This is by FAR, the best channel on youtube and should be required watching for all. From NYC, thank you so much, great content!!! Merry Xmas to you all! Enjoy!!
I have been watching your videos on and off for days now, after recently stumbling across the channel. Never before have I considered signing up for membership anywhere else, but this content has me tempted 😂 Really easy listening packed with excellent research. Top marks
Have really enjoyed this series! Paul Freedman of Yale has an excellent series on the period 284 to 1000 that is a fine compliment to the events here discussed for anyone looking to deepen their knowledge.
Just found this wonderful treasure of a channel! Thank you for sharing your interests with us in such a fun way! If history had been this fun in school, we all would be history teachers! 😂😮😂❤
I bathed recently at the Carolus Thermen in Aachen. There are a lot of lovely spa baths there and overlooking the biggest of them is a rather imposing statue of Charlemagne in all his finery. It was an odd touch, especially with the rest of us loafing around in our bathers.
Thank you for the excellent podcast, always enjoy your talk. Merry Christmas and Happy and healthy to you and your loved ones for 2025. From New York city
I've been listening to TRIH for quite a while and count myself a fan of the show. That said, I had never seen you two, so I had constructed my own mental vision of what you each looked like. For Tom, I imagined a shorter man, slight of build, light hair and complexion. For Dominic, I imagined someone tall with dark hair and complexion. Obviously, I was a little off. 😝 Anyway, I'm m hoping you two get a bit of a laugh out of this. Many thanks to you and your team for making history both informative and entertaining.
How do these amazing episodes only have 77k and some idiot talking about serial killers while doing her make up gets 3 milli??? Humanity is staring into the abyss.
@@bennyk3799 But his name would indicate he was a Roman, no? Patrick=Patrician. But, as this video indicates (and will indicate further), it was all a bit confusing after the Western Roman Empire fell.
@@PoliticsandReligion-bs7mz yes a Roman brition. have you heard of the two Patrick's theory? A bishop called palladius came from gaul came in 431 and the possible Patrick is said to have come in 432... They think the latter is an invention of his biographer in Armagh....
Charlemagne is fondly remembered in Germany as "Kaiser Karl", whose throne was set up in Aachen . Yet for all the admiration there us also a sense of distaste against Karl's brutality to fellow Germanics (Franks vs Saxons) and his affinity with Rome who were still viewed as opponents to Germanic freedom. As German of "Frankish" (North Rhine) origin, one has mixed feelings about good old Karl.
Good thing we supplied two gentlemen in Verona. Gemini twins always pull the story on, evil bloodlines be damned. Time Patrol takes no chances with messianic plantces
We have forgot what a great man that Charlemagne was: A commander of the quality of Napoleon but also, like David, a man of God. I read about the exploits of Henry V. But think of his genius at work on a vaster scale and over many decades, not just one.
When you are powerful, you should use your power to care for others. Unfortunately, this runs straight into my favorite etymological buzzsaw: the origin of the English word “lord.” “Lord” is from Saxon hlaford, literally “loaf-ward” or “loaf-guard.” What is loaf-guarding? Is it like mate-guarding? What the Saxons meant is that he who wards your loaf-who gives you your daily bread, who secures your food supply, is your lord. And if he tells you to do something, you… have to do it. The lord’s emotion toward his serfs owes little to empathy and more to property. If he is a good lord, he even feels responsibility and real warmth toward them. But from a dominant position, empathy is a warlike emotion-a threat to weaponize its recipients, perhaps even into a traditional army. To feed a man is to own a man. And anyone who is existentially dependent on your largesse is not a free man, but a serf.
Fun fact? Things that Charlamagne did to the Saxons, Saxons did to the Polabian Slavs. Circle of the religious violence and a bit of the revenge on their part, because Slavs were on the side of the Franks when the Franks attacked Saxony.
They're talking about the form of the Bible being in a single book as we know it today (the codex), not its content. Before these monasteries, all the parts were on separate parchments.
Both Saxons and Franks saw each other as competitors and rivals from pre migration times over the natural resources of their border areas. Charlemagne had enough of Saxons still perennially raiding their lands instead of leaving their pagan ways. Things came to a head when Saxons started to raid the churches and monasteries and killing priests and Abbots, that's a big no no. The Saxons had to pay for their heathen intransigence.
