"Peasant Fires": A Postscript

A pair of documents that come from ecclesiastic records can act as a postscript to the 1476 story of Hans Behem, the drummer of Niklashausen. Professor Wunderli points out that we would not know at all about the 'captains of the people' who led the giant hordes to Wurzburg following the arrest of the drummer, were it not for these documents. Conrad von Thunfeld and his son Michael ended up making peace with the Bishop of Wurzburg on October 25, 1476, several months after the drummer had been burnt at the stake.

Possibly they had been hiding out, avoiding prosecution, waiting for things to die down, but we can't know for sure as there are no records of their doings in the interim. What we can say is that the two men signed a statement admitting that they had led the people to the castle at Wurzburg in order to free the drummer and that they would henceforward not make any more trouble. This admission was very expensive to father and son. The other document is another signed work where they both agreed henceforth to give up their land to the bishopric of Wurzburg in exchange for their freedom. Wunderli states,

"To ensure their loyalty and peaceful behavior, Bishop Rudolph forced them to sign ... in which the von Thunfelds turned over to the bishop their hitherto freehold land, only to receive it back as a feudal fief.... They lost their land and would forever be vassals to the Bishops of Wurzburg. They had held three houses, two forests, two vineyards, and several bits of property, all near Schweinfurt, and all of which now came under the lordship of the bishop of Wurzburg." [p.131]

They would now be peasants in allegiance to the bishop, not freemen holding property with the right to work their own land.
Pilgrims continued to come, however. Bishops and church leaders continued to make proclamations forbidding the preaching or granting of indulgences in and around Niklashausen. But the people still came, and apparently, continued to do just these forbidden things or there would be no need for continuing proclamations and edicts forbidding them. In the early months of the next year, the very church at Niklashausen was razed to the ground as the people continued to come, thinking they could take part in something miraculous there. But the greater church leaders had done their duty in eradicating the scourge of immoral, uneducated uprisings and began sending letters around congratulating each other at putting the mob down.

In the Nürnberg archives there is a letter from pope Sixtus IV, from February 7, 1478, sent to the town council in appreciation of their actions halting the pilgrimage of Niklashausen. A doctor Kilian von Bibra had informed the papacy of the happenings and the Nürnberg town council duly sent a letter to the good doctor for passing on the story to the pope in Rome. [p. 140]

Bishop Rudolph of Wurzburg continued with his reforming zeal in other areas. Like the later patriarch of Venice Antonio Contarini, Bishop Rudolph saw the greater threat to the church in the laxness of morals within women's convents and abbeys. Notice the reflection of the campanile of San Pietro de Castello in Venice, as it towers over the Rio di la Vergini. Contarini built that.
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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.

Snapshots of Life In Rome; Intrigue In Milan, Forli: 1480

All the following comes from Elizabeth Lev's smart biography of Caterina Sforza Riario De'Medici. There are many connections and much exposition, many personal histories and backstories to lay out to develop her story. Lev does it simply, clearly and with a persistant forward motion, sensitive to allegiances and inserting stories of the art and other productions of the age along the way. A couple examples of the sorts of stories Lev chooses to include, around young Caterina's life, dramatically show the turbulence of this place and time.

Since Caterina Sforza left Milan for Rome, she continued to write to her stepmother, now the widow to Galeazzo Sforza and the regent caring for his son and heir, Gian Galeazzo. Elizabeth Lev tells us they wrote frequently and often with much affection back and forth. There was much for Bona to do in Milan, not so much for Caterina's little brother the baby boy Gian, but often in deflecting various external plots, as her late husband's relatives came scheming for the dukedom of Milan. Bona had help (Lev calls him 'faithful', p. 54), in the longtime Secretary of State there. He was a family advisor and negotiator, for three-generations of Sforza's, named Cicco Simonetta. They managed to hold off the throne-takers for a couple years.

Newly arrived in Rome and settled, the young Countess Caterina had enjoyed hunting and horseback riding on the Janiculum Hill across the Tiber in Rome. It was still possible then for a countess with a retinue in Rome to race a horse on the hills in Rome.
On September 1, 1479, Caterina wrote a letter to Bona in Milan to tell her she had given birth to a healthy boy the day before. The parents overjoyed, named him Ottaviano, an Italian variation of Octavian,after the name of Augustus Caesar. The baby was soon baptized by the pope and Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia was named the boy's godfather. [p. 52]
Within the month, Caterina also received word that Cicco Simonetta in Milan had been sent to prison and Ludovico her father's brother had become much more friendly with her stepmom. The man she had known growing up, dutifully running the house all the while, was gone from that world. By the end of the year, with her husband staying out of the public fray, Caterina had become pregnant again. [pp. 54-55]
The following year a new house was built for them by a famous architect. Caterina had another baby boy. She sent a letter to her step mom, but a month later probably September 1480, the brother Ludovico, called 'il Moro' due to his darker skin, sent Bona from Milan to live out her days in an abbey while he took responsibility for his nephew, the heir. Caterina's ties to Milan were cut, but she would visit again and keep her name.[p.60]
The year 1480 was also a big year for pope Sixtus IV as that was when his plans to remake Rome were put in place. The ancient aqueduct was cleared, fixed and put back into use after centuries of neglect. Numerous palaces were built. A famous hospital Santo Spiritu was built, roads widened and much else. Girolamo and Caterina and their boys were moved into one of these great palazzi near Piazza Navona. This was a central market in Rome and trade had seemed to pick up. What happened to her stepmother may have seemed worrisome, but Caterina's life in Rome seemed to be going very well.
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Forli was a small city in the north, near Imola with a population of maybe ten thousand. It had formerly been part of papal lands but for hundreds of years been picked at by both neighbors and popes. Becoming battered as a result. In 1438 the city had been taken from Caterina's grandfather Francesco Sforza by Antonio Ordelaffi with the help of Venetian forces. His son was killed by his brother Pino who ruled the city with a heavy hand. He would marry a daughter of the neighboring town Faenza, Barbara Manfredi, producing offspring and illegitimate children as well and, after awhile, the wife would end up dead (1466). But he had a  beautiful marble statue made for her tomb that's still in Forli (but not on the internet). The next year Pino's mother was found poisoned. Two wives in fact from the local Manfredi family - one from Faenza and one from Imola - wound up dead, probably from poison. Forli under Pino Ordelaffi was not a happy scene. [pp. 61-62]
Pino's next wife, outlasted him. Pino did his duty providing forces to Girolamo Riario, the recent Count of Imola, helping when the papal hammer was being brought down on neighboring Florence. Conflict between Sixtus IV and Florence having lasted a couple years more. But by the birth of Caterina's second child, August 1480, tensions were being settled there. When the townspeople found out that Pino was ill, in 1480, they stormed his house, dragged him down the steps and kicking and spitting on him, he died. His quick-minded wife Lucrezia Pico della Mirandola, put up his recognized (but illegitimate) son as heir, fending off Pino's relatives, the sons of his brother Francesco Ordelaffi.
This was the chance that pope Sixtus IV was waiting for. A troop of soldiers were sent to Forli who seized the palace and Lucrezia was given 130,000 ducats and thrity-two carts of baggage to take with her to a new palace the pope had given her. She took it and left. The pope had formally conferred the town onto Girolamo Riario and so, the remaining sons of Francesco Odelaffi returned to Faenza burning for hatred of Sixtus IV the della Rovere pope. [pp. 62-63]
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Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

