A while back I did research into why Hungarian refugees were relatively well received in the Netherlands during the Hungarian revolt. Whenever this was discussed at my high school we'd see pictures of people welcoming them with big signs and general happiness. Since this is so different from how refugees ar e received today it fascinated me.

Turns out the Dutch government had selected the refugees in Austrian camps. They had been questioned about their political alliance, heritage and what they could bring Dutch society. For the most part the Dutch tried to get miners as there was a shortage in the Netherlands. Only after moral outrage from Dutch citizens did they also start to select children to travel to the Netherlands. The pictures that I grew up with were mostly from those transports.

H. P. Lovecraft never went to Europe. But his wife, Sonia H. Greene, a Jewish Russian immigrant to the United States, traveled there for business both before and after their marriage, including a trip in 1932. During this trip she had an idea of creating a travelogue, which she asked Lovecraft to write based on her notes (and his usual research into the subject). The result was not published until long after both were dead, in a little pamphlet called European Glimpses (1988, Necronomicon Press) and it's not hard to see why - typical tourist stuff, as filtered through Lovecraft - but there is at least one incident which is bizarre enough to be noteworthy:

During my stay of five days at Wiesbaden I had opportunities to observe the disturbed political state of Germany, and the constant squabbles between various dismally uniformed factions of would-be patriots. Of all the self-appointed leaders, Hitler alone seems to retain a cohesive and enthusiastic following; his sheer magnetism and force of will serving--in spite of his deficiencies in true social insight--to charm, drug, or hypnotise the hordes of youthful "Nazis" who blindly revere and obey him. Without possessing any clear-cut or well-founded programme for Germany's economic reconstruction, he plays theatrically on the younger generation's military emotions and sense of national pride; urging them to overthrow the restrictive provisions of the Versailles treaty and reassert the strength and supremacy of the German people. He is fond of such phrases as: "Germany, awaken and take your rightfulheritage with your own strong hands!"--and when speaking of elections usually intimates that in case of defeat he will consider an armed march on Berlin corresponding to Mussolini's Roman coup d'etat of 1922.

Hitler's lack of clear, concrete objectives seems to lose him nothing with the crowd; and when--during my stay--he was scheduled to speak in Wiesbaden, the Kurpark was crowded fully two hours before the event by a throng whose quiet seriousness was almost funereal. the contrast with America's jocose and apathetic election crowds was striking. When the leader finally appeared--his right hand lifted in an approved Fascist salute--the crowd shouted "Heil!!" three times, and then subsided into an attentive silence devoid alike of applause, heckling, or hissing. the general spirit of the address was that of cato's "Delenda est Carthago"--though one could not feel quite sure what particular Carthage, material or psychological, "Handsome Adolf" was trying to single out for anathema.

After the conclusion the crowd respectfully opened a path for his departure, and he left in his car as quietly as he had arrived--the only sound being a shot of farewell from his followers. then--silently, though perhaps with the general muffled discontent of the period--the kindly burghers dispersed to their not quite happy homes. At the time of this speech Hitler's tactics hinted of a "back to the Monarchy" movement; and Prince August Wihelm, sone of the ex-Kaiser, was a brief supplementary speaker. the royal scion, however, failed to overshadow the would-be dictator in the popular emotions.

The waste of energy and widespread chaos caused by the incessant conflict of no less than thirty-six separate parties--of which three may be called major ones--is the most distressing phenomenon in modern Germany; yet no one seems able to reconcile the various shades of opinion and feeling which cause this confusing diversity. Taxes are exorbitant, unemployment terrific, and general confidence at a very low ebb. the people of Wiesbaden have lately come to call their habitat "the city without a smaile", though the same might be said for almost any city in the Reich. Passport restrictions are very stringent, including both visas and police registration; and the tourist is taxed nine pfennigs a day during his sojourn in the country. yet the German people as a whole, apart from the governmental meshes in which they are entangled, are perhaps the most kindly and affable beings I have ever met. they are gracious, courteous, and delightful; and seem to radiate a really cordial glow devoid of hollowness or superficiality. they perform their duties with an almost military precision and effectiveness, and when once led out of their present chaos will undoubtedly resume their place of importance in the world. One hopes that a suitable leader may arise before the existing misery increases.

This speech was July 28th, 1932, part of a tour that Hitler was giving in the run-up to the 1932 elections in Germany (election day was 31 July). There is a lot to unpack in the general sentiments; some bits are clearly Lovecraft, some bits are clearly Sonia. HPL certainly would have been re-writing these notes after the election, so he would know of the Nazi party's success, even as Hitler lost his bid for the presidency.

Lovecraft's own opinion of Hitler was one of cautious optimism. The Providence writer had a low opinion of the intellect of the masses, and believed that the democratic trust of the lowest denominator was illogical; he believed in a kind of natural aristocracy of the intelligent and capable who would rise to leadership positions - and thought he saw this in the rise of Mussolini, and later Hitler. He approved of strongly nationalistic ethos, which jived with his own prejudices regarding race and culture, and with a planned, state-run economy. However, he disliked the Nazis' racial theories - finding them unscientific - and he thought Hitler a clownish figure (particularly the mustache). Overall, Lovecraft's opinion on Hitler was mixed, and leaned toward approval...at least until Hitler became chancellor and began to actually enact his program, where Lovecraft's support rapidly dwindled. Lovecraft died in 1937, before World War II or the horrors of the Holocaust could be revealed.

Sonia H. Greene's opinion of Hitler is less well-known; no correspondence from her survives from before the end of the war. Her memoir of their marriage (The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft) includes mention of Lovecraft's apparent consideration, including a claim that Lovecraft read Mein Kampf as soon as it came out; the only English-language translation during HPL's lifetime was the Dugdale abridgement, available for sale in 1933, and there are no mentions of it in Lovecraft's surviving letters. Possibly she referred to excerpts from the translation published in the Times in 1933, which Lovecraft would more likely have had access to.

All in all, a very odd little episode.

I am currently working on an article exploring the British army's use of spectacle and entertainment during the 1815-1818 occupation of France. One of my favorite aspects is the British use of traditional multi-day horse racing meetings to effectively "woo" the French. I have found evidence of race meetings in both Valenciennes and St. Omer that were enthusiastically attended by the British, the French, and officers from the other armies of occupation, and that were advertised as far away as the Netherlands. In addition to the general entertainment value, the meets were a boon to the local hospitality industry, as their popularity meant that the area was "crowded to excess" by individuals of all nationalities gripped with "racing mania." (The English at Valenciennes in 1816, The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), I: 321-322.) In general, the entertainments seem to have been quite popular and gone some way towards easing the tensions of the occupation, although there is plentiful evidence that the French were still glad when it ended in 1818.

General sources:

Christine Haynes, Our Friends the Enemies: The Occupation of France after Napoleon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018 )

Christine Haynes, “The Battle of the Mountains: Repatriating Folly in France in the Aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 44, no. 3 (December 2018): 50-70

Thomas Dwight Veve, The Duke of Wellington and the British Army of Occupation in France, 1815-1818 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992)

Jonathan Leach, Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier: During a Service in the West Indies; at the Siege of Copenhagen in 1807; in the Peninsula and the South of France in the Campaigns from 1808 to 1814, with the Light Division; in the Netherlands in 1815; including the Battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo: With a Slight Sketch of the Three Years Passed by the Army of Occupation in France, &c. &c. &c. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1831).

(Adapted from an earlier answer of mine)

The year 1492 is tied in the popular imagination to various major events, some of them connected to Iberia: Columbus reaching the Caribbean, but also the Fall of the last Muslim realm in Granada. The second event in turn led to the forced expulsion of all Jews living under the Castilian and Aragonese monarchs. The hardening Castilian attitudes towards non-Christian religions would strongly influence their conversion campaigns in the Americas.

What’s maybe less well-known though is that the end of the Caliphate of Granada did not mean the end of Muslims living in Iberia. Instead, while large groups of Muslims fled their homes, many also stayed on – leading to a population of “crypto-Muslims” or moriscos who would live in Iberia for over 100 more years, under continually worsening conditions.

Let's first look at the capitulation of Granada in 1491. The capitulation was set down by “the Catholic Monarchs” Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. It built on earlier precedents and was relatively favorable: The conquered people received the status of mudéjares, and as common in this case their religious and cultural traditions were confirmed.

This included the continued application of Islamic sharia laws, but also a general amnesty for all crimes committed during the conquest wars. For the most part traditional elites should stay at the top of their communities and properties should be left untouched. Those Muslims who wanted to leave to “Barbary” (Northern Africa) were allowed safe passage during the next three years, and they could still emigrate after that against payment – leading to large emigrations. In general, Muslims were not supposed to be converted to Christianity against their will (in stark contrast to the expulsion of all Iberian Jews in 1492).

In the late 15th century Christian immigration to Granada was facilitated by the Crown, and the capital was divided into a Christian and a Muslim part in 1498. The turning point came with the increasing influence of archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros. Cisneros' measures including forcibly „bringing back“ converted Christians to Christianity; forced conversions of the Islamic elite; the burning of Arabic, especially religious books. These measures led to an uprising at the Albaicín, which in turn led to mass conversions of 50-60.000 people – marking the beginning of crypto-Islam in Iberia.

The resistance in Granada influenced the failed rebellions in the Alpujarras from 1500, which could be used by Christian authorities as an argument to abolish the capitulation and to change or abolish the mudéjar status. The whole population of Granada and consequently of Castile was left with the „choice“ to either emigrate or convert - main destinations for emigration being Northern Africa and the Ottoman empire, with Istanbul having a quarter of moriscos coming into existence over time. With the end of official Islam in Iberia the converted Muslims were referred to as moriscos or cristianos novos („new Christians“).

The second important turning point came with the accession to the Spanish throne of Philipp II. In 1556. It signalled the end of possibilities for moriscos to buy freedom from the Inquisition and from repression. More aggressive crown policies looked towards open repression instead of Christianisation – by the synod of 1565 and later reforms the goal was to eliminate all signs of Muslim religion and culture.

The 'Pragmática Sanción' is of special importance here, which left the moricos 12 months to adopt to Christian mores. This change in official policy and the failure of diplomatic missions by the moriscos left the latter with few options indeed. The 2nd revolt of Alpujarras starting in 1568 has to be seen before this background. This revolt turned into a full-fledged war until 1571 spanning nearly the whole kingdom of Granada. To put it shortly, this war necessitated Philipp's intervention, who sent his brother Don Juan de Austria with ca. 20.000 man to quell the uprising, declaring campo franco and thus a brutal retaliatory campaign.

The 2nd revolt made a return to coexistence improbable if not impossible. In a first step it led to large-scale resettlements of Granada's moriscos to other regions. The illegal emigrations understandably increased in this time. While ca. 165.000 moriscos had lived in Granada before the revolt, around 80.000 of them were resettled, while the rest left or died during the conflicts (the numbers are notoriously hard to determine).

The morisco population continued to decrease in the following decades. In a second step came the final expulsion of all moriscos from Spain from 1609 onwards. This included around 120.000 people from Valencia who were expulsed to Northern Africa, and in lesser numbers from Aragon and other regions. As many moriscos especially in Castile resisted the operations took until 1614. The majority left for Morocco, Oran, Algier and Tunis, and others emigrated to Thessaloniki, Istanbul and the Balcan.

Although moriscos continued to return clandestinely in smaller numbers, the expulsions of 1609 are usually considered the end point for crypto-Islam in Spain.
One reason why I wanted to share this here was as a small reminder of the important Muslim presence in Europe - going back centuries in Iberia all the way to 711 - all too easily forgotten in our time.

• I’ve collected some good sources on this in the earlier answer (2nd part), which also deals with Ottoman-morisco diplomacy.

• [edit:] Leading further away from this Feature's topic, there was also clandestine migration of moriscos to the Americas (as happened in larger numbers with converted Jews or conversos) which I discuss over here.

