THE WAR OF THE BUCKET - Oversimplified - A Historian Reacts

welcome back everybody to another oversimplified reaction video if you have not seen my other reactions to oversimplified videos i have listed them all in the description below so you can check them out also the link to the original video we're going to be looking at today it's the war of the bucket now i know very little about the war of the bucket my understanding is that it wasn't really over a bucket but rather this is a war between a couple of neighboring areas in what is today italy uh and that the bucket was taken as a trophy i believe there was really only one battle during the war of the bucket but that's about it that's really all i know so i'm here to learn today i'm excited to dive into this if there are interesting things that i want to learn more a little more about we may stop throw on the glasses and do a little looking some things up but other than that i'm excited to dive in let me know your thoughts use the comment section below let's check this one out you yeah you new merch available now including a supremely uncool t-shirt and a glorious new character pin link in the description down below all right folks gather around i've got some good news and some bad news did you say good news and glad news no i said good news and bad news very bad news word on the street is there's going to be a horrible plague coming in from central asia in the next couple decades that'll wipe out half of europe what's the good news do you have a cure please say you have a cure no even better the good news is we've got a new bucket for this city well yay wait you know what that makes me think of uh if you've ever seen monty python on the holy grail uh there's this kind of ongoing thing where they they're doing like the their animated parts and as a part would say and there was much rejoicing and there's like a couple flags that wave and stuff like that so it makes me think of [Applause] [Music] to understand the war of the bucket we first need to talk about this guy he's the man with the plan the host with the most he's holy lowly he eats ravioli with the white cassock matching pellegrina and the most tasteful of fringed facials come on y'all know who i'm talking about it's the pope the head of the largest religious organization in the world well so an interesting background to the pope the uh those of you are familiar uh probably more familiar with uh roman history than i am uh the title supreme pontiff which is you know one of his titles um supreme pontiff of the catholic church is actually something that predates christianity it was actually a title that existed in rome as well i don't know a lot of the background but i know they kind of borrowed that from there what if i told you he wasn't always the big bad boy powerhouse he's often thought as today that's right throughout history the papacy often found itself forced to wrestle against adversity and opposition to retain its authority the earliest popes for example suffered under the brutal persecution of the roman empire and many ended up martyred such as pope clement the first who was ostensibly thrown into the sea with an anchor around his neck on the bright side however he's now the patron saint of fishermen after persecution finally ended the pope still found himself being heavily controlled by secular kings and nobility for over two centuries the byzantine emperor basically decided who could become pope then came a real low point during what has been called the dark age a period where noble women controlled the pope through how should i put this feminine charm it was around here that one infamous pope john the 12th took office this bad boy would hold how should i put this naughty no closed parties in the lateran palace and apparently this would even happen come on zeus give me a six the did i say zeus i meant thor yeah we have to remember that you know while today the pope is the head of the catholic church and he was then too uh he was very much a secular leader as well and and you know you look at the bourgeois for example one of the borders becomes pope and he's got children and a lot of these popes even though we're supposed to be unmarried would have mistresses would have um you know would wear armor and lead troops into battle and you know the pope was not you can't just like with a lot of things in history you can't apply today's understanding of something to what it was seven or eight hundred years ago the pope was very different than he is today ra the egyptian sun god no no dang it who is it we worship perhaps you should read this your holiness in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth wow this is wild pope john xii eventually died exactly how he lived caught in the act by an irate husband who picked the pope up and chucked him out the window wait the point wait wait all right let's look a little more about that one up john the 12th all right so first of all pope john the 12th is somewhere between the ages of 17 and 24 when he becomes pope so there's your first problem right there uh his name was octavianus of spoleto uh and it says his pontificate became infamous for the alleged depravity and worldliness with which he conducted it uh two conflicting stories of his birth both are kind of uh scandalous uh his what what okay his mother may have been an unnamed mistress of albert who gave birth to him at 9 30 or it could have been albert's wife also his stepsister game of thrones has nothing on the romans there's a long list of grievances against john the 12th and it includes ordaining a 10 year old as a bishop part of a larger claim he had been selling off titles within the church in ordaining a deacon in the horse in a horse stable he was accused of fornicating with his father's mistress not the same one who may have been his mother presumably his own niece and several widows and quote made the sacred palace into a whorehouse the same account claims he blinded his confessor and then killed him and castrated a sub deacon before also killing him good night he had a powerful ally and the king of germany who was the holy future holy roman emperor um he also made an enemy of him he's only 27 or 34 when he died killed by a