Eyewitness views of the war in Syria, include two NPR correspondents this week in 44 minutes.
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On Friday May 31, 2013: The Battle of Qusayr: Government forces are almost in control of this western Syria town, near the border.This battle and town's strategic location is crucial for the supply lines Hezbollah forces are using to aid the Assad regime's atatcks on Qusayr and the region. From a rooftop in Qusayr Steve Inskeep is there this morning, in four minutes of audio, under protection of Syrian gov't forces. Just across the border, in Lebanon, almost within sight of Qusayr in Syria, Kelly McEvers is with Syrian refugees, in a town controlled by Hezbollah, in seven minutes audio. The even scarier, larger problem with war in this region, this route from west to east, this war between government and rebels, has turned Sunni against Shi'a. Iran and Hezbollah supporting and sometimes, fighting with Assad forces or, for gains for the regime, while, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the west are supporting the rebels.
On Thursday May 30: Melissa Block talks with Kelly McEvers to get a sense of what the battle means to those villagers left trapped there (five minute audio). Steve Inskeep talks about what 'security' means in Homs, Syria. five minute audio.
On Wenesday May 29: View from Damascus with Inskeep, five minute audio. Discussion shows that a problem with the rebels is lack of cohesion against a persevering regime. four minute audio.
On Tuesday May 28: A Damascus that wants to return to normal. nine minute audio.
On Monday May 27: A bit more from Kelly McEvers on the background of 'war spillover' into Lebanon. four minute audio.
AlJazeera has a page full of programs, articles, video, live blogs, etc. on Syria, if you want more.
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They also have a three hour video special on rising China produced this May, 2013.
Major ceasefire in Honduras between rival gangs brokered by Catholic Church. That happened this week. four minute audio.
Big mouthed toucans, more than just a pretty face, are actually necessary for Brasilian palms, flora. Their decline causes other plants to grow there instead, and the once dominant palms to decline, as well. four minute audio.
Did they find the famed Ciudad Blanca in Honduras? Initial 3D mapping from aerial sweeps are tantalizing.
The Mayan temple destroyed in Belize did get international notice.
A healthy article on the problems of modern-day Venice in this week's New York Review of Books.
What Macchiavelli is known for saying, wasn't what he said. Sylvia Poggioli scratches the surface here. Yet, Isaiah Berlin went as far as saying that what made Macchiavelli unique was his willingness to favor his country more than his religion.
In an article, "The Question of Macchiavelli", first published November 4, 1971 in The New York Review of Books, he calmly explains. By saying Macchiavelli loved his country more than his church, Berlin says, that's another way of saying he could overlook the dictates of the Church, or, even ignore morality, in what he saw as the interests of the State. From a moralist's position, this makes anything possible under the cloak of interests of the state. Quite a scary prospect for those who believe that the church and it's institutions, it's levels of cultural suasion, necessarily maintains social cohesion and civilisation .
From a stark pragmatist's position, morality is less useful a guide if it contradicts or gets in the way of getting things done. But it also requires an altogether different, rather strict, utilitarian set of priorities, too. On the one hand, while it seems smart to ratchet back on extremists of whatever side, in order to calm, mollify, or mute them, the next question becomes, who is an extremist, what does 'extreme' in war even mean. And deliberatively for whom. Inevitably these questions morph into what lengths are parties willing to go, in order to 'secure their interests'?
The Putin government of Russia openly gave Assad's forces a generous helping of air power this week. Hezbollah forces from Lebanon have also publicly showed their support for the Assad regime this week. Last week also saw the lifting of the arms embargo by the UN, ostensibly to help aid the rebels and people of Syria caught in conflict. But the UN arms vote, is said, in some papers here to have 'angered' Russia. State Secretary Kerry was in the region last week talking with Israel, Jordan and Turkey. Sen McCain showed up in Syria this week, as a kind of show of support to the rebels. Chris Hayes last night questions the Senator's ability to 'vet operatives', or, choose allies in a war zone. President Obama floated the idea of a no-fly zone. No one seems excited about that, yet.
A happy ending story from Rachel Maddow: The A train returns to the Rockaways after being destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. nine minute video
Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Prosecution Calls Witnesses In Inquisition Trial: May 30, 1494
In the case of Marina González, May 30 1494, was the day that the chief prosecutor came forward and declared that she, the accused had refused to accept canonical compurgation and hence, she should be recognised as having failed it and be condemned as a heretic. In addition he brought, as witness to her crimes, her jailers, who confessed she had been starving herself - accepting only sometimes, forced feedings, and yet still, she would not confess. She admitted to them that she must not be a Christian since she was here, in prison.
This canonical compurgation, decided previously, by the lords inquisitors, came after the woman's difficult time during water torture the month before. A compurgation, literally, [con + purgere] 'a purge with-' meant to clear a charge not with water, but with the help of others. If sworn faithful members of the clergy or Christian flock would come forward and swear to her reputation, she could be cleared of her religious crimes. And, coming after a long detention and many attempts at getting 'a confession' from her otherwise, the court allowed a memo that she had produced, during the interim, to be heard on May 22, as the records tell us. These of course are according to the records edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza in her anthology of sources.
The inquisitors had given the accused woman seventeen days to consider if there was anything else she had wanted to confess. Sometime in May she had set down the name of her witnes and guardian and a few names of other people she knew. But when brought before the judges, and the names were read out in the hearing on May 22, she stopped them at a certain point and said she no longer wanted them to be her witnesses. The reverences, lord inquisitors (as the text keeps reminding us) then said that they would hear her witnesses for fifteen days and then make a decision. [pp. 46-7]
But since then, Marina began refusing food and had gotten visibly weaker. The prosecutor declared on the 30th that she thus implied she was not only guilty, but also, killing herself by not eating. Also a sin. Further, he saw this as an attempt on her part to 'avoid punishment which she deserved'.
This witness then asked her if she wanted to confess, if she was a Christian and she said no and that if she were, she wouldn't be there. And this was witnessed by a number of other female inmates. Another jailer-witness, Roderigo de Valdelecha said that rather than eating, she wanted him 'to shred and rip her to pieces'. He stated that this is what she begged him to do. [p. 48]
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quotes and pagination, entirely from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006
This canonical compurgation, decided previously, by the lords inquisitors, came after the woman's difficult time during water torture the month before. A compurgation, literally, [con + purgere] 'a purge with-' meant to clear a charge not with water, but with the help of others. If sworn faithful members of the clergy or Christian flock would come forward and swear to her reputation, she could be cleared of her religious crimes. And, coming after a long detention and many attempts at getting 'a confession' from her otherwise, the court allowed a memo that she had produced, during the interim, to be heard on May 22, as the records tell us. These of course are according to the records edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza in her anthology of sources.
The inquisitors had given the accused woman seventeen days to consider if there was anything else she had wanted to confess. Sometime in May she had set down the name of her witnes and guardian and a few names of other people she knew. But when brought before the judges, and the names were read out in the hearing on May 22, she stopped them at a certain point and said she no longer wanted them to be her witnesses. The reverences, lord inquisitors (as the text keeps reminding us) then said that they would hear her witnesses for fifteen days and then make a decision. [pp. 46-7]
But since then, Marina began refusing food and had gotten visibly weaker. The prosecutor declared on the 30th that she thus implied she was not only guilty, but also, killing herself by not eating. Also a sin. Further, he saw this as an attempt on her part to 'avoid punishment which she deserved'.
"Accordingly, she should be held as convicted. Therefore, he asked their reverences to pronounce and declare her a heretic and relax her to justice and the secular arm, and he asked that justice be done."He called forth witnesses, Pedro González the Flat-Nosed, 'warden of the lordship's prisons' and a man that worked for him. They spoke of her refusing food, refusing to confess and admitting she wasn't Christian. He said that she said,
"...since they intended to kill her, why bother to eat...".The same jailer-witness said that she had also been induced and then forced her to eat.
"They have forced her to eat in that way, against her will. He said that she has done this more fixedly since she was entrapped by the compurgation...". [p. 47]
This witness then asked her if she wanted to confess, if she was a Christian and she said no and that if she were, she wouldn't be there. And this was witnessed by a number of other female inmates. Another jailer-witness, Roderigo de Valdelecha said that rather than eating, she wanted him 'to shred and rip her to pieces'. He stated that this is what she begged him to do. [p. 48]
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quotes and pagination, entirely from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Columbus Receives Contract For Second Voyage: May 28, 1493
On this day, May 28 in 1493, Christopher Columbus received a special patent from the King and Queen of Spain. It was a majorly royal proclamation and even, papal endorsement to return to the new lands he had found the year before. And not just return, but be well stocked to expand on his initial efforts. This special extension and furthering of his original contract (to put it into slightly more modern, colloquial terms) actually turned out as a kind of accumulation or confluence of a number of continental forces.
The return of Columbus to Portugal and then to Spain in March was a huge story that spread rapidly throughout the continent. In Barcelona, Columbus rode beside King Ferdinand, like a lost son that had returned. But there was much else going on. The new pope in many ways, was setting Rome on it's ear. The Spanish Borgia, Alexander VI would scandalize the papacy in his ten year reign, invite the French king to cross the alps into Italy (to take Naples for him, next year), and much else besides. But a mere nine months after becoming pope, and just a couple after Columbus himself returned to the continent, the man formerly known as Rodrigo Borgia sent an official bull to the Spanish monarchs.
Known as the Inter caetera it sought to determine which states had jurisdiction over which newly discovered lands, over there. Portugal was largely excluded west of a specific meridian. Spain was granted everything west. It would also serve as a general rule for sovereignty and command over continents over the following centuries. With this bull, and a couple others, the authorities which were in favor of the next expedition by Columbus, pushed the royals of Spain forward. This time Bishop Fonseca in Seville would grant many permissions for the ships, the supplies, the rigging, weapons, food and everything else that went into a fleet set to sail to the edge of the world. For the first time. This time they would be on a state sanctioned trip. The first trip there and back had not been so abundantly supplied.
In ths royal contract, allays were set aside which, when the fleet left in September, amounted to seventeen ships and twelve to fifteen thousand men. The contract from May 28, according to his son in his account, provided that
A problem that would develop was Christopher Columbus' inability to manage such forces. In John M Cohen's Introduction to his collection of documents of the Four Voyages of Columbus, the man himself,
These issues would beset Columbus until his death. The first group of settlers left on Hispaniola after the first voyage at the camp called La Navidad, were entirely wiped out before Columbus could return with the second fleet. It is said that quarrels stemming from the remaining westerners at La Navidad - some 39 men - siezing neighboring women was the spark which resulted in those neighbors returning and burning the first western settlement on record, to the ground. The actual location of La Navidad is still not known but is generally thought to be at Mole Saint Nicolas, Haiti.
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from The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, for The Penguin Group, London, 1969
The return of Columbus to Portugal and then to Spain in March was a huge story that spread rapidly throughout the continent. In Barcelona, Columbus rode beside King Ferdinand, like a lost son that had returned. But there was much else going on. The new pope in many ways, was setting Rome on it's ear. The Spanish Borgia, Alexander VI would scandalize the papacy in his ten year reign, invite the French king to cross the alps into Italy (to take Naples for him, next year), and much else besides. But a mere nine months after becoming pope, and just a couple after Columbus himself returned to the continent, the man formerly known as Rodrigo Borgia sent an official bull to the Spanish monarchs.