In my childish mind I like to think that everyone in the Franks was called Frank. Similarly everyone in the Alans was called Alan. Are there any other tribes I'm missing.
That's something that is brought up every time christmas but is totally unrelated. St. Boniface after the legend cut down an oak tree near todays Fritzlar in Lower Saxony that was dedicated to Donar, the highest germanic god. The first christmas trees we know of came around in the late 15th century in now south-western Germany and Alsace. They were used in paradise- and passion plays that became really popular in the late middle ages and they were played in churches around christmas time. A Fir tree (hung upside down and adorned with apples) represented the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and also fir greens were used to substitute the palm leaves for the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Later merchant- and trade guilds put fir trees in their guild halls and from there they made their way into private homes. There is really no other historical connection between christmas trees and pagan traditions that aren't made up by later writers or the Nazis themselves.
A podcast recommendation in a well-known, relatively sensible, newspaper yesterday deemed this channel to be perhaps too Anglocentric. In the past month or so I have listened about Custer and Sitting Bull (the best of all of them so far, outstanding), Carthage, Cleopatra, the French Revolution, American politics in the late 1960s/early 1970s, China's first Emperor, beards, Charles Martel, Australian Prime Ministers, the Merovingians, Carolingians, Ancient Mesopotamia, Middle-Earth (OK, arguably a fantastical England), etc, and now Dalrymple is covering all things Indian. Obviously you people really have to broaden your outlook.
Charlamagne for all his renown as a holy roman emperor in cahoots with Pope Leo III - was a butcher. He slaughtered the Saxons because they would not submit or convert, then destroyed Irminsul their sacred shrine. Pope Leo building a church on the spot later. The christianising of the Saxons is doubly tragic. The Anglo-Saxons in Britain, who were brought to christianity by the Irish Monks of the Celtic Church at Iona and Lindisfarne, sent their "Roman Church" missionaries back to Saxony in Germany to convert their fore-fathers - after the Synod of Whitby in 664. English / Anglo-Saxons, some Saints later on did not treat their Saxons "blood" very kindly, nor the Irish Monks who still clung to their old Celtic Church faith on the continent. Wilfrith - Dunstan - Willebrord - Bonifacius, to name a few, often used secular powers to convert / harass the "opposition". In this "post christian" period, their noble deeds are no longer decent or noble, but barbaric.
How was this major distribution of the Christian faith in written form going to educate the masses when it was I imagine in Latin, a language that presumably 95% of the population couldn’t understand, or were the priests, ignorant as they were, instructed in that language in those times? The situation of not being able to read the Scriptures was the argument of early church reformers such as John Wycliffe centuries later.
Brilliant podcast. This current 'six-parter' isn't my favourite series, though. Just dropping in some honest feedback. Looking forward to what you do next!
That's not really feedback, you're basically just saying this particular subject matter isn't your favourite. Which is fine, I skipped all the American stuff recently as well. But that's my issue, not theirs.
Charlemagne: Why am I thinking Tony Blair (but not in a positive way)? ps I've just looked up Alcuin, and surprise, surprise, he isn't a saint, but in contrast, Louis lX of France who was similarly (to Charlemagne) violently religious is 'Saint Louis'.
One Anglo-Saxon makes sure Latin Bibles are the requirement everywhere in Western Christendom. Then it takes his Lollard fellow countrymen over a century to overrule him and make an English vernacular bible a norm.
Charlemagne's anti-pagan fury feels...personal. What did some pagan do to him to earn such ire? Like Desiderius and Gerberga and her boys...were they cryptochristians secretly doing the Odin thing and he got all butthurt about it, or something?
I mean he wasn't like "Let's masacre the Saxons because I feel like it!" when he woke up one morning. Saxon tribes were overstepping the boundaries of the Frankish realm for decades before that: pillaging villages and monasteries behind the Frankish border, breaking peace treaties, killing missionaries, killing christianised Saxons and so on. The problem was that Saxony really wasn't an entity with a single high ruler with whom Charles may have reached an agreement. It was an aggregation of many Saxon chiefdoms with very differing political goals. That "Crusade" by Charlemagne against the Saxons has a really big political component which gets intentionally overlooked for the usual 'nasty christians murder innocent pagan-gods-worshipper' -propaganda. In reallity it was a revenge for decades of violations from the Saxon's side who also didn't hold back with atrocities and war crimes as well as the wish to establish an area under some political control on the eastern border of Frankia and for that reason Charles had to establish Christianity because all the administration was run by clergymen.
