Pennsylvania, land of sects

Have you ever seen "Witness"? Amish and Mennonites are Christian communities that reject certain aspects of modern society and, by own decision, do not follow its pace of life nor many of the habits related to technology and progressis ideas. But where did they come from, and how their particular way of understanding religion arose? And, why did they settle such deep roots in Pennsylvania (USA)?

Religious unrest in Europe

It all started in the Swiss city of Zurich, in January 1525. They were the years of the religious reformation started by Luther. In every European city, new Christian theologies, interpretations and trends arose that questioned the Roman doctrine. The priest Ulrich Zwingli, leader of the reformist movement in Zurich, had a quarrel with a group, led by Conrad Grebel, that wanted a faster, more radical reform. They called theirselves "anabptists" (re-baptizers), as they opposed children baptism for considering that unvolunteer, and claimed all baptism to be made during the adult life. However, they also defended the total separation between Church and State, and this led them to problems. The Zurich Council supported Zwingli and banished them from the city.

Faced with the bad welcome from the governors towards the new community, in 1527 the "Martyrs Synod" was held in Augsburg, where the main followers of the movement settled the theological bases for the Anabaptism. Little after its celebration, most of its participants were arrested and executed.

From this moment, Anabaptists (called thereafter Mennonites, on behalf of Menno Simons, one of its Dutch spiritual leaders) were persecuted as much by Catholics as by Lutherans, and murdered by thousands. This forced them to gather in secrecy at night, in caves or in their homes. Little by little, they closed their minds towards society, and changed their intention for evangelization to living in a humble way, "evangelizing with the example". One of its groups joined, during the 17th Century, the official Swiss State Church, and achieved a ceasement of prosecutions. Because of this, the rest of the Mennonites split. In 1693, the young Jacob Amman broke up with his community, accusing it of being tolerant with the Mennonites integrated in the Church. He eventually formed, together with some followers, the Amish community, representing since then the radical trend of Mennonite ideology.

America: freedom and fiscal exemptions? Let's go then!

During the 17th Century, the existence of Amish and Mennonites in Europe was more or less accepted, but never ceased to disturb the princes, and in fact, in some territories prosecutions lasted until 1710. These comunities roamed from country to country, subject to the tolerance of Gonvernments and the usefulness they could see in them. In effect, Mennonites were famous by their tenacity in work, their pacifism and lack of interest in politics. Thus, if they could be conveniently isolated from society, they would become useful to recover empoverished soil and plow wild lands. Governors just had to invent laws to force them not be seen from the public: they were forced to build their churches in the back streets, and were forbidden to toll the bells before the masses. Higher taxes than the rest of the population finished to cut off their influence power.

In the middle of the 17th Century, most Mennonites fled the Netherlands, were they had enjoyed a relative calm for years. Harder living conditions led them to move to Germany, in the regions of Westphalia, Saxony and Hamburg, where they joined a group of existing Quakers, also confined to those lands. Quakers were had recently appeared in puritan England, as a movement that defended a free, personal meditation about religion, and were appropiatedly persecuted by the Anglican Church.

It was among this group of discriminated Quakers and Mennonites that land owner William Penn (also a Quaker) asked for settlers for his new colony. Penn had received in 1681, thanks to his influential family, the lands of the region named Sylvania by him (later switched to Pennsylvania on his name), and he there created a territory with its own laws that guaranteed freedom of cult and an equitative tax fee. The first American colony of this kind was a Mennonite family and twelve Quaker ones, who founded Germantown, outside Philadelphia, in 1683. During the next years, 2500 Mennonites and 500 Amish reached the region, slowly moving to the western Lancaster County, of wilder and cheaper lands. A variant of Dutch and German was, and is still today in some groups, their official language.

Among these communities, new splits soon happened, contrary to their European analogues, who eventually merged into a single Mennonite Church. In America, the Old Order Mennonite eventually differentiated from other communities. Those became the typical, simple farms inhabited by long-bearded characters, reluctant to the use of technology, even using buttons, and the high education of their children. Their values have always been the feeling of belonging to a community, love for the land, and a religious education oriented to craft jobs.

Amish have been, since their appearing, exempt from military service and out of the social security system, as they believe themselves as the only ones with the right to take care of the community. This also happens in other services, almost every church has a life insurance for the community members. Mennonite Disaster Service is an American network of volunteers who act in national or local emergencies. The example of Amish Lancaster County is curious, as they created their own firemen brigade in 1885.

Dissident Mennonites

The rest of Mennonite groups (Hutterites, Mennonites of the Church of God in Christ, Brethren in Christ) , some more puritan and others more progressist, share most of their doctrine with th first, but varying some behaviours or interpretations from some Bible versicles. Probably, the oddest of these is the one that founded the Ephrata Cloister, in Lancaster County (Pennsylvania) in 1732. These descended from a pietistic branch of German Mennonites settled in Germantown, from which in 1728, the Seventh Day Dunkers had split. They only differentiated from the first in their use of Saturday as sacred rest day.

