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Historical links
Oct. 4th, 2018 08:15 pmHistory:
The Lion in Winter:
A Game for Scholars: terrific tale featuring my favourite medieval dysfunctional couple in their Albee-esque glory.
And in non-fiction news:
How Indiana Jones invented a quote from Charlemagne: very entertaining "he never said that" rant. I empathize, though I have to say, this bit:
Charlemagne was quite a conqueror. He ruled France (more or less) from 768 to 814, and in that period he waged war on a nearly annual basis, conquering what is today western Germany, northeastern Spain, and northern Italy and subjugating much of the rest of central Europe
...cracked me up, because yours truly learned the France/Germany bit in school exactly the other way around, i.e. "he ruled Germany (moreor less) and conquered France". Good old Karolus Magnus, or Karl der Große, definitely was taken as basically the ancestor/founder of both the German and the French kingdoms that came after him, and I dimly recall the treaty between his sons after they duked it out after his death is suppposedly one of the earliest, if not the earliest, surviving document featuring both old French and old German, in addition to Latin. Mind you, Charlemagne/Karl counting as a Frenchman in France and a German in Germany wasn't news to me; the post WWII fashion became to declare him "the father of Europe". But it was an odd reminder of how even post-nationalistic historians are influenced by country-centric povs.
The Lion in Winter:
A Game for Scholars: terrific tale featuring my favourite medieval dysfunctional couple in their Albee-esque glory.
And in non-fiction news:
How Indiana Jones invented a quote from Charlemagne: very entertaining "he never said that" rant. I empathize, though I have to say, this bit:
Charlemagne was quite a conqueror. He ruled France (more or less) from 768 to 814, and in that period he waged war on a nearly annual basis, conquering what is today western Germany, northeastern Spain, and northern Italy and subjugating much of the rest of central Europe
...cracked me up, because yours truly learned the France/Germany bit in school exactly the other way around, i.e. "he ruled Germany (moreor less) and conquered France". Good old Karolus Magnus, or Karl der Große, definitely was taken as basically the ancestor/founder of both the German and the French kingdoms that came after him, and I dimly recall the treaty between his sons after they duked it out after his death is suppposedly one of the earliest, if not the earliest, surviving document featuring both old French and old German, in addition to Latin. Mind you, Charlemagne/Karl counting as a Frenchman in France and a German in Germany wasn't news to me; the post WWII fashion became to declare him "the father of Europe". But it was an odd reminder of how even post-nationalistic historians are influenced by country-centric povs.
