Almost every single ‘world leader’, ‘religious leader’, and ‘famous billionaire’ has to do the Canossa today regardless of outward ‘religious’ pretenses.

This is great! Do you have a bibliography for this video/topic? I am researching popular perceptions of the middle ages in fantasy film for my thesis and this is very helpful.

KZbin seems to always recommend channels that have either officially shut down (complete with a “farewell & here’s why” styled video) or else channels that have just randomly stopped uploading (with no video explanation whatsoever). The latter of these two is my least favorite because it makes the channel feel abandoned and forgotten. I’m left wondering “why did this happen”…aaaand here I am, once again, wondering *why?* ….bummer 🥺

I just finished reading the sayings of the desert fathers and I’m trying to delve more deeply into asceticism and this video was an excellent find. Amazing quality, very well researched, and very likable. Liked and subscribed.

Holy Feast and Holy Fast is an amazing book, I highly recommend it.

I remember learning from my old copy of "7 medieval kings", was the foundation of the first secular university, University of Naples in 1224, by Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor (and king of sicily at that time). Frederick was a pretty strong personality and seemed to have open distaste for feudal balkanisation of power. The University was intended to create a new class of secular bureaucrats to fuel his regime in Sicily (it was a difficult area for the HRE to keep in its sphere of influence). The University was initially a bit of a folly, however it still exists today and it's full Italian title is "Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II". 'The University of study' in Naples, Frederick II. Pretty cool imo. I don't know how great that book holds up to modern standards being as my copy is the original print in 1967, however I find the book does a good job at trying to dispel consistent claims of the Medieval world being woefully backwards and opposed to education.

The Middle Ages as a dark mirror--I see what you did there.

Most ascetic stories specially the older ones are exagerations and fakes. Not even the most accomplished ascetics of today can do any of the supposed ascetic feats of the past they are just fables to inspire early christians and nothing else.

A feeble attempt on the part of the blind to lead the mute.....

I want to add some nuance to the idea that Christian monks were just trying to escape the world. In pre-Christian Israel, there was the ritual of pronouncing all the sins of the people onto a literal goat (where we get the notion of the “scapegoat”) and then sending the goat out into the desert. Thus the desert was thought to be where sin ended up and thus where the devil lived. The desert fathers didn’t just go out to the wilderness to “retreat” from evil. On the contrary, they went out to combat sin and the devil.

I really enjoyed this presentation. I've watched it twice now.

Short version: because we want them to

Oddly enough, I have a figure that pretty much looks like these medieval illustrations (broad shoulders and unplucked forehead aside). While it is interesting to know that my general shape was at one time the ideal, it doesn't exactly help one's self-image to see oneself reflected in rather distorted-looking paintings in the Prado that are centuries out of fashion (I came to this realization during my last visit two years ago). "Weirdly proportioned by modern standards" is a good way to look at it, but I do also think that this is a body shape that some women naturally have and can be embarrassed about today. As for me? Eh! Being thin-ish and paying a lot of attention to the silhouette of clothes goes a long way!

I hope you practiced ascetism and you talk from experience and not from other sources, like books. Ascetism is a full experience, cannot be described into words, words are too limited to do it justice. This is not a skill that can be learned reading other ascetics. And why aren't you a nun?

Please make more videos

Hoping for another video soon, they’re very well made

Joining others in encouraging more videos in the future. I’ve been quite sad to see the views aren’t taking off, but videos are very good quality.

i knew at least two people in Munich (Bavaria) who had a pet Squirrel.

Desert Fathers are the spiritualy strongest and mightiest human beings ever lived. Asceticism is not for everyone, its bor the best.

Bologna university is the oldest university in Europe established in 1088

There is an Arthur who fought at Baden and Camlan in the 6th century. Athrwys ap Meurig was king of Glamorgan and Gwent. Which makes sense as the Mabinogi and other sources offer Caerleon (in Gwent) as his court. To make sense of his anachronistic invasion of Rome, this can be explained by the actions of his 6x grandfather Athun who was the son of Magnus Maximus borne by one of his British wifes. He invaded italy from Britain in 387. This also explains why there is sometimes a half Roman half British motif in Arthurianiana regarding his ethnicity - Wilson and Blackett's idea. As for Geoffrey of Monmouth, archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie has vindicated him of inventing the history and has subsequently proven that he was merely copying an earlier Breton document from the 7th century. Please see my channel if youre interested!

What about the lil drummer boy? Lol

Aurther is discarded by academia because of his apparent life span of hundreds of years, having fought both the Romans AND Saxons. PROBLEM IS, there were two Aurthers. Aurther the 1st. Who DID fight the Romans, and Aurther the 2nd. who fought the Saxons. Both were Welsh, and high king(pendragon) at war. Both were decended from the mighty house of the Silures. They were, in point of fact, blood relatives. Academia is largely willfully ignorant of the facts. For proof and an excellent body of research, check out the books and KZbin videos by Wilson and Blacket.

Christ can still save those sinners, can I get a prayer!