Among them, charismatic Conrad Beissel founded the hermit community of which he self-proclaimed the leader. This community tried to live as similarly as possible to the imagined life in Heaven. Living in the monastery was subject to a very harsh discipline, involving a six hour sleep per day in a wooden box, and eat a single vegetarian meal per day (although the Bible never mentions that in Heaven one must eat, it was thought that without that, the community would not last long). Life expectancy in the cloister was always quite low. Beissel was convinced that Christ would come back to the World while he would still be alive, and He would do it "as a robber in the night". So, every night, the whole monastery had to wake up from 0 AM to 2 AM to watch fir His arrival. At the leader's death in 1768, the community lost its meaning and most of its members were integrated into the Baptist Seventh Day Church, which actually was the closest to their doctrine.

Intrigues of the Umayyad

Under the rule of the Umayyad caliphs, the then young Muslim world reached its maximum expansion and the greatest levels of culture and creativity. However, it was a highly unstable empire, in which the caliph's power was continuously questioned by rebel factions. During about one hundred years, from 644 to 759, up to fifteen caliphs reigned, of which six were eventually murdered. There were three great civil wars and more than ten generalised revolts.

The family descended from Umayyad, who shared a great-great-grandfather with Muhammad, from the Hashemite family. As both families belonged to the same tribe -the Quraysh-, and close to power, they hated each other. In fact, the Umayyad were the main opposers to the new Muslim religion, until they were subdued by Muhammad and converted in 630.

The first Umayyad caliph was Uthman, elected in 644 by a community of tribal leaders (shura) according to the Quraysh tradition, as he was one of the first to be converted to Islam, with the opposition of his entire family. Nevertheless, when caliph, he started creating a dynasty, prioritizing Umayyad members to become governors. His prosperous and politically liberal reign gave place to the first intrigues, caused by tribal fights, personal enemies of the caliph and foreign powers afraid of the Islamic expansion -Uthman multiplied by three the Empire's territory-. But it was especially Ali, another disciple of the prophet, who denied the validity of shura decisions and defended Muhammad had personally designed him as successor before his death. A revolt appeared in Egypt eventually finished with the caliph's assassination in 656.

Sunnites, shiites and kharijites

Officially, Ali was proclaimed caliph by the families from Medina. However, Muawiyah, governor of Siria and Uthman's cousin, accused Ali of inspiring the murder and doing nothing to convict the murderers. After supporting, but not participating, in the rising led by Aisha, Muhammad's widow, which eventually failed, he organised his powerful Syrian army and confronted Ali in Siffin. The battle was a draw, and Ali finally bargained with Muawiyah a truce -Adroj arbitration (658)-, by which both kept their former positions. This caused a faction of Ali's followers, belonging to Hanifa and Tamin tribes, consider him a traitor and separate, named kharijites and under the motto "there is not rule but God's", defendind the caliph cannot decide the partition of power in the World. Ali could not crush all the rebels during the mutiny, and they eventually killed him three years later.

Muawiyah, already self-proclaimed caliph in 660, hurried to the capital, Kufa, with his reorganised army from Damascus, to get the throne. Ali's first-born son, Hasan, not counting with enough forces, fled to Medina and left free space to Muawiyah. His brother Husayn tried to get his rights back, but was defeated and killed in Karbala in 680. At his death in the beginning of that same year, the caliph Muawiyah had officially created the Umayyad dynasty, when forcing the noblemen to accept his son Yazid as his successor. This allowed him to consolidate caliphal power, but he also gained many enemies that continuously fought for the throne.

From this moment on, authority was always divided in the Islamic World. Opposing Muslim orthodoxy, or sunnism, the defeated followers of Husayn constituted the Shiite sect, that would be back to war several times, specially in Arabia and Irak, and was eventually a key element in the fall of the dynasty. Basically, shiites did not accept Umayyad authority, and created the Imam title instead, as spiritual leader -in order to differentiate it from the more terrenal caliph title- for Ali's heir. Centuries later, an imam died without any descendants, which made the Shiism break into several rival sub-sects.

Meanwhile, kharijites were a faction self-declared as the defender of Islamic purity. This sect, now practically disappeared, argued the caliph should not be designated in an hereditary way, but it should arise from the community. After killing Ali, they constituted an important opposition focus against the Umayyad, causing several local revolts specially among berbers of recently conquered Maghreb, in Mesopotamia, Irak and North Arabia, although Shiism became a larger problem.

Caliph at the caliph's place

Yazid died in 683 while besieging Mecca, trying to defeat Abdallah ibn Zubayr, who had supported Husayn and, at his death, proclaimed himself caliph in Arabia and Egypt. Abdallah caused great headaches to Damascus caliphs, as he had the main Islamic pilgrimage place under control. In order to compete with it, the Umayyad built the Mosque of the Rock in Jerusalem. The existence of two caliphs lasted for ten years, as one of the main Syrian tribes, the Qaysites, supported him against the Kalbites, allied to Damascus. The fight between these tribes was a long civil war, which a third faction joined, that of rebel al-Mukhtar, strong in Irak and defending the rights of another Ali's heir -Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya- without his permission.

