DRUNKS
The pudding has been rather over egged here. The issue of the prohibition of marriage within degrees (incest) is far earlier than 1215. Go back to the C9th and the Carolingian Frankish Empire and you find marriages determined by Catholic belief and doctrines. Innocent III merely set it finally at 6 degrees of separation, prior to this it varied between 4 and 7. If you are looking at the origins of the 'nation state' it does not lie in marriage laws, it lies in war (shared threat), religion (shared beliefs), monarchy (a common ruler), and common descent and heritage (shared history). The roots of the 'nation' of the 'English' are to be found in Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the English People' and his invention of the 'gens Anglorum' in the early C8th; the the invention of the 'Angelcynn' by Alfred the Great of Wessex in the late C9th; and the creation of 'Engla lond' in the C10th by the West Saxon kings Athelstan, Edmund and Edgar. Catholic Christendom's prohibitions on marriage were only gradually adopted across Europe in the later Middle Ages, and not fully until the Council of Trent in 1563. How else could Richard, Duke of Gloucester, marry Anne Neville, daughter of his uncle, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Likewise local loyalties and identities were far stronger for very much longer, and in many places (despite internal migration) remain so- northern England for instance.
Many of my family are American. From time to time we debate the revolutionary war, why Britain lost it and how perhaps Britain could have won it. One potential winning scenario that occurred to me is as follows: Why not give them what they asked for? Parliamentary representation. If we had given each state at that time, say for instance 2 MP’s each then less than 30 MP’s would have joined the House of Commons. There they would have been massively outnumbered to a point where they couldn’t really influence a decision and so far distant from the USA that Washingtons ability to communicate with and direct them would have been perpetually out of date. Given such resulting autonomy, I would imagine that after a brief honeymoon period of solidarity, they would quickly do what politicians do best, ie bargain for side deals that favour themselves and their State over the collective needs of their nation state.
If you ever get the chance to put the record straight on Russia I thought historically Ukraine and Crimea were part of Russia and 90% of its inhabitants speak Russian it would be good to have a educational podcast as Russia are massing on the Ukrainian border?
The Crimea was historically part of Russia from the late C17th until Krushev gave it to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1960/1. He never asked the entirely Russian population whether they wanted this and of course never expected that the Soviet Union would collapse in 1991. The Ukraine means 'borderlands', and was the area to the south and west of the Rus Principality of Kiev populated by Turkic horse peoples such as the Bulgars, Khazars (Kazaks= Cossacks), Koumans and Pechenegs. By the C17th it was a frontier zone between Muscovy and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Treaty of Andropovo 1668 effectively created the Western Russian border area known as the 'Ukraine'. The Ukraine as a state did not exist until 1991, and only because it had been a Soviet Republic.
Ukraine is a fake country made in 1917 by the Germans. Both Ukraine and Crimea are rightfully Russian. This problem has become far more of an issue recently as the Ukrainians have allowed themselves into acting as the US' stooge in the region to frustrate the development of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. US' policy aim is to prevent an EU+Russia alliance as they recognise they will not be able to control such an alliance which would naturally be quite powerful. Key to this is to frustrate Nordstream 2 at every opportunity.
Interesting, but I'm not sure I agree with any of this, & the concept of the nation state beyond tribe existed at least as early as the Roman Empire, quite some time before the Medieval era (in England it was established in the 10th Century in the reign of King Edward the Elder as well, some time before some Pope told people to stop marrying their sisters!). Any way, talking about matters tribal - VOTE UKIP in North Shropshire on Thursday for an Immigration Referendum to stop Johnson's invasion, or we won't have a nation left.
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 UKIP is offering to do what you want - withdraw from those trearies. Have you joined the party to help it, if not why not?
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 UKIP is offering to tear those treaties up, & an immigration referendum to stop the invasion - not good enough for you?
This topic needs a much more comprehensive discussion. I'm not sure the existence of nationhood is simply because of the medieval Catholic Church. In light of current events, I would be thrilled to see a more substantial discussion of nationhood, the nation state, and its mixed successes. Is it a failed experiment?
Just a thought while listening to another interesting topic... If ‘marriage within the family group’ was considered as being ‘a problem’ as recently as 1215 in our (sort of) modern society; could it be that Neanderthal society - (and all other ancient ancestor groups for that matter) had the same conceptual problem that Western European society faced in the centuries leading up to 1215? Could the Neanderthal population have contributed greatly to their own demise through tribal intermarriage, rather than simply being wiped out by their competitors of that era?