Imagine that you go to see Wicked. But the music you hear is not by Stephen Schwartz. In fact, Schwartz’s classic score, in this alternate universe, hasn’t been staged since the original broadway production ended in 2005. Instead, each new production features entirely new music by a different composer. The first national tour from 2005 featured music by Jason Robert Brown, Pasek and Paul composed the score for the second national tour in 2009, meanwhile, across the pond, the 2007 West End production featured Robert Lopez composing a new set of songs for the original Elphaba, Idena Menzel, a collaboration that would pave the way for their wildly popular 2013 collaboration in Disney’s Frozen. In this world, there is not just one “Defying Gravity,” there are dozens! The words and song lyrics remain largely unchanged from one production to the next, but each is an entirely new musical experience!

This situation sounds quite strange from the standpoint of 21st century musical theatre, but it is precisely the way opera worked in the 18th century. Each year, a set of popular opera texts – chiefly by the poet Pietro Metastasio – were reimagined with new music. As just one example, the opera La clemenza di Tito premiered in 1734, with music that sounds like this, and, 60 years later, it was still alive and well, but its music was decidedly different. To put that again in modern terms, that would be like “the Sound of Music” still generating new scores in 2019!

This deeply fascinating tradition is the subject of my dissertation. I’m interested in the way that certain arias from these operas weirdly enough acquired a kind of characteristic “sound” that was relatively consistent across various musical settings. The clearest example I can offer is this: the setting of just two words – “rispondi, ‘mori’” – from a single aria text, in 7 different settings, roughly one per decade. Hopefully the sound itself is enough to make you say “wait… they are all just basically doing the same thing,” but notice especially how most of them are in the same key, most of them set “mori” as a leap from Bb to Eb, most of which come after an F. And some are even closer, there are several whose melodic figures are almost exactly the same. So this little thing – I’m calling it “the ‘mori’ cadence” – is something like a sonic signature for this aria. It’s part of its characteristic sound. And it turns out, that nearly every part of this aria has similar conventions attached to it.

We might think of these texts and their music as “memes.” They are spread around Europe, maintaining a lot of their characteristic attributes while also having elements that can be varied to suit different audiences and singers. What I’m fascinated by is the way that this kind of tradition lets us peer behind the curtain to get a glimpse at one of the most fundamental questions of operatic criticism: just how much does music contribute to characterization and plot? We get to watch as different composers read these characters in different ways by composing different music for them.

Like I said, this dissertation is based on a corpus study of roughly 45 surviving settings of this aria (another 20 I know existed at one point, but the music has been lost), which I’ve been transcribing and studying for about 2 and a half years now. It’s really terrific music! Some of my favorite settings are:

• Galuppi from 1748
• Anfossi from 1778
• Cimarosa from 1784

And, to “put my money where my mouth is,” I also decided to try my hand at composing one myself! You can check it out here.

I'm going to touch on something I've been reading up on recently, something that has modern parallels: Georgia's quest to integrate into Europe, and define itself as a European country, despite its geography being rather unclear (if not outright putting it in Asia). To do this, I'll discuss the diplomatic efforts to have the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) internationally recognised in the wake of the First World War.

Before I get there, some in-depth background is required:

The February 1917 Russian Revolution saw the end of tsardom and the formation of a provisional government, which was supposed to take over until a Constituent Assembly could be convened and establish a long-term form of government for Russia. It was tentatively planned for January 1918, and despite the October Revolution bringing the Bolsheviks to power, it did get to meet one time, at which point the Bolsheviks announced it was being dissolved.

This is important because in the chaos that came with the tsar being overthrown, there was mass confusion across the empire as to who really controlled things. This was no different in the Caucasus: while they immediately had the Viceroy (the tsar's cousin, the Grand Duke Nicholas) removed, and a soviet (meaning council representing workers and soldiers) took power, their goal was not to leave Russia, but more to increase autonomy. This was true for all three major groups there: Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, who still kept a united front. While they disagreed with the provisional government, and effectively ran things on their own, they wanted to wait for the Constituent Assembly to do its thing before making any moves.

However the October Revolution complicated things, as the Bolsheviks were not popular in the Caucasus, especially within Georgia (which strongly supported the Mensheviks, a far more moderate socialist group). This caused tension, and with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, and the continued encroachment of the Ottoman Empire on the Caucasian front, a Transcaucasian Republic was announced on April 22, 1918, though due to infighting between the three major groups it only lasted a month: Georgia declared independence on May 26, while Armenia and Azerbaijan did the same two days later.

This independent Georgian state, the Democratic Republic of Georgia, was dominated by the Mensheviks. As noted they were a more moderate socialist group than the Bolsheviks, but ultimately had the same goals: establish socialism and abolish capitalism. This was not something supported by the European states, who loathed socialism. That Georgia was also backed militarily by Germany (in order to stop the Ottoman from advancing, and who wanted access to resources in the region), also didn't endear Georgia to the West, seeing how the First World War was still quite active. Despite this Georgian delegations went to Europe to try and get international recognition as an independent state.

This was not an easy task. The Allied powers (namely France and the UK) refused to recognise any breakaway states from Russia, and with the Russian Civil War starting up hoped to help the White (anti-Bolshevik) forces to regain power, including places like Georgia, so did not want to do anything rash like give diplomatic recognition.

The end of the First World War and the subsequent Paris Peace Conference were prime events for the Georgian quest for recognition. They were one of several delegations from across Europe, and indeed the world, to attend and plead their case. With Wilson's idea of "national self-determination" being a prime theme of the peace talks, it seemed logical that Georgia should prevail. However the White armies were doing fairly well at the time, so again the Allies demurred on the matter, thinking the Bolsheviks could hold on. They did meet with the Georgians, led by Irakli Tsereteli and Nikolai Chkheidze, but nothing really came of it.

Regardless, Tsereteli and Chkheidze remained there to plead their case, and were able to slowly get favourable opinions for them: by 1920 the tide was turning in Russia and it looked like the Bolsheviks were going to hold on, so it was no longer such an issue to recognise breakaway states. This led the Allies to look for alternatives to contain Bolshevism, so on January 10, 1920 they de facto recognised the DRG, followed shortly after by the French.

This was a huge victory for the Georgians, but they still kept working to get de jure recognition. They also tried to join the League of Nations, but their application was refused due to the uncertain situation of them. Finally though, on January 11, 1921, they were given the long-awaited de jure recognition by France and the UK, establishing diplomatic relations with them. This proved to be bittersweet though, as just a month later the Red Army invaded Georgia, and by mid-March the DRG was no more, with a Bolshevik government established in its place.

As I noted at the outset, this has parallels to today, with the modern Georgian state trying to integrate itself into Europe. It is a little too modern for in depth discussion here, but former President Mikheil Saakashvili was adamant about having Georgia join both the EU and NATO, and worked hard to make that happen (they did join the Council of Europe; this has the same flag as the EU, so Georgian government buildings fly both the Georgian and EU flag, much like EU members do). They have not been successful yet, again largely due to the influence of their neighbour Russia and reluctance of the Europeans to get involved in that, but if past events mean anything, Georgia may one day see its goals achieved.

Sisters Were Doin' It For Themselves: The Victorian English Businesswoman

Now this is a post to celebrate The recent exploration of the female state 18th, 19th and 20th century too, London to Dublin, we're singin' with you...

I'm going to talk today about a recent change in our understanding of the role of women in Victorian England - the business woman.

Now there was a time when they used to say ...

Traditionally historians argued that the 19th and early 20th centuries saw a decline in women entepreneurship, relative to the 18th and earlier centuries, arguing that women retreated to a 'separate sphere', relatively more focused on domesticity and motherhood. Everyone knew that working class women often worked - as domestic servants, washerwomen, etc, but it was believed that middle-class women focused on domesticity and the home.

... But in these times of change you know, that's no longer true

Since the 1990s however, historians have uncovered evidence of women playing important roles as entepreneurs during this period. Trade directories, which listed businesses and their owners in an area (eg London, Birmingham, Leeds), indicate that the proportion of women businessowners was at least 6%, and quite possibly higher, around 10-13%, and shows no sign of a decline in proportions since the 18th century.

We got traders, manufacturers, and speculators too

Nor were businesswomen confined to particular trades. Recorded trades included ones far from the traditional feminine image, such as metalworking and shipbuilding. Women could also trade on an international scale:  Aston & Martino (2017), in examining bankruptcy records, found the case of an Elizabeth Goodchild, a London-based details upholsterer and warehouseman[sic], who went bankrupt owing money to 71 different creditors. These creditors were international, including ones from Saxony, Belgium, Austria, France and Holland. Goodchild was an exception, of course, most women's businesses were small, local ones, funded by creditors who were family or friends, but that was also true of businesses owned by men. (This is excluding large corporations of course).  

Owning and running a business appears to have been more of a lower-middle class activity for women. More middle-class women might respectably run a girls' school, like Mary Wollenstonecraft did. This was a thing so common that Jane Austen portrays such a schoolmistress, Mrs Goddard, in her novel Emma, who was on visiting terms with the upper circle in the local village. But middle class women also could have money of their own to invest, and often did with inheritances from fathers or husbands. The traditional image was that Victorian women investors stayed to safe, low-risk investments. As you might not be surprised to read, this view is being overturned too. For example Victorian women engaged in the risky business of ship ownership (which we know about due to maritime reigsters). This could involve being actively involved in the decision-making process, the account of the sharheolders meetings of the schooner Thetis (one of the rare occasions where detailed records have survived), includes a shareholder, Miss Mary Ann Henwood, age 25, sitting down with nine other, male shareholders.  

Cause ... a woman still loves a man (Just the same though)

A traditional image of the woman businessowner was a widow who inherited a business from her husband. However bankruptcy records show about 20% of female enterpreneurs declared bankrupt were spinsters, and about 40% were married.  This role played by married women occurred despite the case that under common law, formally married women had no independent legal status (known as 'coverture'), until the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870, 1892, and 1893. Various customs and legal exceptions appear to have been used by married women to trade. 'Coverture' could actually help a woman, it meant that a woman couldn't sue, but also that she couldn't be sued, nor could she be declared bankrupt. Aston & Martino found a case of a woman who used the lack of legal status of a married woman to her advantage: a bankruptcy order was made against her as a spinster, who managed to get it delayed long enough to get married, and then got the bankruptcy order discharged due to her married status. :)

Business ownership also wasn't a barrier to motherhood. A study of fire insurance policies from London found that one third of businesswomen were living with children under age 14. There's qualitative evidence too, that at least some lower-middle class women regarded business ownership as a valuable calling, a way of respectably providing for their families.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, I don't know of any research into queer women Victorian business owners. However, women often had various enterpreneurial links with other women: trading partners, lending money, taking bankruptcy orders out ... Perhaps there's some possiblity for a researcher with an ingenuous idea of how to make connections.

So to summarise: Sisters were doin' it for themselves. I said "Sisters were doin' it for themselves. Standin' on their own two feet And ringin' on their own bells.   Sisters were doin' it for themselves Sisters were doin' it for themselves Sisters were doin' it for themselves

I'm cribbing from an answer I wrote myself here.

Sources

Jennifer Aston & Paolo Martino, 2017. "Risk, success, and failure: female entrepreneurship in late Victorian and Edwardian England," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(3), pages 837-858, August. Ungated review copy at http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/39240/1/Aston_AAM_Risk_success_and_failure_TEHR.pdf

Doe, Helen. 2010. “Waiting for Her Ship to Come in? The Female Investor in Nineteenth-Century Sailing Vessels.” The Economic History Review 63 (1): 85–106.  

Burnette, Joyce, 2010, reviewing Alison Kay The Foundations of Female Entrepreneurship: Enterprise, Home and Household in London, c. 1800-1870,  https://eh.net/book_reviews/the-foundations-of-female-entrepreneurship-enterprise-home-and-household-in-london-c-1800-1870/

Dr Kathryn Gleadle, review of Women in Business, 1700–1850, (review no. 578), https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/578

And with apologies to the Eurthymics and Aretha Franklin.

Note: none of my sources are about Ireland, let alone Dublin, but I'm afraid I couldn't think of even a rough rhyme with London from the north of England.