The new Damascus caliph, al-Malik, chose to wait until both rebel factions destroyed each other, instead of attacking openly. Eventually, al-Mukhtar was defeated in Kufa by Abdallah in 687. That was the momento to attack his weakened army, that fell in Mecca five years later, after a harsh siege which destroyed the Holy Place of the Kaaba. Abdallah was beheaded, and his body exposed for potential rebels. The new sovereign of the whole Islamic world had a reign of centralization and internal peace. Thanks to the governor of Irak and personal lieutenant, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, no revolt was succesful during those years. This allowed carrying on the conquests and reaching the maximum extension of the Empire, from Spain to India.

When great al-Malik's sons, less authoritary, reigned, rebels stroke back. When inheriting such a large and heterogeneous Empire, in which Arabs enjoyed privileges and tax exemptions over non-Arabs, union was progressively more difficult to keep. Although one of the sovereigns, Umar, tried to abolish this differentiation, the consequent tax income drop became impossible, and going back to tax raising led to general revolts, specially in Transoxiana in 734. To make things worse, the caliph Hisham was defeated all along the Empire borders (Tours, Samarkand, Akroinon, etc.) and more unhappiness caused new rebellions in a territory impossible to control: Zayd's shiites in Irak, Berbers in North Africa -Morocco and Spain were lost in 740-, kharijites in Iran, and the feuds of conflictive Syrian tribes bleeding each other. Meanwhile, decadence and palace intrigues were increasing: the family members, togethers with generals and governors, were fighting each other for the power -the drunkard, corrupt al-Walid II was murdered by his own cousin Yazid, who proved no more brilliant-.

The Abbasid executioners

The end of the Umayyad came from the hand of the Abbasids, descendants of Abbas and -far- political family of Muhammad. It is in fact believed that they were not Arabs, but converse Persians, which explains why they had the support of non-Arab citizens from Iran. Using the excuse that the Umayyad had betrayed the Islam spirit, they attracted shiites and kharijites, gathering all possible opposition -needless to say that, after the dynasty overthrown, they kept opposing the new caliphs-.

The Abbasids consolidated their power in Khurasan, North-eastern Iran, far from central power, and started an open revolt in 747. In 749, the Abbasid Abu proclaimed himself caliph in Kufa. Next year, they defeated the Umayyad in Zab, and the caliph Marwan II was persecuted and killed in Egypt. Liberating all the resentment of a century, the winners outraged the tombs of the Umayyad and killed the remaining members of the family. Only one saved, Abd al-Rahman, who fled to the border province of Cordoba, and there extended the dynasty, but that is a different story.

Amazing Benin

In 1602 the Dutch merchant Pieter de Marees described the city of Edo (now Benin City), capital of the Benin Empire, this way: "The walled city of Benin is composed by a system of huge straight streets. These streets, although not paved, are very wide and well maintained [...]. Fine and big wooden houses are based along the streets, provided with covered porchs [...]. The king's court is very big, with galleries as large as the largest in Amsterdam, constantly watched, and supported by wooden pillars encased with copper on which engravings with past battles were depicted. I went so deep inside this building that, wherever I looked around, I could see gate after gate that finished in other places" [de Marees, 1602].

In his work "Description of Guinea", where he compiled information about uses and habitudes of indigenous people of the Benin Coast, de Marees mainly described the people as "bellicose, promiscuous, savage and thiefs". However, he managed to capture many aspects of the advanced Bini culture.

Amazing Benin

In effect, Europeans there found an Empire with a complex administrative system. The king, the Oba, exercised a great religious power (in fact the country never converted to Christianism) and also political, although the latter was supervised by two councils, an hereditary one (the Uzama) and an elected one, composed by territory chiefs, and lot of influence over the Oba's decisions. Most of the kings in the nearby territories also had a non hereditary title elected by the people.

The Benin Empire culture was, contrary to the one of European colonizers, very social. As long as in Europe the land was seen as a property and an investment, in Africa it was a common property, in which each individual possessed the right to work parts of it, but never over the land itself, as it belonged to the clan or the community. The same way, the name of new born children was decided as common agreement of the people.

A tricky Golden Age

The arrival of the Portuguese meant a deep social change. The Bini did not have the habitude of making trade exchanges aiming luxury, but the behaviour of land possession eagerness, characteristic of Europeans, was finally imitated by the indigenous. "As time passed by, they earned so much knowledge about their products that they almost surpassed us" [de Marees, 1602]. In effect, after a time of trade agreements, Africans understood that Europeans did not have the gold from Benin neither the copper from Sahara, so they had the power of rising prices as there were more and more clients and it was an increasingly valuable business, to the extent that "they became so proud and anxious as greedy rich men. After realising it was good merchandise, they tried by all means to falsify gold itself, transforming 100 grams in 150 and this way cheating foreigners".

