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cahnGonna go ahead and make this post even though Yuletide is coming...
But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!
Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:
Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:
But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!
Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:
Five times Fredersdorf has to stay behind - and one time Friedrich doesn't leave.
Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:
Friedrich had started to talk to him because he had thought of him as a bit of a ditz.
And now here he was. Here he was months later, bundled up in this very same man’s blankets with a cup of hot coffee in front of him, its scent mixing with that of Katte’s French perfume.
_
Fluffy One Shot about one traitorous Crown Prince and the sycophant he accidentally fell for.
Re: Henry IV and Bertha
Date: 2022-10-18 09:40 pm (UTC)I thought you would like this!
they felt like siblings and there's a whole lot of angst about how they feel it's wrong to have sex
Wilhelmine and Fritz: We're not seeing the problem here? :P
Is it possible that maybe Bertha wasn't into unspeakable sexual acts and Henry felt bad about her having to do them because she was like his sister, but didn't feel so bad about Adelheid? Or was Bertha the one who was into unspeakable sexual acts and got Henry interested? I suppose we'll never know but I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS NOW.
I had the same questions!
Re: Henry IV and <s>Bertha/s> Eupraxia/Adelheid/Praxidis
Date: 2022-10-19 07:08 am (UTC)Firstly, both essays are open about the source problem, and about the extremely biased (in both directions) way historians dealt with the entire saga. The original source problem is every single report on it comes from monastery chronicles hostile to Henry. The historian problem is that the nationalistic 19th century, see above, decided on the German side that Praxedis was a liar in the service of Henry's enemies and naturally not a single accusation could be true, while the Russian side decided naturally, they were all true and Henry was a mad pervert and they were all true. (
What happened in 1092 was that Adelheid/Praxedis fled from Verona, where she was "under custody" (why? We don't know) to Mathilde of Tuscany, that enterprising Church-supporting lady we've encountered a couple of times before, remained with her and in 1095 at the Council of Piazenza in person (according to one of these two essays) accused Henry of...
...this is where the Chronicles come in, and the further the temporal distance is, the greater the accusation.
Bernold of Konstanz: "unspeakable infamies of prostitution", against which there was no remedy but flee her perverted husband.
Cardinal Priest Deusdedit in a pamphlet: She accuseed him of forcing her to have sex with other men; clearly, Henry IV is the new Nero.
Ekkehard of Aura: That, and also clearly that's why the Pope hat to excommunicate him again.
Annals of the Monastery Disibodenberg, written shortly after 1125 (i.e. more than a quarter of a century later): So, Henry locked her up in Verona to have her gangraped by multiple men. Then he ordered his own son Conrad to rape her as well, at which occasion he said that Conrad wasn't his kid because the late Bertha had cheated on him, so raping Adelheid would be no incest. Conrad refused, and that's why he rebelled against his father, in case you were wondering.
Gerho von Reichenbergt: Henry perverted the divine order, ignored divine and secular law and dirtied his own body as well as submitting his wife to unspeakable crimes.
Praxedis' English wiki entry: "She accused Henry of holding her against her will, of forcing her to participate in orgies, and, according to some later accounts, of attempting a black mass on her naked body.[8] According to these later chroniclers, Henry became involved in a Nicolaitan sect, and hosted the sect's orgies and obscene rituals in his palaces."
The 2010 essay also mentions the "Nicolatan sect" bit and attributes it to one Helmold von Bessau, who was born in 1120 and thus write three quarters of a century after everything had happened.
Nationalist historians: see above.
Current day historians: Okay, the black mass on her naked body thing is ridiculous and a late addendum, we can agree on that, escept for the Russians. But what about the rape charge per se? On the one hand, believing a woman who says she was raped = good. Otoh, why should he do something so counterproductive? Leaving morals and humanity aside, she was the Empress. Handing over your Empress to be gang raped would be incredibly face losing to any medieval monarch.
Russian historians: why else should his own son rebel against him?
Everyone else: *tiredly gesture at the countless father/son conflicts throughout history involving rebelling sons of monarchs*
Gert Althoff, apparently, according to the 2010 essay: I have a new theory! Maybe Adelheid/Praxedis was treated as a hostage for the Saxon nobles against whom Henry was fighting at the time due to her first marriage with one, and was abused like hostages are if things go south?
