Favorite medieval despot?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Although not really a "despot" compared to other members of the European nobility of his era, I like Henry V quite a bit:

- Got shot through the face with an arrow during the battle of Shrewsbury and continued fighting; afterwards he had the arrow removed through a bit of surgical genius by a counterfeiter and amateur surgeon.

- Crushed the city of Harfleur in France, afterwards making the defendants parade before him with nooses around their necks.

- Massacred a French army six times the size of his own at Agincourt. At one point a French knight got so close to killing him during the battle that a piece of his crown was sliced off by the knight's sword.

He was pretty hard.

[ColonelCossack]

Vlad the Impaler.

he's such a good rolemodel. I look up to him and his politics sssssoooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch.

[Ned Kelly]

Dunno if he counts, but Genghis Khan was a mad guy

[Sasha]

Think there where some cool renegade warrior popes around then.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Dunno if he counts, but Genghis Khan was a mad guy

There's a 5% chance you are related to him. That is how many women he raped. Pretty crazy dude!:D

[gorillafuck]

os cangaceiros you sure do have some odd favorite stuff

[Os Cangaceiros]

thanks! ;)

[Anarpest]

Henry VIII was pretty much a proto-anarchist, so I like him.

[Zav]

Henry VIII was pretty much a proto-anarchist, so I like him.
Ehwat? Lucy, you have some 'splainin' to do. I really don't see that at all in him.

My favorite would probably be Ivan the Terrible. He's so badass.

[Anarpest]

Ehwat? Lucy, you have some 'splainin' to do. I really don't see that at all in him.


Bloke killed more monarchs than you can shake a stick at.

[lombas]

Henry VIII



Ivan the Terrible

Though I know some people in the US &c. believe Europe has still to outgrow the Middle Ages, general historiography dates the end of the Middle Ages at the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

So it will be very hard to fit Henry VIII and Ivan the Terrible in this thread unless you have some revisionist papers to share or if your name is Dan Brown.

;)

[seventeethdecember2016]

I like Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Genghis Khan, William the Conqueror, Suleiman the Magnificent, Ismail I- founder of the Safavid Empire, Ivan IV, Vlad the Impaler, Timur, Kublai Khan, Babur- founder of the Mughal Empire, Henry II, Henry V, Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth of England, Queen Christina of Sweden, Saladin, Richard, Osman-found of the Ottoman Empire, Pope Leo X, Pope Clement VII, Basil II the Bulgar Slayer, Nogai Khan, King John, Michael VIII Palaiologos, and much more!!!!!

[Ravachol]

Tomás de Torquemada, first Grand inquisitor of the Spanish inquisition (guess you guys didn't expect that eh :p) and famous for expelling thousands of Jews, burning thousands of 'heretics' at the stake, inspiring pogroms and extracting 'confessions' under horrible torture. A real piece of work that one.

[Rooster]

This is my favourite medieval desktop

http://biography4u.com/image-files/Medieval%20desktop.jpg

[Anarpest]

Though I know some people in the US &c. believe Europe has still to outgrow the Middle Ages, general historiography dates the end of the Middle Ages at the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

So it will be very hard to fit Henry VIII and Ivan the Terrible in this thread unless you have some revisionist papers to share or if your name is Dan Brown.



To the contrary, Henry VIII's reign was the real Middle Ages. Henry V may have been alright with taking care of an army, but no other monarch came close to Harry Eight when it comes to taking care of his middle.

[The Young Pioneer]

About a hundred years too late, but I've always had a strange fondness for Elizabeth Bathory, otherwise known as the most infamous female serial killer in history.

[ColonelCossack]

There's a 5% chance you are related to him. That is how many women he raped. Pretty crazy dude!:D

"crazy" in an awful, horrendous way, it goes without saying.

[Deicide]

Elizabeth Báthory.. she crazy.

[Anarpest]

"crazy" in an awful, horrendous way, it goes without saying.

That smiley certainly looks enraptured with horror.

