Stonehenge was built on solstice axis, dig confirms

[happyslug]

17. The Dark Ages was a move to strengthen the lower classes and take power from the 1%

You must understand how the late Roman Empire was run. Everyone within the Empire had been declared a citizen in 212 AD, but by then the rights of a Citizen had declined. In 100 BC, if you were a Roman Citizen, you could not be whipped, but 212 AD you could be,

This decline in Human Rights for anyone but the top 1% ran from the time of the Second Punic War (ended 202 BC) till the Fall of the Empire in the West (c450 AD). Attempts were made to address it but those attempts all ended in failure.

With the near collapse of the Roman Empire in the Third Century, the old policy of Rome being a military dictatorship was no longer possible. Roman needed support of its people, the question was how to get it and that included being able to get messages to the people and to understand what the people what an that included the 99%.

The chief reason Christianity was adopted as the State Religion is that it was the only religion that had a structure similar to the Roman Empire. The Church had early on copied the Roman Imperial structure for its own structure, and it was the only organization that could reach most of the peasants of the Empire.

The Church also had one thing the Imperial Structure did not have. The Church had insisted on Churches able to fit all members, thus they had one more then one Pagan 1% call "Barns". The advantages of these "Barns" was they could be used to inform ALL OF the people what was going on and what was expected of them. This was the main purpose of the Church in all nations till the 1800s. The reason was there was nothing else that could spread out news, till the invention of pulp paper in 1801, and the high speed press around 1850, which permitted what we call "newspapers" to spread news.

Anyway, as Rome became more and more Christian, it continued on its poor policy to the poor. The 1% refused to give up their land or their slaves. In 450 AD a true disaster hit the Empire, the Vandals took Carthage and thus divided the Mediterranean sea in half. This destroyed most East-West Trade and with it most trade within the Empire. Please note the Vandals walked into Carthage while most of its Citizens were attending the Games. Again it was the Vandals being invited in by some Roman Elite to put down some of the local peasants who were in revolt. The Vandals would stay till they embraced Christianity (the Vandals was one of the few invaders who were not already Christians when they crossed into the Roman Empire) AND STARTED TO DO LAND REFORM BY TAKING LAND FROM THE ROMAN ELITE.

Now, in the Eastern Empire, given that it was the poorest area when it came to farming, had never adopted the large estates so common in the Roman Empire areas of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa (in Roman Days that means present day Tunisia) and Egypt. The Capital of the Eastern Empire, Constantinople, was between Asia Minor and what use to be called Yugoslavia, both areas were the major recruiting areas for the Roman Army. Thus, the Eastern Empire survived for it did not have to worry about giving land back to the 1% once it also lost Egypt to the Arab conquest in the 600s.

On the other hand, the Western Empire, was filled with these large estate, owned by people who did not want to give up their land nor their slaves, even if that was required to defeat any invaders. In fact, when these invaders invaded, most were already Christian and thus the Roman Peasants joined them for being Christian was more important then being what ever Germanic Tribe they were or if they were Roman Citizens. When the Goths invaded Italy in 410, they left Italy with more people then they invaded Italy with, and the reason was so many Romans joined them.

In fact, except for the Goths and the Vandals, the Western Roman Empire defeated every invading Germanic Invader, and then settled them in areas where Roman Peasants were in full revolt (When the Saxons and Angles invaded present day England, British 1% wanted help, the Western Empire said no, but then said they could move to present day Brittany and put down the massive peasant revolt doing on in Brittany in the mid 400s, these British 1%ers agreed and moved to present day Brittany).

The Germanic Invaders, once settled down within the Western Empire, quickly found out they were viewed by the Roman 1% just like the rest of the Roman Peasants, but they had the ability to change that and by the early 500s were doing so. It appears to be Church driven, but it was a call back to the Gracchi of the late republic, land reform, i.e. giving land to the peasants and away from the Roman 1%.

To these movements on Land Reform, the Eastern Empire reacted with an invasion of Carthage in the 520s and then Italy in the 530s. The Roman 1% elite hated the loss of all of their land and wealth and demand that the Eastern Empire invade. The Emperor Justinian complied, ending up with 10 years of war and Italy losing 90% of its population (and it is this serious of war that leads to Rome's population dropping to Zero, Rome's population seems to have stayed quite high, by some estimates still the largest city in the world at the start of these Italian Wars).

