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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: Unspeakable Acts discussed
Date: 2022-10-26 03:20 pm (UTC)He even pushed the argument that the Pierleoni had only recently converted from Judaism and who could ever let a Jewish convert onto the throne of Saint Peter. I assume that nobody dared to enlighten St. Bernhard about St. Peter’s religious affiliation before he became an apostle?
Also, Cahn, I thought of you when I got to:
This week we take a little detour to catch up with our friends in Rome, the popes. Do not worry, the popes are no longer all goody two shoes, we are back to the usual shenanigans of murder, backstabbing, betrayal and the Normans.
This guy gets it!
Re: Unspeakable Acts discussed
Date: 2022-11-03 05:06 am (UTC)Lololololol, well played podcaster!
This week we take a little detour to catch up with our friends in Rome, the popes. Do not worry, the popes are no longer all goody two shoes, we are back to the usual shenanigans of murder, backstabbing, betrayal and the Normans.
I am intrigued by "Normans" showing up with all the other shenanigans. What makes Normans more shenanigan-prone than anyone else?
Also, who were the popes who were goody two-shoes? Living in a primarily-Protestant world, I was under the vague impression that none of them were, back then.
Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-04 09:12 pm (UTC)Lol, well, maybe not exactly more shenanigan-prone per se, since everyone is shenanigan-prone, but I think from the papal and imperial perspective they were something of a wild card. They might take the Pope prisoner, protect the Pope, sack Rome, all of the above, whatever they were in the mood for. And they had a formidable army and navy, so you messed with them at your own risk.
See, once upon a time, some Norman mercenaries went down to Italy because there wasn't enough for younger sons to do back home in Normandy. (When your dad has 12 sons, that's a lot of younger sons to become mercenaries.) One day, they realized that money was good, but land was better. And since they were *really really* good mercenaries, they managed to conquer southern Italy and work out some deals with the Popes. The Popes officially granted them that land, even though the throne of St. Peter had exactly zero claim to southern Italy, and Sicily was still in the hands of the Saracens. But hey, granting somebody something you already don't own is cheaper than paying them, so, "If you can conquer Sicily, you can keep it as far as I'm concerned!" is a pretty sweet deal for a Pope who has an emperor and Roman nobility to deal with.
Until the Normans finished conquering the area, and managed some domestic stability by allowing Jews and Muslims to practice their religion and serve in the military in return for a tax. Which from the papal point of view was like, "A, you're not allowed to do religious tolerance, and B, what do you mean religious tolerance gets you loyal and competent Saracen troops, shit, now I have a really powerful neighbor with expansionist tendencies!"
So sometimes the popes fight the Normans and sometimes the popes hire the Normans to deal with the emperors, and sometimes they all go on crusade together while on really bad terms back home, and it's shenanigans everywhere. To quote the podcaster loosely from memory, "During the Second Crusade, Roger of Sicily offered to provide the French and German crusaders passage to the Holy Land via his navy, but they declined, as they had no interest in being thrown into the sea halfway there."
And to quote me when talking to my wife, "Gregory VII will later die in exile with his pet Normans. And having a pet Norman is like having a pet wolf: you know who's in charge, and it's not you." Very next episode, the podcaster said something about the Normans having pet popes, and I was like, "Yeeeeeep. Exactly."
So while I'm not sure the Normans are *more* prone to shenanigans than their already shenanigan-prone contemporaries, having them as neighbors definitely makes the geopolitics more interesting. For example, Southern Italy, which the Normans owned, was claimed by the Holy Roman Emperors, the Popes, and the Byzantine Emperors, all of whom said the Normans were their vassals, and very few of whom had any power to make the Normans do anything they didn't already want to do. And since there were three of these supposed overlords of Southern Italy at any given time, it was even harder to make the Normans do anything. So like if the Pope and the Emperor invaded Southern Italy together, they would end up squabbling with *each other* over who was really in charge there, much to the Normans' advantage.
Eventually, Barbarossa's son will marry Roger's daughter (going from memory here, but I think that's right), and the product will be Selena's fave Frederick II Hohenstaufen, "stupor mundi", who will be a German-Norman Holy Roman Emperor who lives in Sicily. I did read a bio of him for German practice earlier this year, but I haven't yet got to that part of the podcast, so he's still a little hazy in my memory.
Also, who were the popes who were goody two-shoes? Living in a primarily-Protestant world, I was under the vague impression that none of them were, back then.
So you are generally right--but! A thousand-plus years is a long time for there to be fluctuations in papal trends.