[Omsk]

The hardest question to answer would be: "Which Roman emperor was the least insane,brutal,disgusting and vile murderer."

[Rooster]

Why is there any support for despots of any kind on this?

[lombas]

Tomás de Torquemada, first Grand inquisitor of the Spanish inquisition (guess you guys didn't expect that eh :p) and famous for expelling thousands of Jews, burning thousands of 'heretics' at the stake, inspiring pogroms and extracting 'confessions' under horrible torture. A real piece of work that one.

Thousands? You overestimate the inquisition.

[lombas]

The hardest question to answer would be: "Which Roman emperor was the least insane,brutal,disgusting and vile murderer."

A lot of them actually qualify.

[Ravachol]

Thousands? You overestimate the inquisition.

Meh, it's documented that under de Torquemada's supervision at least 2,000 were burned at the stake

[Le Rouge]

There's a 5% chance you are related to him. That is how many women he raped. Pretty crazy dude!:D

0,5% not 5% It is still crazy. 35 million people on earth are related to him...

[Rooster]

A lot of them actually qualify.

If you had a Roman emperor who was a sheep herder, does that make the Empire a herders' state? :confused:

[lombas]

Meh, it's documented that under de Torquemada's supervision at least 2,000 were burned at the stake

When reading Wikipedia, you should always pay attention to the details:


Concerning the number of autos-da-fé (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-f%C3%A9) during Torquemada's tenure as Inquisitor General, there is a general consensus among the scholars that about 2,000 people were burned at the stake due to prosecution by the Spanish Inquisition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition) in the whole of Spain between 1480 and 1530.

This is true and a true estimate, but one thing captures the eye:


between 1480 and 1530

Torquemada died in 1498.

;)

For comparison: between 1480-1530 the number of people burnt at the stake was roughly the same than in the entire career of the Inquisition after that (over four hundred years).

[lombas]

If you had a Roman emperor who was a sheep herder, does that make the Empire a herders' state? :confused:

I'm not saying that, but the actual number of emperors going around murdering people or getting opponents killed in brutal fashion might be substantially lower than what you're insinuating...

[Nox]

I'd be Blackadder

[GoddessCleoLover]

Vlad Tepes, Genghis Khan, Ivan Grozny, and Elizabeth Bathory are too homicidal for my taste, so I will cast my vote for Henry V.

Since a couple of posters have mentioned Rome I will mention that two of my favorite Romans were the Gracchi, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and his brother Gaius Gracchus.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Henry VIII was such the ladies' man that he even shitted on the Pope and changed his nation's fucking religion just to get more wives.

ROLE MODEL!

[GoddessCleoLover]

You mean Henry VIII, not Henry VII, I presume.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

You mean Henry VIII, not Henry VII, I presume.

I changed it while you were posting that. Typo.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I've been interested in this guy for a while:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynald_of_Ch%C3%A2tillon

Rogue French knight who turned bandit during the Crusades, parked pirate ships outside Mecca and pissed Saladin off so much that he vowed to do a bit of personal beheading. Was Prince of Antioch for a time so I'm including him here.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Tamerlane was probably a more classic example of medieval despot/warlord:


Timur was in his lifetime a controversial figure, and remains so today. He sought to restore the Mongol Empire,[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#cite_note-10)[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#cite_note-11) yet his heaviest blow was against the Islamized Tatar Golden Horde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde). He was more at home in an urban environment than on the steppe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppe). He styled himself a ghazi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazi_(warrior)) while conducting wars that severely affected some Muslim states, in particular the Sultanate of Delhi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Delhi). A great patron of the arts, his campaigns also caused vast destruction. His military campaign is believed to have caused the deaths of 17 million people.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#cite_note-12) His greatest military achievement is having defeated some of most powerful empires on the continents around the world such as the Golden Horde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde), the Delhi Sultanate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Sultanate) of South Asia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asia), the Ottoman Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire), and the Mamluk Sultanate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate_(Cairo)) of Egypt. Tamerlane as an military conqueror is within the ranks with Genghis Khan and with Alexander the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great), making him one of the world’s greatest conquerors. His armies were ferocious, feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur

[Pretty Flaco]

Why is there any support for despots of any kind on this?

what a buzzkill.

