Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Re: Judgment Day, Stuart Style

[mildred_of_midgard]

how he should have known the virginal Catherine would not be fertile, no one ever explained

*headdesk*

So I'm reading a medieval history book for French practice, and a few days ago I actually ran into an explanation: there was a medical examination that was performed on prospective brides that was supposed to be able to tell if they were going to be fertile or not.

As had been the tradition for centuries, energetic matrons were called in to determine whether she was physically capable of childbearing. Isabeau got through the ancestral entrance exam without difficulty and was declared fertile.

This was the 14th century, but if it had been traditional for centuries already, I wouldn't be surprised if they were still doing it in the not-much-more-medically-advanced 17th century.

Re: Judgment Day, Stuart Style

[cahn]

When I see things like this, I keep thinking things like, "But surely they must have noticed that some of these women ended up not being fertile?" And I have to remind myself that they didn't think that way at that point!

But also I could imagine there being an exam that would actually measure to some extent "physically capable of childbearing" (presumably things like whether you were menstruating and whether your hips were large enough?) which of course isn't the same as being fertile but maybe has a high enough correlation that counterexamples were just, idk, witchcraft or Evil Advisors or something.

Re: Judgment Day, Stuart Style

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, but much like bleeding: sometimes you bleed someone and they die anyway, sometimes you say someone is fertile and they're not...but 1) the majority of women are fertile and the majority of people spontaneously recover, 2) you can always blame some other factor! (Remember after AW's death there was the debate about whether he was bled *too much* or *not (soon) enough*? Biostatistics is hard, and it's even harder when you don't have a concept of biostatistics!

But also I could imagine there being an exam that would actually measure to some extent "physically capable of childbearing" (presumably things like whether you were menstruating and whether your hips were large enough?)

Whatever it was, they missed the signs with Paul of Russia's poor first wife, the bone defects that prevented her from passing a baby through her birth canal. :/