istoryworld
Black-letter style
The black-letter style is the convention in German manuscripts when printing is developed there in the 1450s. It therefore becomes the type face used for the earliest European printed books, such as Gutenberg's Bible. Angular letters of this kind remain the normal convention in German books until the early 20th century. But within the first century of printing there is a reaction in Italy against this heavy style. Italian humanists of the Renaissance associate it with all that they consider dark and barbarous about the ...
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Angkor and Pagan
In Cambodia the Khmer dynasty makes its capital, from the 9th century, in the city of Angkor. A series of huge Hindu temples culminates in the great 12th-century Angkor Wat. The temples are engulfed by the jungle, after the fall of the city first to Chams from the east (in 1177) and then to Thais from the west (in 1431). Angkor is rediscovered in the 1860s, to become one of the wonders of the world. To the west, the new Burmese dynasty has its capital ...
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Baroque Rome
During these same years Bernini's great contribution to the exterior of St Peter's is also under construction. The open space in front of the church, where pilgrims gather to hear the pope's Easter address, needs to be enclosed in some way to form a welcoming piazza. Bernini achieves a perfect solution in the form of an open curving colonnade. The four concentric rows of columns provide covered walkways and a shape for the piazza, but they do so without closing it in - for there ...
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Strike and Slump
The nation's economic difficulties in the mid-1920s, and the resulting unrest, are most evident in the mining industry - the very heartland of the Labour movement in Britain, from the time of Keir Hardie's activities in the 1880s.The market for British coal has been shrinking, with the result that in 1925 the mine owners demand from their workers an unapalatable combination of longer hours and less pay. The miners are led by a brilliant orator, A.J. Cook, who coins the powerful slogan 'Not a penny ...
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Van Dyck
There are to be many more such portraits of the royal pair. The charming but weak face of Charles I, with the delicately trimmed beard, and the fragile beauty of Henrietta Maria are the most familiar images of British monarchs, in the entire long span between the queens Elizabeth and Victoria, entirely thanks to the skill of van Dyck.Other members of the aristocracy are as eager to use his services. They glow in his canvases, handsome and arrogant Cavaliers in fine fabrics (John and Bernard ...
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Buddhism in east Asia
Mahayana Buddhism travels by a land route. In the 2nd century AD northern India and Afghanistan are ruled by the Kushan dynasty, one of whose kings, Kanishka, is a devotee of this form of Buddhism. His encouragement of it has special significance, since his kingdom occupies a central position on the Silk Road - at one of its busiest times, when its caravans effectively link China with Rome. The western influence on the Kushan region (also known as Gandhara) is seen in the famous style ...
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The vaulted stone roof
Romanesque in the north tends to be more massive in style than the delicate arches of Vézelay. A good example is the interior of Durham cathedral - the glory of English Romanesque (often given the alternative name of Norman architecture). The chunky pillars of Durham, many of them decorated with deeply incised patterns, support a vaulted stone roof over the nave - a significant Romanesque innovation of this period. The construction of Durham begins in 1093, a few decades before the nave of Vézelay.
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The Old Kingdom
The period known as the Old Kingdom runs from the 4th to the 6th of Manetho's dynasties and begins several centuries after the unification of Egypt. During the intervening period little is known of the pharaohs except their names, deriving from stone inscriptions (from as early as the 1st dynasty the Egyptian civilization enjoys the advantages of writing, soon to be followed by a sophisticated calendar). Of some pharaohs even the names are missing.The change to more solid evidence comes in the time of Zoser, ...
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Philip II and Louis IX
The piety of Saint Louis (he is canonized in 1297) is very much in the spirit of his time. He creates one of the most spectacular of Gothic buildings, the Sainte Chapelle, to house a relic - the supposed Crown of Thorns. And he twice goes on crusade to the Middle East, dying in north Africa during the second expedition. Louis' domestic policy to some extent reflects this piety. Solemn edicts are issued against prostitution, gambling and blasphemy. But he also runs an honest and ...
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Venetian mosaics
When the Torcello mosaics are being installed, this cathedral is no longer the most important one in the Venetian lagoon. That honour has passed to St Mark's, where craftsmen in mosaic are busy at the same period. Their labours produce probably the most sumptuous church interior in the world, with every corner a sombre glittering gold. It has been calculated that the mosaics of St Mark's cover an area of about an acre. Dating mainly from the 12th and 13th centuries, these Italian mosaics represent ...
