Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

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.)

Comments

Re: News from the Middle Ages

[mildred_of_midgard]

LOL! Oh good lord. Did she do this within Henry IV's life time? If so, one wishes to know his feelings.

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.)