tidbits cross time
May. 17th, 2013 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliQueen Elizabeth's Master of Horse helped her mount and dismount, making him the only man who could touch her legally.
Since a tontine paid an annuity for the lifetime of the designated person, people quickly learned to arrange for the designated person to be a five-year-old girl, for maximum effect. Girls lived longer, and in the 19th century, you waited for five to get past the fearful infant mortality.
In early Islamic empire, you had to affiliate with an Arabic tribe, and usually take on an Arabic name, to convert to Islam.
In the Dark Ages, a saint's life of a lay aristocrat recounted the tale of his buying cherries from a peasant rather than just taking them.
All the Indian National Congress except Gandhi supported the British side during World War II. Gandhi -- waffled.
In Puritan New England, when they bought the baby to the meeting house for baptism during winter, they often had to break the ice on the font to do it. Some ministers practiced baptism by immersion, still.
The ships of the Hanseatic League often sailed in convey for protection against pirates in the Baltic.
Early in the twentieth century, gasoline was often sold by hardware stores, groceries, bicycle shops, and others. They would sell more than one brand of gasoline just as they would sell multiple brands of any other product.
In all the violent seizures of the position of emperor -- in Rome or Byzantine -- the only one to be a woman was Irene, who deposed and blinded her son before ruling in her own right, a feat not to be duplicated until Elizabeth pulled it off in Russia.
Henry VII's daughter Mary was Lady Mary until she became the wife of a Scottish prince, making her a princess.
In one medieval fight in Eastern Europe, a noble refused to surrender to the soldiers facing him; he had to surrender to the prince that commanded them. So they sent for the prince, and went on fighting, and the noble was killed before he could surrender. This was presented in histories as a noble and worthy thing for him to have done.
In Victorian times, one retelling of King Arthur for children had Lancelot's love and admiration for Queen Guenevere be pure knightly chivalry. Mordred's accusations were pure slander. It was highly favored.
The first icons exalted in Orthodox Christianity were explicitly described as "not made by human hands" -- or miraclously formed.
In Nazi Germany, the cottage-style gasoline station was widely favored.
Queen Elizabeth adopted black and white as her colors while living in semi-exile as a princess, and kept to them life-long.
Medieval Baltic pirates would put any survivors of their attacks in barrels to keep them for later ransom.
Pippin, founding the Carolingian dynasty, was the first French king to be anointed. Indeed, he got it twice, once from an archbishop, and once from a pope, when Stephen II became the first pope to go north of the Alps.
There were tales in post-World War II Soviet Union not about nouveau riche but about generals' wives -- they mysteriously owned the gowns of German aristocratic ladies, but they had not the sense to tell the difference between an evening gown and a night gown.
Rivers were major trading routes in the Middle Ages, but the rapids were notorious. Frequently they set out in spring, so the rising water would make the rapids more passable, but the current could get quite fast if they timed it wrong.
When the Royal College of Physicians appealed to her against an illegal apocathery selling herbal remedies, Queen Elizabeth roundly turned on them and demanded that they leave the woman alone to do so.
When American gasoline stations turned toward novelty road-side attraction shapes, one common East-Coast architecture had a lighthouse on top.
Since a tontine paid an annuity for the lifetime of the designated person, people quickly learned to arrange for the designated person to be a five-year-old girl, for maximum effect. Girls lived longer, and in the 19th century, you waited for five to get past the fearful infant mortality.
In early Islamic empire, you had to affiliate with an Arabic tribe, and usually take on an Arabic name, to convert to Islam.
In the Dark Ages, a saint's life of a lay aristocrat recounted the tale of his buying cherries from a peasant rather than just taking them.
All the Indian National Congress except Gandhi supported the British side during World War II. Gandhi -- waffled.
In Puritan New England, when they bought the baby to the meeting house for baptism during winter, they often had to break the ice on the font to do it. Some ministers practiced baptism by immersion, still.
The ships of the Hanseatic League often sailed in convey for protection against pirates in the Baltic.
Early in the twentieth century, gasoline was often sold by hardware stores, groceries, bicycle shops, and others. They would sell more than one brand of gasoline just as they would sell multiple brands of any other product.
In all the violent seizures of the position of emperor -- in Rome or Byzantine -- the only one to be a woman was Irene, who deposed and blinded her son before ruling in her own right, a feat not to be duplicated until Elizabeth pulled it off in Russia.
Henry VII's daughter Mary was Lady Mary until she became the wife of a Scottish prince, making her a princess.
In one medieval fight in Eastern Europe, a noble refused to surrender to the soldiers facing him; he had to surrender to the prince that commanded them. So they sent for the prince, and went on fighting, and the noble was killed before he could surrender. This was presented in histories as a noble and worthy thing for him to have done.
In Victorian times, one retelling of King Arthur for children had Lancelot's love and admiration for Queen Guenevere be pure knightly chivalry. Mordred's accusations were pure slander. It was highly favored.
The first icons exalted in Orthodox Christianity were explicitly described as "not made by human hands" -- or miraclously formed.
In Nazi Germany, the cottage-style gasoline station was widely favored.
Queen Elizabeth adopted black and white as her colors while living in semi-exile as a princess, and kept to them life-long.
Medieval Baltic pirates would put any survivors of their attacks in barrels to keep them for later ransom.
Pippin, founding the Carolingian dynasty, was the first French king to be anointed. Indeed, he got it twice, once from an archbishop, and once from a pope, when Stephen II became the first pope to go north of the Alps.
