The publication of the Four Ordinances of Saint-Cloud in the government gazette Le Moniteur on July 26, 1830, marked the beginning of the end of the Restored Bourbon Dynasty, as on July 27 fighting began, and within three days, hundreds of barricades were erected in the streets of Paris.

The street fighting that ensued was the July Revolution of 1830, which ended the rule of the main Bourbon line. Spurred to action by King Charles X’s decision to suspend freedom of the press, dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, and drastically reduce voting rights through the Four Ordinances, French citizens took to the streets en masse. The rebellion that became known as the Three Glorious Days overthrew the king and became one of the most notable turning points in French history.

How the July Ordinances Crippled the Bourbon Dynasty

Before the promulgation of the authoritarian decrees signed on July 25, King Charles X of France, emboldened by France’s military invasion of Algiers, believed he could capitalize on nationalist euphoria to conceal his domestic coup d’état. The ordinances dissolved the newly elected Chamber of Deputies before it convened for the first time. They also sharply reduced the number of voters to disenfranchise the wealthy commercial bourgeoisie and imposed strict censorship on the press. According to the new rules, publishers were required to submit all texts to the state before publication. Many saw the measures as a violation of the Charter of 1814, the constitution that had restored the Bourbon monarchy while guaranteeing civil liberties.

The Rise of the Barricades During the Three Glorious Days

On July 26, when news of the ordinances reached Parisian intellectuals, 44 journalists, led by Adolphe Thiers, published a manifesto asserting that the ordinances would not be regarded as legitimate. The manifesto raised awareness of the issues and stirred the masses. 

On July 27, 1830, the first day of the Three Glorious Days, workers and students poured into the streets of Paris. When police tried to close liberal printshops, they were met with rocks and curses. In the early evening hours, government troops fired on crowds near the Rue Saint-Honoré, resulting in the first casualty when a protester was killed. As blood had been drawn, this would no longer be a protest but a revolution. In the night that followed, Parisians knocked down omnibuses and ripped up street stones to build barricades.

Storming the Tuileries Topples the Bourbon Dynasty

On July 29, the third and final day of the uprising, insurgents broke the power of the crown. The royal authority was completely snuffed out as the Louvre was overrun and people stormed the Tuileries Palace, both royal strongholds. The Bourbons’ most reliable military power, the Swiss Guard, fled in panic toward Saint-Cloud. By the time King Charles X publicly agreed to revoke the July Ordinances, his power was long gone. The people in the streets had won their battle, and it was time for liberal politicians of the Chamber of Deputies to decide the future of France.

Afraid that a provisional government would result in either a radical republic or a repeat of the 1790s Reign of Terror, liberals chose the Duke of Orléans, Louis-Philippe, as their new king. On August 2, 1830, Charles X signed his abdication documents, attempting to pass rule on to his 9-year-old grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux. Instead, the legislature bypassed the boy, crowning Louis-Philippe, their cousin belonging to the Orléans branch of the Bourbon family, as the “Citizen King” of a new constitutional monarchy.

The Rise of the Orleanist Monarchy to French Leadership

On August 9, 1830, Louis-Philippe was proclaimed King of the French, a title specifically chosen to indicate that his legitimacy came from the people rather than divine right. The shift marked the birth of the July Monarchy, a constitutional regime that favored the commercial bourgeoisie and expanded civil liberties. Thanks to the revolt, a nation was created that had decisively embraced the path of a constitutional government.

To finalize the transition, the Charter of 1814 was revised, and the king’s right to issue ordinances that bypassed parliament, the loophole that King Charles X had used in an attempt to rule without parliament, was removed. 

The white Bourbon flag was lowered for the last time and replaced by the Tricolor flag of the revolution. France still flies that flag today.

John Wycliffe was a 14th-century English Catholic priest and theologian who promoted several ideas which were precursors to many found in the Protestant Reformation. His ideas influenced the Lollards, a group of proto-Protestants largely composed of poor, uneducated individuals who spread Wycliffe’s teachings far and wide, across much of England.

The Dangerous Ideas That Terrified the 14th Century Papacy

Wycliffe believed that the clergy should be poor, from the lowest priest all the way to the Pope.  His writings rail against excesses of wealth and power that the clergy had at the time, to the point that he believed the royalty should take over the church’s property. He also believed in several ideas that would find more traction during the Protestant Reformation, particularly his opposition to transubstantiation (preferring a form of consubstantiation) and that scripture was authoritative over church tradition.  

The Mystery Behind the First English Translation of the Bible

For many years, it was thought that Wycliffe personally worked on translating the Latin Vulgate Bible into Middle English, and the resulting work does bear his name, the Wycliffe Bible.  Considering that Many of his other positions on theological topics tend to coincide with a position to translate the Bible into the language of the commoner, it would not be too outrageous to believe that he contributed directly. However, the level of his involvement is disputed, as there is no direct evidence beyond the inspiration for the concept of vernacular translation.

