Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - 11-27-2021
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso
Hope Thanksgiving weekend has been enjoyable. Focused on the simple pleasures of life this week.
The desire to understand contemporary events to often conflicts with state secrecy and individuals hiding their actions. Living with the knowledge the truth of many events will probably not be known within our lifetime is very frustrating. Occasionally it is a long, long time, but the full story is finally is revealed.
And this just in from the 13th century: What did the popes (secretly) say to the Mongols?
This is pretty stilted, but there’s a fascinating story behind it all. As this piece points out, these eight letters have been in the Vatican’s secret archives for nearly 800 years. Scholars have been able to access them since 1881, but not the general public.
What I found out is that the Montsame piece only told a portion of the story.
What’s not told is how Catholic Christianity had a real chance to convert the sons and grandsons of Genghis Khan, but muffed it.
A couple of minutes to visualize the location and size of the Mongol Empire.
[video:https://youtu.be/PpT2xaIc90I?t=296]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtymGMRc91E]
What is on your mind today? (Responses to Covid questions and dialog to be conducted at The Dose diary)
Comments
The mongols were lucky
the papacy blew it and they escaped the Holy Empire's grip.
Went to a nice museum exhibit on the Mongols in Atlanta many years ago that was quite interesting.
They issued the first passports and promoted diplomacy
Though they were warriors...
they also were artists...
...and musicians
living comfortably
as their empire grew
that is until it fell
Thanks for the OT and interesting east-west saga.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the exhibit photos
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Heh, phraseology is everything, it seems.
And a damned good thing too! The Mongols generally demanded political submission but were not culturally narrow minded, intermarried, adopted many local customs and generally tolerated most local customs, etc. Assuming that the Papacy could've converted them all to Papal Christianity the world would've been much worse. The massacres and genocides would've been unimaginable.
The Official (Papist) Christians were not so open minded and wanted complete and total intellectual, cultural and ideological uniformity right down to minute details, hence the various inquisitions and crusades, including those where they declared genocidal crusades against fellow Christians who did not dot all their "i"s and cross all their "t"s in exactly the approved manner, and wear all of the exact required garments while performing the exact required rituals at the precisely dictated times and intervals. Example, the Albigensian Crusades, not too widely bragged about by The Church today, and only by that name and not the real one, the Cathar Genocide. Then there were the Northern Crusades, continuing the great holy program of conversion of all pagandom by force through the slaughter of all pagans who wouldn't convert.
The idea that THE Church could've converted the Mongols simply because some Mongols had ostensibly "Christian" wives is simply silly. It is significant that the Pope simply ordered the Mongols to cease and desist; the time period in question was not remotely ecumenical from a Christian perspective. While the Mongols were knocking on Moscow's door, Nevsky kicked ass on the Teutonic Knights at The Battle On The Ice, aka The Battle of Lake Peipus. Had he failed to do so, the Knights would've continued eastward with a holy mission to exterminate all pagans in their path, which would've been the Mongols, who were most unlikely to have been "converted" in the warfare which would've followed.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Coincidence...looking up Cathars in France because
Wiki has a great article on the Albigensian Crusades.
Cathars
Long history of proto protestants and the church in Rome.
I am also so glad there was no successful conversion to Western Christianity.
This is a complicated and busy time in history. Surprising how much people got around.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
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Happy to hear you are able to take it easy
With the simple pleasures of life.
Thanks for hosting!
I toyed with the idea
of booking a tour to Mongolia. A pal who has traveled Russia fairly extensively said it would be very boring. once you've seen the reindeer, then what? Well, I would have enjoyed some horseback riding.
One day...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That's really interesting
about Genghis Khan and religious freedom. The fun fact about the one footnote among 2,000 in Gibbon's history that refers to Khan's stance on religious freedom influencing our founders is pretty neat. I have yet to finish both videos but hope to watch in full. Thanks for posting.