woman's husband in which he was enjoying a adulterous sexual encounter okay dang and there's a lot more to his story than that but there you go john the 12th and make here is that often the pope was a very weak and corruptible figure and was regularly used and controlled by secular leaders as a tool to increase their own power and influence and there was certainly an element of that in the year 800 when the pope and the kingdom of the franks were good bffs and king of the franks charlemagne was like hey man being king of the franks is nice and all but i want more legitimacy and also to become the continuation of the roman empire so what say in return for my protection you crown me emperor so everyone will respect me more sure thing pal we'll hold the ceremony tomorrow charlemagne king of the franks i hereby crown you emperor of the west oh oh my goodness i i was not expecting this no no no surprise i simply cannot accept oh okay then i guess i'll just put this back over here give me that crown charlotte means and you know this begins a time when the pope actually offers legitimacy to to heads of state in europe and actually this is where eventually the pope will get a lot of his power and authority is because he becomes the one everybody looks to to give them the okay to go to war to give them the okay to overthrow someone to give them the okay to get a divorce and marry someone else henry viii and others uh so this is the you know the start of that process i mean it's been happening some here and there but this is where the pope goes from being someone who relies on the protection of others to being the one who grants the authority to others crowning his emperor was certainly an historic moment but it also created a bit of an interesting problem it set the precedent that from here on out only the pope could crown an emperor yeah but the pope was also very much under the influence and control of charlemagne so who really held the power here the pope or the emperor i'm sure that this conflict won't cause anyone to die bishop of frising we want to thank you once again for visiting our wonderful city it's been an honor the pleasure is all mine and what a wonderful tour it's been i've seen the city walls i've seen the towers nothing could what about the bucket oh couldn't it because we've saved the best for last ta-dah yeah that's very interesting isn't it the greatest thing you've ever seen well i mean it is just a bucket just a bucket get him out of here over time charlemagne's position as emperor and the kingdom of the franks gradually evolved into the holy roman empire and by now the pope and the emperor weren't such good friends anymore since neither could agree on who was the boss of who to make matters worse the emperor had taken to investing his own bishops and abbots what does that mean well allow me to explain the problem for the holy roman emperor was his empire wasn't really an empire so much as a nightmarish federation made up of hundreds of counties duchies bishoprics and more and so i think it was might have been voltaire i could be wrong about who said that but who said the holy roman empire wasn't holy it wasn't roman and it wasn't an empire it wasn't any of the things that it was labeled as the princes in charge of these local regions often didn't give the emperor their loyalty the german nobility spent a lot of their time rebelling against the emperor and the emperor spent a lot of his time trying to put down those rebellions can we get rid of them who all the nobility get rid of them and pick new ones who are loyal to me you can't just remove noble families from their territory please kind of cool okay how about this some of those territories are ruled by bishops and abbots and as holy roman emperor considered by many to be the deputy of jesus christ himself perhaps you can choose who gets to become bishop an abbot yay no and this is something that a lot of secular leaders tried to wrestle for that kind of power happened in england where the kings of england tried to have the authority over who would become archbishop of canterbury for example uh things like that so there's and a lot of times the popes in order to keep powerful secular leaders supporting them which thereby then gave them their authority that they would you know that circular thing he's talking about division of power they would often say okay you know what you can name whoever you want way out there in britain way over there in germany if you want to uh and i will support your decision just make sure you keep supporting me now it's time to turn out the lights and go to sleep okay i love you uh okay good night say it back and so it was the emperor invested his own family and loyal followers into powerful church positions which was no different than what the pope would often do as we've already discussed and thereby was able to increase his own power and authority not only that but the emperor and other nobility were also engaging in something called simony that's when someone would come along and say hey i want to become a bishop and get all the personal riches that come with the position perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement that's right church positions were actually being sold to the highest bidder and let me tell you they probably didn't come cheap it's gonna cost you a lot more than this i don't think so i've got a promo code oh boy speaking of promo codes do you like free money i know i do i really like it and that's why i use honey honey it's actually really good i use it too that automatically finds the best promo codes whenever you shop online for free this means you always get all the displays on over 20 000 sites like amazon ebay asos and more for 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investing bishops and habits selling church positions authority and power wait a minute this is depravity the purpose of the church isn't for him to increase his own authority for me it's for me to increase my own authority and power what about jesus your holiness what i thought the purpose of the church was to spread the good message of jesus christ how drunk are you [Applause] all very the results for the election of chief magistrate are in giovanni