How the Insulted Mumblers Rose Up to Challenge the Church

The Lollards were a sect, originally led by Wycliffe, that embraced and advanced many of his theological positions. While “Lollard” was intended to be an insulting term that may have meant “mumbler,” Wycliffe’s followers embraced it instead. In 1395, the Lollards presented Parliament with the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, which outline their beliefs well: 

“… for the reformation of the Holy Church of England, the which has been blind and leprous many years by the maintenance of the proud prelacy, borne up with flattering of private religion…” 

The Conclusions laid out their complaints regarding the church hierarchy and its practices:

1. The Church of England is too involved in the civic realm “dote in temporality.”
2. Priestly orders as they are have no Biblical basis – not the priesthood which Christ ordained to his Apostles.
3. Celibacy among the clergy encourages sexual sins, “induces sodomy in Holy Church…”
4. Opposition to transubstantiation, which “induces all men but a few to idolatry.”
5. Exorcisms are “necromancy rather than of the holy theology.”
6. Church leaders should not be civic leaders, opposing that “all manner of curates, both high and low, be fully excused of temporal office…”
7. Prayers for the dead are “false grounds of alms deeds,” and do no good for the dead.
8. Pilgrimages and offerings “made to blind roods and deaf images of tree and stone be near kin to idolatry.” 
9. Priests have “a feigned power of absolution,” – here the Conclusions also speak of the Pope’s ability to forgive sin and withholding it, a complaint echoed many years later by Luther when he posts his 95 theses.
10. Opposition to war “without special revelation is express contrary to the New Testament.”
11. Opposition to nuns, preferring they be married as they may be performing abortions to cover up their indiscretions.
12. Encouraging simple adornments, opposing “crafts not needful to men.”

Why the Church Burned Wycliffe’s Bones and Hunted His Followers

In 1381, Wycliffe was removed from his position at Oxford University for heresy after advocating his position on Communion. While before, he could rely on some support of the nobility, his opposition to transubstantiation was beyond what they would allow. While his views were deemed either heretical or erroneous, he was never fully excommunicated.

He died while saying Mass on 28 December 1384, in Lutterworth. His bones were exhumed after his burial, burned, and the ashes thrown into the river. The Lollards, opposed by secular and religious leaders, were persecuted, with some executed eventually for heresy. However, the movement survived, even though it was a significant minority, and became part of the English Reformation, which adopted many of the ideas of Wycliffe and the Lollards.

In 1095, Al-Ghazālī stood at the summit of his intellectual fame. As head of the prestigious Niẓāmiyya Madrasa in Baghdad, he held one of the most powerful academic positions in the Medieval Middle East. He enjoyed the trust of Seljuk authorities in Isfahan, the favor of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the admiration of students, jurists, scholars, and political leaders. He had also completed his philosophical masterpiece, Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (“The Incoherence of the Philosophers”), and Maqāṣid al-Falāsifa (“The Aims of the Philosophers”). 

By all appearances, he possessed everything one could desire. Yet, he knew no peace. This brilliant mind realized that his studies held no true worth and contributed nothing to his salvation, driven as they were by a hollow desire for reputation and honor. He renounced his property and, freeing himself from the shackles of worldly desire, quietly left Baghdad to spend the next decade as a wandering Sufi ascetic.

Inside the Golden Cage of Baghdad’s Academic Prestige

In 1091, Niẓām al-Mulk, founder of the Niẓāmiyya schools and vizier to the Seljuk sultans, appointed Imam al-Ghazālī (1058–1111 CE) to lead the Baghdad madrasa. The appointment brought him respect and wealth, and his lectures attracted hundreds of students. The Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad, inaugurated in 1067 CE, was one of the first medieval institutions to function like a modern university. It awarded certificates and featured specialized faculty, lecture halls, a renowned library, alongside funding to cover student expenses. The Seljuk state subsidized the establishment of these schools in the 11th century, dedicating them to the study of Islamic law (Shari‘a), theology, grammar, and various sciences. 

Despite Al-Ghazālī’s standing as a distinguished intellectual, he felt the tyrannical burden of unruly desires weighing upon his soul, along with the torment of worldly, ego-driven thoughts from which he sought liberation. As he explains in Al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl (“Deliverance from Error”), his spiritual autobiography, he recognized the falseness underlying his motives and felt as though he was standing on the brink of a deep abyss. He intensely feared that unless he undertook a radical spiritual transformation, his fate would be eternal fire. 

The Day the Great Philosopher Lost His Voice

For six months, Al-Ghazālī wrestled with an inner conflict. One day he would resolve to leave everything behind, only to hesitate the next, held back by the ties of his official position. His soul cried out to him that all his knowledge was nothing but illusion and fantasy. He described how the Tempter sought to weaken his resolve, whispering that his crisis was temporary and that if he left his noble post, he would regret it and never recover. 

Overwhelmed by anguish, he found himself unable to speak. God, he says, put a lock on his tongue. He lost his appetite, could not swallow food or water, and grew increasingly frail. It was July 1095. Physicians concluded that the illness originated in his heart and spread through his body, and that a cure would not come unless his grief was lifted. 

Interestingly, this was the result of him reaching a breaking point, where he finally entrusted his fate to God. From this perspective, his voice was no longer his own. It now belonged to God.

