Medieval History – Page 3

On sickness and conspiracy

I woke up this morning on, October the fifth in the year of our lord 2023, and was not a zombie. This is notable for reasons which will shortly become clear. Because I am not a zombie, this means that I had to get up and do my job. Unfortunately, as a part of said job, a thing that I have to deal with on a frustratingly regular basis is the fairly pervasive idea that medieval Europeans were somehow uniquely stupid. The foolish medieval person is usually proffered in comparison to the total brain genius who is making the statement, who is somehow simultaneously smarter than a medieval person, and yet hasn’t read a single book on medieval history or considered how to make any sort of social analysis at all.

Against Voltaire, or, the shortest possible introduction to the Holy Roman Empire

Long time readers of the blog will remember that I have written, a couple of times, about the Holy Roman Empire in the past before. There’s a few reasons for this – first of all the HRE goes so hard, is very cool, and everyone should know about it. The second is that it’s one of my areas of expertise, given that I work on the Czech lands and they are very very much a part of said HRE. However, I realised recently that I’ve never actually, you know, sat down and explained exactly what the Holy Roman Empire actually is. That’s a problem.

On successor states and websites

This month, like everyone online, I have been watching with a mixture of chagrin and schaudenfruede as platform capitalism digs itself into ever more complex and narrow burrows. By this I mean it’s really funny how a bunch of very rich dudes are breaking stuff online and making worse versions of existing products in response to said breakage. Obviously it is quite amusing to be shown how stupid rich people are, and I very much enjoy it. However, it is also useful for my purposes as a medieval historian in that it serves as a really excellent way of explaining to people what happened in the early medieval period.

On nobility, courtship, moral justification, and sexy tapestries

Last month I had the absolute pleasure of popping over to see friends in Basel to check out Fastnacht, as my lovely Patrons have had to hear about in detail. It was amazing! It was deeply weird! It was a super wonderful thing to be a part of! However, one of the most magical things I came across in Basel was not just the thousands of people playing piccolos or marching around in the dark with lanterns – it was the absolutely overwhelming collection of medieval tapestries that were on display in the Historisches Museum Basel.

On dating advice and men

Of late I have noticed that ever since that one sex trafficker guy got himself arrested there has been a recurrent theme down the old discourse mines: who on the left is talking to young men about relationships?

The answer is of course, friend of the blog BISHUK.com, thanks.

Yet not content with a simple and straightforward answer, the discourse machine moves forward, driven by a bunch of people who have literally never paid attention to who is doing sex and relationships education and therefore think they need to ask a question which has already been answered.

On women who talk, and also write books

My loves, I have been remiss in writing for you because, well, I wrote a book. I don’t know if you have heard this but that is very hard. As a result, I have been doing a lot of work to see it safely out into the world and hopefully into your hands at some point. And lo, it is now out in the States, and will be out in the UK/Aus/NZ in March. The book, in question, is entitled The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society.

On maintaining monarchical succession

Well it’s been an incredibly normal month to live in the United Kingdom. So normal, in fact, that I have mostly been gawping, horrified, as the most normal things possible unfurled about me like some sort of noxious algae bloom. As people queued up over-night in a very normal way, and people holding signs that said “Not My King” were threatened with arrest even more normally, I have been at times equally amazed and disgusted. Overall, however, the entire period has been instructive to me, as someone who works on propaganda and imperialism.

I have read and worked extensively on the measures that dynasties take in order to prove their “right” to rule, as well as the establishing the intended recipient of said right. It turns out that all these same propaganda tactics that Charles IV implemented when he needed to establish the Luxembourg dynasty in fourteenth century Prague were alive and well in THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2022 in London, and boy oh boy did I ever have to learn about it. So now you do. Sucked in.

Podcast alert: medieval abortion on History Hack

I stopped by History Hack to yell a lot about the history of abortion in the medieval period. Have a listen and sharpen up your argumentation skills.

On beer, or, why chicks rock

You will no doubt be unsurprised to learn that last night I went to the pub. There are several reasons for this, chief among them being that in the discomfort of summer, going to the pub is quite the best thing you can do with your time in London. Also, it is the best thing to do with your time when it is cold in the winter. Also, in autumn and spring. Anyway, the point is that conditions have been so miserable here that it has sort of been impossible to do anything except drink beer as a form of recreation, so I have been doing that.

This state of affairs made me think about medieval people, as I do, for a couple of reasons. One, I am very happy that I am not doing manual labour in a field bringing in the hay right now, as is usual for August for the majority of medieval Europeans. I cannot imagine having to do that now that we have 34 degree days for some reason. No thank you. Second, my sitting around enjoying many delicious beers made me think about how chicks rock.

On heteropessimism and maternal expectations

I was at my local pub on Saturday just trying to have a nice time after a bad week. Trying to be hopeful and enjoy my new George Michael homage t-shirt. Things of that nature. While at said local, I got talking to someone else who claimed to also be a regular (lol, FALSE) and we had a nice time discussing NWA and Tupac. But then he started to ask me if I had kids. I said no, and then for half an hour he proceeded to tell me why I should have them, as I repeatedly stated that I have absolutely no interest at all whatsoever in being a parent. Ever. Anyway, I am sensitive to how cultural hegemony works and why people say these types of things, but that guy was on my mind when I made the mistake of logging on and saw two things making the rounds.