cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

Haha, I figured after last post you'd change the title. :)

The changing ideas of conception was at least partly 18th century, though! To which I have the following to add, which I ran across today. Lorenzo Nannoni, prominent surgeon in Florence in the late 18th century

...always remained faithful to the doctrine that science was meant to serve people, not people science. He declared artificial insemination in human beings to be ridiculous, no matter what the great Lazzaro Spallanzani said to the contrary. Who is she, he asked, "who would prefer an annoying little squirt to a sweet, pleasant, virile instrument and then abstain from the use of the latter for nine whole months, just to test the thesis of a philosopher?"

Since I'm currently on hold from the podcast and the Middle Ages, and am reading a bio of Leopold II, you're going to get more 18th century from me in this post tomorrow. I'm also going to move the most recent Trenck comment here for ease of discussion.

From:

luzula

Who is she, he asked, "who would prefer an annoying little squirt to a sweet, pleasant, virile instrument and then abstain from the use of the latter for nine whole months, just to test the thesis of a philosopher?"

Ha ha ha! I wonder if he had tried that as a pick-up line. "Who are you to abstain from my sweet, pleasant, virile instrument?".

(no subject)

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-12-04 05:01 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Relocated from the last post.

in fact, since the one to her was not different to the ones to the others.

But in BLOOD? You seem rather blase about this part. Mind you, I am blase about stealing bones for propagandistic purposes, seen it a million times, yawn, so maybe we just have different ideas of what constitutes "more bizarre" in history. ;) (The problem with Putin is that he's happening *now*, and we all agree the past is a terrible place to live and we want the present to be nothing like it, instead of exactly like it.) (That was a reference to an email exchange, for those of you who are reading this in confusion right now.)

I don't recall right now, alas. Only cups and carvings made by him.

If you don't recall any blood-writing, and I don't recall any blood-writing, I'm going to assume this is a new discovery.

Though some further googling around says he wrote in his memoirs about writing in blood in his bibles during the Magdeburg imprisonment. Perhaps you read it and didn't consider it noteworthy enough to tell us. ;)

These two pages are the "Register", which I was translating as "table of contents", written on the first two blank pages of the digitized Bible.

This is one of the pages referred to in the table of contents, item 5, that refers to Amalia, but I can't quite read all the handwriting here or in the table of contents. Unfortunately, item 3 in the table of contents, the letter to Amalie, doesn't come with a page number, so I'm not sure where in the book it is (presumably some unnumbered blank page), and I haven't yet been successful in tracking that one down.

They were not kidding about the drawings! He's a pretty good artist, especially considering the limitations of the materials he has to work with! Which, having searched for "blood" through the memoirs, I find:

After the first relief, [the guard] handed me a wire, round which a sheet of paper was rolled, also a piece of small wax candle, which came luckily through the grate ; I got likewise some sulphur, a piece of burning tinder, and a pen: I now had a light, cut my finger, and my blood served for ink.

And also:

Not being allowed ink, I did not write less than eight volumes with my blood, one of which I received from the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel after I was liberated.

Judging by some googling I've done, he means that he wrote in the margins and blank pages of 8 books he was provided to read, not that he wrote 8 volumes from beginning to end. Still!

Anyway, unless you can make out all the handwriting, with your superior knowledge of German, this might be a job for

prinzsorgenfrei.

cahn, continuing to do my best to keep you entertained with the shenanigans of history! (In between lengthy foreign policy discussions, which I realize no one finds as interesting as I do.)

From:

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-04 07:59 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So I just made a connection of two things we learned at disparate points in salon.

Once, long ago near the beginning of salon, I found some Saxon noblewoman had adopted Fredersdorf in the 1740s and made him heir to her estate in Saxony. He accepted but delegated the management of it to someone else, because he was much too busy.

Then, last year, Selena did a write-up on the founding of the Kiekemal colony, the one where Fredersdorf allegedly got dismissed for embezzlement (and I'm writing a paper arguing that, no, he didn't, but actually Pfeiffer was found guilty and everyone who said he was found innocent was wrong). In the course of this episode, one of the entrepreneurs of the endeavor is Colonel Trachenberg, who acquires a brewery, and then things get weird and complicated. Details in Rheinsberg. Our conclusion was, "The whole Trachenberg - Fredersdorf - Marschall transfers do look pre arranged and shady, but if Fredersdorf sold the lands to Frau von Marschall for the same sum he originally provided, then it looks to me that the one personal profit he made out of this was via the brewery and making the colonists buy his beer. That he told Frau von Marschall she wouldn't have to give them rent- and tax-free years was dastardly towards the colonists, but not profitable to him personally, as he no longer owned the lands in question by the time the colonists started to work on them."

Well, today, on my continuing quest to find archival material, I found the Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, which contains a whole bunch of material related to Kiekemal, and which I think must have been Emmi Wegfraß's source.

One of the descriptions of archive records goes like this: "Schenkung eines Wohn- und Brauhauses zu Köpenick sowie des Vorwerkes Kiekemal vom Oberst von Trachenberg an seinen Adoptivsohn dem Geheimen Kämmerer Fredersdorf, 1752": "Donation by Colonel von Trachenberg of a residential building and brewery in Köpenick as well as the outbuildings in Kiekemal to his adoptive son, the secret chamberlain Fredersdorf, in 1752."

So I went and looked up, who was that Saxon noblewoman who adopted Fredersdorf? And lo, it was Baroness von Trachenberg and her husband Colonel Baron von Trachenberg (who had transferred to Prussian service). And the adoption and transfer of the estate in Saxony were taking place in...drumroll...1752. There was this whole complex-sounding business arrangement between Fredersdorf and the Trachenbergs (unfortunately, pages are not included in the Google book sample, so I might have to order a copy).

Glancing at Wegfraß's account (which I have yet to read for myself), she is aware that Fredersdorf is Trachenberg's adoptive son, but doesn't say anything about any other business arrangements they have going on in 1752 in Saxony.

Nor does the author of the book that goes into great detail about the Saxon dealings seem to have any idea about Kiekemal beyond what's in Wikipedia.

So...One, further research is required. I obviously need to read Wegfraß (which is on my list for when I'm more actively working on this paper), and I think I need to order the book with the Saxon dealings and read it (relying on Wikipedia or at best Fahlenkamp, and not citing a source either way, is not great, and we found other issues with this book in the past, but it's better than nothing).

Two...is it just me, or did the appearance of prearranged dealings just get more pronounced? I'm not saying Fredersdorf intentionally embezzled the colonists, I'm just saying his relationship with Trachenberg is not a one-off limited to this affair. They seem to be deep in each other's pockets. My Poirot spidey sense is tingling and saying this lead should be explored.

Curiouser and curioser!

From:

selenak

I dimly seem to recall Wegfraß thinks the adoption business was done for the Kiekemal occasion specifically. But yes, to me it looks like a part of a larger long term business arrangement between Fredersdorf and the Trachtenbergs.

Here's something tangentially I'm curious about: Did either of the Trachtenbergs outlive Fredersdorf? also, October 1752 is when Fredersdorf becomes engaged. I.e. before this point, presumably if he died his heirs would have been his biological family (surviving siblings, nieces and nephews), but would the adoption business also made the Trachtenbergs potential heirs? Because while usually the one who inherits is the one who gets adopted, not the one who adopts, I could see the Trachtenbergs (nobles) going as far as adoption of commoner Fredersdorf not simply for this one Kiekemal estate business or because that gives them an in with the powerful Chamberlain and Secret Councillor, but also because they think, he's really wealthy by now, but also very sickly, and if we're not v. old and sick ourselves, we might have the chance to outlive him and get part of that money.

...which would no longer be the case once Fredersdorf is actually married and doesn't only have a wife but the (theoretical) chance for children. But since the engagement doesn't happen until October 1752, earlier 1752 events would not have been affected by this from the Trachtenberg pov. Of course, I could be entirely wrong here, and the adoption would not have given the Trachtenbergs any claims on Fredersdorf's inheritance in any event, even if he'd died a bachelor.

Re: Fredersdorf and Kiekemal: The Plot Thickens

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-28 07:35 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Okay, I'm definitely curious about this complex-sounding business relationship! I'm still leaning towards "probably not entirely ethical but also not full-out embezzling" ~~entirely because I am a Fredersdorf stan~~ but I mean, you've got to find out now, right? :)

Re: Fredersdorf and Kiekemal: The Plot Thickens

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-04 07:50 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Thanks to the Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, I have one of his testaments! Given that we've found a wide variety of names for him, it's nice to have "Carl Ernst Reinhardt (sp?) von Keith" in his own handwriting.

Citation: Rep 4A Testamente Nr. 8828

No, I do NOT understand why they have to cover up some of the text with a color-checker. ??? But I have alerted the ever talented

prinzsorgenfrei to our need!

ETA: Wow, is your boss not expecting work from you for two months good for salon productivity! (Back pain efforts, the reason for this time off/reduced time, have been unfruitful so far...but detective work continues apace in the meantime.)