kablammy one percent spaghetti jeff two percent and spaghetti jeff all right that's probably a little bit offensive to italian people but we'll let that one go in the bucket 1 trillion around the year 1050 a series of reformist popes came along and they said enough was enough they wanted to stop the emperor from abusing the church and investing his own church officials how are you gonna stop me so long as i have control over who becomes pope remember this circular power division if you try to stop me i'll just oppose you and pick someone else oh no i've contracted tuberculosis just like that the emperor was dead his six-year-old son henry iv took over and as we all know child emperors equal opportunity the church had an opening to take back control of the papacy hey man i hope you don't mind but we're changing the rules so that only the church cardinals can elect the pope and you no longer have any say in the matter you know if that's cool with you i peed my pants okay great talk then with the position of the pope a little more secure he held a big meeting where he drew up a big list of all the reforms and new powers he was giving himself and it included some pretty gnarly stuff okay first i have the power to depose emperors everyone cool with that yeah this is you got to think about this is pretty gutsy i mean and these are the kinds of things that are only possible in the power vacuum that exists when children a seed to the throne in a given region same kinds of things happen all throughout history when children come to the throne he's going from not only taking away from the power or from the emperor the power to have a say in who the pope is now he's giving himself the power to say who the emperor is this is a major shift in the balance of power um let's see only i can depose or reinstate bishops yeah all right no one can judge me uh all princes shall only kiss my feet only my name shall be spoken in the churches my name is the only name in the world okay i think you're done these were all some pretty radical powers the pope was giving himself and with these reforms the pope was basically telling the emperor you no longer have the right to choose your own bishops and abbots only i can do that when the emperor now a full-grown man heard the news he was furious what this is madness who does this guy think he is i'm the emperor for goodness sake he can't tell me what to do i'll invest my own bishops and habits if i want to and this raph scallion can go right to heck i peed my pants again the whole conflict escalated when henry iv went to the pope and said hey guess what sucker you're deposed hmm wait a minute i'm the pope you can't depose me i depose you pose yep oh wait a minute i'm the emperor you can't depose me you're deposed oh wait a minute eventually the german princess took advantage of the situation and they all turned against henry henry was forced to apologize to the pope and the whole thing ended there except it didn't the whole conflict known today as the investiture controversy would continue on for centuries as popes and emperors engaged in a power struggle over the emperor choosing his own church officials the overall result of this conflict is very intricate and full of complexities but in general the pope was able to increase his authority great news here holiness your influence is on the rise throughout civilized europe except for this one city in northern italy really what's going on as for the emperor he found his realm thrown in i don't think it was quite like that but i love how he's making this bucket to be uber important way more than it really was because it's the war of the bucket further chaos and civil war as the local princes continued to increase their own power and independence this was most notably the case in northern italy separated from the rest of the holy roman empire by the alps the emperor's influence and control over italy had often been questionable and you know i mean thinking of this in modern terms italy germany austria switzerland you know these are primarily germanic cultures that are north of the alps it's primarily italian culture south of the alps there's a natural divide that goes beyond just the um the geographical divide there so let's look a little bit more into what's going on at this time so while they kind of implied that this is something that goes on for hundreds of years and to an extent it does because there is that balance of that struggle of power but primarily most of it was settled uh within about a 50-year stretch here in the investors the investiture controversy uh 1076-1122 um you know that struggle between the papacy and the catholic church and the salient dynasty of german monarchs who ruled the holy roman empire now later on in the holy roman empire it's not always going to be germans who rule the holy roman empire you know charles v for example is a habsburg um spanish emperor he's the uncle or he's the nephew of catherine of aragon who's married to henry viii so you know they get away from that strictly german kind of thing but uh you can see here henry iv uh who was the holy roman empire emperor from 1084 to 1105 and king of the germans during much of that same period and says although the conflict persisted beyond their deaths and had political ramifications for centuries to come that's kind of the the primary time and it really goes all the way back to otto the first 962-973 who's a couple generations after um you know charlemagne but by uh the 1100s for the most part this thing's pretty well resolved in the current chaos these italian city-states began operating almost entirely independently their practical independence was further solidified when emperor frederick barbarossa came down in 1176 to try to reassert his control the cities formed an alliance and with the pope's support they kicked the emperor right back to germany hooray said the italian city states we did it we're the best of friends and then they immediately began attacking each other why well this whole pope versus emperor thing in italy at least had infiltrated society to its very core well and remember too that this is a common thing in history right you can unite warring peoples behind a common enemy once you