Benin people had a deep alcohol culture, as they constantly used it in celebrations of births, offerings, worship to the land and lots of social rites. They distilled it from honey, plants and millet, and produced a kind of low graduation rum, so that when they tried the strong liquor Europeans brought, alcoholism became a common illnes. De Marees said that "they were naturally great drinkers" and, because of the lack of habit to this drink, became easily aggressive. This circumstance was very used by Europeans, together with traffic of firearms, in order to promote tribal wars that became a source to start slave trade.

This way, the Benin Empire complemented gold trade with ivory, pepper, furs, and specially slaves obtained in wars. Along the 16th and 17th centuries, it became the richest and most powerful Empire in West Africa, and a trade class appeared with a desire for luxury comparable to the Western one. British explorers realised the Oba was able to rise an army of twenty thousand men in one single day, and up to one hundred thousand men if necessary.
The end of the Empire came with the abolishment of slavery, of which its wealth had become totally dependent, and Benin entered a period of decadence that meant a lowering of richness, territorial losses and migration. This way, in 1897, the British occupied and pillaged the city of Edo. The kingdom became the protectorate of Nigeria, and the magnificent Bini artworks are now kept in a room in the British Museum.

Two Germanies

A brief timeline of the process that meant the division of Germany after the Second World War.

12 - 16 September 1944: During the Quebec Conference, the Morgenthau Plan for the occupation of Germany is approved. This plan aimed to dismantle the whole German heavy industry and transform the country into two independent "agricultural States", in order to avoid future rearmaments. The Plan was finally rejected, but was a guide for the later process.

8th May 1945: Inconditional surrender of Germany, carried out by marshal Doenitz. 15 days later, the German General Staff is arrested.

5th June 1945: Establishment of the Allied Control Council, based in Berlin, for the government of the occupied Germany, with shared powers among USA, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.

End of May 1945: Brno Death March. 24000 Germans from the Sudetes are forced to walk towards the Austrian border, expelled from Checoslovaquia. Nearly 1000 die of violent treatment and disease.

17th July - 2nd August 1945: Potsdam Conference. Division of Germany and Berlin in 4 territories administered by USA, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France. The Soviet Union unilaterally modifies the German border with Poland to the Oder-Neisse line. Forced expulsion of the German and mixed population from all the Eastern Europe countries is agreed. This will mean more than 14 million migrations during the next 4 years. According to the Morgenthau Plan, the reduction of the German heavy industry is agreed, as well as a control to its Foreign Trade. However, no agrement is reached about occupation, as the Soviet Union claims a single demilitarized state under its rule.

January 1946: Beginning of the "denazification" process.

5th March 1946: Benes Treaties are ratified, which state that all property belonging to German residents in the Sudetes and expelled from Checoslovaquia are expropiated by the State as war payments. Germany starts becoming a country without practically any resource to fee an excessive and poor population.

29th March 1946: First Desindustrialization Plan for Germany begins, which aims to reduce heavy industry to 50% of the pre-war levels. Steel and automobile production is stricted, and the one for drinks, domestic goods, timber and Coke is promoted.

March 1947: The "Truman Doctrine" is made public, that defends contention towards emerging Communism. The Cold War begins.

Winter 1946-1947: A specially harsh winter, the situation of German population becomes unsustainable due to lack of food and fuel. Infant mortality in the country is double than that of Western Europe.

12th July 1947: Marshall Plan is proposed. The Soviet Union rejects it and forces all the States in Eastern Europe to do so, as a first relevant distancing between Allied powers.

July 1947: American occupation in Germny is more and more impopular. USA decides to cancel the current occupation directive, and substitutes it by another that aims the re-industrialization of Germany. The president Truman wants to recover an economically strong ally in Europe, over which to develop the damaged continental economy, and avoid that the low standard of living in the country leads to a Communist coup. France prefers keeping the hard directive. The Soviet Union is frontally opposed to the change, and goes on with desindustrialization (in its case, movement of German industry to Russia) in its zone.

January 1948: USA extends the Marshall Plan to Germany, and promotes the currency reform by introducing the German Mark in its occupation zone in June.

March 1948: The Soviet Union retires from the Allied Control Council, as a response to the economical measures taken by Western powers in their zones. A Communist system starts to be installed in its occupation zone and Eastern Berlin.

24th June 1948: The Soviet Union imposes the terrestrial Blockade to the three Western zones of Berlin through its occupation zone, alleging that the guarantee of this communication had never been signed. General Clay proposes the advance of an armored column towards Berlin, with orders to open fire if attacked. The Truman government rejects the proposal as "too close to a war". It is agreed instead to supply the city with three air corridors (one managed by each Western ally) using civil and military aircraft.

4th April 1949: NATO is created as a pressure means to the Soviet Union.

11th May 1949: The Soviet Union ceases the Berlin Blockade, due to its ineffectiveness and international pressure. 65 Germans, Americans and British have died during the supply operations, specially difficult due to obstructions imposed by Soviets.