Ironically, the relationship between the franks and the saxons was peaceful as they made an alliance to destroy the kingdom of Thuringe in 531. In the 8th century, Charles Martel (Charlemagne's grandfather) fought the saxons who were allied with Neustria in 718. In 743, it was Carloman (Charlemagne's uncle) who fought the saxons because they were allied with Bavaria. It's likely that Charlemagne used religion as an excuse to conquer Saxony (with the number of bastards he had, Charlemagne was everything but a good christian).
The history professors most of us in hindsight always wanted, but never got. This format is absurdly great. Merry Cristes mæsse.
Thank you for making history so much more accessible to all!
You’re welcome !
This is by FAR, the best channel on youtube and should be required watching for all. From NYC, thank you so much, great content!!! Merry Xmas to you all! Enjoy!!
Is it really that good? Fine, I'll watch it then
You two have been a gift this year, thankyou.
Are you serious 😂
I agree.
History + cheeky Brit comedy + football references = the best podcast going
Much love from St. Louis, Missouri! Cheers lads and Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Tom & Dom. Tom "Paulinus" Holland, your prose rocks! I'm reading Rubicon right now and am enjoying it.
I wanted to thank you for the work you put into the podcasts I enjoy, everyone. Best wishes for Christmas and the new year. X
Found you guys a couple of weeks back, love it. Merry Christmas from southern New South Wales
Merry Christmas from old south wales!🏴
I have been watching your videos on and off for days now, after recently stumbling across the channel.
Never before have I considered signing up for membership anywhere else, but this content has me tempted 😂
Really easy listening packed with excellent research. Top marks
My little brain could never read & digest all the books you guys have read and digested . What fun ! Thank you for this.
Merry Christmas all.
Merry Christmas to you too !
Merry christmas
Merry Christmas!
You too!!🎄
Merry Xmas ! I just subscribed . Digging the history coverage 👍🏻
Have really enjoyed this series! Paul Freedman of Yale has an excellent series on the period 284 to 1000 that is a fine compliment to the events here discussed for anyone looking to deepen their knowledge.
This is fascinating. Thanks for filling in my knowledge gaps 😊
Happy yuletide ❤
Honestly prob the best history content around. This longform format is killer! ❤
Merry Christmas boys. There’s so little about Charlemagne in pop culture. I’ll enjoy this. 🎄
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄
lol Why would there be?
thank you both! merry christmas
merry christmas
Merry Christmas 🎅🏻 to you both and thank you both for amazing content. 👍🇮🇪
Tom and Dominic may your bells always jingle. Thank you for your podcasts, Happy New Year to you and your families.
More than slightly obsessed with this pod
Merry Christmas Tom and Dominic❤️🎄🎄🎄
Love the dramatic reads… history never better 🎉
Happy Christmas and thank you 🙏
Just found this wonderful treasure of a channel! Thank you for sharing your interests with us in such a fun way! If history had been this fun in school, we all would be history teachers! 😂😮😂❤
Great Christmas treat boys 🙂
Merry Christmas to you two and to all who live the joy of learning history alongside, listening to your beautiful English and voices.
Got to love a ruler who is crowned on Christmas Day!
Merry Christmas Tom and Dominic! Thank you for your brilliant videos.
Merry Christmas to my favourite podcasters and my fellow listeners.
Nice episode. The Carolingians are such an interesting dynasty. Might have reunited Europe had they practiced primogeniture.
Wonderful episode and podcast. Like listening in while friends talk story immediately after reading Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization.
Just discovered this channel - what a Christmas gift!
