Chapo Trap House - Hell on Earth - Episode 8 Teaser

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

One final offensive reveals what the war had really been about. Subscribe today for access to the full episode and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse

Though the peace was signed on October 24th, 1648, the last military action concluded on November 1st. In the months leading up to the signing, one final Swedish offensive had made it all the way to Prague and put the city under siege. The Swedes were unable to take the old town of the city as the resilient Czech militia, filled out by citizen volunteers and university students, valiantly held the Charles Bridge against wave after wave of attacks. And so the Swedes set to do what may as well have been the singular purpose of the offensive, a mass pillage of the city of Prague. Up to the moment the news of the peace reached them, the Swedes reveled in what the war had mostly been about, a squalid orgy of loot. This ransacking included much of

the wonder collection of the old orb pondering emperor Rudolf II, including such items as the Codex Gigas, the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world. To this day, the Codex is still displayed at the National Library in Stockholm. It's notable for its unusual, massive illustration of Satan. So after all the speeches and pamphlets and cross-bearing processions, the real purpose of the war is revealed in its dying days, a Protestant army raiding churches to make away with candelabras and reliquaries. This was the real work of the Reformation, carrying off and melting down the wealth of the Catholic Church, turning the fixed symbols of a faded religious authority into tradable tokens for use in an increasingly overbearing commercial economy.

From a gold crucifix to a pile of gold coins, the transubstantiation of the modern world.