Stripping the Robes of Ego

Through God’s aid, Al-Ghazālī finally resolved to leave public life in late 1095. Yet, the withdrawal was no simple matter, as it provoked the displeasure of political authorities and the censure of the imams in Iraq, while some even speculated that his decision was driven by fear of the government. 

Believing he could be detained, he devised a clever ruse by announcing his intention to make a pilgrimage to Mecca while secretly planning to go to Syria, believing this would conceal his true intentions from the Caliph and his circle until he was safely settled there. He never expected to return. 

A Decade in Disguise and Devotion

Before departing, he dismantled his wealth and made arrangements to support his family. The scholar dedicated himself to solitary prayer, contemplation, and Sufi devotions for two years in Damascus. He then moved to Jerusalem, where he spent his days in retreat, daily seeking sanctuary in the Dome of the Rock. Thereafter, he performed the Hajj pilgrimage and visited Mecca, Medina, and the Shrine of Hebron. 

He lived in this manner for a decade, seeking certainty and conviction higher than that which reason could provide and which could only be granted through special graces. Tradition says he took up the humble duties of sweeping the marble floors of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, under an assumed identity to crush his own ego. 

How the Thinker’s Return Changed Islamic History Forever

These experiences enabled him to transition from the study of philosophy to the spiritual, experiential practices of Sufism—a path that seeks to achieve a state of union with God, wherein Truth is perceived through insight and intuition rather than through reason. 

So empowered, he authored his magnum opus, Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”), where he harmonized Islamic doctrine with Sufism. To this day, the book remains one of the most widely studied and analyzed texts among Islamic scholars.

Duty drew him back to Nishapur and to teaching in 1106. His decision to walk away from power altered the course of Islamic thought forever, while also anticipating the skepticism introduced by Western philosophers centuries later.

Beautiful, delicate, intricate, and amazing are words to describe tapestries. Among the greatest of French tapestries (and European textiles) is the Lady and the Unicorn series. Commissioned in the 1500s, it remains one of the greatest examples of Renaissance textile art. 

Housed at the Cluny Museum in Paris, France, the Lady and the Unicorn is a medieval mystery because it lacks an exact provenance and is blanketed in metaphorical iconography. Are these tapestries a demonstration of wealth, a symbol of love, or simply large art pieces meant to delight?

The Masterpiece in the Cluny Museum

The Lady and the Unicorn series is also known as the Cluny Tapestries. As prized pieces of medieval art, they are decorated with motifs and iconography that were made popular during that era. The six tapestries are festooned with a red millefleur (thousand-flowers) background, where a noblewoman, a handmaiden, a lion, a unicorn, a monkey, and other animals rest. The banner of the Le Viste family is shown throughout the pieces: a red field with a blue sash decorated with three crescent moons that help identify its provenance. 

The noblewoman has several meanings, including virginity, purity, wealth, and beauty. She might represent a real person or simply an idealized version of womanhood. The unicorn has similar meanings, except that it can also represent Christ. The lion is another famous figure in medieval iconography and means bravery, nobility, strength, and valor. Biblically, it could refer to the Lion of Judah that was the coat of arms of Jerusalem. Five of the tapestries invoke physical senses, while the sixth references an ineffable sixth sense.

Decoding the Allegory of the Five Senses

Each of the five senses is invoked by iconography in the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. The first sense, touch, is represented by the noblewoman firmly holding the Le Viste banner and resting a hand on the unicorn. Her dress is made of expensive, fine fabrics: blue velvet lined with ermine, embroidered orphreys, and exquisite gold work. There are many animals in the background, including a dog, a wolf, a panther, a cheetah, and monkeys. They wear collars indicating they are domesticated.

The second tapestry calls on taste as the lady grabs a sweet treat from a bowl held by the handmaiden. The sweet is intended for the parrot perched on her finger. A monkey eats a piece of fruit in the background. The woman’s dress is decorated with vegetal ornaments, including a pomegranate on her belt.

Smell is invoked in the third tapestry as the lady makes a wreath of carnations from a tray carried by the handmaiden. A monkey also smells a rose near them. The fourth tapestry reminds us of the sense of hearing, because the noblewoman plays a portative organ and her handmaiden manages the bellows. 

Sight comes into play with the fifth tapestry as the woman sits in the middle of the artwork, holding a hand mirror with the unicorn by her side. The unicorn’s image is reflected back at the pair.

Solving the Riddle of the Sixth Tapestry

The sixth tapestry was made with a feeling that can only be described as an ineffable quality. It is embroidered with the saying, “À mon seul désir,” which translates to “To my sole desire.” It could represent the heart as the center of moral good and authority, as well as a more down-to-earth quality of human love and carnal desire. The woman stands in the center of the piece with her handmaiden, who is holding a treasure chest. She is either removing or putting a necklace into the chest. They are flanked by the lion and the unicorn.  

Here, the lion and unicorn could be a combination of earthly and heavenly desires, with the lion being the former. Lions were regarded as the king of beasts and were seen as violent animals.  Meanwhile, the unicorn, as a symbol of Christ, has the purity and love of God. The unicorn’s holiness is unobtainable by humanity. The lion, we know, is a real animal, and unicorns were considered mythological or scarce in medieval times, which is another tie to being unobtainable.