Known as the Inter caetera it sought to determine which states had jurisdiction over which newly discovered lands, over there. Portugal was largely excluded west of a specific meridian. Spain was granted everything west. It would also serve as a general rule for sovereignty and command over continents over the following centuries. With this bull, and a couple others, the authorities which were in favor of the next expedition by Columbus, pushed the royals of Spain forward. This time Bishop Fonseca in Seville would grant many permissions for the ships, the supplies, the rigging, weapons, food and everything else that went into a fleet set to sail to the edge of the world. For the first time. This time they would be on a state sanctioned trip. The first trip there and back had not been so abundantly supplied.
In ths royal contract, allays were set aside which, when the fleet left in September, amounted to seventeen ships and twelve to fifteen thousand men. The contract from May 28, according to his son in his account, provided that
"... Columbus was appointed captain-general of the second fleet and given power to appoint any persons he might choose to the government of the Indies." [chp xliii]
A problem that would develop was Christopher Columbus' inability to manage such forces. In John M Cohen's Introduction to his collection of documents of the Four Voyages of Columbus, the man himself,
"... was extremely inept in his hadling of men. His pretensions were great, and he could share no power with a subordinate; he quarrelled with his captains, and his crew were several times on the point of mutiny. He could not control his settlers in the island of Hispaniola, and was frequently at odds with Bishop Fonseca and the office of Seville which was responsible for his supplies and ships. He trusted no one except members of his own family."
These issues would beset Columbus until his death. The first group of settlers left on Hispaniola after the first voyage at the camp called La Navidad, were entirely wiped out before Columbus could return with the second fleet. It is said that quarrels stemming from the remaining westerners at La Navidad - some 39 men - siezing neighboring women was the spark which resulted in those neighbors returning and burning the first western settlement on record, to the ground. The actual location of La Navidad is still not known but is generally thought to be at Mole Saint Nicolas, Haiti.
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from The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, for The Penguin Group, London, 1969
Monday, May 27, 2013
A Peasant Youth Burnt At the Stake: July 19, 1476
The brief week that saw the interrogation and trial for Hans Behem has no actual or even contemporary records. Yet all the accounts, still from that period, concerning the Drummer and the Pilgrimage to Niklashausen of 1476, all say that Bishop Rudolph of Wurzburg convicted him for heresy and had him burnt at the stake. It's also known that the Bishop had collected notarized statements of the youth's blasphemous preaching, had them checked by independent ecclesiastic authority and had tried to extract some confession, under interrogation, from him. Wunderli explains a bit about the structure of ecclesiastical courts at the time.
Juries weren't used. There had been a number of sworn witnesses according to the chroniclers. The Bishop's marshal Jorg von Racken told the town council mid-week that under interrogation, the Drummer had 'laughed at everything for fear of his life' . Countering with other examples, 'not so with the twelve apostles and other martyrs'. [p. 132]
A typical part of the process was to threaten torture, as a last resort, in order to try to force one of these 'spontaneous confessions'. Judges knew that such a confession could not be used in court, but, if, the court agreed, they waited a day and the accused gave a similar confession without such torture, then the confession could be deemed legally valid. Johann Trithemius gives the only evidence that Behem was tortured.
But, we don't have any more information regarding him. As Wunderli claims, perhaps, Hans' confession was a fiction that gave rise to all the theories about some mendicant, a hermit, or the Beghard. We don't know. Wunderli suggests that this narrative would help Bishop Rudolph in claiming the youth had some outside help. Some wandering mendicant that could help such a simpleton pull off this huge mass pilgrimage. It was a simple believable tale.
Then, one after the other, Wunderli gives two contrasting stories of the execution. One, a popular story of a thief who was devoted to Mary. When this thief was caught and sentenced to a public hanging, because of his devotion, he was saved by the Virgin Mary. Our author suggests this might be a hopeful story Hans might take with him to the stake. [pp 135-6]
The other version, that of Abbott Trithemius, gives a wide spectrum of analysis for the the crowd's responses. And a great sense of drama. In the end, the two other men were beheaded and Hans himself was lashed to the stake where he continued to sing. Then the fire grew and he acted like he felt it. "No miracles happened, nothing that demonstrated that Innocence had been consumed by fire." The executioner made sure the ashes were collected and thrown into the river so no one could use them and try to make a martyr out of him. [p. 137] To the end of this story, Trithemius insists on the mean and stupid beliefs of people and also, beliefs in demons trying to effect the outcome of the event. But Abbot Johann Trithemius is remembered as a very well-educated moderate humanist living in the Renaissance. A cultured fount for the elite who ran things, in those times, composing this exemplum, this 'recollection' of events very near forty years later, 1514.
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"The legal procedures used in Hans' heresy trial followed a rigid hierarchy of proofs. In canon law procedures, witnesses were important to prove a crime, but not so important as in say, English common law procedures. In canon law the most important proof was the 'spontaneous confession' of the accused. ... The accused must convict himself by his own mouth. Judges alone decided cases ... and confession spared judges making difficult decisions; a 'spontaneous confession' partly eased their consciences."
Juries weren't used. There had been a number of sworn witnesses according to the chroniclers. The Bishop's marshal Jorg von Racken told the town council mid-week that under interrogation, the Drummer had 'laughed at everything for fear of his life' . Countering with other examples, 'not so with the twelve apostles and other martyrs'. [p. 132]
A typical part of the process was to threaten torture, as a last resort, in order to try to force one of these 'spontaneous confessions'. Judges knew that such a confession could not be used in court, but, if, the court agreed, they waited a day and the accused gave a similar confession without such torture, then the confession could be deemed legally valid. Johann Trithemius gives the only evidence that Behem was tortured.
"Next, the swineherd drummer, the youth, little Hans, the false prophet of the people, the captive deceiver, whose prophecies the common people held to be the truth, was interrogated by the rope [per cordam] and he confessed that everything was fictitious, false, and feigned. And with a free voice [voce libera], he said that a wandering cunning mendicant friar had contrived everything. Later, when this same friar heard that the little fool had been captured, he saved himself by fleeing as far away as possible." [p. 134]
But, we don't have any more information regarding him. As Wunderli claims, perhaps, Hans' confession was a fiction that gave rise to all the theories about some mendicant, a hermit, or the Beghard. We don't know. Wunderli suggests that this narrative would help Bishop Rudolph in claiming the youth had some outside help. Some wandering mendicant that could help such a simpleton pull off this huge mass pilgrimage. It was a simple believable tale.
Then, one after the other, Wunderli gives two contrasting stories of the execution. One, a popular story of a thief who was devoted to Mary. When this thief was caught and sentenced to a public hanging, because of his devotion, he was saved by the Virgin Mary. Our author suggests this might be a hopeful story Hans might take with him to the stake. [pp 135-6]
The other version, that of Abbott Trithemius, gives a wide spectrum of analysis for the the crowd's responses. And a great sense of drama. In the end, the two other men were beheaded and Hans himself was lashed to the stake where he continued to sing. Then the fire grew and he acted like he felt it. "No miracles happened, nothing that demonstrated that Innocence had been consumed by fire." The executioner made sure the ashes were collected and thrown into the river so no one could use them and try to make a martyr out of him. [p. 137] To the end of this story, Trithemius insists on the mean and stupid beliefs of people and also, beliefs in demons trying to effect the outcome of the event. But Abbot Johann Trithemius is remembered as a very well-educated moderate humanist living in the Renaissance. A cultured fount for the elite who ran things, in those times, composing this exemplum, this 'recollection' of events very near forty years later, 1514.
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all quotes and pagination from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
some news: later may 2013
- In the US there was much talk about the massive tornado that tore up Moore, Oklahoma this past Monday.
- Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase got to keep both of his jobs there.
- Looks like the right side of politics will keep the heat on the IRS as long as possible whether they get into the substance of the problem or not.
- Many in the world have huge reservations about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), calling it deregulation for multinationals that would harm smaller countries' ability to compete. The next round of talks is scheduled for July.
- Apple is widely being called out for failing to pay taxes, in a big way. This weekend the bbc is talking about that one in fallout from Irish Bank rvelations w/r/t apple and google has it's own issues, and also, the changes coming indifferent parts of the world due to different bandwidths.
- Wednesday saw the brutal killing by radicals in Woolwich, in east London. This sparked discussion all week on the bbc about domestic terrorism, seeing a parallel between this attack and the Boston Marathon attack on April 15.
- Today, Saturday, thousands returned with many of the wounded on that attack on Boston today to finish the last mile. The race had been interrupted with the bombings in April and so they finished it today, May 25.
- Thursday, President Obama gave an hour long speech seeking to answer questions with regard to the war on terror. It's worth hearing in full, but the transcript is here (not just the prepared speech). I think it was a speech for adults.
- On the other hand, Dana Carvey was on Jimmy Fallon this week. That guy is so funny.
- Also, in a surprise, Bobby McFerrin makes a great performance there too, leading in "Jericho", five min worth anybody's time.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
"How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Drummer?": Queries Seek Substance?
Three days after word spread that the Drummer, Hans Behem had been captured, thousands of pilgrims remained in Niklashausen. The real story was over but as Wunderli tells us, the Bishop didn't know that. According to various accounts , mostly in letters sent to other districts, the crowds had been told to disperse. But so many people, apparently had heard stories of various miracles that took place that people kept coming or remained and kept the clamor going.
There were several accounts of officials countering the idea that there had been any miracles or signs of divinity, at the time of the capture, since or, at all before, in this season. The Bishop's marshal, Jorg von Racken spoke Wednesday July 17, 1476 at the Wurzburg town council, explaining that the whole thing had come from the Drummer. He consoled the council members that there had not been so many miracles, that they "... were all vain inventions and false roguery." He said there was a report from Eichstatt that some conspirators had sent a man pretending to be mute who was coached to say he had been miraculously cured. The Bishop had assured in a letter to Saxony that there had been no miracles. [p. 126] The marshal claimed to be at the interrogation of the Drummer, who, it is recorded had denied and laughed at everything he was accused of. [p. 132]
Yet, despite the official assurances which became plentiful and widespread in the following days, the clerics in charge still had many unanswered questions. What to do with all the people, how to get them to go home? There were those who wanted them all to stay in Niklashausen, like under quarantine, in order to keep these crazy ideas away from their own local flocks and districts, as much as possible. Others wanted to know who this could be to cause such a major disturbance that went against all norms of sense. Some claimed the Drummer was the only culprit claiming a special connection with Mary Mother of God and there were those who thought he was far too simple, and had to have some help or guidance or owed all his skills even, to the Beghard or the Dominican hermit that there were so many tales of. This part of the story, if at all true, is still unknown. [pp. 128-9] The local parish priest of Niklashausen who at first encouraged the Drummer, and who was greatly enriched by all the pilgrims and then pushed to the edges when things became chaotic, was taken into custody. But he was a small player, it seemed. [pp. 130-1]
Part of the problem was that the authorities were always asking the same questions about God themselves. Was he angry? Was he happy now that the Drummer was captured? The accounts of the dead that walked, the blind that now could see, the mute who spoke again, were certainly plentiful and these all had to be heard and investigated and disproven. [pp. 126-8] Perhaps with enough of these stories disproved, the mobs would see the error of their ways and go home.
The captains that assumed leadership over the mob on the previous Sunday, like Conrad von Thunfeld, had all fled and could not be found. [p. 131]
In the meantime it took a few days to make interrogations in general, and in particular, with the Drummer himself and the friar that the officials had captured. But not many days.
