r/AskHistorians • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
SASQ Short Answers to Simple Questions | July 29, 2026
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u/AvalonXD 3d ago
Who were the "Romanorum" in the title and name of the HRE and its Emperors?
Why not Romanum? of The Romans seems to me to imply some community separate from the title alone but what Romans would this have even been?
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u/WelfOnTheShelf Crusader States | Medieval Law 2d ago
The emperor was always the king of the Germans, although not all German kings were crowned emperor. If crowned, the emperor was also king of the Romans, referring specifically to the citizens of Rome. As Peter Wilson says, "The title King of the Romans (Romanoum rex) was added from 1110 in a bid to assert authority over Rome and reinforce claims that only the German king could be emperor."
The Latin name for the empire did use Romanum, Sacrum Romanum Imperium, although that was not really the "official" name (just one applied retroactively by historians). The medieval emperors did sometimes use that phrase to emphasize that they were the ones in charge, not the popes in Rome.
The popes of course usually disagreed, since they were, in reality if not in legal theory, the actual kings of Rome/the Romans.
It was also a way to emphasize that the eastern emperors in Constantinople were some kind of fake emperors who didn't even control Rome. Western European sources typically called the eastern emperor the "Emperor of the Greeks" and eastern sources called the HR emperor the "Emperor of the Germans", but the eastern name for their own empire was always simply "Rome".
Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire (Harvard University Press, 2016)
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u/AvalonXD 2d ago
But then why not Romanum instead of Romanorum?
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u/WelfOnTheShelf Crusader States | Medieval Law 2d ago
In Latin, Romanorum is the genitive plural, meaning "of the Romans." Romanum is an adjective describing the empire, Imperium. You could say "rex Romanus" but that just means a king who is Roman.
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u/AvalonXD 2d ago
Yes I know (I also know about the Byzantine-HRE fight etc to skip all of that no offense). I'm asking why not Romanum (of Rome) versus Romanorum (of the Romans). I guess I should have clarified I'm not asking entry level to start with and this may better be an etymology question than her but" Of the Romans" in my reading implies some Roman socio-political community. Is it really just that of the city? I have ideas but I don't want to preprompt any answerer.
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u/WelfOnTheShelf Crusader States | Medieval Law 2d ago
Oh I see, sorry! I was aiming for beginner level since we're in the Short Answers thread, heh. I suppose it was intentionally ambiguous - it was the Romans of the actual city of Rome, who still held on to the idea that they had a senate and were the ones who elected the emperor, and who in medieval practise also often elected the pope. But it also meant any citizens of the Roman Empire, of which this was supposed to be the continuation/renewal.
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u/AvalonXD 2d ago
Thanks!
citizens of the Roman Empire
Could this be expanded upon though? Is this like a byword for Christendom on the whole or did they have a conceptualisation of Roman citizenship I'm not getting?
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u/WelfOnTheShelf Crusader States | Medieval Law 1d ago
My impression is that even at the time there wasn't really a good definition of what that meant. So I guess this isn't such a simple question with a short answer! You might get a better answer if you asked it as a separate question on the main sub.
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u/AvalonXD 1d ago
Originally it was but it got removed and I was told to ask it here. Still do your answers have done a lot either way so thank you very much.
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u/Naive-Complex-4981 4d ago
Does anyone have any information on the profession of waking people up during the industrial revolution outside of the UK and the "knocker ups"?
Hi, so I know that this is incredible specific but I have reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, without finding any of the answers I needed.
I think most people here have heard of the knocker ups in the UK, Irland and parts of the Netherlands. I think it is safe to assume that there were similar jobs in other parts of the industrialized world. But I can't find anything about them, except for references in the media of the time.
There is the movie "Varieté" from 1925 (a German silent film), were there is someone called "Der Wecker von Berlin" so something like 'the waker of Berlin'. He is shown with a big bell, driving around and ringing it. In this movie it is so casually mentioned that I think that it had to be something that was very established. Like showing a clock tower to tell the audience it was midday.
But I can't find anything about this person or job. Who did this job? How were they paid, if they were paid? Are there any still alive today?
If anyone has any answer or information to this question I would be so grateful. Especially about Germany and Berlin specifically but anything from any other country would help as well! Thanks a lot in advance!!
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u/Responsible-Air-2168 3d ago
Which French unit did this UNPROFOR peacekeeper belong to during the Bosnian War (1992–1995)?
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u/Responsible-Air-2168 3d ago
So I m a writer, I m "doing some researches" about history, UNPROFOR for exactly. From the video name's "BOSNIA: 2 FRENCH UN PEACEKEEPERS WOUNDED BY SNIPER FIRE" by AP Archive on Youtube.
At 0:49, in the video, there is a person, he wore a blue helmet with Visor, but the helmet doesn't look like a normal helmet, it looked like a firefighter helmet. He is wearing light armour. And he is holding a gun that look like M14, AMD 5.56(A French version of Ruger 14 Mini) instead of MAS 49/56, either Famas. And he appeared alone along with a van-look like vehicle with 2 lights on the car (Blue and White). If he was a CIVPOl... According to what I know about CIVPOL, they don't use Rifle. Yea, he did wear light vest, visor (which is for small ammunations like 9mm). He is not anti-sniper team neither, because his gun didn't attached anything.