Pazzi Conspiracy In Florence Implicates Pope Sixtus IV, April 1478

About a year ago I glossed over the barest bits of the Pazzi Conspiracy in Florence, as it might have been remembered by pope Leo X, the son of one of the de'Medici victims.  But Elizabeth Lev tells the story of the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478 from the perspective of Caterina Sforza as it was her husband, Girolamo Riario who was pope Sixtus IV's captain. Not only this but, as Lev tells it, Caterina's very inheritance of Imola was the bone of contention that first set pope Sixtus IV against the de'Medici family to begin with.

The culture of Italy in the period saw marriage alliances as both active and passive partnerships. Active in the sense that families could merge and become allies to accomplish things politically in the world and, passively in that these alliances could also act as non-aggression pacts between families and city-states. Traditionally the papacy and the stewawardship of the papal lands was seen as both very important and, also troublesome, fraught with danger. All depending on which side of which alliance, at any given time a city-state, or family might be in.

Imola had been part of papal lands for centuries, and controlled by the Alidosi family. They lost control, however to the Visconti family of Milan earlier c. 1424, soon before the patrimony of Imola then passed to the Sforza clan. One of the major projects of pope Sixtus IV, Francesco della Rovere was in regaining and securing the historical papal lands with the intention of further securing - literally, make more physically secure - the power and prestige of Rome. The more papal lands that the See could acquire, the greater the tax base they could raise, but also the farther afield it could influence policy.

Imola had fallen to a local Manfredi family who ruled it badly, so when a new pope, Francesco della Rovere came into the papacy, the duke of Milan saw an opportunity. Quickly, Galeazzo Sforza took Imola in 1471, upsetting Venice, the de'Medici of Florence and all the neighbors around. But, as a secure and stable protectorate of Milan in the 1400's, Imola happened to find itself rich. [p. 14]

In 1472, the nephew of pope Sixtus IV, Girolamo Riario (the son of Francesco's sister) went to Milan to take part in the Christmas celebrations there. One of the outcomes amidst all the holiday cheer was that the ruler of Milan and Imola, Galeazza Maria Sforza promised his daughter, Caterina to Girolamo as a way to create an alliance between his family and that of the pope. But as it turned out, as part of the deal, in order to make this transaction work, the pope needed a loan. Up to that time the papacy had been making it's banking business with the de'Medici of Florence. But when Florence heard that Imola was part of this marriage deal, they would not agree to the loan. The pope's ministers, on permission, simply went down the street to the local rivals in Florence, to the Pazzi family and secured the loan with them. This was against the wishes of the de'Medici patriarch and that families' banks. [pp. 15-16]

The marriage was set up, the alliance sealed and when Galeazzo died in 1476, Imola was one of the main places that Caterina visited on her itinerary to be united with her husband Girolamo, now called, as one among his many titles, Count of Imola. After securing the Pazzi as creditors, pope Sixtus IV began accepting them in his court as advisors. The Pazzi were a much older family in Florence who saw the de'Medici as upstarts wresting control from more traditional powers. Outraged at the non-noble exploits of the wealthy de'Medici, the Pazzi are remembered as constantly feeding Sixtus IV with stories. The interests of the people were agitating, they said, demanding reprisal against the interests of the de'Medici in every arena, not just in money. But they were using their money to do it. Francesco d'Pazzi, the head of the Pazzi interests ther, in Rome would often be seen in Girolamo's chambers in the monthss after Caterina Sforza arrived.

By the end of 1477, Caterina had been in Rome for just a few months, but the ambition of her husband and the Pazzi was at a fever pitch. What had begun as an expansion of papal lands became the attempted overthrow of the de'Medici rule of Florence. Many others would be implicated as well. The archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati Riario was a ringleader. Pisa after all, he could say, had been a protectorate of Florence (since 1406) and chafed under the current influences of the de'Medici clan. Even Girolamo's young nephew Raffaello would play a central role as well as a pair of young male members of the Pazzi clan. Girolamo Riario's master at arms, a man named Montesecco became an unwilling pawn and later confessor to the plot. Several schemes were planned, but the one that was settled on involved Caterina's husband, Girolamo Riario marching into Florence with an army he raised at Imola. Montesecco and his forces would guard the gate while others were organized to raise the cry to set the public against the tyranny of the De'Medici clan.

On a spring Sunday when the priest raised the host during mass, two young Pazzi, a couple priests and the younger Rafaello Riario brought their daggers down on Lorenzo and Giuliano de'Medici. Lorenzo got away but Giuliano was killed in the middle of the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore of Florence. Salviati Riario, the archbishop of Pisa, had intended to capture or kill the city's Gonfaloniere, but himself was captured and by the end of the day, was hung. The Pazzi youth were killed, young Rafaello was captured and held for ransom. Girolamo Riario, even with his army, in the aftermath, could never make the crowd in Florence turn. Montesecco, his own guard, was captured, tortured and later confessed to the whole plot.
The people of Florence, instead of turning to the Pazzi family as benefactors freeing them from the heavy tyranny of the de'Medici, saw the action as a coup, and condemned the Pazzi family for it. As the story of what had happened spread, the Pazzi and their allies began fleeing their ancestral home.
Pope Sixtus IV was enraged, Girolamo returned to Rome in shame and the de'Medici triumphant in Florence, were left to become more powerful than ever. For awhile they could say, the Pazzi would never be able to return to power in their hometown. [pp. 45-8]

Caterina in her new place had to welcome home a dejected husband. The captain who had never been very popular in Rome before, was now the talk of the town, and in the worst way. Before there had been parties and gifts from the pope and courtiers all day asking favors. Her mornings which had been full of signing paperwork for concessions to be granted, or on favors to be conferred because of her position, became full of dispensing talk about how odious her husband and their friends were. She was sixteen. [p. 49]
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Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

big news mid-late Oct2013

After the sixteen day USGOV #shutstorm, teetering on the edge of federal default, it turns out that just as we have neared such defaults in the past few years, this time Senators Harry Reid (NV) and Mitch McConnell (KY) the majority and minority party leaders, struck a deal that the House of Representatives quickly passed. With disaster averted a few months more, for the last five or six days since the temporary breakthrough, the news in the US has mostly retreated to their corners and talked about what it all might mean to their respective sub-groups. The Ohio river series of locks and dams will get a major upgrade. The Republican party is beside itself in several interesting, unflattering ways. The Democrat party is crowing about it's false victory, proudly trying to preen like the grown-ups in this yet, at the same time, looking like boneheads with the sputtering start to Enrolling the ACA. That's the new health care insurance program that began signing people up three weeks ago. Technical problems have delayed potential enrollees. The Dems want to act like grown-ups but can't do the kids homework. At least the Dems aren't the ones trying to deny people health care, since the Republican party has no real alternative plan.

