On Slavery

Original video:

A Short History of Slavery | 5 Minute Video
PragerU | 23 August 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO_wmixXBdE

Reaction video A:

WHITE PEOPLE Didn't Invent Slavery They Ended It!? - Candice Owens
CartierFamily | 15 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auxY8GT8cqk

3:41 Actually, the Frankish Kingdom, back then spanning France, BeNeLux, parts of Germany, had a queen (over parts of that area) called Bathildis. She died in 680, is a saint of the Catholic Church, and abolished slavery.

When French held slaves, that was an exception for Louisiana Dominion and Islands. France and Québec were places where no one could be held as a slave against his will.

Benjamin Frankling was sent to France and was advised to take an old slave, devoted to himself, who couldn't speak French ..

3:45 The French abolition in 1848 was only about the Islands, because that was the only place where France held slaves by then.

It's inspirer Schoelcher was from Alsatia, [actually his father was, he was born in Paris] a part of France which had been Germany (therefore non-colonial) prior to the 1600's.

"yeah we ain't doing that no more 6:50 either we gonna fight for and you know 6:51 they have revolutions for all that stuff 6:53 too so it was some bloodshedy before 6:55 them Acts were signed"

Actually, the American Revolution wasn't made by Abolitionists.

Wilberforce, an Evangelical, was canvassing for abolition since the 1780's, and before 1833, Britain had done a few other acts, starting in 1807.

"The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade,[1] was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it encouraged British action to press other nation states to abolish their own slave trades. It took effect on 1 May 1807, after 18 years of trying to pass an abolition bill.[2]"

Wikipedia, Slave Trade Act 1807
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807

Reaction video B:

Prager U - A Short History of Slavery - Historian Reaction
Vlogging Through History | 9 August 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_oZICJb0A

4:06 In Byzantium, some kind of slavery was ongoing to the end, you will find Venice having castrato singers (in Austria proper the practise was illegal, but unfortunately tolerated), and Venice had some Byzantine heritage.

Confer the Frankish Kingdom.

680, Queen St. Bathildis of Neustria and Burgundy dies. She had not technically freed all slaves, but she had done so in practise. At worst, they were now serfs, if as much. The idea spread over the Frankish world, and slaves didn't come back into it prior to the conquest of Saxony (which had slaves), not sure about Bavaria, but it adhered little before Saxony (though under very unlike circumstances, Tassilo III and Widukind — at first, at least — had very different attitudes to the Franks).

Benjamin Franklin was advised that he did best to bring a slave to France who was old and who didn't speak French, otherwise France would free the slave on his request. Slavery was only tolerated in Louisiana and the Islands (so, not Québec, not mainland France).

England had a similar system as the abolitionist poet Cowper noted.

We have no slaves at home – Then why abroad?
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free.
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud.
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein.

4:28 I think she missed how some Jewish communities were profiting from slave trade illegally in Europe.

I'm speaking like Carolingian times ... (in Prague)

5:28 I've seen her video, that's not what she's saying.

She's giving credit to Wilberforce, Schoelcher and "John Brown's body lies a mouldring in his grave" / Abe Lincoln to prove to her fellow Black Americans, that White people ar not the enemy.

6:22 Well, not in control of all countries that held slaves.

What about the Ottoman Empire? Or the Ashanti KIngdoms? (Different religions by the way, Ashantis were doing human sacrifice).

6:43 Well, they were not the only ones who held slaves.

I think she's asking for the Brownie points, by the way.

6:50 Na, she missed the acts by Queen St. Bathildis.

But perhaps she's going off the fact that Neustria and Burgundy are no longer countries in the world?

7:10 Yeah, all over the Middle Ages, from Neustria and Burgundy to Ragusa in the 1400's over Sweden abolishing thraldom in 1351 or sth ...

Who was in control in the Middle Ages? Culdees? Waldensians? Perhaps more like Roman Catholics, after all!

(Btw, do you know if slavery was eliminated soon after St. Patrick or only by Strongbow?)

7:35 If you speak of quantity of slaves, you may be right. UK, US, France, Brasil / Guinea Bissao may have been the places with most slaves (Spain tried to concentrate their slaves on Cuba or sth), but they were probably not the ones using the most cruel practises.

You know the Y-chromosomes of Black Iraqis? Yes, the Y chromosomes are pretty purely Arabic.

In Black Americans, you do find Y-chromosomes from actually Africa.

7:51 Not too few actually did want to:

• end slavery and
• send ex-slaves to Liberia.

They didn't like the competion from cheaper slave labour.