Anyway, the Roman Elite opposed the Germanic Tribes Land reforms, but also did not want to pay for the Eastern Army to invade and reestablish the Empire. Thus the Eastern Empire went broke taking Carthage, Italy and Southern Spain. Worse, once these areas returned to Roman Rule, the Empire could not divide up the country and spread out the land to pay its debts. The reason was the Roman elite followed the Roman Army and declared what had been they lands they lands and thus NOT subject to any payment to pay for the war (a similar situation occurred during the Vietnam War, US troops would clear out a area of Viet Cong, then the Army of South Vietnam would move in and force the peasants to pay their rents their owned to the 1% of South Vietnam, this had the effect of making such peasants even more pro Viet Cong, for the Viet Cong demanded less).

The Germanic invaders, when defending themselves from such an invasion, always took the position they could divide up the land among the people who supported them, including the Roman Peasants. Thus the invaders could raise troops and supply their troops with a promise of land, while the Roman Army could not rely on the same method of payment. Worse, the Roman Peasants in Italy, Carthage and Spain ended up backing the Barbarians for their right to use their land was derived from the Barbarians not the Roman invaders.

Yes, you had Roman peasants fighting along Barbarian "invaders" against Roman Imperial Troops (and all of them Christians).

With the death of Justinian the Eastern Empire had to pull back. It had run out of money and unwilling to give land to the Roman Peasants and thus had no way to raise the troops needed to retake the Western Empire. The Lombards invaded Italy in the 570s (A pagan invader, who soon adopted Catholicism but continue to fight the Eastern Empire till the Eastern Empire had lost all of Italy in the 900s). The Lombards were another people that allocated land to the peasants.

Now, how the Barbarians allocated lands to the Peasants gives raise to us calling them Feudal, and using the term as a dirty word. To understand why it was an improvement and why we hold Feudalism as being bad, we have to understand how these Estate were run by the Roman 1%. The Roman 1% ran those lands like a modern corporation, they owned it, they were entitled to any and all profits and they had the right to get rid of any or all workers if that benefited them. The Peasants on the estate could not leave without permission of the Roman Owner, but the Roman owner could kick him or her out at any time for any or no reason.

On the other hand the Barbarians tended to take a more "Feudal" view over control of an estate. The Barbarian owner had the right to sell the estate, break it up etc, but the peasants were NOT his to sell. Instead of being "Slaves" the peasants were "Serfs". As a Serf the peasant had certain rights, including the right to stay on the land, to stay in his or her house even of the Barbarian owner wanted him out. The relationship was less like a modern Employee with his Employer and more like an Army Officer and his Troops. The troops had to do certain things, but if they did it, they were entitled to certain rights. Thus the Barbarian owner could NOT sell his Serfs, if the land was sold the Serf went with it and the new owner rights were still subject to the right of the serf.

The system adopted by the Germanic Tribe, and protected by the Christian Church for over 1000 years was Feudalism. It gave rights to land to the peasants subject to what the larger society needed (i.e. Troops, the larger Barbarian Estate Owners tend to be the troops the Kings of the Dark Ages and Middles Ages relied on to fight its wars, if they did not fight, they lost they land, but the peasants working the land retain they rights to the same piece of land. It was a good way to raise troops, protect the rights of peasants in a time period of very little cash or trade.

Side-note:

Starting in the 1600s this mutual relationship came under attack for due to industrialization a lot of large owners of property wanted to kick off their peasants and convert the land to other uses. The classic case is in Scotland. The Clan Chieftains starting in the 1600s wanted to convert what had been farm and highland cattle country to sheep. Their peasants objected to this, sometimes with violence but always saying you are taking our rights to the land away. The British government supported the Chieftains and slowly converted the Scottish Highlands from a high population farm and cattle area to one of low population and a lot of sheep.