We don't know their partners were all intertribal. Many primitive tribes of mainly family members, often met up every decade or so with other tribes for the purpose of trading children. The fact that there were hybrids also shows they did not mate exclusively among there tribe.
@@grannyannie6744 Thanks Granny Annie... I had considered the DNA record, though had not considered the possibility of tribes meeting up every so often for the purpose of swapping children. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 👍
@@djpodesta I don't understand what the DNA indicates about Neanderthal mating habits. I'm Australian, and I used to have a fishing shack for weekend use on a small island. Before Europeans it had no fresh water. It had never been inhabited before the 1870s, but Aborigines had used it a neutral place to meet and trade children, the lack of water put a natural limit on the length of transactions.
@@grannyannie6744 Hi Granny Annie, I mentioned the DNA record because it would stand to reason that since we are in fact hybrids (as proven through the DNA record, they did not mate exclusively among their tribe, as you pointed out in your reply. You made two good points, to which I had considered one, but not the other. It is possible that what you said about the tribal meet ups could have been common practice among our ancestors around the world. Having said that, it is still just an interesting thought exercise on my part and the conversation is most welcome.
Good question, I would say: not neccessarily. Islam has no nationhood, (although Mecca may be sacred, it is not a central capital like London or Moscow), but it has conquered and colonised huge areas.
Not necessarily. Both British and Roman (the world's 2 biggest) had an overriding structure but largely let local customs of multiple nations continue and mix with the imperial culture. It may only imply nationhood at the central parent organisation. Rome wasn't Italy for example.
It implies the opposite if we're being honest. It was once the Romans expanded their understanding of what Rome was that it started to seriously suffer and fragment.
@@dcarbs2979 Good answer. But the point of my question is to suggest that ancient empires must have had nations behind them. I rather think Dr Starkey's presentation should be scoped to Britain or Europe.
Basis for all human society is the family and will always be the family. The question is why did NW-Europeans develop a way in which this could be built upon to include higher allegiances based on trust and reputation and yet all other cultures remained entirely within the close kinship system. Find the answer to that and you'll very quickly realise why the world is at it is.
@Voiceofsanity 100% agree. I am very much a libertine who lived my life in Canada and the United States so I tend to believe that the individual is the core unit in society. However, there are drawbacks to this paradigm, like you said... bubblewrapping our children, telling them that they can do no wrong and that they're a "special little snowflake" has had disastrous societal consequences like the cancellation of Dr. Starkey. Perhaps the individual needs to be understood within the context of a family and a community.
I am a progressive left winger who wants to see neoliberalism and surveillance capitalism dismantled forever but heck you have important things to say. All lefties will hate me but they miss out.
Looking at birth of nationalism from an indigenous origin is true initiation and contributes to the Modern idea of nationalism many people live by. That Individualism and nationalism sprang up together during the 1800s because nationalism and individualism are closely linked to the idea of freedom. Freedoms that happened after the enlightenment and that was during 1800s This freedom of Nation and the individual gave rise and always will to being against universalist imperial authoritarian powers. The universalism of The Roman Catholic Church. / Church state. Napoleon. = All during the end of 1700s and during 1800s). Progressives -left. Communism, Hitler. Today the universalism of Globalism. Us, the common folk are fighting for culture, freedom, language. Individualism and nationalism. Freedom from left wing progressive Globalist universalism. Brexit is just the beginning of that fight.
@Voiceofsanity totally disagree with that a recent poll indicated in the north of England they would love to be able to vote for a party like the SNP who put the welfare of its population before the greed and profit of the bankers but obviously you won’t actually see that🏴🏴🏴🏴
God, do you mob have to cry whenever a home truth is spouted and as always, harp on about England? It really is pathetic how bitter and jealous the Scotch are.
It is a good point, but it overlooks two things: First, the concept of a greater loyalty already existed in Rome, something JFK referred to at the Berlin Wall. Secondly, it is trade and better communications that makes humans interact more widely and creates greater bonds. Those Brexiteers whining about sovereignty forget how England and then the UK came together, making a natural move to a European identity the next step.