The view that the material world is evil is heresy. The Christian view is that nothing in this world , even sufferings, is evil. The only evil thing is not living up to your virtuous potential and straying from God. Just like stoicism. This world is indifferent. Human actions COULD be evil.

So interesting!

(゜ロ゜)

I think when you waive off the hydration thing as silly you do yourself and your viewers a disservice. They were not stupid people, there was deep thought as to WHY water and hydration exacerbates sexual over activity. It may be easy for some to view asceticism in a lense of “status” and social hierarchy, which would be akin to a goldfish seeing a fan and thinking it a simple circle. This idea that modern “scientism” is more advanced and more importantly “more WISE” than the people back then is just childishly solipsistic.

Beauty standards for various people around the world have always been different, even now. This is a medieval west europeanbeaury standard

Just discovered your channel today. Your content is fantastic. I really think you have something here. I hope you find the energy to keep going.

Your explanation muddies and denigrates humans and asceticism as it was practiced by early church. The created world is NOT inherently evil( the world religion of what you speak is heresy- a confuser.) God is Creator- everything He created was Good. The Evil one chose- with his gift of free will - to turn away from goodness, thus evil entered the world. Each of us have same choice: aim towards a higher, better version of ourselves that we were created to be... Or, step farther away from the perfection we were meant to achieve/ ascend to. That "climbing the Ladder of Ascent" is our highest goal- that is what true Asceticism is all about.

Great video, very enjoyable! Is a higher quality microphone/ audio setup feasible? Im hearing a lot of compression. I'm also hearing some clicks that could be from a slide deck tool?

Thank you for this video. I wanted to hear more about this subject and your video is fascinating and the quality of your voice and editing too. Immediately subscribed

Where are you 😢

People who hate Saint Paul: Jews Judaizers Gnostics Muslims Philosophers like Nietzsche Hitler Feminists The presenter of this video apparently. Such a diverse group of people 😂 God bless him.

Genesis 1:31 "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The whole the material world is bad and we want to escape it thing is closer to the gnostic heresies than Christianity proper. Whatever influence manichaeism had on Christianity (and I'm sure it must have had some sort of influence) are probably either so defuse so as to be insignificant or negative in the sense that Christianity developed explicitly to avoid affirming its doctrines but even then gnosticism already had this influence before manichaeism even existed (which was just Mani's attempt to fuse gnosticism with Zoroastriansim and later half a dozen other religions like Buddhism into one cult). Regardless, St. Augustine multiple times explicitly affirmed the goodness of creation. I have no idea if you're overstating your point or if it was just malconcieved to begin with but please nust reavaluate it because historically speaking it makes no sense. Christians arguing against gnosticism and Augustine himself who was taught gnostic beliefs and who was therefore interested in refuting them all his life, attacked the material world is bad atgiment over and over again as well as the Gnostic Marcionist heresy it smacks of.

once again the victorians ruin everything

As a new subscriber, I hope you are doing well, but... as an Australian.... "swears in Australian" had me choking on my drink and helpless with laughter so much I had to rewatch the rest of the video HAHA Can't deny the truth of it though. Keep up the great work, I love your content

Hope you make another video soon, really love this channel

OMG white people looking for other white people 😲

I wonder whether or not some of the more extreme beliefs against the physical body were influenced gnosticism (which included the beliefs of an evil god creating the material world). By contrast the new testament and most orthodox Christian doctrines teach that the material world is good because God created it and will redeem it in the world to come. I assume the early christians were aware of this, and I wonder how they distinguished their beliefs of ascetism from gnosticism and manichaeism.

Hi hope you can make more videos

This is a great lecture! You see a lot of offshoots of these in modern fantasy and science fiction/space opera. Very much enjoyed this!

So the practice of shaving pubic hair was introduced to European society by the Crusades. It is hot in Outremer, and the crusaders did indeed find it much cooler and more hygienic to shave it. There is an Islamic anecdote saying that a Muslim barber was in a bath house in the crusader states, plying his trade. A French knight and his wife were bathing there. The knight saw the barber and got one of those nether shaves, then demanded the barber do this for his wife as well. The barber, being a Muslim, declared it haram for him to shave a woman, but the knight pressed him to do so, and watched carefully as it was done. This anecdote may or may not be true, but it was circulated among Muslims to say "Look how barbaric the Franks are, they dont have any propriety about women!"

such a great video

Excellent lecture!

Yr awesome

The wish to have a big forehead was so strong that many medieval women also bleached or even shaved their eyebrows entirely.

What I love about that translation question is how it informs us not only on the time period of the original text, but also on the time period of the translator ! Also you're still hilarious and I like how your passion for the Middle-Ages shines through these videos. Also it would make a lot of sense for s3x workers to have shaven even back then. They really didn't want to catch crotch fleas and were much more exposed to these than the average person. Also if I remember correctly, shaving the entire body except for the head was a common practice in the Middle-Eastern harems, and we know how much Europeans (especially southern) had a craze for anything from the Middle-East in the Middle-Ages and early Renaissance.

Aaarrrgghh!! I love the distinctions you highlighted between mysticism and scholastic motives. I’d love for you to make videos about foolishness, madness and education!