Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

Comments

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[mildred_of_midgard]

I certainly wouldn't have thought that it was worse than falconer!

Stop me if I'm wrong, selenak, but my impression is that falconer at a medieval royal court would have been a courtier's job, i.e. a nobleman's, whereas dancing master is middle class. If the conquering emperor is distributing jobs to formerly reigning monarchs who are now courtiers, falconer would have been one of them.

There's also the part where this is Friedrich making a quip about himself, and not being treated disrespectfully by an envoy.

(I have just gotten up to the part in the podcast where Dirk is talking about De arte venandi cum avibus, funnily enough. I need to finish the stupor mundi parts so I can go back to the Hanseatic League episodes! (There has been some skipping around, as is my wont.))

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[selenak]

I actually have a reprint of De arte venandi cum avibus somewhere, of Manfred's edition. It is a gorgeous book, even for us non-falconers.

Stop me if I'm wrong, [personal profile] selenak, but my impression is that falconer at a medieval royal court would have been a courtier's job, i.e. a nobleman's, whereas dancing master is middle class.

That's how I recall it, too. BTW, post Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, too. Shakespeare in Love doesn't make a claim to historicity and is an amusing fantasy, but one neat actual detail they included is that Ned Alleyn, the star actor cum leader of the Lord Admiral's Men, also teaches everyone how to dance for the dance scene in Romeo and Juliet.