Alan Greenspan on Jon Stewart says at last what many have been saying for a long time: the banks that wrecked the economy need to maintain higher capital and asset requirements. I've been saying it for years. I stumbled on this basic notion of how banks operate, and why it's so crucially important for the credit markets and the economy as a whole on planetmoney, 2008 or so, as the storied-old banking instirutions came crashing down one after the other. Part two of the piece with Greenspan last night wherein Stewart makes a case for separating finance/investment tax rates from work tax rates,  is here. Greenspan used to be called 'the oracle' and markets jumped at his verbose comments. So I'm hoping his tour this week of the talkshows (he was on NPR yesterday) might make a dent in the beltway media conversation.

Alexis Goldstein explains some of why  this $13bn settlement between USGOV and JPMorgan Chase Bank is a whitewash, despite being the largest settlement ever. For reference, the BP Oil criminal settlement a couple years ago was for $4.5bn.

Massive 7.2 earthquake in Phillipines caused much damage, including many old churches in Bohol and more than 380,000 displaced, it will take a long time to recover.

On Communication For Cortes: In Cholula, October 1519

Matthew Restall pops the bubble surrounding the false notions of communication between europeans and the locals during the conquest and colonial periods. He looks at a number of these stories in the essay, "The Lost Words of La Malinche" **, giving an overview of how communication is generally believed now to have been both expert and a failure then, on both sides. Yet, the effects of this perfect and non-existent necessity of communication are still widely misbelieved as 'proving Spanish superiority' with regard to 'outcomes'. Restall reminds us that Christopher Columbus was not really interested in communicating with the locals substantively, and his settlements ended up destroyed and overcome by the locals. On the other hand, Cortes was seen as so expert in his awareness and use of communication and actions that he was able to communicate both his current agendas and also to account for and prepare for his future needs. But also, in retrospect, he knew that his explanation of things would become 'the history of the victors'. 'With God's Grace,' of course.

Communication was a many-folded thing. Cortes needed to talk to his men, he needed to talk to his translators, and not just those times when he had to talk to the locals. There were Cempoalan friends, and now the Tlaxcalan allies, there were the Mexica ambassadors who were always nearby and whoever at present he had to interrogate, thru translators to find out what else the locals, or Montezuma, was thinking or preparing for. Cortes had to maintain things with the priests that had come along. He had to prepare things to say to the king, to his God.
In addition, maintaining solid and clear lines of communication was a necessity for Cortes as he and his company ventured inland in 1519. As they moved onward and the situation became more uncertain, he saw the clear need for a possible escape route and those lines of communication. This would necessitate a chain of friendly or subservient locals all along that path back to the camp on the coast, at Vera Cruz. Anthony Pagden agrees with Bartolomeo de las Casas and HR Wagner, that this may have been the primary reason for the massacre that occurred at Cholula. But he doesn't give much reason for that (he might elsewhere) in this footnote mentioning the idea.[n. 27, Second Letter:*.] But there is a real logic to the idea that something had to be done, if not massacre thousands of locals who, by some accounts, acted like they just wanted to help. At some point going inland, Cortes had recognised that the farther they went the harder it would be leaving again if they had to refight every town they came in contact with, on the return route. Plus, he must have felt they had to show or, prove their allegiance, fulfill promises to the Cempoala and Tlaxcalans once they had entered this Mexica ruled town and received word there that these locals were indeed waiting in ambush. It makes the story of the massacre more plausible to think that Cortes felt very pressured into doing something in Cholula, for the new allies, the locally hated foes of the Tlaxcala and Cempoalans. And after the fact, it would not be something that Cortes would want to make a big deal about to his king, or his God, if he was so pressured.

Restall reminds [p. 87**] that the translators in many instances of Spanish conquest were usually inadequate. The wide use of the Requirimiento, for instance, showed a cruel lack of awareness of the situations westerners found themselves in. This was a church-approved speech given to the locals that demanded specific impersonal obesiance in Christian terms and simulataneously established legal power over whoever heard it, whether the hearer understood what was being said or not. Since the discovery of the new world, the church had realized that they needed to convert these souls, the state realised that they had to exert power over them too. The Requirimiento became the legal way to do both. Legally, this communication had been used at the beginning of a battle. Read aloud in order to demand that any foes instantly become a Christian, renouncing personal idols and drop all antagonisms, or be killed for not obeying the requirement just made. A very real 'cease&desist' demand made at the point of a sword. 

Malintzin, the single crucial link of communication for Cortes had to exert some kind of pressure on him too. He knew he couldn't easily find another translator. She had her own survival to think of. She knew for now, that she had to stay with Cortes as they went inland, especially if the Mexica were as hostile and treacherous as they seemed to be in Cholula. Camilla Townshend says, "...if she valued her life at all, there could not have been any contest in her mind about remaining behind anywhere that the Spanish went." [p. 82 †]

We have seen Cortes use deceptive words and hidden agendas against his own men to further his agenda. Now his communications can be seen acting in other ways. The theme of terrible communications which, are then turned into perfect examples of perfection for historical purposes, will continue.

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* note 27, pp 465-66, from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001
** Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall, New York, Oxford University Press Inc., 2004

† 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

On Information and Some Of Its Uses, October 2013

UPDATE: An exchange between NYT editor Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald on what journalism is and isn't should make the rounds.

It is commonly said that communication is a two-way street. We also live in a time of political polarization in the USA where even the media complain that 'both sides do it'. 'It' being whatever the media don't want to address regarding the misinformation and manipulation that political entities espouse on any given day. This polarization itself is a product of concerted efforts to engage in a kind of 'information combat', for the purposes of winning political power and influence outcomes. Added to this is the very real effects of the digital-information-age explosion which permits and encourages many millions more to add their voices, communications,  information and opinion. And all this can be delivered as a result to a much wider audience.

By itself, this is a very good thing. More voices and more communication of them should mean more people engaged in the process, resulting in a richer, more representative, more informed electorate. As well as their representatives in politics. But with big money behind many of the opinions and power seekers in this democracy, wide dissemination of any kind of information can also be readily had.

As it turns out, any idea can seemingly become available, then popularized and then, hold sway for many on the recieving end. Even calculated, designedly manipulative, misinformation can and does: it's been the industry standard for generations. The intersection of advertising and politics, the interplay of big money, advertising, politics probably had somethnig to do with the popularity polls in the early years of the Iraq invasion. "But both sides do it!" many like to say. The problem I see, with many stepping to the microphone and saying what's on their mind, is that not enough listeners, to my ears, are asking just what are the talkers informed with.