Origins of the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries

Another great mystery of this textile art (other than the sixth tapestry) is who commissioned its creation. We can tell by the coat of arms, the red field with the blue sash decorated with three crescent moons, seen throughout the pastoral scenes, that the Le Viste family is responsible.  They were a prominent family that held positions in the Parisian parliament during the 1500s.  As the family grew in power and wealth, they wanted to signal their position to their peers. This was especially true for families who didn’t have noble origins.

Because the entire coat-of-arms is featured in the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, only someone with high rank and position could have commissioned them. This could have been Jean IV Le Viste, who was the head of the family from 1457 to 1500. After his passing, his cousin Antoine bore the coat-of-arms. 

If Antoine had the tapestries made, it could have been a celebration of his becoming the head of the Le Viste family or to signify his engagement to Jacqueline Raguier. The latter is very likely because their first initials “A” and “I” are in the sixth tapestry.

One of the prevailing images of the Old West is a picture of an enclosed wagon, pulled by four horses, arriving at an old-style frontier hotel with a well-dressed lady or gentleman exiting. Known as a stagecoach, they were one of the primary forms of long-distance transportation both before the railroads and into areas which had not yet been reached by the railroads.

Why the First Stagecoaches Transformed Travel in the Old West

Stagecoach routes began in the Americas in the mid-1700s as the towns grew in the colonies.  As the United States pushed west and made further settlements, stagecoach lines grew to meet the demands of travelers.  The US Mail was also a major customer of stagecoach lines, which provided a fast way to deliver mail across the continent.  Improving technology and construction of stagecoaches, such as the Concord Stagecoach, increased the speed and usefulness of the system.

Why the Legendary Concord Stagecoach Revolutionized Frontier Travel

When an American pictures a stagecoach, the Concord Stagecoach is probably the one that comes to mind.  The Concord Coach, developed in 1827 by the Abbot-Downing Company in Concord, New Hampshire, was a heavy coach, weighing over a ton, which used a particular leather-strap thoroughbrace suspension that made riding at least tolerable over long distances on bad roads.  The coaches were ornate and large, with large wheels, and the design was used for over seventy years.

How Fast Could an Old West Stagecoach Actually Travel?

Stagecoach travel varied from 5-9 miles per hour, depending on road and weather conditions, and the condition and type of stagecoach.  With enough horse changes, a coach could travel about 70-100 miles in a day for a 12-hour ride.

How Wells Fargo Monopolized the Frontier Stagecoach Industry

Wells Fargo & Company was a business specializing in finance, communications, and transportation, supplying the West with all 3 services in a near-monopoly following the Panic of 1855.  Wells Fargo was able to consolidate almost the entire mail delivery system in the Old West by 1866, as well as a majority of stagecoaches, imprinting their name on the collective imagination of Americans for generations.

The End of the American Stagecoach Era

The beginning of the end of the stagecoach began in 1861 with the development of the transcontinental telegraph lines and the ability to send messages instantaneously, vastly reducing the need for overland long-distance mail delivery. Upon the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1869, which connected San Francisco to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where the eastern US railway system terminated, the stagecoach effectively became obsolete outside of a few specific uses. Stagecoach travel was significantly more expensive and slower than rail travel, sometimes costing up to ten times the amount, and was more uncomfortable and dirtier than enclosed rail cars. Stagecoaches would still be used to some extent until the automobile became affordable and in wider use in the early 1900s.

How Did Frontier Stagecoaches Give Us the Phrase “Riding Shotgun?”

A couple of modern terms have made their way into modern American slang from stagecoach usage.  “Hangers-on” referred to the stagecoach riders who clung to the outside of the coach during travel, unable to afford the more expensive interior seats.  “Riding shotgun” derives from the position the stagecoach guard rode next to the driver, often carrying a shotgun for protection.

The Surprising Truth About Wild West Stagecoach Robberies

Stagecoaches were commonly used to move money and valuables across the country until the railroads took over.  While the stagecoach robbery is a common subject in westerns, only about 450 robberies occurred among the thousands of stagecoach trips in the Old West.  With stagecoaches being easy targets, Wells Fargo and other companies took measures to ensure the safe transport of both passengers and cargo.

Hollywood never fails to entertain with a powerful display of knights on horseback, crashing into a line of terrified infantry. The images and sounds are visceral, with men screaming and the clash of steel upon steel as hundreds of horses charge headlong into the enemy at high speed, carving a deep wedge into the enemy formation. This powerful visual seems effective on screen, but it is full of poetic license that wouldn’t work well on a real battlefield.

In reality, the use of cavalry in medieval combat was far more nuanced. It relied on careful planning, immense discipline, and a large degree of psychology to be effective. And when it was effective, it was utterly devastating.

The Myth of the Suicidal Horse Collision

Horses are naturally skittish animals. Even well-trained warhorses are prone to instinctive responses in dangerous situations that humans can be trained to override. Historian Sir John Keegan noted that cavalry charges against disciplined, well-prepared infantry often failed because horses refused to gallop into a dense mass of enemies. When a mass of soldiers is wielding sharp objects, the prospect becomes even less appealing. 

