At the End of Misery: More Misery

Reading about the emancipation of Russian serfs today. Interesting that this happened about the same time as the US abolished slavery (the 1860s)--Russian serfs, after all, were not all that different from slave. Unfortunately, it seems that emancipation actually led to lower standards of living and even more poverty for many Russians. It's as if... as long as the serfs were someone's property, those someones had some economic interest in their property not dying. But once the serfs were no one's property, then no one cared if they lived or died.

Sometimes history is sorrowful.

Kings and States

I confess I have generally thought of the European past, excluding the classical era, as filled with 'kings' (occasionally queens) ruling what we might call 'states'. Of course I maintained some vague awareness that Odysseus, King of Ithaca, might be better called a baron, but I didn't give it much thought beyond that.

Anyway, so I'm reading Historian on the Edge's essay, The Crisis of State, about W. Europe in the late classical/early Medieval period, not very far in, and he says two things which strike at my ignorance:

"...to call western polities after 600 'states' is to rob the word state of any analytical value."
Not states. The political entities we are dealing with in this period are not states--and that from a guy who seems to know his stuff.

"There will be a weak and a strong thesis to this paper. The weak thesis is that a crisis of the state occurred around 600; that changes took place which compelled a real shake up in the ways in which central and local power interacted, a critical moment which, whether or not it did, at least could have produced a breakdown of the state. A supplementary to the weak thesis is that these changes killed off the ‘Roman World’ that is still so visible in, say, 525-30.3 One might entitle this ‘weak thesis’ ‘the end of the late antique state in the West’. The ‘strong thesis’ is that the result of these changes was the end of political formations that can usefully be analysed as states in any way. With a slight but important change in the word order, the strong thesis can be entitled ‘the end of the state in the late antique West’.

"As a corollary, it is probably not surprising that government continued in recognisably Roman fashion. For all that we are used to conceiving of them as ‘Germanic’ kingdoms in this period, it is very difficult indeed to find much that can cogently be called Germanic or even barbarian. Certainly there were new elements in western rulership but these developed within a distinctively late imperial framework. It is worth remembering how new kingship was and the extent to which it was being made up by political actors as they went along. It may also be that even as late as the early sixth century it was not regarded as a permanent or even ideal solution to the problems thrown up by the fifth century, even by those occupying royal thrones."

Kingship was new.

Goodness. I'd never thought of it that way before. I mean, were there kings in the pre-classical era? Significant ones? Surely nothing on the scale of Queen Elisabeth I or Louie the XIV. I suppose most areas were governed by tribal chieftains, though some places (Ireland comes immediately to mind, having not been significantly influenced by Rome or the barbarian invasions,) had "high kings". What exactly makes one a king, and not a chief or a sultan or an emperor? Does the terminology matter, other than perhaps denoting something about the size of the territory under governance?

I suppose I should read on.

Never start a land war in Asia--unless you're Genghis Khan

I drew this during a Mongolian history binge. Someday I should figure out what spears actually look like (also, I'm pretty sure they didn't use spears.)

The military achievements of the Mongol army (especially under the famous Genghis,) are really quite impressive.

Viewing the Past (and Present) Through Tinted Lenses

I just cracked open Cipolla's Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700. I'm only a few pages in, don't mind me, but the discussion of wealth distribution and poverty in pre-industrial/late Medieval European society struck me as a very good example of how much our perceptions matter.

Cipolla cites numerous studies of the wealth/income distribution in various parts of Europe prior to the industrial evolution, as evidence of the unfairness of the system and the poverty of the majority of those in it. The funny thing is, America today is less fair--we have an even more extreme divide between our rich and poor--than the vast majority of Copolla's examples, by an order of magnitude.

Myself, I'm rather worried about modern society.

Post-it-note Dragons

Art Post

They seem happy together.

Vita Nostra

I'm currently reading Vita Nostra, because it was recommended as "like Harry Potter, if Harry Potter were written by Tolstoy." That was enough for me to actually buy it, because the Kindle edition was cheap and it probably wasn't available at the library.