I would love to hear David do a talk on the century and a bit 1603-1707, as I'm pretty sure the union wasn't exactly through choice or will. The change from England as a Sovereign state to having a joint Monarchy with Scotland with it's own parliament, then no monarchy to joining of parliaments with a couple of failed attempts in between. Apart from the technological and social change of c. 1850-1950, it's probably the biggest century of change in our history.
Would you like to ask Dr Starkey a question? If so please join his brand new Subscribestar Members' Club www.subscribestar.com/david-starkey-talks
Patreon Members' Club: www.patreon.com/davidstarkeytalks
To make a donation visit www.davidstarkey.com
Channel store shop.davidstarkey.com
Thank you for watching.
It is worth considering the huge disadvantage in terms of game theory that Europeans now find themselves in when competing with more clannish immigrant groups. We are still operating as individuals whereas others are organising themselves from the basis of kinship networks.
Good evening from the Netherlands. Thank you for this channel 😘
Good to hear you back on the Radio (LBC) contrarian, funny and spot-on -most of the time!
I think he must hate the 'contrarian' label.
Thankyou for a lifetime of learning Dr Starkey!
I want you to enjoy a lovely Christmas and New Year Mr Starkey, but I l will also be waiting impatiently for your videos. You probably don’t know how much pleasure you bring to the lives of us ordinary folk. Cheers from Australia 🇦🇺
You’re a legend David, never change.
Thanks David, great period of life watching your documentaries on TV back in the day. What a treat to get a dedicated channel. History is marvelous.
That opening sequence always makes me giggle!
Thank you for imparting a very important historical insight, of which I was previously completely unaware.
Food for thought. thank you.
Likely coloured by my background in biology, anthropology, and medicine, I always regarded the nation state at it's most basic as an extension of the 'tribalism' that is hard-wired in to all us humans - perspective both affects and informs one's thinking. Therefore other perspectives, such as a historical one, are always worth perusing both for their own value and to widen one's understanding, even where one might think the answers are clear.
As an aside 'racism', an important topic that has been both horribly devalued and made a far greater issue by much of today's "current day madness", is to my eye a consequence of our built-in tribalism - in large part manifested when a person perceives the group to which they feel belonging is under threat, and so looks to blame those most obviously not a part of their 'tribe'.
Anyone who tells me they are not a 'racist' (or a bigot of some other flavour) is to me a liar, or at the very least has never felt 'their tribe' to be under threat...
That is one of the many reasons why "current day madness" is so dangerous because it both threatens the otherwise content while actively presenting candidates upon which that feeling of threat can be blamed. (Marxist policy 101..?)
I would suggest the best route to 'peace and understanding' is to recognise we are all fundamentally tribal at heart. You then go about taking steps to reassure people that it is 'ok to be a part of your tribe' and 'nobody is threatening it', while at the same time encouraging contact among the members of as many 'tribes' as possible...
...all, of course, the exact opposite of what the loudest voices in our society are attempting to do, in direct contradiction to what they say.
Well said. With similar background to you, this seems eminently logical. We are indeed in dangerous times.
Here comes Starkey with the history tea! Slurp slurp!
Great video!
So pleased to find you here on TH-cam. Good luck with your new enterprise.
Canon 50 of the 4th Council of Lateran didn't seem to affect the marriage arrangements of some families; the Habsburgs come to mind. Why is it that these Catholic laws made more headway in England than elsewhere on the continent?
Exactly my thoughts. Human nature, holding onto power ??
Thank you.
Why did Japan succeed where so many others failed? The Meiji Restoration broke the power of the old samurai clans. It drastically reduced the importance of the family unit in Japanese society, sufficiently much that the idea of loyalty to a larger entity could take root. That larger entity was the person of the emperor before 1945 and the nation afterwards. There are still profound differences of course, but like western Europe the idea of family and clan loyalty has been destroyed in contemporary Japanese society.
@Nick Morris erm no. The emperors were NOT dedicated to westernisation. They were still figureheads in the new regime. Japan headed western-wards up until about 1925. Then the millitarists took over. Then the differences began to come out with bushido and the fanatical death cult.
Japan was still a nation-state at that point, hence being able to ravage China. However it was profoundly different in its outlook and actions than the UK or France or US. It was only after 1945 that things really changed. Even now the different culture means different outlook and emphasis.