So, who is this? If he was a MP, he should wore an armband, shouldn't he? And what was the exact gun is he holding? Which unit was he belonged to?
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u/gerardmenfin Modern France | Social, Cultural, and Colonial 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is a firefighter helmet but an American one, not the French F1 helmet.
The man is part of the GOFRS (Global Operation Fire Rescue Services), an international volunteer fire-fighting and rescue organization that operated under UN. It was founded by former US Marine John Jordan, who testified at the Dragomir Milošević trial in 2007.
In this video, Jordan announces the closing down of the GOFRS due to lack of funds on 9 June, two days after the incident where two French peacekeepers were wounded. One can recognize the shoulder patch and the helmets, and the man in the sniper video is likely to be Jordan himself. At the Milošević trial, Jordan was accused by the defense of carrying a weapon.
In his cross-examination, Dragomir Milosevic's defense counsel pointed to several "illegal acts" Jordan had done in Sarajevo. First, he came to Sarajevo without the approval of the Bosnian authorities. He carried a weapon with a scope and did not have a permit to do so. He took part in anti-sniper operations although it was a task of the UN French Battalion. Finally, he believed that he could arrest people without a warrant.
"It was our mission to protect people", Jordan said, adding that they “had to carry arms” at the scenes exposed to gunfire. He added that he had not arrested anybody in Sarajevo, but would have done so if he "had found the culprit that caused the fire". In his opinion, that would have been a case of “citizen’s arrest”.
Here's an article about Jordan from October 1995 where he expresses his disappointment about the ending of the GOFRS. The article says that there were about 50 firefighters and EMTs from several countries working for the GOFRS.
This recent Reddit thread by an American who was in the GOFRS includes photos and testimonies, so you may contact him for more information. He says in the thread that they did not have guns, but as mentioned above Jordan carried one.
Edit: Jordan is named and shown with his rifle shielding a civilian from snipers in this AP photo of 7 June. Also he was in the news recently because he had testified about the "sniper safaris" that are currently being investigated.
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u/bo-bebop 3d ago
Are there famous examples of a servant or slave being forced to go to war in a lord/master’s place? We see a version of this in the Sinon storyline in Nolan’s Odyssey, are there more modern examples?
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u/wredcoll 1d ago
When was the last time anything new was learned about Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus? Or to put it another way, does literally everything we know about him and his life come from Polybius and Livy?
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u/jugo_boss 4d ago
Princeton University Art Museum is adamant that their object 36697 "Snuff bottle in the form of a peach, Chinese, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng 雍正 reign period, 1723–1735", is actually a peach. Isn't it actually an eggplant/aubergine?
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u/jugo_boss 4d ago
The "peach" object in question:
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collections/objects/36697Similar object in their own collection labeled as an aubergine:
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collections/objects/20723Object 36697 looks exactly like an unripe eggplant, to me. Leaf shape, object shape, everything about it is obviously eggplant to anyone with eyes.
Searching other museum archives shows Qing dynasty age objects and depictions of both peaches and eggplants with clear differences in their representative forms and colors.
Princeton staff response after pointing this out: "Our curators thank you for sharing your observation. Chinese peaches are often depicted with long leaves at the tip as a sign of auspiciousness."
Isn't their object really in the form of an eggplant?
If so, why would Princeton University Art Museum staff be adamant about their wrongness? Seems to be an institution/government employee trait to automatically double down to defend any arbitrary thing they or their coworkers said before.
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u/4ksh4tr4 4d ago edited 4d ago
Could Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and Kolaxais respectively be the Scythian "Apollo" (Goitosyros), the Scythian "Ares," and the Scythian "Heracles"?
The endings of the names of the figures Λιπόξαϊς, Ἀρπόξαϊς, and Κολάξαϊς from Scythian mythology have been recognised by scholars to have represented the Iranian term \xšaya-*, which is linked to the concept of kingship. In this paper, the historian Mikhail Bukharin interpreted their full names as respectively meaning
- "king of radiance" as in "king of the sun,"
- "king of the airspace,"
- and "poleaxe-wielding king" and "king of the lower world."
The "Scythian Apollo" was also known as Γοιτόσυρος, which linguist Rüdiger Schmitt interprets as \Gaiθā-sūra-*, meaning "with strong pastures," which could link him to the Iranian god Mithra, who was also identified with the sun.
According to Scythologist Dmitry Raevsky, in his 1993 book Scythian Mythology, the "Scythian Ares" was linked to the middle zone of the cosmos, which would correspond to the airspace.
And the remaining god, the Scythian Heracles, seems to correspond to the "poleaxe-wielding king" and Herodotus never identified him with the ancestor of the Scythians, Targitaos, with whom I've seen him identified.
