This video was made possible by Squarespace
Start building your website for free at squarespace.com/rll
and then when you are ready to launch, use your code rll to get 10% off at checkout
Throught the course of human history, people have fought against
and killed one other for some pretty stupid reasons.
At least, it may seem that way
from our sophisticated way of viewing things from the 21st century.
There was the time that El Salvador invaded Honduras
after a controversial football game.
The time that the Austrian Army fought a battle with itself while drunk
and countless times when one guy thought that his religion
or way of ruling was better than anybody else's.
Most wars in fact could probably be argued
were fought for stupid reasons
But in all of my personal reading
I have never come across one as silly sounding
as the War Of The Bucket
which, yeah was an entire war
where thousands of people
died fighting over essentially
a wooden bucket.
The setting was Northern Italy
during the late Middle Ages.
Italy at the time was divided into various
different city states
and Northern Italy, in particular
was part of the Holy Roman Empire
and so the states here were mostly independent
but technically
under the legions of the Holy Roman Emperor
back in Germany.
And since people like arguing about literally
anything,
a conflict arose in Northern Italian states
between who had more authority.
the Holy Roman Emperor
or the Pope.
In 1176,
the Holy Roman Emperor invaded Italy
and was defeated by a bunch of city states
brought together by the Pope.
Over the next couple centuries
different states shifted around allegiances
but by the 14th century
Modena was with team Roman Emperor
and
Bologna was with Team Pope.
In 1296 Bologna invaded
a couple of territories from Modena
which their buddy at the Papacy
confirmed to be legitimate.