It used to be that the press, the media, journalists would ask about the provenance, the source of any given information. But reliability, the source of expert information, and their validity are commonly no longer questioned. They are just repeated as 'expert witnesses'. This idea has extended to that of politicians who are increasingly treated as news sources themselves, as are Generals, eonomic 'analysts' and even self-avowed 'entertainers', who are seen more commonly as 'ratings generators' rather than 'truth-tellers' or journalists.

Commercials and advertisers try to sell us stuff all the time, all our lives. We know that. We know they're online, on the radio, in our smart phones. But journalism has only fairly recently fully succumbed to, has only recently, fully gone commercial. Newspapers always had ads and coupons. In the 21st century, with everything serving 'the bottom line', or ratings, too many editors and producers have decided to give less attention to what journalism is for. Telling the truth, revealing corruption, getting the story. Instead the focus is on the money and on spreading opinions of the already powerful, the special interest. Special interests like business, like big energy, like big agri- and pharma-industries. Sure, big data. The link is to an 18 minute Terri Gross interview with a correspondent on a PBS Frontline series about the changing nature of the news, in 2007.

Nowadays we are beginning to know what it is like to be farmed for data, for our personal information. To be used for the purposes of others, like the state, like the businesses, the ad agencies. Our privacy for their databanks. This is not a two-way street anymore. The communication lines aren't equable. Why can the government have secret programs about the information it collects on us and we are not allowed to know how they work? Why can the business that allows me to use facebook, or google - at least three at any given time - be allowed to collect all that data and yet, still tell us that their uses of that data still 'may remain' their private information and not subject to user scrutiny? Why is only a few these sorts of questions being asked at all when so much seems at stake?

Spooky Ghost Mines, some news mid-oct2013

Atlas Obscura does a great job providing pictures of  'ghost towns' in different places.

• In Chile, some twenty miles east on route 16, from the coastal city of Iquiqui, lies what's left now of Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works, one of many Nitrate towns left empty after the mining stopped. A 2005 UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• more atlas obscura pictures of the effect of centuries of mining by Romans near Yeres, Spain.

• another set with a few depicting one of Japan's many sulfur mine towns, near Hachimantai also abandoned

• many more ruins maintained in stasis all over the world. 
• Ten other notable sites that need help to be preserved.

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Helpfully, NPR made a point of showing a bit of what was news in the rest of the world as the US teetered on edge of self-inflicted, unnecessary, economic default.

a post on why Glenn Greenwald's move to new media venture is a big deal, WAPO 17Oct13

celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day

Rome Was A Dangerous City In 15th Century

Six hundred years ago, in June, the king of Naples attacked the city of Rome. Pope John XXIII fled and the city was plundered.  As Christopher Hibbert tells it,

"... Neapolitan soldiers, unchecked by their commander, set fire to houses, looted the sacristy of St Peter's, stabled their horses in this ancient basilica, ransacked sanctuaries and churches, and sat down amid their loot with prostitutes, drinking wine from consecrated chalices [pp. 6-7]."*

But Rome in those days was already in a very sorry state. For over a hundred years there had been two popes, sometimes more, one in Italy and another elected pope who lived in Avignon, France. The reasons why this happened were complicated, but a primary one was how badly security had gotten in the 'eternal city'. Again from Christopher Hibbert,

"... the charred shells of burned-out buildings, piles of rotting refuse, deserted palaces, derelict churches, stagnant swamps, fortresses abandoned by their rich owners... a lawless ruin, a city torn by violence in which belligerent factions paraded through the streets with daggers and swords, where houses were invaded and looted by armed bands, pilgrims and travellers were robbed, nuns violated in their convents, and long lines of flaggelants filed through the gates, barefoot, their heads covered in cowls, claiming board and lodging but offering no money...weeds growing up between the stones littering the piazzas and flourishing in the overgrown, rat-infested ruins of the Campo Marzio; cattle grazed by the altars of roofless churches; robbers lurked in the narrow alleys; at night wolves fought dogs beneath the walls of St Peter's and dug up corpses in the nearby Campo Santo. [pp. 3-4]."

Hibbert is describing a Rome that was torn and seemed to be waning at last. Hibbert then charts the course of nearly a century's worth of papacies in Rome. Some marked improvements heralded by pope Martin V, after the Council of Constance (1418), and the jubilee celebration in 1450 of Nicholas V, that raised so much money on pilgrims, are mentioned [pp. 7-8]. But this is mere prelude to Hibbert's main topic,  The Borgias, which is just one of his many books on Renaissance Italy, for English.
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Another picture of Rome, looking about a generation later, also emphasizes the physical dangers of the city and the rest of Italy in the times that we call the Renaissance of Italy. Elizabeth Lev vividly tells the story of Caterina Sforza in her book The Tigress of Forli. As daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan, she grew up in privilege that only a very few knew. She had travelled in the entourage of the Duke during his tour of neighboring city-states in 1471 when she was eight. Then there were two thousand cavalrymen, five hundred infantrymen, fourteen carriages as well as, "... a thousand dogs and innumerable hawks and falcons as well as dwarfs, jesters, and musicians [p. 7]."† So Caterina had some idea what she was in store for when moving to Rome, at the age of thirteen to be brought to her husband, Count Girolamo Riario, the papal captain of Pope Sixtus IV.
The life of the Count himself had been endangered in 1477, so Caterina's transit was delayed. Two men had been arrested and had confessed that they, approached by a bishop (the patriarch of Venice ), would reward them, if they, in the name of Giuliano della Rovere - the Count's cousin-  would assassinate the same Count, the pope's captain. Caterina's husband, Girolamo. The pope reassigned a trusted man, Giovanni Battista da Montesecco to guard his captain and sent letters to Caterina, cleverly urging her to stay in the north as the summer came on, to avoid the pestilential air in the south [p. 35].
Caterina herself either did not receive the letters or ignored them. She went ahead and embarked on the twelve day journey from Imola to Rome. Outside the city at Castel Novo she met her husband at last after four years of waiting. The pope had granted an additional escort for the Count venturing outside the city and he gave them to the Milanesi escort of Caterina. As our historian Lev points out,

"...Caterina, unaware of the plots against her husband, would have taken their [the soldier's] presence as an indication of his powerful position rather than protection against assassins. [p. 36]."

The next day was a festival day, Pentecost Sunday, seven weeks after Easter.