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from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
There were several accounts of officials countering the idea that there had been any miracles or signs of divinity, at the time of the capture, since or, at all before, in this season. The Bishop's marshal, Jorg von Racken spoke Wednesday July 17, 1476 at the Wurzburg town council, explaining that the whole thing had come from the Drummer. He consoled the council members that there had not been so many miracles, that they "... were all vain inventions and false roguery." He said there was a report from Eichstatt that some conspirators had sent a man pretending to be mute who was coached to say he had been miraculously cured. The Bishop had assured in a letter to Saxony that there had been no miracles. [p. 126] The marshal claimed to be at the interrogation of the Drummer, who, it is recorded had denied and laughed at everything he was accused of. [p. 132]
Yet, despite the official assurances which became plentiful and widespread in the following days, the clerics in charge still had many unanswered questions. What to do with all the people, how to get them to go home? There were those who wanted them all to stay in Niklashausen, like under quarantine, in order to keep these crazy ideas away from their own local flocks and districts, as much as possible. Others wanted to know who this could be to cause such a major disturbance that went against all norms of sense. Some claimed the Drummer was the only culprit claiming a special connection with Mary Mother of God and there were those who thought he was far too simple, and had to have some help or guidance or owed all his skills even, to the Beghard or the Dominican hermit that there were so many tales of. This part of the story, if at all true, is still unknown. [pp. 128-9] The local parish priest of Niklashausen who at first encouraged the Drummer, and who was greatly enriched by all the pilgrims and then pushed to the edges when things became chaotic, was taken into custody. But he was a small player, it seemed. [pp. 130-1]
Part of the problem was that the authorities were always asking the same questions about God themselves. Was he angry? Was he happy now that the Drummer was captured? The accounts of the dead that walked, the blind that now could see, the mute who spoke again, were certainly plentiful and these all had to be heard and investigated and disproven. [pp. 126-8] Perhaps with enough of these stories disproved, the mobs would see the error of their ways and go home.
The captains that assumed leadership over the mob on the previous Sunday, like Conrad von Thunfeld, had all fled and could not be found. [p. 131]
In the meantime it took a few days to make interrogations in general, and in particular, with the Drummer himself and the friar that the officials had captured. But not many days.
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from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Spaniards Make Conversion Attempt In Mesoamerica: May 1519
An important if not always central part of the story of the Cortes expedition in Mesoamerica, that is always referred to in these prominent primary manuscripts as being central, was Christian proseletizing. This of course, included, not just preaching at the locals, and praying they make up their mind, but the projection of their own values onto that of others. Local values which the Christians did not attempt to understand. Projecting one's value system onto the local's long-lasting ways of doing things, anywhere, will always cause trouble. Some may say, that this 'local way' included human sacrifice. I can't help but think here, that it's the same everywhere, we just call it different things. Collateral damage is one. Austerity measures, has much recent cachè. So does 'security concerns'. 'Terrorist Watchlist'. National Interests. And the arguments fly. An early example of this kind of enforced demagoguery, that was left out of place in this chrono, a couple weeks ago, deserves a better mention.
It was when the Spaniards were still at San Juan de Ulúa. There on the beach, some time after the first of May, and the messengers from Moctezuma, Teudilli and Cuitlalpitoc or as Diaz calls him, Pitalpitoque, were there as well. After the giving and receiving of rich gifts and hearing the news that Moctezuma would not meet them, still, and that they shouldn't try to come inland, to visit. Toward the end of chp xl of Bernal Diaz:
This would be through the translators Aguilar and Doña Marina. It's hard to believe how well the audience here would be able to understand or then, relay these ideas to Moctezuma when they returned. What comes next would be easier to understand if not readily acceptable. One wishes there were better transcripts.
Soon after, all the locals left and did not return. As the Spaniards began to move inland, they could not help notice that all the villages and settlements had been evacuated, with food left in the storage places, and incense left burning on their altars. The people in so many places, were just gone.
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All quotes from Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012
It was when the Spaniards were still at San Juan de Ulúa. There on the beach, some time after the first of May, and the messengers from Moctezuma, Teudilli and Cuitlalpitoc or as Diaz calls him, Pitalpitoque, were there as well. After the giving and receiving of rich gifts and hearing the news that Moctezuma would not meet them, still, and that they shouldn't try to come inland, to visit. Toward the end of chp xl of Bernal Diaz:
"... it was the hour of the Ave Maria; in the camp we rang a bell, and all of us knelt down before a cross we had put in a sand dune and prayed the Ave Maria. When Tendile and Pitalpitoque, who were very curious about things, saw us on our knees, they asked why we humiliated ourselves before that stick put together like that, and when Cortes heard it and the Mercedarian friar was present, he said to the friar, "This is a good time and a good subject, Father, to explain to them through our interpreters matters touching on our faith." He then gave them such a good explanation that some theologian could not do better. " [p. 65]This sort of 'special pleading' is referred to again and again in the famous Letters of Cortes. It was both method and means and, Cortes hoped, a shared bond between him and the king of Spain.
"Having explained that we are Christians and all the appropriate things about our holy faith, Cortes and the Mercedarian friar then told them that their idols are evil and they are not good and that they flee from where that sign of the cross is, for on another cross of this shape, the Lord of heaven, earth and all creation suffered his passion and death, and it is him we believe in and worship. He is our true god, his name is Jesus Christ, and he wanted to suffer and go through that death to save all humankind; he rose on the third day and is in the heavens, and we will be judged by him. He told them many othere things, very perfectly spoken, and they understood them well and replied that they would tell these things to their lord Montezuma."
This would be through the translators Aguilar and Doña Marina. It's hard to believe how well the audience here would be able to understand or then, relay these ideas to Moctezuma when they returned. What comes next would be easier to understand if not readily acceptable. One wishes there were better transcripts.
"He [Cortes] also stated that our great emperor sent us to to these parts to stop them from sacrificing Indians or making any other type of evil sacrifice, nor should they rob each other nor adore those accursed figures. He implored them to put up in their city, in those houses of worship where they kept the idols they consider gods, a cross like that one and an image of Our Lady with her precious son in her arms, which he gave them there, and he told them they should see how well everything would go for them and what our God would do for them." [pp. 65-6]How well, indeed. But Diaz does not do as well in these topics. It is easy to see him as one in the congregation, who grows hungry sitting in his pew, waiting for the sermon to end.
"Because many other thoughts were uttered and I do not know how to describe them, I will leave this, and I will go back to discussing how many Indians came this last time with Tendile to trade pieces of gold, which were not worth much. All of us soldiers traded for gold, and we gave it to the seamen we had along in exchange for the fish they went to catch so we would have something to eat, for otherwise we would have suffered great hunger." [p. 66]
Soon after, all the locals left and did not return. As the Spaniards began to move inland, they could not help notice that all the villages and settlements had been evacuated, with food left in the storage places, and incense left burning on their altars. The people in so many places, were just gone.
__________________________________________________
All quotes from Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012
Monday, May 20, 2013
Temporizing With Banks Can Also Fail Collectively: Sanudo Diaries: May 20, 1499
I've been putting this off.
One of the things about temporizing. It's not exactly delaying, though that can be part of it. There may be much work going on while the temporizing goes along at length. But here, the story is current as well as historical. At least here, unless it's always the case. Somewhere, the temporization. The putting off.
In 1499, one of the oldest banks in Venice, acted like it would default and fail. Actually, it did, eventually. It just took a while. One of the reasons was an attempt to set it right, after long negotiations and back and forth proposals by different parties. Apparently, by temporizing. The Garzoni bank and it's follow up failure (which really did them in), certainly was not the only bank failure in Sanudo's time. But there were several in this close period when Venice was being depended on to fight off the Turk in the Mediterranean and German silver was being diverted to Portugal instead.
This diversion of funds was in part, our Editor's tell us, due to news of de Gama's rounding the tip of Africa. Investors saw the potential of new gold and silver prospects. As a result, "... a serious drop in Venetian imports of gold and silver ... added to the crisis caused by the government's heavy borrowing to pay for its military needs."[p. 240]
They also refer here, to Frederic Chapin Lane's work, Venetian bankers, 1496-1533: 81; In Venice and history: collected papers of F C Lane, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press , 1966.
and News On The Rialto, in Studies in Venetian social and economic history, ed. Benjamin G Kohl and Reinhold C Mueller, 1-12. London: Variorum, 1987
Supposedly disciplined about these things, the state just ordered more buillion. They just ordered more money to be made. Meanwhile, different creditors kept coming forward asking for a part of their money. The banks, temporizing, would always be reassuring and say, in effect, 'we'll get to you later, don't worry.' This time it started in January with the Garzoni, the oldest, established seventy years before. The heads of that bank had come to the doge pleading for help from the Signoria as they were in need of several thousand ducats. Yet it all had to be kept quiet so much of the discussion was kept to just a handful of people. As Sanudo says, "... in all secrecy it was decided that the honor of this city was in keeping this bank on its feet...". No money was really available because of the volatility in north Italy which the king of France had just vacated causing turmoil. Which cost money and there was the preparation still, with the coming war against the Turk. Further, rumors had circulated for years that the Garzoni had been speculating by 'buying at a higher price than the Mint's ratio to increase their specie reserves'. They lost much there and in family loans and another huge loan to a Florentine. These things made the Garzoni less than popular. [pp 235-6]
In February, creditors were lining up at the window demanding their money, but even at a late hour, none of the Garzoni showed up to open their window. They said they had the funds but not the cash, that many had not paid them back in time, that when they got it, everyone would be paid in full. "Sanudo surmised that money was tight everywhere because of the wars..., the continual levying of taxes to fund these wars, and withdrawals from banks to purchase Monte Nuovo bonds, which were shares in the public debt." The state agreed to continue to mediate between the bank and the creditors. [p. 237]
By May, the problem had spread to other banks. Some like the Lippomani had loaned a great deal to the Gorzani and was now coming up short. The Pisani came to rescue some with a great deal of specie. Heads of the Council of Ten were chosen by the Signoria to go and annouce that there would be a massive dispersal of funds from the Pisani bank. The crowd trying to withdraw, now that the state said theywould allow such a dispersal, changed their mind and everyone wanted to invest instead in it. Two other banks had failed and people now wanted an assured place to put their money. People were calling for the removal of safe conduct privileges for the Lippomani. Literally, a decree had been sent out that no harm should come to the Lippomani or the Garzoni while moving about the city or to their property. This was done to prevent worse riots. A necessary precaution in this temporizing strategy. In addition, military leaders and galley captains were asking for wages for soldiers and sailors. They were told they would be paid, with a bone parole, a good word. Yes, a promise. [pp. 238-9]
On May 18, on a suggestion from Sanudo, an allowance was made to help keep the Arsenale going, the city's massive ship-building enterprise, and for biscuit as well to feed them. For awhile. (2:732)
On May 20, the Germans came demanding at least some of their investment returns. They had been told to wait until Easter, then wait til Ascension and now, to give another fifteen days for the Garzoni to find their cash. Or instead, they asked a relaxing of the conditions of their own obligations until the Garzoni could pay. (2:736)
Negotiations would continue the rest of the year. [p. 240]
All quotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll, editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
One of the things about temporizing. It's not exactly delaying, though that can be part of it. There may be much work going on while the temporizing goes along at length. But here, the story is current as well as historical. At least here, unless it's always the case. Somewhere, the temporization. The putting off.
In 1499, one of the oldest banks in Venice, acted like it would default and fail. Actually, it did, eventually. It just took a while. One of the reasons was an attempt to set it right, after long negotiations and back and forth proposals by different parties. Apparently, by temporizing. The Garzoni bank and it's follow up failure (which really did them in), certainly was not the only bank failure in Sanudo's time. But there were several in this close period when Venice was being depended on to fight off the Turk in the Mediterranean and German silver was being diverted to Portugal instead.