2010 Essay writer:....yeah, I don't think so. Even Althoff has to admit there is no comparable case, and also, the Henry/Adelheid match didn't happen as a result of his negotiating with the Saxons, it happened via her father the Grand Duke of Kiev. Henry couldn't afford any more enemies and he wanted that alliance, why the hell would he insult her father that way?
Tentative theory of yours truly, based on both essays: Eupraxia/Adelheid/Praxedis marries or is married against her will to a near 40 years old depressed guy who has recently lost the previous wife and has been fighting on/off battles against the church, and occasionally his own nobles, since he was a child. Whatever she expected from becoming Empress, this was not it. Also, they hardly seem to have been together, with her in Verona and him travelling up and down the HRE, and if they were, bonding evidently did not happen. And the only way she would have been able to get out of this marriage was via annulment, and the only person able to annull an imperial marriage was the Pope. Who sure as hell wasn't going to do it out of the goodness of his heart, and who had a Henry-installed rival Pope (Clemens III) to defeat. As to the rape question, let's not forget: if she didn't want to be married to him (and presumably no one asked her in the first place), then any consumnation of said marriage would have been rape - to our pov, though not to that of the medieval church.
Re: Henry IV and <s>Bertha/s> Eupraxia/Adelheid/Praxidis
Date: 2022-10-20 04:43 am (UTC)(Henry IV was rediscovered in the 19th century as a champion of German independence vs evil Rome, which is very anachronistic indeed but predictable, while otoh his second wife was rediscovered as a Russian (despite her being Ukrainian, from Kiev) martyr to German perversion by the obvious suspects, also predictable)
Yeah, this is all terribly predictable. From my reading, 19th and early 20th century nationalist historians stanned the Ottonians, Salians, and Hohenstaufen like there was no tomorrow, then the later twentieth century went, "...Awkward. Let's talk about something else," and only very recent decades have started engaging with this period again, in a less nationalist, pro-imperial centralization way. So I was fully expecting that you would find mostly what you found.
Ukrainian: Hmm, I had the impression that though the Russians and the Ukrainians claim the Kievan Rus' as their predecessor, "Russian" vs. "Ukrainian" isn't a well developed concept for this period. I.e. that the Kievan Rus' was its own thing, with a mixture of ethnicities and territory covering both modern Russia and modern Ukraine, and that you can't map modern borders onto the 11th century territory and expect to come out with anything meaningful.
Incidentally, the reason for the many names was that unlike Theophanu, the lady in question married into the West AFTER the great schism, which meant she had to convert from Greek/Russian Orthodoxy to not yet called that Catholic faith (this being pre Protestantism)
From my studies of early Christianity, I seem to recall that the word "Catholic" was applied to the ancestor of the modern Catholic church since very early on (googling gives me 2nd century), and was used by contemporaries to mean "not Arian or Donatist or any of those other heresies," and then I'm pretty sure it was used to mean "and also not the Eastern Orthodox heresy" after the East-West Schism, and then it was used to mean "and also not one of those damned Protestants" after Protestantism came along.
It's been used in both lowercase and uppercase form with subtle differences throughout its history, but in this case (unlike with "Prussians"), I see enough continuity in how it was used then and how it's used now to use "Catholic" for what Eupraxia/Adelheid converted to, with the understanding that there are no Protestants yet (but there have always been plenty of other "non-Catholics" that said Catholics have been eager to distinguish themselves from).
Russian historians: why else should his own son rebel against him?
Everyone else: *tiredly gesture at the countless father/son conflicts throughout history involving rebelling sons of monarchs*
I see they've forgotten about Peter and Alexei? Wow. He locked Alexei's mother in a convent, he didn't have her gang-raped.
See, and this is why I was so pleasantly surprised to find that Anisimov *didn't* say all the things I'd expect from a Russian nationalist!
Gert Althoff, apparently, according to the 2010 essay: I have a new theory! Maybe Adelheid/Praxedis was treated as a hostage for the Saxon nobles against whom Henry was fighting at the time due to her first marriage with one, and was abused like hostages are if things go south?
2010 Essay writer:....yeah, I don't think so. Even Althoff has to admit there is no comparable case, and also, the Henry/Adelheid match didn't happen as a result of his negotiating with the Saxons, it happened via her father the Grand Duke of Kiev. Henry couldn't afford any more enemies and he wanted that alliance, why the hell would he insult her father that way?