[MarxSchmarx]

There's a 5% chance you are related to him. That is how many women he raped. Pretty crazy dude!:D

Not to get too technical, that's frankly unlikely, and here's what happened.

For the longest time, indeed I believe until right after the Russian Revolution, the nobility of much of Eurasia claimed some degree of descent to Genghis Khan. Often it could have just been some general from his tribe as well, many of whom were related by blood. For example, Genghis Khan's brothers had high ranking positions and likely took several wives themselves.

The only actual rulers of the Mongol successor states were sons and grandsons of Genghis's first wife Bortei. Although he is known to have taken concubines, by most accounts Genghis Khan himself supposedly remained deeply attached to Bortei and his second wife Khulan to the point that they would accompany him on campaigns. It wasn't that he was the devoted hubby, but did seem to generally prefer their company to that of other women. However, most of Genghis's sons even from marriages apart from Bortei's took high ranking positions in the colonial administration and mongol military and likely had several wives themselves. The very fact that this can be recorded suggests that for the time, the number of sons of Genghis Khan was probably comparatively mild. It is therefore indeed quite likely that the greatest proliferation took place in the second and third generation, when the Mongol empire really took hold in populous regions, as opposed to Genghis Khan. I would not be surprised if, for example, several of Genghis Khan's sons and grandsons had considerably more sons than Genghis himself could have had - all the more so the old addage about maximizing not your reproductive success but your children's!

Often the lands they conquered were sparsely populated, and moreover those that travelled and relocated in lands far and wide were, in fact, the nobility. And of course in polygamous cultures the nobility generally left more descendants than commoners - the number of kids you had was a sign of wealth and prestige.

It is therefore not really surprising that a large number of people share Genghis Khan's genes. It doesn't mean that Genghis Khan was like the guy portrayed in teh bill and ted movie. Indeed, if anything, he should be credited not with being promiscous, but for having enabled his sons and grandsons to be so.

[tachosomoza]

Askia Muhammad.

[o well this is ok I guess]

The hardest question to answer would be: "Which Roman emperor was the least insane,brutal,disgusting and vile murderer." Wasn't Marcus Aurelius an alright guy?
Relatively speaking.

[Prometeo liberado]

Tomás de Torquemada, first Grand inquisitor of the Spanish inquisition (guess you guys didn't expect that eh :p) and famous for expelling thousands of Jews, burning thousands of 'heretics' at the stake, inspiring pogroms and extracting 'confessions' under horrible torture. A real piece of work that one.

I gotta give this one my vote. Exept that you forgot about the Torqemada inspired musical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oppHeMlaLVM

[Rusty Shackleford]

Cardinal Richelieu

[Omsk]

Wasn't Marcus Aurelius an alright guy?
Relatively speaking.

Well,no.(He is not on the level of Tiberius and Caligula,but hes still not 'good' .) His son was a complete madman though.

[scarletghoul]

Perhaps a little late for this period, but I would have to say Bob Avakian.

[Anarpest]

Perhaps a little late for this period, but I would have to say Bob Avakian.

Bob Avakian has always been and always will be.

[MotherCossack]

Vlad the Impaler.

he's such a good rolemodel I .look up to him and his poli9tics sssssoooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch

oh maaaan....
i was gonna say him....ever since i saw coppola's dracula.....
sexy!!
ok... lets see...
i suppose william the conquerer was quite good ....
he was quite honourable in fact...didn't approve of unceremonious mutilations of worthy but defeated foe.

apart from that i reckon margerat thatcher could have been a notable medieval tyrant.... shame she was born a millenia too late.

genghis khan was a good blood gulping warrior.

