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cahnLast 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.)
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-28 04:36 pm (UTC)I agree! I didn't want to put one more thing on your list, but I really do think the part of you that enjoys salon would enjoy this too, and it would be super educational.
(well, not the First Crusade episode with its attendant massacres among the Jews
Yeah, if you decide to listen to that one, I recommend you read my post with the spoilery trigger warnings if you haven't already, especially since you have kids. (I'm sure you'll be able to handle it, but going in knowing what to expect is not a bad thing. Even I would have appreciated more of a warning, and I am not known for empathy or sensitivity.)
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.
Good to know! He has not yet hit an era about which I know enough to comment, so I've been proceeding based on the assumption that you have to start *somewhere*, and this podcast has been super successful in its intended purpose of making it so I can read books about medievals with the same names and not get lost.
That said, I then proceeded to go and read: a bio of Otto the Great, a bio of Henry IV, a bio of Otto von Freising, a book on the investiture controversy, a (short) book on the Ottonians, a (short) book on the Salians, and part of a bio of Matilda of Tuscany that I had read earlier this year, all in German, plus several journal articles also in German, after starting this podcast, and none of what I read made me lose respect for his accuracy. Historians don't always agree, of course, but the disagreements seemed reasonable.
(Tangentially, this is actually why I haven't finished the podcast: I started trying to read along with books in German, and as we all know, I read German very slowly and also non-linearly, so I stalled out when I got side-tracked by Leopold and Peter Keith*. I still have plans to go back, read the bios of Henry the Lion and Barbarossa I have, and then resume the podcast!)
* I used to try to read in an organized manner, but then I gave in and accepted that while I am an organized person, I am not an organized reader, and that will never work.
the crucial "ch" that spells trouble to a lot of non German speakers when wanting to talk about said people.
I admit, if we ever meet in person, I'm just going to embarrass myself. ;)
I feel for Dirk when he apologizes repeatedly every time he has to make an attempt at a Hungarian or Polish name. His French is good, though, at least as far as this non-French speaker can tell!
Another thing: Horowski would approve of this podcast, because it emphasises the family connections via the women as well as the men
Yes! I also had the thought that Horowski would approve of this!
during the time of the Pornocracy (will never get tired of that term)
Lol! So say we all.
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.
Yeah, this part was really interesting, and it reminded me of something I read in that bio of Matilda of Tuscany. She was apparently going around investing bishops long after the popes had decided this was a no-no, which made the biographer go, "...Did she actually understand what the controversy was about, or was she just being loyal to the Pope because of reasons?"
Note that that is not as misogynistic as it might sound, because everyone agrees that numerous male monarchs famous for their religious meddling, like Louis XIV and Constantine the Great, did not give a shit about the theological nuances of every dispute. They just wanted the controversy to stop.
So I am fine with concluding that Matilda, while she may have sincerely favored church reform, was not up on the latest theology either.
he got said top job via popular acclaim of the Roman populace, not because the bishops and future Cardinals voted for him.
And to clarify the chronology for
- In olden times, popular acclaim was perfectly kosher.
- Then, as part of goody two-shoes popes cleaning up the Church, in 1059 a synod set up actual formal election rules, which involved the cardinals having to make the selection. Only after the election by the cardinals did the rest of Rome get to acclaim the choice (but not make the choice).
- Gregory becomes pope by popular acclaim in 1073, whoops.
In other words, Gregory did not get elected by this new method the reformers had decided on, despite being *the* most vocal proponent of reform.
That could have been a vulnerability if the Germans (emperor and nobles) had played their cards right, but things were a bit too chaotic north of the Alps for that, and they waited too long to protest. (I.e., "Well, if his election was so problematic, why have you been treating him as pope for the last X years?")
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.
Yeah, I could see that. Wrong but understandable.
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-28 06:46 pm (UTC)...you know, if these two ladies had had lives without any drama I could maybe understand why a novelist wanted to give them affairs. But they had all the real drama in the world! Why????
it reminded me of something I read in that bio of Matilda of Tuscany. She was apparently going around investing bishops long after the popes had decided this was a no-no, which made the biographer go, "...Did she actually understand what the controversy was about, or was she just being loyal to the Pope because of reasons?"