This diversion of funds was in part, our Editor's tell us, due to news of de Gama's rounding the tip of Africa. Investors saw the potential of new gold and silver prospects. As a result, "... a serious drop in Venetian imports of gold and silver ... added to the crisis caused by the government's heavy borrowing to pay for its military needs."[p. 240]
They also refer here, to Frederic Chapin Lane's work, Venetian bankers, 1496-1533: 81; In Venice and history: collected papers of F C Lane, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press , 1966.
and News On The Rialto, in Studies in Venetian social and economic history, ed. Benjamin G Kohl and Reinhold C Mueller, 1-12. London: Variorum, 1987
Supposedly disciplined about these things, the state just ordered more buillion. They just ordered more money to be made. Meanwhile, different creditors kept coming forward asking for a part of their money. The banks, temporizing, would always be reassuring and say, in effect, 'we'll get to you later, don't worry.' This time it started in January with the Garzoni, the oldest, established seventy years before. The heads of that bank had come to the doge pleading for help from the Signoria as they were in need of several thousand ducats. Yet it all had to be kept quiet so much of the discussion was kept to just a handful of people. As Sanudo says, "... in all secrecy it was decided that the honor of this city was in keeping this bank on its feet...". No money was really available because of the volatility in north Italy which the king of France had just vacated causing turmoil. Which cost money and there was the preparation still, with the coming war against the Turk. Further, rumors had circulated for years that the Garzoni had been speculating by 'buying at a higher price than the Mint's ratio to increase their specie reserves'. They lost much there and in family loans and another huge loan to a Florentine. These things made the Garzoni less than popular. [pp 235-6]
In February, creditors were lining up at the window demanding their money, but even at a late hour, none of the Garzoni showed up to open their window. They said they had the funds but not the cash, that many had not paid them back in time, that when they got it, everyone would be paid in full. "Sanudo surmised that money was tight everywhere because of the wars..., the continual levying of taxes to fund these wars, and withdrawals from banks to purchase Monte Nuovo bonds, which were shares in the public debt." The state agreed to continue to mediate between the bank and the creditors. [p. 237]
By May, the problem had spread to other banks. Some like the Lippomani had loaned a great deal to the Gorzani and was now coming up short. The Pisani came to rescue some with a great deal of specie. Heads of the Council of Ten were chosen by the Signoria to go and annouce that there would be a massive dispersal of funds from the Pisani bank. The crowd trying to withdraw, now that the state said theywould allow such a dispersal, changed their mind and everyone wanted to invest instead in it. Two other banks had failed and people now wanted an assured place to put their money. People were calling for the removal of safe conduct privileges for the Lippomani. Literally, a decree had been sent out that no harm should come to the Lippomani or the Garzoni while moving about the city or to their property. This was done to prevent worse riots. A necessary precaution in this temporizing strategy. In addition, military leaders and galley captains were asking for wages for soldiers and sailors. They were told they would be paid, with a bone parole, a good word. Yes, a promise. [pp. 238-9]
On May 18, on a suggestion from Sanudo, an allowance was made to help keep the Arsenale going, the city's massive ship-building enterprise, and for biscuit as well to feed them. For awhile. (2:732)
On May 20, the Germans came demanding at least some of their investment returns. They had been told to wait until Easter, then wait til Ascension and now, to give another fifteen days for the Garzoni to find their cash. Or instead, they asked a relaxing of the conditions of their own obligations until the Garzoni could pay. (2:736)
Negotiations would continue the rest of the year. [p. 240]
All quotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll, editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Pilgrims Seeking Redress Reach Wurzburg, July 14, 1476
The mass of pilgrims marching to Wurzburg had reached the bridge that crossed the river into the city, by the morning of Sunday, July 14, 1476. Bishop Rudolph and his men had gone to the castle called the Frauenberg along the Main River, awaiting an assault. They could easily see the swarm massing on the other side of this bridge from the high castle. The bishop's marshall Jorg von Racken (or von Gebsettel), Wunderli tells us, met them and asked their intentions. They would not leave until they had Hans Behem, their prophet, the Drummer, or, they would destroy the fortress. They believed he was there and believed that the Virgin Mary would help deliver him, one way or the other.
This account is from that of Johann Trithemius, put together much later, in 1514 from an unknown collection of accounts. After relating the above encounter and decrying the 'madness', the 'single-minded purpose', 'the foolish confidence' of the throngs, he turns to the view of those in the fortress.
The marshal gave the warning and the crowd heard speeches from their ranks on what to do. The bishop sent another warning telling all who had previously sworn allegiance to the clergy, officials, nobles, or the knights and squires should now fulfill those allegiances and surrender to the knight Conrad von Hutten, sent by the bishop. Many did. Many also asked to find another way into the city, saying they wished not to get entangled with the mob. These too were allowed to go elsewhere to ford the river there. The rest, maybe ten thousand, twice the size of the city itself, stayed where they were, on the far side of the river. Wunderli says,
The bishop, it appears, had hoped to scare them off. But when the cannons blew and missed any perceptible target, the pilgrims rejoiced. It was a miracle. Mary had protected them. But this was short lived. Next, the cannon were re-aimed, into the crowd. Several were killed and wounded.
Then the knights were let loose, who rode across the bridge and began trampling the crowd and running people through with their lances. One group was chased to a churchyard in a nearby town who turned and began throwing stones at the knights chasing them. But these, too, were run over and then captured and taken back to Wurzburg as prisoners. [p. 123]
These events are the basic facts, despite the various accounts, Wunderli reminds us, according to the sources available. He tells us the anonymous writer from Eichstatt had said that more than three hundred were captured in the churchyard outside of town, although seventy of them, then escaped. The cells and dungeons at Wurzburg were overflowing. Some forty had to be kept under guard at another churchyard etc. Another account (that Wunderli tells us was often wrong or unreliable), said that 38 pilgrims were killed and 127 put into jail. [pp. 123-24]
The pilgrimage to Niklashausen, the enchanted time of this summer's draught was over.
__________________________________________________
all quotes from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
This account is from that of Johann Trithemius, put together much later, in 1514 from an unknown collection of accounts. After relating the above encounter and decrying the 'madness', the 'single-minded purpose', 'the foolish confidence' of the throngs, he turns to the view of those in the fortress.
"Those who were in the fortress were astonished to find such a great number of people, and at first not knowing who these people were or where they came from, were astonished more than one can believe. At last, when they understood the reasons for the gathering of pilgrims, they forgot their fears and loaded their cannons to shoot at the mob. But the bishop told them not to shoot. He sent ... a prudent man ... [the marshal, Jorg], along with a few horsemen, to persuade them to desist in their wicked deigns to sieze the fortress; and to warn them not to become entangled in such a dangerous undertaking without good cause." [p. 121]
The marshal gave the warning and the crowd heard speeches from their ranks on what to do. The bishop sent another warning telling all who had previously sworn allegiance to the clergy, officials, nobles, or the knights and squires should now fulfill those allegiances and surrender to the knight Conrad von Hutten, sent by the bishop. Many did. Many also asked to find another way into the city, saying they wished not to get entangled with the mob. These too were allowed to go elsewhere to ford the river there. The rest, maybe ten thousand, twice the size of the city itself, stayed where they were, on the far side of the river. Wunderli says,
"When his emissary, Conrad von Hutten, had returned, Bishop Rudolph ordered the castle gunners to fire their cannons -- but to aim over the heads of the people." [p. 122]
The bishop, it appears, had hoped to scare them off. But when the cannons blew and missed any perceptible target, the pilgrims rejoiced. It was a miracle. Mary had protected them. But this was short lived. Next, the cannon were re-aimed, into the crowd. Several were killed and wounded.
Then the knights were let loose, who rode across the bridge and began trampling the crowd and running people through with their lances. One group was chased to a churchyard in a nearby town who turned and began throwing stones at the knights chasing them. But these, too, were run over and then captured and taken back to Wurzburg as prisoners. [p. 123]
These events are the basic facts, despite the various accounts, Wunderli reminds us, according to the sources available. He tells us the anonymous writer from Eichstatt had said that more than three hundred were captured in the churchyard outside of town, although seventy of them, then escaped. The cells and dungeons at Wurzburg were overflowing. Some forty had to be kept under guard at another churchyard etc. Another account (that Wunderli tells us was often wrong or unreliable), said that 38 pilgrims were killed and 127 put into jail. [pp. 123-24]
The pilgrimage to Niklashausen, the enchanted time of this summer's draught was over.
__________________________________________________
all quotes from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
In and Around Niklashausen: Saturday, July 13, 1476
It was only eleven days later that Hans Behem had told his followers in Germany to return armed, leaving at home their women and children. That year, July 13, on a Saturday, was the Feast of St Margaret. A martyr, probably living in the early fourth century, persecuted under Diocletian, she became honored in the eastern church by the ninth century, when her relics were moved from the east to Italy. She was protector of pregnant women, and often invoked against disease and death and during childbirth. She had also flourished as well, in the 12th century, among crusaders. Again her relics were transferred, this time to Venice in 1213. During the late middle ages, Wunderli tells us Margaret came to a greater popularity in Germany as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, all martyrs, who were invoked against disease and death. [pp. 115-16]
One popular story in those times was that Margaret of Antioch was one of the Saints that Joan of Arc had said was with her always, whispering, coaxing at the end, to accept the fire of the stake and eventual martyrdom. The story of Margaret's life was one that, many of the peasants could recognize. A daughter of a pagan priest, becomes a shepherdess and then a Christian. She converts many pagans to Christianity. She becomes noticed by the local governor and he attempts to bring her in and seduce or marry her. She refuses due to her faith. He takes her anyway, and tortures and tests her. Even feeding her to a dragon. She was commonly depicted in the middle ages as slaying or bursting out of a dragon. In the end, she and her converts are beheaded during the mass executions under Diocletian. She was the one, after many converts, was tested, swallowed up by government and then killed, but remembered forever and ever. In those days, Joan of Arc was a real person, within living memory. Margaret may have loomed large in the faithful Christian peasant mind within Germany. Her feast day was eventually suppressed by the Holy See in 1969.
The crowds in and around Niklashausen had kept coming. They marched with candles, waved their banners and sang their blasphemous songs, wanting to see or touch him, relay any words he may have spoken. The crush of people must have been intense. With thirty or forty thousand, maybe they were six or eight times as many people as lived in the largest nearby city, Wurzburg. But then, the night before the feast day, Friday night, under cover of darkness, thirty-four men rode under orders from the Bishop of Wurzburg, to the farmhouse where they knew Hans Behem hid from the massive throngs of people, just outside Niklashausen. They knew where he was, but the crowds did not. Quietly the knights went in, captured the Drummer, secured him tightly, threw him on a horse and took him back to Wurzburg. No one was hurt, only a horse. [p. 117]
The next day, as the news spread, the crowds at once were enraged. Then, one by one, they stood up to speak, urging this action or that. All day they debated what to do and they decided at length, who would lead them next. As Wunderli reminds us, they were coming out of that enlightened state, that inspired state of divine excitation and returning to hierarchal models and means of organization, and purpose. The decision then, to march on the Bishop and Wurzburg, in order to free the Drummer, became the next goal. By the end of the day they chose a group of knights to lead them. One named Conrad von Thunfeld and his son became captains and the hordes turned toward Wurzburg. [p. 119]
They marched off into the night, carrying candles, waving their banners, singing their blasphemous songs. Maybe as many as ten or twelve thousand of them. A letter penned that Saturday, and sent to town council officials in Nurmburg, from one of the Bishop of Wurzburg's men, a doctor Kilian von Bibra said that no, they had not received permission to march, or preach or sing these awful songs. There had been strict proclamations for the people not to do these things. And yet, now they were on the move, coming to the city. The Drummer had been captured, but before, they had merely carried banners, and now, they were armed. The hermit he thought was from Bohemia and had lived in a cave near Niklashausen was also arrested, he said. The heretical sayings that the Drummer was preaching, had been collected and were being analyzed by a professor from Hiedelberg. Wunderli assumes this was to reassure the town council members that a legal case was being drawn up against the captured preacher. [p.118]
Here, the contemporary record of the Drummer of Niklashausen, dries up. From now on, the stories that relate these day to day events, come to us written years later and entirely through the moralizing language and biases of preachers and the faithful members of later times.