[ColonelCossack]

0,5% not 5% It is still crazy. 35 million people on earth are related to him...
I've read that the highest poss. estimate is 2%, but that's very high so I'm still skeptical.

But you need to remember that most people are related to someone famous who was alive a few centuries ago, because there's been enough time for their desendants to grow in number and spread.

[lombas]

Well,no.(He is not on the level of Tiberius and Caligula,but hes still not 'good' .) His son was a complete madman though.

What was so bad about Caligula - modern historiography is very mild toward him, based on his relative stable reign, reforms that were continued later on, and his difficult relationship with the senatorial class (and its later proponents Tacitus & Suetonius)? Tiberius didn't do much harm either, as long as you weren't related. He spent much of his later years in pseudo-exile.

And what makes Marcus Aurelius qualify for the "vile, brutal ruler"? Furthermore, from what I have read about Commodus he was a rather pathetic ruler who actually did pretty well in the first years of his reign until court intrigue made him to actually believe he was a god.

[Omsk]

What was so bad about Caligula


Is this a serious question?He was,according to contemporary sources,a maniac,and an unstable man,insane.


Tiberius didn't do much harm either, as long as you weren't related. He spent much of his later years in pseudo-exile.

Except he was quite paranoid,and during the later years of his life,retired to an island,the island of Capri,leaving the Empire without an active emperor.Almost all of the Roman historians who wrote about him,(: Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio,Velleius Paterculus,Pliny the Elder, Strabo and Seneca the Elder.) considered him to be a negative figure,and such a figure he was.



Furthermore, from what I have read about Commodus he was a rather pathetic ruler who actually did pretty well in the first years of his reign until court intrigue made him to actually believe he was a god.


He performed poor,as the emperor,he was mostly interested in the gladiator combats and the arena,and he was fascinated by Hercules.There is the account of Dio Cassius,: (He described him as: )

"not naturally wicked but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature."

However,he was hardly a normal man,as he probably had some sadistic tendencies,and was known to enjoy the slaughter of the arena.

[lombas]

Is this a serious question?He was,according to contemporary sources,a maniac,and an unstable man,insane.

Yes, it is a serious question. I have already mentioned "contemporary" sources like Tacitus and Suetonius, but have you consulted modern historiography? Caligula is really being re-evaluated as an emperor who did some thorough reforms that were kept afterwards but who invaded the senatorial class who had been able to do what they wanted during the reign of Tiberius.



Except he was quite paranoid,and during the later years of his life,retired to an island,the island of Capri,leaving the Empire without an active emperor.Almost all of the Roman historians who wrote about him,(: Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio,Velleius Paterculus,Pliny the Elder, Strabo and Seneca the Elder.) considered him to be a negative figure,and such a figure he was.

Yes, this might make him a bad emperor, but a vile and brutal tyrant? We are looking for those, remember? Tiberius did relatively little harm as long as you weren't related.



He performed poor,as the emperor,he was mostly interested in the gladiator combats and the arena,and he was fascinated by Hercules.There is the account of Dio Cassius,: (He described him as: )

"not naturally wicked but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature."

However,he was hardly a normal man,as he probably had some sadistic tendencies,and was known to enjoy the slaughter of the arena.

Again, we are looking for a vile, brutal ruler. I doubt Commodus qualifies for that.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Didn't Caligula make his horse a senator, according to legend?

[Omsk]

Yes, it is a serious question. I have already mentioned "contemporary" sources like Tacitus and Suetonius, but have you consulted modern historiography? Caligula is really being re-evaluated as an emperor who did some thorough reforms that were kept afterwards but who invaded the senatorial class who had been able to do what they wanted during the reign of Tiberius.



I am not talking about the reformist work of Caligula,or his actions as the head of state,i was mostly (In my first post here) pointing out that the most of the first 15 emperors were indeed vile and horrible figures.Vile and horribe men.Caligula was.