Also it's down to IQ. Any conversation of the success or failure of nations always comes down to group intelligence.
@@EresirThe1st Totally agree, the abolition of the family cannot be considered a success. It's the complete opposite.
Great stuff as always David, you keep saying the Middle Ages we’re more civilized in so many ways, the last two years has definitely proved it, they treated lepers better than we treat healthy teenagers without vaccine passports! 😂
Clearly you don't understand anything about the Middle Ages.
Patrick Parsons:
Clearly you have had the leftist humour removal therapy.
You mean lepers were allowed into nightclubs ?
@@bork2739 he's quite correct.
What is the modern woke leftist movement? A religious cult. They have heresies and everything, including an inquisition. Thunberg is a modern version of a medieval child saint.
It is a dreadful reversion to an earlier, worse way of doing things.
And even during real plagues, like the Black Death, the churches stayed open.
You remind me of university times where I happily sat drinking in the lecturer's knowledge. 😘
Great stuff. We were never taught at Catholic school about the role of the Catholic Church in the development of the West.
I believe Micheal Woodley has done a joint statistical study (with someone I can't remember I'm sorry) which demonstrates that the rate of cousin marriage has a direct inversre relationship to the establihment of democratic legal norms.
Was it Dr Edward Dutton ? I read their joint book
At our wits end.
@@grannyannie6744 Possibly, but I'm not sure.
It was the joint study between Ed Dutton and Michael Woodley yes.
@@ekmad Thanks
Does Nationhood not also arise from the need of families and tribes to band together against a common enemy? England is generally regarded, is it not, from the unity achieved by Alfred and Aethelstan to fight off the Vikings, and the roots they engendered survived the Norman Conquest - or so I understood from Robert Tombs's excellent book 'The English and Their History'.
That certainly fits with my line of thinking. Author and title duly noted, thank you. There is also probably acknowledged therein; the pre-conquest unity with Normandy whereupon it was agreed that neither would harbour said vikings following raid upon the other. From this closer relationship along similar lines eventually came William's claim (amongst several) to the crown.
The Norman monarchs very soon proudly adopted the title King of England under which they then set about expanding into Ireland a century later although as we know that didn't quite go to plan. But the crucial factor for me is as I understand it that the Normans maintained much of the established structure which had developed from Alfred's time. It was a prize they invested much in acquiring. This was not merely rivalry or plunder nor typical colonising. Domesday Book was largely a tidying up exercise showing what they already knew people owned during the reign of Edward and whose hands it had passed into now with the exception of areas laid to waste but still entered. It was a continuation with a stricter, more organised group at the helm. And they had been here a while by 1215. Arguably the boldest act of any English King in relation to the papacy prior to Henry VIII was that of Henry II overstepping his own authority by appointing Becket as Archbishop.
For me it is the rise of the lawyers who came out of the baronial class who still want to take credit for moulding the nation including, crucially, parliament. Well up to not long before covid they did, they are generally rather quiet now. This is of course one reason why people are currently debating the state of their nation. 1688/9 weighted as it was by 1215 is more significant as the nascent secular state currently effecting an ever reducing royal influence and increasing identity crisis. Does somebody benefit from this or is it just circumstantial to be rebuilt at some later date?
I have it firmly fixed in my mind that this supposed insurance against tyranny was also something of a boast of levels of freedom enjoyed by the English. There are increasing murmurings about Common Law even the local potheads seem to understand what this means. This leads to a question I have: was the concept of nation all just part of one big con? Back to Henry II again. It is the duty of all men to bear arms. The much vaunted American constitution was a modification when it comes to the corresponding amendment. I wonder where that leaves a certain Tony Blair in relation to the nation.
The Greeks devised the concept of a nation that goes beyond family/clan/tribe, and of course the Romans built on top of that and planted the seeds for modern nations.
Hmm? Not so sure. Helen was Spartan, Paris Trojan. It was quite definitely a question of family honour.
The Italians were not automatically Roman citizens. Rome was a unitary identity, there was a wall around it and the people with bona fides exerted influence beyond that walled area by virtue of the power and wealth they inherited - still pretty tribal in a way.
@@andyjarman4958 The Spartans of the Trojan war era are not the same people as the Spartans of the Peloponnesian war era.