A few words on the Spanish Flu in Italy (this is an old post which I have revised a bit – you may have seen it already)

Even grown ups, sometimes, don't want to go to bed. General Vittorio Alfieri, of the Royal Army of Italy – after a brief parenthesis when he had held the chair of Ministry of War in the dramatic months that followed the defeat of Caporetto – had resumed his service in the Army in March 1918; ordinary turnaround according to Prime Minister V.E. Orlando himself. The position reserved to him wasn't a bad one though: a Lieutenant General, he had been placed in command of the XXVI Army Corp – and positioned to the right end of the III Army (that of the “lower Piave”, on the side of the Adriatic Sea) under command of the King's cousin, the Duke of Aosta. Provided that the last decisive offensive against the Austrians, the order of battle of which had been approved in a meeting held on the 13^th of October, went as planned, his men were destined for the liberation of Trieste.

And the great offensive of Vittorio Veneto – which the nationalist press was swift to declare “the greatest victory ever won” - did indeed work as planned, even if the Italians reached Trieste first by sea (around the time of the Austrian offer for an armistice on the 3^rd of November) and only entered by land later. Alfieri was on his way – somewhere near the city of Monfalcone – working, up late rather than going to bed, fighting an incipient cold, a sore throat, and a cough. When he eventually went to sleep, he could feel a rising fever, and woke up the next day with a flu.

As his troops moved on, he was taken back to the military hospital in Treviso to die three days later, on the 8^th of November 1918.

While the specific details of the anecdote are in large part unverifiable – there are no sources on Alfieri's exact temperature – the symptoms, their sudden appearance, the short time between their onset and the development of the frequent pulmonary complications that usually ended up being the actual cause of death; all fit with the general patter of the “plague” that would soon become known as the “Spanish flu”; but which the official commemoration given by the Chamber on November 22^nd – in a typical act of self-censorship on the matter of the epidemic – would name only as “an unstoppable disease”.

The flu killed an unprecedented number of men, women and children in Italy during modern age – even larger in fact than the “gold standard” forterrible epidemics within recent memory, set by the cholera pandemics of 1854-55 which had killed 248,514 people. Estimates for the flu of 1918-19 range from the most conservative official reports which listed 274,081 dead for “flu” during 1918 alone, to the far larger ones by statistician G. Mortara (based on excess deaths^1 during 1918 compared to averages for 1911-13) who claimed over 600,000 deaths in consequence of the flu, and more recent attempts to pinpoint the number of deaths due “especially” to the flu around 325,000-375,000.

Incidentally, while it is true that both the Italian cholera epidemics of 1854-55 and the Spanish flu of 1918-19 were also part of a general world-wide pandemic, I am sure I won't be able to avoid all slips with translations of medical and technical terms – nor I could claim otherwise since I have no specific medical knowledge. I have tried my best, but I hope you'll point out at least those who might lead to substantial inaccuracies.

For such a large scale phenomenon it is odd to see how little recognition it gained in official documents, how much of it was left unsaid in contemporary sources; with the most accurate depictions coming from private correspondence, diaries, a few lines in the press escaping the censorship surveillance, usually for the purpose of medical instructions – or from indirect sources, like obituaries, requests for more beds and rooms, whole buildings to be used as emergency hospitals, recurring job calls for undertakers.

The social and political climate of war, that had placed the whole Italian society under the blanket of censorship (and established a habit of self-censorship as well) – with restrictions not only on war related news and propaganda but also against the spread of “any news potentially damaging of the public morale” - paired with the persistent uncertainty about the true nature of the disease, the “three-days fever”, the “Spanish fever”, that had resurrected the old terminology “malady”, “plague” or “pox”, either “terrible”, or “monstrous”, or “dreadful”, and the inability of the Italian authorities to deal properly with the emergence in a time when the prolonged war effort had made everything scarce or too expensive or just necessary for the front, right at the moment when the Great War was coming to its victorious end; all these factors conspired towards the Italian society walking through the epidemics with the dullness of one who's half asleep, until the Winter of 1918 came to wash away the long warm season that had carried over well into October in many places – stirring old rumors and superstitions of bad airs and miasmas – awaking the Country to the realization that it had been in fact all true. And that washing the streets and forgetting about it was perhaps the most convenient way to deal with it.

The flu had appeared first during the Spring of 1918 – apparently recorded in the US in March, had since then spread to Europe, perhaps with the early expedition corps. A “mild form, with mortality almost nil and characters typical of other spring flues” - according to documents compiled for the Ministry of Interior – it ran its course from May to June 1918, like any other flu. Few were the recorded cases (the flu was not, after all such a serious disease to require reporting to the sanitary authorities, especially in time of war when the network of medical assistance was already stretched thin and citizens too had other matters to attend), for instance military records give 14,750 cases in May, 9,755 in June and 45 in July; revealing a substantial disappearance of the disease by mid-Summer.

The symptoms were notable only for their a-specificity: fever, chills, weariness and fatigue, aching in the lumbar region – a few times paired with cough and cephalea. The insurgence was reportedly abrupt, within 24 ours of the first symptoms, and the course of the disease usually limited to three days, so that this mild Spring flu was already commonly referred to as a “three days fever”.

Unlike those of the previous years, this flu returned at the end of July – or by early August at least. The index of nation wide mortality by month (as compiled by G. Mortara), taking the average of 1911-13 as reference 100 paints a pretty clear picture:

a – On January 13^th 1915 a major earthquake had hit the region of Avezzano causing over 30,000 dead, which explains the outlier.

The resurgent disease was a far cry from the “mild form” of the regular flu, the “gentle disease” as it had been known for its regular reappearance and its nature of a modest inconvenience; one which did not kill like cholera – in a disgusting and painful manner – or slowly and inescapably like consumption, or through labor and distemper like malaria.

The new form of the flu paired the symptoms of the Spring one with the rapid onset of pulmonary complications. The physicians E. Boschi and G. Dagnini described the evolution of the disease in 1919:

It's not unusual for the common grippe to follow through until a substantial remission of the temperature, and even to a few days of complete absence of fever, when the abrupt appearance of a new fever announces almost with certainty the onset of the pulmonary complication. This intermediate phase of fever remission […] had already been noted during the 1890 epidemics and had led to think of resistant microorganisms taking shelter in the primary respiratory vessels.

And unlike regular flu, those frequent pulmonary symptoms – rare and even more severe could be the cerebral and gastrointestinal evolution – were rather dire. Bronchitis, pleurisy and pneumonia, revealed by persistent cyanosis, dyspnea, effusion of blood from the nose and the mouth; samples revealed a whole array of competing bacteria taking residence within the respiratory apparatus.

For this feature I’m tempted to start a multi-part series (to likely be continued in Saturday Showcases) on Alois Podhajsky and the Spanish Riding School and their involvement with the Second World War.

Part 1: Who is Alois Podhajsky?

Alois Podhajsky was one of the most famous and instrumental directors of the Spanish Riding School as it was under his leadership that the School faced the challenge of surviving the Second World War. Born in 1898 in Mostar in present day Bosnia and Herzegovina, Podhajsky was the son of a soldier in the Austo-Hungarian army. His mother was a native of Vienna, but his childhood was spent moving from one garrison to the next in the empire. In May of 1916, Podhajsky joined the 4th Kaiser Ferdinand Dragoons at the age of 18 and began a career in the cavalry that would span two world wars (technically). His motivation for enlisting was patriotism for his country though he served for little more than a year when he too became a casualty to be sent home in October 1917. With the breakup of Austria-Hungary following the war, Podhajsky summed his feelings as being “…in deep mourning for a lost empire, an empire that had been not only great, but also very beautiful.”

The interwar years gave Podhajsky the opportunity to instead further his horsemanship more than his military career, though he still saw himself as a cavalryman rather than just an equestrian. As part of his military service, Podhajsky found himself positioned as a riding instructor and horse trainer on account of his equestrian background that roots back to his childhood fascination with horses. According to his memoir, he was able to train his “pupils of the 5th Infantry Regiment to such a pitch that they could beat crack cavalry regiments.” In addition, he found himself training and competing in horse competitions where he saw value in cross-training horses in both show jumping and dressage. To further his appreciation and understanding of the disciplines, he found himself taking classes at the Militaer-Reit und Fahrlehrerinstitut at Schloss Hof castle, a former imperial estate that was made into a riding and driving school in 1898. His jumping career faced a significant hiatus during his time at Schloss Hof as he was thrown and then kicked in the back which fractured his fourth lumbar vertebra.

However, his riding career remained largely unaffected as he instead chose to focus on training and dressage (and like any horseman, went against sound advice to refrain from riding). Following the completion of his courses at Schloss Hof, Podhajsky found himself back in the cavalry where he used his training and experience to transform seemingly unattractive horses into successful show animals. His debut came in 1933 at the International Horse Show in Vienna where, riding a mare named Nora, Podhajsky placed only third in a national intermediate dressage class. However, the riders who had placed first and second ended up in the last two spots in the international classes that followed. Podhajsky here won both the intermediate and advanced competitions in dressage. His successes were noted on 2 October 1933 in the Wiener Journal:

“But the greatest surprise was Captain Podhajsky’s achievement. Here is a rider who, by his elegant appearance and the fine performance he gave on Nora and Nero, seems destined to carry on the highest equestrian traditions of the old imperial Austria.”

Following these successes, Captain Podhajsky found himself a suitable candidate to be transferred to the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. However, he remained there for barely a year as it was deemed more important to have Podhajsky training the next generation of Austrian cavalrymen than to stay at the Spanish Riding School where he was seen as a viable candidate to take over as director in the future. In 1936, Podhajsky had the opportunity to compete in the Berlin Olympics where he received a Bronze medal for his efforts in dressage. From Podhajsky’s point of view, the judges were biased against an Austrian rider as his competitors who were awarded Gold and Silver were both Germans who rarely saw the same level success in other competitions with Podhajsky. Per Podhajsky:

“It is not without interest that many years later, in 1943, the influential secretary of the German judge announced openly during a lunch at the Jockey Club in Vienna that he had deliberately marked me down in the 1936 Olympics, being determined that a German rider should win.”

Whether or not this is accurate is unknown to me as I have not been able to compare the competitor lists of the 1936 Olympics and their placements with that of other contemporary equestrian competitions nor have I other sources readily available to confirm the anecdote. Regardless, it is evident that Podhajsky felt that this was accurate.

In 1938, the world changed quite suddenly for Austrians as their country was annexed by Nazi Germany. Podhajsky, as an officer in the Austrian Army saw his rank transferred to the German Wehrmacht.

Voltaire: The Watch Baron of Ferney

“You can be a very good philosopher and believe in God,” wrote François-Marie Arouet in a 1768 letter from his estate in Ferney, located on the Franco-Genevan border. Arouet, known best to his contemporaries and posterity alike as Voltaire, concluded that, on the other hand, “the atheists have never answered the argument that a clock proves the existence of a clockmaker.” The ‘watchmaker analogy’, as it would be known as, was well trodden ground for the philosophes. In Emile (1762), Rousseau, with whom Voltaire felt no love lost, wrote:

"I am like a man who sees the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary of admiring the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the instrument and has never seen its face. I do not know what this is for, says he, but I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman in the details of his work, and I am quite certain that all these wheels only work together in this fashion for some common end which I cannot perceive.”

The Genevan born Rousseau was well familiar with watches and watchmaking, his father having been a watchmaker and growing up in the heart of the city’s watchmaking and artisan district. In this, it’s understandable why Rousseau would be drawn to such an analogy. But what of Voltaire? What, if any, was his connection to watchmaking? To that I say, pull up a seat because we’re about to look into a somewhat different aspect of the life of the great philosophe; Etablisseur Voltaire.

So first, a little bit of background. If you’ll recall, a few weeks back I talked about protests in Geneva in 1718 and the struggles between the Citizens and Bourgeois of the city over rights of taxation. Well lo and behold, those issues were very much unsolved by the time we get to 1770. In fact, there were serious protests or attempted revolutions about once every ten years in 18th century Geneva. Yet by the mid/end of the 18th century, it’s not just the Bourgeois who wants greater rights, the Natifs (those who were born in Geneva to immigrant parents) had begun agitating for greater rights and in 1762 actually won the ability to enter the watchmaking industry—albeit not as masters.

