this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
172 points (90.6% liked)

Today I Learned

25329 readers
980 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Jesus… They’re the same damn group! Yes the power of the Pope waxed and waned. The church and the nobility were intertwined! The Pope doesn’t matter, the institution does!

The same Catholic Church whose dictates were repeatedly ignored by both the common people and the nobility?

And every coronation was done by at least an arch bishop. Who were a compromise between the church and the king.

That's not even close to true. In many coronations in many kingdoms, bishops presided, or even no clergy at all. You really don't have the slightest clue about what you're talking about.

And do you have any idea how incestuous the royal families of all of Europe were? Not just individually, but between each other

For most of the Medieval period, not very. The intensified incest was largely a product of consolidated royal families and increased international travel in the Early Modern Period.

Your don’t seem to understand the difference between hard and soft power. And my whole point is people in power flowed from Rome, to the church, to the aristocracy of Europe, to capitol

No, my point is that your perception of the soft power of the Church and of Rome is utterly bizarre conspiracy shite with an extremely modern view of how society functioned at a basic level during the Medieval period, and thus having no fucking relation to the reality of the Medieval period.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The same Catholic Church whose dictates were repeatedly ignored by both the common people and the nobility?

Hard and soft power. You really don't get it. Well, better than you just being a troll

I'll try to be as literal as possible for you. Rome split. The pieces continued to act like Rome behaviorally. The remaining institution of Rome, the Roman Catholic church, had incredible power over many of these pieces, even growing power for a time, then later soft influence, over most of Europe known as the holy Roman empire. The soft power of the church faded with the rise of capitalism.

We still act like Rome. The behaviors never ended. That's the through line

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Hard and soft power. You really don’t get it.

Hard power is the ability to impose one's will by force; soft power is the ability to impose one's will by persuasion or subtlety. In no case does it mean "Utterly failing to push an objective forward". That is a lack of soft power.

Rome split. The pieces continued to act like Rome behaviorally.

In what sense? Your entire bizarre view of Rome is based around an idea that their assimilative institutions were somehow more rigid and formalized than previous ones. European polities after the fall of the Western Empire not only lacked any rigid assimilative institutions, they often rejected assimilation altogether, and numerous ethnicities were born of the lack of institutions capable of assimilating or even maintaining cultural hegemonies in the post-Roman polities.

The remaining institution of Rome, the Roman Catholic church, had incredible power over many of these pieces,

No.

then later soft influence,

The hard power of the Papal States was minimal and regional at best, quarreling with other Italian states and sometimes the borders of the HRE; the only Europe-wide power the Catholic Church had was always soft power.

, over most of Europe known as the holy Roman empire.

...

The HRE was not most of Europe, even at its height as the Carolingian Empire.

The soft power of the church faded with the rise of capitalism.

The soft power of the Church died in the Thirty Years' War, as increasingly centralized states began to deal with issues of pluralism and national unity; itself derived from the Protestant Reformation. The soft power of the Church was dead in the most backwards states of Europe even before the bourgeoisie became ascendant.

We still act like Rome. The behaviors never ended. That’s the through line

Your core objection to the unique influence of Rome was that it 'conquered'; you defined conquest by assimilative processes, but your points have absolutely nothing to do with cultural assimilation or, for that matter, reality.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's like you understand every era by the definition at the end of it. And soft power is soft because it can be denied - it's just influence.

Let's go back to the source then... Who had institutionalized assimilation before the Romans? I don't just mean there was assimilation...I mean a group comes in and converts others into becoming them in a systematic fashion

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It’s like you understand every era by the definition at the end of it. And soft power is soft because it can be denied - it’s just influence.

Okay cool, so your argument is now nothing more than "soft power exists", not "The Catholic Church had any serious amount of soft power", fan-fucking-tastic, glad you've spent all this time to say absolutely nothing.

Let’s go back to the source then… Who had institutionalized assimilation before the Romans? I don’t just mean there was assimilation…I mean a group comes in and converts others into becoming them in a systematic fashion

The Ancient Hebrews, for one, whose process of assimilation was far more ritualized and rigid, and mandatory for existence in the polity, than Rome's. The Assyrians. Han China in the Warring States period.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 0 points 1 day ago

Yeah ok bro. These are totally the same things.

How about we say you win, since my goal was to be understood and we're never getting there