defeat that enemy then you start focus on each other again uh look at even in modern times look at the united states uh when 9 11 happened democrats and republicans were incredibly united george w bush had like a 90 approval rating that's unheard of that's ridiculously unheard of for any leader in this country to get that kind of support but you know when everybody's focused on an exterior threat or opponent or enemy then suddenly all the stuff that we were upset about kind of gets set aside but then once we deal with that for a while now we're gonna focus on each other again across italy families and cities were torn between two opposing sides on one side the guelphs who supported the pope's cause on the other the ghiblis who supported the emperor these two sides struggled for control as guelph cities battled against ghiblin ones as usual personal interest played a pretty big role as pro-pope guelph cities tended to be rich mercantile ones who didn't like the emperor's taxes emperor supporting gibbelings on the other hand were often agricultural where the expanding people's states were a larger threat these cities would sometimes even switch sides depending who is in charge and their ever-changing personal interests in some cities brutal fighting broke out in the streets as opposing families fought for control at times okay we got sword sword sword toward spanking the guy in the butt it's uh and this guy's about to be thrown off a roof up here i don't know what's going on back here uh that guy's a plague doctor and he's just kind of chilling conflict became so tribal that the differences between the two sides were just downright silly my love i can't bear it we must be together but how can we my gibbeling family wears feathers on the left side of their caps and your guelph family wears them on the right like romeo and juliet family cuts fruit straight down and your guelph family cuts fruit crosswise these are arbitrary differences we shouldn't let them tear us apart we can be together no matter what our families think wonderful news let's make a toast to our love i'll drink from my giblin smooth goblet and i shall drink from my guelph chaste goblet get out of my sight you dirty pope loving wench two city-states in particular that got caught in a long-standing rivalry was the emperor supporting modena and the pope supporting bucket-loving bologna these two cities had bad blood between them as they had already fought against each other on a number of occasions in 1249 the two sides took part in the battle of fasolta after which the victorious balinese launched a live donkey into modena to humiliate them for decades after that the two so again reminding me a little bit of monty python and the holy grail where they're like facilitate you know go get the cow and they launch a cow at the guys that legit was something that happened apparently um we're gonna have to look that one up too because i i gotta know if that's real okay so right here the tensions be uh continued to rise between the guelphs and the gibbelins uh they rose to a boiling point and many battles were fought between many of the city-states in 1249 there was a standoff between the guelphs and the gibbelins the battle of fasalta in the battle us the us the bolognese along with the guelph allies attacked the modena city-state this battle is another one of the escalated actions between the gulfs and the giboleans brought on by the rivalry between the holy roman emperor and the pope as expected we will we were successful in our attack and one for ourselves and the pope to further humiliate modena we launched a donkey into their city to show how exactly exactly how ridiculous their beliefs are i don't know exactly how that shows how ridiculous somebody's beliefs are it kind of shows me that you're a little ridiculous that you launched a donkey into the city but hey okay whatever humiliate them for decades after that the two sides would occasionally take little day trips into each other's territory and mess things about a bit in the fateful year of 1325 the bolognese went on one such trip and laid waste to some farmlands the ruler of modena passarina was having none of it the bolognese had two major forts protecting their city in the southwest so pasarino in retaliation decided to take an army down and lay siege to one of them hey you dirty balinese jerks you think you can rate our farmlands come out here and face me like a man hey man what's up i just come out to let you know that there's no need to see jess because whoa hey man chill out i'm trying to tell you whoa stop doing that i'm trying to tell you i'm actually secretly sympathetic to the imperial cause and i want to willingly hand the fort over to you oh cool okay dude what was that for for betraying your people is for joining mine the bolognese were pretty unhappy to lose one of their main defensive forts but to make matters worse then this happened hey wait a minute where's the bucket oh no it's gone those modern knees must have taken it we'll make them pay this is unacceptable they may take our lives they may take our fort but they will never take our bucket oh wait here it is i found it guys it's right here phew could you imagine if we started a war over that that would have been really stupid and there'd probably be a billion videos about it on youtube one day thank goodness it never actually happened that's right the famous story you may know about the war of the bucket that the war started because modena stole bologna's bucket doesn't actually seem to be quite right i was surprised to find that the bucket was likely not actually stolen at the start of the war and at this point no it actually i think like i said at the beginning i think it was taken as a trophy after the fight actually happened i want to think and give a big shout out to fellow history youtuber m laser he's the one guy i found who actually translated a fantastic original italian source and then kindly allowed me to use his work in my own research he does really well researched and in-depth videos and definitely deserves way more subscribers so please head on over and check him out cool the real reason bologna seems to have declared war on modena is simply that they both