Edited Date: 2022-11-27 05:35 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So I'm reading Peham's bio of Leopold II, which Selena had read and summarized for us a while back. (Still mad I can't find Wandruszka's bio for sale online anywhere!) Some commentary:

1. MT as mom.

MT forbade the governesses to speak baby talk to the kids, and also gave orders that none of the kids should be allowed to bond with one particular chamberwoman, lest the kids refuse to get dressed or otherwise behave except for their favorite.

Me reading this, with a modern understanding of developmental psychology: "No, MT, no!!!"

Peham: "From a modern perspective on childrearing and psychology, MT made a significant mistake, since this made it difficult for the kind of mother-child bond that's necessary for childhood development to arise."

She says Leopold seems to have suffered from this lack of mother-child bond, and that was responsible for his lifelong pronounced mistrust of others. Now, given how many kids she had and how radically different they all turned out, I don't think you can do simplistic cause-effect here, if only because kids have different needs...but there is evidence that this is not how you stack the deck in a kid's favor.

Unfortunately, Leopold grew up to do exactly the same with his kids. His instructions, from which Peham quotes, specify that the children should be taught to converse indifferently with everyone in their surroundings, and not show a special fondness for anyone in particular.

This "best of intentions" approach to not letting kids bond reminds me of how the US foster system used to work: they didn't want kids bonding with their foster parents, because they'd be heartbroken when they had to leave. And when they had to leave, contact had to be cut off immediately and completely, so that the kids could "move on." Not until, I think, the 1980s and 1990s did biologists and psychologists start to realize that one of the primary emotional needs of mammalian children is stable bonds during the formative years. (Granted that I had stable parental bonds and turned out like Leopold anyway*, there is a mixture of nature and nurture at play here, but...yeah.)

* I saw the phrase "he had brains for a heart" in Wikipedia when looking at Habsburgs named Leopold earlier, and I went, "Yes! Exactly! Relatable." :P

Also on the MT parenting front, whenever prominent foreign visitors came to court, she would be all, "Okay, gather all the kids together for a Hallmark moment that makes it look like I spend a lot of time with them! It's PR time!" Peham refers to this as "playing a comedy" for visitors.

What she apparently did was spend more time than usual for her class writing out instructions on her kids education and supervising the results, but in terms of being the warm and loving mom in their lives...she apparently exaggerated that for effect, and her actual interactions with them varied wildly based on which kid we're talking about.

Her obsession with pedagogy, by the way, extended to the point where she later didn't want to her adult kids raise their own children their way, but instead just to follow the instructions she wrote out for her grandchildren. This especially drove Joseph and Leopold crazy, because they had inherited her obsession with pedagogy and had their own ideas, which didn't always align with MT's!

A couple of Leopold ideas that jumped out at me: The kids don't get a vacation or recreation day ever. Even Easter is just a regular day, only the activities are different.

I see you get your time-off policies from your mom, Leopold. ;)

One thing he didn't get from Mom: no letting his kids learn to play cards! Chess, yes, but no cards. (I have to wonder if that was a dig at her.)

2. Peham (1987) is homophobic and describes Isabella's feelings for MC as an "unnatural love." Boo.

3. Reforms!

Now, being me and not being Selena, I am *here* for Leopold's reforms and don't need a human interest angle (one of the reasons I wanted to read this book for myself), and indeed, the reforms are *very* *very* interesting if you're me, so I'm going to write up my favorites.

The Leopold reforms in Tuscany that I've read about so far revolve largely around agriculture. Now, way back in Florence's heyday, it was the city of industry that we all know and love. But by the 18th century, the flourishing cloth industry has died out, and Tuscany is predominantly an agricultural state.

Unfortunately, it's an agricultural state still being run by medieval and Renaissance laws that haven't adapted at all to the early modern period, and, at least according to our author, that's why there are famines and such. After Leopold, no more famines, despite bad harvests.

Things I did not realize:

- Tuscany was still cobbled together from several different states that had different laws, rights, and internal tolls.

- Only Florentines were full citizens with all the rights.

- The guilds were still around, making sure you couldn't practice a trade unless you were a member of the relevant guild.

- Primogeniture was legally enforced, because in olden times, the state decided big family businesses needed to be passed down intact in order for industry to flourish, and the Medici never chagned this. This meant that even when Leopold took over, younger sons still basically couldn't afford to marry, so there were tons of men and women going into the church for lack of any better way to support themselves. The ratio of monks, nuns, and other clergy to the population was way too high (4,428 out of 78,635 people), considering most of these people were not actually doing anything terribly economically productive.

Leopold changed all this.

- No more internal tolls, Tuscany is one unified economic entity now. (And dramatically reduced tariffs and restrictions on external trade.)

- No more Florentines having special rights, everyone is a citizen.

- He got rid of the guilds and said his subjects could practice any trade they felt inclined to, as long as it was an honest trade.

I was actually kind of surprised the guilds were still around! They were such a big deal in the period from which I actually know something about Florence, but then Florence totally passes off my radar after its decline.

- You can now pass your lands to a younger, more competent son, or divide them up among the sons.

5. Selena told us that Leopold introduced a law to treat mental illness the same as any illness, not as demonic possession. Not only that, but he developed this amazing public hospital:

Patients received better medical care. Rooms were swept daily and washed twice a week, more fresh air was blown into the rooms from enlarged windows, and perfume was sprayed to cover up bad odors. Every newcomer was immediately washed, his hair and nails trimmed, the men shaved. All patients received hospital nightshirts. For food they received twelve ounces of bread, four and a half ounces of wine, and three ounces of meat twice a day, more than most ate and drank at home. No class distinctions were made, for those who had no money received free treatment and medication. Those who had sufficient income had to pay strictly according to their income. Medical students and 50 paid servants were on constant duty for the 1,034 beds to attend to the patients' needs. In 1783 a number of laws and ordinances underpinned the medical care of the populace. At that time, medical care in Florence was at a high level compared to other countries.

6. At one point, Peham says that Leopold had good luck in appointing ministers that he trusted, and that his government had greater ministerial stability than in most of the rest of Europe, where princes were jealous of their ministers, and that this helped with the reforms.

But then in most places I've read, the emphasis is all on Leopold not being able to trust his ministers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7. On the grounds that only defensive wars are legitimate, and standing armies are not, Leopold gets rid of the army and navy, and replaces it with a citizen militia that's only to be called out in times of invasion. Apparently, he wrote up this whole one-sided treaty of neutrality, stating to all Europe that Tuscany would remain neutral in any wars, and that it was therefore not okay to invade Tuscany ever. This never got published, but he maintained a foreign policy of neutrality anyway. (Peham says this was his only reasonable option given his resources and foreign policy situation.)

Apparently, Tuscan troops had been called forward during the Seven Years' War to serve in Bohemia, and they had been useless, and Leopold, who witnessed this, was like, "Yeah, no. Tuscan troops are just for defending Tuscany, there will be no sending them to fight in Austrian or anyone else's wars."

8. One really interesting thing is a compare and contrast with another book I'm reading, Eric Cochrane's Florence in the Forgotten Centuries: 1527-1800. Over and over again I read the same paragraph, once in German by Peham and once in English by Cochrane. You know that passage I quoted from Peham about the hospital? Here's Cochrane's version of this same reform:

At the same time, the treatment of patients at the hospital was notably improved. Every corner was swept daily and mopped twice a week. Bigger windows were put in to improve ventilation, and perfume was regularly sprayed in the wards to banish bad odors. Anyone brought into the reception room was immediately admitted, washed, given a hair- and nail-cut and a shave, put in a hospital nightshirt (camicia, gabbanella, e berretto), and assured of 8 ounces of bread, 10-1/2 ounces of wine, and 3 ounces of meat twice a day—which is more than most of them ever ate at home. Whoever could not pay was assured of free treatment, free medication, and even free house-calls after discharge, without the slightest discrimination. Whoever could pay was charged strictly in proportion to his income. A staff of medical students and fifty “paid servants” (not a bad proportion for 1,034 beds) was constantly on duty “to answer all calls from said patients even for the most menial service.” And in 1783 a new set of regulations was issued, regulations which completed the redefinition of medicine as public health rather than private treatment and made Florentine medicine fully worthy “of the enlightenment that is the honor of our century.”

There's no way the commentary "which is more than most of them ever ate at home" and "more than most ate and drank at home" is two people independently writing about the same factual events.

Here's another example, one of many. Peham on a hot air balloon incident:

Once, on February 2, 1788, a successfully launched balloon suddenly burst over the Piazza della Signoria and tumbled down onto the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. Now many Florentines became skeptical and thought that the time of air travel was by no means as close as the newly founded "Academia Fiorentina" thought.

