cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

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.)

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From:

cahn

...I think I am going to have to get to this place in the podcast and then come back to this :P

What did he do to Henry's ambassadors??

(It turns out listening in the car is a great move, because I am in the car either dropping off or picking up kids a LOT these days. I got to hear about Theophanu and Adelheid and am at Otto III! Although for the next two weeks I won't have the car with the decent sound system, so though I will probably be able to listen a bit more, I will probably retain even less than is my wont with podcasts.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

...I think I am going to have to get to this place in the podcast and then come back to this :P

That one is the Byzantine podcast, so you now have two podcasts to listen to. ;)

I am so far behind on the podcast, but I'm hoping to finish up my Barbarossa-period reading this weekend, and then I can start listening, bring myself up to Frederick II, and then fall behind again as I start reading along.

It turns out listening in the car is a great move

Awesome! I'm delighted I stumbled on this podcast, I've now gotten three people hooked!

From:

selenak

I wondered about the ambassadors, too, because I don't remember that he did something unspeakable from the podcast, and googling doesn't mention anything, either. Now Anna writes about something that did not happen within her life time, and which she can't know but from third or fourth hand sources - unlike later events - , but I'm intrigued that this is how a Byzantine writer presents the tale, especially since all the German and Italian monks who write after good old Henry IV has duked it out with the Pope for decades are anti Henry and pro Pope. (This, btw, is due to the fact this is the FIRST conflict between Pope and HRE of this magnitude. By the time it's Frederick II's turn to get excommunicated (repeatedly), this is an old hat, the powerplay motivation is blatant, and thus there are are some clerical chroniclers on his side as well.) So I find it intriguing that evidently Byzantine historians were alll "Eh, both were awful" about Henry and Gregory. ("Hildebrand, false monk!" as Henry's letter says, memorably quoted in the German podcast.)

Anyway, if I had to guess, Anna is insinuating the ambassadors got castrated. Which, like I said, I don't recall happening, but who knows? Maybe I missed something.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I was assuming castration too, but like you, I don't remember that at all! And I read a few books and articles quite recently on Henry IV and the so-called investiture controversy, and I'd think I'd remember!

I'm intrigued that this is how a Byzantine writer presents the tale,

Agreed, it is interesting that this is how the Byzantines, gougers-of-eyes and removers-of-noses, tell it. ;)

From:

selenak

:) Though it was just high profile wannabe Emperors and very noble rebels who got the noses and eyes treatments, not envoys. I mean, Lieutward of Cremona (Otto I's envoy who was supposed to bring home an imperial bride) bitches a lot about how snobby everyone treated him, but he doesn't fear for his life. For that matter, come the Crusades, one of the many things that made the Crusaders so distrustful of the Byzantines was that they exchanged envoys with the Turks and treated them respectfully. I mean, you have to consider that Alexios I. Komnenos did want military help against the Turks, but not in the sense of annihilating them. He wanted Nicea and Antioch back. (Not Jerusalem. His army wasn't nearly large enough to garnison and defend Jerusalem, see earlier posts about the civil wars depleting them.) And the Turks were already an established factor by that time. What Byzantium did and had done successfully to other enemies in the past centuries - like the Bulgars, the Rus, the Varangians - was after various wars to integrate them into the Empire and employ them. For that matter, there were some Turks already fighting for the Emperor (and there had been for the previous wannabe Emperors.) There were even some Mosques within Constantinople itself. Imagine you're a member of the First Crusade, where the preachers have very successfully dehumanized the Turks and presented the situation in the Middle East as Muslims torturing and slaughtering Christians on a daily basis, and then the fall of Nicea goes thusly:

Crusaders: *besiege Nicea, fight skirmishes, win skirmisches*

Alexios: *negotiates with Turkish garnison*

Turkish garnison, which includes the wife and children of the Sultan: *surrenders to the Emperor*

Alexios: Rejoice, we can take the city without further bloodshed! Nicea, location of the very first Christian Synod, is once again part of the Byzantine Empire!

Crusaders: But - we wanted to sack it!

Alexios: No way. Nicea has been in Turkish hands for only 20 years. Most of the people inside are former countrymen of mine. No sacking. Thanks, fellows, and have some gold from me for your kind efforts, but I got it from here.

Crusaders: Can we at least ransom the Sultana?

Alexios: Nope. The Sultan is going to stay around. He's my enemy today, but tomorrow I might need him against the Normans. For example. So I'm going to host the Sultana and her kids in the palace for a few weeks and then send her home free of ransom.

Crusaders: What kind of Christian Emperor are you anyway?

Mind you, that's the Empire in a post crisis state where Alexios knows he has to rebuild a lot, and at peak power, who knows what would have happened, but still. Mutilation is something you do to your high profile competition, not to envoys, if you're a ~~Byzantine~~ Roman Emperor.

You might even do it to your own child, though, which is what Romanos I. Lekapenos did with his illegitimate son Basil, to ensure he would not be a danger to his legitimate offspring. The irony is that Basil - who grew up to be one of the most powerful eunuch officials of the Byzantine Empire and managed to serve and survive several Emperors in a row - did not betray Romanos, but his legitimate sons did.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

not envoys. I mean, Lieutward of Cremona (Otto I's envoy who was supposed to bring home an imperial bride) bitches a lot about how snobby everyone treated him, but he doesn't fear for his life. For that matter, come the Crusades, one of the many things that made the Crusaders so distrustful of the Byzantines was that they exchanged envoys with the Turks and treated them respectfully.

No, not for their lives, but Barbarossa's envoys were, at least according to Latin accounts, locked up by Isaac II Angelos:

The following day they described their imprisonment as shameful and dishonourable, how they had been robbed of their belongings, had endured hunger and the filth of the dungeon, but above all had been exposed to the scorn and derision of Saladin's ambassadors, for it was to them [Saladin's ambassadors' that the basileus had given valuable horses that they [Barbarossa's ambassadors] had given him [the basileus] as gifts from Barbarossa, and they [Saladin's ambassadors] mounted the horses right before their [Barbarossa's ambassadors's eyes and demonstrated their riding skills.

Source, Görich's biography of Barbarossa. It's not mutilation, though, it's true!

You might even do it to your own child, though, which is what Romanos I. Lekapenos did with his illegitimate son Basil, to ensure he would not be a danger to his legitimate offspring. The irony is that Basil - who grew up to be one of the most powerful eunuch officials of the Byzantine Empire and managed to serve and survive several Emperors in a row - did not betray Romanos, but his legitimate sons did.

*facepalm*

Henry II of England*: I tried keeping my sons from knowing what the succession arrangements were, so they wouldn't look forward to my death...so they started to feel insecure and revolted against me. Why is being a royal father so hard?

FW: Tell me about it. Not a single god-fearing offspring!

* Aka the Lion in Winter,

cahn.