Not quite. Greeks were very clannish about their own kinship groups as the epic rivalries between Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Epirus etc. all demonstrated. The real key here was that they were able to ethnically identify with each other when it came to being attacked by outsider groups the most notable of which were the Persians. This also extended to the Macedonians to the North who were perceived as not being descended from Mycenaeans but from the Barbarian groups further North in Dacia and Thrace. So arguably one could say that the Greeks did recognise a "Greek nation" but not in the way Alfred the Great would later perceive of an "English nation". In Alfred's case it was a genuine concept that encompassed all "Angles" both in response to outsider threat (the Norse) but also as a way to centralise and exert power.
How many 'modern' nations are there in the world? Essentially, there is the US which is multiethnic after they all but exterminated the indigenous people of their land. Family - tribe - common culture is deeper than the shallower 'constitutions' as can be seen in the US at the moment.
What a fabulous observation this video makes.
I always ascribed the loss of tribalism to industrialisation.
But on reflection nobody was quite as industrialised as the Scots.
I suspect there is a new or perhaps subtly modified role for the monarchy that arose from 1215.
They appear to perform the role of the matriarch or patriarch of the tribe, welding influence not through fiat, but by appealing to decency and fidelity as markers of decency.
Tribalism still exists in heavily industrialised nations. Just look at countries like Mexico, Thailand or China. Close kinship groups remain as important there as they did 200 years ago and limits their potential ability to reach the heights that NW-Europe did.
It's naive to think that we can impose our values of democracy and law onto other nations. Just shows how important the to understanding of history is.
It's easy for people to forget these days what a long and bloody struggle it has been to get to where we are today.
The Romans did this very successfully for over 1,000 years. Unparalleled anywhere else in history.
@@musashidanmcgrath yes but the important difference is Rome conquered the land of the people who they were trying to impose their values on and often had to crash rebellious natives, even after that romanization would be a slow and gradual process that would take generations to complete Gaul and England being the first examples to come to mind.
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 Yes, but ultimately Gaul and Britain were very successful Romanisation campaigns. This greatly accelerated the advancement of progression in Europe. Of course they conquered. That's what humans have being doing for as long as the next tribe over had something you wanted.
Romanisation only happened fully in the Western part where tribes had a common language, culture and religion but no common history and were less developed than Rome. Still, Rome succeded only by consistently doing something that only the Americans and Spanish did - any tribe that rebelled after the initial conquest was eradicated. It is estimated that the Gallic Rebellion of Vercingetorix cost 1/3 of a Gauls their life and another 1/3 became slavescand were hauled off to Italy. Brutal but effective - afterwards the Gauls never rose again, not even when Rome's presence in the region was very weak like during the civil war from 44 BC to 30BC. In the East, with exception of the Jews, large scale rebellions of natives (not Roman civil wars) hardly happened and as such the hellenized local cultures survived much more intact. The English crown used that method only once, after the Jacobite rebellion of some Highlander clans i 1746. Thry killed or expulsed hundreds of thousands of highlanders, including women and children. It worked, very much like it did with Ceasar in Gaul. This merciless strategy broke the local clan system for good, ensured government sponsored magnates and colonist with their diffetent culture could take over and most of the survivors assimilated quickly to avoid further retaliations. Ruthless but efficient. Where the English failed to pursue these "you are eith me or you ate dead or a slave/indentured servant" policies like in Aquitaine or Normandy (well they couldn't really as the nobility felt and lived more like their French cousins than the Anglo-Saxon plebs to the 15th century) they could not hold the land and instead of peace constant warfare followed. Had European colonial powers used the Roman methods fully in Africa, they only transferred culture, they nay still rule there. India was like Roman Greece alteady too self-aware and developed to fully "anglicise", but a Anglo-Indian entity akin to Byzantium could have emerged if the English would have read Caesar's works more carefully. Just saying...
@@privatesmith1560 Yes, but the difference is that Roman expansion wasn't accompanied with colonist settlement in the same way that America or the Spanish were(and of course the ancient Greeks) Roman provinces were garrisoned and ruled under Roman law, but Rome wasn't a tradtional colonial expansion.