I hadn't known she continued to invest! But yes, with you that her being generally pro Gregorian Reforms is compatible with her not really being up to the key point of the investiture controversy. BTW, what's the biographer's explanation for her leaving her lands to Henry V, or does the biographer think she didn't?
Another thing I admire about the podcast is that he's able to do change the pov and show us what's going on from another perspective, as in the case of Henry IV's heartbreaking final years, and then flipping back to show why Henry V did what he did.
"Well, if his election was so problematic, why have you been treating him as pope for the last X years?"
Mind you, I did like the lengthily quoted fiery "Hildebrand, false monk and not Pope!" letter as well as Gregory's reply as examples of medieval rethoric in the relevant episode. :) That's another appealing thing about the podcast; it chooses its original quotes well and provides good paraphrases elsewhere.
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-29 12:22 am (UTC)I am utterly unqualified to have an opinion on it, but with the caveat that I've never read anything else on the subject, I found the book interesting and informative. It may, of course, be very inaccurate or have poor interpretations of his work! But if you wanted to check it out, I see no reason you shouldn't.
ETA: Oh, I should tell you it's the one by Joachim Ehlers, although there probably aren't a lot of others you could have confused it with.
Of the many ways you could possibly characterize tough-as-nails-Adelheid and her life, the author chose to... make her a swooning damsel
WHAT. Adelheid?! This is like making Voltaire boring! (A challenge writers of historical fiction are apparently also up to.)
Argh. Well, I don't blame you for abandoning it.
I hadn't known she continued to invest!
Even better than that, now that I revisit that chapter, she invested the Archbishop of Milan, and she invested him with staff and ring. She either wasn't keeping up with the papal decisions or she did not care!
1. Investing the Archbishop of Milan was one of the ways Henry IV kicked off the controversy in the first place.
2. Investing with the ring and staff as symbols of authority and fealty was even more controversial and, at this point, more forbidden than just investiture.
3. As a layperson, she shouldn't have been investing at this stage at all.
Biographer says she narrowly avoided a scandal, but the Holy See decided they couldn't afford to alienate their most important and most reliable supporter, so they let it slide. Lol. Well played, Matilda.
In her defense, what we call the investiture controversy didn't start out being primarily about investiture, i.e. when Matilda started getting involved, and it was like a constant state of breaking news about the latest developments re what was and wasn't allowed, as the pope and emperor kept trying to work out a compromise. Still a bit shocking, as Selena's exclamation mark in response to learning this bit of information shows. ;)
BTW, what's the biographer's explanation for her leaving her lands to Henry V, or does the biographer think she didn't?
The biographer is agnostic about whether she did but pretty skeptical. She says that's the traditional explanation of what was in this mysterious treaty between Henry V and Matilda, which is only referred to by Matilda's biographer Donizo, and Donizo doesn't say what was in the treaty, but considering Matilda had already left her lands to the papacy *and* adopted a son, it's kind of unlikely, but not impossible, that she was then also leaving her lands to Henry V.
Another thing I admire about the podcast is that he's able to do change the pov and show us what's going on from another perspective, as in the case of Henry IV's heartbreaking final years, and then flipping back to show why Henry V did what he did.
Mind you, I did like the lengthily quoted fiery "Hildebrand, false monk and not Pope!" letter
Yeah, that was great. Descend, descend, to be damned throughout the ages. (Really wish I could find the Latin original; Dirk says "descend or be damned," literally every other source I can find says "descend to be damned" or the equivalent "descend and be damned." Dirk's makes a lot of sense, but isn't backed by anything I can find, in English or in German.)
as examples of medieval rethoric
Oh, speaking of medieval rhetoric!
One of the things I studied back in my Jacobites-but-also-Scotland-in-general days was the period of the Scottish wars of independence (made famous through the movie Braveheart). A passage that gets cited a million times (and maybe even in the movie?) is from the Declaration of Arbroath, 1320:
For, as long as a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
Imagine my surprise when Dirk reads aloud Otto von Northeim's speech in 1073, and it contains:
So not against the king, but against the unjust robber of my freedom; not against the fatherland, but for the fatherland, and for freedom, which no good man surrenders other than with his life at the same time, I take up arms.