Cochrane:

When, on February 2, 1788, a balloon that had been successfully suspended in mid-air over the Piazza della Signoria suddenly went crashing into the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, many Florentines became skeptical as well:

Behold the mob there, gazing at the sky,
pushing, shoving, all for . . . know you why?
Well, someone’s made a ball of paper fly! (Lorenzo Pignotti, “I palloni volanti”)

They finally concluded that the age of air travel was not nearly as imminent as the Accademia Fiorentina thought it to be.

This happens so many times that I checked to see if Peham (1987) was citing Cochrane (1973), and sure enough. Maybe this is normal among historians and I'm just not used to finding people's sources so easily, but I'm just taken aback by how close the paraphrasing is.

The two authors do not always agree, though! If you want an antidote to Leopold-stanning, check out Cochrane. He's not a fan. And sometimes they come to exactly opposite conclusions, like this.

Peham:

Leopold was adept at selecting his employees. He chose them not by birth or recommendation, but by personal merit, knowledge, experience, and rectitude. Over time, Leopold attracted more and more Tuscans to his court in order to avoid being spied on by his mother and brother in Vienna. By the end of his reign, his closest associates were almost exclusively locals.

Cochrane:

Pietro Leopoldo contradicted his own standard of promotion through talent alone by excluding Florentines from most subordinate positions. For another thing, he occasionally reverted to Habsburg tradition in preferring foreigners to nationals.

Now, those could both be true: excluding Florentines from subordinate positions is not incompatible with attracting non-Florentine Tuscans to court for top positions. And an "occasional" exception to his own standard isn't inconsistent with normally selecting based on merit. But the emphasis is exactly opposite in a way that's striking.

Likewise, Peham:

Nevertheless, because of his suspicions, he had officials transferred from one ministry to another so that they would not become too accustomed to a particular superior. Overall, Leopold's bureaucracy, and thus the bureaucracy, proved to be more efficient and cheaper, and it was perfectly capable of executing the laws enacted by "His Royal Highness". But it could not be prevented that a few bureaucrats were established who only did what they were told to do. Leopold and Gianni often complained about it.

Cochrane:

Finally, he was careful “to move employees frequently around from one department to another,” not for the purpose of training them but for the purpose of preventing “their becoming too attached to [any particular] superior.”...The policy did have one notable advantage. It made the bureaucracy more efficient, less costly, and thoroughly “capable of carrying out and enforcing the [laws] that Your Royal Highness may be pleased to introduce,”...But it also had some notable disadvantages. It encouraged the advancement of mediocrities, like the “poor, proud gentleman of little talent and application” who “went happily ahead . . . with full honors” by doing no more than he was told to do. It left bureaucrats with no other means of self-expression than spontaneous slow-downs, about which both Gianni and Pietro Leopoldo constantly complained.

Same policy, different emphases. One makes it sound like the bureaucracy works really well with the exception of a few bad apples, the other makes it sound like the system encourages this, and bureaucratic obstruction is a way of life.

Given how closely Peham is following Cochrane, and how close the facts in these paragraphs are, I wouldn't be surprised if the more positive take in Peham isn't an independent reassessment based on looking at the same evidence, but simply a rose-colored rephrasing of Cochrane's own assessment.

And that is where I am, halfway through Peham. Perhaps more to come if I feel like writing it up!

Cochrane, btw, is long and dense, but not a bad read. He definitely has opinions and a personality that shows through, which always makes a firehose more bearable. Most authors dumping this much info on you don't manage to be this readable, although Goldstone he is not, nor even Blanning. Maybe a step above Beales. There are a *ton* of numbers and data, so not for everyone, and I am massively skimming (and skipping the 17th century stuff for now). But if anyone ever wanted to set fanfic in 17th or 18th century Florence, this would be an absolute gold mine.

Edited Date: 2022-11-28 12:26 am (UTC)

From:

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-04 07:42 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

So, as mentioned at my journal, I've finished the podcast episodes released so far that Mildred recced, and I can only add to the rec;

cahn, I think you'd enjoy listening (well, not the First Crusade episode with its attendant massacres among the Jews, but that episode was necessary for the overall picture), and the length is on avarage less than half an hour.

Now, because I know more about the Hohenstaufen than I know about the Salians and Ottonians, I did have some "huh? but I thought..." moments in the last few episodes (as, in for example, yes, Philipp/Irene is one of the few royal love stories of the era, but was he in Italy at the time? I thought they only met once she'd been sent to... *looks up* yes, he was in Italy at time; or, more seriously: "hang on, Henry (VI) didn't just imprison little William III, he had him blinded and castrated!", then I looked it up, and it said "supposedly", i.e. it's never been proven but was the story at the time, so, fair enough. Meaning all in all, I'm as impressed with our podcaster's take on the eras I know something about as of those I had not much previous knowledge.

You also can tell he's doing this for a primarily English speaking audience by whose names get anglisized - i.e. Henry not Heinrich, Frederick not Friedrich, - and whose don't - Adelheid not Adelaide. (The difference: Adelheid does not have the crucial "ch" that spells trouble to a lot of non German speakers when wanting to talk about said people.

What listening to said podcast also reminded me of was what a very tragic figure Henry IV (busband of Bertha and Praxidis, famed for Canossa) was, which wasn't exactly news (what I did recall from school certainly saw him that way, too), but was hammered down here. Another thing: Horowski would approve of this podcast, because it emphasises the family connections via the women as well as the men and points out that 19th century historians who only went through patrilinear definitions and clans set their own trap when marvelling why for example young future Barbarossa hangs out with and fights at the side of his maternal uncle Welf rather than with his paternal Uncle Konrad when according to them it's a death feud between Welfs and Hohenstaufens already, completely overlooking that the Staufer themselves referred to each other not as von Hohenstaufen but by a (higher ranking) female ancestor, Agnes von Waiblingen, as "Waiblingers", and young future Barbarossa seeing himself as a Welf as well as a Waibling at this point of his life would have been in line with that.

Also, because the podcast points out the various female characters of the saga (Adelheid and Teophanu, Mathilde of Tuscany, Kunigunde, Gisela, etc.) and pays them due to credit, it also can point out when an Empress is really not very good at Empressing, which unfortunately was the case for Henry IV's mother Agnes of Poitou, without coming across as unfair, let alone sexist. Not that Agness was worse than many a male ruler, but the problem was that the situation she inherited when her husband died and little Henry IV was just a small child was so hidiously complicated and screwed up that you would have needed to be a genius to navigate through it, a genius, she wasn't, and so she committed some blunders which because she was Regent of the Empire had terrible repercussions.

What was of particular interest to me as well because I have do some related research elsewhere is all the stuff about the early to high medieval Papacy, which went through some truly epic changes. Mildred already mentioned the biggest ones - from Popes as bishops of Romes (and even this nominal, as they're short lived adolescents or early 20s playboys who are puppets of two competing Roman families in the 10th century to Popes as leaders of Christendom in the sense of all monarchs, kings and Emperors alike, being able to be deposed by them, but also in the sense of being seen as actual moral authorities - but there's also the whole procedure of how Popes got elected (or not) - when we start out with this podcast, there aren't yet any Cardinals, let alone a college of Cardinals, and there's not just one procedure, either, which during the time of the Pornocracy (will never get tired of that term) made it so easy for those two feuding Roman clans to get their guys essentially consecrated, made bishops and then Pope within two days or so. (Made it also possible for visiting Emperors who go WTF? at the goings on to appoint their own Popes.) Even the Pope Gregory who had the big showdown with Henry IV and who instituted the reforms that created the procedures we're more familiar with (Cardinals existing, and Cardinals only being able to vote for a Pope) actually had to be consecrated pronto because while he'd been a church adminstrator official for eons, he had not been a priest until aiming for the top job, AND he got said top job via popular acclaim of the Roman populace, not because the bishops and future Cardinals voted for him.

I was intrigued by the different type of Church nadir going on in the Renaissance just before and during the Reformation, because say what you want about the likes of Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI), Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II), Giovanni de' Medici (Pope Leo) and Alessandro Farnese (Paul III) - all guilty of simony, and nepotism, all regarding celibacy as not for them, to put it mildly, BUT they actually to know their theology, to have studied it, and they had opinions on it (beyond "do as I say", I mean). They also were their respective clans head honchos, rather than their puppets. And then there's the part where they're responsible for a lot of Renaissance art patronage which I suppose also helped assuring them a somewhat more layered treatment than the Popes of the Pornocracy got.