23rd may 1949: The government of the Federal Republic of Germany is established in the territories occupied by USA, France and United Kingdom, with capital in Bonn. Western Berlin remains under the status of American military occupation, although its residents are granted German citizenship.

7th October 1949: The USSR creates the Democratic Republic of Germany, with capital in Berlin. The country, not internationally recognised, remains under Sovietic occupation.

1952: Due to the flow of Eastern Germans towards the West, the USSR closes the borders and establishes controls.

May 1955: Eastern Germany's status is switched from occupied territory to Soviet Union allied.

14th May 1955: The Warsaw Pact is created. Eastern Germany joins it in 1960.

13th August 1961: Thousands of Eastern Germans still trespass daily the border through Berlin. The government of East Germany, under the approval of the Soviet Union, starts boulding the Berlin Wall in order to close this hole, alleging the needs to raise an "anti-fascist protection barrier".

July 1962: The "Death Strip" is created, a fully watched space close to the Wall by its Eastern part. House suburbs are pulled down in order to leave an open space that eases shooting from watch towers. Until its destruction in 1989, it is calculated that around 200 people died tryin to jump the Wall.

21st October 1969: Willy Brandt becomes chancellor of Federal Germany. Under his rule, the Ostpolitik is promoted as a process of rapprochement and diplomatic normalization between the two Germanies. At a long term, this will mean the international recognition of the existence of two independent sovereign States, and the inmobility of their borders (after the Moscow Treaty in 1970).

Europe of the Regions

The 1986 Single European Act was the first major revision of the Treaty of Rome that created the European Economic Community in 1957. The Act meant a commitment of joint progress, and a new manner of coordinating economic activities, after the failure of semi-plannified economy and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (dependent on the dollar) that happened during the 70's.
The result of the Act was the creation of the European Monetary System (called "of the European snake in the tunnel", as European currencies were floating in group against the rest). This was the first step to the arrival of the euro economy.
Another wanted step was the administrative reform of the recently named European Union, which was becoming more and more complex when taking joint decisiones (the system of national vetoes made agreements very long or impossible).
However, no political topics were treated (the absence of a common Defense and Foreign Affairs) nor many economical (such as the aberrant agricultural budget applied since the entrance of Spain and Portugal). But the countries agreed on one thing: reaching a free market of goods and work.
So, the decision-taking system was almost only economic. In order to ease it, the national agreement system was switched into another one in which regions had direct access to the European Council in Brussels and could act independently from their corresponding national entity. The Europe of the Regions started existing.

A new imbalance

The result was a modification of budget decisiones taken by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which identified backward European regions and distributed investments in order to estimulate their economies. Now regions avoided their Governments, not generally very willing to cooperate in regional investments. Some of them, generally the richest (such as Catalonia and Baden-Württemberg), established their own offices in Brussels to constitute true lobbies.
Consequence? The richness desequilibrium was not reduced (rather the contrary), but it was redistributed by regiones instead of countries. Now, a group of first order regions existed (Lombardy, Catalonia, Flemish Region, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Rhône-Alpes...), and another group of poor ones (Andalusia, Scotland, Wallonia, Algarve...). A new, costly bureaucracy, that did not doubt when manipulating subsidy data, intensified the problem.
In conclusion, Europe, without solving its old defects of clientelism and corruption, just diluted them into a new structure where abuses still often happened. Economic rforms based in the 50's and 60's way of thinking (already shown inefficient) unlegitimated a bit more a Union that, nowadays, is clunking and needs real measures.
Definitely, it was successful in one thing: the appearance of a new way of regional sub-nationalism. It is not a coincidence that in the most subsidied European regions, this regionalism passed from a traditional reactionary folklorism to a conscience, sometimes independentist, in which a disdain towards governmental identity, but also an Europeist supra-national thinking has invaded their inhabitants.

Blue blood

It is interesting to see how nobility titles in Western Europe have changed their meaning along History. Some of them dating back as long as the Roman Empire, during the Middle Ages acquired their meaning related to land ownership. Currently, titles are merely honorific.

Duke

The title of duke is traditionally the one of highest rank. he word comes from Latin "dux", meaning "military commander", and was employed by both Romans and Germans to refer their warrior leaders. In the Roman army, a dux was a general in charge of two or more legions, who normally managed the government of a province (both civil and military). In the Roman Empire, the powers of the dux were limited to strictly military, depending on the governor (normally a "comes") to make use of them. In Byzantium, "dux" became viceroys at the head of every administrative and military service.

During the Middle Ages, dukes became the closest nobility title to the king, and their function was essentially military, with a territorial aspect though, as they ruled in a set of countships. Of course, there exist variations in the meaning of dukes in every kingdom. Frankish dukes were the nobles of highest rank, from where province governors came out, although they also appear leading military expeditions away from their duchies. Later, Charlemagne restructured administratively the kingdom, multiplying the number of counts and reducing that of dukes, limiting it to the nobles closest to him. In Spain and Italy, Visigoth and Lombard dukes, respectively, were the greatest land owners and, together with bishops, they elected the king among them. Although the were nominally loyal to the king, the concept of monarchy was new for them and dukes acted independently from royal authority, specially in central and south Italy, where the duke of Spoleto and the duke of Benevento were sovereigns de facto. Also in Germany, duchies were independent kingdoms inside the Holy Empire, and in Italy, "doges" were the heads of state in some of the Republics in the peninsula (Genoa, Venice). In modern times, variants from this title ("Conde-duque" in Spain, Archduke in Austria) to refer the head of state.

