Did you know? There is an old legend documented by chroniclers that one of the Teutonic Knights decided to test his commitment to chastity by ordering the prettiest virgin girl they could find to sleep next to him naked for entire year and he didn't touch her.
This Teutonic Knight was Bertold Brühaven hailing from Duchy of Austria. He served the Order in the Baltic crusades and was Komtur (commander) of Königsberg from 1289 to 1302. The chronicles praise him as a great warrior who conducted many successful raids deep in pagan lands!
For example Nikolaus von Jeroschin writes that in 1291 "that ever reliable warrior for God" Brother Bertold Brühaven attacked ferociously the area called Junigeda, burning and looting it and also killing or taking prisoner approximately 700 local Baltic heathen men and women!
The same year he also attacked the pagan fortress of Medraba and "stormed it relentlessly until he captured it from the control of the enemy, killing or taking prisoner everyone he found there. Having achieved this he burned down the castle and returned home."
He also fought against other Christians during the tensions between Archbishopric of Riga and Livonian branch of the Order. Grand Master Gottfried von Hohenlohe sent Brühaven with a big force of Teutonic Knights to help fellow brethren against "arrogant Rigans"!
The brothers under Brühaven's leadership successfully defeated the Rigans at Neuermühlen and "created many widows in the town of Riga"! Nikolaus von Jeroschin further describes how Teutonic Knights "hacked at and killed... more than 4000." No mercy was shown to their enemies!
The legend of Berthold Brühaven choosing the ordeal of chastity is documented by both Peter von Dusburg and Nikolaus von Jeroschin. Here is what Peter von Dusburg wrote about it in Latin with a tone full of admiration and amazement for this deed. Ecce mira res et stupenda!
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It's crazy how Americans bought the myth that during the time of Columbus people thought that the earth was flat, a complete lie popularized by quasi-historian Washington Irving in 1828.
This globe was literally made before Columbus' discovery, and has no America on it.
Washington Irving completely invented a fictional dialogue between Columbus and the Council of Salamanca, where the clergy supposedly objected him on the ground that the earth was flat.
His fraudulent book would become the most popular book on Columbus in English-speaking world.
This lie was then picked on in America and expended as some sort of anti-Catholic anti-medieval founding myth, where Columbus was supposedly representing enlightenment rationalism against irrationality and dogmatism of the Church.
The idea that monarchy and republic are opposed to each other is a modern thing.
The term republic (res publica) was often used to describe medieval kingdoms.
Even by 16th century the Kingdom of France was still called both a republic and a monarchy at the same time!
The Kingdom of France defined itself by the phrase of "chose publique" (res publica) from 1350s to 1580s, also using the word respublique, to describe the relation between the King of France and his subject.
The term was then replaced by State (État).
The absolutist French monarchy which emerged in 17th century preferred the term State over republic, and talked of the "good of the State".
However the term state also comes from earlier medieval concepts like status regis at regni (the state of the king and the kingdom).
16th century Romans developed an interesting tradition of "talking statues", attaching anonymous political commentary on statues.
The Pasquino was the first of such statues.🧵
The Pasquino is an old statue in Rome dating back to Antiquity.
It was one of many random statues in Rome until early 16th century when Cardinal Oliveiro Carafa decorated the statue with Latin epigrams on the occasion of the Feast of Saint Mark.
The Cardinal's actions unintentionally inspired ordinary Roman people to start writing satirical poems and attaching them to the Pasquino.
It is speculated that these were first only consisting of lowbrow humor, but they soon began including controversial political criticism!