Yes, this might make him a bad emperor, but a vile and brutal tyrant? We are looking for those, remember? Tiberius did relatively little harm as long as you weren't related.



I didn't focus on the tyrant part (He was a tyrant though.) ,but on his personality,and some of his actions,(Killing entire branches of the family.) He indeed was a dark and vile man,and there have been many accounts (Of various credibility) of some indeed disgusting things going around in his palace,on Capri.I doubt these claims are false,as the Roman emperors were not divorced from disgusting acts,of various kind.


Again, we are looking for a vile, brutal ruler. I doubt Commodus qualifies for that.

You are,i am proving that he was most likely insane,or had some serious problems,(Which he obviously did have.) but,it can be said that the situation around him created Commodus ,but,he didn't help it by dressing up as Hercules and killing lions and some thieves or petty criminals.

[lombas]

I am not talking about the reformist work of Caligula,or his actions as the head of state,i was mostly (In my first post here) pointing out that the most of the first 15 emperors were indeed vile and horrible figures.Vile and horribe men.Caligula was.

I have absolutely no reason to support the notion that Caligula was "vile and horrible". But maybe our definitions of vile and horrible are quite different.

An emperor like Traianus qualifies far better as a "vile ruler" than figures like Caligula.



I didn't focus on the tyrant part (He was a tyrant though.) ,but on his personality,and some of his actions,(Killing entire branches of the family.) He indeed was a dark and vile man,and there have been many accounts (Of various credibility) of some indeed disgusting things going around in his palace,on Capri.created Commodus ,but,he didn't help it by dressing up as Hercules and killing lions and some thieves or petty criminals.

I'd say it would make him pathetic rather than insane, but it's impossible to answer. Anyway, Commodus wasn't brutal or repressive, so I wouldn't consider him a good example of a real despot (in the pejorative sense of the word).

[lombas]

Didn't Caligula make his horse a senator, according to legend?

He proposed to do so, he never actually did it. You should understand that Caligula was a severe opponent of the Senate and a proponent of a popular monarchy. That is why he reinstated the "democratic" elections suspended during the reign of Tiberius. He had to deal with senators that had to pretend to revere Tiberius as a living God in Capri while doing their own business in Rome.

Caligula left Capri to confront them in Rome, so the senators met a paradox: they had to continue to revere the emperor as a living God, while not having one inch of the power they had under Tiberius.

So, the story goes, when Caligula was once gravely ill, one of the senators said that the Gods should take his life and not Caligula's. When Caligula got better, he confronted the senator, asking him to commit suicide. The senator was perplexed: he merely followed standard senatorial ass-kissing.

Caligula wanted to do away with the charades created under Tiberius, who was not an actor like Augustus but took things seriously. However, to achieve that, he had to trap the Senate in their paradoxal way of handling things.

[Princess Luna]

Timur/Tamerlane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Vlad the Impaler
Ivan Grozny ("Ivan the Terrible")
Elizabeth I

Dunno if Cardinal Richelieu counts, being more "late feudal."

[human strike]

William the Conqueror. And as his only rightful heir I demand to be crowned King of the Anarchists! Or at least some kind of Duke.

[Omsk]

I have absolutely no reason to support the notion that Caligula was "vile and horrible". But maybe our definitions of vile and horrible are quite different.

An emperor like Traianus qualifies far better as a "vile ruler" than figures like Caligula.

I did not put the emphasis on ruler,but on them as people.I do not know what do you mean when you say vile or horrible,but for me,Caligula has those attributes.

Trajan on the other hand,was probably the third most important emperor,and was successful,however,he as a man,was probably not the brightest star.

And I repeat,I was talking about the fact that a huge number of the emperors were indeed vile and horrible men,and many of them were insane.

And another note,Commodus was quite brutal,he liked violence,he liked the arena,and he personally enjoyed it,while the better part of the other emperors just liked the arena because it was a nice way to keep citizens occupied and happy,to get their attention and earn some fame.