In 1770, the habitants and natifs Geneva broke out in protest after, surprise surprise, the Small Council revoked the rights supposedly granted to them in a settlement reached in 1768— a settlement that had to be mediated by France and Bern. This time, however, things got violent. In a letter to Élie de Beaumont, Voltaire reported that three habitants were killed by the bourgeois aligned with the government, and that “the whole city is up in arms, everything is in combustion in this wise republic.” Attempts to flee the violence and political repression in the Calvinist republic were stymied by the government. Voltaire noted that the Small Council had threatened to hang anyone attempting to escape to the nearby Versoix, at the time part of France. Days later Voltaire wrote, “They have just cut the throats of those habitants who had submitted their names to the Ministry with a view of moving to Versoix,” among them an 80 year old man.

Voltaire, having supported the natifs and habitants in their protests in the 1750s sensed an opportunity. Rather than escaping to Versoix, Voltaire encouraged the emigres to move to his estate in the adjacent village of Ferney where they could live and work under the more lax social regulation of the French monarchy. Noticing that many of the natifs who joined him in Ferney had been employed in Geneva’s watchmaking Fabrique, Voltaire decided to turn Ferney into a watchmaking colony of sorts, one that could hopefully rival the dominance of Geneva. By March 1770, watchmaking in Ferney was up and running and by April Voltaire sent a sample of timepieces to France’s foreign minister, the duc de Choiseul. “I have established in the hamlet of Ferney a little annex of the manufacture of watches” he wrote to the Marquis de Jaucourt, “We must remember that everyone nowadays wants a gold watch, from Peking to Martinique, and that there used to be only three great manufacturing centres, London, Paris and Geneva.” Ferney, thought Voltaire, was to become the fourth.

Voltaire worked his international connections to get his watches in the major courts of Europe, with both Frederick of Prussia and Catherine of Russia placing orders after he convinced them that they had produced watches decorated with diamonds and bearing portraits at “half the price of those from London or Paris.” For the firm of Dufour and Céret, one of the establishments of Ferney, watches ranged from 3 Louis for a watch in smooth silver, 4 for silver guilloche, 14 for a silver repeater, and 42 for a gold repeater. To get such a watch at such price, boasted Voltaire in 1775, is to get a sturgeon in Paris for 4 sous.” Perhaps his most high profile arrangement was for the marriage of the dauphin to Marie-Antoinette, were Voltaire’s watchmakers supplied the wedding with diamond ringed portrait watches of the king and of the dauphin, 25 and 17 Louis respectively.

There was a bit of an issue, however. Many of these high profile patrons never ended paying Voltaire. Writing about Louis XV’s lack of payment to d’Alembert he wrote, “The consequences fall on me. What I feel about these fine gentlemen of Paris is indescribable.” Perhaps justified, as Voltaire had begun referring to the Ferney watches as ‘Manufacture Royale’ despite never receiving the crowns consent to do so.

After Voltaire died in 1778, Ferney and Manufacture Royal continued to be a major center of French watchmaking well into the 19th century before events being overtaken as more and more Swiss cantons began out produce the French and English industries. Yet, what had started out as an enclave for Genevan natifs fleeing political violence eventually became a colony of watchmakers who’s pieces could be found across various the courts and country estates of Europe.

Bibliography:

Besterman, Theodore, Les Œuvres Completes des Voltaire

Davidson, Ian, Voltaire: A Life

Been doing a fair bit of research today into the East Anglian witchcraze of the 1600s and talking to my history colleagues about whether it was a cause of the English Civil War (as my current school teaches it), or a consequence of the war that arises out of a maelstrom of religious and political confusion, which is what I had thought it to be.

Interestingly enough, though its largely exacerbated by the Civil War, there is plenty of evidence of witch accusations arising prior to the war. I live in East Anglia, which is the area of England mainly affected by the witchcraze, especially the notorious Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, who largely worked in and around Essex at the time, especially Manningtree and Colchester.

Witches were usually imprisoned, usually hanged, and the accusations do involve a relatively large number of males. One village I've just been looking at, Stisted, had fourteen accusations in 1643 alone, made by two women, of which 11 of those accusations were wealthier men who seem largely to have been accused because of either their religious or political leanings. A few victims were loyal to King Charles when Essex was largely a Parliamentarian area during the war.

Its very interesting reading that's taking me down a whole rabbit-warren of religious and political squabblings, and in the end I can probably only justify four lessons at most on it, but it's incredibly fascinating!

Malcolm Gaskill is one of the most prominent historians of the English witchcraze, for anyone interested, but the article I'm mainly using at the moment is a working paper by Peter Elmer of Exeter University.

I’ve been reading about Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy of Equals over the summer, especially their 1797 trial in Vendôme, and the last volume of the trial transcript blew my mind. I had completely misunderstood the way the trial ended for years, and it seems I’m far from the only one.

The members of the conspiracy had formed a secret organisation and tried to overthrow the government in 1796, but they were exposed by one of their own agents and arrested. A lot of very incriminating writing was also found in the apartment where Babeuf (one of the leaders) was arrested. Throughout the trial, almost all of the accused claimed that there had been no conspiracy, and that what illegal activity had taken place had essentially been a false flag by the government, or the work of agents provocateurs.

At the end of the trial, the jury was asked five series of questions. The first three were about whether or not there had been a conspiracy to arm citizens against one another, arm citizens against legitimate authority, or to bring about the dissolution of the legislative body, and whether or not each suspect had participated. These questions were based on an article of the penal code that made any such conspiracies punishable only by death. The jury answered no to all three, saying that no conspiracy had been proven.

The fourth and fifth series had to do with whether or not the accused had provoked the revocation of the constitution of 1795 in speech or writing. These questions were based on the law of 27 Germinal, which made provocations against the constitution, to pillage public or private property, or to murder members of the legislative body punishable by either death or deportation. Here, the jury answered yes. They sentenced Babeuf and Augustin Darthé to death, and seven more to deportation. The rest were acquitted.

This fourth and fifth series were not a natural end to the trial that had just taken place. Throughout the trial, the two prosecutors had insisted that this trial was only about the fact of the conspiracy. According to them, the provocations against the constitution were only relevant to the case because they were rhetorical tools used by the conspirators to further the conspiracy. But somehow those writings ended up leading to the only convictions that came out this whole mess.

Basically all of the books I have on the subject present this turn of events as a tragic result of the government’s trickery. The law of 27 Germinal had been passed specifically to criminalize this group and their propaganda, so it was a foregone conclusion that they would be found guilty, even in the event that the actual crimes the trial was about weren’t proven.

In the last few days of the trial, the foreman of the jury suggested that a series of questions based on the Germinal law should be added to the three series originally formulated by the president. After all, the jury might find that no conspiracy could be proven, and that would mean nobody was punished. And wouldn’t that be terrible? Viellart (one of the prosecutors) argued that adding this question would be illegal, considering that this wasn’t a crime anyone had been charged with, that no evidence had been presented that this crime had been committed, and that the accused hadn’t had a chance to defend themselves against this new accusation.

None of the historians I've read seem to take much notice of the fact that Pierre-François Réal, a lawyer representing most of the accused, argued in favour of the foreman’s suggestion. The government had passed the law against provocations after hearing about the conspiracy for the first time. Clearly, it was their will that this group of people be sentenced according to the law of 27 Germinal. He also argued that people should set aside any moral qualms they might have about sentencing people to death or deportation for writings. Difficult times require different laws, even though those laws might appear terrible in hindsight.

And that’s a weird position for a defender to take. Except for the fact that conspiracy could only be punished by death, and provocations could be punished by either death or deportation. Réal’s actions make perfect sense if the jury had somehow let the accused know that they were completely against letting some of them go, but would avoid executing some of them if possible. Meaning, the nine convicted men were only acquitted of the conspiracy charge because of the provocation questions. And I found a letter Réal wrote to the Journal des hommes libres where he confirmed that this is exactly what happened.

So, yeah. Still illegal, but the trickery was coming from the other side.

Hi all! Stopping in fashionably late to contribute a piece on the rise of romantic nationalism across Europe and how it relates to fairy tale/folklore collection and dissemination, largely drawn from research I did for my thesis (concerning fairy tales and their connection to national identity formation) a couple years back:

Part 1:

So not a lot of people know this, but folklorists owe a huge debt to the rise of nationalist movements across Central and Eastern Europe (which proceeded to move West throughout the 1800s). Without them, we likely wouldn't have many of the records we study today concerning fairy tales, folk legends, nursery rhymes, and other types of folklore. One of the really interesting things about this massive nationalist movement was that it wasn't necessarily in pursuit of political independence or in reaction to an existential threat to a country's or ethnic group's existence, but simply through a desire to carve out an idea of "what makes us different from everyone else?" Of course, the movement also included large cultural purity aspects and inspired mass political movements, but that's a different story for another time.

Several exceedingly well-written and thorough explorations of the origins of European romantic nationalism have already been done, but as summarizing all of the very excellent points these dozens of scholars make would take an entire paper unto itself, I am choosing to focus on three relevant and thorough examinations concerning the origins of European romantic nationalism: William Wilson’s and Terry Gunnell’s excellent explorations of the innate connection between folklore and romantic nationalism, and Joep Leersen's attempt to provide a workable academic definition of the term "romantic nationalism" by exploring the history of what the movement actually encompassed..

The definition of romantic nationalism in academia was previously such a nebulous concept that Leersen’s entire goal in his article was to construct a specific, accurate definition of the term. This definition finally appeared near the back half of his article as “the celebration of the nation (defined by its language, history, and cultural character) as an inspiring ideal for artistic expression; and the instrumentalization of that expression in ways of raising the political consciousness." Using this definition, he then traces the rise of what can reasonably considered to be the first purposeful, dedicated, and academic instances of folklore collection and its distribution as written literature throughout the late 1700s and into the mid to late 1800s.

Wilson, meanwhile, actually goes so far as to say that romantic nationalism is “by definition, a folkloric movement” after his thorough explanation of how folklore collection and preservation efforts were directly correlated to a rise in nationalistic sentiment. Wilson, unlike Leersen, takes a more nebulous view on the definition of romantic nationalism, defining it as “the building of nations on the traditions and myths of the past—that is, on folklore—instead of on the political realities of the present.” I personally really like this definition and use it in conjunction with Leersen's definition, because I think it really gets to the heart of what romantic nationalism is about: using the mythic past to fill the societal longing for a sense of belonging.

Guiding us through the origins and history of the romantic nationalist movement in Eastern and Central Europe, Wilson expertly traces the rise of the movement through the life and influence of German philosopher and scholar Johann Herder, the man Wilson terms as “the man most responsible for the creation of romantic nationalism." Emphasizing Herder’s beliefs that there was “continuity in history” and that “each nation was organically differently from every other nation," Wilson weaves the various aspects that make up romantic nationalism into the historical narrative, discussing issues such as the importance of nature on a nation’s culture, a general emphasis on the ethnographic homogeneity of a people during the time period, and the generally pervasive influence of French culture on most of Central Europe at the time (causing a cultural backlash as nations attempted to ‘re-find’ their identities and what made them unique as a nation). Ultimately, he argues, Herder’s fundamental philosophy centered around the idea that the only way for Germany (and thus, any nation) to revitalize its sense of self was through the collection and distribution of folklore, which Herder saw as “the summation of the national soul expressed in the poems of the folk."

Herder’s influence on nationalist theory, as detailed by Wilson, was vast and spread throughout Europe extremely quickly. His work directly influenced scores of fairy tale collectors from the Brothers Grimm (who were part of this larger national conversation about folklore collection and what it meant to be a German; they were not collecting their tales in a cultural vacuum, after all) to the Slavic peoples (where he is sometimes called “the real father of the renaissance of the Slavic peoples”).

