Thread by @LandsknechtPike

I view the 800-1800 period of European civilization as a distinct civilization different from both antiquity and the modern era. It's one of the reasons why I don't like using the term Western civilization which lumps all of them together and is also biased against middle ages.

The narrative of Western civilization as understood today has an inherent anti-medieval bias. It asserts that there is direct continuity from Greeks and Romans to modern day (from Plato to NATO) with the middle ages as an inferior hole in between that is largely ignored.

I view the European medieval and renaissance era as a distinct civilization. You could name it Frankish Civilization, or even better the Aristocratic Civilization because of its foundation on warrior aristocracy which ruled it all this time and carried its glory and prestige.

Of course the starting date is symbolic as 800 and the coronation of Charlemagne was a very important event in shaping the idea of unity of European Christians and awareness of existence of this civilization. The roots were already way before that.

It ended in 19th century when something new was formed which was entirely different from the previous aristocratic civilization, and we still live in this 19th century civilization which now calls itself "Western civilization" and implies an older origin in Greece and Rome.

The modern concept of Western civilization projects its roots so far back to avoid the association with the "dark" middle ages and to claim Greeks and Romans who are viewed much more favorably as its supposed foundation. Why are the middle ages perceived so badly? Let's see.

The anti-medieval perception of European history traces itself back to some writers from renaissance who viewed middle ages as an inferior dark age compared to antiquity. They obsessed about reviving the old "pure" classical Latin and hated the medieval Latin.

Their idea was called "ad fontes", back to the sources, to remove the tradition of European civilization of their time and to replace it with what they viewed as superior from antiquity. They essentially succeeded over time in destroying medieval Latin introducing "New Latin".

This was a great shame because they essentially turned Latin into a dead language. It was also the start of the anti-medieval mentality of "going back to origins", copied in theological way by the Protestants who wanted to go back to the Bible.

This anti-medieval bias then increased for ideological reasons with Protestantism and secularist enlightenment as they associated the period completely with the Catholic Church (which is also a bit misleading in itself) and used the anti-medieval views to smear the Church.

In this way Protestantism and enlightenment often went hand in hand with the obsession with classics and antiquity as superior and as some sort of "origin" which we have to return back to, which basically implied that entire tradition in the middle ages had to be made redundant.

The renaissance is now viewed more favorably than middle ages because the anti-medieval "back to antiquity origins" thought can be traced to that era so this is why we have this weird periodization of separating the middle ages from renaissance and starting the "new era" at 1500.

However just because some renaissance writers viewed middle ages in a bad way doesn't mean they were a different civilization to them. They were essentially like post-modernists who attack the pre-1960 West, but are still children of this Western civilization in every way.

But by 19th century with all the radical changes that took place on all levels of society and with nationalist ideology the link with both the medieval past and renaissance was indeed broken to such level that we can say that basically a totally new culture took place instead.

With 19th century neoclassicism the supposed origins in antiquity were even further emphasized and with secularism and enlightenment becoming the main ideological forces the totally distorted anti-medieval narrative was turned into the core of identity of this new civilization.

The big irony here is that this modern Western civilization doesn't have any true connection to Greece precisely because it vilified and threw the middle ages out of its historic memory as it was through the middle ages that Europeans had a connection with Greeks and Romans.

If you look at how the medieval people perceived themselves, they had the idea of translatio imperii, of transfer of power from the ancient races and civilizations where they saw themselves as direct heirs of Greeks and Romans through claiming this mystical imperium from them.

The medieval Europeans did not view themselves as being part of the same civilization as Greeks and pagan Romans, they viewed themselves as heirs to them by claiming their power, and this was much more powerful than the modern obsession of going "back to origins".

So in this way the medieval Europeans had a more powerful connection with the Greeks and the Romans than the neo-classicist modern West. They claimed the former Roman territories as their right and actively tried to reconquer them through crusades, but also going beyond that.

This is best exemplified by Emperor Charles V using the slogan "Plus Ultra" (further beyond) to mock the mythical warning from antiquity "Non Plus Ultra" (nothing further beyond) to not travel past the straight of Gibraltar which he ignored, conquering the New World instead.

I have the same view as the medieval Europeans on this and I see Greeks and Romans and medieval Christians as three different civilizations that are connected with each other through translatio imperii and not as part of one unified continuous Western civilization.

On the other hand this modern post-19th century Western civilization cut this out by renouncing the connection with the middle ages and basing its founding ideology on some revival of perceived origins in Greece and Roman antiquity with which it had no direct connection.

The concept of Western civilization as understood today is based on this lie and not only largely ignores the medieval history but whenever it is brought up it's very hostile to it as the term "medieval" has long been used as a pejorative in the West in the mind of the public.

I'm reviving the memory of this 800-1800 civilization that I call the Aristocratic Civilization and it's one of the reasons why I picked this nickname Aristocratic Fury. It's a concept I've been developing for some time after I found how distinct this era of history was.

And the only way you can really present this period in a way that it deserves and that is truly inspiring is to cut it out of the modern narrative of Western civilization and present it as an unique phenomenon which it was, a civilization of its own.