Imperial Diet of 1495 Bogs Down In Deliberation

It is one of those apparent ironies of history that while Emperor Maximilian deliberated with his princes during the diet of Worms, French King Charles VIII was leaving Naples. Maximilian had wanted to raise funds to build an army and take them over the Alps to drive the French from Italy. The assembled members of the meeting that lasted through the spring of 1495 not only did not agree with Max but wanted something very different from him.

As Thomas A Brady tells us in his German Histories In The Age of Reformations the Diet proposed creating an executive council that was centered in Frankfurt, had an annual budget, could raise armies and negotiate directly with the Roman Curia. The Emperor knew this would not only lessen his own power but create an entire new structure outside his overseeing control and away from his direct holdings.

It was on May 23, 1495 that the royal council told those assembled that such a body might exist only in the event of an Imperial absence, as in a war against the Ottomans. If this were the case, the Emperor himself would appoint its members and structures. This was not to the council's liking.

They also had asked for a Perpetual Public Peace in German lands, a supreme judicial body jointly staffed, an entire police system to maintain the peace, and a direct public tax on all Imperial subjects. Of these, only the tax was eventually accepted and which came to be called the Common Penny.

"Several treasurers were appointed, headquartered at Frankfurt, and, there being no Imperial local officials, parish priets were saddled with the task of collecting moneys at the local level." [p. 117]

Over four years, only six percent of the originally projected sum of two million gulden were collected. A third of this Brady says was collected by the treasurers and about one-tenth came from the princes. Some forty to nearly sixty percent of this Common Penny came from the Emperor himself. The result was a political disaster. The clergy were hated for taking the taxes, the Imperial Council and any order it could manifest could not be established, and the Public Peace could not be found. The following year Maximillian would venture over the Alps on his march to Italy.

Maximillian had hoped to lead Prince Sigismund, as he wrote to him, and other princes with their little green tent, famous Swiss pikemen,and chamois, and beat the French back from Naples and save Christiandom. That too would end in disappointment. But all the while over the years, each of these would be announced as some form of victory, but each time the rhetoric rang hollow and far short of projections.
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quotes and pagination from: Thomas A Brady Jr: German Histories in The Age of Reformations, 1400-1650;  University of California, Berkeley for the Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2009

The Diet: A Deliberative Assembly In 15th Century German Lands

The process of German Imperial rule within German lands, as mentioned before, grew from a weak state, as a result of 'collaborations with the princes of the Diet,' as well as internal reorganizations and advances in the methods of state's business. For these collaborations, Thomas A Brady gives us his sketch of that process of growth. A few quotes from his German Histories in the Age of Reformations give a bird's-eye guide of the prevailing norms. First there was a call like that of Maximilian in early 1495.

"Estates consisted of a territory's notables constituted in a territorial diet. Long before princes began to hire lawyers... they recognized the need to get leading subject's consent to their principal actions.... and the multi-chambered diet became a standard feature of princely governance.

The estates met at the prince's call, supplied him with advice and money, pressed him for the relief of grievances, and demanded that law be made only after consultation." [p. 102]

These advising notables could be supportive or antagonistic. They could be rich or poor in resources, or available arms. They tended to be part of a broad social network which could include familial intermarriages and alliances and feuds. But they usually agreed to customary rules, including the recording of what transpired or what was agreed to at meetings.

"A Saxon document from this time affords a rare glimpse into how these bodies operated. In Electoral Saxony the prince "determines the day and place, the when and where he wants the diet to meet. He then sends out a general, written summons to his territorial estates -- prelates, counts, barons, knights, towns, and universities -- to appear personally." The prelates and counts appear in person or send proxies, the towns, depending on size, send two to four persons each and the districts send two to three nobles, each with full powers to present their grievances. Meanwhile, the prince "has his wishes and whatever else he wishes to propose formulated in a formal written proposition, on which his councilors deliberate as necessary and consider well each and every point."

The rider comes into any town or locality to deliver his message, the courier hands it off to the servant, and then, on to the particular noble, notable, cleric or dignitary. The call for a meeting is drafted and messengers sent out. Meetings convene with select people - as in Prussia's Landtag -  and propositions, decisions, conditions are discussed, agreed to or not. Messages drafted, proxies chosen, coached and, at the proper time, sent out to the gathering of the diet.

"On the appointed day, after the diet is assembled, the prince, flanked by his courtiers, councilors and servants, enters the hall and speaks to the assembly through a councilor. He commends their obedience to his summons, explains why he called them, orders the proposition read to them, and reminds them of their duty to be obedient."

Stressing obedience doesn't seem to the present day reader as stressing a position of strength or power by any prince. But apparently this was deemed necessary as well as customary in declaring the relations between prince and his subjects and proxies. Then deliberations would begin.

"The chambers deliberate separately on the proposition and prepare a common reply, to which, if he is dissatisfied, the prince responds by demanding more."

This back and forth could and did continue for days and weeks, months. But it was only after this assembly gave it's initial responses to the prince did the assembled members and representatives provide their list of grievances and requests.