Count

Etimologically from the Latin "comes", which means companion or delegate of the emperor during the Roman Empire. Its origin is in the people surrounding Augustus ("amici Augusti"), normally selected from senators, who when travelling became "comites Augusti", being their role just that of personal advisors. They disappeared with Alexander Severus and created again under Constantine, when they designated the most loyal to the emperor, being a hierarchy over regular officials. They had a political and administrative role, with military functions specially when defending borders.

During the Germanic kings, counts were designated by a dux or the king. The title of count was indistintively given to every official around him, one of which, the count palatine ("comes palatii"), was in charge of rendering justice inside the palace. Some arms companions of Frankish merovingian princes received the title for city administration. At these times they start to have fiscal, military and judiciary functions. Military power only never depended on a moving army, but settled on a territory (countship). In the countship, he rivalised mainly with the bishop (in his corresponding diocese) for the use of power. Under Charlemagne, counts were given a specific mission (military or administrative) with temporal character, and never hereditary. It is only after the 9th century that counts start to form a land owner class, usurpating royal rights over their countship land. The title was also often given by the monarch as gratitude for a special service, without necessary being accompanied of a feudal territory. In England, there exists the equivalent "Earl", term originated in Scandinavia.

Marquess

The original title comes from German "markgraf" (literally "count of the mark"). During the High Middle Ages, and specially in the Carolingian Empire, it was a count who administered a border territory (mark). In order to allow him a quick reaction to potential attacks, special military powers were given to him to raise up the army without the express permission of the king. This authority has later conferred it a higher rank than the count, but lower than the duke, as the latter has a military and judiciary power over several countships. After the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, the marquis title fell into disuse, except certain counts who proclaimed themselves marquis to acquire greater importance (that is the case of the count of Barcelona, who justified this action for being situated in the border with hispanic Muslim kingdoms). In modern times it resurected as an honorific title.

Baron

Etimologically coming from a mixture between the Frankish word "baro" ("warrior") and the Angle "beorn" ("noble"). Since the Middle Ages, it refered those who had obtained privileges directly from the king because of a military service, situated just over the title of knight. Acording to the country, the meaning was different: In France, for being baron, it was required to possess at least two castles. In Spain barons were the rich and magnates who participated in political sessions. In the Holy Empire, every family in the low nobility were granted the title of baron (distinguished with the prefix "von"). The English king Henry II made a distintion between greater and lesser barons. Since the 16th century, baronship looses its relation with land ownership, becoming a nominal title.

Human sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli

In summer 1521, the small army of the conquistador Hernán Cortés had been expelled from Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs, 62 of his soldiers taken prisoners during the fight. From outside the lake of the mexica capital, Cortés saw, powerless, the Aztec priests dispose these prisoners on the pyramid-temple altars, opened their chests and offered their beating hearts to the god Huitzilopochtli.

The chronicle of the swordsman Bernal Díaz tells these facts. Ritual sacrifice was perceived by Cortés as a threat and intimidation from the Aztecs. It probably arised a feeling of rejection and revenge in him, that influenced the later extermination of Aztec culture. However, the ritual sacrifice had a very different meaning.

In Aztec culture, human sacrifices were common during celebrations or natural disasters. Spilling human blood was a means to be humilliated in order to express gratitude and pay the debt towards the gods, for the sacrifice they did themselves in the creation of the world. Auto-sacrifice was the most widespread way, being common the fact of perforating sometimes several parts of the body with obsidian (especially ear, tongue and penis).

When the sacrifice involved offering the life of another person, this was rarely a slave (as the sacrifice became less valuable). It was usually a free person voluntarily offered or a war prisoner. The latter type of sacrifice, in which a jaguar warrior offered his prisoner to Huitzilopotchli, god of Sun and War, was the most widespread among Aztecs. The rite usually consisted in a ritual dance performed by both victim and warrior, and later the priest took the heart out from the victim's chest on the sacrifice altar. Right afterwards, the victim's body was offered to the warrior's family. They then ate his flesh and carried his skin for several days. What explanation has such an extravagant rite?

A complex meaning

In Meso-American cultures, the concept of the individual is relative. The nature of the "me" does not exist as itself, but as other individuals see it. This way, a jaguar sees other jaguars the same way a human sees other humans. The sacrifice rite is, in this context, a ceremony of assimilation, of an attempt to become the other. By eating his flesh, and carrying his skin, the warrior and his family personify their enemy, who defines who are themselves. In this manner, the sacrifier becomes, momentaneously, a singular individual, not relative but absolute.