Loved the Yorkshire Alkuin! ☺️
I bathed recently at the Carolus Thermen in Aachen. There are a lot of lovely spa baths there and overlooking the biggest of them is a rather imposing statue of Charlemagne in all his finery. It was an odd touch, especially with the rest of us loafing around in our bathers.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Who had the bad idea one day to invent school? Ce'st ce sacré Charlemagne! (its a fun song in case you wish to search for it!)
Thank you for the excellent podcast, always enjoy your talk. Merry Christmas and Happy and healthy to you and your loved ones for 2025.
From New York city
Thank you !
Love your channel!
I've been listening to TRIH for quite a while and count myself a fan of the show. That said, I had never seen you two, so I had constructed my own mental vision of what you each looked like.
For Tom, I imagined a shorter man, slight of build, light hair and complexion. For Dominic, I imagined someone tall with dark hair and complexion.
Obviously, I was a little off. 😝
Anyway, I'm m hoping you two get a bit of a laugh out of this. Many thanks to you and your team for making history both informative and entertaining.
Merry Christmas 🎅 Happy Christmas 🎄 both sides of the pond!🏴🏴🏴🇮🇪🇺🇸🙏🎅
How do these amazing episodes only have 77k and some idiot talking about serial killers while doing her make up gets 3 milli??? Humanity is staring into the abyss.
Happy Christmas to you, and to yours.
Dominic, thank you very much for buying Tom a sweater.
That's a hoodie.
Thanks to Tom for acknowledging the role of the Irish in educating & converting the pagans in the north of England....
Fair exchange for St. Patrick.
@@PoliticsandReligion-bs7mz not really, if he existed he was a Briton not an Anglo-Saxon.... But I take your point..
@@bennyk3799 But his name would indicate he was a Roman, no? Patrick=Patrician.
But, as this video indicates (and will indicate further), it was all a bit confusing after the Western Roman Empire fell.
@@PoliticsandReligion-bs7mz yes a Roman brition. have you heard of the two Patrick's theory? A bishop called palladius came from gaul came in 431 and the possible Patrick is said to have come in 432... They think the latter is an invention of his biographer in Armagh....
🎄Merry Christmas! 🎄Tom and Dominic!
A new Charlemagne needs to rise and save Europe.
How would that work without some real conflict
It's Farage, the spiritual successor to Martell.
Edifyingly interesting.
Happy to see Dominic going two buttons down for the holiday. Let frivolity reign.
Charlemagne is fondly remembered in Germany as "Kaiser Karl", whose throne was set up in Aachen . Yet for all the admiration there us also a sense of distaste against Karl's brutality to fellow Germanics (Franks vs Saxons) and his affinity with Rome who were still viewed as opponents to Germanic freedom. As German of "Frankish" (North Rhine) origin, one has mixed feelings about good old Karl.
The thing I will probably remember most from this series is learning where the question mark came from.
Merry Christmas 🙏🙏🙏🌟
Yay
A map 🗺️
Now i know
Whats going on
I always think of Charline from Neighbours, or Charmoan from Bo Selecta when i think of Charlemagne
Imprisoned for forgetting everything you've ever learned? Lecturers would kill to have this power.
Merry Christmas guys
Good thing we supplied two gentlemen in Verona. Gemini twins always pull the story on, evil bloodlines be damned. Time Patrol takes no chances with messianic plantces
It is good to see that you guys name the regions that now fall under different states
When do you guys think we’re getting Nelson and Trafalgar? Can not wait for that
Merry Christmas Tom and Dominick!
I'd say Constantine qualifies as a Christian conqueror...as is Justinian with the help of his general Balasarius.
Europe's greatest storytellers still come from the foggy isles to the west, I see. Merry Christmas.
We have forgot what a great man that Charlemagne was: A commander of the quality of Napoleon but also, like David, a man of God. I read about the exploits of Henry V. But think of his genius at work on a vaster scale and over many decades, not just one.
When you are powerful, you should use your power to care for others. Unfortunately, this runs straight into my favorite etymological buzzsaw: the origin of the English word “lord.”
“Lord” is from Saxon hlaford, literally “loaf-ward” or “loaf-guard.” What is loaf-guarding? Is it like mate-guarding? What the Saxons meant is that he who wards your loaf-who gives you your daily bread, who secures your food supply, is your lord. And if he tells you to do something, you… have to do it.
