More than a few medieval­ists object to the term “Dark Ages” as applied to the peri­od in which they spe­cial­ize. That can seem wish­ful in light of most com­par­isons between medieval times and the Renais­sance that came after­ward, or indeed, the era of the Roman Empire that came before. Con­sid­er the state of Europe as the fourth cen­tu­ry began: “The great cities of antiq­ui­ty were depop­u­lat­ed, some left in ruins,” says the nar­ra­tor of the How So video above, telling the sto­ry of the con­ti­nen­t’s polit­i­cal and lin­guis­tic frag­men­ta­tion. “The Roman trans­porta­tion sys­tem decayed, erod­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and long-dis­tance trade. Coins van­ished, leav­ing no eco­nom­ic sys­tem to sup­port pro­fes­sion­al armies. Lit­er­a­cy plum­met­ed, crip­pling admin­is­tra­tive sys­tems. And most notably, peace and secu­ri­ty were gone.”

But there’s plen­ty more his­to­ry to come there­after: about a mil­len­ni­um’s worth, in fact, which the video cov­ers in a mere twen­ty min­utes. Events of note in that grand sweep include Jus­tin­ian I’s attempt to expand the Byzan­tine Empire of the east; the cre­ation and spread of the Islam­ic caliphate; Charle­mag­ne’s uni­fi­ca­tion of most of west­ern Chris­ten­dom; inva­sions by Vikings, Mag­yars, and Mus­lim raiders; the rise of cas­tles and the feu­dal sys­tem that they came to sym­bol­ize; the cre­ation of the Holy Roman Empire; the flour­ish­ing of cities and uni­ver­si­ties; and the Nor­man Con­quest of Eng­land, as seen on the Bayeux Tapes­try. There’s also the unpleas­ant­ness of the Black Death, which swept through Europe from the mid-four­teenth to the ear­ly six­teenth cen­tu­ry — but as with oth­er medieval dis­as­ters, the plague held the seeds of a civ­i­liza­tion­al rebirth.

“For some sur­vivors, the con­se­quences of the plague were not so grim,” says the nar­ra­tor. “As the pop­u­la­tion dropped, land became wide­ly avail­able, and the demand for labor rose dra­mat­i­cal­ly.” Peas­ants demand­ed improved con­di­tions and revolt­ed against the rulers who refused; ulti­mate­ly, they “gained new free­doms and oppor­tu­ni­ties, and work­ers enjoyed high­er wages. Cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion in sci­ence and cul­ture fol­lowed, cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment in which Euro­pean schol­ars “defined the past mil­len­ni­um as ‘Dark Ages,’ and so posi­tioned them­selves as the tran­si­tion between the medieval and mod­ern world.” Some liken the cur­rent state of the world to the decline of the Roman Empire; if they’re cor­rect, maybe we have anoth­er Renais­sance to look for­ward to about 40 gen­er­a­tions down the road.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Free Yale Course on Medieval His­to­ry: 700 Years in 22 Lec­tures

What Did Peo­ple Eat in Medieval Times? A Video Series and New Cook­book Explain

How Every­thing in a Medieval Cas­tle Worked, from Its Moats to Its Dun­geons

What Sex Was Like in Medieval Times?: His­to­ri­ans Look at How Peo­ple Got It On in the Dark Ages

How the Byzan­tine Empire Rose, Fell, and Cre­at­ed the Glo­ri­ous Hagia Sophia: A His­to­ry in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Advice for Time Trav­el­ing to Medieval Europe: How to Stay Healthy & Safe, and Avoid­ing Charges of Witch­craft

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Paw prints and feline urine stains on a medieval scribe’s man­u­script, per­haps they weren’t entire­ly out of the ordi­nary in the 15^th cen­tu­ry. But cats strapped to mini-pow­der kegs, bound­ing off to burn down a town — now that’s pret­ty unusu­al.

The incen­di­ary feline fea­tured above (and else­where on this page) comes from a dig­i­tized ver­sion of an ear­ly 16^th cen­tu­ry mil­i­tary man­u­al writ­ten by Franz Helm. An artillery mas­ter, Helm wrote about a broad and imag­i­na­tive set of destruc­tive ideas for siege war­fare. Although my Ger­man is some­what rusty, I got the sense that he was awful­ly fond of explod­ing sacks, bar­rels, and var­i­ous oth­er recep­ta­cles, and even­tu­al­ly decid­ed to com­bine these ideas with an unwit­ting ani­mal deliv­ery sys­tem. These ani­mals, accord­ing to Helm’s guide, would allow a com­man­der to “set fire to a cas­tle or city which you can’t get at oth­er­wise.”

The text was orig­i­nal­ly dig­i­tized by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, and a UPenn his­to­ri­an named Mitch Fraas decid­ed to take a clos­er look at this strange explod­ing cat busi­ness. Accord­ing to Fraas, the accom­pa­ny­ing text reads:

“Cre­ate a small sack like a fire-arrow … if you would like to get at a town or cas­tle, seek to obtain a cat from that place. And bind the sack to the back of the cat, ignite it, let it glow well and there­after let the cat go, so it runs to the near­est cas­tle or town, and out of fear it thinks to hide itself where it ends up in barn hay or straw it will be ignit­ed.”

That’s the mil­i­tary strat­e­gy in a nut­shell. Seems like a great idea, apart from the fact that cats are noto­ri­ous­ly unpre­dictable. In any case, here are more illus­tra­tions of weaponized cats to round out your work week.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cats in Medieval Man­u­scripts & Paint­ings

What Peo­ple Named Their Cats in the Mid­dle Ages: Gyb, Mite, Méone, Pan­gur Bán & More

Cats Migrat­ed to Europe 7,000 Years Ear­li­er Than Once Thought

Cats in Japan­ese Wood­block Prints: How Japan’s Favorite Ani­mals Came to Star in Its Pop­u­lar Art

In a brisk WIRED inter­view, Pro­fes­sor Tarek Masoud answers fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about Iran’s his­to­ry. He explains that Iran is not an Arab coun­try but a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Per­sian one, with a dis­tinct lan­guage and iden­ti­ty. He traces how the coun­try became an Islam­ic repub­lic after the 1979 rev­o­lu­tion, dri­ven by polit­i­cal repres­sion, eco­nom­ic ten­sions, and resis­tance to West­ern influ­ence.

Along the way, he tack­les the fol­low­ing ques­tions: Just how liberal/progressive was Iran pri­or to the 1979 rev­o­lu­tion? Why did the Iran­ian rev­o­lu­tion hap­pen? Is Iran the only Mid­dle East­ern coun­try whose mod­ern bor­ders were not cre­at­ed by colo­nial pow­ers? The son of Iran’s last Shah is ral­ly­ing pro­test­ers, but do Ira­ni­ans real­ly want anoth­er king?

By the end, you’ll know a lit­tle bit more about the coun­try at the cen­ter of Amer­i­ca’s lat­est mil­i­tary adven­ture.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!