1

History 104A, October 24: The Dark Knight is White & Plays Chess!

I was checking for the date for the next exam which is

November 9th. So it's about a week and a half away, two weeks. Today

is the 24th.

I did get, I think, all of the group meetings up on the Internet.

I think I got all of the papers to make up for all of the missed group

meetings also as well. So please do check the grades and see if

everything is hunky dory, using the ancient word, to make sure that

I'm not missing anything of your own work so that everything goes

fine.

Any questions before we begin on this Monday? All right. We are

moving onto a new topic in a sense then, we have developed the

fundamental base for Christianity and touched on Islam as well in

neither case extremely thoroughly but enough for a general course to

look at. And now we're going to be moving into western Europe. And

that means that we're going to be dealing with the medieval period.

We identified that when we talked medieval Europe, we're talking

basically 500 to 1500 basically. We historians like to put times to

things, but they often do not work. We identified more specifically

that we saw from 476 perhaps the decline and fall of the Roman empire

which of course we finally say didn't decline and fall through at

least to the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1553.

Now, it ain't so uniform, also tends to identify with false

images. Now, that's what we're going to have to first begin. One of

the biggest false images of medieval Europe -- I think it can viewed

today outside in the weather. We have this images that this is the

dark ages, at least the first half if not the whole thing. And when

we visualize the dark ages, we visualize the sun not shining. That

may be true in Belgium, but it's not true all the time. That dark

ages, at least in color, certainly is one of the major invalid

elements of it, false images. Historians, basically at least college

historians and a few high school who really took history, no longer

really use the term dark ages. So as soon as I see the word dark ages

on your next text paper, I'm just going to put a big fat F next to it.

I just thought I would throw that in. Dark ages means that learning

disappears and that is not valid.

Q I heard that it was the dark ages because we don't know much

about the time period. Is that correct?

THE PROFESSOR: We have really pretty good knowledge of the time

period; so the answer is, no, it's not correct.

Perhaps we talked earlier about Charlomaine during this period.

And we know about the 500 period CE about Clovis and the Franks. We

certainly know about what was going on with the Muslim invasion of

Spain since there were records on that basis. We lack specific kinds

of records perhaps in northern Europe among the Vikings and Norsemen,

but we certainly have some background into what we were doing. We

have what we call the Carligeon renaissance under Charlomaine where

writing and education became very important and that's in the 800

period. In the 900 period, a little north of where Charlomaine set

his capital, we have the Ottos -- Otto one, Otto two, Otto three. In

other words, we have sort of a German renaissance. In England, we may

not know about King Arthur, although the myths are there. The

knowledge is certainly lacking, but we do know about Robin the great.

What's Alfred of course in England and in the 9th century begins at

sort of images of huts out his territories fighting off the Norsemen

coming in, the Danes as they're called in the north of England. And

sets forth territory by actually using chalk to create little horses

to cover the areas where he's covered, which sort of gives us the

image of the white horse which becomes sort of a whiskey or something

and begins a very thorough education process. We know a little bit

highland. I'm not sure we have tremendous details. We do know that

the monks went forth perhaps even in the period of Saint Patrick. I

want to say it's as thorough knowledge as we may have had of Rome.

But even a lot of things that we know about Rome come from later

historians. And our knowledge of Jesus comes from people who did not

know him or wrote later in the sense of Luke, Mark, Matthew -- all

were not contemporaries, and so they're writing down what they heard

more than they are about context. It isn't like the dark ages in

Greece where we really don't know what the hell happened between the

Trojan war and Homer. From 1200 to about 800 there really is a period

of nothing being known to speak of. And that's why I think Velikovsky

may have something in saying that those 400 years never existed. They

were made up. Yeah, you've heard those terms before.

You've heard also that there was no traveling. Well, as we

identified the other day, there was a lot of movement, mostly for

religious purposes for pilgrims. And of course a little later in the

medieval period we certainly have stories that come out of these

periods about Chaucer in England, in the Canterbury Tales, where

people are sitting around the campfire telling these bawdy or sexy

stories and all tales that people tend to relate as they're going to a

pilgrim Canterbury. And then in Italy one of the most famous or fun

story reading the little tale of Boccaccio and the Decameron. And

they were really on a pilgrimage telling these tales, if you will.

