vogeltje wrote:Cavesa wrote:vogeltje wrote:Cavesa wrote:Alphathon wrote:Yeah, there are numerous weird mythical/heraldic beasts from the middle ages that originated from misunderstandings of descriptions of real animals. I believe the unicorn originated from a description of a rhino for example (either an extant species or a now-extinct European species)
Yep. A few hundred years ago, Charles IV (the most important Czech king, who was even more importantly a Holy Roman Emperor) once paid an outrageous amount of money for a dragon skull. The crocodile is still part of the exposition at Karlštejn, as it wasn't worth stealing later (unlike most things in the castle).
I thought that he would be Charlemagne, but I searched and he was Charles I, not IV, and the one I thought wasn't Czech.
It's really interesting and fun that they muddle up the descriptions of the animals and put them on their heralds.
Charlemagne in Prague
Nope. Charles IV had been educated in France. He spent there half his youth, under his original name Václav and his first wife was French (as the time went, he got married four times). And he took the name Charles as a great admirer of Charlemagne, when he got the crown.
oups
haha I don't know anyhting about history at all. I've heard of 2 Roman Emperors: Charlemagne and Caesar. sorry to the other ones. I am terribly ignorant about most things like history, politics, chemistry, computing, etc etc etc etc. But I know where Prague is
and Paris
It's funny that he thought a crocodile was a dragon because the crocodiles don't breath fire.
The
Roman Empire ≠ the
Holy Roman Empire, as much as the Holy Roman Emperors would have liked you to think otherwise.
In the 4th century the Roman Empire was split in two: the Western half centred on Rome lasted for less than 100 years more and its fall led to the dark ages; the eastern half was centred on Constantinople (modern Istanbul). It became known as the
Byzantine Empire since Constantinople was originally called Byzantium/Byzántion, although it was always officially known as the Roman Empire. It lasted until the 15th century when it was conquered by the
Ottomans (the predecessors of modern Turkey).
I forget who said it but the
Holy Roman Empire was "neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire". For much of its existence it can basically be thought of as equivalent to Germany, and indeed was sometimes known as
the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in later centuries, although it covered a larger area than the German
Sprachraum and also included the Kingdoms of Bohemia, Arles/Burgundy and Italy (although the latter two had been long since lost when it finally came to an end in 1806). Sometimes Charlemagne is considered the first Holy Roman Emperor but while he is the predecessor of the Holy Roman Emperors and was crowned "Emperor of the Romans" (in Rome by the Pope), his empire is usually called the
Carolingian Empire or the Frankish Empire since it evolved from the
Kingdom of the Franks/Francia. Basically he and his successors claimed to be the successors of Roman authority in the west. Eventually the imperial title became defunct again, but was ultimately reclaimed by Otto I of East Francia (a.k.a. the Kingdom of Germany/Kingdom of the Germans), one of the divisions of the Frankish realm, following his conquest of Italy (the other main divisions were West Francia – a.k.a. the Kingdom of France – Burgundy and Italy). The realm of Otto and his successors ultimately developed into the Holy Roman Empire. There's a lot more to it than that but we're off-topic enough as it is.
Of course while it was called the Kingdom of
Germany, this was
Germany in the Latin sense, and covered almost all of the continental West Germanic Dialect continuum, not just High and Low German; the only major exceptions are North Frisian and West Flemish (for most of its existence; it did fall under the empire at some points). I have do doubt this strongly affected the development of all these languages, although there was no
Dachsprache really until Luther translated the Bible in the 16th century, at which point Central High German slowly became the standard. Prior to that Low German and Dutch were also quite prominent, particularly in the
Hanseatic league.
Incidentally, and to bring it back to languages a little bit, the title
Caesar* became Germanicised and ultimately led to the words for emperor in most Germanic languages: the German
Kaiser, the Dutch
keizer, the Old Norse/Icelandic/Faroese
keisari, the Norwegian
keiser/keisar, the Danish
kejser, the Swedish
kejsare and the Gothic
kaisar; the Gothic term was subsequently borrowed into proto-Slavic and became
tsar etc and the Old Norse was borrowed into Finnish.
*Caesar was originally a name, that of Julius Caesar, but by the end of the Roman Empire had become
a title.
I am Jar-ptitsa and my Hawaiian name is ʻā ʻaia. Please correct my mistakes in all the languages. Thank you very much.