For the better quality of the rite, the victim must be as similar as possible as the sacrifier, that is, from a near origin. That is why, the sacrified that came from the nearby city of Tlaxcala were more ppreciated than those come from further. Spanish were, thus, a second-class type of victim.

An interesting aspect in the ritual sacrifice, is that the sacrifier assumes also the role of the victim (result of the assimilation of the other). When the family ate the victim's flesh, they were in mourning, and it was frequent to cry during the ceremony, same as if it were their relative who was dead.

So, although difficult to understand by the Western invaders, the true reason of the sacrifice was much more complex than they thought.

The end of the samurai

In the 19th century, Japan was far from the economic and political power we know nowadays. The Tokugawa system, feudal in most aspects, was based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The warrior-caste of samurai were at the top, followed by farmers, artisans, and traders.

The samurai, traditionally a warrior class that was at the service of a lord, had increased their political and social influence during the Tokugawa period, by becoming landowners, courtiers, bureaucrats, and administrators rather than warriors. However their aristocratic status still kept the same warrior meaning influenced by the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. They were an educated class, had a complex code of obligations towards their lord (usually a daimyo), and a formalized chivalry code (called "Bushido"). They had the legal right to wear weapons (they actually were the only granted that privilege) and to cut down any commoner who did not show proper respect, although to what extent this right was used is unknown.

As a consequence of the rigid structure that composed the social system, Japan was a backward country when compared to the overwhelming power of the European and American empires of the time. Like other subjugated Asian nations, the Japanese were forced to sign unequal treaties with Western powers, which granted them one-sided economical and legal advantages in Japan. The very inflexibility of the caste system, lacking all forms of economic dynamism and neglecting inflation effects, unleashed huge economic crisis and general empoverishment.

The Meiji Restoration

En 1867, an alliance of several of the most powerful daimyo (Satsuma and Kido) with the titular Emperor finally succeeded in the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate after the Boshin War, culminating in the Meiji Restoration. The power of the Emperor became increasingly stronger, and after a series of confrontations against his former allies, he gained all the lands under his own control. The result of this deep change in the political system was the establishment of a centralised power supported by a completely new oligarchy that undertook a series of reforms in the country.

The Emperor was convinced that Japan needed to become a World power by following the model of the Western empires. This way, the four-caste division of the society was abolished and freedom of social and occupational mobility was guaranteed. The education became compulsory, and the education system reformed after the French and German ones. Freedom of worship was also established, a constitution was edited and several forms of democratic participation of the citizens founded. Agrarian reforms and massive industrial development were succesfully undertaken, the concept of a market economy and the adoption of British and North American forms of free enterprise capitalism were welcomed by a country that soon showed its abundance of aggressive entrepreneurs. As a consequence, Japan emerged as the first Asian industrialised nation and one of the new great World powers.

What happened to the samurai?

All this logically meant the end for the samurai. As they received fixed revenues from the government, their upkeep was a tremendous financial limit for a nation in development (there were 1.9 million samurais at the time), so the Meiji government started a slow process to progressively abolish this social class. Most of their salaries were diminished or cancelled, and the ones that remained had to convert them into government bonds (which, of course, had no guarantee of being valid if the central government failed). A Western-like nobility classification was established among the remaining samurai and courtiers: prince, marquis, count, viscount, and baron were new conceded entitlements.

The reform of the military was the real end of the samurai privileges. In 1873, nation-wide conscription was established, and the right to bear arms was extended to every male in the nation. In this manner, the samurai lost their right to be the only armed force in favor of a modern, Western-like army. Moreover, their honorific right to wear a katana in public was eventually abolished along with the right to cut down commoners who paid them disrespect.

Although many samurai became wandering warriors and some riots arose (such as the major Satsuma rebellion, lead by the samurai Saigo Takamori), most samurai adapted easily to their new condition. Many found employment as policemen or in the government bureaucracy, which resembled an elite class in its own right. The samurai, being better educated than most of the population, became teachers, government officials or military officers. However, the ideal of samurai military spirit lived on in romanticised form and was often used as nationalistic propaganda during the 20th century.

The Army of Freedom

During the Pacific War, the so called "Army of Freedom" of the United States showed enormous racial prejudices among its soldiers, as a direct consequence of the segregationism in the American society. Black soldiers were denied basic services, given not enough or null ammonition in the battlefield, or were even murdered by white military.

In 1941, the army of general McArthur established its headquarters in Queensland (Australia), where more than 50,000 soldiers arrived. And also in Australia, while white soldiers were received in open arms, the laborist Government of John Curtin did not allow to entry (aprox.) 12,000 black soldiers, strictly following an ancient Australian law for the white conservation of the continent (The White Australia Policy). Thousands of soldiers had to stay in their boats for weeks until the pressures of the American Government convinced Curtin. However, black soldiers were confined in the degradated suburb in the South of Brisbane, at the other side of the river. They were not allowed to cross to the North suburb and neither to go in dance places such as Trocadero Dance, under very hard punishments.