That must have been a line you could use when rebelling in the Middle Ages!
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-30 08:27 am (UTC)I know. It should not be possible, but there it is. Such wastes of compelling characters to bad fiction!
Even better than that, now that I revisit that chapter, she invested the Archbishop of Milan, and she invested him with staff and ring.
LOL! Oh good lord. Did she do this within Henry IV's life time? If so, one wishes to know his feelings.
Incidentally, what's the biography's take on Mathilda and second Mrs. Henry/Praxidis? 19th century (largely Protestant) German historians came down hard on her and basically concluded she fed the younger woman the entire sordid tale to be used as clerical propaganda. (
That must have been a line you could use when rebelling in the Middle Ages!
Nifty discovery! And if you think about it, while it's unlikely the rebelling Scots had heard of Otto von Northeim, I guess it's more than likely that the chronicler noting down the Scottish event might have read the chronicles recording Otto von Northeim's declaration. Because everyone was writing in Latin, and there was some serious international cultural exchange going on. Plus tropes existed even then. (And did long before. I'm reminded of how we were taught in Latin class that when Tacitus provides us with some fiery speeches by rebelling Britons and Germans, he most likely did not have an idea of the wording of what they actually said, just that they said something, and he was delivering up the tropes intended to chastize his Roman reading audience.)
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-30 08:42 pm (UTC)The author isn't totally clear, but I *think* we're talking about the one in 1097, which would mean yes! And indeed, I wish to know his feelings.
ETA: It's worth mentioning, though, that the key difference between Henry IV's investiture of the Archbishop of Milan and Matilda's is related to why the conflict wasn't originally primarily about investiture: Henry IV created a schism by installing a candidate that would be loyal to him, and Matilda was investing the reform church's candidate, so not creating a schism. I could see her seeing the schism as the main problem with what Henry did. Which in 1075, it was...by 1097, a little less so.
Also, I notice the author herself uses an exclamation point when recounting this bit of shocking news: "Ganz selbstverständlich investiert Matilda den neuen Erzbischof mit den geistlichen Amtssymbolen Ring und Stab!"
Incidentally, what's the biography's take on Mathilda and second Mrs. Henry/Praxidis?
Pretty agnostic on what actually happened, but definitely shocked about the scandal:
But worse was to come for the Emperor. In 1094 his second wife, Praxedis, broke with him and started wild rumors about Henry IV: He led an absolutely unbridled life and did not even shy away from rapes in his own family. He even encouraged his own son Konrad to abuse Praxedis. True or not, the damage to the Kaiser's image was immeasurable. The mere fact that one could speak and write about a living ruler in this way shows how low his reputation had sunk. Heinrich, allegedly burning with jealousy, had his wife arrested in Verona, but she was able to free herself with Mathilde's help. The Margravine offered her safe refuge. It came to a complete scandal at the beginning of March 1095 when Urban II held a synod in Piacenza under the protection of Mathilde, at which Praxedis also appeared. This opportunity offered their accusations the most public stage imaginable. She described the Salian's alleged perversions, his moral depravity and the unhappiness of her marriage in meticulous detail. Even Donizo, who was certainly not in favor of the emperor, recognized that the reproaches were intended to destroy the ruler's reputation and hit him in the heart. It is no longer possible to reconstruct to what extent truth and lies were mixed in the accusations made by Praxedis. We also do not know how Mathilde felt about her strange guest. After the long years of war and the heavy losses, her aversion to Henry IV must have been immense – but was one allowed to talk like that about a powerful man? Only a short time ago she herself had suffered under the biting mockery of her marriage, now she witnessed the dismantling of a man who in better times had used the honorary title christus Domini (the Lord's anointed). After the synod, Praxedis disappeared from the political scene; she finally returned to her Russian homeland. Apparently Mathilde had no more contact with her after the synod.
while it's unlikely the rebelling Scots had heard of Otto von Northeim,
I certainly hadn't before this!
I guess it's more than likely that the chronicler noting down the Scottish event might have read the chronicles recording Otto von Northeim's declaration.
Hmm, perhaps! My first guess was that this was a well known rhetorical device, and people were using it independently, and that there might be more examples out there waiting to be found in medieval Latin, but that's quite possible too.