Very interesting
A very inspiring video and worth subbing channel. Thumbs up !...,
It sounds perfect❤🎉
Wonderful fully enjoyed that. On the why weren't we "successful" in Afghanistan...I know it's a little off topic...but I believe it's simply because those fighting for or supporting the Taliban simply reverted to getting on with civilian life...or else moved over the borders of Afghanistan into places like Pakistan until such a time as we went home again.
Who says 'we' weren't 'sucessful'? All depends on what you consider the aim was.
If it was to root out Al Quieda and demonstrate they couldn't fly jet liners into American skyscrapers without impunity then it could be regarded as a success.
The Americans have never been much chop at overt colonisation, they are much better at 'gunboat' and 'fiscal' diplomacy as methods for arranging things in foreign lands.
When he says Dan's book, which author and book is he referring to? Dan Jones Powers & Thrones?
Perfect❤
That bloody intro. LOL
Nationhood is rooted in the family. If the family disintegrates, nationhood will disintegrate, too...
As any Highland Scot that served in Afghanistan should have realised, that is a clan based society, not a Western nuclear family by any means ! The Russians failed to realise that in their 1980 invasion (not they tried to see or even cared) as we, the USA and little old England also failed (to realise) in 2001 onwards.
Frankly I do not think it was failure to recognise their societal base, but simply the heavy dead hand of global politics.
Dr Starkey, do you have a workable definition of a nation? Was England the first nation?
Pope forbidding cousin marriage did not stop it, could not stop it. Aristos continued to marry aristos; Peasants continued to marry people from the same village. There was no-one else available. The Pope's fatwa against cousin marriage was so he could demand bribes.
I don’t know if I’d attribute the whole shift of Western Europe away from family politics towards the formation of the nation state just on the prohibition of beyond first generational cousin marriages, though it does go a long way as to explaining why such an concept is not as abhorrent to other civilisations as it does to westerners.
Nor does he explain the exemptions the church granted among the aristocracy.
It's more that such a proclamation does signal a change, one that had already been going on for thousands of years previous to the Lateran Council. NW-Europeans has already demonstrated different family formation and breeding habits than the rest of the world arguably by the late Bronze Age but definitely by the Iron Age. If you're interested in this early development I'd recommend looking up the Hajnal Line and Manoralism. The link between the two is very strong and suggests the change in council in NW-Europe far before the 13th century.
Perhaps family remained important in those parts of the world where cooking is most delicious. Once again, obviously, we must treat Scotland as a different thing.
Or should it be wrapped up in pig skins like it's awful haggis & thrown to the wolves called EU?🤔 That would certainly please the English who are currently PAYING for these DRUNKS
The pudding has been rather over egged here. The issue of the prohibition of marriage within degrees (incest) is far earlier than 1215. Go back to the C9th and the Carolingian Frankish Empire and you find marriages determined by Catholic belief and doctrines. Innocent III merely set it finally at 6 degrees of separation, prior to this it varied between 4 and 7. If you are looking at the origins of the 'nation state' it does not lie in marriage laws, it lies in war (shared threat), religion (shared beliefs), monarchy (a common ruler), and common descent and heritage (shared history). The roots of the 'nation' of the 'English' are to be found in Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the English People' and his invention of the 'gens Anglorum' in the early C8th; the the invention of the 'Angelcynn' by Alfred the Great of Wessex in the late C9th; and the creation of 'Engla lond' in the C10th by the West Saxon kings Athelstan, Edmund and Edgar. Catholic Christendom's prohibitions on marriage were only gradually adopted across Europe in the later Middle Ages, and not fully until the Council of Trent in 1563. How else could Richard, Duke of Gloucester, marry Anne Neville, daughter of his uncle, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Likewise local loyalties and identities were far stronger for very much longer, and in many places (despite internal migration) remain so- northern England for instance.
Many of my family are American. From time to time we debate the revolutionary war, why Britain lost it and how perhaps Britain could have won it. One potential winning scenario that occurred to me is as follows:
Why not give them what they asked for? Parliamentary representation. If we had given each state at that time, say for instance 2 MP’s each then less than 30 MP’s would have joined the House of Commons. There they would have been massively outnumbered to a point where they couldn’t really influence a decision and so far distant from the USA that Washingtons ability to communicate with and direct them would have been perpetually out of date. Given such resulting autonomy, I would imagine that after a brief honeymoon period of solidarity, they would quickly do what politicians do best, ie bargain for side deals that favour themselves and their State over the collective needs of their nation state.