"At the Roman gates, an astounding sight awaited her. Six thousand horsemen appeared from all sides and fell in with Caterina as she made her way to Saint Peter's Basilica. She was shown to a place of honor there as the pope entered in procession with the College of Cardinals to celebrate the solemn Mass of Pentecost, which lasted a full three hours. Afterward, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, back in papal favor, and Count Girolamo conducted Caterina, Gian Luigi Bossi [her minder, who represented the family's interests back in Milan], and the dignitaries of her escort to Sixtus." [pp. 37-8]

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* Christopher Hibbert, The Borgias and their enemies: 1431-1519 : 2008, USA, Harcourt Books

† Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

In Cholula: mid October, 1519

It was a few days after Cortes & Company had entered the ancient mesoamerican city that the famous battle, or massacre of Cholula occurred. The brutality, the death toll, the destruction was remembered as particularly heavy this time, by all accounts. Cortes would say that they had been warned not to try to deceive them. And he used that prior warning at a later time, as part of his attempt at honest justification of his actions there, in his Second Letter to the King. The Nahuatl remembrances set down by friar Sahagun decades later, blame intrigue by the Tlaxcalans. The Historia de Tlaxcala written by Manuel Camargo in the 1580's blamed the Cholulans for not surrendering and for killing a Tlaxcalan messenger.

Malintzin was shown to be helpful in saving the europeans again, as told by both Cortes and Bernal Diaz. This was by way of an old woman who came to her one night and explained that all around were traps and ambushes, big pits dug in the streets and filled with spikes and spears, all covered over with concealing mattes. When the right time came the Cholulans would pounce and drive the europeans out and into the traps. This was all at the command and instruction of the Mexica, the rulers of the Cholulans, as some of their chiefs explained. Bernal Diaz spends some time on this part of the story with the back and forth retellings by Malintzin, and with the accusations of this given to the Cholulan caciques there. Diaz describes a tense standoff at dawn after a night being prepared for and believing that an attack from the locals would come [ch lxxxiii].

Bartolomeo de las Casas has at different times been both famous and infamous for his brief description of the violence that ensued. In his Brief Letters of the Destruction of the Indies, he claimed there was no reason for the senseless deletion of so many lives. Only to punish and strike fear into all the rest. Another similar telling, an eyewitness, Vazquez de Tapia, said that leaders and load bearers were called into a courtyard and there, were salughtered by order of Cortes, and by the spaniards*. Cortes claims there were three thousand killed there in two hours. Vazquez de Tapia puts the number as high as twenty thousand. Then they set fire to the place.

Cholula was an ancient religious center and mercantile hub, with perhaps a greater population than Rome. It was home to over 300 temples and today, remains home to the largest pyramid in the Americas and the largest pyramid by volume of any kind, in the world. It was built in successive overlapping layers for millenia. Since the Spaniards built a temple on top of it, and the innermost layer was built c. 300 BCE, the Great Pyramid of Cholula remains the oldest continuously used building of the Americas.
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*note 27, pp 465-66, from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001

news from 12oct2013

• UPDATE!!! guy gets depressed reading news, decides to make his own version that focuses instead on real people living real life. Weekly episodes combine festivals, traffic, school, sports, music, and uppped to youtube for mass consumption. Because Uruguay is the best country
• on the bbc this morning, the world service show In The Balance has a discussion, asking the question, might it be smart for countries to have a plan B,  economically speaking, as the US totters with internal divisions? They reference a mesoamerican poet Nezahualcoyotl
• a broader explanation that makes more sense - the forest instead of the trees - focused on the historical threads that gave rise to the current insurrectionists in the US over 'Obamacare'. The article at the link posits that the political descendents of the old south hated the idea of Social Security, Medicare, Equal Rights, Voting Rights, etc. because they could not locally control these federal programs and policies. The Affordable Care Act increases these federally managed programs, to a degree and places more control of populations into hands other than the old school authoritarians. They're so mad they will shut the government down rather than help ensure people have health insurance.
• Of course the #shutstorm continues and which no one should be surprised about, but, they like to hide their nationally altering projects, for reasons they keep to themselves...

• Running to counter some of these authoritarian policies, including the historical 'stop and frisk' policy that empowers law enforcement in the old south and most major US cities, New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio spoke for nearly an hour with Alec Baldwin in a new 'Charlie Rose' style, show called 'Up Late' debuting on msnbc tonight.
• Emptywheel gets a nice write-up in Newsweek of all things. Because it IS important to know about what they know about you, and why we can't know about them...
• major typhoon hits India
• Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons gets the Nobel Peace Award this year. Alice Munro gets the prize in literature. Higgs and Englert get the award in physics for isolating the Higgs boson, the 'gravity particle'. 
• "Finding Higgs Boson", a guitar solo that Frank Zappa titled in 1988...

In Tlaxcala; Before Cholula: Oct. 10, 1519

The time spent in Tlaxcala, if Bernal Diaz is to be believed, was largely spent seeking information and negotiating with various groups, ambassadors, messengers, and even discussing with his own men as to what to do next.  Diaz spends four lengthy chapters (78-81) on this series of discussions before they get on the road again (82).  There were the Tlaxcalan chiefs, the new trusted locals, there were the Cempoalan chiefs, the old trusted friends, who both advised Cortes not to proceed by way of Cholula. There was a Mexica garrison there, they said and that city had long been subservient to and followed the treacherous whims of Moctuzoma. On the other hand, there were the Mexica and then the Cholulan ambassadors who gave opposite advice. The Spaniards were welcome, and of course, would be treated as honored guests; the Tlaxcalans were the ones that could not be trusted.

As it turns out, if Diaz is to be believed, the Tlaxcalans were correct. But by his reckoning, the europeans spent seventeen days in Tlaxcala. Messengers coming and going, ambassadors to Cholula, or to Moctuzoma sent, called back, received, sent away. Much of this was even documented pictorially in what is variously called La Historia de Tlaxcala. This was of course a collection that was itself a compilation brought together, sixty + years after the events described. Ascribed to Diego Muñoz Camargo, the text marked the completion of that 'questionnaire', Relaciones Geográficas produced by Phillip II (c. 1580) and sent to all the 'towns of New Spain'. This was a locally produced reply, this chosen local 'mestizo' author, Camargos put together in the 1580's at the direction of the Tlaxcala governor, Alonso de Nava.

Helpfully, Camilla Townshend, in her book, Malintzin's Choices, gives a photo (p.75) from it and a number of other photos (pp. 69-73) from the 'Texas fragment'of one the numerous copies of this unique item. She uses these to support her argument of the centrality and power of her object of focus, the young woman Malintzin. There are a number of these and other photos of the pictures if you use any internet search. But not many.

But this 'Texas fragment' (called that because it stays in the Nettie Lee Benson Collection of the University of Texas in Austin, TX), Townshend says, the oldest version of a pictorial history of the state of Tlaxcala , was likely produced in the 1530's or '40's, after an original on cloth, now long lost. This early period did include the locals wanting to show for the whole world the marriage alliances, the negotiations, the acceptance of Xicotencatl the younger by Cortes, at a later time, when later Spaniards were trying to make their presences known in the region. The Tlaxcalans had entered into a separate agreement with the Spaniards, Cortes, and the King, the Emperor Charles V when he was undisputed leader of most of Europe and all the New World. Malintzin figures prominently in all these, sometimes larger than Cortes.