___________________________________________________
all quotes from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
One popular story in those times was that Margaret of Antioch was one of the Saints that Joan of Arc had said was with her always, whispering, coaxing at the end, to accept the fire of the stake and eventual martyrdom. The story of Margaret's life was one that, many of the peasants could recognize. A daughter of a pagan priest, becomes a shepherdess and then a Christian. She converts many pagans to Christianity. She becomes noticed by the local governor and he attempts to bring her in and seduce or marry her. She refuses due to her faith. He takes her anyway, and tortures and tests her. Even feeding her to a dragon. She was commonly depicted in the middle ages as slaying or bursting out of a dragon. In the end, she and her converts are beheaded during the mass executions under Diocletian. She was the one, after many converts, was tested, swallowed up by government and then killed, but remembered forever and ever. In those days, Joan of Arc was a real person, within living memory. Margaret may have loomed large in the faithful Christian peasant mind within Germany. Her feast day was eventually suppressed by the Holy See in 1969.
The crowds in and around Niklashausen had kept coming. They marched with candles, waved their banners and sang their blasphemous songs, wanting to see or touch him, relay any words he may have spoken. The crush of people must have been intense. With thirty or forty thousand, maybe they were six or eight times as many people as lived in the largest nearby city, Wurzburg. But then, the night before the feast day, Friday night, under cover of darkness, thirty-four men rode under orders from the Bishop of Wurzburg, to the farmhouse where they knew Hans Behem hid from the massive throngs of people, just outside Niklashausen. They knew where he was, but the crowds did not. Quietly the knights went in, captured the Drummer, secured him tightly, threw him on a horse and took him back to Wurzburg. No one was hurt, only a horse. [p. 117]
The next day, as the news spread, the crowds at once were enraged. Then, one by one, they stood up to speak, urging this action or that. All day they debated what to do and they decided at length, who would lead them next. As Wunderli reminds us, they were coming out of that enlightened state, that inspired state of divine excitation and returning to hierarchal models and means of organization, and purpose. The decision then, to march on the Bishop and Wurzburg, in order to free the Drummer, became the next goal. By the end of the day they chose a group of knights to lead them. One named Conrad von Thunfeld and his son became captains and the hordes turned toward Wurzburg. [p. 119]
They marched off into the night, carrying candles, waving their banners, singing their blasphemous songs. Maybe as many as ten or twelve thousand of them. A letter penned that Saturday, and sent to town council officials in Nurmburg, from one of the Bishop of Wurzburg's men, a doctor Kilian von Bibra said that no, they had not received permission to march, or preach or sing these awful songs. There had been strict proclamations for the people not to do these things. And yet, now they were on the move, coming to the city. The Drummer had been captured, but before, they had merely carried banners, and now, they were armed. The hermit he thought was from Bohemia and had lived in a cave near Niklashausen was also arrested, he said. The heretical sayings that the Drummer was preaching, had been collected and were being analyzed by a professor from Hiedelberg. Wunderli assumes this was to reassure the town council members that a legal case was being drawn up against the captured preacher. [p.118]
Here, the contemporary record of the Drummer of Niklashausen, dries up. From now on, the stories that relate these day to day events, come to us written years later and entirely through the moralizing language and biases of preachers and the faithful members of later times.
___________________________________________________
all quotes from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Trouble Brewing: Cortes Looks For Ways Out, May 1519
In the days remaining at San Juan de Ulúa , Bernal Diaz shows the Spanish contingent as hungry, beset by mosquitoes, showing signs of fatigue, conflict and running out of provisions.
The group led by Francesco de Montejo returned ten or twelve days after they had left, reporting that they had found a better port farther north. This was near Quiahuiztlan, a "town like a fortified port" near to what later this summer became Veracruz. Meanwhile, food had become scarce to the hundreds of Spaniards left at San Juan de Ulúa. Bernal Diaz did not relish the idea of scavenging for shellfish. The men were trading with the locals for food and soon those resources would disappear. Some of those described as still loyal to Diego Velazquez began complaining about the lack of food, the men trading food for gold and saying they should return to Cuba and report back. Cortes said he agreed that they needed food right then, that there should be no more widespread trading and that one man they nominated should be put in charge of that. For now, the grumbling subsided. [p. 66,68-9]
The group led by Francesco de Montejo returned ten or twelve days after they had left, reporting that they had found a better port farther north. This was near Quiahuiztlan, a "town like a fortified port" near to what later this summer became Veracruz. Meanwhile, food had become scarce to the hundreds of Spaniards left at San Juan de Ulúa. Bernal Diaz did not relish the idea of scavenging for shellfish. The men were trading with the locals for food and soon those resources would disappear. Some of those described as still loyal to Diego Velazquez began complaining about the lack of food, the men trading food for gold and saying they should return to Cuba and report back. Cortes said he agreed that they needed food right then, that there should be no more widespread trading and that one man they nominated should be put in charge of that. For now, the grumbling subsided. [p. 66,68-9]
Later, though, these discussions, after awhile, led to arrests and proclamations, more discussions. The establishment of Veracruz, the march into Mexico. Only some of these are alternately, told at length, expanded and sometimes only, briefly alluded to, in the so called 'First Letter' of Cortes. And they're mentioned not as resolving conflicts, which they wanted quickly to paper over, but as looking to do the right thing for the king. Bit by bit, using a linear progression in anecdotes, is how Diaz unveils his story.
Diaz also gives a description of meeting a different group of tribal messengers who had a different opinion of the Mexica. There were many such groups of locals with longstanding histories and relations of their own stretching back into the mists of time. Both Doña Marina and Aguilar could not understand them at first until Marina asked if any of them were nahuatlatos. Two of them replied to this and they began conversing. These locals praised the Spaniards on what they'd heard of their success in arms in Tobasco and Potonchon. They also made it plain that they had not come earlier, "for fear of the people of Culua", their name for the Mexica of Moctezuma whom they were not allied with. These also, they told them, had fled "to their lands" and so, they themselves could come forward. After more questioning, Cortes was pleased to learn that Moctezuma did have enemies and pitted forces against him. These locals were welcomed, given gifts and told he would come and meet their leader soon. These were called lopes luzios after what the locals first said when they saw the Spaniards. Words the interpreters didn't understand at first but were later told meant "lord, and lords". So the Spaniards called them that! Cortes would later use them in the fight against Moctezuma. [pp. 67-8]
Upon hearing of the better port farther north, Cortes ordered they should all go there. Some of those most loyal to Velazquez balked and complained saying that without provisions, with so many men dead and ailing, they should return to Cuba, and give a record and the gifts of Moctezuma, etc., instead. Cortes disagreed saying, according to Diaz:
"... it was not good advice to return without seeing everything, that until now we have not been able to complain of fortune, that we should give thanks to God who has helped us in everything, and, as for those that have died, it usually happens in times of war and hardships, and it will be good to know what there is in the land, so in the meantime, unless he was much mistaken, we could eat maize and provisions that the Indians of neighboring towns had."There was still talk about returning to Cuba. This is how Diaz ends his chp xli [p. 69]
________________________________________________
All quotes from from Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Get Yer IRS/AP/Benghazimess Big Picture, Right Cheeah, May 14, 2013
- UPDATE!! Nice! Four Reasons If You're In The SF area to go see Janelle Monae at the symphony as $ from steep tickets go to getting music instruments for SF kids. This is how you do it.
- UPDATE! By end of day Tuesday, 14may, the AP adds a few notes to this leak of a story
- Once again, chrishayes does a number on the top news of the am, explaining how the IRS scandal is actually spawned from the Citizen's United case a few years ago, allowing 501c4 groups - untaxed social welfare groups - to also contribute to political campaigns and become SuperPACS with no limit ... which caused problems for the IRS, since that happened under their watch, the Agency now charged with new directions, but without guidelines to accomplish that, no red lines of conduct etc., Monday morning, May 13, 2013. Wow.
- If you want to go down the rabbit hole : woah, to tie that AP capture to drones and Benghazi in a knot with Brennan at the helm and now the CIA director, emptywheel blows away the competition, over the astounding admission by the AP that the DOJ had been monitoring 20 communication lines of AP reporters and subordinates, contacts, for some time, a couple months at least. Reading half a dozen articles from May 13 and prolly through the day Tuesday, she'll get you caught up. She is the fastest thinker that also writes it all down, plus, with her exhaustive memory of all the major foreign policy failures of the last ten years, sidetrips and bad adventures in constitution shredding enterprises, like the torture record, which she had written about nearly daily for years just to keep up and make sure it was reported on, and in such a degree of detail unmatched anywhere, really, just makes the crap on tv look like shit throwing monkeys. She is so totally expert, I learn from her just trying to understand the implications of what she's saying in plain-as-day english + her twitter is great fun most every day. but yuck
- Or, from seven years ago, one can also see a pattern of the FBI listening as or similar to as was done prior to May 15, 2006, but then it was AT&T. yuck
- Onion Network says last month that Brad Pitt grows out forehead hair: that just got really funny overnight after news of Jolie's double mastectomy to avoid cancer
Monday, May 13, 2013
'Ghost' Scares Bishop Away From Chioggia: Sanudo Diaries: May 12-14, 1519
Europe in the Renaissance was full of superstition. Though they didn't see it that way and, maybe, we shouldn't either. But what else should we call the close associations that many people had between certain signs, portents, natural wonders and divine intervention? After all, their world was full of such stuff that people couldn't explain through normal means. Like ours. We seem to both want to belive in the 'authorities' and also need to question them. Sometimes, we just discount what they say when they articulate something we hadn't quite thought of in that way, or, simply said in an unexpected way. They, like us, too often, have to explain and put their ignorance to use somewhere. People then, the Editors of Sanudo tell us, saw saints with candles in the sky, or battles of armies there, or the figure of the cross on the moon. Or, like Steven Runciman tells us, they saw the devout in prayer, literally, pass through the walls of the Hagia Sophia, (shortly before the city was taken in 1453) and then, simply disappeared. Comets were interpreted as a divine blessing, or reminders for people to pray for universal peace. The heavens seemed as confusing a place as it was on dry land. Venice was no different on the water. And this is the same point in time that Moctezuma, half a world away was wanting to use magicians and wizards to somehow counter the arrival of the Spaniards. Venice remained,
Editor's note: "... a society in which religion and superstition, credence and skepticism, respect for the clergy and anticlericalism coexisted, as the following tale about "spirits" in Chioggia illustrates."