Up in the north, Scandinavian countries were no less influenced: Finnish scholars saw Herder’s philosophy as a guide to avoid Russification by “turning to their past to find strength for the future," while Asbjørnsen and Moe over in Norway published their collection of folktales specifically for the purpose of “recapturing the national soul and to put the country back on its own cultural foundation” after being under substantial foreign influence for so long; their work was well-received by both the public and the press and “helped convinced people that Norway had had a glorious past and that by reviving the spirit of the past, the nation could have an equally glorious future” (Wilson).

(Continued below)

Late to the party but a couple of completely unrelated things:

My current research looks at the construction of ambition as a concept in early modern Scotland (and to a lesser extent, Britain, following the union of the crowns in 1603), particularly with regards to the impact made by attitudes towards class and gender on the ways in which ambition was characterized. It's all very Foucauldian in the end (everything goes back to hierarchies of power and the exercise of control) but it's required me to basically teach myself how to be an intellectual historian over the past three years.

My conclusions at this point are all still very preliminary; however, some points of interest to note: gender plays less of a role in the characterization of ambition in Scotland than it does in England and the Scots were more interested in hammering out which social tiers had a legitimate claim to ambition, and in which social tiers ambition was viewed as both illegitimate and downright sinful. That said, I am writing up my dissertation now so talk to me again in about a year and I should be able to wax poetic about ambition, gender, class, and control and how these attitudes are still prevalent in western society today.

The second thing that may be of more general interest just because it's slightly ghoulish in nature was a recent find in the archives. I was hired as a graduate research assistant to sort out the finding aids for the Scottish manuscript collection in my university's archives, and while cataloguing and describing these materials, I came across a legal discharge that named a pair of siblings as beneficiaries of the rents of a particular estate that was signed by their brother, the owner of said estate. Only, the discharge had a nice, neat, pistol ball hole ripped right through it with some dried blood stains obscuring the text in the center of the document. The way it was damaged, it looked as if it had been folded in someone's breast or coat pocket and that they had been shot through the document. The discharge was dated 1643, so right in the middle of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, though it being Scotland, it's also entirely possible that the person carrying the document was set upon in the pursuit of some feud or another.

I don't have much time to research the family involved, but it's something I might come back to to see if I can learn anything more about them and the nameless person who may or may not have died carrying the discharge.

Rather than just writing about stuff that happened to happen in Europe – which is my usual thing anyway – I want to take the chance to think about history that actually reflects the continent as a whole. Not in the EU sense, or governments of European countries doing things together at all really, but rather in thinking about what happens when Europeans come together across borders.

One way I could frame this is in relation to the outbreak of the First World War. In some ways, this conflict marked a decisive victory for nation over class – national solidarity beat the supposed solidarity between European workers, and European socialists almost universally chose to support the war in 1914. One speculative reason for this, I think, is that national solidarity was more tangible. While the nation may be an imagined community, it was a community in which membership could be experienced much more readily than being part of the workers of the world. This is partly in an institutional sense – constant encounters with the symbols and institutions of the nation – but also an emotional one. The feeling of community, collectivity and connection could be much more immediate for nationalists, whereas for workers, this same solidarity remained largely imagined, as they had few chances to physically experience solidarity across borders, relying on representations ahead of direct experience. For those that could attend international conferences and gatherings, or perhaps migrated across borders, the opportunities were there, but for most Europeans who believed in the power of solidarity across borders, it was a matter of faith and hope rather than direct experience – and consequentially was often set aside in the face of a sudden upsurge in immediate, ‘real’ national feeling.

This is all by way of saying that committed socialists and communists were, by the interwar period, thirsty af. They wanted to experience the power of people coming together across borders, as their ideological beliefs promised they would. The experience of tourists who visited Soviet Russia, for instance, often demonstrated such enthusiasm, becoming thrilled by the sites and sounds of socialism, and the welcome they received from their hosts as representatives of their comrades at home. This might account, somewhat, for their willingness to overlook the rough edges of Soviet society in the interwar period, and to report back home with such enthusiasm for what they had seen. For those chosen few who came to the USSR as part of the Comintern – as operatives in the extraordinary international melting pot in Comintern headquarters, or as students at the International Lenin School – this enthusiasm was also palpable, though they often stayed long enough for it to fade over time.

It was in Spain, however, that these kinds of experiences became a truly mass phenomenon for European socialists and communists. Tens of thousands journeyed to Spain after civil war broke out following an attempted military coup in July 1936. They sought to help defend the left-wing Republican government, sometimes through the words and images they sent home, but often enough with their lives. Many thousands died fighting for the Republic, usually as part of the International Brigades, which contained volunteers from over 50 different countries, though most were Europeans. This was – perhaps more than any other human endeavor in modern history – direct proof of the power of solidarity across borders in action.

This was something that volunteers themselves were well aware of. Like earlier tourists in Soviet Russia, they were eager to be part of the sights and sounds of solidarity. Many never learned much Spanish, but they did learn how to express solidarity – the typical Republican greeting of ¡Salud camaradas! was swiftly learned along with the clenched fist salute. The Republican slogan of No Pasaranwas not just adopted by the volunteers, but has had a long afterlife in all the countries they came from as an expression of defiant resistance. Their encounters with the Spanish people were instinctively interpreted through the prism of international solidarity, even when sometimes, it must be admitted, this wasn’t entirely what their hosts had in mind. Eating meals with local peasants, for instance, was for the volunteers a wonderful demonstration of welcome and warmth; for the peasants, it was a way to supplement income and gain access to goods such as cigarettes that only soldiers still had available. It’s important not to be entirely cynical, however, as many Spaniards deeply appreciated that so many volunteers had come to Spain and sacrificed so much.

Above all, perhaps, the foreign volunteers’ encounters with one another were imbued with this spirit. That their political cause had mobilised so many people, from so many countries, was ample proof of the power and correctness of their belief in working class unity across borders – the experience was vindication of beliefs that many of them had held for years and decades. Even though they found it hard to communicate directly, they found ways to communicate their intent. Their belief in the same ideals, the shared symbols, gestures and songs, gave them tools to express and exchange gestures of solidarity across linguistic divides, often enough for the first time in their lives. I’m always particularly struck by the testimony of a British-Canadian volunteer, recalling his first day in Spain. He remembered each nationality singing their own songs until,

At last, somebody started up singing The Internationale, which of course we all knew, and we joined in. I find it extremely difficult to explain the feelings that swept through me when this singing of The Internationale started up. Here we were, all young men from really all the nations in Europe, and some from outside Europe as well, joining in this one song in their own language.

This kind of emotional experience – of collectivity, of community, of transcending borders – is one that fascinates me, and not just in the context of Spain. For certain ideologies that are inherently transnational in nature, it is only in these rare spaces where many adherents can meaningfully experience the full scope of solidarity. In other times and places, symbols and representations are all that is available – which can never quite substitute for the real thing.

Since this is about European history, I thought I would highlight a hidden gem worth visiting for those of you who are interested in late medieval European history. If you ever have the chance to visit Brussels, go to the archeological site of the “Aula Magna”. It is a relatively unknown site and museum, located in the heart of Brussels near the Belgian royal palace and the more popular museums on the Kunstberg. Since only the foundations remain, I recommend a guided visit, but I promise it is worth it.

The construction of the Aula Magna, or great hall began in 1452, when the city of Brussels already was one of the largest cities of the Low Countries. The Hall was a new addition to the already large palace of the Duke of Burgundy in Brussels, who had become duke of Brabant in 1430. The hall was to be enormous: ca. 16,50 meters wide and ca. 41 meters long. Archeologists have calculated that with a roof angle of about 50/60 degrees (which was standard in that period) the Hall would have been 30 meters high. Considering that it was located on a hill then known as the Coudenberg, it must have towered over the city.

The remarkable thing about this is that it was the city itself, not the duke, that funded this building project. It was also the that city appointed master builders, carpenters, diggers etc. In addition, the city appointed special financial officers to manage the financial side of the project. They tried to spread the costs by planning the building itself to be done over the next eight years, after which the project had to be completed.

Completing the project would prove to be extremely difficult. It was, for instance, very hard to find oaks large enough to make the wooden beams for the roof, as the hall was extremely wide. The transportation of these oaks from the ducal forests in Hainaut (another of the Duke of Burgundy’s lands) to the city fo Brussels was another problem, since they were extremely heavy. By the time the Great Hall was finished in 1465, the Brussels city council was dead broke. Why then had they agreed to undertake this project?

Historians put forward two theories. One was that the city council had no choice but to agree to fund the Hall. Brussels has supported an uprising against their Duke in Ghent (in the neighbouring County of Flanders, which was also under the control of the Duke of Burgundy) a few years earlier, so them funding the construction of a new symbol of ducal power was a punishment for this transgression against his authority. I find this unlikely, since the city had already funded other renovations to the ducal palace before the Ghent uprising. In addition, other cities that had no direct link to the uprising also funded ducal projects.

The other theory is, in my view, more likely. The city wanted to attract the Duke, and make him reside in the city more often, because they thought it would benefit its economy in the long run. They probably argued that the presence of the duke and his large household (between 600 and 900 persons) would increase demand on the urban markets, which then would stimulate production of especially luxuries in the city. The ordinance in which the funds were granted for the construction of the Hall clearly state that the building of the Hall was undertaken so that the duke would be more inclined to reside in Brussels.

Historians have long thought that the Brussels city council succeeded in this. The duke indeed stayed in Brussels more often towards the end of his life and Brussels later gained importance as a centre of government. The palace on the Coudenberg was one of the most important residences for the later princes of the Low Countries as well, until it burned to the ground in the 18th century. The question remains however if Brussels truly benefited from this increased princely presence: until at least the sixteenth century, the courts of the princes of the Low Countries remained itinerant, so their demand was spread out over the whole Low Countries...

For more information about the palace, there is a recent publication in English about the Coudenberg-palace: “Coudenberg Palace Brussels. From medieval castle to archaeological site”, by Vincent Heymans (ed.) This book also contains a bibliography on the subject.

For a picture of what the palace would have looked like in the 17th century see: https://vls.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofbeeldienge:Paleis_op_de_Koudenberg.jpg

Schism, Gemeinschaft and the Chosen People: The Continuity of Jewish Experience Through the German Reformation

This is perhaps unfashionably late but it's finally finished! The historical relationship between Christians and Jews is a complicated one, to say the least. It’s also a relationship that varied wildly in different times and spaces, as economic and social realities changed and as European Christianity itself changed. One of the most salient changes, of course, was the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation changed almost everything about the face of Christianity in Europe, so I think it’s fair to ask – how did it change the relationships between Judaism and Christianity? I’m going to focus on these relationships in Germany and Alsace in this post because it’s what I’m most familiar with; these relationships were very different in England, Italy, Spain, et cetera.

First, some background. The Jewish population of Europe historically occupied an uneasy status as outsiders, and the Reformation was no exception. The social, political and economic realities of the late medieval and Reformation period served to exacerbate the othering of European Jews, as the threat of Muslim invasions and an increasing concern with questions of Christian identity made the decidedly non-Christian status of Jews harder and harder to ignore. Economic tensions and criticisms of clerical wealth cast Jews’ unique lending permissions in a harsher light. However, the Jewish experience in this period did not represent a radical departure from prior Jewish experiences, nor did it reflect any special influence of the Reformation itself. The Jewish experience in late medieval and Reformation Germany was not primarily driven by the Reformation conflict between Catholics and Protestants but rather by the same complex and fluid balance of economic, political, and spiritual factors that also drove Jewish experiences and actions during the Middle Ages and after the Reformation.

