Author: Editorwhv

Charlemagne crowned, at a solemn moment during the celebration of Mass in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Day of the year 800. Pope Leo III stopped and turned toward the large man kneeling in front of the altar. Then, in a dramatic gesture that has been the topic of countless historical arguments since, Leo…

Frankish hordes crush the Romans at Soissons and the disintegration of Europe begins. Japan during the Heian period For some three and a half centuries after the founding of Kyoto, Japan had an imperial court and administration devoted to a refined culture, that has shaped the character of the people down to this century. Power…

Japanese renaissance was not until 794 A.D., when the Japanese capital was transferred from Nara to Heian (modern Kyoto), that Japan started to develop a national culture of its own. Since the sixth century, Japan has been ruled by a hereditary imperial famiiy. At first, the Japanese court modelled itself on the Chinese, in its…

T’ang Empire – first of the great Chinese dynasties – unifies the nation. The siege of Byzantium During the seventh and eighth centuries, while Europe was in the turmoil of the conflicting dynasties that had succeeded the first generations of barbarian invaders, events of immense importance were taking place on the southern shores of the…

The flight to Medina, was made by the prophet Mohammed, when he fled from his native Mecca, in hopes of finding a more receptive audience for his message. This event of 622, the Hegira, marks the beginning of the new Moslem religion and the beginning of a dynamic new civilization in the Middle East. Mohammed…

Justinian Corpus, the Juris Civilis, is the ancestor of all European legal systems. The sixth century – in the West, a period in which the seeds of a new type of monastic and Church-orinented culture and a fragmented political system were being planted. This century, was for the Eastern Roman Empire and its Persian rival,…

St. Benedict’s monks tried to poison him, on one occasion it is said – and they often disregarded his instructions, but monasticism in the West, was created by St. Benedict. Before he founded Monte Cassino in 520, there were numerous other groups of monks in Europe, all with their own monastic rules, but Benedict’s Rule…

Old Europe crumbles as barbarian waves batter civilizations. Ironically, the victory on the Mauriac Plain sealed the fate both of victor and vanquished. After his death in 453, Attila’s empire broke up not only as a result of the feuds among his heirs, but also because of a successful rebellion among his German subjects. For…

Attila, the “Scourge of God” was the legendary force that — curiously enough — helped to hold the tottering Roman Empire together for a few more years. Halfway through the fifth century, the Empire was defended by an array of feuding barbarian tribes enlisted as mercenaries. These tribes were united by a common fear of…

The Visigoths, led by Gaiseric, settle in North Africa and challenge Rome. Ireland before St. Patrick According to the most ancient traditions of Ireland, her history had been linked to that of the Mediterranean world long before the coming of St. Patrick and the religion of Rome. Even after St. Patrick, the history of the…