askhistorians

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What did the Japanese Emperor and his court nobility in Kyoto do all day during their centuries of powerlessness? Did they engage in a pantomime government?	120
I've heard that the Cossacks looked down on regular Russians as they saw themselves as "free men" as opposed to regular Russian serfs. But were the Cossacks that served the Tsar really 'free men' in anyway? Did they have any rights or privileges above that of a Russian serf or peasant?	119
What were the laws concerning slavery in ancient Rome? Could a slaver clap any non-citizen in irons and enslave them? Were there any protections to prevent a freedman from being re-enslaved? Was slave-taking only allowed outside the borders of the empire?	115
Why is the Japanese Yen so weak in terms of one unit? Did the Japanese economy experience hyperinflation at some point and then stabilize or was the yen designed to trade in the thousands for daily stuff?	115
Why did the women of the Indian subcontinent grind their grains with stone hand mills (chakki)? Why didn't professional millers with watermills or windmills take off?	112
People of Iranian ancestry seem over-represented as authors of early Islamic religious texts and historical works. I've heard that this is because Iran had a literary culture while the Arabs did not. But I've also heard very little Sassanian writing exists. Are there 'lost' Sassanian works?	112
For centuries, sultans, emirs and atabegs were content to allow the Abbasid caliphs to remain as nominal figureheads. But, the Ottomans deposed them, why?	104
William the Conqueror was the Duke of Normandy, so it's not hard to see how he raised the army that conquered England. But where did the Norman adventurers that conquered Southern Italy raise men from? Did the armies of e.g. Robert Guiscard actually consist of Normans?	92
During the period when Christianity was being preached and then persecuted in Japan, did local Japanese Buddhist theologians attempt to respond to or attack Christianity intellectually? If so, what were their arguments?	87
Why did Christians attract attention for not sacrificing to the Roman Gods/Imperial Cult? Were Jews and Samaritans performing these sacrifices?	86

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