The War of the Bucket - OverSimplified

hey 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 alright folks gather round 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 gonna 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 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 Pellegrino and the most tasteful of fringed fascias come on y'all know who I'm talking about it's the Pope the head of the largest religious organization in the world but 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 in opposition to retain its authority the earliest Pope's 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 saint 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 cold in 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 twelfth took office this bad boy would hold how should I put this naughty no clothes parties in the Lateran Palace and apparently this would even happen come on Zeus give me a 6 duh did I say Zeus I'm in Thor rather Egyptian Sun God 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 the 12th eventually died exactly how he lived caught in the act by an irate husband who picked the Pope up and took him out the window the point I'm trying to 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 Peyman 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 Sam returned 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 at all what a surprise I simply cannot accept Oh okay then I guess I'll just put this back over here give me that crown Charlemagne's 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 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 rising 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 top that Oh couldn't it because we've saved the best for last today yes that's very interesting isn't it the greatest thing you've ever seen well I mean it is 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 Abbot's 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 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 in pick new ones who are loyal to me you can't just remove noble families from their territory pwease oh okay how about this some of those territories are ruled by bishops and Abbot's 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 and Abbot yay now it's time to turn out the lights and go to sleep okay I love you okay good night yet back and so it was the emperor invested his own family and loyal followers into powerful church positions and thereby was able to increase his own power and authority not only that but the emperor and other nobility we're 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 and 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 is a free browser extension that automatically finds the best promo codes whenever you shop online for free this means you always get the best deals without even trying on over 20,000 sites like Amazon eBay a sauce and more for example here I am buying seven pizzas after a long day of animating it's currently costing me a hundred and thirty dollars oh hello honey you have a voucher for me you say all I have to do is click you say nice I saved $31 78 cents and all I did was click there is absolutely no reason not to use honey for everything you buy online it's free and literally takes two clicks to install get honey for free at join honey calm slash oversimplified that's join honey calm slash oversimplified and as always by using my links you'll be supporting my channel so thank you now where were we oh yeah investing bishops and Abbot's selling Church positions authority and power wait a minute this is the private e the purpose of the church isn't for him to increase his own authority in power it's for me to increase my own authority in 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 very [Applause] all right the results for the election of chief magistrate are in Giovanni KaBlam II 1% spaghetti Jeff two percent and the bucket one trillion percent around the Year 1050 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 going to stop me so long as I have control over who becomes Pope remember the circular power division if you try to stop me I'll just oppose you and pick someone else oh no I've contracted tuberculosis and just like that the emperor was dead his six-year-old son Henry the fourth took over and as we all know child Emperor's equal-opportunity the church had an opening to take back control of the papacy payment I hope you don't mind but we're changing the rules said that only the Church of 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 yep let's see only I can Depot's or reinstate bishops yeah all right no one can judge me 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 that Pope was giving himself and what these reforms the Pope was basically telling the Emperor you no longer have the right to choose your own bishops and Abbot's 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 Abbot's if I want to and this rapscallion can go right to heck I peed my pants again the whole conflict escalated when Henry the fourth went to the Pope and said hey guess what sucker your deposed hmm wait a minute I the Pope you can't oppose me you're deposed hmm wait a minute I'm the Emperor you can't oppose me you're deposed hmm wait a minute eventually the German princes took advantage of the situation and they all turned against Henry Henry was forced to apologise to the Pope and the whole thing ended there except it didn't the whole conflict known today is the investiture controversy would continue on for centuries as Pope's 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 your holiness your influence is on the rise there at civilized Europe except for this one city in northern Italy really what's going on there as for the Emperor he found his room thrown into further chaos in 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 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 were 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 it's very core across Italy families and cities were torn between two opposing sides on one side the Guelph's who supported the Pope's cause on the other the gibbelins who supported the Emperor these two sides struggled for control as Guelph cities battled against Ghibelline ones as usual personal interest played a pretty big role as pro pub well cities tended to be rich mercantile ones who didn't like the Emperor's taxes Emperor's supporting Ghibellines 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 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 the 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 Ghibelline family wears feathers on the left side of their caps and your Guelph family wears them on the right my Ghibelline 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 Ghibelline 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 cotton 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 for salta after which the victorious Balinese wants the live donkey into Modena to humiliate 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 Balinese went on one such trip and laid waste to some farmlands the ruler of Medina passerine idibon a coal state was having none of it the Balinese had two major forts protecting their city in the southwest sap a Sereno in retaliation decided to take an army down and lay siege to one of them hey you dirty Balinese jerks you think you can raid 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 just 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 and this is for joining mine the Balinese were pretty unhappy to lose one of their main defensive forts but to make matters worse then this happened hey wait a minute what where's the bucket oh no it's gone those modern knees must have taken it will 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 whew could you imagine if we started a war over that that would have been really stupid and there 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 my Dennis stole Bologna his 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 I want to think and give a big shout out to fellow history youtuber and laser he's the one guy 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 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 Pass Arena and Bologna wanted its fort back and they were gonna get it back Bologna had a large force much larger than what Medina could muster up so they felt pretty confident they sent half they're forced to lay siege and take back the fort and the other half took defensive positions to prevent the modernise from crossing the river the smaller modenese 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 out would you look at that that was easy and just like that the modern E's were across the river the Balinese were probably expecting the modern ease to come and break their siege but instead the modern ease went for the second fort at sapa lee no Bologna couldn't afford to lose both of its defensive forts so the entire Balinese force moved to take defensive positions at sapa lee know when the martinis 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 modernise decided the only way to win was to deal a quick decisive blow while the Balinese were still unorganized and unprepared and that's exactly what they did they charged that the Balinese line and the two sides engaged in fierce combat then sneaky martinis filled 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 bong the ball and knees went on the run with casualties in the thousands Medina had won in the modern ease cavalry chased the balinese cavalry all the way back to the city after Madonna'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 modern ease force began packing up and getting ready to leave and they noticed something oh my gosh hey check this out no way are you kidding me they're still using traditional wells hey you dumb Balinese 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 Souma Dennis stole below Nia'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 the two cities came to a peace settlement of a few months later bolonia would have to pay heavy war reparations and in exchange medina would return all conquered territories Medina kept the bucket despite being one of the bloodiest battles in medieval Italian history it didn't really change anything except now Medina had Bellinis 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 learnt 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 ok I love you ok good night say it [Music]

Channel: OverSimplified

Views: 10,378,083

Rating: 4.9293513 out of 5

Keywords: modena, bologna, bucket, italy, bucket war, guelph, ghibelline, charlemagne, holy roman empire, emperor, king of the franks, pope, medieval, middle ages

Id: Cln0J87vulU

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 21 2019

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