E.R. Chamberlin

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E.R. Chamberlin


Born
Jamaica

Eric Russell Chamberlin (1926-2006)

Historian and author. Chamberlin was the author of numerous popular history books ranging from ancient Rome to twentieth-century Britain. Although he was born in Jamaica, he returned to England with his father during the Great Depression. Chamberlin dropped out of school when he was fourteen and became an apprentice leather dresser.

When he was old enough, he eagerly left this work behind to enlist in the Royal Navy in 1944. He served in the military until 1947 and then found work at the Norwich Public Library. It was here that his real education began, and Chamberlin took advantage of his vocation by reading history texts avidly. He later also worked at the Holborn Public Library and then for the book divi
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Average rating: 3.85 · 2,642 ratings · 267 reviews · 41 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Bad Popes

3.73 avg rating — 1,196 ratings — published 1969 — 38 editions
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The Emperor Charlemagne

3.98 avg rating — 629 ratings — published 1986 — 14 editions
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The Fall of the House of Bo...

4.03 avg rating — 259 ratings — published 1974 — 3 editions
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The Sack of Rome

4.08 avg rating — 128 ratings — published 1979 — 13 editions
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Florence in the Time of the...

3.74 avg rating — 103 ratings — published 1974 — 3 editions
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Life in Wartime Britain

4.12 avg rating — 68 ratings — published 1972 — 5 editions
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Everyday Life in Renaissanc...

3.91 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 1973 — 16 editions
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The Count Of Virtue: Gianga...

3.67 avg rating — 42 ratings — published 1965 — 16 editions
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Marguerite of Valois: Queen...

4.16 avg rating — 32 ratings2 editions
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Loot!: Heritage of Plunder

3.53 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 1983 — 10 editions
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More books by E.R. Chamberlin…
Quotes by E.R. Chamberlin  (?)
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“The Roman regarded his spada simply as an instrument; for the Frank, however, the sword was not simply a token of his manhood but, after the triumph of Christianity, his religion. It was a common practice to include a saint’s relics physically in the hilt of the sword whose very shape reminded its owner of the origin of his religion. That veneration was passed on to all the descendants of the Franks so that the Germans and the French and the English all took the sword as the ultimate symbol of courage and of justice. It even had a personal identity and personal name: Charlemagne was supposed to have bestowed the slightly incongruous name of Joyeuse on his great blade and the sword of Roland would enter legend as Durendal.”
E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne

“Hadrian was the first Roman after a succession of devious Greeks and Sicilians upon the papal throne. He was a member of the Roman nobility and, as a member of the Roman clergy he was, in effect, the leader of a closed corporation within a closed corporation. The Roman clergy emphasized its distinctness, its uniqueness in every possible way. In their dress, in which they clung to privileges supposedly ensured to them by the spurious Donation of Constantine, they imitated the imperial senate using the mappula — a white, fringed saddlecloth when mounted (itself a senatorial privilege) — the campagna, or flat, black slippers and the udones or white stockings. To an outsider, these would seem almost tastelessly trivial privileges but in the highly structured, caste world of Rome they were vital points of difference. The clergy recruited itself from its own ranks, inducting boys at an early age. Indeed, the traditional minor orders known as doorkeeper, lector and exorcist had become meaningless in that they were increasingly bestowed on ever younger children. The candidate was presented personally to the pope by his nearest male relative or guardian and would later be examined for proficiency in reading. Ironically, the Latin spoken and written in Rome was far more corrupt and degraded than that used by the northern ‘barbarians’ as the ancient language gradually made its transition into Italian. His examination passed, the boy would receive the tonsure. Again, this was a device not simply to set them aside from the laity, as such, but from their own fellow citizens who wore their hair long and so adorned that a Frankish monk noted that they were called ‘in admiration or rather derision hypochoristicos or pretty things’. The desire of the Roman clergy to emphasize their uniqueness paradoxically included the liturgy.”
E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne

“In Rome itself, the once humble bishop of Rome would not only occupy the place of the emperor but take some of his titles, the potent Pontifex Maximus among them.”
E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne



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