"Now the estates present their grievances to be redressed before any aid is approved. When agreement on the money is reached, the estates are thanked, and the official record of the actions is read and signed. Finally, the estates "are also reminded to keep these matters secret, ... and so the whole thing comes to an end, having once again taken its proper course." [p.103]

The assemblies were usually about money. Over time, different sorts of assemblies in various locales would come up with local solutions, but in most places, the above pattern holds, Brady tells us. As time went on, he continues, it became clear that the local creditors, very interested in the prince paying what he owed them, were included in the diet. So these accumulating and eventually corporate forms attending a prince also became dependent on an increasing tax-base levied by that prince. In this way, money flowed up from the populace to a bishop or prince and then out to creditors and the growing institutions.

But this was not a result of central or absolutist plan. Maximilian would work hard to enable such a system and had only measured success with his ambitions. This was usually from lack of money.
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quotes and pagination from: Thomas A Brady Jr: German Histories in The Age of Reformations, 1400-1650;  University of California, Berkeley for the Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2009

File Under: The More Things Change.... : past May posts

Some old posts in May bring up common themes, both old and new.

Looking back on a kind of launching place. A look at the sea and Spain.

News in economics for 2012 looks about the same but with fewer wars. Here it is matched with a careful description of the theater of advocacy in Venice, May 1513.

Why finance reform can take years explained in an npr article from two years ago.

A couple views into the war in Syria two years ago.

Marin Sanudo mentions women and the stories he sets down on them, as a topic.

Sanudo gives a view into the start of the League of Cambrai War of 1509. Ambassadors receive news of the excommunication of Venice and fear for their lives May 8, 1509.

More economic counter arguments in the news in 2014. And as reported in Kansas too. And a clip explaining why the 'study' behind austerity measures in economics is faulty.

Interviews and pieces on surveillance and information  and making poverty criminal in 2014.

European elections took a turn to the right across Europe May 25, 2014.

the blur of painful news: mid May 2015

This is one of those weeks where it feels like the accumulation of events has been like balloons inflating, but under the skin. It is painful, as they inflate but even when they pop, as we know they must, it will be still more painful. And then all will have to heal. But meanwhile, the skin puffs up in another new place and then slowly inflates.

In Iraq the forces there lost the city of Ramadi to the insurgent Daesh. A few days later reports came in that they had seized ancient Palmyra in Syria. A city today of 150,000 and half of its inhabitants have fled.

ISIL reportedly takes full control of Syria's Palmyra http://t.co/hQcnkeoR5s pic.twitter.com/RSJOxmz2fO

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 20, 2015

This is a refugee camp in neighboring Jordan.

IMAGE: The Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, now equivalent to being the country's fourth largest city. pic.twitter.com/gmyOFMtkOK

— The Int. Spectator (@INTLSpectator) May 21, 2015

There has been much discussion this week about the Iraq war ousting Saddam Hussein. A pair of articles in the Atlantic offer modern takes on this and an interview with President Obama on what he sees for the Middle East.

For three years some 120,000 Rohingya of Myanmar have tried to flee persecution in their country. But their neighbors largely do not want them. This week slowly Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, even Gambia have said they will accept small numbers but there may be 6-8000 of these souls, lost at sea. Nearly half are children 12 and under.

Startling images by AFP's Christophe Archambault of Thai food drop to stranded #Rohingya. http://t.co/20bUmgyiHZ pic.twitter.com/esfe1nhJP9

— Tim Hume (@tim_hume) May 15, 2015

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 On Monday people tried to make sense of the shootout the day before in Waco, TX between rival biker gangs where nine were killed and eighteen hospitalized. Over 170 were arrested and put in jail awaiting the investigation. The police spokesman said, "I don't think people were defending themselves today. I think they were involved in criminal activity and didn't care who they shot."

The scene of the shootout in Waco, where up to 170 face murder-related charges http://t.co/OXJikhUgV4 pic.twitter.com/u8WEtx0pcg

— NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) May 18, 2015

On Tueday people in Seattle struck and protested over education spending.

Teachers march in downtown Seattle part of a 1-day strike for smaller class sizes & increased education spending pic.twitter.com/45zhrQgBB6

— StlGal (@StlGal_36) May 19, 2015

There was a major oil spill Wednesday in Santa Barbara, CA of over 100,000 gallons of oil that now stretches over nine miles.

Refugio State Beach, #SantaBarbara #SantaBarbaraOilSpill #Environment #UniteBlue pic.twitter.com/1q1FD6GcXY

— Annemarie Weers (@AnnemarieWeers) May 21, 2015

There was the train derailment in Philadelphia last week.

Investigators analyzing data on #Amtrak train's speed before derailment in Philadelphia: http://t.co/UBEu5tLmds pic.twitter.com/lqDq5Pcj6D

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) May 13, 2015

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David Letterman ended his 33 year career as a funny man on television.