Somewhere around the end of the first millennium, the Roman aristocracy is very powerful and major clans fight with each other, and the Pope can best be defined as "some dude a powerful Roman clan managed to put on the throne of St. Peter so they could get money out of him." It was actually preferable that he *not* have a religious calling. This was the period of the "pornocracy", because the Popes were basically just fucking and gambling all the time, and sometimes the city was even being de facto run by a WOMAN. This lack of moral high ground meant the popes had relatively little influence outside of Rome and were not at this time the powerful autocrats of Europe that you probably think of them as. And inside Rome, they were largely puppets at the mercy of whatever clan had put them on the throne.
Every so often, a German emperor would have the time to go "OMGWTF" and try to do something about the situation, but the German emperors also had their hands full with things like the German dukes and the Poles and the pagan Slavs and the Bohemians and the Hungarians and trying to make sure the French didn't get Lotharingia back and trying to get the Byzantines to acknowledge that the Holy Roman Emperor was at least as prestigious as the Byzantine Emperor, and all the other things you can imagine they were busy with.
So fast forward to the 11th century, and there's a reform movement going in Europe. People have started to care deeply that the Church is corrupt as anything, and if your priest paid for his office and has a mistress or even wife and six kids, are your baptism and your last rites and other sacraments that he performed really valid? And if not, does that mean you're going to hell?
Here's where Henry III of Germany comes in. He's been elected king by the German nobles. In order to become emperor, he has to get crowned by the pope. (This will later change, precisely because it's so complicated to go all the way to Italy to get a coronation from a pope you might not be on good terms with, and even if you are, you might have to leave your squabbling nobles behind in Germany.) Henry marches down to Italy and goes, "I'm here!...Oh shit, there are three popes, and one of them straight up bought his office, and the other two are sketchy in other ways, and if I get crowned by any of them, I'm going to have a hard time passing that off as a valid coronation, and then my status as emperor will be invalid! I need a holy man to be Pope."
So Henry III deposes three sketchy popes in one go, and starts putting goody two-shoes on the throne of St. Peter, and telling them to behave themselves!
This works great for a while: he gets his coronation, and Leo IX gets the papacy some much-needed respect and influence. He travels all over western Europe telling people what to do, and boom! The papacy is now the "I tell monarchs what to do because I am the supreme moral authority" institution that you probably think of it as.
Then the German emperors have a *big problem* that the papacy is now a legitimate contender for "top dog in Europe," and they're all, "That's not what we meant! We depose popes, popes don't depose us!"
Gregory VII: "Tough shit, I depose you."
Canossa: *happens*
Shenanigans in Italy and Germany: *happen at great length*
Normans: *happen* (sack of Rome)
So after a string of goody two-shoes popes, the Roman nobility decides it's time to go back to the good old pornocracy days. I'm now at the point in the podcast where this papal election is happening:
On September 7, 1159, an unknown number of cardinals gather behind the high altar of the Basilica of St. Peter to elect the new pope. The majority vote for Roland Bandinelli, and he proceeds to put on the Papal mantle. At that point Cardinal Octavian rugby-tackles the elected pontiff and grabs the mantle. He then tries to put the mantle on himself, but the pro-Bandinelli rip it out of his hands. An attendant brings Octavian a copy of the original mantle he now attempts to put on, but gets it back to front. Despite the wardrobe malfunction, the minor clergy of St. Peter acclaims him as Pope Victor IV.
So now there's yet another papal schism, and this time it isn't even the emperor's fault.
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-04 09:27 pm (UTC)Until the Normans finished conquering the area, and managed some domestic stability by allowing Jews and Muslims to practice their religion and serve in the military in return for a tax. Which from the papal point of view was like, "A, you're not allowed to do religious tolerance, and B, what do you mean religious tolerance gets you loyal and competent Saracen troops, shit, now I have a really powerful neighbor with expansionist tendencies!"
Oh cool. I mean, I knew the Muslims did the "religous tolerance in exchange for extra taxes" thing, but I had no idea the Normans had done it.
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-04 09:29 pm (UTC)I could not make this up!
ETA: But apparently 19th century Protestant German theologians could, since Wikipedia tells me that's where the term comes from. Color me unsurprised.
Also,
I mean, I knew the Muslims did the "religous tolerance in exchange for extra taxes" thing, but I had no idea the Normans had done it.
I seem to recall that when they conquered Muslim territory, they just took over this practice.
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-06 10:16 am (UTC)*reads and appreciates*
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-05 01:32 am (UTC)To clarify, not that you or I think of individual pre-Reformation popes as so morally upstanding, but that as an institution, they had more clout post-reform to go, "No, you can't divorce your wife," and all that.