Granted, we don't know a lot about western Europe, a lot of knowledge,

even under the Roman period. What we know of the Romans comes from

works of Julius Caesar who talked about the Gaelic wars and writing

down about the Britains. Much of that knowledge we still don't know

what the dark age was. We seem to see it as an astrological

iconography -- that's not the word I'm looking for -- a time piece and

also a way of watching the stars. When it was built is still debated

and what its main purpose is. Most of Europe was somewhat under Roman

control was still frontier. And on the frontier what you had was

basically a serpent firefly, what the hell does that mean? We're

talking about the new movie that came out, that is out right now

that's dealing with the frontiers of space a few hundred years in the

future and how people are living like cowboys. They don't have a lot

of records. They don't have a lot of things going on in the sense of

what they're talking about.

Urbanization -- it's not in Alexandria. It's not in Rome for

that matter. Yeah, there is a certain lack of the knowledge of the

major Roman cities, but it's an area that wasn't Rome. And so there's

a bias saying -- you know. And with that bias comes mainly out of the

latter middle ages when writers begin to talk about that period as a

period of lacking knowledge. That they see themselves following in

the Roman, Latin, Greek tradition and they talk about it as an era of

darkness and light coming forth into the renaissance. And there is

also, by the 1800s, the dealing with the middle ages, a period where

they look at it as Christian, and since it's Christian, and they're

rebelling against the Christian control of universities and education

and knowledge, they're attacking the middle ages as dark and dreary

with no knowledge because it was controlled by the Christians. And

that certainly is perhaps major works of people like Burkhark and

others -- you don't need to know the names -- who basically blamed

that whole lack of knowledge on Christianity and its attempt to

control the masses before the Protestant reformation. There is some

truth to the fact that definitely knowledge, the way that it was

spread in Rome with the universities, with the learning, with the

large population, with the art, didn't exactly exist. And a lot of

what was known by Rome certainly ceased to exist in Europe. It was

really hardly ever there.

Much of the knowledge continued in the Muslim areas. The Muslim

universities exploded with Spain, Toledo, and throughout north Africa

and certainly in areas like Arabia, Persia. They kept much of the

knowledge. They collected the Plato's. They collected the

Aristotle's. They studied them and they combined that knowledge with

knowledge they brought from India. And this was during this same

period of time. Now again, please note that the Muslims, in their

expansion of knowledge, controlled a good portion of Europe. They

controlled Spain, north Africa, and went into this area here later as

far as Vienna and much of southern Italy. Sicily had Muslim

influence. So we had here was just a little center part of Europe

that was just Christianity. That's another false image, the image

that Europe was Christian during this era. Many of these Christians

here, but some of them were considered heretical, meaning that they

didn't follow the Catholic doctrine. The Vikings, the Danes took a

longer time to become Christian and weren't fully converted until the

11th century -- not 600, not 500, not 400 -- but 1000 to 1100 they

became Christian.

Of course there was also the fear of the invasion. It's not just

the Germanic invasions. That image is true. And so they have the

Haga the terrible's, the Vikings, the Danes the Norsemen. Be aware of

the Norsemen, and that certainly also tended to create a little

different culture. It tended to build churches that were more

fortresses. It moved people inland. It created self-sustaining

communities. People moved away from the waterways for a very basic

reason. Transportation took place on the waterways. And anywhere

there was water, the Norsemen came in; or for that matter, so did the

Muslims. And therefore, they had to get inland to protect themselves.

And in so doing, it did cut down on a certain level of trade because

they moved from the waterways. The Norsemen continued trade and began

to settle all along the Mediterranean and as far as Greece. And

certainly they moved into the area of what we call Europe today. Or

actually better said, their main area was in the Ukraine. And in the

Ukraine, the City of Kiev, game a train maids point for VARINGES

meaning the force member, the Vikings. They used, at least during the

warm time, the rivers to come down into this particular area,

confronts the Mongols who came out of central Asia. Once again, there

was some mobility, certainly not on the level that they think of as

far as the Romans were concerned with all roads leading to Rome. If

you read the Roman journals, even when they were moving through these

areas, they were heavily forested and confronted with barbarians. And

they had trouble holding them off because they were more used to the

ease of movements in places where you don't have that kind of forested

land and the mountainous land either. Again, we have to deal with

what we would call false images.