Lendin' Money

I want to be clear that describing medieval Jewish life solely in economic terms is too reductive and, worse, runs the risk of playing into old stereotypes of Jewishness. However, Jews did provide a necessary source of capital via lending due to their exemption from canon law prohibiting usury (lending money with interest attached) and you can’t really discuss medieval & early modern anti-Semitism without talking about moneylending. Despite the benefits of a lending system, these debts also drove resentment and tension, and were a common theme in anti-Semitic anger during times of economic hardship. The persistent anti-Semitism in late 15th and early 16th century Regensburg, for example, highlights this trend; times of inflation corresponded neatly with the rise of anti-Jewish factions on the town council. Jewish usury, according to one complaint registered with the council, “injur[ed] them [Christians] in their persons and their property.” This trend was not limited to Regensburg, but rather reflected general sentiments throughout late medieval Germany. Historians like Christopher Ocker have described a combination of popular plays, anonymous polemics, and writings by traveling friars that informed a popular anti-Semitic sentiment. In many of these works usury is attacked as not only an economic problem for indebted Christians but a morally corrosive attack by Jews on Christian society. In Regensburg, the populist anti-Jewish preacher Balthasar Hubmaier rallied the town’s Christians around this feeling. In his preachings he railed against the nobles of the town for allowing not only the economic competition of the Jews, but the spiritual corruption itself of their lending to remain in the town.

This tension existed for at least a century before Luther’s Theses, as shown by the presence of anonymous popular plays and poems in the early 1400s. One especially popular play, Des Teufels Netz or “The Devil’s Net,” centers on a devil who describes the moral and social failings of the various elements of society. Des Teufels Netz gives ample time to the corrosive effects of Jewish moneylending. Indeed, some evidence for conflict over usury extends into the High Middle Ages. The thirteenth century Jewish polemicist Meir ben Simeon of Narbonne cast the pope at that time in a favorable light compared to the King of France, specifically because the pope allowed Jews to collect interest and King Louis did not. Throughout the Reformation, the tension over usury remained a concern of lay Christians and clergy. The perceived economic and social threat from Jewish moneylenders actually transcended sectarian bounds; for example, in Strasbourg, there were concerted joint efforts by Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed authorities to suppress Jewish economic activity explicitly as a result of its perceived harmful effects on Christians of all confessions. These attempts spanned several decades, both before and after the Diet of Augsburg eased the political tensions over which confessions were legitimate in different regions.

Mixing It Up in Strasbourg

The city of Strasbourg presents an interesting case study in the gulf between the de jure and de facto restrictions on Jewish behavior during the Reformation. There are numerous descriptions of the role of Jews in the commercial life of that city during the late medieval and Renaissance period, despite their de facto expulsion in 1391. Court records indicate many cases involving transactions between Jewish and Christian merchants, even after a 1530 law banning Jews from commerce in the city. The expulsion of Jews to the countryside by no means ended the interactions between Christians and Jews. In the Alsatian countryside, social and business interactions between Jews and Christians were clearly commonplace. Court cases again provide evidence for the nature of these interactions. Records of adultery trials and civil suits are especially good sources for a few reasons: they are common in the historical record and they reveal the proximity between groups, the role of Jews as not only lenders but tradesmen, and the specific fears of undesirable social contact that laws were designed to prevent.

The extent of interfaith interactions in the countryside did not preclude interactions in the city of Strasbourg as well. A wide range of evidence, including personal correspondence, court records, and notarized documents shows the range of social and economic contacts between rural Jews and urban Christians. These contacts could be indirect, like interactions between urban and rural Christians that then extended to contacts between those rural Christians and rural Jews, but they could also be direct contacts in the city itself between rural Jews and urban Christians. The ubiquity of these interactions tells us that interfaith interactions were more strongly driven by practical rather than legal concerns, although the laws still afforded an implicit and often explicit advantage for Christians when disputes occurred.

State and Community Violence: The Big Picture

Although small-scale interpersonal disputes were clearly common and were generally resolved in local courts, this does not address the issue of large-scale communal violence against Jews. The Holy Roman Empire afforded some legal protections to its Jews through various edicts, with some emperors more rigorous than others in enforcing them. Charles V was particularly beloved by certain Jewish commentators for instance. However, in times of economic hardship, Jews were almost always the first scapegoat. Their repeated expulsion from Imperial cities such as Regensburg is testament to this reality; those cycles of expulsion and readmission clearly followed cycles of inflation, recession, and growth. In other regions, such as Strasbourg and Bohemia, the economic concerns went hand-in-hand with fears of plague.

Although the Catholic Holy Roman Empire offered legal protections to its Jews, this should not be seen as a reflection of overall Catholic toleration for Jews or evidence of a substantive difference between Catholic and Protestant treatments of Jews. Indeed, often the only difference between the two was in the theological basis for antisemitism rather than the actual outcome. The common themes were well-established in European popular knowledge by this time: the sin of usury, the allegations of blood libel and general Jewish hatred for Christians, and the question of why the Jews did not accept Christ as the Messiah.

End Part 1, Continued Below

Horses in European warfare in the 20th century are often overlooked. Only the failure of the cavalry receives a passing mention, it seems. Many people believe that by the Second World War, mechanization was pretty complete and only the "backwards" countries still used horses. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Cavalry was one area where horses still existed in Europe's military forces, but they served a far more important role in supply chain and logistics: transporting the vast quantities of guns, ammunition, food, and other supplies required by the men in the First and Second World War. They were also the mounts of officers and common soldiers (they dismounted for combat).

Millions of horses served and died. Their care preoccupied a large number of men and took up many hours of their day. Remount and veterinary services operated similarly to the systems for man.

Horses went beyond the reach of rail/train and could go where vehicles could not - they could also "run on empty," whereas vehicles were abandoned once they ran out of fuel.

They died from bullets, bombs, starvation, hunger, and injury. Perforated hooves from nails were so common, "nail hunts" with prizes were held.

I wrote my MA thesis on the use of horses war and also wrote a few papers on breeding military horses. I have a whole list of reading (it's hard to find!) and I'm happy to answer any questions!

As for why horses are missing in a lot of the historiography - I argue that in the past, they were essentially like cars are today. So prevalent they were part of the scenery and not "interesting" (unlike the tanks and airplanes) and today's historians know nothing of horses.

My point of specialty is IRA history, I can't really think of anything particular to add to this float but if you have any small questions, queries about IRA history or even just wanna here an interesting story, I'll gladly answer them here.

P.S I mainly focuse on 1969 forward IRA history so don't expect miracles if you ask about some obscure event in the 30s

I'm currently taking a class on ancient greek civilization starting from the minoan period. Typically when talking about ancient Greece in high school and beforehand we focus on the classical greek period. What I never knew was that the minoans were not speakers on greek as we see it today rather it is believed that their language is (possibly) related to a near eastern language.

When some of the remains were studied all across minoan civilization there was a surprising amount of similar phenotypes to the modern Greeks of today. The phenotypical evidence is also traced throughout the greek world like the fringes of Alexander the great's empire.

Now if there is anything that I said that was wrong go ahead and correct me because I do not have my textbook at the moment.

1081 – Venice, Byzantium and the Norman threat

The 31st Doge of Venice, Domenico Selvo, is a man credited with laying the path in the rise and prosperity of the Republic of Venice. His policies and alliances which essentially a continuation of Domenico Contarini (the previous Doge), he married the sister of Byzantine Emperor Michael VII, restored relations with the Holy Roman Emperor and managed to keep Venice out of the Investiture Controversy, where Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII were in a great struggle. This gave the Venetians the ability to do what Venetians did best – make money and expand on the infrastructure of their grand city.

Side note, in a different post I commented about the Investiture Controversy, here is what I said:

This is where we get to a situation where admittedly, I’m still learning about. The Pope and the supporters of the Gregorian Reform were trying to rebel against simony. Simony was essentially an act of selling off Churches and their local power off for money and loyalty. So, if you’re the ruler of whatever land and you sell me the office of a bishop, I get to be powerful and wealthy but will support you in return. This reform was going to seriously undercut imperial power and the Holy Roman Emperor was having none of it, so he installed an anti-Pope and marched on the Pope in Rome who was seeking help from the Normans. This is known as the Investiture Controversy.

The Normans

It’s hard to talk about the Normans without first mentioning their excellent military career. The Normans were a band of opportunistic adventures that seemingly forged their own destiny with their swords.

In the 11th century they were able to carve out most of the Southern Italian peninsula in a string of battles and more notably, defeating a numerically superior army of the Pope and even managing to capture the Pope himself who remained a prisoner of the Normans for nearly a year. Years later a certain Robert Guiscard of house Hauteville was granted the Duchies of Apulia, Calabria and some sources even claim Sicily, and though the Normans had fought a few battles against the Arab Muslims that held dominion over Sicily, they had not stepped onto the island. It won’t be until thirteen years later that Palermo would surrender to Robert’s forces.

Robert was an ambitious leader, and he set his sights to Byzantium, final destination: Constantinople.

Highway to Constantinople

Robert Guiscard decided he was going to launch his campaign by ceasing Durazzo (modern day Durres in Albania). Durazzo was important due to Via Egnatia, a road built by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. This road crossed through the Roman regions of Illyricum, Macedonia and Thrace. It was an extremely important road for trade but for Robert, it could give him a straight shot to the Byzantine capital.

Immediately after hearing news that the Normans had landed in Imperial territory; Alexios Komnenos sent Doge Domenico Selvo an appeal for help. Understanding that if the Normans had fully controlled the straits of Otranto, it would cause great financial problems to the Republic, Domenico Selvo agreed without hesitating and began preparing his fleet. The Venetian fleet was delayed due to bad weather, and it is reported that they lost several war galleys as a result of this weather; nonetheless, the Venetians made it to Durazzo where they sailed upon the already anchored Normans.

The Normans were forced into sea warfare, where the Venetian thrived. Apparently the Normans fought valiantly, but the Venetians were using a tactic where their warriors sat upon the yard-arms and shot down on their foes and using the ‘Greek fire’ tactic. Geoffrey Malaterra, a Norman chronicler, gives us a visual by writing:

They blew fire, which is called Greek and not extinguished by water, through submerged pipes, and thus cunningly burned one of our ships under the very waves of the sea

Although the Venetians were able to win decisively in the sea battle, many of the Norman forces were already disembarked before they had arrived, and the Venetians knew better than to face the Normans on a land battle. Durazzo was put under siege for months, and the Emperor Alexios tried to face the Normans in battle where he was soundly defeated - Durazzo was surrendered by a Venetian merchant no less, that had agreed to marry one of Robert’s daughters. It seems as if Alexios wasn’t aware of this treachery at this point as he rewarded the Venice with spectacular presents for their assistance.

Securing Durazzo proved simpler than initially thought by the Normans, this is because the population of the city wasn’t particularly loyal to the Byzantines as a large portion of their population was Catholic. Within a few weeks Robert had claimed Albania, Macedonia and was well on his way across the Balkan peninsula. Many experts claim that without a doubt, Robert could have conquered Constantinople as the Byzantine army was no match for the Normans. Sadly, for our friend Robert de Hauteville, the Pope called upon him for immediate assistance, and in the Spring of 1084, Robert will lead his army against Emperor Henry IV, forcing the latter to retreat out of Rome.

When Robert returned, he was met with some bad news. His holdings in Durazzo and the island of Corfu had been recaptured by the Venetians while he was off assisting the Pope. An old Robert, still ambitious would do battle a few more times with the Venetians, and in the final battle, Venice would be defeated in humiliating fashion. Robert de Hauteville will pass away on an island of Cephalonia and the Norman army will completely fall apart.

Golden Bull

As a thank you to Venice, in 1082 the Emperor, Alexios Komnenos granted them and their merchants free trading rights, exempt from tax through the Byzantine Empire for their assistance against the Normans. With this decree, the Venetians were able to gain a huge advantage on their merchant rivals such as Amalfi, and it was on that day, that the Republic of Venice gained a fortune.

(Part One)

So the year is 1147, you're the ruler of any given patch of European territory, and you want to rally your people to go on Crusade. How do you do it? You have no mass media, no radio or TV or internet, no postcard mailings. Considering the general literacy rate, it's hardly worth posting public notices. You have to rely on word of mouth, and what's the best opportunity for such an oral presentation? A sermon!

