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: Broglies

[luzula]

Cool, thanks!

I remember that Linnaeus’ book had him seeing graffiti by some French guys who had gone to Lapland and concluded that it was truly the end of the world. That book also has a hilarious passage where Linnaeus tries to figure out why the Sami are hardier and can walk farther. First on the list is: they don't wear high-heeled shoes. : D

Re: Broglies

[mildred_of_midgard]

I remember that Linnaeus’ book had him seeing graffiti by some French guys who had gone to Lapland and concluded that it was truly the end of the world.

That's probably our guys! It was sponsored by the French Academy of Sciences! And they were trying to get as close to the pole as possible for their measurements.

First on the list is: they don't wear high-heeled shoes. : D

*spittake*

ETA: Volumes one and two, in case I can tempt any royal readers after Lafayette.

Re: Broglies

[luzula]

Probably some other French guys! Looks like Maupertois was there in 1736, and Linnaeus was there in 1732.

Re: Broglies

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, interesting! I did not check Linnaeus' dates. I wonder if this was a preliminary expedition, or unrelated.

Re: Broglies

[mildred_of_midgard]

Skimming the Lapland chapter in the Maupertuis bio (with my eyes admittedly on 5 hours of sleep), I'm not seeing an earlier expedition, so it's probably unrelated! This is Terrall's "The Man Who Flattened the Earth", in case the book is of interest to you. (It's pretty dry, but informative.)

Re: Broglies

[luzula]

Yes, definitely unrelated! Linneaus was on a trip sponsored by the Swedish scientific society (don't know its formal name in English) to look for valuable natural resources and generally geek out about natural history. He went on more of those trips later in life, sponsored by the state.

Re: Broglies

[mildred_of_midgard]

No, I meant the previous French graffiti artists that Linnaeus found traces of! I was wondering if they were also sponsored by the French gov't to do work on the shape of the earth a few years before Maupertuis came along, but it doesn't look like it. I knew Linnaeus' and Maupertuis' expeditions were unrelated.

Re: Broglies

[luzula]

Ah! Well, here's more info about them. Apparently there were three Frenchmen who wrote in Jukkasjärvi church: Gallia nos genuit, Africam penetravimus omnen, et gangem hausimus, nobis hic defuit orbis. No idea who they were.

Frenchmen in Lapland

[mildred_of_midgard]

Found them! Jean-Francois Regnard and 2 friends, 1681. His travel book was published in 1731, so just before Linnaeus' expedition! (Btw, I later saw that you completely told me his 1732 date upthread, but much like with Selena's note about Catt, I was functionally illiterate yesterday. When a coworker asked me to review something, I was like, "Okay, but at your own peril, because my sleep-deprived self has been missing things all day!")

Regnard records his first meeting with the Laplanders, describing them as having large heads and small bodies and flat faces, “a people not created like any other,” and more like monkeys than humans.

Sigh.

Ooh, Wikipedia says they supposedly engraved this in rock at the top of a mountain, but that inscription has never been found, just the wooden plaque at the church.

Re: Frenchmen in Lapland

[luzula]

Oh, that's cool that you found those French travellers!

Regnard records his first meeting with the Laplanders, describing them as having large heads and small bodies and flat faces, “a people not created like any other,” and more like monkeys than humans.

Sigh indeed. You pretty much can't tell by looking at someone's physical appearance if they're a Sami or not.

Re: Frenchmen in Lapland

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay, so my wife and I were discussing the question of their appearance this morning! (I told her about the high heels, and one thing led to another, much like in salon.) I was reading Wikipedia aloud on the subject of genetic studies, which found haplogroups going back to Siberia.

She said, "They just look like northern Europeans, not central Asians, though, right?" and I said, "I'm not sure. The Wikipedia article just shows this picture. I don't know if it's representative. If it were, it would explain a lot of discrimination, but then Wikipedia says there have been archaeological studies based on their 'assumed' physical and cultural differences. Which makes make it sound like those physical differences aren't actually all that obvious. And of course the article on the genetic studies doesn't mention phenotype at all, not even a little bit."

So I can tell her that (at least these days) they look like Northern Europeans?

Re: Frenchmen in Lapland

[luzula]

All the Sami I have met looked like northern Europeans, at least! Here are some photos from an image search (though most Sami don't wear traditional costumes in everyday life, nor do most of them work with reindeer today).

Re: Frenchmen in Lapland

[mildred_of_midgard]

Lol, I think your search hits may be localized to your region (and language?), because after deciding that Sami looked remarkably Middle Eastern, I looked more closely at the captions and saw that I was almost exclusively getting men with the Arabic name "Samer"!

I will take your word for it. :)

Re: Frenchmen in Lapland

[luzula]

Ha ha, okay! Yes, the search was localized to Sweden, and I thought it would be preserved in the link...anyway, here is a random photograph from the search.

Re: Frenchmen in Lapland

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ah, yes, thank you! That looks much more like I how think of Swedes looking and much less like I think of Syrians. ;)

I will pass this information on at the next opportunity.

Re: Broglies

[cahn]

First on the list is: they don't wear high-heeled shoes. : D

HAHAHAHA omg that is amazing!

Re: Broglies

[selenak]

It is, but it's also worth remembering that wearing high heeled shoes wasn't something coded as female in that era. If you check out full body portraits of Louis XIV, you'll note he's wearing them, and consequently so did a lot of his nobles (I guess not those who were naturally tall, but other than that).

(Meanwhile, Louis' cousin Charles II: naturally tall. Which made life dangerous for him when on the run from Oliver Cromwell as a young man.)

There's even an anecdote in Saint Simon (I think, could be another source) about a prank where one noble nailed another to the floor via driving nails into his heels. So "not wearing high heels" is something you would notice as a contemporary.

Re: Broglies

[luzula]

Oh, totally! When garonne and I were at Versailles and practising fashion history on all the paintings, high heels on men was one of the tells (shows if it's before or after about 1730). I remember an awesome 17th century painting where one guy had black shoes with bright red heels. *g*

Re: Broglies

[mildred_of_midgard]

Well, that's exactly what made it so hilarious to me: that the 18th century was so big into high heels that it wouldn't occur to you *not* to wear them on your expeditions across difficult terrain!

Re: Broglies

[cahn]

I didn't know that until now, but ha, yes, I did get that from luzula's context :D But now I need to go check out Louis XIV, clearly!

But I still think it's hilarious that they're like "what could possibly make these guys more hardy than us?? We have no idea?? Oh wait! Maybe... it's... the high heels??"

Or, what mildred_of_midgard said :D That is commitment!

Re: Broglies

[mildred_of_midgard]

Reminder of this discussion of Fritz's wedding, complete with heeled shoes for him (which still failed to make him taller than EC, something for which he probably never forgave her, amongst her other "faults").