Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

[cahn]

I'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)

Comments

Re: Voltaire: The Age of Louis XIV: 1

[mildred_of_midgard]

Otto of Freising and other high medieval chroniclers fall under the category of "have centuries of Christianity to look back on" I indicated above.

Ah, okay, I see what you mean. I was going back to the early writers, like Augustine, and thinking that they don't seem to be big believers in progress, and that by the high Middle Ages, the chroniclers are still taking their cue from him, but if you mean when Christianity started triumphing over paganism, then yes, I can see that.

Without being especially knowledgeable, I think in Christian historiographry, you get a variety of trends:

"The pagans are winning, everything is bad and getting worse": Gildas, who saw Christianity under attack by a resurgence of paganism.

"No, Christianity is not responsible for recent disasters, like the fall of Rome! Things sucked just as much, if not more so, under the pagan Romans, and everyone should become Christian so things get better!": Orosius, Augustine.

"Forget about this life, focus on the next life": Augustine, Otto von Freising.

"Christianity is triumphing, woo!": Einhard, Bede.

"I'm a fan of this monarch, who has made things better": Einhard, Otto when writing about his nephew.

"I'm not a fan of this monarch, who has made things worse": probably everyone who ever wrote about Henry IV? But also a lot of other monks about a lot of other emperors.

Also, leaving aside chroniclers, there was a very strong medieval attitude toward politics and law that consisted of resolving modern difficulties by returning to an alleged status quo, when things were better/right. I think what's really ground-breaking about the tradition Voltaire embodies is the idea that it is natural and right to focus human efforts on improving human life here on earth, and that if you're not doing that, something has gone terribly wrong.