While pikes were perfect for holding back cavalry, they were not the only option. Even before the age of the pike, infantry with spears and other polearms were easily able to resist cavalry charges. A perfect example of this is the Battle of Hastings in 1066, where the Anglo-Saxon shield wall stood firm against many attempts by the Norman cavalry to break through.

Here, and in many battles before and since, the horses simply refused to impale themselves on spears. Which is quite reasonable from the horses’ perspective. In the age of the pike, the “spears” became ever longer and deadlier, putting a lot more distance between the charging cavalry and the defending infantry. 

So, with the refusal of horses to throw themselves onto a wall, bristling with spikes, how did the cavalry charge actually succeed? Much of the answer lies with psychology.

Shock Tactics and Psychological Warfare on the Battlefield

From ancient to modern times, mass charges used shock tactics, relying heavily on breaking enemy morale and forcing soldiers to rethink the wisdom of standing in the path of 1000 lbs of equine fury. Throughout history, holding the line against mounted riders has always been a terrifying proposition. In the face of a wall of horses and mounted knights, all it takes is for a few infantrymen to break, for a gap to be exposed, which cavalry can then exploit.

As such, cavalry had to break the enemy formation, not by force, but by psychology. A feigned charge could cause men to scatter, and a feigned retreat could cause infantry formations to break in pursuit, at which point the cavalry wheeled round and took advantage of the lack of infantry cohesion. 

Ultimately, it was a game of chicken in which the resolve of the infantry and the cavalry was tested until one side broke or miscalculated the other’s intentions. 

Although exceptions always exist, a solid line of cavalry seldom made contact with a solid line of unbroken infantry, and when it did, it was often catastrophic for the cavalry. Without a gap to exploit, cavalry would simply be impaled. 

In short, the general theme was that cavalry would charge at the infantry. If the infantry broke, the cavalry would press the attack. If the infantry stood firm, the cavalry would veer off at the last moment and reform to try again. Sometimes the cavalry would feign retreat to lure the enemy infantry out of formation, then turn and attack.

Mass, Momentum, and Deadly Precision

Hollywood’s full-pace cavalry charges are certainly spectacular, but full of creative interpretation, and often very far from reality. Approaching the enemy was far more disciplined and slower than on-screen depictions.

The cavalry line was not haphazard. It was in the formation of cohesive, serried ranks of knights, slowly increasing speed, and breaking into a gallop at the last moment. Mass and momentum were key. Such discipline played into psychology, heightening the panic in the enemy. With lances presented, such a sight could easily cause individual soldiers to flinch, panic, and in some cases, run. If the infantry, even individuals, lost their nerve, gaps would open, and the cavalry would ride in, pushing soldiers aside and widening the wedge.

If that happened, the infantry formation was doomed more often than not. 

Picture a slab-sliding ironclad rounding a bend on the Cumberland River in 1863. Firing on the move and belching black smoke, these nearly invulnerable vessels suddenly made any Confederate river defense vulnerable. While their ocean-going cousins captured national headlines, river ironclads were busy splitting the Confederacy in half.

As a central part of Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan to control the Mississippi River, river ironclads were purposely built. With their slow speeds, shallow drafts, armor, and firepower, these ironclads were the real weapons that cracked open the South’s interior.

The Brown Water Navy

While the ocean contingent of the Union’s naval campaign was critical, the Mississippi River Squadron, also known as the Brown Water Navy, was no less important. Built to operate within the narrow, shallow confines of the different rivers like the Cumberland, Red River, and Mississippi, river ironclads became the campaign’s workhorse. Army owned and commanded by Navy officers, they projected power inland, often helping to win crucial campaigns.

At the start of the Civil War in 1861, the Union scrambled to obtain ships. Paddle wheelers, towboats, and steamboats were converted using timber and iron plating. These sufficed until intentionally designed ironclads and later river monitors arrived. These had similar characteristics, such as shallow drafts, armored hulls and turrets, large naval guns, and side or stern wheels for propulsion.

Beginning in January 1862, ironclads began to appear. Soon, they and the Union Army started to break the Confederates’ Mississippi lifeline, which cut off Texas, Arkansas, and parts of Louisiana.

Unique, Powerful, but Not Impervious

During the Civil War, the Union produced about 76 ironclads of different types by 1865: monitors, casemates, and armored river rams. Of these, the City-class ironclads stood out. Designed by Samuel Pook, their distinctive sloped casemate armor helped deflect shots, a wide beam for stability, and armored paddle wheels positioned inside the hull earned them the nickname “Pook Turtles.” These characteristics allowed survival against Confederate shore batteries.

Their size enabled ironclads to deliver firepower in unexpected spots. Boats like the City-class brought heavy naval artillery, such as 42-pounder rifles, to bear. They simply blasted their way past earthen works or hurriedly built outposts manned with often inferior guns. Yet these behemoths had weaknesses too.

Working in a heated, enclosed iron box meant temperatures spiked past 120 degrees. Crews frequently fainted in the intense heat or from fumes from massive boilers or furnaces. Even their armor had a weakness, typically from above. Plunging Confederate shellfire punched through thinner armored (or unarmored) spots. But these powerful ships still clobbered their way past defenses. They were great but imperfect weapons.