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The Book
Genesis, the first book of the Torah, begins with a resolutely monotheistic story of the creation and goes on to provide a series of myths which can be echoed in other religions - the fall of man into a state of sin through disobedience (Adam and Eve eating the apple), a great flood which sweeps away the whole of sinful mankind except for one small group of survivors (Noah and his family), and the emergence of different languages (God's punishment for man's presumption in building ...
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Sack of Constantinople
The Venetians, from their long links with Constantinople, can appreciate the treasures of Byzantium. They loot rather than destroy. St Mark's in Venice is graced today by many rich possessions brought back in 1204 - parts of the Pala d'Oro, the porphyry figures known as the tetrarchs, and above all the four great bronze horses. The crusaders, mainly French and Flemish, are less refined in their tastes. They tend to smash what they find. They ride their horses into Santa Sophia, tear down its silken ...
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Ashur and the Assyrians
Since about 2000 BC the Assyrians, a Semitic group, have worshipped their god Ashur at a shrine on the Tigris known by his name. The city of Ashur has had periods of influence, trading and conquering westwards into Turkey, but the Assyrians have also often been subject to more powerful groups from those regions, such as the Hittites. And they have tended to be overshadowed by their great neighbour to the south, Babylon. The balance changes markedly in Ashur's favour with the accession, in 883, ...
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Sack of Constantinople
The crusaders camp outside Constantinople while Alexius, as emperor, tries to raise his debt to the Venetians by taxing the citizens and confiscating church property. For nine months growing resentment within the city is matched by increasing impatience outside. In April the Venetians persuade the crusaders to storm Constantinople and place a Latin emperor on the throne. For the second time they succeed in breaching the walls. The doge of Venice and the leading crusaders instal themselves in the royal palace. The army is granted ...
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Centre of innovation
One of the world's first towns, Catal Huyuk, is on the southern edge of the Anatolian plateau. Excavation has revealed evidence of quite developed agricultural communities living on this site from about 6500 to 5700 BC. Several millennia later Anatolia is the site of the first of the many empires established by Indo-European tribes - eventually the dominant group in the Eurasian land mass all the way from the Atlantic to India. These first Indo-European conquerors, ruling Anatolia from the 17th to 12th century BC, ...
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From tents to round houses
Once human beings settle down to the business of agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, permanent settlements become a factor of life. The story of architecture can begin. The tent-like structures of earlier times evolve now into round houses. Jericho is usually quoted as the earliest known town. A small settlement here evolves in about 8000 BC into a town covering 10 acres. And the builders of Jericho have a new technology - bricks, shaped from mud and baked hard in the sun. In keeping ...
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Roman murals
Murals are even more fragile than the walls they are painted on, so it is not surprising that few survive from the days of the Roman empire. The accidents of being covered by ash or sand, or of being originally painted underground, have preserved some examples in Pompeii, Doura-Europos and the Roman catacombs. They are not for the most part very distinguished. But they demonstrate that it is a normal custom, in Roman communities, to decorate walls by painting on the plaster. It is equally ...
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Eastern monasticism
The monastic tradition of eastern Christianity remains true to its ascetic origins, with the discomfort of the hermitage carried to extremes in the strange tradition of the stylites. Even today the monasteries of the Coptic church of Egypt and Ethiopia, together with the Greek Orthodox communities of Mount Athos and Meteora in Greece and of St Catherine's below Mount Sinai, give the impression of subsisting at the furthest possible remove from the everyday life of fertile valleys. Celtic monasticism in the west has the same ...
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The contribution of Greece
The pillar and capital are familiar in Greece from prehistoric times. They feature together, for example, in the sculpture above the Lion Gate at Mycenae, from the 13th century BC. As late as the mid-7th century the pillars in Greek temples are still invariably of wood. But their capitals already divide into the distinct patterns which will become known as Doric and Ionic, the central pair in the classical orders of architecture. Doric, the style of mainland Greece, follows the design featured on the Lion ...
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The Book
The Bible (from biblos, Greek for 'book') is the basis of two great religions, Judaism in the Old Testament and Christianity in the New Testament. In each case it brings together a group of documents to tell the story of the founders and early followers of the religion. In doing so it also explains their beliefs. The conventional sources of historical evidence (archaeological remains, written documents) provide few traces of the Old Testament story and none at all of the events described in the New ...
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