A German history starting in the Middle Ages when the emperors fought an epic struggle with the papacy to the Reformation, the great 18th century of Kant, Goethe, Gauss, the rise of Prussia and the horrors of the Nazi regime. We will end with the post-war period of moral and physical rebuilding. As Gregory of Tours (539-594) said: "A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad" .
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2024-11-21 | The Council of Constance marked a pivotal moment in the history of the Catholic Church and the history of Europe in general.One issue on the agenda was the ongoing schism that the council of Pisa had failed to resolve. Another the reform of the increas... |
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2024-11-14 | “Master Jan Hus, preacher of the Holy Scriptures from the chapel of Bethlehem, was also present at this council, who in his preaching continuously criticized and exposed the hypocrisy, pride, miserliness, fornication, simony, and other sins of the cler... |
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2024-11-07 | The late 14th and early 15th century was a period of upheaval, the certainties of the Middle Ages, that the pope ruled the world and that knights were invincible were crumbling away, the long period of economic growth, of eastward expansion and convers... |
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2024-10-31 | The 168th episode of the History of the Germans delves into the transformative period of the Ottomans from Osman to the Battle of Nicopolis. It highlights how Osman, the son of an Anatolian warlord, laid the foundations for what would become one of the... |
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2024-10-24 | When the Great Western Schism was finally resolved at Pisa and Constance, Christendom rejoiced. Or so we have been told. But was it really such a devastating, catastrophic event that left the papacy mortally wounded, so impaired that it crumbled when ... |
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2024-10-17 | If you are a longstanding listener to the History of the Germans, you will already know that sometime in the late 14th century the catholic church broke apart into 2 and then 3 different obediences, three popes residing in different places and being re... |
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2024-10-10 |
Ep. 165 - Wenceslaus the Lazy and Ruprecht of the Empty Pocket “And since these especially ruinous harms to all of Christendom are not to be tolerated or suffered any longer, so we have completely agreed – with a well-considered disposition, by means of much and various discussion and counsel, which we have earnes... |
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2024-10-03 |
Season 9 - The Reformation before the Reformation - Season Opener On 31st of October 1517 a hitherto unknown professor at the smallish university of Wittenberg published 95 theses. And by doing so, he unleashed a sequence of events that would fundamentally change the face of Europe and still defines communities and n... |
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2024-09-26 |
Germany at War - A Guest Episode from Not so Quiet on the Western Front As you know I am still working on getting season 9 to the staring blocks. The good news is that we will be kicking off on October 3 embarking on journey that will take us to the council of Constance, the Hussite wars, the emergence of Burgundy and the... |
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2024-09-19 |
Charles IV. A Portrait of a Medieval Ruler - Interview with Václav Žůrek The Emperor and King Charles IV (1316-1378) represents today an untouchable monument in Czech history, carved into the marble of admiration and clichés. Although a new and thorough study of his reign is yet to be written, it is nevertheless useful to i... |
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