“This is Epic History TV’s guide to building the perfect castle, based on the development of European medieval castles over 400 years of history. We trace the origins of the castle in the feudal system that emerged in France c.900 CE, and look at the early motte-and-bailey castle, used by the Normans to subjugate England and Wales in the 11th century. We then look at how castle’s became stronger and more sophisticated, with the addition of stone curtain walls, massive keeps, towers (square, round and D-shaped), as well as powerful gatehouses, barbicans, machicolations and moats.”
The twin perils of overreach and neglect.
In the Western world, and the United States of America, one can garner the sentiment that what David Polansky tenders above is profoundly true. One of the sad realities of the western world is much of it as devolved into a Panopticon Police State. This police state is acclimated to an “information overload” where it’s perpetually hypervigilant over seemingly benign infractions. Here they chase shadows in order to have an illusion of control, and yet they usually neither effectively maintain control nor possess the comfortable illusion of it.
In Great Britain, for instance, cameras canvas every street, building, bridge, and subway, and some have described it as the realization of George Orwell’s 1984 novel come to life. As well, in the United Kingdom, police are tasked with investigating peoples’ thoughts and words, and ascertaining whether they conform to a conjured Newspeak or have committed thought crimes. At Davos, the talk of the WEF crowd is of “recalibrating free speech,” which is Newspeak for doing away with “free speech” as conventionally understood, and subjecting everything to the control and filter of elite censors.
To the Tweet’s point, in Uvalde, Texas, local authorities sat on their hands while a mass-shooter sadly killed children earlier in May 2022. Burke said evil only prevails when good men do nothing, yet they did nothing. Their inaction and ineptness roundly elicited condemnation from across America and even other Sheriffs expressed condemnation. They waited 40+ minutes and did nothing but restrain upset parents gathered outside who were demanding that they take action. It was ultimately an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol officer acting independent of them that subdued the killer. Erstwhile rewind several months earlier and this same Uvalde Sheriff’s Department was raiding a bar-restaurant with a SWAT team to uphold a pandemic lockdown closure restriction. Does one see the discrepancy? Is this not a two-tiered concurrent manifestation of “institutional failure” and “wildly disproportionate accountability”? The most basic protective functions of the law as it relates to protecting life, liberty, and property are neglected while civil government routinely overreaches and oversteps the reasonable bounds of prudence. This in in a nutshell is the crux of the problem and David Polansky’s Tweet of 27 May 2022 captures it.
“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
―Alexis de Tocqueville
The Ancient Copper Mine that Transformed Britain
The First Crusade (1096-1099)
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212 A.D.)
Video Selections from Real Crusades History
[This is an archival repository of content previously published on the home page of Ryan Setliff under the topic Crusades Studies.]
The Battle of Hastings
[This is an archive of content previously posted on my personal home page under the Anglophile and Historian topical sections.]
Earning notoriety as one of the greatest battles in English and European history, the Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, which was the defining moment at the onset of the Norman conquest of England.
Duke William lands near Pevensey, Sussex and heads east and northward exacting the Norman Conquest of England, and effectively securing the claim to the monarchy of England. This animated video documentary from ‘Baz Battles‘ chronicles the series of events that lead to the clash between English and Norman forces a few kilometers west of Hastings.
Evangelicalism is too effeminate. Towards a muscular robust faith.
I just stumbled upon this aforementioned series of videos recorded and distributed in 2018. Unfortunately, Dr. Maxwell has went apostate and renounced his faith as of 2021. However, I cannot help but comprehend what it says when he refers to evangelical culture as too apt to produce effeminate and girly beta males.
“As for My people, children are their oppressors, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err, And destroy the way of your paths.”
—Isaiah 3:12
It’s the agreeable, compromising, compliant, capitulating beta male that conveys spirituality in effeminate terms. In fact, spirituality in the popular imagination has come to be perceived as an almost feminine quality. For instance, I have quoted the Bible beforehand in the manner of a devotional, and a less spiritually inclined, more irreligious man speaks of it as me “being sensitive” but the reality is, he’s chosen to see public avowals of faith as a tender, “sensitive” trait, (and maybe that’s a polite way of saying girly because he’s seeing spirituality in feminine terms.) But this is illustrative partially of why evangelicalism has been a failure and its popular perception is that evangelical piety is a display of sensitive feminine traits like being emotional, sensitive, and passive. It’s illustrative of why men drop out of fellowship in evangelical churches. It’s furthered along by the fact that increasingly women (i.e., mothers, grandmothers) are functioning as the spiritual pillars of their households and extended families. Christian masculinity doesn’t find an ideal expression in the evangelical subculture. Not only is this the case, but evangelicalism has also lost its earlier traits of militancy and tribalism that made it attractive to men. Contrast men like J.C. Ryle and Ian Paisley with contemporary evangelicals like John Piper and Andy Stanley, for instance.