In the distance, some twenty miles distant, Mt Popocatepetl was smoking and sending off fire (Diaz, 78). As it is this year as well. The mountain's other name that this volcano is sometimes referred to is La Malinche. Cortes sent a pair of scouts to find out about it since they had never seen an active volcano before. The scout came back excitedly as, they had not only breached the smoking, spewing crest of the volcano - against the advice of the locals - but had seen beyond to the city of Mexico itself.
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references to Diaz: 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
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also: 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

Doña Marina: A Case For Liminal Attributes

Describing someone like Doña Marina, La Malintze, the young woman who became the essential translator for Cortes and his troop in 1519, when so little remains in actual written evidence of her story, requires much use of a great many contexts. Much that may be foreign and 'new' to casual observers.
Helpfully, a through-line that Camilla Townshend makes a case for, in her book, Malintzin's Choices, is that of the liminal character of the life Malintzin led. She had been both 'a part of' and 'not part of' whichever culture she happened to be immersed in at any moment, for most of her life. Her children that she bore Hernan Cortes also came to know that inside-looking-out and outside-looking-in character.

As a child, Malintzin - not her original name - was taken from the place of her birth, probably near the local trade center in Xicallancos, probably Coatzacoalcos, and handed over to a different people, closer to Patonchon, up the Yucatan coast. The reasons for this may have been multiple.

"How had these women come to be enslaved? In some cases, their parents had chosen to sell them, or they had entered the state voluntarily, theoretically with the right to buy back their freedom again someday. People entered into such arrangements ... only when famine or other hard times drove them to it, but there was still a stigma attached to it.... Many girls and women, however, were living far from home, either because they had been sold and then transported by travelling merchants or because they were in fact war captives." [p. 19-20]

Here she was probably a menial servant girl, acting out the roles of a secondary servant. Not a member of a family, not first or second child. Perhaps through prior education, living in a local trading hub - where Nahua was the common language - she had developed an alacrity with languages, having to learn a new one here in her new home, as well, but without status. It may have been very important there to listen very carefully and speak as little as possible. We have no way of knowing for sure.

But certainly, Women protected the hearth, cooked, cleaned and made clothes. Yes, cotton clothes, so that had to be carded and spun and girls were taught to use a spindle at an early age even there [p.24,27]. Women, whether married, with or without children, slave or free often lived their entire lives communally in a courtyard or, by the hearth of a single household. The happenings of the external world came to them through the front door and could be discussed at length. Being one of those who had come from that outside world, Malintze would be in a position to want to know.
Bernal Diaz repeated the story of her being a stolen royal princess. This is probably not the case but writing decades later, he still admired her and such a belief would not have hurt her, in those earlier days, so she could accept such a story, whether it was true or not. Townshend warns us,

"Whatever she did or did not understand about Spanish attitudes toward slaves and slavery, she herself came from a world in which it was shameful simply to have been sold by one's family and to have been forced to live as an outsider in the homes of others." [pp 23-4]

When the Spaniards came, year after year, with continuing stories piling up of the bearded men in the house-boats appearing up and down the coast, this had to make an impression on everyone. After the battle of Cintla and hundreds of locals killed, the local chiefs sued for peace. Malintze was one of perhaps twenty women offered as part of a greater peace offering. These women were accepted and then blessed with holy water and all given names. The one they gave Malintze - not her real name - was 'Marina'. Without the hard liquid sound of 'r' in the Nahua tongue, this became 'Malina'. [p. 36]

Cortes gave her to Alonso Puertocarrero, cousin to the Count of Medellin in Extramadura, where Cortes was from. He was one of the inner circle of Cortes and could appeal to the court at home. It is he who went with the first letter addressed to the king in July back to Spain. At first though she probably followed him around, quietly observing, learning their language [p. 37]
Perhaps even the very first time that the Mexica messengers from Motecuhzoma came aboard ship off Potonchon, after the battle of Cintla, translations with Jeronimo de Aguilar broke down. He could speak a dialect of Mayan but not Nahuatl. Malina coud speak both. She could have stayed silent, but soon proved herself willing and able to speak for both parties. It was here that Cortes' secretary Gomara later said that Cortes took them aside and offered her 'more than her freedom' if she could take them to Moctezoma.

Townshend here plausibly speculates that even if her new master was killed, this other chief Cortes might care for her if she proved herself valuable to him [p. 41]. It was not long after that even the Spaniards began calling her Doña Marina. Within a few short months her abilities and sway began to spread. She was shielded by Cortes, but she won a respect which was based on, and coming to her as a result of, her own abilities. When messengers returned to Motecuhzoma they referred to the perosn they spoke to as, 'one of us here', yet she clearly was not any longer. When Alonso Puertocarrero left for Cuba and Spain in July, she apparently became part of Cortes' inner circle and when they all turned inland, she went with them. When they reached Cempoala and the other towns along the way, she negotiated. At one point, as before Tlaxcala, she would be sent ahead to do negotiations without Cortes.

"In addressing her, the indigenous visitors understood that she represented a foreign entity hitherto unknown to them.... When the visitors turned to Cortes and spoke directly to him, despite his lack of comprehension, they addressed him as "Malintze," too..... Malintzin was their initial refernce point; others in her party took on meaning in relation to her.... she was the speaker." [p. 56]

They came to need her not just to secure food and water, but for the needs of conquest. If they were to continue into the interior of this place that they knew nothing about, they needed a guide who at least knew the language. A pliant one, better, a child who was quick to learn languages, could gauge the temper of situations quickly, and summon the courage to speak, not as a little girl, but even  "a lady of power" for both Spanish and the locals.

"Bernal Diaz... conveys that she spoke to them archly or coquettishly if need be ... she knew how to handle her Spanish male audience.... [H]owever... with her Nahua audiences... she spoke rhetorically, formally, high-handedly. They could accept a noblewoman's having the floor and could even be persuaded by her into action.... She knew this and adjusted her tone accordingly." [p. 59]

 She was playing both sides, expertly.
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quotes and pagination from 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

Footnotes of Anthony Pagden: On Tlaxcala

One of the great things about Anthony Pagden's English translation of the letters of Hernan Cortes are the extensive, explanatory footnotes. Really. Not merely lists of published sources, the expansion of footnotes here, provides much needed contexts to shed real light on this far away, long-ago world. As a central, primary text, these letters, while written hundreds of years ago, continue to have wide influence and have generated some of the most extensive commentary and analysis all by themselves. If we add to this that the events Cortes set in motion and depicts, took place in a world very foreign to his audience (and the rest of us), then, much that needs unpacked, for simple clarity, remains. Furthermore, while there was much analysis for centuries in the wake of this watershed event of the european conquest of Mexico, it was only recently that a more critical eye has been leveled at these histories and commentaries. Recent scholarship has also expanded greatly in the last forty years to include findings in archaeology, anthropology, linguistic and ethnographic studies. Pagden's translation, which first appeared in 1971 did much to spur these inquiries for readers in English and other languages, even when he 'gets it wrong'. His work can be seen as a springboard, a platform from which much else can be discovered.