Editor's footnote: "Chioggia was the site of the southernmost mouth between the lagoon and the Adriatic, an important strategic city of the Veneto." p. 399
Sanudo Diaries: May 12, 1519 (27:267-68); "Thursday. In the morning, the reverend don Bernardin Venier de Pyran [sic], bishop of Chioza, came to the Collegio. Seated next to the doge, he talked about a certain spirit who had appeared there in Chioza. For several days the news of this has already been bruited about in the city. But I did not want to record it until I better understood the matter...." [p. 399]
The bishop explained there had been a visiting Observant Franciscan friar who strongly warned people to 'amend their sinful lives.' Then, after the priests went to bed, there occurred a knocking sound in the bishop's residence, under a bed where a number of priests slept. This went on for several days and they couldn't figure out what it was. But after praying about it a good while they decided to try asking it questions. When they seized on asking if it were coming with good news, and it did not knock, they thought they were learning something. But when asked if it brought bad news, it knocked. Then after a process of elimination, they learned that there would be high water in Chioggia, in May, enough to flood, but not Venice. Further questions and knocking even told them that the flood would come on the fifteenth of that month and at the eighth hour, following a storm that was to come on Monday. [p. 400]
Sanudo Diaries: May 12, 1519 (27:267-68); "This story was heard by many persons - the chancellor of the city government, the doctor, and others. But the bishop himself did not wish to go....".
The priests asked the knocking spirit if they should tell the bishop and then asked the spirit to make some sign to convince the bishop of its existence. It did by squeezing the bishop's nose which gave him quite a scare. They tried to see if it was all a trick, taking apart the bed where the knocking came from. But it knocked again in the night.
Sanudo Diaries: May 12, 1519 (27:267-68); "And so all of Chioza was in a panic. And it seems that Our Lord God is doing this because of four sins: blasphemy, incest, sacrilege, and sodomy.
Twice each morning, the bishop has led procesions intoning the litanies. Many women in Chioza have miscarried from fright. Prayers and fasts have been ordered. The bishop has asked the nuns of San Francesco di la Croxe, here in Venice, to pray. In this convent the bishop has a sister, who has let him know that God revealed to her that this event will take place, and she asked him to leave Chioza. Therefore, it seemed best to him to come to relate such an important matter to the Signoria in the full Collegio."
The podesta said he would go to test the spirit and that they would try to hear the spirit but 'doubtless will hear nothing.' But there was concern that the city of Chioggia would empty out which would cause other problems (27:271-2). There was an effort to get the bishop to return to Chioggia and calm his flock, but he refused from fear. [p. 401]
Sanudo himself (May 13, 1519; 27:278-79) questioned the bishop who had come to answer for himself at the Council of Ten. It was again told that Chioggia would be flooded with 'twenty-four feet of water for its sins' but still, only ten people had come forward to confess. The bishop said they could put him in prison but he would not return to Chioggia until after Sunday. [p. 402]
By May 14, the entire thing turned out to be a hoax as "... a priest, under threat of torture confessed." The city, the Ten, even the bishop was happy to hear it was all resolved but he would not return to Chioggia, "afraid of the people".
Editor's note: ""A very ridiculous affair...," concluded Sanudo, "and one hears nothing more about that thing which was so much discussed" (May 14, 23, 1519; (27:298-99, 320)." [p. 402]
__________________________________________________
All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll, editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
Editor's note: "... a society in which religion and superstition, credence and skepticism, respect for the clergy and anticlericalism coexisted, as the following tale about "spirits" in Chioggia illustrates."
Editor's footnote: "Chioggia was the site of the southernmost mouth between the lagoon and the Adriatic, an important strategic city of the Veneto." p. 399
Sanudo Diaries: May 12, 1519 (27:267-68); "Thursday. In the morning, the reverend don Bernardin Venier de Pyran [sic], bishop of Chioza, came to the Collegio. Seated next to the doge, he talked about a certain spirit who had appeared there in Chioza. For several days the news of this has already been bruited about in the city. But I did not want to record it until I better understood the matter...." [p. 399]
The bishop explained there had been a visiting Observant Franciscan friar who strongly warned people to 'amend their sinful lives.' Then, after the priests went to bed, there occurred a knocking sound in the bishop's residence, under a bed where a number of priests slept. This went on for several days and they couldn't figure out what it was. But after praying about it a good while they decided to try asking it questions. When they seized on asking if it were coming with good news, and it did not knock, they thought they were learning something. But when asked if it brought bad news, it knocked. Then after a process of elimination, they learned that there would be high water in Chioggia, in May, enough to flood, but not Venice. Further questions and knocking even told them that the flood would come on the fifteenth of that month and at the eighth hour, following a storm that was to come on Monday. [p. 400]
Sanudo Diaries: May 12, 1519 (27:267-68); "This story was heard by many persons - the chancellor of the city government, the doctor, and others. But the bishop himself did not wish to go....".
The priests asked the knocking spirit if they should tell the bishop and then asked the spirit to make some sign to convince the bishop of its existence. It did by squeezing the bishop's nose which gave him quite a scare. They tried to see if it was all a trick, taking apart the bed where the knocking came from. But it knocked again in the night.
Sanudo Diaries: May 12, 1519 (27:267-68); "And so all of Chioza was in a panic. And it seems that Our Lord God is doing this because of four sins: blasphemy, incest, sacrilege, and sodomy.
Twice each morning, the bishop has led procesions intoning the litanies. Many women in Chioza have miscarried from fright. Prayers and fasts have been ordered. The bishop has asked the nuns of San Francesco di la Croxe, here in Venice, to pray. In this convent the bishop has a sister, who has let him know that God revealed to her that this event will take place, and she asked him to leave Chioza. Therefore, it seemed best to him to come to relate such an important matter to the Signoria in the full Collegio."
The podesta said he would go to test the spirit and that they would try to hear the spirit but 'doubtless will hear nothing.' But there was concern that the city of Chioggia would empty out which would cause other problems (27:271-2). There was an effort to get the bishop to return to Chioggia and calm his flock, but he refused from fear. [p. 401]
Sanudo himself (May 13, 1519; 27:278-79) questioned the bishop who had come to answer for himself at the Council of Ten. It was again told that Chioggia would be flooded with 'twenty-four feet of water for its sins' but still, only ten people had come forward to confess. The bishop said they could put him in prison but he would not return to Chioggia until after Sunday. [p. 402]
By May 14, the entire thing turned out to be a hoax as "... a priest, under threat of torture confessed." The city, the Ten, even the bishop was happy to hear it was all resolved but he would not return to Chioggia, "afraid of the people".
Editor's note: ""A very ridiculous affair...," concluded Sanudo, "and one hears nothing more about that thing which was so much discussed" (May 14, 23, 1519; (27:298-99, 320)." [p. 402]
__________________________________________________
All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll, editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
Thursday, May 9, 2013
news from early May 2013
It seems that it's been a terribly busy week. But it's only Thursday?
Let me write these down,
Mount Popocatepetl in central Mexico erupted sending ash into the sky. Recent activity starting in December 2012 will likely continue. Amidst hand-wringing and continued daily carnage all over Syria - not to mention the million refugees bursting Jordan at the seams, the continued reports of mass violence in northern Nigeria, the still rising death toll - now surpassing 1000 - in the factory collapse in Bangladesh, the almost daily news of children being shot by accident and by other children here in the US, makes my head feel dizzy, unmoored. As Wall Street reaches new heights. Some act like the Benghazi fallout is an e-ticket at Disneyland: but they don't know that the evidence pile "has to be THIS HIGH", or you don't get to go on that ride. There are glimmers of what could have been good news in the market, if it had hppened a couple years ago. So I turn from all that to look at my bank statement to pay my bills, get some clean clothes out of the dryer and put a measured spoon of sugar in my coffee. And no worries, I watch Late Night w/ Jimmy Fallon and his show (do yourself a favor and watch Steve Martin punch out death) and Stewart's show still makes me laugh. And then I feel better.
Yves Smith said last Friday that Jamie Dimon was on the hot seat over Morgan failures and frauds. The pressure has lasted all week.
CA AG Harris has decided to sue JP Morgan and the Feds say there is more coming. Even Jon Stewart on the Daily Show took time to talk about the housing crisis.
Fresh Air looks at why financial reform this time takes so long to implement.
An excellent and pretty quick update, recap and discussion of housing situation on the chris hayes show ~ 20 min video.
Here is a further eight min video interview with NY AG Schneidermann on the new separate lawsuit against the big banks.
With garment workers and global economies in mind, Planet Money is still selling t-shirts via kickstarter, til May 14! Of course it's about Cotton and garment factories and international disputes and how the US pays Brazil to overlook how we subsidize domestic cotton growers. Want it to have a QR code? The story has wings!
Ever wonder why DumDum lollipops are everywhere? Planet Money presents Lollipop wars! Feds subsidize sugar industry, too!
IRS opens cases based on a huge trove of offshore account data
And in different news a bit of discussion on the newly proposed internet sales tax bill currently in committee in the House.
Despite evidence of failure of Rogoff and Reinhart paper, the ideology pushing austerity cuts continues to retard economic progress. video 14 min
The House did propose to gut derivative regulations again and passed a bill 'allowing' employers to offer time off instead of overtime. It's not likely to pass the Senate, either.
Let me write these down,
Mount Popocatepetl in central Mexico erupted sending ash into the sky. Recent activity starting in December 2012 will likely continue. Amidst hand-wringing and continued daily carnage all over Syria - not to mention the million refugees bursting Jordan at the seams, the continued reports of mass violence in northern Nigeria, the still rising death toll - now surpassing 1000 - in the factory collapse in Bangladesh, the almost daily news of children being shot by accident and by other children here in the US, makes my head feel dizzy, unmoored. As Wall Street reaches new heights. Some act like the Benghazi fallout is an e-ticket at Disneyland: but they don't know that the evidence pile "has to be THIS HIGH", or you don't get to go on that ride. There are glimmers of what could have been good news in the market, if it had hppened a couple years ago. So I turn from all that to look at my bank statement to pay my bills, get some clean clothes out of the dryer and put a measured spoon of sugar in my coffee. And no worries, I watch Late Night w/ Jimmy Fallon and his show (do yourself a favor and watch Steve Martin punch out death) and Stewart's show still makes me laugh. And then I feel better.
Yves Smith said last Friday that Jamie Dimon was on the hot seat over Morgan failures and frauds. The pressure has lasted all week.
CA AG Harris has decided to sue JP Morgan and the Feds say there is more coming. Even Jon Stewart on the Daily Show took time to talk about the housing crisis.
Fresh Air looks at why financial reform this time takes so long to implement.
An excellent and pretty quick update, recap and discussion of housing situation on the chris hayes show ~ 20 min video.
Here is a further eight min video interview with NY AG Schneidermann on the new separate lawsuit against the big banks.
With garment workers and global economies in mind, Planet Money is still selling t-shirts via kickstarter, til May 14! Of course it's about Cotton and garment factories and international disputes and how the US pays Brazil to overlook how we subsidize domestic cotton growers. Want it to have a QR code? The story has wings!
Ever wonder why DumDum lollipops are everywhere? Planet Money presents Lollipop wars! Feds subsidize sugar industry, too!
IRS opens cases based on a huge trove of offshore account data
And in different news a bit of discussion on the newly proposed internet sales tax bill currently in committee in the House.
Despite evidence of failure of Rogoff and Reinhart paper, the ideology pushing austerity cuts continues to retard economic progress. video 14 min
The House did propose to gut derivative regulations again and passed a bill 'allowing' employers to offer time off instead of overtime. It's not likely to pass the Senate, either.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
"Pay The Fine": Countering Ostentatious Displays Of Wealth: Sanudo Diaries: May 8, 1529
Sumptuary laws were a regular concern for many mercantile communities and remained a concern in varieties of ways over centuries. In Venice there were reasons the city leaders did not want ostentatious displays of wealth in such a close packed city. Not even in clothing, jewelery, or, for silver, even served at table for official dinners or parties. The sight of wealth could turn good men into bad. The show of a gift could elicit responses that made people or, some people felt, could lead people to do terrible things. A sign of wealth could serve as a taunt, as a goad toward jealousy, even anger, pricking the good conscience away from humility or servitude, obedience. Economic crazes could and did sprout from the import of new foreign textiles, for instance, and a government like that of Venice could see a quick profit from a sumptuary tax based on a specific item or other. Sumptuary laws and fines, as well were often leveled against certain groups or classes in order to enable differentiation by sight and show distinctions in the social order.