Australian population, however, never rejected these exotic soldiers, but on the contrary. They had specially success with Australian girls, so much that in the end, white American soldiers felt envious (never did Australian soldiers, their eternal party fellows). The American Military Police, formed by white men, made use of their power by putting lot of pressure on black soldiers, blaming them on false crimes, applying specially severe punishments and murdering several persons.

In March 1942, fights between these two groups made black soldiers to be moved out of the city, and installed in the forest near Townsville, living in subhuman conditions. In November the same year, serious confrontations arose again in Brisbane between the remaining white American soldiers and the Australian ones, which shows what was the source of the problem. However, black soldiers were not better treated from them on, and no war report ever mentioned the very serious facts that had happened.

The Nile and the Euphrates

Around the year 4000 BC, a civilization appears on the side of the Nile river. The Egyptian Empire lasted more than 3000 years and was the first civilization in History that built great architectural and artistic works, also to create an organized central administration.
In parallel, in the area between the courses of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, state-cities arise (Sumer, Akkad, Susa, Ur, Babylon) that will compete on each other and develop an equally important cultural identity. To them we owe the first aphabet and the code of laws.
However, the development in both of them was very different. While in Egypt a great politic entity appear and was stable for thousands of years, Mesopotamia saw endless confrontations between its small state-cities, none of which managed to impose its hegemony permanently. What is the reason of this difference?

Two basins, two civilizations

Certainly, both river sides were very fertile. However, they were in a different manner.
The river Nile suffers periodic floods. It is necessary just a minimum human effort to take the maximum profit, guaranteeing also rich harvests with a great stability. The sides of the Tigris and the Euphrates, to begin with, are more mountainous and less favourable to agriculture. Moreover, harvests are not necessarily always good, but droughts and floods can sometimes happen. Thus, in order to take the maximum benefit of its potential, it was necessary for its population to build great dams and complex irrigation systems. Exactly, archaeological findings in Ancient Mesopotamie show the existence of this kind of works, while they are rare in Egypt.

Social consequences

In Egypt, food stability allowed a long prosperity and the establishment of an empire in which citizen miscontent was not frequent. This Empire was relatively stable for thousands of years, until its inactivity finally provoked its decadency. In Mesopotamia, on the contrary, the support of the community was necessary for the good operation of irrigation systems in difficult conditions, and in this context, the role of the city was fundamental to establish guarantees. Moreover, when bad harvests happened, was was frequent, usually provoked by disputes on territories or resources.

It is interesting how similar cases have repeated along History. Stability makes people open-minded, risking sometimes to lead to cultural sleeping. In difficult periods survivance instincts are more important, the people get isolated in their community, and show aggresive to external identities.

The slap of Anagni

The pope Boniface VIII (satirized in an ancient drawing, on the right) is one of the most infamous of the Roman Church. With him, the figure of the pope suffered the biggest humilliation of his history. A slap on the face is not easy to be forgotten.

Power conflicts

At the end of the XIII century, Italy is divided in hundreds of small States governed by powerful families, which also try to achieve power in Rome by placing a pope with their own surname. Let us imagine an Italian-like war, in which small treasons are as frequent as open field battles.

In 1297 the pope Boniface VIII, from the Caetani family, rules Rome. A small terrain dispute took him as an excuse to a total war with the Colonna family, also with pretensions to place a pope in Rome. The war ended with the total destruction of the Colonna capital, Palestrina, and the banishment of the family to France.

Meanwhile, the king Philip IV the Fair had been taking a pulse with the pope since several years before, as the pretensions of the latter to expand his power were extreme ("It is necessary for the salvation that every human creature subjects to the Roman pontificate", Unam Sanctam, 1302). In 1303 the French king broke the pulso by deciding to collect taxes from the clergy in the country. Boniface responded to this as a pope, by redacting a bule to excommunicate the king.

The slap of Anagni

However, the skilful ministre of the king, Guillaume de Nogaret, proposed him a simple plan before the war would be declared: Go to Italy by surprise, arrest the Pope and destitute him back in France. First rejected by the king, few days later Nogaret received a letter from him with orders to "go to such a place, and make such treaties with such persons as seems appropiate".

Sciarra Colonna, eager of revenge, joined Nogaret's expedition, which in the Apennines recruited 1600 men, enemies of Caetani, and managed to get to the Pope's residence in Anagni without being noticed. In the palace, Sciarra humilliated Boniface by slapping him to the floor. The pope, still down, shouted "Guillaume, son of cathares! Here is my head, here my neck. I will die, but I will die as a Pope". Nogaret convinced Sciarra not to cut his head at the place.

The Pope was in prison only three days, as many of his supporters raised in arms in Rome and freed him, and the attackers fled. However, the Pope was very weakened by this fact (he could have suffered too much moral and physical damage for being 68 years old), and died a month later. After one year, the Pope's residence was moved to Avignon, and so was under absolute control of the king of France. The Popes have hardly recovered from that slap.