Germanics and Jews

[alex221166]

Tautalos said:

Really, «just» a few thousand, that's all...
A «few thousand» is LOTS of people in a population of three million.


Anyway, the decline of Portugal is mainly due to the fact that Europe evolved into capitalist societies and the Portuguese were men of arms, of sailling, of the Cruzade, but not business men. Dutch, English and Jews are business men and that is why they succeeded.

You might have a point. Our best business men and scholars were Jews, and they were kicked out thanks to the Inquisition. It should be no surprise that a few years after the Portuguese Jews settled in Holland, the Dutch began trying to conquer Brazil for themselves. They ended up being defeated, and moved on to Curaçao ("coração" is Portuguese for "heart") and to New Amsterdam.

Without the Inquisition, a lot of knowledge and experience would have stayed in Portugal instead of being shifted to Northern Europe.

[Sandwich]

1) What is this "Masonic" stuff? I know very little about Masons except that most cops and many judges in Britain seem to be Masons, the movement is considered right-wing in Britain and Italy but left-wing in France, and that's about it. I'm not keen on secret societies of any type, but this notion of Masonic influence on cultures I find peculiar. Is it part of some anti-semitic weirdness and if so how? Some Royal Families are affiliated to the Masons too, quite openly.

2) I thought that the decline of the Iberian powers was brought about partly by the very influx of gold and silver from America that had founded their wealth, because these riches acted as a disincentive to productive investment and the growth of an aspirant ambitious middle class. The loss of the Netherlands made things worse.

Meanwhile French kings were encouraging manufacture, and England was developing the wool trade and a major merchant interest.

3) Catholic Europe remained an equal scientific force long after Luther. Think of Newton and Leibniz's discovery of Calculus and Descartes' key influence on both of them (coordinate geometry), and how it was taken up by Lagrange and Laplace. If you want to be Weberian about it though, I suppose you've got a point.

[Silveira]

1) What is this "Masonic" stuff? I know very little about Masons except that most cops and many judges in Britain seem to be Masons, the movement is considered right-wing in Britain and Italy but left-wing in France, and that's about it. I'm not keen on secret societies of any type, but this notion of Masonic influence on cultures I find peculiar. Is it part of some anti-semitic weirdness and if so how? Some Royal Families are affiliated to the Masons too, quite openly.

In Portugal, Freemasonry has been used as an organizational tool of foreign commercial interests and as a method of corrupting the political process. Freemasonry was introduced into Portugal by a Scottish wine merchant named Gordon in 1733. Freemasonry henceforth began tearing down traditional Portuguese institutions in order to enrich and empower a small group of merchants and lawyers.

[Sandwich]

I see, thank you. I'm guessing that you hold this group responsible for the Tavora affair and for the Constitutional Charter? For everything connected to the reduction of aristocratic and clerical power? I may be quite wrong, and you may be referring to altogether different traditional Portuguese institutions.

May I ask if you are yourself from an aristocratic family?

[Silveira]

To answer your question, no. Most of my family is what you may call "bourgeois", ie. doctors, teachers and agro-industrial sector entrepreneurs (dairy industry/milk processing and cheese manufacture), plus some peasants.

Portugal has no reliable state entity which regulates the use of aristocratic titles and therefore there has been much abuse in the last 100 years or so, especially by female "social-climbers". I am totally uninterested in this topic which is, for the most part, a source of amusement. This being said, the issuing of nobility titles did have a social usefullness in the past which no longer exists.

By traditional Portuguese institutions I meant the characteristically "popular" Portuguese monarchy, erected by genuinely popular National revolutions in 1385 and 1640, as well as the old decentralized system of government, based on municipal and corporative freedoms. Portugal, until the 18th century, presented only a superficial "feudal" façade under which a much older system, attributed by authors such as Oliveira Martins to a pre-historic Berber communalism, remained more or less intact throughout the rural communities in this overwhealmingly agricultural society. Feudalism, of Germanic origin, never held sway over the power of the "concelho" and the medieval corporations, as well as the Church, which in Portugal was very open to people of all social conditions, to the point where "plebean" priests and preachers were able to channel popular anti-Jewish sentiment by way of the Inquisition. These factors can explain the "plastic" nature of the old Portuguese society, when compared to the more rigid and feudal societies which existed in most of Europe, where the populations remained in a state of virtual serfdom.

Portugal´s old ways were to create problems and make adaptation to the modern "enlightened" world more difficult form the 18th century onward.

[berschneider]

Vimara said:

alex wrote
"The Inquisition was the reason why the economic and scientific center shifted from Southern Europe to Northern Europe."

i believe that the reason "science" took off in "northern" eruope was because of martin luther and the prtestant movement.

I wonder how did Martin Luther came about. I am sure Catholic Church and the inquisition did nothing to cause reformation.