There were tales in post-World War II Soviet Union not about nouveau riche but about generals' wives -- they mysteriously owned the gowns of German aristocratic ladies, but they had not the sense to tell the difference between an evening gown and a night gown.
Rivers were major trading routes in the Middle Ages, but the rapids were notorious. Frequently they set out in spring, so the rising water would make the rapids more passable, but the current could get quite fast if they timed it wrong.
When the Royal College of Physicians appealed to her against an illegal apocathery selling herbal remedies, Queen Elizabeth roundly turned on them and demanded that they leave the woman alone to do so.
When American gasoline stations turned toward novelty road-side attraction shapes, one common East-Coast architecture had a lighthouse on top.
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-18 01:08 am (UTC)Medieval Baltic pirates would put any survivors of their attacks in barrels to keep them for later ransom.
I never heard that second bit about Baltic pirates, but I have read some about the Vitalienbruder or "Victualling Brotherhood", so named for running food into Stockholm when they were at war with Denmark and by extension the League. They used to routinely plunder ships of the Hansa as well. Their leader Klaus Stortebeker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_St%C3%B6rtebeker) is apparently still a hero in parts of North Germany and the Baltic for his plundering of League ships.
I admit, it was kind of a surprise to learn that piracy was was once a major concern in the Baltic.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-18 01:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-18 06:36 am (UTC)I think the business with Islam is still true - or if not, it's a recent change. The creator of Tékumel, born Phillip Barker, became Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker when he “took the turban,” as they used to call it. (He still answered to 'Phil.') Likewise, Cat Stevens, the musician, changed to Yusuf Islam - but that seems more a stylistic choice to reflect his personal conversion.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-18 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-18 04:47 pm (UTC)As for that fight in Eastern Europe, it WAS a noble and worthy thing - the noble was upholding the law, at - as it happened - the cost of his own life.
Watch this marvelous scene from John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur. Arthur now has Excalibur, but that's all. Watch what Sir Uryens does - and says. [Be warned - the clip starts with a banzai yell!]
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Note that his objection is NOT personal, not, “Magnificent Me, surrender to lousy pimply you?!” Instead his outrage is at the turning of things topsy-turvy. “A noble knight, swear faith to a squire?!” What Arthur is demanding is simply not done (the other knights, too, shout, “Never!”) and though Sir Uryens could “go along to get along” and thereby literally save his neck, he does NOT. His personal safety, indeed all personal issues are irrelevant to the larger concern.
Arthur realizes this, and - because he, too, is a champion of Law - he takes Sir Uryens up on it! Yes, he hands his sword to the knight and kneels before him - but not in defeat. He puts into his hands the symbol and force of Law (remember that blindfolded Justice carries a scale and a sword) thus in effect deputizing the knight, and kneels in obedience to that Law they both serve, and waits serenely for Sir Uryens to do his duty. Yes, this took serious moxie, but he, too, was willing to die to uphold the Law, and was proving it!
Blew Uryens right out of the water, that did. (Another knight shouts, “Keep it, Uryens!” but that would make HIM a pretender - it wouldn't be legal!)
“… I give you the right to carry arms, and to mete justice,” Uryens says. Note also that even now he does not swear personal allegiance to Arthur, but “to the courage in your veins” - to the principle, not the man.
[Compare this to Nazi Germany, where soldiers of the new Wehrmacht now swore personal fealty to Hitler - which the High Command viewed askance, but what could they do. Later, of course, they tried to kill him. Yet this was a fundamentally Germanic, Teutonic tradition - fealty to your chief, right or wrong - but Arthur was holding to the higher, Roman tradition of fealty to the law, regardless of whoever happened to be chief.]
A noble knight does not surrender to ragamuffin peasants. It was not to some non-com or buck private that Lee surrendered his sword at Appomattox, but to General Grant himself.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 03:00 am (UTC)Re: Trufax
Date: 2013-05-20 09:09 am (UTC)“Alone among the fifty States' flags, the Lone Star flag of Texas flies alongside Old Glory, not subordinate to it - because the Republic of Texas joined the Union by treaty, not by annexation!”
Re: Trufax
Date: 2013-05-20 12:17 pm (UTC)Re: Trufax
Date: 2013-05-20 12:34 pm (UTC)Nor should she! It was only an accident of history that kept California from becoming a nation in her own right - and even with Democrats in Sacramento and Washington DC, California's GDP is still higher than that of a good many full-fledged nation-states today!
Re: Trufax
Date: 2013-05-20 01:34 pm (UTC)Re: Trufax
Date: 2013-05-20 04:23 pm (UTC)- In reality SC is nothing like as bad as it was, but I read somewhere that if California was a country it would rank in, like, the top 20. It's huge, and not two-thirds useless wasteland like Utah or Nevada - or Australia. Amazing place, really.
Re: Trufax
Date: 2013-05-20 04:33 pm (UTC)Re: Ahem or, Point of Order
Date: 2013-05-20 04:58 pm (UTC)We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.
Re: Ahem or, Point of Order
Date: 2013-05-20 07:23 pm (UTC)Old image
Date: 2013-05-19 11:13 am (UTC)Does anyone happen to know if that web site is curated anywhere?
Earl Wajenberg
Re: Old image
Date: 2013-05-19 02:35 pm (UTC)Re: Master of Horse
Date: 2013-05-20 04:45 pm (UTC)the only man who could touch her legally
Poor Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - languishing in the Tower all these years for lèse-majesté. Ah, well, it was almost worth it - in her younger days she was kinda cute.
Re: Master of Horse
Date: 2013-05-20 07:23 pm (UTC)