Most of the calls for Crusade and ideas surrounding those ventures were communicated via sermons. What motivated people to actually get up, leave their homelands, and go? Or rather, what did the powers that be think would fire them up? I'm glad you asked! (I want to be clear on that, that the question of what actually motivated Crusaders could have some rather different answers. This is concerning the themes in the preaching of the Crusades)

Muslim Atrocities and Christians in the East

(Warning: gory content in this section)

This is a common one, especially in the earlier years. Pope Urban II, when he first called for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont, emphasized this with lurid descriptions of what Muslims were doing to their Christian brothers and sisters:

... a race from the kingdom of the Persians… has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to a stake; then with flogging they lead the victim around until the viscera having gushed forth the victim falls prostrate upon the ground. Others they bind to a post and pierce with arrows. Others they compel to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent.

Later Crusades touched on the theme as well; in 1145/1146, in the lead-up to the Second Crusade, the focus was the fall of Christian Edessa to Muslim forces, while the following century James of Vitry lamented that Muslims had regained control of the holy city Jerusalem, telling his hearers that they constantly profaned it and oppressed Christians living there.

Jerusalem, the Holy City

This is frequently tied with the previous point, but Crusade preachers loved to wax poetic about Jerusalem. It is glorified as the place in which Christ himself walked, where he bore the cross, suffered, and died for the sins of those people whom are being encouraged to take up their own cross in crusade. While the aforementioned atrocities are cited, it is not just those violent actions but even the mere fact of Muslim occupation and control of Christ’s holy city which is portrayed as a cause for outrage and a motivation for crusade in returning Jerusalem and the whole Holy Land to Christian hands. Going back to Urban II at Clermont:

Jerusalem is the navel of the world; the land is fruitful above all others, like another paradise of delights. This the Redeemer of the human race has made illustrious by His advent, has beautified by residence, has consecrated by suffering, has redeemed by death, had glorified by burial. This royal city, therefore, situated at the center of the world, is now held captive by His enemies.

Later preachers like Bernard of Clairvaux or James of Vitry do much the same thing, sing the praises of Jerusalem as a most holy place and try to shame their hearers into helping free it from non-Christian hands.

Salvation and Indulgence

This one is often credited as a major reason for going on Crusade, so it's interesting that at the beginning, it's mostly conspicuous in its absence. For the First Crusade, there are some vague promises and allusions but very little concrete or specific. The closest it comes is from a letter written by the Pope in 1096 to the people of Bologna:

We have heard that some of you have conceived the desire to go to Jerusalem, and you should know that this is pleasing to us, and you should also know that if any among you travel, not for the desire of the goods of this world, but only those who go for the good of their souls and the liberty of the churches, they will be relieved of the penance for all their sins, for which they have made a full and perfect confession… because they have exposed themselves and their property to danger out of their love of God and their neighbor.

This is quite different from some of the ideas that floated around, that going on Crusade would mean assured salvation, or total forgiveness of every sin, or time off from purgatory or something like that. Urban II is really quite cautious in what he promises: if you've already confessed your sins, this act of going on crusade is simply a substitution of penance.

Later times were to see grander promises, though; in the early 13th Century, Eudes of Chateauroux exalted the benefit of taking the crusader’s cross by comparing it to the thief on the cross beside Christ who was forgiven and given the promise of paradise:

And when he [the crusader] realises that for so little so many great debts are taken off him and are exchanged for such a small effort, namely the effort of this pilgrimage; when he realises that he will be absolved from his sins instantly like the second thief on the cross…

and the potential benefits are not for the individual alone:

He must also feel joyous because he pays the Lord back in his own measure, because he can also help his loved ones who are in purgatory if he takes up the cross and this pilgrimage for them, and that through the cross he gains for himself eternal life.

My main focus is Romani history and though I look more toward American Roma, a lot of my resources cover Europe as a necessity. I haven't done much in historical publishing lately since my current job focuses on American history, but just browsing the list of recommended books and sources, I'd like to add a few! Finding accurate information on Roma can be hard given how hated and fetishized "gypsies" are across the globe, so I'll offer some resources from Roma themselves:

• A People Uncounted: A documentary about Romani history, culture, and the Romani Holocaust. This is a fantastic documentary that brings together important Roma activists and historians in the field (including Ronald Lee, Ian Hancock, and Ceija Stojka) that brings together contemporary issues Romani people face today as well as various interviews with Holocaust survivors. If you want a preview, I uploaded a clip of a particularly harrowing interview in my post history.
• Buried Letters: A documentary about a gypsy boarding school in Czechoslovakia that interviews former students and a teacher. It's a bittersweet portrait of the children who grew up in the boarding school: former students reported how much they loved having their own rooms and going to school, yet they were cut off from their families and communities. In many respects it mirrored the Native American boarding school experience where they were slowly integrated into mainstream Czech culture by basically removing them from their families and denying the parents access to their children. (I was given the documentary with English subtitles and I believe it's available for purchase online/streams on Czech TV, but I haven't found any English streaming platforms that have it).
• The Pariah Syndrome: A concise but definitive history of the Roma, written by Ian Hancock, one of the biggest names in Roma academics. (I want to add here that this book is the launching point in Roma history and the work itself is superb, but feelings toward the author himself are... complex. While I've had brief but cordial communication with him, several Roma gals I know have reported misogyny and family members working for Alex Jones. I recommend reading his works as great starting points but to look toward more feminist/subgroup inclusive Roma activists like Ronald Lee and Hedina Sijercic for a much bigger picture on gender, sexuality, and subgroups/"castes" in Romani culture.)
• Kopachi.Com: Speaking of the above authors... Ronald Lee's site is also an excellent learning resource! It includes articles written by other Roma scholars like Alexandra Oprea and Valeriu Nicolae. As an example here is a great piece about Guberti Roma (a Bosnian subgroup) written by Hedina Sijercic.
• The Day I Am Free/Katizi: A combination of biography/autobiography/translation of children's novel written by Katarina Taikon, a Swedish Romni civil rights activist. I can't speak specifically to it because it's one of the endless books I've compulsively bought and haven't gotten around to reading yet, but I've heard how important Katarina Taikon is to Romani activism in the 1960s, so if nothing else it's an extremely valuable primary source on that specific area of Roma history.

I'm up for answering any specific questions you may have, but it comes with the big ol' caveat of "I wasn't raised in a community/Romanipe/my family has got Some Issues with that part of our heritage and so I'm for all intents and purposes White" so I would always recommending looking toward Romani writers who are active parts of their communities and were raised in the culture for in-depth questions. Anything I can answer was learned from talking to Romani women who were kind enough to share their experiences, writers such as those mentioned above, and some contemporary activists and artists like Mihaela Dragan (one of the biggest forces in Queer Roma activism and a personal hero of mine).

I also have random scholarly and personal article recommendations but that would be too long to list, so I'll leave that for anyone specifically interested in those.

I've re-written my comment. Since the majority of it is exactly as it was, feel free to jump to the final subtitle, Or so they say, and then to the follow-up comment, where I'll express my own view on the matter.

Think about the world you live in. Try to conceive your life outside of the system you were born and raised in. Difficult, right? I’d argue it’s impossible. You and me, while living and existing in different parts of the world, live within the structure of something that transcends your life and mine, that aggregates the existences of individuals into a society. I’m talking about human life’s ruling body: the State.

If we follow the traditional definition of what a State is, posed by Max Weber in his 1919 essay *Politik als Beruf*, or *Politics as a Vocation*, it is a bureaucratic structure that functions within the defined limits of a given territory, within which it has the authority to use the legitimate force of coercion. So, to make matters a tad less complicated and more understandable, the State, in order to be a State, requires a population, a bureaucratic structure, the monopoly of legitimate violence, and a territory in which it can exist.

Has it always been so? Certainly not. Nowadays, most scholars agree that the Neolithic revolution was one of the tipping points in the development of early forms of States, thanks largely to the division of labor, which allowed for the emergence of strict hierarchies, that eventually evolved into bureaucratic systems. But I won’t be speaking about the Neolithic, but rather we’ll get closer, some 360 years ago. Let’s talk about the Peace of Westphalia.

Why was peace necessary?

You may have heard about the Thirty Years’ War, the Eighty Years’ War, and in general, the European Wars of Religion. The wars spanned the final decades of the XVI century and the first half of the XVII, and were so devastating that caused the death of more than ten million people combined (Geoffrey, P., 1998 *The Thirty Years’ War*).

The constant escalation in conflicts between dozens of States, microstates, Empires and so forth eventually became unsustainable, mainly from an economic standpoint. Because of that, the warring nations began the slow and tedious process of achieving peace through negotiation, in what would become the first diplomatic conference in history: the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.

What is Westphalia?

A region in what we now know as North-Western Germany. During the years of the peace meetings, the cities of Münster and Osnabrück were established as neutral zones, completely demilitarized, in order for the negotiations to be carried out in a context as peaceful and relaxed as possible.

Who was there?

• Spain saw the King, Felipe IV, sending two delegations, one for Spain and one for the Spanish Netherlands.
• The Holy Roman Empire saw the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, not as a grand authority figure, but his prime minister, Maximilian von und zu Trauttmansdorff , as the representative of the Holy Empire’s interests (until he was replaced in 1647 by Johann von Nassau-Hadamar).
• Sweden sent one of its most accomplished diplomats, Johan Oxenstierna. However, I'd like to clarify what I mean by accomplished. Diplomacy back then was certainly not what we understand it to be today. Before governments started having constant diplomatic delegations in place in different countries, as well as dedicated ministries and bureaucratic structures solely focused in foreign affairs, a diplomat was considered skilled if he was perceived as well mannered, and fluent in etiquette and protocol.
• France was under the rule of someone we know or at least have heard of (even through The Man In The Iron Mask), Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, the Sun King. Louis sent an entire crew of diplomats, which, according to Konrad Repgen, one of the foremost German experts in religious and sociopolitical history of the German States, and one of the great compilers of Westphalian history, was a demonstration of strength, wealth and righteousness, because it showed that Louis didn’t care how much maintaining a big delegation would cost. He only cared about being magnanimous in the creation of a future for Europe^(1).
• The Vatican sent an apostolic nuncio called Fabio Chigi, who would later become Pope Alexander VII.
• The Dutch Republic.
• The Republic of Venice.
• I may be forgetting someone, I truly hope I’m not.

But wait, were all of this conferences in 1648?

No, they weren’t. The conferences lasted the majority of the decade, starting in 1643 and officially ending in 1649. Also, the delegations present didn’t always attend every conference, and didn’t necessarily meet with everyone. We speak of 1648, because it was the year that officially marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War, with the signing and ratification of the Peace of Münster.

So, why exactly are we reading all of this?

Because the period we know as the Peace of Westphalia shaped the creation of modern and contemporary Europe as it is today. The Peace established the birth of religious tolerance between Catholics, Lutherans and the newly recognized Calvinists. No, Judaism wasn’t included. Go figure.

Religious tolerance was ensured via the reinforcement of a legal and canonical principle known as cuius region, eius religio, meaning “whose realm, their religion”, which established that a sovereign was responsible for electing the religion of their subjects.

However, perhaps the most important thing that was agreed upon during the Peace of Westphalia was the acknowledgement of a fundamental concept in political science, one that would shape the course of politics and, give birth to the scientific study of International Relations: I’m talking about the concept of sovereignty.

In Westphalia, the need for a clear delimitation of boundaries, both territorial and ideological, to be set, in order to avoid more turmoil. Thus, sovereignty emerged as the solution. Therefore, we came to have what Esther Barbé (1987) in *The “Balance of Power” in the theory of international relations* calls Westphalian Sovereignty, in which a State has exclusive rights of sovereignty within its borders, and over its subjects and citizens, wherever they may be. Therefore, by recognizing sovereignty as a fundamental part of what later became known as International Law, the countries in Europe agreed to accept non-interference as a new norm. Thus, the concept of Balance of Power was born.

Balance of power, a system in which every State seeks to maintain their status quo, by collaborating with neighboring States, became the norm in international relations and foreign affairs for more than three centuries, until the cold war saw the rise of Bipolar Hegemony (superpowers reigning above the rest, and dictating the terms).