The lord’s emotion toward his serfs owes little to empathy and more to property. If he is a good lord, he even feels responsibility and real warmth toward them. But from a dominant position, empathy is a warlike emotion-a threat to weaponize its recipients, perhaps even into a traditional army. To feed a man is to own a man. And anyone who is existentially dependent on your largesse is not a free man, but a serf.
"I shall quote from me"
Crazy that this very important history is largely ignored in the UK history curriculum.
Fun fact? Things that Charlamagne did to the Saxons, Saxons did to the Polabian Slavs. Circle of the religious violence and a bit of the revenge on their part, because Slavs were on the side of the Franks when the Franks attacked Saxony.
45:45 This section seems a little dodgy.
It's crazy all that Charlemagne gets done. Ruling the post roman world and hosting the breakfast club. A real grind set guy
Love the show. I am a bit confused, wasn’t the first complete bible written in Greek? Merry Christmas.
They're talking about the form of the Bible being in a single book as we know it today (the codex), not its content. Before these monasteries, all the parts were on separate parchments.
350 vids??? Where have I been? And why are you just newly in my feed
Take a shot everytime Tom (or Dominic) says sacral (or a variant thereof).
Both Saxons and Franks saw each other as competitors and rivals from pre migration times over the natural resources of their border areas. Charlemagne had enough of Saxons still perennially raiding their lands instead of leaving their pagan ways. Things came to a head when Saxons started to raid the churches and monasteries and killing priests and Abbots, that's a big no no. The Saxons had to pay for their heathen intransigence.
He still got smacked by Godfred of Denmark.
Yes.. But you know what's even more impressive. Hundred years after Charlemagne none of his relatives ruled a kingdom
In my childish mind I like to think that everyone in the Franks was called Frank. Similarly everyone in the Alans was called Alan. Are there any other tribes I'm missing.
The Scotti.
They were all named Scott.
My childish mind sure appreciates your childish mind's shenanigans 😁
@@fuferito Hah thanks I'd forgotten about the Clans too. I assume the Gordon Clan was so named because everyone in the clan was called Gordon 😁
Charlemagne should have never burnt Pamplona, Basques don't forgive easy
This channel is rather reminiscent of the battle of the big noses in Life of Brian. Which one knows the Dutchman nose?
Isn't St. Boniface cutting down that tree where the Germans got the idea of a Christmas Tree from?
Later introduced into Britain by Prince Albert.
That's something that is brought up every time christmas but is totally unrelated. St. Boniface after the legend cut down an oak tree near todays Fritzlar in Lower Saxony that was dedicated to Donar, the highest germanic god. The first christmas trees we know of came around in the late 15th century in now south-western Germany and Alsace. They were used in paradise- and passion plays that became really popular in the late middle ages and they were played in churches around christmas time. A Fir tree (hung upside down and adorned with apples) represented the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and also fir greens were used to substitute the palm leaves for the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Later merchant- and trade guilds put fir trees in their guild halls and from there they made their way into private homes. There is really no other historical connection between christmas trees and pagan traditions that aren't made up by later writers or the Nazis themselves.
A podcast recommendation in a well-known, relatively sensible, newspaper yesterday deemed this channel to be perhaps too Anglocentric.
In the past month or so I have listened about Custer and Sitting Bull (the best of all of them so far, outstanding), Carthage, Cleopatra, the French Revolution, American politics in the late 1960s/early 1970s, China's first Emperor, beards, Charles Martel, Australian Prime Ministers, the Merovingians, Carolingians, Ancient Mesopotamia, Middle-Earth (OK, arguably a fantastical England), etc, and now Dalrymple is covering all things Indian. Obviously you people really have to broaden your outlook.