[lombas]

I did not put the emphasis on ruler,but on them as people.I do not know what do you mean when you say vile or horrible,but for me,Caligula has those attributes.

Well, there just aren't many reasons to say that about Caligula. No mass-executions, no weird policies - he had a firm domestic policy, increasing infrastructure and consolidating client states. Again, nearly all of his reforms were continued under Claudius and later on.

In any way, we won't find a final answer.



Trajan on the other hand,was probably the third most important emperor,and was successful,however,he as a man,was probably not the brightest star.

What makes you say that? We don't know much about his interior policy, and his foreign policy didn't have much lasting effect. Apart from Dacia, which had been a real pain in the ass for previous emperors - though it drew a lot of military strenght from other borders - none of his conquests were effective.

Also, the characteristics of his way of dealing with the Dacian defeat makes him qualify for "vile rule", regardless of contemporary morals.



And I repeat,I was talking about the fact that a huge number of the emperors were indeed vile and horrible men,and many of them were insane.

And it is just that phrase that startles me: as it just seems quite hollow in fact. And very difficult to prove.

Once more: what Caligula is concerned, we don't know and will never know if he was genuinely insane, or that a sickness made him do weird things (ie lost of confidence because of epilepsy), or that he was just a genious actor. This goes for, well, many emperors who have been accused of "insanity" or "perversity". Describing someone as insane or perverted again was a common way of attacking him, regardless of the actual truth of the supposed scandal.

On the other hand, for emperors like Heliogabalus we cannot really disprove or prove anything because of a lack of "real rule". The kid was 18 when he died, and all that's left are stories of him as a person. Does that mean he was a "vile, insane ruler"? I think not.

[manic expression]

I'm not sure what is meant by "despot"...despotism compared to what? It took strong individuals and strong policies to make prosperity from peace and victory from war. To be sure, there is something to be said for cruel actions, but then again there is something to be said for cruel times. Still, I tend to admire rulers who I see as both strong and (relatively) fair.

Out of the feudal period: Henri IV of Navarre, Saladin, Shivaji, Robert the Bruce, Philip II Augustus. I also respect leaders like Robert Guiscard and Baybars, though I recognize that their ambitions weren't always the most ethical.

Since someone brought up antiquity: Julian, Tuthmosis III, Hadrian (basically all the Flavians and Five Good Emperors), Mithridates IV...Hannibal wasn't so much a political ruler but he without doubt deserves a mention here.

[Omsk]

This part is the main point -


Describing someone as insane or perverted again was a common way of attacking him, regardless of the actual truth of the supposed scandal.


But it is impossible that all the words of many contemporary historians and people of note,just lies and slander.There has to be at least a gram of truth in it,and in the case of Tiberius,Caligula,Nero,and others,even a gram of truth would be enough to say that they were some vile individuals.


On the other hand, for emperors like Heliogabalus we cannot really disprove or prove anything because of a lack of "real rule". The kid was 18 when he died, and all that's left are stories of him as a person. Does that mean he was a "vile, insane ruler"? I think not.

I never even talked about the emperors as rulers,but as people,individuals,and their personalities.

[Anarpest]

William the Conqueror. And as his only rightful heir I demand to be crowned King of the Anarchists! Or at least some kind of Duke.

Only if you conquer England again and defeat its monarchs in combat.

You'll never survive the one-on-one with Prince Charles.

[Geiseric]

Genghis Khan was pretty cool, I heard that he used his catapults to fire decapitated heads into towns that all came from plague victims. So it was psychological, and biological. Fun.

Btw, I don't see it being possible to be a "good," ruler in the middle ages... You were the state itself and your job was solely to control the masses through whatever methods you could, and I don't think there's been a medieval ruler who hasn't used terror in some way. It comes with the job, and if you're inbred, sheltered, probably have an inferiority complex because of the whole "I need to be the best king ever, and conquer as much as I can," goal of monarchy, and the fact that you think whatever you do is backed by god, you don't think the same as most sane people.