Thank you and goodnight -David Letterman #ThanksDave pic.twitter.com/KV9F3CiLZd

— Letterman (@Letterman) May 21, 2015

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B.B. King, King of the Blues died this week. He was known the world over for playing his kind of american music for over sixty years. I saw him once in Kansas City over twenty years ago. Here's a fantastic set with him and James Brown from thirty years ago.

BB King 1969. pic.twitter.com/1XRG0afdet

— ClassicPics (@YourHistoryPics) May 13, 2015

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In 1971 some activists stole into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. They took all the files and slowly began sending them to newspaper publishers across the country to expose what the government was doing in secret, including unlawful surveillance. Here's the movie about it.

Tlatelolcan View of the Siege of Tenochtitlan: May 1521

The local people of the city complex of Tenochtitlan who were not prepared for battle fled north.

"During this time the Aztecs took refuge in the Tlatelolco quarter. They deserted the Tenochtitlan quarters all in one day, weeping and lamenting like women. Husbands searched for their wives, and fathers carried their small children on their shoulders. Tears of grief and despair streamed down their cheeks.

The Tlatelolcas, however refused to give up. They raced into Tenochtitlan to continue the fight and the Spaniards soon learned how brave they were. Pedro de Alvarado launched an attack against the Point of the Alders, in the direction of Nonohualco, but his troops were shattered as if he had sent them against a stone cliff. The battle was fought both on dry land and on the water, where they shot at the Spaniards from their shielded canoes. Alvarado was routed and had to draw back to Tlacopan."

Miguel Leon-Portilla our editor here for these recollections (in Broken Spears), reminds us that the Tlatelolcos had long been active enemies with the recently reigning Aztec clan of Motecuhzoma. But they had also long accepted their  place in their quarter of the gigantic city. He also tells us that the storytellers here were Tlatelolco elders remembering the siege many years later and that they would be the only one's left to recall their own quarter's heroic deeds.

From page ninety-nine, one-hundred in 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, Beacon Press, 2006.
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Camilla Townshend paints an almost beguiling sketch of the circumstance of the retelling, if it were not for the terrible events recalled. It was the young Nahuatl men who came and asked the elders about those days of thirty years before. So, they led the old men to a place near the Franciscan church in Tlatelolco where they could talk and write.

"They led their guests through dark, quiet rooms bordering the church courtyard to a place where they could work, and then asked them in polite and respectful Nahuatl to consider themselves welcome, to take care to preserve their good health, to seat themselves. As the old ones spoke of what they remembered, the young ones dipped their feather quills in black ink and tried to write it all down on the large, thick paper they had before them. Their actions made a peculiar scratching noise. In the old days, the elders knew, the writing would have been different, and the scribes would never have used black ink alone, but red and black together, on the same page. These young men remembered little or nothing about those times, however, having spent so many years of their lives with the Spanish friars.

The old men said the first attack on the city had come suddenly. Like lightning in the storm season, they had known it was coming, and when it came they were somehow stunned. The Spanish had been moving in the area for months; they had been seen assembling their boats across the water in Tetzcoco. Then one day they came rapidly across in a body toward the neighborhood of Zoquipan on the island's shore."

from p. 115,  Malintzin's Choices: an Indian Woman In The Conquest of Mexico, Camilla Townshend, University of New Mexico Press, as part of the series Dialogos, 2006

Against The Day: Not A Review An Appreciation, 2007

I've taken to typing up large pieces of this book Against The Day by Thomas Pynchon and posting them on random places on the internet. All are duly quoted and attributed, because credit should be given where it is due, as this story deserves a distribution farther, wider and stranger than more than all but just a few have attained. It deserves imaginary distribution, it needs to be read by the people, yes and yes, as well thru lenses kept hidden by governemnts and secret societies the world over. It needs to be read by people of all times and places. It needs to be praised and misrepresented, taught in schools and left by the bulletin board in bus terminals, kept by lighters outside of airport terminals and substituted for Gideon's Bibles in all the Comfort Inn's across Northern America.
If you're not happy with the news these days, read this instead.
If you want a story that paralells your life and yet still twists away from the present, just in time, to remind that it is good now and then to throw away the rulebook, then this might be the book to read.
Have you ever thought two superficially unrelated occurences were actually deeply connected in some otherwise undocumented way? You think of someone and they call, you have a feeling of dread or sadness and the news reports it, you miss an appointment somewhere and it turns out it was better you weren't there at all . . . these kinds of things happen to characters in this book with such ease, we are left to wonder why everyone doesn't dwell on these things all the time. But then the commercial ends, or the phone rings, the belly rumbles, the sirens go off. We nod and lose our way.

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Against The Day is by Thomas Pynchon, and the 1st edition, by the Penguin Press, was published in NY, late 2006.

Calendar Jumble May

There are a number of things to mention this month. But less available time here to do so.

There were several stories of the Mexica during the siege of Tenochtitlan. How they would run away zig-zag when they found the direction that iron bolts from crossbows were fired. They told of the walls they would build and then climb on rooftops behind the walls to better use the higher ground for their arrows and take better aim from above. Most citizens fled to the north of the city complex avoiding the direct assault in the south. And there were those Tlatelolcas in the north that came down to the front of the attacks. Miguel Leon-Portilla our translator and editor for the Codex Florentinus tells us that most of Sahagùn's storytellers - where we get these details - were locals of Tlatelolco. They fought the Spaniards near where Motecuhzoma's palace was, they fought them at the Eagle Gate, they fought them again at Huitzillan. Bernal Diaz talks about all this in his chs 150+.