Ironclads Versus Fortifications

The Union river fleet’s ironclads, starting in 1862, completely upended the Confederate defense tactic of static river blockades. Under normal circumstances, their heavy guns would shred wooden hulls. Now, Union ironclads sailed up to the forts, shrugged off most hits, and pounded the emplacements to pieces. Whereas a normal siege might take weeks, the ironclads placed shells along the defenses, helping force a surrender in days. This did come with risks— the City-class ironclad USS Cairo sank upon striking a mine during the run-up to the Vicksburg Campaign.

This approach became clear to frustrated Confederate officials during the 1863 Battle of Vicksburg (May 18-July 4). Of the Mississippi River naval battles, this bruising fight is considered the most important. Union ironclads repeatedly traversed the river under Vicksburg’s guns to bring supplies, men, and artillery, despite repeated hits. The city eventually fell on July 4, 1863, splitting the Confederacy.

Confederate Rams as a Response

The Confederates quickly realized the Union ironclad’s menace to their cause. Unlike the industrialized North, the South had few rolling mills, few foundries capable of forging iron plates, and almost no engines. Workers scavenged railroad iron, scrounged machinery, and unseasoned lumber to build boats like the CSS Arkansas. Cobbled together, this underpowered Confederate warship was later scuttled following several important battles only due to engine failure (August 1862).

The South also built cottonclads, or armed steamers loaded with tightly packed cotton bales. This unconventional but effective armor was built cheaply and quickly. These weren’t meant to clash with ironclads but were effective as an expendable defense.

While improvisation was the rule, the South’s industrial weakness quickly hampered defense efforts. The North’s boatyards consistently rolled out City-class (or similar) ironclads. The Confederacy struggled to produce one, often due to material shortages or long delays. The Union wore down its opponents, but the inability to match the North’s production led to the loss of the Mississippi theater.

The Civil War helped introduce the 19th century to ironclad technology. Union ironclads proved themselves as a winning factor on America’s rivers. They turned the Confederate river lifeline into a Union highway by 1865.

Pope Innocent VIII’s bull, published on December 5, 1484, commissioned two Dominican Inquisitors and professors of theology, Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, to end witchcraft, which was, at the time, considered to be practiced by “heretics and other enemies of Christendom, both groups and individuals.” This marked a shift from how those accused of witchcraft were treated in the early Middle Ages and before. 

Unfortunately, as women were the ones most often accused of witchcraft, they received the bulk of the hatred, and subsequent texts and images depicting witchcraft, rituals, and deals with the devil became misogynistic. Sprenger and Kramer aided in creating the image of a witch and the danger they posed to society with the 1487 publication of the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches, which led to surveillance and discrimination against women, especially those who fell outside of “normal” society.

The Radical Zealotry of Heinrich Kramer

While Sprenger and Kramer both wrote The Hammer of Witches, Kramer was the principal author of the medieval witch-hunting manual. Heinrich Kramer was born in 1430 in Lower Alsace. He joined the Dominican order as a monk and rose in prominence quickly within the field.

Driving him was an earlier trial involving a woman named Helena Scheuberin, the defeat of Kramer in accusing her of witchcraft, and the subsequent descent into his vendetta against women. Scheuberin refused to be locked into the traditional feminine role of her time and voiced her displeasure with Kramer’s sermons. Her refusal to go to service led him to accuse her of witchcraft. 

According to scholar Jane Schuyler, witches in the Middle Ages were regarded warily, as they were believed to cause harm, but they were mostly treated as social misfits isolated from normal society. This changed with the idea that witches were “heretics in league with the devil, opposed to the rule of God on earth; they were seductive and immoral, and received their powers as gifts from Satan,” where they bound their life to his turning away from their Christian faith.

Kramer already had a questionable reputation within the theological fields of his time. When he sought the University of Cologne’s approval for his text in 1487, he was considered too extreme. His fight against heresy and his insistence that the Church was not doing enough against women who were involved with the Devil drove him to push the boundaries of who was in charge of the trials, how they were conducted, and with what evidence. Kramer ended up writing and collecting pieces for The Hammer of Witches only a couple of years after the trial of Scheuberin. His disgust for women operating outside social norms became twisted with misinformation and misogyny that was used to look for and “hunt” witches across Europe, focusing specifically on women in vulnerable positions.

Deconstructing the Systemic Misogyny of the Text

The Hammer of Witches had five sections: the justification of the witch hunts, the papal bull, approval by professors of theology at the University of Cologne, the table of contents, and the main body.

Kramer argued, “women to be the sole operators of witchcraft, ‘What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger.’” Those ideals already show the nature of the text regarding women and how they should be held in suspicious regard. Of course, they were more likely to be witches and a danger to the public, and responsible for things like disastrous crops, deaths of vital work animals, sicknesses plaguing the village, or a couple being unable to have children. These events could be devastating to the survival of the village, and the need to point fingers and find a cause meant women were easy scapegoats.

The only way to escape from a witch, according to Kramer, was by turning to religion, saying that, “[If the man being ensnared by the witch] pleaseth God shall escape from her; but he that is a sinner shall be caught by her.”

