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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: 2022-11-29 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