hated each other supported opposing factions the pope had pulled on guelph cities to attack passerino and bologna wanted its fort back and they were gonna get it back bologna had a large force much larger than what modena could muster up so they felt pretty confident they sent half their force to lay siege and take back the fort and the other half took defensive positions to prevent the modernities from crossing the river the smaller modernist force were struggling to find a place to cross so one night they were like hey guys look out we're attacking way up here in the north better move your troops oh would you look at that that was easy and just like that the modernies were across the river the bolognese were probably expecting the modernities to come and break their siege but instead the modernities went for the second fort at zappolino bologna couldn't afford to lose both of its defensive forts so the entire balinese force moved to take defensive positions at zapolino when the modernese arrived it was already late in the day and there were about two hours of sunlight left in most medieval battles at this point both sides would set up a camp rest for the night and prepare for battle the next day but the outnumbered modernities decided the only way to win was to deal a quick decisive blow while the bolognese were still unorganized and unprepared and that's exactly what they did they charged at the bolognese line and the two sides engaged in fierce combat then the sneaky modernist pulled what must be the most predictable yet somehow consistently surprising move in medieval warfare they sent the cavalry around the side and hit him from behind bing bang bang the balance went on the run with casualties in the that he's right too i mean look at how often that's how people won battles that's typically why if you had cavalry you put them on your flanks so that didn't happen to you but it seems to have happened over and over and over again successfully somehow cousins modena had won and the modernist cavalry chased the balinese cavalry all the way back to the city after medena's victory they went on a tour of the balinese countryside burning some stuff down along the way when they reached the city itself instead of laying siege they set up a camp and basically held a massive party for three days the defeated balinese could only sit back and watch as the modernist force began packing up and getting ready to leave they noticed something oh my bucket hey check this out no way are you kidding me they're still using traditional wells hey you dumb bolognese ever heard of an artesian well you can't even get water out of the ground without using a stupid bucket it's not a stupid bucket it's a wonderful bucket yeah whatever bucket boy we're taking this with us all right let's talk about that for a second artesian wells let's talk about how those work so basically the thing about artesian wells is rather than digging down and and having the water bead down at the the level at which the underground water is and you have to lift it up you're you're digging somewhere where you've got water up high and water up low and wherever you are in the middle uh where the where the equilibrium is between those levels if you dig the positive pressure will push the water up so you know say right here you've got that level that level so halfway down right about here if you dig a well there the water is going to come right up to that level where the equilibrium exists between this lake and this bedrock so same kind of thing here you've got a stream down here you've got an area up here here's the groundwater table you can get the artesian well to come up to that level so instead of having to drop a bucket down you've got the water right there at that level so it's a lot more complicated than that obviously but that gives you a little bit of an idea behind what they're talking about there so my dennis stole bologna's bucket and put it up on display in their cathedral eventually moving it to the city hall where it remains on display to this day no way settlement a few months later bologna would have to pay heavy war reparations and in exchange modena would return all conquered territories modena kept the bucket despite being one of the bloodiest battles in medieval italian history it didn't really change anything except now modena had bologna's bucket as for the larger power struggle between the pope and the holy roman emperor that would continue on for some time and played a part in many major events of medieval history such as the crusades the protestant reformation eventually leading to the general separation of church and state we see in europe today so there you have it we learned about the pope and the holy roman emperor the investiture controversy and finally the war of the bucket it's been a long day and it's time to turn out the lights and go to sleep okay i love you um okay good night say it [Music] so one of the things i always love about oversimplified and i've talked about this before uh is that he he does a great job of showing how everything's connected no historic event exists in a vacuum it happens because of the things that came before it and the things that come afterwards happen because of it so you know he gave a lot of background into the hundreds of years before that how those events all led up to a seemingly unrelated event but they're all connected and you can do the same thing all throughout history you take out one event and everything that comes after after completely changes so uh kudos to him for doing that make sure you check out his original content if you haven't already i'm guessing you probably have check out all my other oversimplified reactions in the descriptions below and we will see you again soon thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 185,724

Keywords: the war of the bucket, war of the bucket reaction, the war of the bucket - oversimplified, oversimplified reaction, history reaction, war of the bucket, holy roman empire, oversimplified the war of the bucket reaction, historian reacts, war of the bucket oversimplified reaction, reaction video

Id: Y-O7TKCVpf0

Length: 32min 9sec (1929 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021