How you can tell the podcast is accumulating American listeners: our podcaster at the start of one episode has to defend himself against the charge of presenting the Popes as always evil and being mean about churchmen. Trust me, he really really doesn't, and isn't. The entire podcast is as non judgmental as you can get without making light of, well, massacres. (So the Bishop of Mainz who has the blood of the Jewish citizens of said city during the First Crusade on his hands does not get handwaved with "these were the times", because we also get examples of both church and laymen acting differently.) On the contrary, the podcast, even when one is able to tell that, say, in the Henry IV vs Pope Gregory struggle, our podcaster's sympathy is with Henry, the podcast also emphasizes what an achievement Gregory's papacy was. Context: Henry IV's Dad, Henry III, had been the one deposing three Popes and installing our Bamberg loving Suidger/Clement II and a string of goody two shoes Popes which ended the Pornocracy. At this point, it's normal that the Emperor is the one who appoints bishops and abbots within the (not yet called that) HRE, that the Emperor is the one seen as the leader of Christendom; and within a generation, mostly due to Hildebrand/Gregory and his reforms (and his ambitions, and his dealing with the Normans), you have the idea and practice of the Pope as an authority over kings, the big Investure Controversy (which ends with the Pope as the one appointing bishops and abbots), and of course a much needed institutional renewal (to be followed by corruption again later, for such are the cycles). This was also when celibacy went from being obligatory for monks but not for priests to being obligatory for all clergy, not least because it put a stop (for a while) to priests and bishops being concerned with accumulating land for their families, as opposed to the Church.

Lastly, I'm no longer as hard on Matthew Kneale who in his entertaining "History of Rome in Seven Sackings" in his chapter on the Sacco di Roma when reccounting the backstory of Charles V's history with the various Popes claims the quondam Giulio de' Medici (Clement as Pope) was seriously afraid Charles would depose him and install Martin Luther as Pope. I mean, it's still ridiculous if you know anything about Charles and Luther (especially since at the time Kneale makes this claim for, Luther was already married and was way, way, WAY beyond any possibility of reintegrating within the Catholic Church, plus say what you want about Luther's own flaws and hypocrisies, but this wasn't one of them - he would never have accepted being made Pope, even if an AU!Charles would have suggested it), but if you're a writer covering centuries and thus reading up on a lot of deposed Popes and antipopes and all the many Emperors vs Popes struggles of earlier eras where indeed Emperors would have been able to get Popes deposed, or later on at least tried, you're probably just tricked by the bigger picture.

(Still. Charles, being a Renaissance prince, OF COURSE wanted Popes friendly to his cause in St. Peter, as did contemporaries Francis I. of France and not much longer in the Church Henry VIII, but being a Renaissance Prince, he tried to achieve this the Renaissance way, i.e. by lobbying, leaning on people and promising cash and lands to various bishops. Also with marriage alliances.
Otoh, using something like the sacking of Rome to install an Antipope would not have occured to him. He was a Burgundian-raised Habsburg with a Spanish powerbase, not a medieval Ottonian or Salian or Hohenstaufen!)

From:

selenak

Last year when I read up on Margaret of Parma (and the other Margarets), an incident was mentioned in her biography which I kept wanting to research, and now I have. Turns out the incident in question is at the very least dubious, with a 1962 article referring to it as "discredited". So what am I talking about?

Reminder: after Alessandro de' Medici got murdered, Margaret after a short widowed interlude next got married by her father Charles V. to another papal relation, this one of the new Pope, Paul III, aka Alessandro Farnese. Margaret's husband, Ottavio, was even younger than teenage her, and they did not get on from the start, with Ottavio claiming he'd had her in the wedding night and Margaret scornfully saying he only wet himself, which he never forgave her for. She also refused to have sex with him for years until her grandfather-in-law the Pope talked her around, at which point Ottavio and Margaret reproduced, twins, and thereafter kept out of each other's ways again for the most part. But the guy who concerns us now is Ottavio's father and the Pope's son, Pier Luigi. Pier Luigi Farnese, whom his father had made Grand Captain of the Church (i.e. basically top general of the Papal army, i.e. Cesare Borgia's old job) had and still has a terrible reputation. That's not debated. What is debated is whether shortly before Margaret married Ottavio, he committed one particular crime: the "Rape of Fano". Essentially: raping a young bishop to death.

The facts, such as they can be ascertained, are these: Cosimo Gheri, Bishop of Fano, only 24 and thus a typical Renaissance prince of the church who inherited the job from his late uncle, died in September 1737. According to a laudatory account of him written by a former fellow student of his, Ludovico Beccadelli, he died of a fever (probably malaria); he got praised for his learning and devotion, and Fano historians have certified to his good works during his short time in office.

Pier Luigi Farnese had visited Fano in May 1537, and on that occasion, on May 23rd, did have dinner with the bishop alone, according to a letter of the bishop to Beccadelli. So far, so non-sensational. However, more than a year after the bishop's death, on November 18, 1538, an agent of Cardinal Conzaga's writes to his patron that a friend has seen in a bookstore at Nuremberg books about "il sanguinolento fatto d'armi di Pier Luigi col Vescovo di Fano". (Reminder, at this point, the Reformation is in full swing, Nuremberg has become majorly Protestant, and stories about papal bastards buggering bishops are eaten up with a spoon.)
By 1549, at which point Pier Luigi has been gruesomely killed by his new subjects in Parma and Paul III. has died more peacefully, there's a printed in English satire on the occasion of Paul III's death which does mention in detail, the story of Pier Luigi (or rather Peter Aloysius, an anglization which I have to admit sounds funny to me) having raped the young Bishop of Fano and the young guy dying of it afterwards. However, this wasn't the first take in English on this story. There's a far earlier one, from March 1539, written by one Richard Morryson who started out as a law student in Padua and living in the household of future Cardinal and last Plantagenet Reginald Pole, and then got recruited by Hilary Mantel hero Thomas Cromwell in whose service he wrote half a dozen tracts about the evils of the Catholic Church. In a March 1539 pamphlet, he gives us the "Pier Luigi and the Bishop of Fano" saga in incredible detail. Choice Tudor English quote, after Pier Luigi has come into town and the Bishop, being a polite host, has said that he and his palace are at the Captain (of the Church)'s disposal:

I knew the bysshoppe wonderfull well: he was undoubted, as well lerned a yonge man, as fewe were in Italy. (...) The Capytaine, after the byshop had bydden hym good nyghte, called 3 or 4 of his men to hym, tellynge them all of the byshops offer, sayinge, I lyke well this parte of the offer, that his body is at my commandemente, I intende to morrow int he mornynge to prove, whether he be a man of his worde or noo. If I canne not obteyne by fayre meanes, I intende to use your helpe, and have it by force.

The dastardly plan is followed up, the poor young bishop gets beaten up and raped by Pier Luigi. The bishop then comes up with a surprise twist: The byshop sayd, Sodom & Gomorrah sunke for this synne (...) woll not the emperour one day se lawes m ade for such syn executed? I trust to se his maiestie, er it be longe, I truste to be harde, and nothyinge doubt, but he woll se this ultrage, this vylanye, that thou haste done me, punished.

Pier Luigi, apparantly sure that Dad won't punish him but the Emperor (i.e. Charles V.) will, decides he better do something and has the Bishop poisoned. So far the 1539 Morryson pamphlet. The next and most famous take on the story is by Benedetto Varchi in his official Storia Fiorentina, commissioned in 1547. Here, the outrage happens as well, but somewhat differently:

In that same year a case took place, of which I do not remember having heard or read [...] a more execrable one [...] Messer Cosimo Gheri from Pistoia, Bishop of Fano, was aged twenty-four [...] when Lord Pier Luigi da Farnese (drunk of his own success and sure of his father's indulgence so that he was not to be chastised nor scolded, he went to the lands of the Church raping, either out of love or by force, how many young people he saw and liked) he left the city of Ancona to go to Fano, where a friar was Governor [...]. Having heard the coming of Pier Luigi and wishing to meet him, he asked the Bishop if he wanted to go to honor the Pontiff's son and Gonfalonier of the Holy Church; which he did, yet not very willingly. The first thing that Pier Luigi asked the Bishop was (but in his own and obscene words according to his custom, which was extremely disheartened) "how he enjoyed and had good time with those beautiful women of Fano". The Bishop, who was no less shrewd than good, acknowledging the question (and who made it) for what they were, replied modestly although somewhat indignant that "this was not his business" and, to draw himself out of that reasoning, he added: "Your excellency would do a great good to this city, which is all divided into factions, and through prudence and authority unify and pacify it". The next day, having planned what he intended to do, Pier Luigi sent (as if he wanted to reconcile the people of Fano) to call first the Governor, then the Bishop. The Governor left the room as soon as he saw the Bishop, and Pier Luigi began palpating and wrinkling the Bishop, wanting to do the most dishonest acts one could do with females. Because the Bishop, who was of little and very weak complexion [...] defended himself vigorously not only from him (who, being full of syphilis, almost couldn’t stand up), but from his other accomplices too, who were bidding to keep him still, he had him tied up [...]. Not only did they keep their naked daggers at his throat threatening him continually, if he moved, to slaughter him, but they also struck him with the tips and the knobs so that the signs remained there.

The bishop then dies after forty days of physical and emotional shock. In Rome only Cardinal Carpi dares to protest, the Pope instantly issues a bull of absolution (hasn't been found), and when the news reach Germany, the Lutherans have a blast deriding "this new kind of martyrdom of the saints". No threat to tell the Emperor is mentioned, nor any poisoning.

