Why we lost our ancient history in Europe

Europe lost much of its older history to centuries of religious violence and control over learning. The wars, trials and censorship below show how dissent, and the people who kept other memories, were removed between the 11th and the 19th century.

Crusades (1096-1291)

The Crusades were a series of religious wars launched by the Catholic Church to take the Holy Land back from Muslim rule. The First Crusade (1096-1099) captured Jerusalem. Estimates of its dead run from 100,000 to 200,000, many of them civilians.

Later campaigns also cost many lives on both sides. The Fourth Crusade ended in the sack of Constantinople. The Crusades left lasting hostility between Christians and Muslims. Read more on Crusades, killing in the name of and The Knights Templar.

Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229)

The Church launched this campaign to wipe out the Cathar heresy in southern France. At the massacre of Béziers in 1209, about 20,000 inhabitants were killed. Sieges and campaigns in the following years killed tens of thousands of Cathars and their supporters.

The Cathar population was almost destroyed, and much of the Languedoc region was laid waste.

Inquisition (12th to 19th century)

The Church set up the Inquisition to fight heresy and enforce orthodoxy. The Spanish Inquisition ran from 1478 to 1834 and executed thousands for heresy, witchcraft and other charges. Similar courts worked in Portugal, Italy and other parts of Europe.

Across Europe the inquisitions brought tens of thousands of executions, together with torture, persecution and fear.

Witch hunts (15th to 18th century)

The Church’s belief in witchcraft, working together with secular courts, drove the witch hunts. The peak came between 1560 and 1630, with major hunts in Germany, Switzerland and France.

Between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed across Europe, most of them women. The hunts left mass hysteria and long social trauma behind. See also Tracing the Term “Witch”.

Reformation and Counter-Reformation (16th and 17th century)

Martin Luther’s Reformation set Catholics and Protestants against each other. In the German Peasants’ War (1524-1525), up to 100,000 peasants were killed, many of them moved by Reformation ideas. The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) caused an estimated 2 to 4 million deaths.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was fought in the Holy Roman Empire over religion and politics. Estimates of its dead run up to 8 million. These wars changed the balance of power in Europe.

The toll

The Crusades cost hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps over a million. The Albigensian Crusade and the inquisitions each cost tens of thousands. The witch hunts killed 40,000 to 60,000, and the wars of religion killed millions, most of all in the Thirty Years’ War.

The Catholic Church’s role in these events left deep social, political and historical scars on Europe. For the Church’s own origins, see The Roman Empire created the Church (Vatican) and The Vatican.

Thinkers who paid the price

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He taught an infinite universe with many worlds, against Catholic doctrine. The Inquisition arrested him, tried him for heresy and burned him at the stake in 1600.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an astronomer, physicist and engineer. He supported the Copernican view that the Earth orbits the sun, which was judged heretical. The Inquisition tried him and forced him to recant, and he spent his last years under house arrest.

Michael Servetus (1511-1553) was a physician and theologian. He rejected the Trinity and attacked both Catholic and Protestant beliefs. Catholic authorities arrested him and he escaped, but he was later caught and burned at the stake by the Calvinists in Geneva, with Catholic support.

Jan Hus (1369-1415) was a theologian and philosopher who attacked the corruption of the Church and called for reform. He was excommunicated, arrested, tried for heresy and burned at the stake.

Artists and scholars

Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) was called before the Inquisition for his painting “The Last Supper”. The judges found some of its details irreverent. He escaped serious punishment by making small changes and renaming it “Feast in the House of Levi”.

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), the scholar and humanist, was never executed. The Church opposed his calls for reform and his criticism of its practices. He faced censorship, but he avoided direct persecution.

Translators and reformers

William Tyndale (1494-1536) translated the Bible into English, which Church law forbade. He was arrested, tried for heresy and strangled, and then his body was burned.

John Wycliffe (1328-1384) attacked the wealth and corruption of the Church and translated the Bible into English. He died of natural causes. His works were banned, and his remains were dug up and burned after his death.

Scientists

Francisco Hernández de Toledo (1514-1587) was a physician and naturalist. His work in botany and medicine brought him into conflict with conservative parts of the Church. His writings were suppressed and he met strong opposition, but he was not executed.

History in schools

Children have learned history in school for centuries, but what they learned, and why, changed many times.

In ancient Greece and Rome, education included myths, legends and major events. Greek education drew heavily on Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides. In medieval Europe, education was under the control of the Church. It centred on religious history, the events of the Bible and the lives of the saints, taught in monasteries and cathedral schools.

The Renaissance (14th to 17th century) revived classical learning, and schools began to read classical historians and humanist scholars. In the 16th and 17th century the Protestant and Catholic Reformations shaped education. Protestant countries stressed national history and the Bible, while Catholic schools kept a focus on religious history.

In the 18th century the Enlightenment gave secular history more room, in line with its ideals of reason and progress. National history grew as nation-states formed. In the 19th century public school systems in Europe and North America made history a core subject with a standard curriculum, and nationalism shaped the content, with national heroes and achievements in front.

In the early 20th century, history lessons aimed at national pride and citizenship, and textbooks were often approved by the state. After the Second World War, teaching became more critical and inclusive, with social history and more points of view. Decolonization brought global history into the curriculum.

Publishers and the Church

Private publishers, governments and schools have all published history textbooks. Well-known publishers in the 19th and 20th century include Longman, McGraw-Hill and HarperCollins.

The Church’s influence differed by region and period. In medieval Europe it dominated education and the history taught in it. In Protestant countries religious stories stayed central in history lessons until the late 19th century. Secularization in the 20th century reduced religious content, but religious history stayed an important part of many curricula.