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, Beacon Press, 2006.
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There was the discussion of steel bolts as crossbow ammunition during the Spanish conquest (in the Valley of Mexico in particular), by Matt Restall in his Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. The cannons could and did destroy a lot, but it was the ripping of human flesh by steel, whether bolts or swords - and so quickly  - that was to so decisively decimate those still left for the fighting.

from pp 142-7, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall, New York, Oxford University Press Inc., 2004

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Marin Sanudo,  May 16, 1505 (6:165-75), gives a marvelous description of the reception by Pope Julius - formerly Giuliano della Rovere - and of a tour at the Vatican, for a Venetian ambassador. There was a reception and a dinner, a grand tour of so many rooms and finery. The dinner after, with so many courses of so many kinds of food alone, is really marvelous. Sanudo quotes it all as written by Reynero di Fideli.

from pp. 167-72,  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
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A brief summary of the basic nature and kinds of change for the German Diet that ocurred under Emperors Frederick and Maximillian in the period is due. It should be two-parts. Now I want more details about the Diet called for 1495.

Also on or near May 20, 1495, the French King Charles VIII decided it was time to leave Naples. Satisfied he could do all he could by taking the city (late in February) - the wags said he waited til his book full of portraits of local courtesans was filled - preparations were completed and the French army began returning north. Francesco Guicciardini has many details including many leading to the Battle of Fornovo in July.

news digest for 11may15

Parents marched in protest in Mexico City on Mother's Day for their missing children.

Parents of #Mexico's disappeared march on Mother´s Day: http://t.co/cYynReEf4F #MadresBuscandoaSusHijxs #10deMayo pic.twitter.com/FbQEeZ8BLr

— Saulo Corona (@SauloCorona) May 10, 2015

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On Thursday the US Second District Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Government had gone too far in bulk collection of consumer data. Congress will have to act by the end of the month to extend, repeal or modify the guts of the Patriot Act from the early days of the war on terror. Particularly Section 215. Here's a synopsis from Wired magazine. And an 8 minute audio overview from On The Media.

The decision is here http://t.co/o5huFCSZeS - it's a clear and categorical decree that NSA program has no legal authority.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 7, 2015

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It was a shattering election Friday May 8th for many in the UK. Blue are Tories that took Parliament with a majority. Scottish National Party is in yellow. A watershed event as Labour had been expected to do much better.

Cameron sweeps to unexpected triumph in British election http://t.co/WkoVh5Leci http://t.co/5pDHuGYq8R pic.twitter.com/GY3JdSViv7

— Reuters Graphics (@ReutersGraphics) May 8, 2015

This cartoon seems to capture the mood:

British Elections http://t.co/Hjg64WIjwg #UniteBlue pic.twitter.com/QhSpnaJqv7

— The Progressive Mind (@Libertea2012) May 8, 2015

The same day there were massive protests in Sana'a, Yemen:

RT @PressTV: Live Event #Yemenis protest against Saudi Regime's invasion. Watch Here: http://t.co/UgnVQCukfS pic.twitter.com/JbmPxRxx06

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) May 8, 2015

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It's tornado season in middle America. Hard hit this year were Texas and Oklahoma. Here's one in Halstead, Kansas.

Tornado near Halstead, KS just a little while ago. #kswx pic.twitter.com/frErIj6Qrw

— Travis Heying (@travisheying) May 6, 2015

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There was pig diving in China. Of course there was.

Favorite sport ever. Pig diving. http://t.co/hEitozOpAK pic.twitter.com/KVkSPAtuGa

— Chris Buckley 储百亮 (@ChuBailiang) May 3, 2015

Tom Hanks was in Venice for Ron Howard's new movie.

#Venezia primo ciak a San Marco per Inferno, film di Ron Howard con Tom Hanks, http://t.co/XMM3YDGYRn tutte le foto pic.twitter.com/fTyOewy1XY

— laNuovaVeneziaMestre (@nuova_venezia) April 28, 2015

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In Baltimore two weeks ago, a few blocks from the tear gas and protests.

Tranquil normalcy just blocks from the riots. Important to know how geographically constrained they were. #Baltimore pic.twitter.com/LpVRSVTEyJ

— Christopher Mims (@mims) April 28, 2015

"@OccupyWallStNYC: #BlackSpring pic.twitter.com/RovnXV6Byt"

— Lucio (@LoseyouLoseyou) May 2, 2015

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A Martian sunset.