Now, the George B. Parks essay points out that Beccadilli, former fellow student of the bishop's, whose account is scandal free, quotes various letters from his schoolmate between Pier Luigi's May visit and the bishop's death in September which indicate normal activities until the last fifty days before his death during which he was sick, and also that he, the bishop, remained in Fano when Pier Luigi Farnese paid a return visit on July 5th, at which point he hadn't been ill yet. (Meaning, I presume, that if the bishop had been raped on May 23rd or 24th (depending on whether you believe the story where he gets raped the next day or the one where he gets raped the same day), one would expect him to be out of town for the return of his rapist.

Which sounds true enough, and also Varchi's description of Pier Luigi being so eaten by syphilis that he can't stand on his own is demonstrably false (he went on to live, lead armies and terrorize people, which involved a lot of riding under stressful conditions, for ten years more), but otoh, I don't see Pier Luigi completely in the clear on this one yet. Not least because the young Bishop is hardly unique in dying of a fever in Italy, and yet a year later you have gossip in very different places - Rome, Nuremberg, Britain, and a decade later Florence. Now, Nuremberg Protestants and Cromwell's pamphleteer are hardly unbiased chroniclers - they're Protestants invested in making the Papacy look as terrible as possible, and when for example Morryson, who at this point lives in England and is cut off from his earlier connections to Pole's household, gives us lengthy dialogue between Pier Luigi and the bishop, and Pier Luigi and his men, he's clearly making things up since he can't have witness reports on these. As for Varchi, Florence and Rome are into mutual loathing each other. But, different and ideologically motivated as these accounts are, they do agree on one thing: Pier Luigi raping the Bishop. And it's not like this young guy was famous so that his early death would have needed an explanation. (Like the disappearing Princes in the Tower.) So why does everyone fixate so quickly on this guy as Pier Luigi's victim? As for Beccadelli NOT mentioning anything unusual in his elogy on his dead friend, well, if you'll recall Formey's elogy of Peter Keith as referenced by Mildred manages to vaguely mention "circumstances" causing Peter to spend a decade abroad (escape attempt, what's that?). So if I were a member of the jury, I might not think there's enough to convict, but I would have still my doubts Pier Luigi didn't do something that people noticed. Not a gang rape or a gang beating with ensueing rape, maybe, but he could have made a pass?

(That he was at the very least bi in the modern sense and not always bothering with consent is certified; there's a letter from his father the Pope reproaching him for taking male lovers when on a official mission to the Emperor's court, and according to wiki another from the chancellor of the Florentine embassy detailing a man-hunt he had mounted in Rome to search for a youth who had refused his advances.)

From:

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-12-18 10:24 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

A Shaking Structure (5039 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
Additional Tags: Forced Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Grief, Abusive Parent, Metaphors
Summary:

After his failed escape attempt and Katte's execution, Friedrich has to find a way to live on.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Ooh, thanks for the heads-up! I see Felis has a recent post-Soor fic too. So much good fanfic in this fandom, and I keep falling behind...

Re: New Frederician Fiction

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-12-04 05:17 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Behold! A comment which is entirely on topic! : D

Well, this was good--I like how all the chapter titles are lines from Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation. *g* But I do understand why the '45 gets all the attention, because it just has a much better dramatic arc as a story, even though measured in the amount of soldiers on the Jacobite side it was actually smaller than the '15. Still, there was some interesting stuff here. I'm going to do a contrast/compare between the '15 and the '45.

Geopolitical situation
In the '45, Britain and France were at war, and in '44, France had actually tried to invade. So it was pretty favourable for the Jacobites. By contrast, in 1715 there was peace between Britain and France, and France was financially broke besides. Even worse, Louis XIV died and Orleans became regent, and he was wary of Philip of Spain invading in which case he would have been dependent on help from the British and their allies. So it really was a lousy situation for the Jacobites to get any help from France. Why then did they rebel?

Internal political situation
The '45 was basically prompted by the arrival of BPC in Scotland and there was little internal reason to rebel. By contrast, there was a lot of political disturbance in the years leading up to the '15. The 1707 Union had led to no economic improvement for Scotland, and the Hanoverians had succeeded to the throne. The Tories had been ousted from office by George I, and when they failed in the elections (partly because the king threw his weight behind the Whigs) there was lots of Tory and Jacobite rioting in England and Scotland. The political climate was very polarized, and actually both Whigs and Jacobites in Scotland were stockpiling weapons and thinking that there might be civil war. The actual Jacobite rising was not centralized, it was lots of local risings where more and more lairds and nobles came out because they didn't want to seem like they were chickening out.

Military stuff
Sadly there was no outstanding competence to admire on either side, and a fair amount of incompetence. The government had pretty much abandoned the Duke of Argyll to defend Scotland on his own, because they thought protecting England was more important. A lot of the war was spent with the rebels coalescing in Perth and trying to build up their army, and the Duke of Argyll hanging out in Stirling guarding the way south. Then, when they finally meet, they have an encounter battle at Sheriffmuir where one side of the Jacobite army puts the Whig army to flight, and vice versa on the other side. The most experienced officer on the Jacobite side was a General Hamilton, but he had served in the Dutch army and had no idea how to best use the Highland troops.

Really the most charming military detail is the war in the north and west of the Highlands, which was fought entirely between Highland troops. These people were neighbors and did not want to incur blood feuds if they really didn't have to, so the war became a sort of shadow boxing. There were thousands of men in the field, and Inverness was taken and retaken several times, but only two men are recorded to have died! I find this charming. Although of course there was looting, but even that was restrained, with people from both sides being considerate of their neighbors.

Relations between the opponents
Famously in the ‘45, the government side refused to acknowledge the Jacobites as legitimate opponents, while the Jacobites scrupulously followed the rules of war. In the '15, both sides started out following the usual rules of war. Interestingly, this was apparently also the case during the English Civil War of the mid 17th century and during the Williamite war in Ireland in the 1690s—the two sides had cartel agreements, exchanged prisoners, etc. The Duke of Argyll used this approach, but the central government in London had a hard time making up its mind on the point, and finally decided that there was no negotiation with rebels. I really did not expect to come out of this book feeling so well inclined to the Duke of Argyll! (This is the second Duke, by the name of John Campbell, as if they aren't all named John Campbell, except the ones who are named Archibald. He died in 1743, and so wasn't around for the next rising.)

Anyway, after the battle of Sheriffmuir, the Jacobites wanted to negotiate for surrender, which the Duke of Argyll thought was a great idea; he wanted to offer them good terms. But the government in London said, again, no negotiation with rebels and we're going to treat them all as traitors, so the war went on. Argyll pestered the government, basically saying that if they had let him negotiate, the war would have been over now! Finally they got tired of him.

Aftermath
First I'm just going to note the delightful fact that habeas corpus (the law that says you can only imprison someone for a short period of time without putting them to a trial) was called in Scotland the Act Anent Wrongeous Imprisonment.

There were two reasons why the government treatment of the rebels was less harsh in 1715 than 1745. First, the Whigs still remembered how they had been treated after Monmouth's rebellion of 1685 and the Bloody Assizes, and shrank from doing the same (they had apparently forgotten this in 1745, when they decided to be bloodthirsty in turn). But still, they did not want to let the rebels off easily, and were determined to punish them. So: second, Scotland's elite really united and tried to prevent harsh punishment of rebels in general, and were largely successful. This I think is one of the most charming aspects of the ’15! The social elite in Scotland was in some ways bitterly divided (they were certainly much more prone to take up arms against each other than in England!) but in other ways they were very cohesive. Whigs and Jacobites were neighbors and had socially interwoven lives in ways that they didn't have in England. So when the government tried to have about 100 of the elite prisoners from Scotland tried in England, the whole Scottish legal establishment obstructed it completely--and not just the legal establishment, but also the Whig elite. They also obstructed the dispossession of the estates of the Scottish rebels. When the government came to take their estates, it suddenly was found that large debts were owed to their Whig neighbors, or maybe the estate actually legally belonged to someone else! Etcetera, it's really delightful to read about. Whig friends and neighbors also interceded for their Jacobite friends (which Jacobites also did for Whig friends in the areas which were under Jacobite rule during the rising). Of course, this did have a cost for them: that the Jacobites came under an obligation not to rebel again--but it also helped heal the social fabric of Scotland. This all happened to some extent after the '45 as well, but the central government was stronger and more bloodthirsty then. Also, in 1715, the Whigs had more understanding for the rebellion given the bad conditions after the Union.

At the end of the book there's also a section about the exiles, who mostly went to France. From this I will just quote a wonderful phrase from one of them, describing his dreary existence in a small provincial French town: one day being as like the other as two eggs and these eaten without either pepper or salt. Aww. : (

Well, of course there's lots more in the book. Ask if you have questions.