Some of those turn around on other levels that we're dealing

with. In the early middle ages, we really didn't have what later

became known as serfdom. Slavey began to disappear. Never really was

that heavy in Europe itself, but the Romans certainly used it

dramatically. It was Dioclese, if you remember, who ordered that

people continue in the occupations of their parents. And therefore,

if somebody was born as a farmer, they would remain on the land. Now,

people began to turn that land over to protectors, those more wealthy

individuals that could afford the armor and the knights -- I'm sorry,

the knights in armor to fight, to protect. And with that, they bound

themselves to those lords. And they became what we know as serfs.

The difference between serfdom and slavery: Slaves are owned

individually and sold individually; serfs cannot be sold as people,

only the land is sold and they're sold with the land. They belong to

the land, not to the owner. They are not free, however. They're not

freeman. So we begin to see that expansion as well. Some of those

things that we see as part of that medieval society, but we need to

understand that during this early period called the dark ages by

ancient Christians, that serfdom did not exist as such. It's going to

come into being more around 1,000 ADCE.

Even the images of knight. I say medieval period and people see

it as the knights in shining armor. The earlier period under

Charlomaine and others, the concept of a knight was a retainer. They,

worked for them. They didn't wear that heavy armor. They wouldn't

wear it on the horses. It wasn't until the 9th century that the armor

became more usable as they developed the stirrup, a place to hold onto

when you got on, the footing on the horse. So that horses then could

be used with knights wearing armor. And by the 13th century, the

armor got so heavy that if you fell off, you needed a crane to pick

you up. It is said that Frederick Barbose 1 of the Sicily, from the

two Sicilies, on the third crusade fell off his horse and drowned

because he couldn't get up with the armor on, and nobody was around

him. He fell into a mud puddle. I don't know how valid that is. I

think it's basically a story. The images then of the knights in

armor -- by the way, have any of you ever been to a museum and see the

size of the armor that they war? It's amazing how small the people

were. Most of you could not fit into that armor if you tried it on

because it was generally for people 5-foot 4 to 5-foot 6. Now

Charlomaine stood out. He apparently was 6-foot 7 to 7-foot. He was

a giant of a man at that time and was described as such. For whatever

reason, maybe he had some giantism in him.

Before I forget, just as a reminder, we have no class on Friday.

Everybody mark that down. The other element is that we often talk

about the medieval period with days and concepts. What does get lost

is a certain level of time, dates are not as important. The Greeks

bring a sense of some dating to history. And then Rome deals with the

emperors. Medieval Europe deals with memory. We're going to talk

more about learning through memory, through oral tradition, not

through dating of time or periods. For example, it was said that

people were waiting around until 1000 because they thought that the

second coming of Christ and the forces between good and evil were

going to occur at the millennium, that the millennium of Christ's

birth would bring back the second coming. But most people had no idea

that it was 1000 AD or CE. They didn't deal with dates. We live with

dates. We know our birthdays and we know what year we were born.

They may have known they were born in the year of the flood that New

Orleans disappeared. That's about the extent. They had a better

picture of it. In fact, my grandparents came over from Europe and

they had no idea when their birthday's were. That's over 100 years

ago, but still -- my grandfather, he took July 4th as his birthday

because he knew he was born sometime during the summer. And that was

not uncommon from people coming from illiterate societies. So again,

other false images, these timing, these dates, these calendars that we

often get into the medieval period.

We're going to develop the expansion in the medieval period and

these early years. I thought I had a chess game in there, E four.

Who wants to make the next move? Okay. Just check to see if anybody

played chess. How many of you actually know the chess pieces in the

game of guess. That's all? Maybe about 10. I think, well, maybe you

have some sense of what it is. Chess develops. And originally of

course the stories vary. In one, India sort of over here goes on to

Persia and goes into China and it develops in the 6th century, at

least that's what we're told. As it moves into Europe in the 7th and

8th century, again during the early medieval period, it takes on the

basic persona the game, as it is today, expanded out. And it's a game

that's sometimes called the game of kings because it is played among

the royalty. And so it reflects, in many ways, the medieval period

and the patterns and the developments of what was taking place in

medieval Europe. And so I like to use it as sort of an analogy. How

the game developed, we have no basic idea, but we have stories. Such

stories as a king in India whose children, whose two boys were always

fighting. And whether or not let them go to war with each other, he

developed this game to let them fight it out on a chessboard. We know

the pattern of the movement of the game into Europe and into China,

into India and into Japan because while there are differences in the

game, the knight, the horse -- of course we don't use the word horse

if you really play chess. I tell the kids never to use the word

horsy. The knight. The knight has a certain jumping move. It can

jump over pieces like a checker piece, and it is very unique to the

game. And by following that knight, move to other areas. We pretty

much follow the game of chess as it expanded into other parts of the

world and perhaps as the one game that's played by people throughout

the world today under international rules, but there are different

rules for different countries. This is Chinese chess which has

similar moves but they have a river and they have symbols on it.