Another tour de force
Charlamagne for all his renown as a holy roman emperor in cahoots with Pope Leo III - was a butcher. He slaughtered the Saxons because they would not submit or convert, then destroyed Irminsul their sacred shrine. Pope Leo building a church on the spot later. The christianising of the Saxons is doubly tragic. The Anglo-Saxons in Britain, who were brought to christianity by the Irish Monks of the Celtic Church at Iona and Lindisfarne, sent their "Roman Church" missionaries back to Saxony in Germany to convert their fore-fathers - after the Synod of Whitby in 664. English / Anglo-Saxons, some Saints later on did not treat their Saxons "blood" very kindly, nor the Irish Monks who still clung to their old Celtic Church faith on the continent. Wilfrith - Dunstan - Willebrord - Bonifacius, to name a few, often used secular powers to convert / harass the "opposition". In this "post christian" period, their noble deeds are no longer decent or noble, but barbaric.
arsenic can cause nosebleeds - just saying
This has begun to really bother me. What's the difference between Hitler and Charlamagne? A bit over 1200 years. But you laid it all out very well.
Interesante
I hear Tom Holland is playing Odysseus in the new movie.
Frisian pirates get blamed for all sorts of deus ex machina solutions to tortured stories
I think there were ‘Christian’ conquerors before Charlemagne. Lots of them. Belisarius for example.
I like the story of Charlemagne. That doesn’t make me a “far right “ extremist.
How was this major distribution of the Christian faith in written form going to educate the masses when it was I imagine in Latin, a language that presumably 95% of the population couldn’t understand, or were the priests, ignorant as they were, instructed in that language in those times? The situation of not being able to read the Scriptures was the argument of early church reformers such as John Wycliffe centuries later.
Brilliant podcast. This current 'six-parter' isn't my favourite series, though. Just dropping in some honest feedback. Looking forward to what you do next!
That's not really feedback, you're basically just saying this particular subject matter isn't your favourite. Which is fine, I skipped all the American stuff recently as well. But that's my issue, not theirs.
Education is not indoctrination. Christians should study up on that.
Charlemagne: Why am I thinking Tony Blair (but not in a positive way)? ps I've just looked up Alcuin, and surprise, surprise, he isn't a saint, but in contrast, Louis lX of France who was similarly (to Charlemagne) violently religious is 'Saint Louis'.
one did miracles and the other didn’t 😅
Hết dám bực
One Anglo-Saxon makes sure Latin Bibles are the requirement everywhere in Western Christendom. Then it takes his Lollard fellow countrymen over a century to overrule him and make an English vernacular bible a norm.
Charlemagne's anti-pagan fury feels...personal. What did some pagan do to him to earn such ire? Like Desiderius and Gerberga and her boys...were they cryptochristians secretly doing the Odin thing and he got all butthurt about it, or something?
I mean he wasn't like "Let's masacre the Saxons because I feel like it!" when he woke up one morning. Saxon tribes were overstepping the boundaries of the Frankish realm for decades before that: pillaging villages and monasteries behind the Frankish border, breaking peace treaties, killing missionaries, killing christianised Saxons and so on. The problem was that Saxony really wasn't an entity with a single high ruler with whom Charles may have reached an agreement. It was an aggregation of many Saxon chiefdoms with very differing political goals. That "Crusade" by Charlemagne against the Saxons has a really big political component which gets intentionally overlooked for the usual 'nasty christians murder innocent pagan-gods-worshipper' -propaganda. In reallity it was a revenge for decades of violations from the Saxon's side who also didn't hold back with atrocities and war crimes as well as the wish to establish an area under some political control on the eastern border of Frankia and for that reason Charles had to establish Christianity because all the administration was run by clergymen.
Ironically, the relationship between the franks and the saxons was peaceful as they made an alliance to destroy the kingdom of Thuringe in 531.
In the 8th century, Charles Martel (Charlemagne's grandfather) fought the saxons who were allied with Neustria in 718.
In 743, it was Carloman (Charlemagne's uncle) who fought the saxons because they were allied with Bavaria.
It's likely that Charlemagne used religion as an excuse to conquer Saxony (with the number of bastards he had, Charlemagne was everything but a good christian).
SaintHood is not a reward for anything. You have a profound misunderstanding of what sainthood means.
"devout Christian", I do not think that means what you think it means, Charlemagne...
Ah Deuteronomy, playbook of the Western World.
Conquest is just as popular with woemens and bithes, as Pontius Pilate and Biggus Dickus attest
I think when you're saying "Roman", you're actually meaning "Byzantine".
Tomato tomato(tomata)
But the Basque and Danish reactions ...
Saxons=Russians! Brilliant