They were also often from parts (Kenosha comes to mind) where one didn't own slaves.

9:41 There actually were US Americans who were held captive by Ottomans (in Morocco, I think) and then liberated through diplomacy.

They had been held in slavery, one of them had gone blind, perhaps through diabetes.

9:57 Sir, I don't know that you look like an Afro-American.

She may be talking about certain rumours going on among Black Americans.

10:23 Arguably, some who did live like pharaos financed that by precisely selling slaves, first to other Africans, then to Arabs and Europeans, depending on where in Africa.

Plus getting rich on slave labour, by owning slaves themselves.

11:08 It's true that some White Nations, as well as Arabs and Ottomans, were providing a market.

But an indigenous market already existed, if on a somewhat smaller scale.

11:50 You said "Europeans created the market"?

"A series of walls marked the incremental growth of the city from 850 AD until its decline in the 16th century. To enclose his palace he commanded the building of Benin's inner wall, and 11-kilometre-long (7 mi) earthen rampart girded by a moat 6 m (20 ft) deep. This was excavated in the early 1960s by Graham Connah. Connah estimated that its construction if spread out over five dry seasons, would have required a workforce of 1,000 laborers working ten hours a day, seven days a week.[citation needed] Ewuare also added great thoroughfares and erected nine fortified gateways. Excavations at Benin City have revealed that it was already flourishing around 1200–1300 CE.[15]"

Noting, some wikipedian inserted "reference needed" here, but I think the "Kingdom of Benin" (that's the article on wiki) is pretty good evidence there was an indigenous market for slaves too.

12:26 I think her phrase "to our ancestors" means part of those other people.

Are you trying to strawman her into sth she didn't say?

PragerU Wrong on Luther

PragerU Wrong on Luther · Dialogue under Luther Video · Other Dialogue under Luther Video

How the Reformation Shaped Your World
PragerU | 24.XII.2018
https://youtu.be/NCbhlC_sThY

Long link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCbhlC_sThY

0:22 - 0:27 "Indulgences might be loosely described as "get out of hell free" cards: pay this amount to the Church and the Church would make sure you don't suffer unduly for your"

Whatever.

This comment drains PragerU of much of its already somewhat strained credibility.

1) There was no indulgence for giving money "to the Church".

There were indulgences for giving money to specific good purposes, like feeding the poor, (feeding them in person, especially on the funeral or memorial day of someone you want to win an indulgence for is also per se indulgenced, even Biblically, in Tobit) as well as for other good deeds.

2) Indulgences don't get you out of Hell, they only speed up the train to Heaven in Purgatory - those who go to Hell already eternally missed that.

I'll give you a comparison. Someone offers you, when you are in hospital (the kind of poor old medieval hospital which isn't tax financed), resources for more food and camphor for the chest and other things which will speed up your full recovery. If you are alive when they arrive, they will do so. BUT, if you are already dead, you can no longer profit from them, and the resources are valuable for other patients of the hospital.

So, any merit of Christ (whose merits are infinite) beyond the bare minimum to get us saved (God knows what this is) and any merit of the saints (whose merits are based on His) beyond what it took to get them saved and to Heaven without passing by Purgatory, is disposed of by the Church. You gain an indulgence for yourself of someone else, the Church gives a part of that.

The good deed does not need to involve spending money, and it is not a requisite that money is given to the Church's alms collectors.

And, obviously, if you go to Hell, you miss all that, just as a dead patient misses the camphor and extra food portions.

Is this myth about indulgences being a sales deal by the Church so persistent because Burghley insisted on making it so? Cecil, Lord Burghley or Burghley Lord Cecil, whichever it was ...

0:53 "his complaints - and he made a list of 95 of them"

No, the 95 THESES are 95 theses as in academia a thesis is a thesis.

They are not a list of 95 complaints within a sole thesis "reform or you lose out on being Church".

Not all of the theses are complaints against Catholicism, or against Catholic practise and not all were condemned either. All of them are theses - topics he was willing to defend with further argument, if opposed. It should be added:

41 theses (not all of them from the 95) were condemned, and he got a chance to debate for them, with Cajetan.

On the Catholic view, he lost the debate.

You are somewhat sketchy on how Luther's "no division between Bible and believer" - btw, shared by Erasmus, who stayed Catholic - would take away the very foundation of Catholic authority.

If you meant the Bible includes passages condemning Catholicism (not Vatican II sect, but bona fide historical Catholicism and even as many aspects of the Vatican II sect that still with various local shades live up to that), that would have been an argument, but it would have been in need of stating and it would have been an untruth, which I could have contradicted you on.