Afghanistan has a chess game that's quite different. The king --

there's no such than as a stalemate. If the piece is to -- a pawn

better said -- to promote to the better piece -- I'm sorry -- to the

pieced that started out on that file. And the western game of chess

is pawn can proceed to get to make it wants but to a king or a pawn.

Unless it started out as a file, it cannot become a game. Differences

exit. It became more western and that western game passed on during

the medieval period. As I say, it did reflect the game. Now, granted

board games existed. The Egyptians played a board game with stones

similar to the game named Go. Does anybody play Go? That's a

complicated game.

A Really? I don't think so.

THE PROFESSOR: I see nice little black and white stones, but you

don't think so?

A No.

THE PROFESSOR: The Romans had board games. But the game of

chess, as I say, for whatever reason in its complication and in its

uniqueness has stayed. And does reflect medieval Europe as it expands

and comes into being at its height. Many of the moves that we know of

today came out of the higher middle ages. So let's look at the

chessboard. It is in a sense an imaginary battlefield between the

forces of good and the forces of evil. Black and white -- did you

ever feel evil if you're playing black? And black moves second so it

doesn't get the first moves. Dark nights.

All right. The name in the West has on the edge of the board

rooks which are often known as castles as well. And in some part of

the world, like India, what they are, are really elephants with these

little sort of castles on some of them or rooks on some of them

moving, again reflecting the position itself. Castles of course

become pretty powerful. In medieval Europe, I might note again

another false image during the early medieval period. They did not

have those big stone castles. In the early medieval period that is

sometimes referred to as the dark ages, what they really did was have

wooden forts similar to the Roman forts that were built in Europe.

What they are, were basically logs pointed at the top made on sort of

mounds of earth that were set up to protect the Roman legions that

were stationed in those areas. As medieval Europe began to expand,

the castle became the center of power. And we're going to talk more

about the castle and the manner system later on, but people went for

protection behind the castle walls, would avoid the Norsemen, the

Muslims and others who were invading Europe.

Next to the castle sits the knights. The knight in shining

armor, the knight that has the ability to jump over pieces. Not able

to go as far as castle, somewhat limited in its mobility, but the

knight was an interesting position in medieval Europe because you had

to buy your own equipment. And it was status. What was the name of

that recent movie Knight Tale or something? It was a fun film. And

you got the picture of the status and the expense of armor and what it

costs to build and make that armor. Obviously people trained. They

spent their life almost as Spartans, training for battle at perhaps

the expense of peasants and serfs around them. Sometimes they were

lords and sometimes they were vassals and sometimes they were just

knights.

I might note that in front of all these pieces were the pawns.

The pawns were not serfs. They were the foot troops that were drafted

by being hit over the head and taken from their lands. They were

pretty much free peasants or lower knights that couldn't afford the

equipment. And of course they became, in many places, the cannon

fader. They were put in front of the forces. They were the archer,

the protected forces. They had the shields to protect, but they

didn't go on horseback. And because of that, they have simply a

single move. They move one square at a time, forward only. We don't

want them going backwards because that would ruin the battle. They

have to put their lives on the line in battle like in medieval Europe,

so only forward one square at a time. I should probably have a

chessboard in here and show you this stuff. It's not as important to

show you medieval Europe and how it's reflected on a chess board, I

guess.

Later on, during the Medieval period, the pawns would say

permission to go two squares forward. They would only win a battle if

they are diagonal. And so they're stuck. There's another piece in

front of them. The next to the knight came a very important piece

that name does not exist in other parts. Names differ because it

definitely comes out of medieval Europe the bishop. And the bishop is

identified on the chessboard wearing a bishop's hat which is a hat

with a hole in it basically, a cresses the bishop's wore. In any

case, we have the bishop who has equal power to the knight. And

pretty much had that equal power. Bishops had the force of being able

to crown the kings to give them their staph and their ring. And they

had the power of the church courts. The bishops on the chessboard go

diagonally. And they like open space. Knights like it nice and

closed because they can jump over pieces. Bishops like to run across

the whole board.