Today in the west we don't have sumptuary laws. The word 'sumptuary', as I write this, is even unrecognized by the spell checker. It suggests, 'statuary'. The word 'sumptuous' is common enough as an adjective, but is just another descriptive for 'plentiful' or 'rich'. Perhaps as in a sumptuous banquet. I wonder if this word isn't used commonly today because people don't talk about class and differences between class. It used to be very important. But today, for at least a generation, t-shirts and jeans are the everyday wear of everyone. Even in public. That's what Mitt Romney was wearing in that video last year during the presidential campaign when he was pouring laundry soap into a washer. Showing he could be a regular guy, even if that was a collared shirt he was wearing. Definitely dressing down.
When Hollywood celebrities appear on the red carpet before an award ceremony, for example, for the cameras, they will often tell you: the gowns, the jewelery, the suits, shoes are all rented. Usually. Nobody really wears that stuff, but I'm sure they can pay a high price for what they do wear. In the days of the Italian Renaissance, ways were found to demostrate someone's working status or their personal power and authority, in other ways. A color in a cape or hood, a simple pin, the color of a bag, the sort of hat worn, the kind of horse you rode, the size of the retinue that kept up, all could signify various placement. As economics or laws changed, so did tastes and what could be allowed or forbidden.
The Editors of Marin Sanudo's diaries for English tell us that sometimes laws were enacted "... in an effort to keep wealth from being taken out of circulation through such expenditures." A law was pased in 1511, they tell us, that repeated many prohibitions first set down decades before, despite their apparent ineffectiveness. Enforcement seemed a big problem. [p. 305]
And women continued to ignore these laws.
Sanudo Diaries: May 8, 1529 (50:305): "Many laws have been enacted at many times by this council concerning the clothing styles of the men and women and boys and girls of this city, as may be seen by the contents of those laws. The wearing of chains and pearls having been forbidden as a way of avoiding excessive expense, it appears that the women of this city with new ingenuity have devised a substitute for chains of gold and pearls. They wear chains, belts, and necklaces and such like decorated with alabaster, crystal, lapis lazuli, carnelian, green quartz, mother-of-pearl, quartz, jasper, agates, porcelain, rock crystal, and every other kind of pastiche and, similarly, embroidery and filigree. People pay thirty, forty, fifty, and one hundred ducats for such things, and yet their resale value is barely four to six ducats or even less, which causes terrible damage and loss to this glorious city and is completely contrary to the holy intentions of this most illustrious Senate. Therefore:
There will be a new law that all of the additional aforementioned women's ornaments will be completely prohibited, and they may neither be made nor worn. But because it is fitting that women wear something around their necks, which will be of little expense and harm, the recent proclamation of this body notwithstanding, they are permitted to wear around the neck and on no other part of the body one gold chain or small gold chain worth forty ducats or less, including the expense for manufacturing it, which cannot exceed five ducats. No other ornament may be worn but the chain or small chain of the value described above. These chains or small chains may not be worn until they have been stamped by our sumptuary office; by law this stamp will be given without any emolument whatsoever; transgressors will be condemned to whatever penalty the sumptuary office will decide upon. Additionally, no woman may use as a belt any object ornamented with more than handiwork made with woven silk."
Editor's note: "For all its determinations, this was not to be the last sumptuary law. Luxurious dress and objects continued to circulate and be esteemed by those who could afford them, a group not limited to the patrician class. Pagar le pompe, "paying the sumptuary fines," became so proverbial an expression that it has been suggested that such laws and fines were intended as a form of supplementary taxation on wealth, with those able to afford the tax entitled to display their luxurious possessions." [p. 308-9]
Listed in a footnote here, is a reference to a 2000 article by Jane Bridgeman," "Pagar le pompe": why quattrocento sumptuary laws did not work." In Women In Italian Renaissance culture and society, ed. Letizia Panizza, 209-26. Oxford: Legenda, European Humanities Research Center, University of Oxford.
_________________________________________________
All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll, editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
Today in the west we don't have sumptuary laws. The word 'sumptuary', as I write this, is even unrecognized by the spell checker. It suggests, 'statuary'. The word 'sumptuous' is common enough as an adjective, but is just another descriptive for 'plentiful' or 'rich'. Perhaps as in a sumptuous banquet. I wonder if this word isn't used commonly today because people don't talk about class and differences between class. It used to be very important. But today, for at least a generation, t-shirts and jeans are the everyday wear of everyone. Even in public. That's what Mitt Romney was wearing in that video last year during the presidential campaign when he was pouring laundry soap into a washer. Showing he could be a regular guy, even if that was a collared shirt he was wearing. Definitely dressing down.
When Hollywood celebrities appear on the red carpet before an award ceremony, for example, for the cameras, they will often tell you: the gowns, the jewelery, the suits, shoes are all rented. Usually. Nobody really wears that stuff, but I'm sure they can pay a high price for what they do wear. In the days of the Italian Renaissance, ways were found to demostrate someone's working status or their personal power and authority, in other ways. A color in a cape or hood, a simple pin, the color of a bag, the sort of hat worn, the kind of horse you rode, the size of the retinue that kept up, all could signify various placement. As economics or laws changed, so did tastes and what could be allowed or forbidden.
The Editors of Marin Sanudo's diaries for English tell us that sometimes laws were enacted "... in an effort to keep wealth from being taken out of circulation through such expenditures." A law was pased in 1511, they tell us, that repeated many prohibitions first set down decades before, despite their apparent ineffectiveness. Enforcement seemed a big problem. [p. 305]
And women continued to ignore these laws.
Sanudo Diaries: May 8, 1529 (50:305): "Many laws have been enacted at many times by this council concerning the clothing styles of the men and women and boys and girls of this city, as may be seen by the contents of those laws. The wearing of chains and pearls having been forbidden as a way of avoiding excessive expense, it appears that the women of this city with new ingenuity have devised a substitute for chains of gold and pearls. They wear chains, belts, and necklaces and such like decorated with alabaster, crystal, lapis lazuli, carnelian, green quartz, mother-of-pearl, quartz, jasper, agates, porcelain, rock crystal, and every other kind of pastiche and, similarly, embroidery and filigree. People pay thirty, forty, fifty, and one hundred ducats for such things, and yet their resale value is barely four to six ducats or even less, which causes terrible damage and loss to this glorious city and is completely contrary to the holy intentions of this most illustrious Senate. Therefore:
There will be a new law that all of the additional aforementioned women's ornaments will be completely prohibited, and they may neither be made nor worn. But because it is fitting that women wear something around their necks, which will be of little expense and harm, the recent proclamation of this body notwithstanding, they are permitted to wear around the neck and on no other part of the body one gold chain or small gold chain worth forty ducats or less, including the expense for manufacturing it, which cannot exceed five ducats. No other ornament may be worn but the chain or small chain of the value described above. These chains or small chains may not be worn until they have been stamped by our sumptuary office; by law this stamp will be given without any emolument whatsoever; transgressors will be condemned to whatever penalty the sumptuary office will decide upon. Additionally, no woman may use as a belt any object ornamented with more than handiwork made with woven silk."
Editor's note: "For all its determinations, this was not to be the last sumptuary law. Luxurious dress and objects continued to circulate and be esteemed by those who could afford them, a group not limited to the patrician class. Pagar le pompe, "paying the sumptuary fines," became so proverbial an expression that it has been suggested that such laws and fines were intended as a form of supplementary taxation on wealth, with those able to afford the tax entitled to display their luxurious possessions." [p. 308-9]
Listed in a footnote here, is a reference to a 2000 article by Jane Bridgeman," "Pagar le pompe": why quattrocento sumptuary laws did not work." In Women In Italian Renaissance culture and society, ed. Letizia Panizza, 209-26. Oxford: Legenda, European Humanities Research Center, University of Oxford.
_________________________________________________
All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll, editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Responses To Sermon On Visitation Day, Nicklashausen, 1476
On the second of July, 1476, Hans Behem spoke at length to a huge crowd. It was estimated, between ten to thirty thousand people.
This is how Richard Wunderli introduces the setting of a sort of sermon given in Niklashausen on the occasion of the Feast of the Visitation of Mary. The Feast itself, he explains, was a fairly new addition to the liturgical calendar. It celebrated the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, when both the mothers were pregnant. John is said to have leapt for joy in the womb when Mary greeted Elizabeth. In 1444, the Council of Basel had assigned the date to celebrate this arrival, as the beginning of a new era. When the old era was over and the Holy Spirit, itself, informed the world, anew. This was a rather new Franciscan interpretation where, as Wunderli tells us, "... the old days of bondage in sin and misery would end and a new age of spiritual liberation would begin." [p.92]
The followers thought Hans was specially chosen to impart the wisdom of Mary. He might be able to depart some kind of divine care, to heal them, to bestow grace. But we know about this story because of the words gathered by the spies. These were people who were sent for the purpose of reporting back anything that might be heretical or spoke against the church, or blasphemed. And that is what was delivered. Witnesses reported these - not quite twenty - sentences to the authorities and these, then were notarized and sent out all over the whole south German region by those authorities, to other church and secular authorities. [p.113]
In his artful way, Wunderli takes these nineteen sentences which are both condemning and also, attributed to the Drummer and produces a sermon out of them. He uses typical forms of preaching addresses of the time, acknowledging this may not have been Behem's method, but organizes the sentences as topics that the Drummer may have expanded on in ways his audience would likely understand. And then, mostly, explains his choices for doing so. So, he constructs a possible oration based on and including words used to later condemn him. [pp. 93-101]
By the Fourth of July, the town council of nearby Nürnberg had prohibited its people from joining the pilgrimage. On the Fifth, an Elector Ludwig of Bavaria issued a 'form letter' recounting recent events and forbidding his subjects from joining in. It refers to "a report from a trustworthy person" saying that any claims to miracles were false. That the 'excellent doctors of church canon at Ingolstadt' had determined the 'pilgrimage was the product of the simpleminded and had no power or authority to preach'. But, it went on, 'if we don't stop and contain it, evil will sweep over the land'. Further prohibitions spread in cities and principalities over the next several weeks. [pp. 113-4]
Hans Behem continued to speak, though he seemed to know the authorities were closing in. On July 7, he told his followers they should return next time, on the Feast of Margaret without women and children and instead, to be armed. [p. 114]
Another witness, a clergyman, in another town, Eichstätt, to the south of Niklashausen, wrote a letter to an unknown recipient. His description included testimony of others, Dominican friars who called the hordes of people youths, mostly, but that no one could stop them. The story of thousands of people rushing through town, on their way to hear The Drummer. Groups of a hundred entering and singing their songs in the local cathedral. Standoffs with local officials. Tense days full of masses of people believing all goods should be held in common, singing, probably stealing and moving on. [pp. 107-113]
from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
"The crowds were so large that he had to preach from a roof window overlooking the village square. How Hans could be heard by all is an interesting question, but one without an answer.