Someday humans will see this in person - A Sunset on Mars Captured by the Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity pic.twitter.com/UTMuzyNdU3

— UFO Community (@UFOcommunity) May 9, 2015

Cortes Attacks Tenochtitlan May 1521; Nahuatl Eyewitness Account

In a few days Cortes had returned to Texcoco, after pressing as far as Tlacopan. By April 28th he had assembled his forces and paraded them. The boats were built too. They were to sail across Lake Texcoco itself from the east, carrying horsemen and guns and then surround the central complex of Tenochtitlan that lay in the center of the Lake. The troops had been split up with those under Pedro de Alvarado staying to the north and those with Cortes who took his group around the Lake and set up to the south. After the next several more days of preparation the ships then drew sail and set off across the water to land at the southern end. It was a maneuver at the beginning of a siege that would last some seventy-five days.

The sudden rush of the ships that Cortes had ordered was well captured by the elders who thirty years later remembered and retold the story of that day. Set down in black ink by younger scribes for Friar Sahagùn these stories of how they remembered that day became Nahua voices in the now famous Codex Florentinus.

"The cannons were mounted in the ships, the sails were raised and the fleet moved out onto the lake. The flagship led the way, flying a great linen standard with Cortes' coat of arms. The soldiers beat their drums and blew their trumpets; they played their flutes and chirimias and whistles. 

When the ships approached the Zoquiapan quarter [southwest portion of the central complex], the common people were terrified at the sight. They gathered their children into the canoes and fled helter-skelter across the lake, moaning with fear and paddling as swiftly as they could. They left all their possessions behind them and abandoned their little farms without looking back. 

Our enemies seized all our possessions. They gathered up everything they could find and loaded it into the ships in great bundles. They stole our cloaks and blankets, our battle dress, our tambors and drums, and carried them all away. The Tlatelolcas followed and attacked the Spaniards fom their boats but could not save any of the plunder.

When the Spaniards reached Xoloco, near the entrance to Tenochtitlan, they found a wall was built across the road to block their progress, They destroyed it with four shots from the largest cannon. The first shot did little harm, but the second split it and the third opened a great hole. With the fourth shot, the wall lay in ruins on the ground,

Two of the brigantines, both with cannons mounted in their bows, attacked a flotilla of our shielded canoes. The cannons were fired into the thick of the flotilla, wherever the canoes were crowded closest together. Many of our warriors were killed outright, others drowned because they were too crippled by their wounds to swim away. The water was red with the blood of the dead and dying. Those who were hit by the steel arrows were also doomed; they died instantly and sunk to the bottom of the lake."

The power of the steel arrows, and steel swords, in time however, became a most persistent scourge. But steel was just one of the many elements, and later popularized as crucial to the success of the Spanish. It wouldn't always be so. Though 'extenuating circumstances' complicate some narratives, the element of surprise worked well for the attackers too.
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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, Beacon Press, 2006.

Bernardino de Sahagún, Conquest of New Spain: 1585 revision , trans. Howard F Cline, ed S.L. Cline (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989).

Against The Day: Thomas Pynchon: The Chums of Chance In Venice, 1912

In honor of the author's birthday and for #PynchoninPublic a scene or two of the Chums of Chance gliding in on their floating gondola above Venice, into Italy, somehow seemed appropriate. Here go buy the damn thing! An excerpt from Against The Day, by Thomas Pynchon, 1st edition, by the Penguin Press, NY 2006  from pp 243-248:
Here's a sort of review from 2007. Edit: Reproduction Redacted

"Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower, as the boys came swooping in over Murano, above wide-topped red-clay chimneys the size of smokestacks, known as fumaioli, according to the local pilot Zanni.  "Very dangerous, the sparks, they could blow up the balloon, certo," drops of perspiration flying off his face at all angles, as if self-propelled.  The comically anxious but good-hearted Italian had come aboard earlier in the day, after the boys had obtained the necessary clearances from the Piacenza branch of the Chums of Chance . . . . The Inconvenience having gone into dock-yard facilities, the boys had been given temporary use of an Italian airship of the same class, the simi-rigid Seccatura.
     From their stations the fellows now beheld the island-city of Venice, below them, looking like some map of itself printed in an ancient sepia, presenting at this daylit distance an impression of ruin and sorrow, though closer at hand this would resolve into a million roof-tiles of a somewhat more optimistic red.
     "Like some great rusted amulet," marveled Dr Chick Counterfly, "fallen from the neck of a demigod, its spell enfolding the Adriatic --"
     "Oh, then perhaps," grumbled Lindsay Noseworth, "we ought to set you down there right away, so that you can go rub it, or whatever amulet fanciers do."
     "Here, Lindsay, rub this," suggested Darby Suckling, from his seat at the control panel.  Next to him Miles Blundell gazed carefully at various dial-faces while reciting in a sort of torpid rapture, "The Italian number that looks like a zero, is the same as our own American 'zero.'  The one that looks like a one, is 'one'.  The one that looks like a two--"
 . . .
     Miles turned ... beaming . . . . "Listen."  From somewhere in the light mist below could be heard the voice of a gondolier, singing of his love, not for any ringleted ragazza but for the coal-black gondola he was at this moment oaring trancefully along.  "Hear that?" tears sliding down the convexities of Miles's face.  "The way it goes along in a minor key, and then at each refrain switches off into the major?  Those Picardy thirds!"
     His shipmates glanced at Miles, then at one another, then, with a collective shrug, by now routine, returned to ship's business.
     "There," said Randolph, "there's the Lido.  Now, let's just have a glance at the chart. . . ."
     Approaching the sand barrier which separated the Venetian lagoon from the open Adriatic, they descended to a few dozen feet of altitude (or quota, as the Italian instruments referred to it) and were soon scouting the so-called Terre Perse, or Lost Lands.  Since ancient times numerous inhabited islands here had sunk beneath the waves, so as to form a considerable undersea community of churches, shops, taverns, and palazzi for the picked bones and incomprehensible pursuits of the generations of the Venetian dead.
     "Just to the east of Sant 'Ariano and -- Ecco! Can you see it?  If I'm not mistaken, gentlemen, Isola degli Specchi, or, the Isle of Mirrors itself!"
     "Excuse me, Professor," Lindsay with a puzzled frown, "There's nothing down there but open water."
     "Try looking below the surface," advised the veteran aeronaut. "I'll bet you Blundell can see it, can't you Blundell, yes."
     "Something a little different today," sneered Darby Suckling.  "A mirror-works under the water.  How are we s'posed to carry this mission out?"
     "With our accustomed grace," replied the skyship commander wearily.  "Mr Counterfly, stand by your lenses -- we'll want as many plates of this little stabilimento as you can get us."
     "Snapshots of the open sea -- whoo-whee!" the embittered mascotte twirling a finger beside his temple -- "but ain't the old man just gone bugs at last!"
. . .
     "Rays, boys, rays," chuckled Scientific Officer Counterfly, busy with his photographic calibrations, "the wonders of our age, and rest assured none of 'em strangers to the spectrum of this fabled Italian sunlight.  Just wait till we're back in the developing room, and you shall see a thing or two then . . .".    

" . . . Zanni now from the helm, directing Randolph's attention to a trembling apparition in the distance, off to starboard.
     Randolph seized binoculars from the chart table.  "Confound it, boys, either that's the world's largest flying onion or it's the old Bol'shaia Igra once again, coming to town, planning to take in some Italian culture, no doubt."
     Lindsay had a look.  "Ah! that miserable Tsarist scow.  What can they possibly want here?"
     "Us," suggested Darby.
     "But our orders were sealed."
     "So? Somebody unsealed 'em.  Don't tell me those Romanoffs can't afford a fellow, or even two, on the inside."
      There was a moment of grim silence on the deck, acknowledging that, quite beyond coincidence, everywhere they had gone lately, no matter what conditions of secrecy they might have taken to the sky under, the inexorable Padzhitnoff, sooner or later, had appeared on their horizon.  Whatever mutual suspicions might have flowered among the lads themselves -- by the simplest computation, twentyfold at least -- their true apprehensions converged on those invisible levels "above", where orders, never signed or attributed, were written and cut.
       . . .
     "You cannot be implying that whoever issues Padzhitnoff's orders is intimate with whoever issues ours," Lindsay Noseworth was protesting.
     "Long as we just keep on doing everything we're told,"  Darby scowled, "we'll never know.  Wages of unquestioning obedience, ain't it?"
     It was early evening.  Having returned their borrowed airship to the A. dell'A. compound on the mainland, the team were gathering for dinner in the garden of an agreeable osteria in San Polo, beside a little-frequented canal, or as the narrow waterway is known to the Venetians, rio.  Wives leaned out onto small balconies to collect the clothes that had been drying all day.  Somewhere an accordion was wrenching hearts.  Shutters were beginning to close against the night.  Shadows flickered in the narrow calli.  Gondolas and less elegant delivery boats glided over water smooth as a dancing floor.  Echoing in the chill dusk, through the wind-flues of sotoporteghi and around so many occult corners that the sounds might have come from dreamers forever distant, one could hear the queerly desolate advisements of gondolieri -- "Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!" -- mingled with cries of children, greengrocers, sailors ashore, street-vendors no longer expecting reply yet urgent as if trying to call back the last of the daylight.
     "What choice have we?" said Randolph.  "No one would tell us who informed Padzhitnoff.  Whom could we even ask, when they're all so invisible?"
     "Unless we decided to disobey for once -- then they'd show themselves quick enough," Darby declared.
     "Sure," said Chick Counterfly, "just long enough to blast us out of the sky."
     "So . . . then," Randolph holding his stomach as if it were a crystal ball and addressing it musingly, "it's only fear?  Is that what we've become, a bunch of twitching rabbits in uniforms intended for men?"
     "Cement of civilization, 'nauts," chirped Darby.  "Ever thus."
     The girls who worked here, recently down from the mountains or up from the South, gliding about among the tables and in and out of the kitchen in a kind of compressed rapture, as if they couldn't believe their luck, out here, drifted like this into the pallid sea.  Chick Counterfly, as the most worldly of the company, and thus spokesman by default in fair-sex encounters that might turn in any way ambiguous, beckoned to one of the comely cameriere.  "Just between us Guiseppina -- a lover's secret -- what have you heard this week of other pallonisti around the Lagoons?"
     "Lovers, eh.  What kind of 'lover,'" wondered Guiseppina, pleasantly though audibly, "can think only of his rivals?"
     "Rivals! You wish to say, that some other skyfarer -- perhaps even more than one! -- lays claim to your heart? . . . what kind of 'beloved' is it who coldly tosses her admirers about, like leaves in a salad?"
     "Maybe looking behind those leaves for a big giadrul," suggested her Neapolitan colleague, Sandra.
     "Captain Pa-zi-no!" Lucia singing from across the room.  Giusippina appeared to blush, though it might have been residual sunset above the rooftops.
     "Pazino . . ." Chick Counterfly suavely puzzled.
     "It's Pa-djeet-noff," Giusippina pronounced, while gazing at Chick with a formally wistful smile that might well, in this city of eternal negotiating, have meant Now, what may I expect in return?
     "Thundering toad-spit," exclaimed Darby Suckling, "with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in here?  how many of 'em were there?"
     But she had tendered all she would, and deploying over one bared shoulder a gaze of mock reproach at the outspoken youth, was off to other tasks."