And then the queen. The queen is the most powerful piece. It

wasn't originally. It was an advisor when it started out. It didn't

move much more than the king, a square at a time. But by the end of

the medieval period, the power of the queen reflected the power of the

queen in society. The queen can go anywhere she likes just like any

woman you know. And the most powerful piece, just like any woman you

know, probably shouldn't use the term piece here -- you'll think I'm

being sexist. Perhaps the best example of where that power comes from

Richard the Lion Hearted mother's her name, Eleanor of Aquatain.

Aquatain is a province in southern France. You can see it up here.

Aquataina in Gaul. And she inherited and owned it. Eleanor was

married, as often is done, women of royal blood were married for

dynastic purposes, to keep the families from fighting to keep them

unified. And she was married to Louie of France which basically meant

that Louie controlled the area pretty much around Paris only.

However, when Louie and the second crusade went to Eleanor, to the

holy land, there she met Henry the second of England. And they

actually fell in love while they were married. And they had a secret

affair going on in which Eleanor gave Henry a ring that was really a

sundial, so they can know when to meet secretly in the gardens. That

sundial ring is sold in many catalogs today. That's the only reason I

mentioned it. And when they return to Europe, Eleanor was able to get

an annulment. Remember, there was no divorce -- and married Henry.

And of course bore him a number of sons, including Richard and John

who I talked about the other day. But the lands of Aquatain still

belong to her. And they were under the control of her, but she was a

vassal to the king of France even now that she wasn't married. And

therefore, Richard and Henry, owning this land in Aquatain became, in

a sense, vassals to the king of France. We're going to talk more

about the complexity of who owns what and who controls what and who

owes allegiance to who as well during this period. Richard died from

a poison arrow fighting for his mother's land in Aquatain. But that

power, that movement, not just the dynastic marriages, but the control

of land became much more reflective of the queen's power and her

ability of mobility.

The king doesn't have the lot of power, which is short of

strange. His one power is, of course, once he is captured or in a

position to be killed, the game is over. Not quite exactly the way it

was in Europe. Why doesn't he have power? Because during most of the

medieval period until we get into the latter medieval ages, the late

medieval period kings only really control, except in England, the land

around their own domain. For protection, they give the land out to

others like Aquatain and others. And the only land they hold

correctly is often around the capital city. As Louie pretty much

controlled only the land around Paris while normally he controlled

Burgundy and Aquatain and Normandy, that was just as a sort of name

sake. And so he depended upon the others to protect him. In the game

of chess, the king is not killed. How is that reflective of the

medieval period? The king never comes off the board. The king is in

a position to be taken, can't get out of that position, can't capture,

can't move out of it, and can't protect himself with any other piece.

The game is over. Why isn't the king killed? For the same reason

that Richard the Lion Hearted isn't kill. Because of the lack of

wealth or at least the limited wealth in medieval Europe. It is far

more profitable to ransom a king. As you know, dear Robinhood was

also raising funds so that he could also get Richard back from the

Germanic prison that he was being held in after his return from the

crusades. Kings were not killed generally. They were placed in

ransom or placed in captivity until a large ransom was paid. It made

a lot of sense. And the game of chess itself reflects that.

And in the game of chess we give points to the pieces based on

their value, although you don't really count them up. In the game, it

gives you a picture. Pawns are worth one point. Castles are worth

five because of their heavy mobility. Knights with worth three.

Bishops are worth three. And queens are worth nine, the most valuable

piece on the board as far as points are concerned. And what about

kings? Kings are priceless. Translation, you can't give them a point

value because once they're captured, they're held for the ransom that

they're being demand for, and the game is over. And as I say, this

whole pattern pretty much does reflect much of medieval Europe and the

patterns that took. The game of chess in other parts of the world,

the queen is an advisor, is a chancellor. It's not female. It's an

advisor to the king and male. So again, the pattern changes in

different parts of the world. Okay. We've now played at the world of

medieval Europe.

---oOo---