Turns out it's nothing like Tolstoy. Tolstoy, as many of you probably already know, loves his characters. (At least most of them.)

This is like Harry Potter, if Hogwarts had been created and run by Gendo Ikari, and Gendo were Russian.

Bedtime Stories

There is an amusing irony, a conflict of interests, in reading to my children before bed. I want them to fall asleep, but they want to hear the rest of the story.

I have convinced my 4 year old to let me read him The Hobbit by changing Bilbo's name to that of his favorite stuffed animal. Well, great, only now he listens with rapt attention. Last night I read for two hours, and he still wasn't asleep. Finally I went and got myself a midnight snack, and by the time I got back, he was out.

Deleted Bits: Chapter 52, Deception

Lyta paced. She had tried to sleep, but when nightmares hadn't woken her, the trolls had. There had been fighting and screaming, the army trying to drive them back and the trolls surging forward, again and again, until she thought she would never escape the memory of the men crushed beneath her tower.

Nuala had brought her lunch -- she'd picked at it -- and tried to dress her. She didn't know what to do next. Horse had disappeared, and though she had tried whistling out the window and calling his name, he hadn't appeared. Now she waited for nightfall, for news of the queen's death, for the castle to sleep and let her sneak into the dungeons and find her husband.

Nuala had returned with dinner and tried to brush her hair. The serving woman seemed concerned for her, and prattled endlessly about the trolls. Lyta slumped on the bed, exhausted.

The door opened.

"Jasper!" She flung her arms around him and kissed his broken lips, his dirty cheeks and blackened eyes. His arms were chained and he stared at her, his eyes hollow and distant, until his demeanor cracked and black misery flooded out of him like a river that had cracked its dam. He scooped her up and laid her on the bed, kissing her with the desperation of a man who had thought he would never see his wife again, and still might loose her yet.

He clutched her against himself and buried his face in her hair, kissing her neck. "Lyta." His voice was hoarse. "Why are you here?"

"I came for you. You knew I would." Lyta caught Jasper's hands, tugging at the manacles. "What have they done to you?"

The guard cleared his throat and glared at them.

The color drained from Jasper's face. "I must do something terrible." He turned away and picked up her satchel, slipping a hand inside.

Lyta helped him with the strap, which he couldn't manage with his hands bound. "What is it?"

His expression hardened. "Come with me."

She swallowed, then took his arm.

...

Lyta couldn't help but stare at the queen, rendered so commonly mortal by a simple dose of poison. Her head lolled against the pillow, a line of blood staining the silk. Her eyes flicked back and forth, and as she returned to herself, she grunted and gestured for all but her dead guards to leave.

Jasper knelt, staring at the floor. "I have brought her."

Lyta's heart began to pound.

The trolls outside had begun to roar, beating their fists against the castle, demanding kaolinite and retribution. They stomped and rumbled and shook, and the castle shook with them, chunks of mortar falling from the cracks between the bricks. "Give her..." The queen's voice was a whisper, rough and hoarse.

Jasper picked Lyta up. "Don't worry," he whispered, "this won't hurt." He kissed her forehead, and the world went black.

Conla, King of the Golden Isles

"The king smiled. There was fire in his eyes, but also kindness; summer and age had browned and crinkled his cheeks, and a full beard hung nearly to his chest. His hair was gold flecked with grey. The resemblance between him and his son was striking, even if Jasper stood a foot shorter, and had much more reasonable horns. She wondered if the king had a tail."

Poor Jasper's dad. He was a nice guy in the first few drafts. He had to become an antagonist to create more conflict, but Jasper still loves him.

'“And yet you tax those who can least afford to pay!” said Jasper.
The king waved away his objections. "It is a privilege to live in the Golden City. If they cannot afford it, they must go elsewhere."
"But where? You know very well that they have been expelled from their homelands."
“Only because they were lazy! The lords' estates are more profitable without them.” '