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-05 03:35 pm (UTC)I should add that the geopolitics here is even more complex than that: precisely because the popes had no claim on southern Italy and Sicily, there was some quid pro quo at work here. If the Pope formally *grants* this land to the Normans, and they do homage for it to him and receive it from his hands (after they conquered it), then that gives the popes a claim to overlordship over southern Italy and Sicily, which they didn't have before.
Now, everyone (i.e. the Byzantines and Germans, the other contenders for overlords) realizes this is totally bogus and "You can't do that!" But it was an A+ chess move by the popes, who managed to hang onto at least nominal overlordship until well into our period, the 18th century. (I forget which king of Sicily and Naples neglected to pay homage to the Pope as he thought was his right, but I remember it being a thing that came up.)
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-05 05:12 pm (UTC)Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-11 05:26 am (UTC)Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-11 05:35 am (UTC):D
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-05 05:05 pm (UTC)Yes, that's right, and it's also why my fave's second name was Roger - Federico Ruggiero in Italian, and as he grew up there it was his first language. (Well, the Sicilian variation.) (He was seventeen when he came to what is now Germany for the first time. Being linguistically gifted, he did pick up German, but it wasn't his mother tongue, literally.)
When Putin went on with his "but it belonged to Russia once" arguments, some kidder on twitter wrote "so.... Sicily back to Swabia when?" (Swabia being where the Hohenstaufen came from.)
Goody two shoes popes: the first one, the one appointed to clean up the original three shady popes mess, was a local boy: Clement II, formerly Bishop Suidger of Bamberg. He loved Bamberg (aka my hometown) so much that he wrote this most adorable and heartbreaking letter when becoming Pope, addressing the city as "my dove, my beloved" and saying how much he'd rather be there than in Rome. Which as opposed to all over Popes, who automatically became bishops of Rome and Rome only, Suidgar/Clement kept Bamberg. When he died after a short papacy, his body was transfered back to Bamberg, which is why we have the only Pope's tomb north of the Alps in our cathedral. Also, when his remains - some of which were amazingly long preserved - were analysed in the mid 20th century - , it turned out he was poisoned. Go figure.
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-06 06:02 pm (UTC)Awww! You know all the good Bamberg stories. Do you have the full text of this love letter? (Or, you know, the interesting parts.)
Also, when his remains - some of which were amazingly long preserved - were analysed in the mid 20th century - , it turned out he was poisoned. Go figure.
Oh, wow. I knew there was a string of short-lived popes here and suspected poisoning by Benedict, but I didn't know that Clement's had been confirmed.
...Aahhh, googling says lead poisoning, which may have been either accidental or deliberate. That makes sense.
I'm glad he got to be buried where he wanted, at least.
Papal Love Letter To Bamberg
Date: 2022-11-06 07:03 pm (UTC)Dieses großen Gottes Wink hat Dich, seine geliebteste Tochter Bamberg, Uns als rechtmäßige Braut angetraut und Uns in seinem Erbarmen gewährt, Dich mit Weisheit zu leiten, so gut wir es vermochten. Kein Gatte hegte für seine Gattin reinere Treue und glühendere Liebe als Wir für Dich. Niemals ist es uns in den Sinn gekommen, Dich zu verlassen und einer anderen anzuhangen. So weiß ich nicht, durch welchen Ratschluss Gottes es kam, dass ich mit Deiner und aller Kirchen Mutter vermählt und, zwar nicht ganz und gar, aber doch von Dir geschieden wurde.
Denn siehe, da jenes Haupt der Welt, jener römische Stuhl, an ketzerischer Krankheit litt und Unseres geliebtesten Sohnes, des Herrn Heinrich, des erlauchten Kaisers Anwesenheit darüber wachte und darauf bestand, dass er dieses Siechtum entfernte, Hat, nachdem jene drei beseitigt waren, welchen ein Raub diesen Namen des Papsttums verliehen hatte, die Würdigung der himmlischen Gnade gewollt, dass unter so großen Scharen heiliger Väter, die zugegen waren, Unsere unwürdigste Mittelmäßigkeit, obwohl Wir Uns mit allen Kräften sträubten, an die Stelle des erhabensten Apostelfürsten gewählt wurde. Welcher Schmerz mich damals erfasste, als ich von Deiner liebsten Seite weggerissen wurde, welcher Kummer mich verzehrte, weiß ich nicht auszudrücken, schien er Uns doch alles Maß zu überschreiten. …
Doch nicht die Begierde nach einer so großen Herrschaft hat sich an der Türe unserer Seele eingeschlichen und die Festigkeit unserer Gesinnung gebeugt. Wir waren glücklich, Wir führten mit Dir ein gleichwohl tätiges wie beschauliches Leben, zumal die vollkommene Liebe ja weder auf die Gestalt noch auf den Reichtum des anderen schaut. Wir rufen als Zeugen die göttliche Allwissenheit an, dass Wir Uns nicht zu verteidigen genötigt sehen. Sie erforscht die Geheimnisse des Herzens, sie durchdringt die finsterste Nacht. Zum Zeugen haben Wir auch das Gewissen, in dem die Sorge um Dich ständig wach ist. Weder die so große Entfernung der Länder noch die so zahlreichen Hindernisse halten Unser inneres Auge ab, Dich, Unsere Freundin, Unsere Schwester, Unsere Braut, Unsere Taube, mit um so größerer Liebe und Sorge zu betrachten und Dich von allen Seiten mit Schutz zu umgeben.