So the boys have a solemn drink with glasses made especially for them right here in Venice just a few days before:

"Tastefully ornamented in silver  with the Chums of Chance heraldry and the motto SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA, the set had been that very day presented to the boys by current Shadow-Doge-in-Exile Domenico Sfinciuno, whose family in 1297, along with quite a few others among the Venetian rich and powerful of the day, had been disqualified from ever sitting on the Great Council -- and hence made ineligible for the Dogedom of Venice -- by then sitting Doge Pietro Gradenigo, in his infamous decree known as the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio.  But not even Napoleon's abolition of the office of Doge five-hundred years later had any effect on the claim to what, by now, generations of Sfinciuno, in a curious inertia of resentment, had come to regard as theirs by right.  Meanwhile they devoted themselves to trade with the East.  In the wake of the Polo's return to Venice, the Sfinciuno joined with other upstart adventurers, likewise relegated by Gradenigo's lockout, whose money was newer than that of the Case Vecchie but quite sufficient to finance a first expedition, and headed east to make their fortune.
     So there arose in Inner Asia a string of Venetian colonies, each based around some out-of-the-way oasis, and together forming a route, alternative to the Silk Road, to the markets of the East.  Maps were guarded jealously, with death the not-infrequent price of divulgement to the unauthorized.
     The Sfinciuno grew ever richer , and waited -- they had learned how to wait.  Domenico was no exception.  Like his ancestors before him, he wore not only the classic Doge's hat with its upturned point on the back but also the traditional cuffietta or linen cap underneath, which usually only he knew he had on, unless of course he chose to show it publicly to favored guests, such as the Chums at the moment, in fact.
    ". . . and so," he told the assembly, "our dream is now closer than ever to being realized, as through the miracles of twentieth-century invention which these illustrious young American scientists have brought here to us, we may hope at last to recover the lost route to our Asian destiny usurped by the Polos and the accursed Gradenigo.  Bless them!  These ragazzi are not to be denied any form of respect, symbolic or practical, at the risk of our ducal displeasure, which is considerable."
     "Why, it's like the Keys to the City! exclaimed Lindsay.
     "More like 'Attenzione al culo'" Chick muttered.  "Try not to forget that this place is known for its mask industry."  A vigorous advocate of inconspicuous-ness, Chick found ceremonies like today's both unnecessary and dangerous.  Their mission in Venice, best performed without demands on time and visibility like the present one, was to locate the fabled Sfinciuno Itinerary, a map or chart of post-Polo routes into Asia, believed by many to lead to the hidden city of Shambhala itself."

Chaucer's Sir John Introduces The Rooster Chanticleer & Pertelote

In the US a number of candidates -- Huckabee, Fiorina and Carson --  in the conservative party announced this week that they too were seeking the nomination for President. The US elections will be in another eighteen months. In  light of the elections in the UK with exit polls favoring the conservatives and no confirmed tallies of ballots released yet, it still seemed appropriate to return to the rooster in the dale. So as I have a chance to offer some diversion, I'll continue with Nevill Coghill's excellent Geoffrey Chaucer in the Nun's Priest's Tale. There was an older woman...

"She had a yard that was enclosed about
By a stockade and a dry ditch without,
In which she kept a cock called Chanticleer.
In all the land for crowing he'd no peer;
His voice was jollier than an organ blowing
In church on Sundays, he was great at crowing.
Far, far more regular than any clock
Or abbey bell the crowing of this cock.
The equinoctial wheel and its position
At each ascent he knew by intuition;
At every hour -- fifteen degrees of movement --
He crowed so well there could be no improvement.
His comb was redder than fine coral, tall
And battlemented like a castle wall,
His bill was black and shone as bright as jet,
Like azure were his legs and they were set
On azure toes with nails of lily white,
Like burnished gold his feathers, flaming bright."

That's some chicken that knows the precise movements of planetary geometry, and by instinct.