What would Cromwell say of today?
I would demand of him to give an account of how he might think his behaviour may have destroyed the English republic.
He'd have loved it. He too banned Christmas and theatres. And if nightclubs had existed he would have banned them as well.
Interesting to reflect on the Robin Hood narrative in light of the Vatican Council and the birth of a police/nation state.
Lawrence Stone's, Live, Sex, Marriage and the Family 1400 -1800
Is a good source for how the Family evolved from households into nuclear families.
If you ever get the chance to put the record straight on Russia I thought historically Ukraine and Crimea were part of Russia and 90% of its inhabitants speak Russian it would be good to have a educational podcast as Russia are massing on the Ukrainian border?
The Crimea was historically part of Russia from the late C17th until Krushev gave it to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1960/1. He never asked the entirely Russian population whether they wanted this and of course never expected that the Soviet Union would collapse in 1991. The Ukraine means 'borderlands', and was the area to the south and west of the Rus Principality of Kiev populated by Turkic horse peoples such as the Bulgars, Khazars (Kazaks= Cossacks), Koumans and Pechenegs. By the C17th it was a frontier zone between Muscovy and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Treaty of Andropovo 1668 effectively created the Western Russian border area known as the 'Ukraine'. The Ukraine as a state did not exist until 1991, and only because it had been a Soviet Republic.
Ukraine is a fake country made in 1917 by the Germans. Both Ukraine and Crimea are rightfully Russian. This problem has become far more of an issue recently as the Ukrainians have allowed themselves into acting as the US' stooge in the region to frustrate the development of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. US' policy aim is to prevent an EU+Russia alliance as they recognise they will not be able to control such an alliance which would naturally be quite powerful. Key to this is to frustrate Nordstream 2 at every opportunity.
Interesting, but I'm not sure I agree with any of this, & the concept of the nation state beyond tribe existed at least as early as the Roman Empire, quite some time before the Medieval era (in England it was established in the 10th Century in the reign of King Edward the Elder as well, some time before some Pope told people to stop marrying their sisters!). Any way, talking about matters tribal - VOTE UKIP in North Shropshire on Thursday for an Immigration Referendum to stop Johnson's invasion, or we won't have a nation left.
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 Johnson is fully behind the invasion.
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 UKIP is offering to do what you want - withdraw from those trearies. Have you joined the party to help it, if not why not?
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 You put that in the immediate term before stopping the invasion?
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 UKIP is offering to tear those treaties up, & an immigration referendum to stop the invasion - not good enough for you?
brilliant.
could say a lot more but think that one word is sufficient.
This topic needs a much more comprehensive discussion. I'm not sure the existence of nationhood is simply because of the medieval Catholic Church. In light of current events, I would be thrilled to see a more substantial discussion of nationhood, the nation state, and its mixed successes. Is it a failed experiment?
I thought the ancient Romans had juries. European law, to varying degrees, is derivative of Roman law.
Just a thought while listening to another interesting topic...
If ‘marriage within the family group’ was considered as being ‘a problem’ as recently as 1215 in our (sort of) modern society; could it be that Neanderthal society - (and all other ancient ancestor groups for that matter) had the same conceptual problem that Western European society faced in the centuries leading up to 1215?
Could the Neanderthal population have contributed greatly to their own demise through tribal intermarriage, rather than simply being wiped out by their competitors of that era?
Possibly yes but it also equally possible that it was just a another Factor to their demise.
We don't know their partners were all intertribal. Many primitive tribes of mainly family members, often met up every decade or so with other tribes for the purpose of trading children. The fact that there were hybrids also shows they did not mate exclusively among there tribe.
@@grannyannie6744
Thanks Granny Annie...
I had considered the DNA record, though had not considered the possibility of tribes meeting up every so often for the purpose of swapping children.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 👍
@@djpodesta I don't understand what the DNA indicates about Neanderthal mating habits.
I'm Australian, and I used to have a fishing shack for weekend use on a small island. Before Europeans it had no fresh water. It had never been inhabited before the 1870s, but Aborigines had used it a neutral place to meet and trade children, the lack of water put a natural limit on the length of transactions.
