The John Batchelor Show

Saturday 1 February 2014

Air Date: 
February 01, 2014

Photo, above: Consécration de l'abbaye de Cluny (928 Anno Domini).

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (1 of 3)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (2 of 3)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (3 of 3)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Sid Perkins, Nature Magazine, in re: China's Forbidden Stones. Some of the largest stones used to construct Beijing’s Forbidden City beginning in 1406 were hauled from distant quarries on wooden sledges along ice roads, ancient Chinese documents have revealed. Calculations now reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences show that, on uneven, winding roads, this method is safer, more reliable and much easier than using wooden rollers or dragging the sledges over bare ground.

The imperial palace and surrounding buildings in the Forbidden City, a complex that has long served as the figurative centre of China’s capital city, were built in the early 1400s, but construction in and around the complex continued to the late 1500s and beyond. Many of the largest stones in the complex came from a quarry located about 70 kilometres from Beijing, says Howard Stone, a fluid mechanicist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and a member of the team that performed the study. “You go to the Forbidden City and see these massive rocks, and you ask yourself: ‘How in the world did they ever move this rock here?’” he says.  [more]

Hour Two

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (1 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (2 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (3 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (4 of 12)

Hour Three

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (5 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (6 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (7 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (8 of 12)

Hour Four

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (9 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (10 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (11 of 12)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins (12 of 12)

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Wikipedia: Europe in the Tenth Century

•                 Viking groups settle in northern France

•                 907: Loire Vikings overrun Brittany; Breton court flees to the England of Edward the Elder.

•                 The Norse become Normans [The Normans {in French: Normands; in Latin Nortmanni} were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Viking conquerors of the territory and the native Merovingian culture formed from Germanic Franks and Romanised Gauls. Their identity emerged initially in the first half of the 10th century, and gradually evolved over succeeding centuries.]

•                 911: Rollo granted County of Rouen by France: official foundation of Normandy.

•                 Foundation of Cluny, first federated monastic order

•                 In 917 the Bulgarians destroyed the Byzantine army in the Battle of Anchialus, one of the bloodiest battles in the Middle Ages

•                 927: official recognition of the first independent national Church in Europe, the Bulgarian Patriarchate

•                 927: Kingdom of England becomes a unified state.

•                 936: Alan II, with support from Æthelstan, commences the reconquest of Brittany.

•                 Incursions of Magyar (Hungarian) cavalry throughout Western Europe (47 expeditions in Germany, Italy and France, 899970)

•                 Mieszko I, first duke of Poland, baptised a Christian in 966

•                 Collapse of Great Moravia

•                 The medieval Croatian state becomes a unified kingdom under Tomislav

•                 Swedish influence extends to the Black Sea

•                 Vladimir I, Prince of Kievan Rus, baptised a Christian in 988

•                 Reindeer and Bears become extinct in Britain

•                 Lions become extinct in Europe by this date, with the last dying in Caucasus.

•                 Second half of the 10th century – Page with David the Psalmist, from the Paris Psalter, is made. It is now kept at Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.

Late 10th or early 11th century – Archangel Michail, icon, is made. It is now kept at Treasury of the Cathedral of Saint Mark, Venice.

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Anna Komnene, the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, described the Norman prince Bohemond I of Antioch:

Now Bohemund was such as, to put it briefly, had never before been seen in the land of the Romans, be he either of the barbarians or of the Greeks (for he was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying). Let me describe the barbarian's appearance more particularly – he was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms. And in the whole build of the body he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned and, one might say, built in conformity with the canon of Polycleitus... His skin all over his body was very white, and in his face the white was tempered with red. His hair was yellowish, but did not hang down to his waist like that of the other barbarians; for the man was not inordinately vain of his hair, but had it cut short to the ears. Whether his beard was reddish, or any other colour I cannot say, for the razor had passed over it very closely and left a surface smoother than chalk... His blue eyes indicated both a high spirit and dignity; and his nose and nostrils breathed in the air freely; his chest corresponded to his nostrils and by his nostrils . . .  the breadth of his chest. For by his nostrils nature had given free passage for the high spirit which bubbled up from his heart. A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible . . . He was so made in mind and body that both courage and passion reared their crests within him and both inclined to war. His wit was manifold and crafty and able to find a way of escape in every emergency. In conversation he was well informed, and the answers he gave were quite irrefutable. This man who was of such a size and such a character was inferior to the Emperor alone in fortune and eloquence and in other gifts of nature.