"This gentlecock was master in some measure
Of seven hens, all there to do his pleasure.
They were his sisters and his paramours,
Coloured like him in all particulars;
She with the loveliest dyes upon her throat
Was known as gracious Lady Pertelote.
Courteous she was, discreet and debonair,
Companionable too, and took such care
In her deportment, since she was seven days old
She held the heart of Chanticleer controlled,
Locked up securely in her every limb;
O what a happiness his love to him!"

Out of a number of hens, one with the loveliest dyes on her throat and the best deportment, and at such a young age, she had the high-minded qualities that in a bird, set this rooster straight. And too, they could sing, Coghill says, 'probably a popular song': my lief is faren in londe. Or, 'My life/love is in a foreign land'. For Chaucer's Priest is quick to tell us, that, 'as I understand' it was in this far off day that birds and animals could speak and sing. We have moved first from history to suspended disbelief.

The rooster groans and lurches on his perch, His 'dearest heart... aghast' asks 'why do you groan and start?' He's had a dream. There was a beast, a hound with a skinny snout, and red.

"It was enough to make one die of fright."...
"For shame,' she said, 'you timorous poltroon!
Alas, what cowardice! By God above,
You've forefeited my heart and lost my love.
I cannot love a coward, come what may.
All women long - and O that it might be! -
For husbands tough, dependable and free,
Secret, discreet, no niggard, not a fool
That boasts and then will find his courage cool
At every trifling thing. By God above,
How dare you say for shame, and to your love,
That there was anything at all you feared?
Have you no manly heart to match your beard?
And can a dream reduce you to such terror?
Dreams are a vanity, God knows, pure error.
Dreams are engendered in the too-replete
From vapours in the belly, which compete
With others, too abundant, swollen tight."

A hen that knows what a woman wants. Toughness, dependability, discretion. But not the boastful who turn in fright from dreams that come from over-full bellies.

_____________________________________________________

Nevill Coghill was an Oxford English Lit Professor of the twentieth century - and who reached a wider audience than many - with his 1951 translation of Chaucer quoted and excerpted  here and published by Penguin. He works it happily into a mid-century idiom that makes sense and captures the rolling rhythms of Chaucer easily. It was a bestseller for decades.

dominant news early May 2015

In the absence of a slew of posts covering some of the details of the initial advances of Cortes in the Valley of Mexico (which will come later), current news in the current world stacks up on the table.

The last couple weeks the news has been full of detailing the cleanup and rescue work in and around Nepal following the massive earthquakes there where over 7300 people have died.

The latest in a series of boats crowded with migrants was rescued this weekend off Libya. This follows weeks where a number of boats didn't make it and hundreds died in just a few days. From this past April, here is a series of video clips by the BBC documenting the routes, methods, and motivations of migrants. Also, here is a quick bit of context, showing a rundown of topics and party positions in the UK from later February of this year. Notice how much there was already so much to do about migration. But Britain isn't Italy. They are the ones on the forefront of the flows of people desperate to stay alive and find a new place to start over. Aljazeera covered the EU response 24 April.

In the US, the situation in Baltimore took center stage last week. Protests there over the perceived mishandling of a suspect Freddie Gray led to protests across the country, an investigation by the state attorney's office and one by the Federal Deptartment of Justice. The problems are systemic, several decades old and widespread in Baltimore, effecting how every part of the community interacts with authority. The few rioting and looting on a couple occasions, overshadow much of the media's take and therefore the nation's view. Some in turn have used the story to spread stereotypical mischaracterizations and rumors and slander. Others rush to judge and have to resign, like this prosecutor in Wayne county, Michigan. Some have been able to spread word that the reality in too many neighborhoods in Baltimore is that there are no jobs, a failing education system and an out of touch law enforcement system. The mayor declared a curfew for a week and lifted it on Sunday 3 May. There were several arrests over the week of daily protests, and a lot of mudslinging in the media. But no killings there. Then on Friday, the state's attorney handling the case gave a press conference indicting six police officers associated with the man before his death. Here is that press conference .The community took it as a victory in light of what has happened in other cities where excessive violence has also killed. The local paper in Baltimore has been allowed inside the investigation to show a bit of how that is done.

Long term US foreign policy expert and diplomat Richard Haass warns us about the uncertainties of the world. Especially in the mid-East.
__________________________

The Federal Exchange Commission says it can't oversee campaign finance in order to regulate it. So we're looking at a real free for all.

FEC Chairwoman Has Given Up on Preventing Campaign Finance Abuse http://t.co/x2FiuP8vaM #UniteBlue pic.twitter.com/2wU3aELKLC

— The Progressive Mind (@Libertea2012) May 4, 2015

Relevant quote from the NY Times:

“What’s really going on,” she said, “is that the Republican commissioners don’t want to enforce the law, except in the most obvious cases. The rules aren’t being followed, and that’s destructive to the political process.”

A mighty important topic covered in a piece from two years ago. Do dishonest campaign finance filers plague the IRS today?

Comment Is Weird does haz tumbler.