Uns ist von Gott, nicht wegen Unserer Verdienste, wie Wir bereits gesagt haben, jenes apostolische Recht verliehen, das im Himmel und auf Erden gilt. Darum haben Wir es für wert erachtet und für angezeigt erklärt, dass auch Du von Unserer Erhöhung Vorteil erlangst und dass daher für Dich um so mehr gesorgt wird, da Uns jene Gewalt zukommt. Der edle Kaiser Heinrich, frommen Gedenkens, hat Dich gegründet, Dich errichtet, Dich hoch erhoben. Auf seine Bitte haben Dich Unsere Vorgänger Johannes XVIII. und Benedikt VIII. gegen jede frevlerische Hand mit der unüberwindlichen Mauer des apostolischen Schutzes umgeben. Wir begehren das gleiche zu tun, damit Du unter dem dreifach machtvollen Schutz der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit niemals vor Schädigung und Belästigung durch irgend jemand zitterst, vielmehr allzeit gesichert und ruhig bleibst, in Dei-nen Söhnen und Töchtern immer Gott ergeben dienst, ergeben gehorchst. Wir haben festgesetzt, dass durch dieses Privileg Unsres apostolischen Lehramtes, dass von allen jenen Gütern, welche dir, teuerste Braut, keuscheste Jungfrau, schönste Kirche von Bamberg, die höchste Freigebigkeit des rechtgläubigen Kaisers, welche aus der größten Frömmigkeit hervorging, mit frommem Sinn übertragen hat, und namentlich jene, welche er durch einen höchst passenden und willkommenen Tausch von den Bischöfen von Würzburg und Eichstätt nach kanonischem und wohlbegründetem Richterspruch eingetauscht hat oder die nach ihm die religiöse Frömmigkeit von welchen Gläubigen immer dargebracht hat und darbringen wird in aller Zukunft, seien sie bewegliche oder unbewegliche, kein Kaiser, kein König, Herzog, Markgraf, Graf, Vizegraf, ferner nicht ein Erzbischof, nicht ein Bischof, nicht ein Abt, noch irgendeine Person unter den Menschen wage, versuche, sich anmaße, etwas mit Gewalt oder Betrug oder Diebstahl wegzunehmen, zu mindern und zu beschädigen. Bene valete.
And an article about the theological background of the marriage imagery Clement/Suidger uses:
https://www.katholisch.de/artikel/41116-geliebte-des-papstes-clemens-ii-stand-zu-seiner-liebe-zu-bamberg
Re: Papal Love Letter To Bamberg
Date: 2022-11-06 07:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, the podcast has talked about the bond between a bishop and his diocese being a sacred, indissoluble marriage in this period. But usually in the context of a bishop *wanting* to move to a more prestigious diocese (like the Merseburg/Magdeburg example the article mentions), and either being told, "No, you can't do that, you're married to your flock," or "Okay, but there will be a scandal."
But that mother-in-law imagery of Clement's regarding Rome as the mother of Bamberg is really something!
Re: Papal Love Letter To Bamberg
Date: 2022-11-09 07:14 am (UTC)Re: Papal Love Letter To Bamberg
Date: 2022-11-09 09:51 am (UTC)Re: Papal Love Letter To Bamberg
Date: 2022-11-11 05:33 am (UTC)Re: Papal Love Letter To Bamberg
Date: 2022-11-11 05:33 am (UTC)Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-11 05:23 am (UTC)A thousand-plus years is a long time for there to be fluctuations in papal trends.
Hee, I guess that makes sense!
But I think it's hilarious that goody two-shoes start getting put on the papal throne because the other ones were too sketchy to crown Henry!
Also, like
Re: Normans and Popes
Date: 2022-11-11 05:31 am (UTC)