Edited Date: 2022-12-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

From:

luzula - Date: 2022-12-06 08:59 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

"From the beginnings of the government of Frederick the Great" by (Headmaster) Dr. Curt Troeger is a new addendum to our library which Mildred has asked me to read and write up. It deals with 1740, mainly though by no means exclusively based on Manteuffel's reports, and has his unfinished "Portrait of Fidamire" (i.e. Fritz) attached, in the original French, so I haven't read it yet (too little time).

Troeger also provides a short biography of Manteuffel, a sketch of the rise and fall of his brief relationship with Fritz, and a character assassment. It contains nothng new to our Salon at this point, though it amuses me that Troeger is a Suhm fan and repeatedly emphasises how much more honest and likeable and modest Suhm is by comparison. However, he is also impressed by Manteuffel as a person though he sees him as a paradox, because on the one hand, both sciences in general and philiosophy in general were clearly important to Le Diable far beyond the fashionable-for-18th-century-aristocrats limit, he got the respect and admiration of earnest moral folk like Formey and Deschamps who got misty eyed about him decades after his deatah, Christian Wolff himself corresponded with him for twenty years and when Manteuffel died wrote to mutual friends how sad he was about this, and what a great guy etc. On the other hand, the same Manteuffel keeps using extremely shady political means, and in the 1730s isn't above reporting to Brühl and the Austrians both, so what gives? Troeger thinks this - that Manteuffel wasn't able to put the Wolffian morality into his own life - might be why Fritz dumped him. (To which I say, rubbish. We're talking about Fritz the Voltaire addict here. Now dumping Manteuffel for not wanting to be manipulated, otoh, and for the security risk he was, absolutely.)

It's also really noticable how much the entire essay reads Fritz basically as Shakespeare's Prince Hal/Henry V. in terms of his relationship with FW and by so many people going from thrilled and delighted after his ascension to the throne to being disappointed (while only Pöllnitz is compared directly to Falstaff, the implication is that everyone else is Falstaff, too) and not getting that Fritz was totally sincere in his reconciliation with and appreciation of his father and now is about to take the complete explosion into Hohenzollern Iron Butterfly out of the Crown Prince Cocoon.

There's not much new to report re: Manteuffel and his statements re: Fritz, safe perhaps that at the start of the year, he's overly optimistic regarding EC in that he thinks her non stop limitless devotion and knocking herself out to please her husband has made Fritz go from his initial coldness to a state of respect for and confidence inher (not in the sense that she influences him, just that he respects and trusts her now), it's an easy mistake to make in the spring of 1740 - after all, it's been years since the last "am so going to dump her once Dad is dead" statement, the two have been living together for years now in seeming harmony.

Otoh, there are new or at least not remembered by me little factoids in the essay re: quite a lot of other people. Troeger also quotes our old acquaintance Hofrat König with his memorable descriptions of Keyserlingk and emphasizes how Keyslerlingk was initially seen by everyone as as the great favorite, and overwhelmed with petitions. (Troeger also thinks all the emo in the letters from Crown Prince Fritz to Keyserlingk may sound "a bit strange" to us modern folk, but it is THE TIMES, you know, nothing else.) But then this happens, according to a letter from Manteuffel to Brühl dated August 20th 1740: Fritz tells his dear Keyserlingk he's supposed to enjoy himself but by no means to interfere with politics, or, how Fritz according to Manteuffel put it: "My dear Keyserlingk! You are an awfully nice man, you have much wit and education, you sing and joke most charmingly, and you're an honest fellow, but your advice is that of a fool."

(Ouch. This quote was news to me. But why should Caesarion be excempt from this treatment which all other Fritzian loves got?)

Keyslerlingk seems to have kept this in mind, because when Hofrat König (I'll get to why he was sent to Berlin when there's already a Saxon official resident and Manteuffel there in a moment) imagines he can form together with Keyserlingk a Prussian/Saxon monarch advisory board, he's told by Caesarion that "the King was very suspicious and very jealous of his own authority, he was always suspecting that people were trying to manipulate him".

(I wonder why, ahem.)

Incidentally, according to König Keysleringk showed him all those tender letters ("in said royal letters there are he most tender rexpressions for his Caesarion", writes König in his second report to Brühl) whose tone Troeger thinks feels "odd" to us today. This is less a violation of trust than you might think in that letters of that era, especially by VIPs, were written in the expectation of being shown around, unless really specified differently. But it does show what Jürgen Luh means when he says the Fredersdorf letters are the only Fritzian letters we really can be sure of to be written strictly for their recipient and not for anyone either contemporary or in the history writing department.

Troeger still thinks that Keysleringk got closer to Fritz than anyone else in his life, "except perhaps the Chamberlain Fredersdorf". Speaking of whom: this happened: Manteuffel reports (not for the first time) to Brühl that stll Crown Prince Fritz would like some Saxon cash. Brühl sends Hofrat König, who already knows Keyslerlingk from ye olde times, to convey to Fritz (this is after Fritz broke up with Le Diable, remember) that Saxony will gladly help out, etc. Fritz signals via Keyserlingk yes, it's true, he's in dire need (again) and would love to. Then one Colonel Carnitz, who is a Saxon officer in Berlin who is friends with Fredersdorf, is asked to hand over the actual cash, 50 000 Taler all in all, as an expression of the friendly feelings which August 3 has for Fritz. Said sum gets paid back by Fredersdorf to Carnitz in "the first days of the change of government" already.

However, Carnitz has decided he wants something for having been the middleman in the twilight of the Crown Prince era. To wit: he wants respect! So he asks Brühl to be allowed to represent Saxony to Fritz when he takes his pesonal leave of him, by giving him official loving regards from A3. Brühl licenses this but with the sharp advice to be discreet, for God's sake, the entire money lending backstory is a delicate matter after all and the point was to make friends with the new monarch, not to annoy him. Alas, Carnitz has forgotten what "discreet"' means and now, according to Manteuffel, presents himself as an Extraordinary Saxon Envoy to Fritz officially. He even gets received on June 12th together with other envoys from great foreign courts.

This does not make Brühl happy, who sends König to Berlin to reign in Carnitz and his ego. None too soon, because Carnitz now has told Fredersdorf that he'd like some presents from Fritz for his past troubles, too. Also FW had promised the former Carnitz estates to Colonel von Derschau (sidenote: Derschau is NOT Fritz' favorite person and is in fact named as hated by him in Grumbkow's and Seckendorff's 1730 reports - he's also one of the interrogators and firmly on the FW side), which now has been altered to Carnitz gets his estate back; König thinks this is because Fredersdorf and Keyserlingk, both of whom have talked to him about Carnitz, feel sorry for him. Carnitz actually is very sick and will die in July; König gets told by Keyserlingk that no harm has been done, Fritz understands and "my King is nothing less than ungrateful; he has the best heart of the world".

(Brühl in 1756, seeing his estates go up in flames: No kidding.)

Another thing of interest to me was that during the time eveyone goes from "hooray for our new King!" to "hang on! He's thrifty like his old man, wtf?!?" and it turns out old buddies like Keyserlingk and new buddies like Algarotti gets some shiny presents but are treated strictly as entertainment, not as suited for serious office, Manteuffel says the one exception to the general mood of disillusionment among the Rheinsberg crowd was Wartensleben, who was smart enough to speak only when spoken to and not make any demands and thus keeps having Fritz' respect. This is further fodder for my speculation Wartensleben was Manteuffel's source for the Straßburg trip. Speaking of which, apparently speculation that Fritz might make a secret trip to France was making the rounds in Berlin in the weeks before he did head of to Bayreuth, though with very contradictory destinations within France named, and two days before he leaves, Manteuffel reports to Brühl resignedly no one can be sure what the hell is going on.

Lastly: I'm not sure whether or not we knew this before, but: one of Manteuffel's verified sources at Rheinsberg was the cook, Duval.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

mildred_of_midgard

Now that I'm finishing up the Leopold bio, here are my notes.

* My favorite Leopold reform so far was how he treated Hungary. Joseph had managed to bring Hungary to the brink of a rebellion by removing all the privileges of the nobility, trying to assimilate it fully by centralizing administration and introducing German as the official language, and disrespecting all the native Hungarian traditions. Since the Hungarians had always been loosely associated with the rest of the Habsburg territory, not part of the Holy Roman Empire, and pretty resentful of the Habsburgs, they had a hate-on for Joseph like you wouldn't believe.

Leopold managed to salvage the situation by revoking Joseph's reforms, which involved giving the nobles back the right to run roughshod over the peasants and middle classes. But! Leopold believes in a limited, representational government of the American Revolution and early, pre-insanity, French Revolution type. So his heart is with the peasants and other unprivileged classes, not with the nobles. And he wants to make life better for them.

But if he's seen talking to these lower classes, the nobles will (correctly) deduce that he's trying to start a revolution at their expense. So Leopold has to be sneaky. His laws support the nobles, but he starts secretly fomenting discontent among the unprivileged classes. He gets his secret agents to go out among the people and talk about how they really should be able to send representatives to the government, and how their complaints are justified, and how they should really band together and try to bring these complaints to the attention of Emperor Leopold.