So it makes sense to look at some of the contexts that Pagden supplies for his work. For example, when Cortes mentions in his second letter that he initially sent messengers to Tlaxcala, Pagden uses the occasion to give some background of the city and region. This is one example - quoted in full - of 456 such footnotes in this revision of the five letters of Cortes, published in 1986.

"Tlaxcala (probably "Land of Bread") was a province founded on the remains of the old Olmec civilization sometime in the thirteenth century A.D. The Tlaxcalteca were composed of three main ethnic groups, speaking Nahuatl, Otomi and Pinome. The Nahuas, however, soon established themselves as the dominant race, while the Otomis were ranged along the frontiers, much like march warriors. They were respected for their valor, much prized as captives by the Mexica but regarded as barbarians. The Pinomes probably became assimilated with the Otomis; they were the most backward of the three groups, and their name became a synonym for savage. Tlaxcala was divided into four confederate states, Tepeticpac, Ocotelolco, Tizatlan and Quiahuixtlan, each ruled by a Tlatoani (pl., Tlatoque) or "speaker." Matters of national importance were decided in conference, but in all other affairs the four states were autonomous. Most Amerindian states were organized on similar lines, a fact which the Spaniards, with their European notions of kingship, failed to understand for some time. When at last they did realize, the divided Indian state became a common feature of colonial rule (Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century, pp 89 ff.).

The relationship between the emergent Mexica empire and Tlaxcala was at first quite amicable. But Tlaxcala was wealthy - her riches derived from an extensive mercantile network that reached from coast to coast - and the Mexica soon began to make efforts to avail themselves of these  resources by conquest. The Tlaxcalteca resisted, and despite their ever-diminishing power managed to remain independent, though hemmed in on all sides by dependencies of the empire. Finally, together with Cholula and Huexotzinco, Tlaxcala reached an agreement with Mexico whereby, on certain prearranged occasions, they fought staged battles Xochiyaoyotl, or "Flower Wars," with each other. The purpose of these wars was to provide sacrificial victims for the altars of the victors. They also served as a proving ground for young warriors and enabled the Mexica, who invited the chieftains of the "Enemies of the House," as they were called, to witness these sacrifices, to apply diplomatic pressure upon a people they had failed to defeat in war. An appearance of open hostility was maintained for the benefit of the common people, and neither side would have passed over an opportunity such as Cortes offered to overthrow the other.

Main sources for the history of preconquest Tlaxcala are Diego Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala (title varies) and the work of Tadeo de Niza, now lost, but used extensively by Ixtlilxóchitl for vol. II, chap. LXXXIII et seq. of the Historia Chichimeca. A complete bibliography may be found in Gibson, op. cit., pp. 235-291."

This is footnote 13 of Anthony Pagden, out of 119 notes just for the second letter of Cortes. A few more will be brought to attention here as the story unwinds.
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found in pp. 461-2 of Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001

Doña Marina, Translator, 'Bridge-Maker', Was A Local, And A Woman

Doña Marina was a local woman that the Spaniards had acquired in Yucatan, probably in March, 1519, soon after first landing there. In many ways, as it turns out, these europeans with Cortes would not likely have made it as far as they did without her. In six months she had become so essential that Bernal Diaz gives her much of the credit for the real breakthrough, winning over the Tlaxcalans, outside of their city. As the Cortes faction stayed in the city, after first entering it the week before, negotiations were continued as the parties got to know each other. But the actual person behind the name, this woman who was central to negotiations as translator of the Nahua languages that the locals spoke, the one sleeping with and caring for Cortes himself as well, has been almost lost in stories told about her, long after it all happened. The truth or falsity of stories notwithstanding, some women get talked about a lot without ever getting to tell their side of it.

This is the case with Doña Marina, called Malintzin and much worse, by the locals even today. Born in a house that was run by or related to some local chief or noble, she was educated and could speak well the language of the local ruling elite near the Coatzacoalcos  River. She was also, according to people who knew her, like Cortes, 'stolen by merchants' when a child and taken elsewhere to be a menial servant until 'the boat people arrived'. She herself did not leave any written accounts herself, which has generated it's own wounds and real sense of shame over the centuries.

Still, a symapthetic look at her life can be found in a 2006 academic work, called "Malintzin's Choices". The author Camilla Townshend took the time to learn the Nahua language, as we understand it, whcih gave her insight she says to the cultural environment that Malintzin grew up in.  She stresses that this woman's own cultural contexts are what we need foremost to understand a foreign culture as well as a foreign time. Of course, she admits we have very little to go on in the written record. But she lays out what records we do have admirably, and clearly in her extensive footnotes, showing stunning modern-day scholarship. She sees the necessity of understanding, and develops in her telling, the web of interrrelations that Malintzin and women in general lived in, there, and in those times. After centuries of misunderstanding and even hatred toward Malintzin, false-stories, Ms Townshend thinks it long past time to set the record straight and show this woman thru the lenses of personal choices and their outcomes, rather than as merely a victim or as a deceptive, manipulative traitor.

Indeed, the case can be and has been made over and over, fairly or not, that she betrayed all her fellow local people to the ravages and eventual conquest by the europeans. Ms Townshend quotes Otavio Paz who, when writing of La Malinche, said that calling her Chingada, the 'fucked one', or 'the one used' was appropriate in talking of the conquest. It could even explain, he went on, the then current term, malinchista, itself as used by the papers in his day, to describe someone who would allow foreign influence to breed corruption. The influence of this shameful idea he said, perpetuated a reactionary xenophobia during his time in the 1930's, -'40's. Not that Paz believed in this hurtful transferral of guilt or subsequent alienation, nor does Ms Townshend seem to at all. She is merely remarking that these sorts of ideas have widespread and longlasting influences.  And that it might be really good to have a way of disentangling these ideas and healing the wounds generated by these old, deep ideas of betrayal, violation, treachery. Poverty can be bad, but ignorance is often worse, for example. So Camilla Townshend wishes to provide some understanding about this woman by explaining some of her times and locale.