How the Printing Press Distributed Social Paranoia

While similar ideas and texts were in circulation before, The Hammer of Witches is unique in both the spread of the ideology and its survival over hundreds of years. Johannes Gutenberg changed the course of history for both printing and books with the invention of the movable type printing press in 1436. Unlike in the past, when other texts required entire pages to be carved from a block or hand-lettered, the printing press enabled The Hammer of Witches and other texts to be printed faster and more cheaply. This allowed it to spread across Europe. 

If Kramer had written this text 50 years earlier, it might not have spread as far as it did, ingraining itself into the public’s perception of what a witch is and how to find them. This instead became a printed copy for the educated population, and judicial officials and other men in the court system could use it as a blueprint for how to conduct a witch trial. 

Weaponizing Secular Courts Against the Female Population

When examining how witch trials were conducted, it is important to recognize the fundamental differences between trials in the Middle Ages and those today. Today, it is often considered that the person accused of a crime is ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ The court presents an argument and evidence that a person is guilty. Back then, it was the complete opposite. The accused person had to prove to the court that they were innocent of the crime. 

Now imagine a woman having to prove to a group of men who already have a text that tells them how susceptible women are to getting involved with the Devil and witchcraft. Many, although not all, of these victims were also marginalized by society for being too loud, having vices, mental illnesses, or being older and alone with no support system. Potentially, they could not provide for themselves, and became beggars and a ‘nuisance’ to their village. The change that Kramer pushed for also meant that these crimes that were originally tried religiously could be tried in secular courts as well, which resulted in more trials and executions.

Evidence in the trial could include confessions that were given under coercion, or through torture, and the promise that naming themselves or others as a witch would make the pain end. The ‘observations’ of witchcraft could include testimony of others, including neighbors who may be feuding with the accused. Even testimony of a husband being in bed with his wife all night would not suffice, as the Devil could make witches travel in the blink of an eye. It seems there was little way to protect yourself once you ended up on trial as a witch in Europe during that time.

The Enduring Historical Trauma of the Witch Trials

While witch hunts are no longer a literal event in the modern world, it doesn’t end the trauma related to the damage these trials and executions had on the public, especially for the women accused or worried about being accused. One of the last documented trials of a witch may have been in 1775 in Poland, showing that this text had a lasting impact on the culture. It is estimated that around 40,000 to 60,000 people died because of the witch hunts. 

These views of witchcraft in the text have leaked into other parts of culture that have lasted until even today. Art during the day reinforced the negative stereotypes of women engaging in inappropriate behaviors and meeting with the Devil. Today, we still see images of witches wearing all black, with warts on their noses, flying on broomsticks, and cursing people.

The Hammer of Witches is not the only theological, religious, or historical text that codified systemic prejudice against a group of people. Nor is it the only one that has been used in history to carry out atrocities. However, it serves as a reminder of how women were demonized for years and suffered personally, publicly, and judicially at the hands of men who took this manual verbatim on how to prosecute witches.

For centuries, French political power had been centralized in Paris, even when the royal court shifted frequently. But while earlier rulers stayed in central urban strongholds like the Louvre, King Louis XIV decided to move his entire government to the quiet countryside in 1682. The relocation of the French court to Versailles was a calculated move that completely reshaped the French monarchical system of power. 

The Reasons Behind the Commissioning of the Palace

Building upon the site of his father’s existing hunting lodge, Louis XIV began transforming it into the grand palace we know today. The huge project lasted throughout his entire reign and cost an immense amount of money to complete. Costing between 81 and 100 million livres, the structure would be unlike any other royal palace, serving as the ultimate sociological theater. Louis made the change in order to maintain greater control over the historically powerful and often rebellious French nobility. By compelling the aristocracy to reside permanently within these walls, few dared to rebel against him.

Why would Louis go to such extreme lengths? 

It is hypothesized that when Louis looked back at his childhood, he remembered the trauma and danger caused by the Fronde Rebellion that led to his family being driven out of Paris twice in the dead of night, leaving him with a lifelong distrust of the capital. From 1648 to 1653, the young Louis feared for his life as various groups of the nobility fought one another and the royal family. The experience strengthened Louis’s hatred and distrust of the French nobility for the rest of his life.

Domesticating Warlords Through Mandatory Presence

By 1682, Louis had created the perfect solution— force every nobleman who wanted to become rich and powerful to live at his palace. By pulling every important nobleman into the fancy surroundings of Versailles, which was 20 km from the center of Paris, he could keep a close eye on them and prevent them from rebelling against his authority. The distance effectively cut off the nobles from their local sources of power.

To understand Louis’s reasoning, one has to understand his position. Louis wanted to be an absolute ruler, and he gained the opportunity to be one after the chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, died in 1661. To tame the fiercely independent elites, he required an unprecedented level of leverage; hence the Versailles strategy.

The Ritualization of Power

If the nobles wanted to keep their high social positions, they had to constantly wait around Versailles, hoping to gain notice in the king’s eyes. This gave rise to highly competitive court etiquette. For example, the famous le lever ritual, the king’s waking ceremony at Versailles, turned the simple act of the king waking up into a highly sought-after privilege where chosen nobles competed just to hold his shirt.