2:37 "born a free actor endowed with God-given rights that exist independent of government"

I'd say Erasmus' other friends, Sts Thomas More and John Fisher are more involved in that one.

Luther was pleading for more totalitarian secular government, that is why Henry VIII and Gustav Wasa indirectly or directly backed his ideas.

A free actor implies the right to join a monestary. The right to do that involves the right to keep property collectively and accept donations. And THAT right was attacked by both Lutherans in Sweden and para-Lutherans in England.

Swedish nobles supported Reformation in 1527 (Luther's specifically, they took in two disciples of Luther from Wittenberg) because it allowed them to accuse monasteries of fraudulent reception of donations over centuries and to reclaim donations made by their forefathers.

2:45 "each person could find those rights by reading and interpreting the Bible himself"

To Luther, each person should find his duty of absolute obedience to parents and to secular rulers in all things except a minimum of what could very definitely be labelled sin even on clear and undisputed Biblical grounds, independently of the Catholic tradition : in other words, parents and government replaced tradition and magisterium.

Note : Luther was telling one secular ruler he couldn't forbid him bigamy.

2:51 "And throughout the first millennium, right up until Luther's day, only a few people could"

A small percentage, perhaps, in terms of affordable editions, but not few in total numbers.

3:12 "a language familiar only to the clergy and educated elite"

Except ... not. Getting an education and getting an élite position was far from synonymous, you did not even need to become clergy and you most certainly could be clergy without being very élite.

In fact, in Erasmus' day, barriers to learning Latin were raised, and Luther was not against that. Medieval Latin is easier to master than Classic. St. Thomas Aquinas is easier than Cicero.

3:21 "Luther answered this problem, by translating the Bible into everyday German"

The Saxon chancery was not more everyday than any other German which had been used by prior Roman Catholic translations to German. It was less dialectal by modern standards, which Luther's choice of language and his religion's success helped to mold.

3:40 How about NOT giving Luther the credits for what actually Gutenberg did?

He was a Catholic, by the way.

Updates:

3:52 In fact, Jan Hus could have given a precedent for how Luther could be treated at Diet of Worms.

However, this did not happen, and even a sound long debate ending with his sound refutation (other option) did not happen due to some corrupt nobles - notably the one of Saxony. We'll have a look fast forward 4 centuries at relations Lutheranism and secular power:

Did you know that Luther's successor in Saxony, basically, the Landesbischoff of Sachsen, this is a post which in 1930's and early 40's was held by Friedrich Coch? 1933 - 45.

Did you know Deutsche Christen actually started out independently of National Socialism, but not independently of Reformation?

Zum 400-jährigen Jubiläum der Reformation 1917 gaben Andersen, der Schriftsteller Adolf Bartels, der Kirchenrat Ernst Katzer und Hans von Wolzogen 95 Thesen heraus, um ein „Deutschchristentum auf evangelischer Grundlage“ zu begründen. Darin hieß es:[3]

„Die neuere Rassenforschung endlich hat uns die Augen geöffnet für die verderblichen Wirkungen der Blutsmischung zwischen germanischen und nichtgermanischen Volksangehörigen und mahnt uns, mit allen Kräften dahin zu streben, unser Volkstum möglichst rein und in sich geschlossen zu halten.

Religion ist die innerste Kraft und feinste Blüte im geistigen Leben eines Volkes, kann aber nur in völkischer Ausprägung kulturkräftig wirken […] Eine innigere Verbindung zwischen Deutschtum und Christentum ist nur zu erreichen, wenn dieses aus der unnatürlichen Verbindung gelöst wird, in der es nach bloßem Herkommen mit der jüdischen Religion steht.“

Der „zornige Gewittergott“ Jehova sei ein anderer als der „Vater“ und „Geist“, den Christus verkündet und die Germanen geahnt hätten.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Christen

4:33 Capitalism and Enlightenment ... don't shove that dirt on Luther.

Calvin is closer to both.

Luther was a rigorist about taking of interest being usuary, he was harsher than Pope Leo X on that account.

Pope Leo X had allowed municipal pawn brokers to charge a very moderate interest to a very sober upkeep of the clerks (and presumably janitors) BUT he had added it was actually holier if half those expenses were covered by municipal property, like income from such or such a municipally owned farm - or municipal taxes.

4:51 of the 56 signers, all but one was a Protestant

Let's not forget how many were freemasons, and I don't think even one was a Lutheran.

Luther momentous?

Sure, one day that will be said of False Prophet and Beast too .... is perhaps already said of the persons, I have two main suspects, but think they have some way to go before full satanic evil.