Wow. I mean, I feel like if we dug around enough, we could turn up something comparable, because history is vast and full of terrible people, but...yeah, where do the Saxons come in here? If he'd said Henry abused her because he was mad at the Rus', I'd be more inclined to consider the possibility, but "first husband" seems like a real stretch.
Well! I suppose "We have no idea, so we're stuck speculating" is the answer we always knew we were going to get. But having the details as to which chronicler said what when is great, thanks for digging that up and sharing it!
And the only way she would have been able to get out of this marriage was via annulment, and the only person able to annull an imperial marriage was the Pope. Who sure as hell wasn't going to do it out of the goodness of his heart, and who had a Henry-installed rival Pope (Clemens III) to defeat.
Makes as much sense as anything else, and more sense than a number of these theories!
As to the rape question, let's not forget: if she didn't want to be married to him (and presumably no one asked her in the first place), then any consumnation of said marriage would have been rape - to our pov, though not to that of the medieval church.
Yep, this. :/
Catholicism
Date: 2022-11-03 04:54 am (UTC)It's been used in both lowercase and uppercase form with subtle differences throughout its history, but in this case (unlike with "Prussians"), I see enough continuity in how it was used then and how it's used now to use "Catholic" for what Eupraxia/Adelheid converted to, with the understanding that there are no Protestants yet (but there have always been plenty of other "non-Catholics" that said Catholics have been eager to distinguish themselves from).
I mean... lower-c catholic just means "universal," and until very recently was a word people still said in the Creeds even in Protestant churches. (And maybe some of them still do! Dave's Lutheran church has now changed the relevant passage in the Nicene Creed from "I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church" to "one holy Christian and apostolic church" instead, I suppose not to be confusing to younger folk, but the older church elder types at his church learned and will still stubbornly say "catholic" instead of "Christian" when it is recited (and so do I, lol).)
Heh, Wikipedia says that after the East-West schism the Western church referred to itself as Catholic, but also that the Eastern Orthodox Church also referred to itself as Catholic and the Western Church was referred to just as Latins. No information on when that stopped, though.
Re: Catholicism
Date: 2022-11-04 09:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, I thought about talking about lower-c catholic, but then decided it would open this whole other can of worms I didn't have time for. :P But now that we're here and I have the day off work...
If you look at Isidore of Seville, 7th century author of the Etymologies, and instrumental in converting the Visigoths of Spain from Arianism to Catholicism, he's got an explicit definition of "catholic" that is our lower-c "catholic" and an implicit definition that is pretty close to (but not quite) our upper-c "Catholic."
When he defines "catholic", he gives the "general, universal" definition. But when he starts defining heresies, he says, "These sects are not Catholic:" and he lists almost 70 sects, including the Arians, Donatists, Nicolaitists, Severians, Manichaeans, and Nazarenes. He also says the Visigoths "became Catholic," by which he means they were one of those non-Catholic sects before.
If you look the bull that excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople in 1054 and kind of accidentally triggered the schism, it uses the word "Catholic." If you asked the authors, I'm sure their explicit definition would be our lower-c sense. But implicitly, it defines Catholicism by saying they're excommunicating this guy and his followers because the excommunicates are harming the Catholic faith by being like the: Arians, Donatists, Nicolaitists, Severians, Pneumatomachoi, Manichaeans, and Nazarenes.
In other words, the authors of this bull are joining Isidore of Seville in using "Catholic" to mean "not subscribing to beliefs that we of Rome think are heresies."
Now, does this mean the so-called heretics automatically agree? No, now you've got one side going, "We are catholic and orthodox and you are not," and the other side going, "No, we are catholic and orthodox and you are not!" (Lower-o "orthodox" is used both by Isidore of Seville and the authors of the 1054 bull of excommunication.) The schism wasn't automatic or immediate, either, so it's not like everyone promptly divided them by consensus into upper-C Catholic for one and upper-O Orthodox for the other.
But while the capital-C usage hadn't evolved in quite the same sense that we have it today, and they weren't making a distinction between upper and lower c orthographically (as far as I know)...it's so close to contemporary usage and there's so much continuity between the 11th century institution and meaning of the term and the current institution and meaning of the term that I'm comfortable using it for this period. Though qualifying it with something like "Roman", "Western", or "Latin" would be even safer.