@@grannyannie6744
Hi Granny Annie,
I mentioned the DNA record because it would stand to reason that since we are in fact hybrids (as proven through the DNA record, they did not mate exclusively among their tribe, as you pointed out in your reply.
You made two good points, to which I had considered one, but not the other.
It is possible that what you said about the tribal meet ups could have been common practice among our ancestors around the world.
Having said that, it is still just an interesting thought exercise on my part and the conversation is most welcome.
Doesn't Empire imply Nationhood?
Good question, I would say: not neccessarily. Islam has no nationhood, (although Mecca may be sacred, it is not a central capital like London or Moscow), but it has conquered and colonised huge areas.
Not necessarily. Both British and Roman (the world's 2 biggest) had an overriding structure but largely let local customs of multiple nations continue and mix with the imperial culture. It may only imply nationhood at the central parent organisation. Rome wasn't Italy for example.
It implies the opposite if we're being honest. It was once the Romans expanded their understanding of what Rome was that it started to seriously suffer and fragment.
@@dcarbs2979 Good answer. But the point of my question is to suggest that ancient empires must have had nations behind them.
I rather think Dr Starkey's presentation should be scoped to Britain or Europe.
@@jerrytugable Not physically, no. But it is not unusual for religions to conceive of a supra-material society.
Love The Union.
Isn't the basis for all human society the individual?
Basis for all human society is the family and will always be the family. The question is why did NW-Europeans develop a way in which this could be built upon to include higher allegiances based on trust and reputation and yet all other cultures remained entirely within the close kinship system. Find the answer to that and you'll very quickly realise why the world is at it is.
@Voiceofsanity 100% agree. I am very much a libertine who lived my life in Canada and the United States so I tend to believe that the individual is the core unit in society. However, there are drawbacks to this paradigm, like you said... bubblewrapping our children, telling them that they can do no wrong and that they're a "special little snowflake" has had disastrous societal consequences like the cancellation of Dr. Starkey. Perhaps the individual needs to be understood within the context of a family and a community.
Without marrying third and fourth cousins, were common at one time, I wonder if blue eyes or red hair would exist.
I am a progressive left winger who wants to see neoliberalism and surveillance capitalism dismantled forever but heck you have important things to say.
All lefties will hate me but they miss out.
What would Europe be like now if Britain didn't exist.
❤🙏🇬🇧🇬🇧
Looking at birth of nationalism from an indigenous origin is true initiation and contributes to the Modern idea of nationalism many people live by.
That Individualism and nationalism sprang up together during the 1800s because nationalism and individualism are closely linked to the idea of freedom.
Freedoms that happened after the enlightenment and that was during 1800s
This freedom of Nation and the individual gave rise and always will to being against universalist imperial authoritarian powers. The universalism of The Roman Catholic Church. / Church state. Napoleon. = All during the end of 1700s and during 1800s). Progressives -left. Communism, Hitler. Today the universalism of Globalism.
Us, the common folk are fighting for culture, freedom, language. Individualism and nationalism. Freedom from left wing progressive Globalist universalism. Brexit is just the beginning of that fight.
interessante
It would be good if you wouldn't go to a mumble at the end of your talk. Thanks.
Scotland is clannish in its politics well take a good look at England and its divisional methods of ruling politics it ain’t perfect as all can see😢
@Voiceofsanity totally disagree with that a recent poll indicated in the north of England they would love to be able to vote for a party like the SNP who put the welfare of its population before the greed and profit of the bankers but obviously you won’t actually see that🏴🏴🏴🏴
God, do you mob have to cry whenever a home truth is spouted and as always, harp on about England? It really is pathetic how bitter and jealous the Scotch are.
It is a good point, but it overlooks two things: First, the concept of a greater loyalty already existed in Rome, something JFK referred to at the Berlin Wall. Secondly, it is trade and better communications that makes humans interact more widely and creates greater bonds. Those Brexiteers whining about sovereignty forget how England and then the UK came together, making a natural move to a European identity the next step.
I would love to hear David do a talk on the century and a bit 1603-1707, as I'm pretty sure the union wasn't exactly through choice or will. The change from England as a Sovereign state to having a joint Monarchy with Scotland with it's own parliament, then no monarchy to joining of parliaments with a couple of failed attempts in between. Apart from the technological and social change of c. 1850-1950, it's probably the biggest century of change in our history.
Why are you so full of hate?
Who?