This conversion increased in the 1700s and again after 1815, When the British Recruiters went to the Highlands to recruit for the Crimea war in 1852, they were meet with "Baaa" over and over again. When England was at war, England wanted Highland men, but at peace England wanted Highland Sheep.

I bring the highlands and sheep up to show that it is only in the last 400 years as the 1% became more and more like the 1% of Roman times that Feudalism became a bad thing. Yes Feudalism had problems but so do modern Capitalism as shown by the reaction to the 1852 Crimea War recruiters.

As to intellectual development, that was a product of the Roman Elite, the 1%. It declined for the simple reason with the drop in trade and agriculture output (due to what is now called the Dark Age Cold Period) something had to give, and the peasants could not give any more given their poor situation at the height of the Roman Empire. Thus the system collapsed for that was the only way to get rid of the Roman Elite.

One of the facts that shows the above very well, is that no family in Europe and trace they family back, in the male line, to before the ninth century. The Barbarian invasions of the 500 and 600s had started to movement to Feudalism but some Roman Elite held on to their lands well into the Ninth century. At that time period Western Europe came under three attacks, the North-men from Scandinavia, the Arabs from North Africa and the Magyars from present day Hungary. All tended to raid not stay. The old Roman Elite would leave when they invaded and return when they left and then demand what the peasants was expected to pay them.

This was the last Straw in most of Western Europe. The Byzantine Empire and replaced its Mercenary Army with a Feudal Militia Cavalry in the early 600s. This was first done in reaction to the cost incurred by Justinian in his wars, then the wars with Persian where Persia was able to invade the Empire enough to get to the Mediterranean (For the First time since Alexander the Great 900 years earlier) and to besiege Constantinople itself then the Arab invasion that followed the Byzantine defeat of the Persians.

As I pointed out above, parts of the Western Empire had done something like what the Byzantine Empire when the Byzantine Empire pulled out of Western Europe to fight the Persians. With these three constant invasions all at the same time, the Ottos, the Western Emperors that succeeded Charlemagne and his decedents expanded the policy to clearly include if the "owner"did not defend his land and his serfs, the Emperor would find someone who would.

This quickly spread to the rest of Western Europe and quickly lead to the defeat of all three raiders by simply making sure the raids they did were no longer profitable (No quick grab and run, the local leaders would lead some sort of fight and that fight would be enough to take out any profit from the raid).

Notice this also strengthen the Peasants, for Feudalism was adopted to protect the Peasants at the cost of the 1%. Under Feudalism if you were a member of the 1% you had to protect the 99%. If you failed to do so, you lost your position within the 1%. This is what happened when the Germanic Invaders of the 400s, the Slavic Invaders of the 500s and 600s, and even the Arabs of the 600s.

Thus the Dark Ages were a good time for the 99% compared to the Late Roman Republic and Empire. Yes, intellectual arguments ended, but in favor of more basic changes such as the introduction of Chinese Iron Making (much more efficient then how the Romans and Greeks made iron and steel), the Horse shoe, the Horse Collar (introduced from China), the Stirrup (appears to be a Byzantine invention), the heavy iron plow (Developed in Asia Minor, but adopted by the Slavs and spread with them in the 600s) and Hay (Fodder was just not kept till the Dark Ages and the adoption of the Horse collar).

The Waterwheel finally reached Western Europe and someone took the idea of ball bearings and applied them to wagons (Both had been known to Romans, but appears NOT to have been taught or used by Roman Peasants, it was the Dark Ages where peasants started to used them and vastly improved land transportation).

Present theory is that the above inventions, included the ball bearing where spread by Christian Priests, but since spreading such information was NOT their primary job, unreported. The big exception to this is the heavy Iron Plow. While Priests my have introduced it to the Slavs from Asia Minor, use of the Iron Plow spread with the Slavic invasions of 600-800 AD. The Heavy Plow went at the pace of the Slavic Invasions, the other items tend to move with it but also independent of it.

Just a comment, the Dark Ages is more an age of getting things to the peasants so they could live better, then the earlier Roman Period when the tread was what was best for the Roman 1%.

A more accurate statement would be Feudalism was the reaction and the result of what is being tried today, a rejection of what is "Norm" today in favor of a system that favors the 99%