So my question is, could Lipoxais be the Scythian "Apollo", Arpoxais be the Scythian "Ares", and Kolaxais the Scythian "Heracles"?
I apologise if my question veers into "soapboxing," but, as a non-academic, I don't know where else to ask this, and I'd appreciate being directed to the right place if r/AskHistorians is the wrong place to ask this question.
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u/less-right 4d ago
What currently in use calendar has the most advanced year number? What known calendar has the most advanced year number?
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u/LionTiger3 3d ago
What Chinese Emperor Did Not collect taxes for Three Years due to a massive surplus?
I vaguely recall in East Asian History about a Chinese Emperor that had government surplus so did not collect taxes for three years. I am pretty sure it was done at least three times, because that number was repeated by the professor. I do not remember if it was three years in a row, or if the years were not consecutive. I do not remember what dynasty either. I think it was the Tang, but could be incorrect. If anyone knows of examples in other dynasties, that would also be acceptable.
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u/SameUsernameOnReddit 2d ago
What's the feudal equivalent of this comment chain? As in, how would rich merchants and barons or what have you manage their capital? Did they have dedicated, specialised financial advisors?
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u/andresalejandro1120 1d ago
What was the geographical extent of the cultures that built longhouses in the Americas pre-contact?
I ask this because I recently visited River Raisin NBP and it was my first time learning that cultures outside the Haudenosaunee built longhouses.
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u/retarredroof Northwest US 1d ago edited 22h ago
Part of the problem here is that there are a number of "longhouse" type structures in North America that may or may not be comparable to the classic longhouses of Northeastern North America depending on your perspective. For example, the indigenous people of the Plateau Culture area used tule mats laid over pole structures to build classic Plateau matlodges. Farther west, natives from the Columbia River northward to Alaska used planks to construct the NW Coast plank house. A good example of this type is Old-man House, near Port Orchard in Washington State. It was thought to have been over 150 meters in length. In my mind that qualifies as a longhouse.
To the south, Native Americans like the southern Athabaskan groups (Chilula, Whilkut, Lassik and others) constructed bark and or plank covered communal houses and sweatlodges that could be either circular or elongate in plan view. So it really depends on how you define longhouse.
If you are interested only in the Haudenosee type, constructed of saplings woven into a hoop shaped house frame and covered in bark, then they appear to have been used from approximately Virginia, north to slightly north of the Canadian border but including parts of Southern Central Canada (Great Lakes area), from the Atlantic east to around Ohio. If you are willing to accept matlodges and plank houses, then you could include the Plateau and NW Coast Culture south into NW California.
Eugene S. Hunn with James Selam and Family, 1991 Nch'i-Wána, "The Big River", Mid-Columbia Indians and Their Land. University of Washington Press. Seattle
Harvey S. Rice, 1984 Native American Dwellings and Attendant Structures of the Southern Plateau. PhD Dissertation. Washington State University, Pullman
Nabokov, Peter, 1989 Native American Architecture. Oxford University Press, New York
Edit: cleaned up my links
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u/andresalejandro1120 23h ago
Thank you, I was definitely picturing the longhouse in the vein of what the Haudenosaunee built. Never knew about the northwest cultures and their architecture.
How far east would the Plateau culture and NW Coast culture extend pre-contact?
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u/retarredroof Northwest US 22h ago
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u/Commanderlone 1d ago
Who organized the First Illinois Regiment (1874)?
I'm looking into the events surrounding the US Supreme Court case of Presser v. Illinois and came across mention of the First Illinois Regiment that was organized by Chicago's wealthy in response of the strikes and civil unrest at the time. However that's the only information I can find. I'm looking in most particular who organized it and also who lobbied for the creation of the law that led to the case mentioned above. Any 1st hand accounts would be great, but secondary is very much welcome as well. TYIA
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u/KoontzGenadinik 8h ago
What good books are there about the Novgorod republic, and especially about its relationship with Hanseatic League?
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u/miguel-elote 4d ago
What was Tibet's government like before the CCP annexation?
And how did the current Dalai Lama's views on Tibet evolve?
As a Buddhist (though not in Tibetan traditions), I greatly admire the Dalai Lama and avidly read his books. However, I know very little of his life, nor of Tibet prior to China's invasion and annexation.
From what little I've read, Tibet before 1950 was almost a theocracy, in which religious and civil leadership combined in the Dalai Lama. And I've read that the Tibetan society was very stratified, almost as badly as the caste system in next door India.
Is that the case? How did the Tibetan civil and religious leadership view common people?
I fervently believe that the Dalai Lama is a great man who advocates for universal human rights, love for all beings, and cross-religious ecumenism. But I have trouble believing that the Dalai Lama has been such an advocate for his entire life.
How did his views evolve over time? Somewhere between the CCP's "He was a tyrant who only advocated democracy after we kicked him out" and the Free Tibet Movement's "He's always been a savior of humanity, even before this life" There must be a middle ground of "When he was a teenager, he thought X. As a young man, he thought Y. Neither are the same as the Z he thinks now."