Btw, my understanding is that the declaration of Arbroath doesn't come from a chronicle but is an actual contemporary document submitted by the rebels in 1320, basically saying, "Please support us against the English tyrants." (It's frequently presented as a parallel to the 1776 American Declaration of Independence.) But regardless, the question is whether the person writing it (who was clearly literate) had read Bruno's chronicle or not.
Okay, looking at Wikipedia:
Generally believed to have been written in Arbroath Abbey by Bernard of Kilwinning (or of Linton), then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath, and sealed by fifty-one magnates and nobles, the letter is the sole survivor of three created at the time. The others were a letter from the King of Scots, Robert I, and a letter from four Scottish bishops which all made similar points. The Declaration was intended to assert Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and defend Scotland's right to use military action when unjustly attacked.
Submitted in Latin, the Declaration was little known until the late 17th century, and is unmentioned by any of Scotland's major 16th-century historians
So...maybe this abbot was up on his de bello Saxonico?
I'm reminded of how we were taught in Latin class that when Tacitus provides us with some fiery speeches by rebelling Britons and Germans, he most likely did not have an idea of the wording of what they actually said, just that they said something, and he was delivering up the tropes intended to chastize his Roman reading audience.)
Oh, for sure, and before him, Thucydides. In fact, Thucydides might have been the one to start the tradition, but either way, what I was taught for Classics and have been applying to medieval historiography is not to assume a speech is anything but a literary creation unless you have reason to believe the person witnessed it. (My memories are very hazy, so take this with a grain of salt, but it's possible we think one or two of the Thucydides speeches *might* have been based on a legit core, but most no.)
Anyway, I figure if you're doing anything as risky as rebelling, you've got to have some rhetoric at your disposal! I wouldn't be surprised if Bruno and the Scottish abbot are both getting their line from some ancient source, though I don't recognize it. (I wouldn't, though, it's been too long and there are too many major works I never read in the first place.)
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 05:10 am (UTC)[personal profile] cahn, that will mean nothing to you
Haha, it doesn't, but it sounds awesome! I am all for church/state struggles with controversial symbology! I appreciate both of you giving me background, because I don't have any :D
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-01 05:30 am (UTC)Why? To quote from the transcript:
Henry V’s worst-case scenario was that his father would suddenly die, and the Gregorian party would then propose their own candidate as king. All Henry V could rely upon was that he had been formally elected, anointed, and crowned in 1099 and that all the magnates had sworn fealty to him. But what is that worth? His own father was elected, anointed and crowned when the magnates deposed him in 1076. All it needs is a Gregorian pope to excommunicate him, and all that frankincense and Myrrh would fade into nothingness. As far as Henry V was concerned, his father needed to reconcile with the pope pronto or the new king’s reign would start with a civil war.
...There was one way Henry IV could achieve a reconciliation with the pope, and that was by giving up all the investiture rights, the last remaining open issue between pope and emperor. But that would also mean that the empire would be finished. No investiture means no control over bishops, which means no call on episcopal military, which means no central power.
That would be the worst of all worlds for Henry V, a contested succession to an empire that was barely worth of its name.
The only way to avoid that outcome was to take over right now, put himself at the head of the Gregorian party and take a stab at reconciling with the pope.
And to summarize what
What a life. Henry IV had been emperor from 1056 to 1105, 49 years in total. In that time he was abducted by a faction of his nobles, abandoned by his mother, forced to marry a girl he saw as a sister, betrayed a hundred times by his nobles, forced to stand in the snow for three days to do penance, stabbed in the back by his eldest son, publicly accused of the worst misdemeanours by his second wife, and finally deposed by his youngest son. Where is the scriptwriter who sells the story to Netflix?
I see he's stating the "Bertha as sister" guess as a fact, but in any case, Henry was forced to marry her and stay married to her when he didn't want to, for whatever reason.