In the crowd were certain men who made a point to hear Hans. They were spies sent by the authorities of Würzburg and Mainz to note what the Drummer said, at least those statements that could be used against him." [p. 93]
This is how Richard Wunderli introduces the setting of a sort of sermon given in Niklashausen on the occasion of the Feast of the Visitation of Mary. The Feast itself, he explains, was a fairly new addition to the liturgical calendar. It celebrated the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, when both the mothers were pregnant. John is said to have leapt for joy in the womb when Mary greeted Elizabeth. In 1444, the Council of Basel had assigned the date to celebrate this arrival, as the beginning of a new era. When the old era was over and the Holy Spirit, itself, informed the world, anew. This was a rather new Franciscan interpretation where, as Wunderli tells us, "... the old days of bondage in sin and misery would end and a new age of spiritual liberation would begin." [p.92]
The followers thought Hans was specially chosen to impart the wisdom of Mary. He might be able to depart some kind of divine care, to heal them, to bestow grace. But we know about this story because of the words gathered by the spies. These were people who were sent for the purpose of reporting back anything that might be heretical or spoke against the church, or blasphemed. And that is what was delivered. Witnesses reported these - not quite twenty - sentences to the authorities and these, then were notarized and sent out all over the whole south German region by those authorities, to other church and secular authorities. [p.113]
In his artful way, Wunderli takes these nineteen sentences which are both condemning and also, attributed to the Drummer and produces a sermon out of them. He uses typical forms of preaching addresses of the time, acknowledging this may not have been Behem's method, but organizes the sentences as topics that the Drummer may have expanded on in ways his audience would likely understand. And then, mostly, explains his choices for doing so. So, he constructs a possible oration based on and including words used to later condemn him. [pp. 93-101]
By the Fourth of July, the town council of nearby Nürnberg had prohibited its people from joining the pilgrimage. On the Fifth, an Elector Ludwig of Bavaria issued a 'form letter' recounting recent events and forbidding his subjects from joining in. It refers to "a report from a trustworthy person" saying that any claims to miracles were false. That the 'excellent doctors of church canon at Ingolstadt' had determined the 'pilgrimage was the product of the simpleminded and had no power or authority to preach'. But, it went on, 'if we don't stop and contain it, evil will sweep over the land'. Further prohibitions spread in cities and principalities over the next several weeks. [pp. 113-4]
Hans Behem continued to speak, though he seemed to know the authorities were closing in. On July 7, he told his followers they should return next time, on the Feast of Margaret without women and children and instead, to be armed. [p. 114]
Another witness, a clergyman, in another town, Eichstätt, to the south of Niklashausen, wrote a letter to an unknown recipient. His description included testimony of others, Dominican friars who called the hordes of people youths, mostly, but that no one could stop them. The story of thousands of people rushing through town, on their way to hear The Drummer. Groups of a hundred entering and singing their songs in the local cathedral. Standoffs with local officials. Tense days full of masses of people believing all goods should be held in common, singing, probably stealing and moving on. [pp. 107-113]
from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Water Torture Inflicted On A Conversa: April 29, May 5, 1494
This post describes in part, some of how water torture was inflicted on people that officials of the Spanish Inquisition believed might have information that could further cases. Torture is disturbing and illegal. Today, evidence gleaned from it cannot, by law, be used in court. Despite this, some still want to pursue this means as a tactic in war. Again, it is disturbing and to me, something very much an evil practice and I don't linger on it. But describing the process gives a window into it's methods and thus a bigger picture of the Spanish Inquisition in those times. If you don't want to know about it, don't read it.
On April 18, 1494, six consultadores voted on the fate of Marina González. Four of them voted to declare her a relapsed heretic and have her undergo the water torture since she might give up the names of others. Two of them voted for water torture and that if she did not confess, her innocence should be proven with compurgation. Our editor tells us in a footnote that this was a process where a set number of witnesses, chosen by the defendant would be allowed to swear that she instead, was a good Christian, innocent of heresy.
Eleven days later, she was given the water torture. This consisted of being strapped down, with a cord around her neck to force her head back, and water was then poured over the mouth and nose. In small doses at first. At first, though they asked her to confess. Then they told her that
This continued with greater amounts of water and the accused continued not to speak. Finally she said she would speak and was let up and then she refused again. After a great bit of this, at last, she was let up, removed from the torture, and she did speak. She said her neighbor fasted and named her. They asked which fasts, Jewish or Christian and why she believed this. She replied they were Jewish fasts and as her neighbor she could notice that she had observed these fasts on Saturdays. When she was asked if the neighbor spoke to her, she said she had not and that it had happened "... perhaps a year ago, more or less...." [p. 46]
Dated May 5, 1494-
On April 18, 1494, six consultadores voted on the fate of Marina González. Four of them voted to declare her a relapsed heretic and have her undergo the water torture since she might give up the names of others. Two of them voted for water torture and that if she did not confess, her innocence should be proven with compurgation. Our editor tells us in a footnote that this was a process where a set number of witnesses, chosen by the defendant would be allowed to swear that she instead, was a good Christian, innocent of heresy.
Eleven days later, she was given the water torture. This consisted of being strapped down, with a cord around her neck to force her head back, and water was then poured over the mouth and nose. In small doses at first. At first, though they asked her to confess. Then they told her that
"... if during the torture some evil, damage, wound, or death occurred to her, it would be her fault and not theirs. They asked again for testimony...." [p. 45]
This continued with greater amounts of water and the accused continued not to speak. Finally she said she would speak and was let up and then she refused again. After a great bit of this, at last, she was let up, removed from the torture, and she did speak. She said her neighbor fasted and named her. They asked which fasts, Jewish or Christian and why she believed this. She replied they were Jewish fasts and as her neighbor she could notice that she had observed these fasts on Saturdays. When she was asked if the neighbor spoke to her, she said she had not and that it had happened "... perhaps a year ago, more or less...." [p. 46]
Dated May 5, 1494-
"After the above, when the lord inquisitors were in their customary hearing, they pronounced sentence in the presence of Marina González:
Having seen and diligently examined this case pending before us, between the chief prosecutor , who is the accuser, and Marina González, a reconciled conversa, we must declare that the chief prosecutor has not completely proven his intention. But inasmuch as the chief's prosecutor proof results in a vehement suspicion against Marina González, we must invoke canonical compurgation. We order that her case be proven canonically with eight witnesses who are trustworthy and zealous in the faith. Which we order within the next nine days. And thus we pronounce our sentence, etc. Winesses: Pedro Gonzáalez the Flat-Nosed and Juan de Castro, notary." [p. 46]______________________________________________________
quotes entirely from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Montezuma First Learns Of The Strangers
The story set down in the Florentine Codex describing the return of the messengers from the Spaniards and Moctezuma's reactions is very famous and virtually uncontested. What is there for evidence to contradict it? As I said before these were collected by one Bernardino de Sahagún a missionary-ethnographer c. 1555 who put these into Book 12 of what is now called the Florentine Codex. These were then selected and printed in a twentieth-century collection of inhabitant re-tellings called The Broken Spears.
But as it was set down, when the messengers returned, Moctezuma told his servants to tell them to meet him at the House of the Serpent where he then went and ordered the ritual slaughter of two captives...
The messengers told him, their clothes and arms and helmets, swords, bows, shields and spears were iron. That they had deer as tall as a roof of a house, that carried them on their backs. Only their faces can be seen but their skin is white - "as if made of lime" and their plentiful beard, and mustache hair is yellow, curly and fine. Their food large and white and lightweight, and tasted like the pith of a cornstalk and sweet, like honey. Their dogs were enormous, spotted, tongues hanging out, ears dangling and their eyes were yellow and "flash fire and shoot off sparks".
After this, he sent out his most gifted men. Warriors, prophets and the magicians. He sent them captives to be sacrificed, thinking this might placate them. But those Spaniards who saw this, it is said. turned away in revulsion, wiped away tears and spat at the ground. The strangers would not eat food that was sprinkled with the blood of captive sacrifices, "... because it reeked of it; it sickened them, as if the blood had rotted." [page thirty-three]
Those sent to eyewitness the Spaniards were instructed to learn about them but to try any device that might trick them, change the wind against them that they might break out in sores, grow sick or die. Even using incantation. Nothing worked. When he heard this it was ordered that everyone had to act, on pain of death to provide everything possible to the new arrivals. It was their job '... to learn what the strangers needed and to provide it." [page thirty-four]
_________________________________________________________
All quotes from The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.
Just this week we have new discoveries about the ancient inhabitants from deep under Teotihuacan in subterranean passageways where it is already presumed ancient rituals were performed.
Another discovery in the Vatican has shown perhaps the earliest known depiction by westerners of Native Americans. In the old quarters of the Borgia palace has been found a Pinturrichio mural dating from about 1494 that was recently cleaned. This area of the papal chambers was closed off for nearly four hundred years, in the wake of the many scandals of the papacy of Alexander VI. His was a story I wanted to explore at length.
But as it was set down, when the messengers returned, Moctezuma told his servants to tell them to meet him at the House of the Serpent where he then went and ordered the ritual slaughter of two captives...
"... before his eyes: their breasts were tore open, and the messengers were sprinkled with their blood. This was done because the messengers had completed a difficult mission: they had seen the gods, their eyes had looked on their faces. They had even conversed with the gods!
When the sacrifice was finished, the messengers reported to the king. They told him how they had made the journey, and what they had seen, and what food the strangers ate. Motecuhzoma was astonished and terrified by their report, and the description of the strangers' food astonished him above all else.
He was also terrified to learn how the cannon roared, how its noise resounded, how it caused one to faint and grow deaf. The messengers told him: "A thing like a ball of stone comes out of its entrails: it comes out shooting sparks and raining fire. The smoke that comes out has a pestilent odor, like that of rotten mud. This odor penetrates even to the brain and causes the greatest discomfort. If the cannon is aimed against a mountain, the mountain splits and cracks open. If it is aimed against a tree, it shatters the tree into splinters. This is a most unnatural sight, as if the tree had exploded from within." [pages twenty-nine -- thirty]
The messengers told him, their clothes and arms and helmets, swords, bows, shields and spears were iron. That they had deer as tall as a roof of a house, that carried them on their backs. Only their faces can be seen but their skin is white - "as if made of lime" and their plentiful beard, and mustache hair is yellow, curly and fine. Their food large and white and lightweight, and tasted like the pith of a cornstalk and sweet, like honey. Their dogs were enormous, spotted, tongues hanging out, ears dangling and their eyes were yellow and "flash fire and shoot off sparks".
"When Motecuhzoma heard this report, he was filled with terror. It was as if his heart had fainted, as if it had shriveled. It was as if he were conquered by despair." [page thirty-one]
After this, he sent out his most gifted men. Warriors, prophets and the magicians. He sent them captives to be sacrificed, thinking this might placate them. But those Spaniards who saw this, it is said. turned away in revulsion, wiped away tears and spat at the ground. The strangers would not eat food that was sprinkled with the blood of captive sacrifices, "... because it reeked of it; it sickened them, as if the blood had rotted." [page thirty-three]
"Motecuhzoma ordered the sacrifices because he took the Spaniards to be gods; he believed in them and worshipped them as deities. That is why they were called "Gods who have come from heaven." [pages thirty-three -- thirty-four]
Those sent to eyewitness the Spaniards were instructed to learn about them but to try any device that might trick them, change the wind against them that they might break out in sores, grow sick or die. Even using incantation. Nothing worked. When he heard this it was ordered that everyone had to act, on pain of death to provide everything possible to the new arrivals. It was their job '... to learn what the strangers needed and to provide it." [page thirty-four]
_________________________________________________________
All quotes from The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.
Just this week we have new discoveries about the ancient inhabitants from deep under Teotihuacan in subterranean passageways where it is already presumed ancient rituals were performed.
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