Surgery, new topics and how I screwed up

Where to begin, well after an operation two months ago and spending a week high as a kite, I got back to researching on Spartacus. I continued reading my book which was very interesting however, I had a feeling that, although the story of Spartacus is compelling and interesting, that there wasn't enough, how to put it body to it for my major work and I decided thinking about new topics and spent two weeks when my brain was clear, playing with several. I searched around in the World wars for something interesting and enough flavour to maintain my interests and develop a new major work, but I just ending up thinking that the World wars, especially number 2 have been done to death and how many different ways could really interpret the Nazi regime and what started the war to end all wars. I left the world wars behind and starting indulging myself with my old history text books and what I could find there and unsurprisingly I found nothing at all that tickled my interests.

I played around with ideas leading up to Christmas and the New year but nothing held me long enough to be enveloped in its history, philosophy or ideas. Most unsurprisingly I found a spark for my ideal from a picture retaining to medieval England, Japanese knives in the kitchen and my father sprouting stuff about the Samurai and the of the warrior, it was mainly the knives though. I set about researching into the Samurai and came across something very surprising in the form of Feudalism. I found that both Japan and Western Europe in their medieval periods both revolved around a feudal system, both had similarities and differences and yet they never really had and significant connection with each other. Surprisingly to me, I had found both a topic I was thoroughly enjoying and had enough substance to sustain my major work.


My initial research started with a small compare and contrast essay from an american student for world history from 2007,
 http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1419709-Japanese-and-European-Feudalism
although I wasn't sure what to make of it at first but it had given me, time periods for both Japan and Western Europe and the basis of feudalism. It also revealed to me a key reason why feudalism had developed in this two distinctly different yet highly similar places. The reasons being the Western European feudalism developed due to invasions and foreign powers and was highly economical, were as Japanese feudalism was formed due to civil conflict and extremely militaristic. These turned into fantastic research points.

I was then lead to a similar small essay form
http://sasworldhistory.pbworks.com/w/page/10030566/Comparing%20Feudalism
here I was informed of other positions in the world where feudalism could have taken hold but instead consisted of a semi-feudalistic political system. I also found this quote rather intriguing "Feudal systems were in many ways early, less sophisticated versions of political societies that were gradually moving from purely local toward more centralized organization." and I pressed on for further research.

Then deciding I needed a bigger background for feudalism, I found a history of feudalism in Europe
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/feudalism-history-feudalism-europe.html
it reveal some of the origins and development of feudalism within Europe with William the Conqueror in the ninth century Frankish Lands. It also shown a light onto a scholars debate about weather or not feudalism is a Roman or Germanic concepts, as fiefs spawn both from the Roman institute of patricinium and the Germanic institute of mundium. I was also introduced to the spread of it from France to Spain, Spain to Italy, Italy to Germany and Germany to eastern Europe. This source however did not mention Japan in the slightest and shows me that Japanese feudalism is a completely separate case from European feudalism.

The realizing I needed a comparison between the warrior classes of the Knight and the Samurai, having knowledge from various movies that Knight lived by a code of chivalry and that from my Dads various rants about the Samurai's Way of the warrior, i set about comparing the two.
http://whatis.thedifferencebetween.com/compare/bushido-and-chivalry/
here I found the definitions of Chivalry and the Way of the Warrior I now know as Bushido, unsurprisingly there was more definitions for Chivalry then Bushido. Both were remarkable similar but very different when eveidently taken to heart by both warrior classes. However Bushido consisted of eight principle virtues
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/09/14/the-bushido-code-the-eight-virtues-of-the-samurai/
the Art of manliness listed as I. Rectitude or Justice, II. Courage, III. Benevolence or Mercy,  
IV. Politeness, V. Honesty and Sincerity, VI. Honor, VII. Loyalty, VIII. Character and Self-Control

More to come Nigel

1st Update: Should have been done awhile ago

I've spent the first few weeks looking over the assessment task trying to decide what I should use as a topic and how I would go about setting myself a question.

At first I was interested in researching Rome's Ninth legion and its mysterious disappearance, I started by researching what I knew about the legion which was a movie called The Eagle directed by directed by Kevin Macdonald,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_%282011_film%29

This proved very useful in finding the children's historical novel The Eagle of Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, upon which the movie is based. Both the movie and the book both have little historical basis in fact but in myth and legend, this disturbed me as the story of The Eagle of Ninth seemed highly possible. This roused my curiosity, I researched some more and came across The Massacre of the ninth legion against British tribes in Roman controlled Britain. However it was Wikipedia so I questioned it, the Wikipedia page however did lead me to references to the Ninth in the Annals of Tacitus. This proved surprisingly hopeful, however further research revealed the lack of reliable sources with an appropriate historical basis. Thus my research sadly ended and I was struggling to find a topic.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_of_the_Ninth
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Ninth_Legion
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_%28Tacitus%29
 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/home.html
 http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.1.i.html

 As I struggled to find a topic I was flicking through my Ancient History textbook and I saw the words Sparta. This caused me to have a brainstorm on the historical figure Spartacus, thus I started researching again on Spartacus.

I immediately jumped to media representations of Spartacus, but as I researched I started thinking of him as a historical figure and his influence on the world. Keeping both these possible areas of further research in mind I pressed on.

The first thing I came across in my Spartacus research was this timeline.

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/spartacus.html

This time provided me with important events before the revolt of Spartacus and slaves of Ancient Rome. Events such as the violence entering Roman politics in 133BC -121BC, this prove highly valuable with the division of the senate into the populares and the optimates as well as the backgrounds of both groups. The timeline also provided me with a map depicting the  movements of Spartacus and his army during the revolt. I was also granted various names of other historical figures in the time leading up to the revolt and those who fought against Spartacus. Names such as Crassus and Pompeius, which is two thirds of the First Triumvirate and this sparked my interest and I started to think of further research into Spartacus and the Triumvirate.

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/populares.html
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/optimates.htm
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/spartacusmap.jpg

Next I came across a summary of Spartacus and the slave rebellion

http://www.historynet.com/ancient-history-spartacus-and-the-slave-rebellion.htm

This summary confirmed the dates and provide more detail upon the events described in the previously mentioned timeline. It also provided me with more names to my list of historical figures and significant people prior and during the revolt of Spartacus. Although the use of the English language had little grammatical hic-cups, I still hold the source to some reliability as it provides me with more details of events which I can confirm with further research myself. This source also provided me with better time periods and possible accurate seasons in which the army of Spartcus fought and traveled through. Although the source starts to get a bit fictionish towards the end I still hold some credit to the source.

Lastly in my initial research is a BBC profile of Spartacus.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/spartacus.shtml

Although this only a small profile it provide me with insight into the influence of Spartacus today with the Spartacist League in 1919 Germany an their failed attempt to over throw the government.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_League

I also have a book called Spartacus Film and history which I begin to read tonight.

Nigel
AKA:Wannabe Spartacus