Leopold drafts revolutionary pamphlets and has them printed and distributed under false names in Hungary...only his censor (Joseph had to revoke freedom of speech already, and Leopold even more so) suppresses them, not knowing that his boss Leopold actually wrote them!

Truly a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing.

So Leopold has to get around his censor, which he manages, and he secretly urges on the Hungarians to rise up and reform their government in collaboration with him, Leopold, who officially knows nothing about this and is totally on the side of the nobles.

Leopold: My favorite Holy Roman Emperor so far. Unlike Selena, I don't need a human interest angle--this *is* my human interest angle. ;)

* One of the things Leopold gets flak for is not supporting Marie Antoinette more, saying cold-bloodedly that he had a sister, but Austria did not.

Knowing that quote, I was surprised to find evidence that his thinking was not just "This will not make things better for Austria" but also "This will not make things better for my sister, either." He apparently really was concerned that sending military aid might make the situation worse for MA and Louis XVI (as the first coalition will later, in fact, prove).

The proof? During the failed flight to Varennes, fake news got out to the rest of Europe that MA and Louis had successfully crossed the French border and were now in the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium). Leopold got this news and promptly issued an order to MC and Albert (the stattholders of the Austrian Netherlands) saying that, now that their sister and Louis were safely out of the hands of the French, it was safe to act, and he authorized them to invade France and march on Paris. In other words, Leopold had previously been seeing the situation as one where his hands were tied because his sister was a hostage.

Then he got word that, in fact, she and Louis hadn't made it to safety, and were in fact prisoners. That was when he did an about-face in his foreign policy and decided that it was time to take a more active role and try to salvage the situation in France, since there was no chance of her getting out on her own.

And, as we know, the escalating conflicts between Austria+allies and France did eventually culminate in the executions of MA and Louis. So while he was definitely cold-blooded and MA and Leopold were basically strangers with no emotional stranger relationship...he does seem to have been basing at least some of his decisions on her well-being.

* I was surprised to see Lucchesini showing up so often, but Wikipedia confirms that after Fritz died, FW2 decided his uncle's reader had great diplomatic potential and started sending him on important missions. He got to be the Prussian envoy to Saxony, Austria, and France, including under Napoleon.

Trying to decide if this is an exception to the "figure out what Uncle Fritz would do, then do the opposite" rule, because he's favoring one of Fritz's favorites, or if it's a more subtle case of adhering to the usual rule, along the lines of "Fritz kept you out of politics and didn't make use of your obvious talents, but I will!" ("Sorry, Uncle Heinrich, Big Bro Fritz was your last chance to make use of your obvious talents.")

* Another thing I found interesting about Leopold is that every so often he announces he needs a few mental health days, and that these are really important. I mean, some of them are also physical health days, but he writes this great quote:

Man was created to think and ponder, and one is so busy with business and necessary distractions in which one must participate because for the sake of the public, that we spend most of our lives thinking only of others and almost never have time to to think about ourselves, and it is only in this way that one learns to think well about others .

At one point, while touring his domains, he made a quick detour outside of Tuscany to nearby (20km away) Lucca, which MT, no believer in vacations, got annoyed at. He had to write a self-justifying letter explaining how it had been a business trip and not just a pleasure trip! Honest!

Of note to fanfic writers: the family spent winters in Pisa, because the climate was milder there. That's the same reason Algarotti died in Pisa and is buried there: he moved from Bologna to Pisa at the end of his life, in hopes the milder climate would help his tuberculosis. :(

* When planning to make war on France right before he died, apparently one of the things Leopold wants is Lorraine back (acquired when FS had to give it up), and if possible, Alsace (acquired by Louis XIV in the Thirty Years' War almost 150 years ago).

This normally wouldn't be worth mentioning, except this is Leopold, who was always emphasizing that he had no territorial ambitions, that wars of aggression are bad, and even got rid of Tuscany's army and navy in favor of a self-defense only citizen militia.

Expansionism is bad but revanchism is okay, I guess.

* Two great quotes.

Leopold's son Johann will later say, after Leopold's death, that in Leopold were united the noble heart of his mother and the bright understanding of his brother Joseph II.

FS is the Ferdinand of the Habsburgs, I see.

Second great quote, Joseph is snarking about some Austrian committee that he wants to reform because all it deals with is trivial matters, so trivial that "it's as if a heathen were to ask if it would be better for the salvation of his soul to pray to Jupiter, Juno, or Fitzliputzli."

Lol, Joseph!

* A Fritz quote about Joseph: "He always takes the second step before the first." (Something no one could accuse Leopold of, says Peham.)

*

mildred_of_midgard

I have made contact with the Prussian Secret State Archive and they are digitizing Peter Keith's correspondence with Fritz for me!

!!!!

It should take 3-4 weeks, and if I did the calculations correctly (they haven't said I didn't when I submitted the form), it should be only 4 euros for the 8 pages.

Now, of course, I can't read them, and

prinzsorgenfrei (whom I haven't heard back from, might have to try tumblr) only does German, but, I have an acquaintance from grad school who is a native speaker of French and I think specialized in manuscripts. If she doesn't have the specialization or the time to do it herself, she might be able to put me in contact with someone who does.

Anyway! What this means is we have the ability to order things from the archives, which means I am taking requests! Digitized catalog here: https://gsta.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/

German is obviously preferable, but in 3-4 weeks I should be able to tell you if we have a point of contact for French. And we'll see what Prinzsorgenfrei has time and interest in.

Current things I'm eyeing:

* The Leining and Fredersdorf correspondence when Leining took over, including the one mentioned by the box bill project, that has bearing on whether Fredersdorf was dismissed or stepped down voluntarily.

* The Suhm and Fritz correspondence from the final St. Petersburg -> Warsaw trip, in hopes Suhm's brother's unpublished letter is in there. Because I'm annoyed with Preuss for not publishing that one, because it might actually give us some hint of what Suhm died of! Which I as a fanfic writer very much need to know.

* The Peter Keith documents from the 1730 trial. This would be expensive, but if Prinzsorgenfrei is willing to read through looking for anything that isn't in Kloosterhuis or Hinrichs, potentially very valuable.

* Peter Keith's son's correspondence from Turin as envoy. Probably not interesting, but you never know!

* Suhm's sister requesting from the Saxon court the back pay they owe her brother. I'm a Suhm stan, what can I say. :P

* That Groeben letter we've talked about ordering.

What else, guys?

Edited Date: 2022-12-06 09:04 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

These are indeed awesome news, but alas for my non existent spare time right now!

Anyway: Lehndorff's surviving papers are in Leipzig, not Berlin, so they probably don't have any of his to digitize, and Heinrich's stuff has famously been lost. However, depending on availability, I'd be generally interested in:

- Peter Keith/Knobelsdorff letters;

felis unearthing that friendship had intrigued me last year

- do they have any Gundling letters?

And speaking of Groeben, since "The King's love could be deadly", clearing up whether Grigorii the Baltic hussar shows up anywhere but in that one envoy report would also be of interest.

Re: Excellent salon news

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-08 05:54 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Excellent salon news

From:

luzula - Date: 2022-12-06 04:17 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Excellent salon news

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-16 08:01 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Excellent salon news

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-12-18 10:44 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

IDK if anyone else in salon has played with ChatGPT, a language model to generate human-like text. It's really rather amazing -- it can output snippets of dialogue making up a little story, it can generate advertising text for a made-up company that foretells the future, it can "understand" you saying things like "make it snarkier!" and execute them! I mean, it's not going to replace actual authors anytime soon or anything, but I am super impressed as I wasn't aware that any of that was even possible with AI. (The thing I think is both most impressive and most useful to me personally is its code-writing abilities! but that is not really relevant to salon.)

The problem is that the way it works is not through making what a human would call reasoned sense (it doesn't actually understand anything), but rather by being trained by a whole lot of data and grabbing stuff from that data corpus. So you can ask it to explain a subject and something at a superficial general level it'll usually give you a pretty good general explanation, but as soon as you are interested in anything a little more specific, it starts falling apart (as it doesn't necessarily have enough or even any training data to be able to mine). Indeed, sometimes it gets things entirely wrong, but convincingly sounds like it knows what it's talking about (if one doesn't know better).

All that is to say that, of course, I asked it a few salon-related items and I thought you might be amused as to how well it does but at the same time how wrong it did get things :) Bold-faced are what I asked it; plain text is its reply:

write a story about voltaire and wilhelmine discussing katte

Once upon a time, Voltaire and Wilhelmine, a close friend of Frederick the Great, were discussing the fate of one of Frederick's closest friends, Katte. Katte had been sentenced to death for disobeying the king's orders and attempting to help one of Frederick's enemies escape from prison.

Voltaire was horrified by the news and could not believe that Frederick would allow such a thing to happen. He argued passionately with Wilhelmine, trying to persuade her to intercede on Katte's behalf and convince Frederick to spare his life.