Or so they say

What you've just read is what the historical branch of academia in the study of International Relations agree on. It is the consensus among scholars. Let's go further.

Others have spoken way more fluently than me about different perspectives that argue with the consensus, presenting a more contemporary and critical revisiting of what happened in Westphalia, and regarding whether or not it was as magnanimous an event as the IR community thinks. I was not sufficiently clear in the previous version of this comment: while I disagree with some of the perspectives that challenge the traditional view, I'm inclined to agree with others. I'd like to direct you, courtesy of u/10z20Luka's very insightful contribution, to two earlier comments that delve into the complexities of what critical analysts of the history of IR, consider to be myths surrounding Westphalia. One of them by u/Itsalrightwithme analyzes just how tolerant was the alleged religious tolerance that was agreed upon in Westphalia. The other by u/mikedash explains the myth of sovereignty via the fact that, after the Second World War, there was a tendency within the academic sphere to romanticize Westphalia as the end of an old order, replaced by a shinny new model that gave us peace and modern States. More on the follow-up comment.

^(1) Repgen, K, (1998) "Negotiating the Peace of Westphalia: A Survey with an Examination of the Major Problems", In: *1648: War and Peace in Europe.*

I'm probably way too late to talk about my favorite, D. Miguel da Silva, but I'll try to be as concise as possible:

D. Miguel da Silva was born in Évora, Portugal, in 1480, and died in Rome in 1556.

In 1514 he was appointed by King Manuel I as ambassador in Rome, where he served for 11 years, during the reigns of Popes Leo X, Adrian VI and Clement VII. He was recalled in 1525 by King João III (known by some as The Pious and by others as The Fanatical. For me he was the latter).

In 1500 Miguel went to France to study in the University of Paris, having travelled through Sienne and Bologne, becoming recognised as a patron of the arts and a profound scholar of the ancient languages and Classical Culture. Upon his arrival to Rome, he became right away friends with Raphael. He spent time at the Médici and the Farnese, rejoicing with the birth of the Neo-Platonism of Firenze, the Humanism and the Classical philologies. Baldassare Castiglione dedicated to him his masterpiece Il Libro del cortegiano (basically the bible of the Renaissance Man).

His time at João III's court in Lisbon was hell for Miguel, João's fanaticism, his centralised and isolationistic policies completely in the Antipodes of his own world-view. On top of it all, João was completely against the Renaissance, not only in philosophical terms, but also in the arts. For João, the late-gothic flamboyant style made popular during his father's reign, the Manueline, should be the symbol of the kingdom. You see, despite the fact that Salazar used Manueline as a symbol of the Age of Discovery and a exaltation of the Empire, the truth is that the exotic animals and plants used in the decorative motives were simply fashion of the time, while the several ropes were not the ropes of the boats, but actually genealogical ropes. They were a sign that the king descended directly from God.

Luckily for Miguel, his family owned the hamlet of Foz do Douro, right by the city of Porto (now it's one of its neighborhoods). During the kingdom of Pedro I, after his beneplácio papal (in short, the church answered to him and not the Vatican) and his abolition of feudalism, Porto flourished, becoming the city of merchants and a rising middle-class (again, propaganda shows its ugly head in the arts: Luís de Camões masterpiece The Lusiadas, written during the short and chauvinistic reign of João III's grandson and heir, Sebastião, was the main culprit of making the country and the world forget Pedro as a revolutionary, ultra-progressive, anti-clerical and anti-nobles king, who used the Revolt of the Peasants to benefit the country, and turned him into a playboy, who crowned the corpse of one of his lovers. History taught during Salazar's dictatorship pretty much came from that book). The powerful bourgeois families from Porto welcomed Miguel and his radical ideas, and gave him free-reign to turn Foz and Porto into the center of Renaissance in Portugal.

With the help of Francesco da Cremona, one of the main architects that worked with Raphael at St. Peter's, Miguel started his plans of turning Foz into the new Ostia Romana (with Porto being the Rome of the Atlantic). The fantastic church of St. John the Baptist was built by the ocean, following the quatrocentto style, and by the river a chapel/lighthouse, honouring the archangel Michael (Miguel's name-sake) with classical inscriptions in Latin and Greek. At the mouth of the river a colossal statue of the Archangel/Miguel himself, welcomed the foreign boats, while the people launched fireworks and garlands of flowers.

João hated Miguel more and more. During Manuel's reign the pogroms started in Lisbon, making several jewish families run to Porto, joining the more than 30 jewish families in the city, that had escaped prosecution from the kingdom of Castille many decades before, and João's pet project, other than bringing back all the power to the church and the nobles, was bringing the Spanish Inquisition to Portugal.

Miguel, of course, was completely against it, especially considering that he had prevented it in Rome and had defended the New-Christians against the Pope himself.

Plus, Pope Paul III elevated Miguel to Cardinal, refusing to do the same to João's uncle and brother (he believed those honours should only go to the royal family. They were divine, after all). And on top of it all, the spacial relation between St. John's church and St. Michael's chapel, the two masterpieces of the architecture of the Renaissance in Porto, mimicked/mocked the spacial relation between the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower, the two masterpieces of Manueline architecture in Lisbon (albeit in a smaller scale, of course).

In 1540 Miguel ran away to Rome and what followed was a manhunt throughout the entire continent for years. Pope Paul III campaigned to make Miguel his sucessor, but that would definitely make a king as powerful as João an enemy.

As for the hamlet of Foz do Douro, Miguel's Ostia? João sent an armada up the Douro River, pointed the cannons at the harbor and destroyed everything.

17th century fort build around the remains of St. John's transept and dome

St. Michael's chapel, that became a warehouse in the 18th century for the Naval Guard

Further reading: https://www.academia.edu/23909551/D._Miguel_da_Silva_e_a_Coroa_portuguesa_diplomacia_e_conflito

http://www.dialogosmediterranicos.com.br/index.php/RevistaDM/article/download/148/182

Anything by my college professor Dr. Rafael Moreira

Sorry for the edits, but it's really late here and I'm not a native English-speaker.

Sitting off the northwest coast of Scotland in the Hebrides islands, the Isle of Skye is a large, naturally beautiful island with an undercurrent of violence running through its history. In the 9th century, the Norse took up control of Skye and the surrounding isles, dominating the region up until the late 1200s, when Magnus II of Norway agreed to cede the territories of Hebrides and the Isle of Man to Alexander III of Scotland after a series of skirmishes. As Norse governance receded, two powerful clans came to dominate the island: The Macdonalds of Sleat, traditionally held to have descended from great Irish heroes, and the MacLeods, who claim descent from a union between Leod, an adventuring son of the King of Mann, and a Norse noblewoman. Given the fact that they both occupied the same island and their respective strengths, it should come as little surprise that the two clans clashed repeatedly throughout their history, though three incidents in particular stand out.

The first is the Battle of Glendale, which may have been fought in either 1490 or 1513, records remain unclear. A force of Macdonalds under the leadership of Donald Gruamach Macdonald sailed up the coastal Loch Eynort and raided into Macleod territory, coming close to sacking the traditional home of the MacLeod clan, Dunvegan Castle. In response, the chieftain of the MacLeods, Alasdair Crotach, who was on the nearby Isle of Harris at the time, rallied his kinsman from the neighboring Isle of Lewis and returned to defend his ancestral lands. With reinforcements arriving under the command of Alasdair’s bastard brother, Donald Mor, the MacLeods attacked the Macdonald raiders, only to meet with disaster. Donald Mor was slain alongside hundreds of his warriors, and it seemed that the tide of battle would surely turn against the hard-pressed MacLeods. At this moment of ultimate peril, Alastair Crotach’s mother who, as mysterious old women occasionally happen to be, was present at the battle as an observer, ordered Paul Dubh, the standard bearer of her son’s forces, to unfurl the mystical Fairy Flag of the MacLeods. The fairies themselves supposedly wove the banner and gifted it to the MacLeods at some point in time for a reason that varies with each telling and the standard is considered the most prized possession of the clan. Regardless of its origin, the sight of the Fairy Banner flapping in the island breeze reinforced the flagging spirits of the MacLeods, and their forces surged. Murdo MacCaskill, a MacLeod warrior, slew Donald Gruamach Macdonald in single combat shortly thereafter, raising the severed head above the press atop a spear, and the MacLeod pipers began to play the Macdonald Lament, a traditional mourning song for their enemy clan. Hearing the woeful tune on the air and seeing the head of Donald Gruamach displayed as a MacLeod trophy, the Macdonalds broke and fled to their ships, though not before a Macdonald champion named Allan of Moidart slew the aforementioned Murdo MacCaskill and his three brothers in single combat. Though the MacLeods emerged victorious, their losses were severe. Alasdair Crotach himself barely survived his grievous wounds and Paul Dubh, the standard bearer who held aloft the Fairy Flag, was counted among the slain.

Despite the seemingly cataclysmic nature of the Battle of Glendale, the feuding between the Macdonalds and the MacLeods carried on. Legend has it that in 1577, a group of visiting MacLeods were driven off the Isle of Eigg near Skye after attempting to assault the local women. They soon returned to Eigg, hungry to avenge the humiliation, and supposedly burned over 300 members of the Clan Ranald, a cadet branch of the Clan Macdonald, to death after the MacLeods found them hiding inside a cave on the island. In response, a raiding party from Clan Macdonald snuck into MacLeod territory on the Waternish peninsula of Skye in 1578 and barred the doors of Trumpan Church during a service, trapping a great many worshippers inside. They then proceeded to burn the church to the ground, killing anyone who tried to escape, but somehow missed a horribly wounded child that raised the alarm among the nearby MacLeod holdings. Upon hearing of the massacre, the chieftain of the MacLeods rallied his warriors and intercepted the Macdonald raiding party as they made their way back to their ships in nearby Ardmore Bay. A skirmish ensued, resulting in the deaths of all the Macdonald reavers, who were unceremoniously dumped into a turf dyke for burial. Trumpan Church was never rebuilt, and its ruins remain (from personal experience) a haunting location on the far end of the Waternish peninsula to this day.

The final battle of the conflict between the Macdonalds and MacLeods came at Coire na Creiche in 1601. Rory Mor MacLeod, in an attempt to make peace with his clan’s rivals, attempted to marry his sister Margaret to Donald Gorm Mor Macdonald. However, after Margaret, who somehow went blind in one eye, failed to bear Donald Gorm a child after a year of marriage, the Macdonalds returned her to the MacLeods and ended the marriage. Of course, instead of merely returning Margaret in a simple fashion, Donald Gorm decided to send her home tied backwards on a one-eyed horse led by one-eyed groom who was in turn accompanied by a one-eyed dog. Rory Mor Macleod could not ignore this insult, and led his clan warriors in raids of Macdonald holdings on the Trotternish peninsula of Skye. In response, Donald Gorm pillaged MacLeod lands on the Isle of Harris. After a series of skirmishes, Rory Mor MacLeod attempted to end the conflict in a final, telling battle at Coire na Creiche, but after fighting for a day and a night, the Macdonalds emerged victorious. Rory Mor’s brother, (another) Alasdair, was taken prisoner after arriving with reinforcements and the MacLeods retreated to their holdings around Dunvegan Castle. With the MacLeods licking their wounds and the MacDonalds unsure of what to do with their prisoners, the Privy Council of James VI (aka James I of England) decided to end the intermittent feuding between the two rivals, sending representatives to detain both Rory Mor and Donald Gorm. Ultimately, the MacLeod prisoners were released, and the two sides feasted amicably for three weeks at Dunvegan Castle, effectively bringing their bloody rivalry to an end.

Sources

The Bannatyne Manuscript
Lords of the Isles: From Viking Warlords to Clan Chiefs by Timothy Venning

Mairi Nighean Alastair Ruaidh by Alexander Mackenzie, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, Volume 22, 1897

Is that a common joke? “Is it holy, is it Roman, is it an empire? You decide”

I had a history prof in college who said that when nobody was participating, but I never heard anyone else make that joke really.

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