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-01 07:12 am (UTC)(Reminder that the way this medieval excommunication of a monarch business worked was that it not only banned the monarch himself from all sacraments but also not only allowed but pushed anyone who'd ever sworn an oath to him to rejecting that oath, and absolved them from all duties to him. This is why it was such a powerful instrument (originally), it basically gave all the nobility and the family a shoot to kill or at least drop licence. I say at first, because by the time we've arrived at the Emperors Frederick of Hohenstaufen, both Barbarossa, his sons and his grandson were, well, not blasé, but far more hardened to it, and also they managed to keep many more of the nobility AND the bishops on their side. Fast forward a few centuries, and of course Elizabeth I, the child of a schism, got excommunicated, too, and it had no practical effect at all (which is why later Popes upped the ante to declare it was the duty of her Catholic subjects to assassinate her, at which point life became really hard for English Catholics.)
Theatre history note: Luigi Pirandello's play Enrico IV isn't actually about Henry IV himself but about an Italian aristocrat who believes himself to be Henry IV. Ironically enough, said aristocrat ships himself with Mathilda of Tuscany!
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 05:12 am (UTC)Oh wooooow. Yeah, I didn't know that.
(Surely someone has written tropey stuff about people struggling with this oath rejection business? Schiller, maybe?)
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-05 08:53 am (UTC)(Sidenote: it's not that all these other factors weren't important in the 80 years long Netherlands vs Spain struggle, they absolutely were and became more and more so, but still, by avoiding the religious question which early on certainly was a key factor, Schiller for example also avoids having to explain how on earth Carlos not just joining but leading the struggle of the Dutch rebells would work on the religious front in Posa's plans. Was he supposed to convert? Would he have minded or would he have been delighted? We don't know, because whatever Carlos' religious feelings, we don't hear about them.)
What I'm getting at: I don't think Schiller could have written a drama where the hero has a loyalty conflict because the Pope has excommunicated his monarch without writing a hero who actually does believe the Pope has the power to do so (otherwise there's no conflict), and this in turn would have been impossible for him to write because the medieval mindset of intense (Catholic) faith was so very alien to him.
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-18 10:15 pm (UTC)...And of course Verdi's opera, composed in the 19th century, is very much more concerned with presenting religious faith as something that the characters feel strongly about (Elisabeth being perhaps the most salient example as a single character, as her religion is a fairly strong component of her operatic character, whereas in Schiller, of course, it's not -- but then of course there's also the opera interpolations of the auto-da-fe and everyone kneeling for the Grand Inquisitor).
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 05:09 am (UTC)WHAT
WHY
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 07:45 am (UTC)Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 07:48 am (UTC)Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-29 06:01 am (UTC)But I just wanted to say I have been reading
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-29 04:46 pm (UTC)Podcasts are for me like... like watching video is for [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard :P
Awww, too bad. Podcasts (or lectures) are normally like video for me as well--it's the "processing information via audio" part that's the problem. But this guy checks all my boxes for something I can listen to while doing something else (walking in my case). My wife listened while knitting; would that help?
Interesting that you can watch shows but not do podcasts, but all brains are different.
the content is great and I love his sense of humor :D
It is indeed an excellent podcast, and I'm glad I found it, almost completely by accident. I'm glad Google search results turned up the good German history podcast and not the one I was looking for! I don't think I would have tried a second time if I'd hit the dud first.
Selena, as the only one of us who doesn't have a problem listening to podcasts, do you have plans for any of the other ones Dirk recommended?
Cahn, come back soon!
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-30 08:28 am (UTC)Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-11-30 07:43 pm (UTC)Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-05 08:22 am (UTC)Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-05 09:08 am (UTC)Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 05:12 am (UTC)Sadly I already have audio for knitting -- I do it during work meetings :D But I may be able to listen to it in the car -- will report back :)
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 05:09 am (UTC)This is me :P Fortunately Selena was nice enough not to mention my ch's (and other wild mispronounciations) :)
during the time of the Pornocracy (will never get tired of that term)
Lol! So say we all.
I agree!
- In olden times, popular acclaim was perfectly kosher.
- Then, as part of goody two-shoes popes cleaning up the Church, in 1059 a synod set up actual formal election rules, which involved the cardinals having to make the selection. Only after the election by the cardinals did the rest of Rome get to acclaim the choice (but not make the choice).
- Gregory becomes pope by popular acclaim in 1073, whoops.
Haha, wow, this is awesome.
Re: News from the Middle Ages
Date: 2022-12-04 02:01 pm (UTC)