Wilhelmine, however, was loyal to Frederick and believed that he had made the right decision. She argued that Katte had betrayed the king's trust and that he deserved to be punished.

Despite Voltaire's best efforts, Wilhelmine would not be swayed. In the end, Katte was executed, and Voltaire was left to mourn the loss of a brave and honorable man.

From that day on, Voltaire's respect for Frederick was forever tarnished, and he could never quite forgive him for the death of his friend.

wilhelmine is frederick the great's sister

Yes, you are correct. Wilhelmine was the sister of Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia. She was a close friend and confidant of the king, and she was known for her intelligence and her loyalty to her brother.

Katte was Frederick's friend

Yes, that is correct. Katte was a close friend of Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia. He was a talented officer and a brave soldier, and he was known for his loyalty and his devotion to the king.

However, despite his many good qualities, Katte was sentenced to death by Frederick for disobeying his orders and attempting to help one of his enemies escape from prison. This event caused a rift between Frederick and Voltaire, who was a friend of Katte and could not forgive the king for his actions.

No, Frederick the Great did not sentence Katte to death.

I apologize if I gave you incorrect information earlier. As a large language model, I do not have the ability to browse or search for information, and I can only respond based on the text that I was trained on. It is possible that I may make mistakes or provide incorrect information if the text I was trained on is incorrect or incomplete.

To my knowledge, based on the text that I was trained on, Frederick the Great did sentence Katte to death for disobeying his orders and attempting to help one of his enemies escape from prison. This event caused a rift between Frederick and Voltaire, who was a friend of Katte and could not forgive the king for his actions. If this information is incorrect, I apologize for any confusion or misunderstanding that I may have caused.

------------------------
[This is a natural mistake for it to have made, I think, because in English texts it would be natural to mix up "Frederick" and "Frederick Wilhelm" and think they were the same person! But now, the really interesting thing is that I did all this two days ago and then didn't have time to write it up for salon. I had mentioned to E that ChatGPT sometimes got things very wrong and tried the same thing again tonight to show her ChatGPT getting Katte wrong. And lo: it still gets things wrong (and warning to mildred for victim-blaming), but not as many! Someone is fixing their algorithms in real time...]

write a story about voltaire and wilhelmine discussing katte

Once upon a time, Voltaire and Wilhelmine met in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. As they strolled among the lush greenery, they began to discuss the tragic fate of a young man named Katte.

Katte, a close friend of the Prussian Crown Prince, had been sentenced to death for his role in helping the prince attempt to flee from his father, King Frederick William I. The king was known for his strict and authoritarian rule, and the prince had grown tired of the constant pressure to conform to his father's expectations.

"It is a shame that such a young man had to suffer for the mistakes of his friend," Voltaire said, shaking his head. "But perhaps it is a reminder to all of us to be careful in choosing our allies and our causes."

Wilhelmine nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Katte was a brave man, but he paid the ultimate price for his loyalty. I only hope that his sacrifice will not be forgotten and will serve as a warning to others who may be tempted to defy the king."

As they continued to walk and talk, Voltaire and Wilhelmine discussed the broader implications of Katte's fate and the harsh realities of life under an oppressive regime. They both agreed that it was important to stand up for what was right, but also to be mindful of the potential consequences of their actions.

In the end, Voltaire and Wilhelmine parted ways, each with a renewed sense of purpose and determination to fight for justice and freedom in their own ways. And though Katte's story had come to a tragic end, his legacy lived on in the hearts and minds of those who had known and loved him.

Edited Date: 2022-12-08 06:25 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

For reasons! Let's say that a man is asking a woman to marry him in Elizabethan England. The two aren't royalty, so the marriage isn't arranged (and is in fact a love match); both are children of knights (one is an old family, the other is a merchant family, recently knighted).

In particular, do we have the convention in this era that the man goes down on one knee and asks the woman to marry him? If not, is there any convention for proposals? And (especially if not) is there any sort of convention in the kinds of romances (e.g. Arthurian romances) they would have been reading at the time?

From:

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-09 11:31 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Mes amies, my pal

kathyh just pointed me towards this Frederick the Great for Dummies British radio broadcast with Stephen Fry. I lasted for about seventeen minutes before screaming so much I had to break it off, but: enjoy all the wrongness! (Though it has to be said: at least Peter von Keith gets a mention without any confusion with either of the Jacobite Brothers Keith or with some other Keith.)

Edited Date: 2022-12-14 12:08 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

For example, tag "18th Century CE RPF", not "18th Century CE Frederician RPF"; tag "Dimension 20 (Web Series)", not "Dimension 20: Fantasy High".

I know this year's post was copied from last year, but I'm still tickled that we managed to get on the Yuletide radar like this. :D :D :D

(If only we could get on the radar of people who make radio broadcasts and write books, then we could be an even bigger force for good!)

From:

cahn

Hee! I'm so amused that we are on the Yuletide radar :)

From:

cahn

I'm pretty sure we've talked about this in salon before, and that I know the answer, but just to be safe: Let's say you had a knight (in Tudor England), let's call him Sir Smashum Uppe. (Sir Smashum is recent nobility, so I believe Uppe is actually his surname and not a placename.) For the most part, of course, when referring to him, one would call him Sir Smashum. I think a friend/reasonably close aquaintance (also titled) would refer to him as "Uppe," is that correct?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

selenak is fond of pointing out that FW thought he was doing Fritz a *favor* when he forbade him to learn Latin or otherwise spend a lot of time with books, and he could not handle that his son was different.

I found this passage in Manteuffel's Fidamire write-up that really just underscores that mindset:

His father was alarmed. Not wishing, he said, that his son should become a pedant, he mistreated him several times, reproached the governors for having badly observed his instructions, soon chased after the tutor and took from his son all the books he had used. He did more. Suspecting him of being on too good terms with his governors, he urged him to make fun of their precepts, promised to free him from their slavery as soon as he was 12 years old; and he kept his word.

What do you mean, my son is not a carbon copy of me?

This part of Manteuffel's write-up also reports that Fritz collected a secret library (correct), stored it in the house next door (which jives with Guy-Dickens reporting in 1730 that it was across from the palace), and used to sneak out at night and go hang out at the house next door, reading and playing the flute for three quarters of the night (??!).

I have to wonder if it literally happened like that, or if, 10+ years later, it's conflating Fritz sneaking out of bed to read at night (which I always imagined was in the same palace, just a different room) with Fritz sneaking over to the library to get his secret books (which I always imagined was during the day). Because I know we've discussed the likelihood that Keyserlingk let him get away with stuff, but if Fritz can regularly sneak not just out of his room but out of the palace at night and back in again, that's not just lack of Fritz supervision, that's a whole lot less palace security than I ever imagined!

From:

selenak

What do you mean, my son is not a carbon copy of me?

I don't think FW ever got how that worked. I would blame part of it on him having been an only child, but he himself was so different from his father that it should have occured to him he wouldn't get a tiny replica with Fritz, either. Possibly the chain of thought was "yes, I was different from my father, but that was because I am a righteous Christian man and my father, with all respect I kept showing him, was not. Clearly, it was God's will I should become King and should do everything correctly. Which means that it can't be God's will to give me a son different from me, because what would be the point?!?

Anyway, that "promised to free him from their slavery as soon as he was 12 years old" is such a great quote for underlining this, indeed - tells you all about FW at age 12 hating his teachers (and beating them up, when he's not beating up Cousin George) and all enthusiastic about being seen as perfect Dad and manly comrade by his son(s), and then Fritz backstabs him by liking book learning! Does not compute!

if Fritz can regularly sneak not just out of his room but out of the palace at night and back in again, that's not just lack of Fritz supervision, that's a whole lot less palace security than I ever imagined!

I'm with you in considering this highly unlikely, and assuming Manteuffel is conflating two different stories into one. Though possibly his source has already done that. If he didn't get this from Fritz directly - and Fritz has been known to rewrite his past, ahem -, then, and I think that might have been the case here, he has it from one of the young men in Fritz' social circle like Wartensleben who might have listened with just half an ear, as we say in German, and thus in their reports to Manteuffel draw two stories together. Or, well, Manteuffel isn't the youngest, maybe he's the one making a logistic mistake her. Or employing hyperbole. Hardly unheard of among envoys and former envoys - I'm thinking of the French envoy who claims, as Voltaire will in his anonymous pamphlet, that AW could neither read or write for as long as FW was alive and only learned both when Fritz became King. This is obviously wrong, but builds on the kernel of truth that AW did have deficits in his education compared with other princes the sasme age (not to mention his older brother). (Most likely his governors took one look at the fate of Duhan and thought, yeah, no.) Which we know from his youthful correspondence with Fritz Fritz tried to motivate him to lessen, and which he later in life did try to fill in. (See also corresonding withi Maupertuis.) That's still a far cry from "couldn't read or write", but that nonetheless is how an actual envoy reported it home to France.