Re: Catholicism
Date: 2022-11-11 05:40 am (UTC)But yeah, I reckon if you have and accept the hierarchical organization with a Pope and so on, I'm not going to quibble with calling you the large-C Catholic church :) I guess the thing that's actually sort of amazing is that everyone these days (except I reckon the Eastern Orthodox? I don't know much about them) considers both Catholics and Protestants members of the catholic church, to the best of my knowledge. (Of course, they both accept the Creeds.)
Re: Catholicism
Date: 2022-11-11 12:43 pm (UTC)Re: Catholicism
Date: 2022-11-13 02:39 am (UTC)Agreed, but it's also not just acceptance or lack thereof of the creeds that the early writers were using as their basis to reject other sects as "non-Catholic." The Donatists accepted the same creeds and held the same theological beliefs as the "Catholics", but did not accept the authority of the state church, and were thus considered not catholic/Catholic by their opponents. (Who wrote with a lowercase c, at last as far as I know without checking the manuscripts, but that's how it's transcribed in Latin by modern editors.) As for whether the Donatists considered themselves catholic/Catholic, I don't have proof, but I would be surprised if they didn't.
The curious historical linguist in me has now prompted me to check three more sources:
1. Otto von Freising, since I'm reading his bio and he's writing only a century after the East-West Schism.
2. The Oxford English Dictionary.
3. One of the books I own on early Christianity and read a few years ago.
Otto von Freising, as far as I can tell from flipping through:
- Uses "catholic" (which the English translators render with a capital C) mostly in the "catholic and apostolic church" or "orthodox catholic faith" sense, and in fact most of his usages that I saw were prefaced with "orthodox".
- Mostly uses "Roman church" to talk about his own church and distinguish it from the Greek church.
- Does use "Roman Catholic" once that I saw.
- Points out that the Armenians were calling their religious leader "Catholic" too.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives as one of the several definitions of the word "Catholic":
Designating the ancient Christian Church before the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Churches in the 11th cent., or any Church standing in historical continuity with it claiming shared doctrine, system, and practice.
With a note:
The designation was assumed by the Western or Latin Church after the Great Schism in distinction to Eastern or Orthodox (this continues in historical writing). It was claimed as its exclusive designation by the Latin Church that remained under the Roman obedience after the Reformation in the 16th cent. (cf. sense A. 5). It has also been used to include the Anglican Church regarded as a continuation of both the ancient and Latin Churches (cf. Anglo-Catholic adj. 1). The implied sense is ‘the Church or Churches which now truly represent the ancient undivided Church of Christendom’.
Emphasis mine. Basically: the more alternatives arise, the more the definition gets narrowed to "Us and not you, and now not you, and now also not you either." And that last sentence in the note is exactly why you have Armenians and Greeks and Anglicans and so forth continuing to call themselves "Catholic" long after the Romans have decided to exclude them.
A New History of Early Christianity says:
The word Catholic derives from the Greek for 'universal'. Strictly speaking, historians use it of both eastern and western churches before the formal split between them in 1054, from when it was used only of the western church.
Which is consistent with what I've encountered in my reading.
Salon: the place where you make one casual remark, and people are still having an in-depth discussion of technicalities a month later. ;)
Re: Henry IV and <s>Bertha/s> Eupraxia/Adelheid/Praxidis
Date: 2022-10-22 05:32 am (UTC)Russian historians: why else should his own son rebel against him?
Everyone else: *tiredly gesture at the countless father/son conflicts throughout history involving rebelling sons of monarchs*
After these years in salon, I did laugh at this. WTF Russian historians! Even I know that sons rebel against fathers!
in operas tooAnd the only way she would have been able to get out of this marriage was via annulment, and the only person able to annull an imperial marriage was the Pope. Who sure as hell wasn't going to do it out of the goodness of his heart, and who had a Henry-installed rival Pope (Clemens III) to defeat.
Okay, yes, that makes sense.
As to the rape question, let's not forget: if she didn't want to be married to him (and presumably no one asked her in the first place), then any consumnation of said marriage would have been rape - to our pov, though not to that of the medieval church.
:(