They also couldn’t simply ignore the king and go back home, because then, they would face total social isolation. In the Ancien Régime, if the king didn’t speak to a noble, it was basically the end of their career, and they would be left politically and financially ruined.

Soon, creating fierce competition and secret plotting among the nobles became Louis XIV’s specialty. He watched as the lords and ladies of France tore each other apart, trying to stay fashionable and gain favor with him. Meanwhile, the non-stop parties and the cost of living at Versailles made the nobles lose their fortunes. This calculated financial drain systematically bankrupted the nobility and left them completely dependent on him, as they had to rely on yearly payments, awards, and favors from the king just to survive.

Louis effectively controlled the time of everyone who lived at his palace, which at its highest point included between 3,000 and 10,000 people.

The Legacy of Limitless Power

When Louis died in 1715 after ruling for a remarkable 72 years, he left behind a weak and dependent group of nobles that initially left his child successor with a deceptively quiet kingdom free of open revolt. The problem was that Louis and most of the rest of the royal family prioritized the glory of the crown over the welfare of the people of France. Much of his time, money, and resources were spent trying to control the ambitions of the nobility. By the time revolutionaries forced the royal family to leave the palace in 1789, the system had collapsed.

Thomism (the philosophical system founded by Thomas Aquinas) is intended to be an interrelated web of complementary concepts and arguments, akin to overlapping layers of a flower’s petals, which can only be appreciated by contemplating all its imbricated structures. Asking the question “Does God know evil?” occasions asking what evil is, what its cause is, what reasons God has for permitting it, what role it plays in providence, and what its consequences are.

Here, the first question is addressed.

Evil as Privation

How does Thomas Aquinas conceive of evil? He holds that evil is not a “thing”— a doctrine known as privatio boni (Latin for “privation of the good”), which dates back at least to Augustine of Hippo. All created essences possess being and contain, qua essences, no defect, and are good in that they bear a likeness to the being of God. In this way, the order of beings excludes evil from its essential nature. Put differently, God doesn’t directly create any evil thing. 

However, God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting corruption and privation in that created order (reasons we cannot detail here) through the agency of secondary causes—those creatures endowed by the Creator with the capacity to be their own causes, whether through natural laws or through the powers of voluntary action. The first grouping corresponds to the world of the physical sciences; the second refers to the spheres of moral interaction that we will into existence. 

Thomas Aquinas generally defines evil as “the privation of that which is connatural and due to a thing” (Book III, Ch. 7, Summa contra Gentiles). It consists either in a defect in the apprehension of good, in the case of moral evil, or in a deficient cause within the physical order of things, pertaining to one or more of the four Aristotelian causes. For example, a person limps, Aquinas says, only on account of some defect or “crookedness in the tibia” that hinders their power to walk (Book III, Ch. 10, Summa contra Gentiles). Moral evil, having to do with a failing in our powers to act, arises due to a misperception of the ends towards which we ought to be directed, whether misguided by our will or reason. 

In this way, evil always parasitizes what is good—it lives by living on what is good. It exists exploitatively, through some mal-achievement or some misconception. 

How God Knows Evil Exists Without Creating It

Some might think that God cannot know evil, since He knows only Himself, who is the sovereign good; and further, can neither tolerate the company of evil nor turn away from His own essence. Similarly, one might think that it would be beneath Him to contemplate ignoble things, such as the forms of mud, filth, or hair, let alone think eternally about every seemingly trivial detail or fact, such as an infinite number of tautologies or logical equivalences, or sets of endless and meaningless combinations of letters or words. 

One rebuttal Aquinas issues in response is that God must know even those things we might consider lowly since the order of the universe is nobler than any of its parts, which follows if the parts are directed toward the good of the whole. Thus, if God knew only the parts we consider dignified to the exclusion of the rest, it would render His knowledge less noble, not more so. Further, God knows all these things because he pours Himself out into all things as their Creator and First Cause.

Thomas Aquinas maintains that God knows evil things by virtue of His omniscience. He also knows particular evils in the world, and how they work to providentially fulfill His plan. However, only the first aspect will be discussed below. 

• That evil is evil and opposed to good is true, which an omniscient God would know to be true, implying that God knows evil. 
• God perfectly knows the form, that is, the perfection due to every created thing. Evil is the lack or absence of perfection due to a thing. To know the form of a thing perfectly is to know what it would look like if that form were somehow lacking in it. Thus, by knowing the form of things, or by knowing the complete reality of the good in things, he knows evil; 
• God creates both form and matter. Matter can actualize either toward what is not (privation) or toward what is (form), and God perfectly knows every possible state in the universe pertaining to material potentiality, being its Creator. As already said, Aquinas understands natural evil to arise when privation occurs within material potentiality. So, God would know evil;   
• In fashioning the universe, God arranged every part to work together for the perfection of the whole. This would require knowing how the parts would ward off specific types of harm. God thus possessed knowledge of evils in the context of how certain things were designed to remove them. 

These arguments are only part of the larger story of Thomism, and here we have barely begun to investigate a single petal of the flower mentioned earlier. Many questions remain unresolved, but perhaps that is not why they are important. His arguments unceasingly prompt further reflection on the divine nature, and his works are in that regard nearly unparalleled.