Evangelical churches tend to conjure images of soprano-singing males in praise bands playing contemporary Christian music one associates with the KLove radio station. Maxwell was not influential in my earlier summations that evangelical subculture is ‘too effeminate‘ and ‘girly‘ — in the sense of producing a subculture of men that are passive, weak, too prone to a spirit of compromise, and wishy-washy talk in order to be agreeable, and palatable. I just heard Maxwell talk on these issues recently and I had formed a comparable critique of evangelicalism years ahead of hearing Maxwell’s critique.
I have said things, such as affirming that we need “a muscular robust faith,” thinking in terms of soldierly analogies of masculine spirituality whereby we’re prepared for battle. This is an ideal where Christian men can live out their existence as men. We need to comprehend leadership, sacrifice, and the necessity of struggle and see our Christian culture/occidental civilization as an extension of the church and seek its preservation. We men need causes to fight for. Christian men yearn to fight cultural wars and spiritual battles as men with masculine traits of perseverance and steadfast faithfulness, not with timidity, passivity, and an air of compromise. The Christian man prays most humbly in his cloister where the genuineness of his humility and contrition may be manifest not in showy displays of contrived prayer before his fellow man, but in heartful yearning for God’s aid, and professed dependency upon God. There are more than a few reasons why Christian men are NOT putting their most sincere, heartful prayers professing their unequivocal dependence upon God’s providence before others. They’re NOT necessarily ashamed of their faith in such instances, but they’re not seeking to wave it on their shirt sleeves nor virtue-signal it either. Part of being a Christian man entails being discrete and circumspect in certain things such as manifest piety, and aggressive in other things like decrying wrong and standing up for justice.
Jordan Peterson states: “You are like a rabbit. . . A rabbit is not virtuous, it’s harmless, it can do nothing, except maybe get eaten. But If you’re a monster and you show restraint and not act monstrously, then you’re virtuous.” As Peterson surmises, “It’s better to be restrained monster than a well-behaved coward.” It’s in recognizing his own power and strength that a man learns responsibility, and fathoms the strategic imperative of due regard for His Creator God, and using his power for just and right.
And to the point, Christian men have abdicated evangelicalism in mass. Why? Many Christian men profess to be on a search for a more primitive, traditional Christianity. They call themselves traditionalists!—or trads! They extol patriarchy! They’re tribal! Why? Evangelicalism with its de facto effeminate subculture has failed Christian men for the simple reason it’s not allowing Christian men to be ‘Christian men.’ Its lost its allure, and Christian men don’t think you can salvage the church, the culture, the nation, and Western Civilization with a modus operandi that’s perceptively passive, effeminate and girly. Hence there’s a good reason why men have hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE on the contemporary evangelical subculture.
“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”
—Ephesians 6:16
“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
—2 Timothy 2:3-4
J.I. Packer
This past year on 17 July 2020, Rev. Canon Dr. James (Jim) Innell Packer, the English-born Anglican clergyman that was so influential on my spiritual formation, and indeed my recognition that I am but a desperate sinner in need of grace, has gone home to glory to spend eternity with our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:8). At a young age, Packer was setback by a debilitating injury incidental to a car accident whereby he was struck as a pedestrian crossing a street. He was scarred for life, and it left a visible indentation in his skull where it was fractured. Yet he lived! He grew closer to God! In his youth, Jim won a scholarship to Oxford where he cultivated his brilliant intellect in service of Christ’s Kingdom. He was a treasure in his own time! An acclaimed author, churchman, friend to sinners, professor, and Bible teacher, Packer elicited respect across denominations and communions as one of the foremost systematic theologians of the past century. Jim drew his inspiration from Scripture, and was deeply ingrained in the works of Bucer, Calvin, Cranmer, and the English Puritans. He revived Puritan devotionals into something of an art form, and he elicited notoriety as a catechist who stressed the value of sound doctrine, and reminded his students of the immense value of cultivating spiritual disciplines, such as memorizing Scriptures and catechesis. As of 17 July 2020, his faith has yielded to sight! He’s in eternity with our Lord Jesus!
Ottoman-Portuguese War – Age of Colonization
“Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on the history of the Ottoman Empire, continues with a video on the Ottoman-Portuguese wars, as the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Portugal fight for dominance over the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. In this video, we cover the early Portuguese conquests in India and their clash against the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt at Diu in 1508, as well as the battle of Diu of 1538, Ethiopian–Adal war and the battle of Wayna Daga of 1543, Ottoman-Portuguese conflict over the Arabian peninsula 1552–1554, battle of Diu 1546 and the battle of Ksar-el-Kebir (Alcácer Quibir) of 1578. More videos on the Age of Colonization are on the way!”