First of all, women in the Yucatan of a certain background had privileges to an extent, and a certain amount of respect could be granted to them and demanded by them. The men needed women and knew it. Women could exert power, but also could be sold into slavery. Theirs was not like our time or our culture's understanding, however. She didn't set out to build bridges. Maybe, she just did the best she could and survived as long as she could. Townshend continues in her introduction that the paucity of evidence makes an interior view of her life nearly impossible, yet we can still see a range of possibility with Malintzin, the kinds of thoughts she may have had, if we understand the world in which she lived in, better. In her introduction, she writes,

"It thus becomes important to lay out the full panoply of possibility, to render the context so vibrantly real that the range of Malinche's potential reactions becomes an interesting subject of thought, and her actual decisions and actions resonate more meaningfully.... sources must be read carefully and without naive acceptance of their assertions, but taken together, they provide a window ... into the world in which Malintzin lived and breathed." [p. 7]

Townshend also describes in her introduction to this work that the lengthy footnotes act as a kind of 'parallel book' that describes her own journey along the way of discovering the world that Malintzin lived in. She tells us it is of 'absolute importance' not to project 'modern concerns' onto that world. Townshend wants to ask 'how she mattered in her own time', and 'what did the events in her life mean to her'. [p. 5-6]
The scope of these questions posed for anyone's life seems already too broad. But it seems, we know so little, the questions that guide the inquiry, must be broad, in order to get any sense at all.
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quotes and pagination from 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

Elected To Senate's zonta: Sanudo Diaries: September 26, 30, 1518

In September, the Venetian Senate voted on new members of the Council of Ten. In 1518 an extra vote was held against precedent for one Francesco Donado. He, an old friend of Sanudo was granted the extra procedure and, on this second vote, beat a newcomer, Francesco Foscari, Donado's rival who in the previous vote had beaten Donado by sixteen votes. Foscari, a member of the Great Council had previously been accused of 'contraband with steel' but not arrested for it.

State legal counsel spoke up about the additional procedure and the Great Council asked for their opinion. But that was split into two equal groups, those that said the additional vote was valid and those who said it was not. Then, Sanudo himself spoke up and gave a rousing speech in the Council though he knew the Great Council could not really be held to task on this issue: Foscari was unpopular and, having served with Donado years before as savi ai ordeni was an old friend of his.
This seemed a conflict of interest to Sanudo so he reminded them of his name and his father who was well remembered for his patriotism and government service. This speech of Sanudo's was so well received that they immediately took up his proposal and the original vote was accepted and the second vote rescinded.
A few days later, they elected Sanudo to the Senate's zonta. The Editors tell us he thought this body was 'at the heart' of Venetian government. He was elated.

Sanudo Diaries: September 30, 1518 (26:72); "The election for the zonta was held.... Only fifty-two were elected, among whom I, Marin Sanudo, formerly of the Senate, was included by a wide margin, thanks to this most excellent Great Council, and with so muich glory and honor that no one, in a number of years, has enetered the zonta more favored than I was and, one might say, "without entitlement," because my title of Senator was through a loan."

Editor's note: "The coveted title senator ... was not awarded if the entry to the Senate had been facilitated by a loan, as had Sanudo's entry in 1516."

Sanudo Diaries (con't): "But now I have been chosen because of the speech I gave Sunday, which pleased the Great Council, whom I shall serve for all eternity. I consider myself repaid for my every labor, since they have received me into the most excellent Senate with such great honor. Present in the Great Council were 985 members."

Editor's footnote: "A few days later, on 3 October, Francesco Danado's supporters were able to get him elected to the Council of Ten to finish out the term of a member elected to the Collegio as a savio grande." [p. 20]

This story is much longer and more detailed in, and
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All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes 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

late update sept13

UPDATE: #shutstorm happened, 0000 EST 01October2013. Great piece on how gerrymandered voting districts helped allow this to happen.

Late Friday came word that the UN had voted on supporting the cataloguing, removal and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons. Last week it seemed an intractable situation and now it is as good an outcome as could be hooped for. In a surprise press briefing late in the aftrenoon, Obama announced he had spoken to the new President of Iran: the first time that's happened since 1979.

Seymour Hersh was on a roll, captured by the guardian, where he advocates firing 95% of media. They're far too easy on this WH, he says. Especially about surveillance and what the spooks do in our name. There was an open hearing in the Senate yesterday led by Intelligence Committee Chair, the CA Sen Diane Feinstein. Watching it on cspan3 yesterday was informative. You could see the heads Clapper and Alexander working to establish the foundation of a 'rapport' about the hot issues they claim to be responsible for. Acknowledging public perception (blaming the media), acknowledging the usefulness of hearings before Congress, welcoming criticism and emphasizing internal and external checks. The only real critic of this mass of secret USGOV activities was OR Sen Ron Wyden who was allowed five minutes to question the officials. Emptywheel talks about some of what was interesting about that.

some on the right-wing fever dream to get rid of the CFPB in three minutes on chrishayes

They're so scared it will work, that sabotaging healthcare is now big business for the usual suspects. Reporting by the Nation.

news on 25sept13

today I got up mid morning and checked doonesbury, the news sites I regularly use (on the internet) and ended up after a brief listen to the BBC worldservice (via a local NPR radio station on the FM dial) where there was much about the siege ending at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, and followed that with catching last night's DailyShow w/ Jon Stewart (on the internet). I get the internet thru ATT. I pay $46 /month for that, that's $552 per annum. I'd rather give all that money to NPR or my local FM stations. But that's not how the process is set up. Locally based internet services are more expensive.

Then while NPR's Morning Edition played in the background, I started watching the twitterfeed. That's an internet sytem that 'feeds'you  tweets up to 140 characters long, of all the people, organizations, etc. you follow. This morning that virtual world was a-twitter with comments on TX Senator Ted Cruz' attempt to do something ineffectual, except putting himself in the spotlight. Which he succeeded doing. He says he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2009. So I watched the last bit of that on CSPAN2 this morning and sent a bunch of tweets in response to KY Sen Rand Paul who was repeating the memes that Cruz was espousing. Of course I told him to quit lying and do his job. Not likely he saw my tweet. They get plenty of responses when they are on. Immediately after the Cruz talkathon, the Senate voted unanimously to avert a USGOV shutdown.

But there are lots of actual news stories that need mention/ attention.

Noted microphone holder Chuck Todd who works on msNBC says it's not his job to refute inaccuracies that politicos opposed to the ACA repeat. Many are saying this disqualifies him from the job-title 'journalist'.

Even after lying about it, NSA warns Congress, it still knows best, so they should do what their "... " told them to do.

Brasilia is suing the US for spying after news of NSA Surveillance of office of president, top oil co's etc. revealed. Brasilian president Dilma Rousseff spoke out about it at the UN. In fact, she opened up the General Assembly about it. Yesterday, world leaders went and spoke at the UN. The US press acted like they hoped there would be a sighting of US and Iran leaders meeting, even if by chance. How the world seems so topsy-turvy. On the weekend, The Phillipine Islands, Hong Kong and southern China were rocked by typhoon Usagi. Weeks or months it will take to recover.

UPDATE: At the end of the day, Kevin Gosztola posted this article about the Yemeni lawyer that represents victims of drone strikes in Yemen who is currently barred from the US.

Somebody floats an $11 billion settlement with JP Morgan Stanley over their dealings in mortgage-backed securities in the lead up to the 2008 crash. Gee, wonder what it's really worth to them? How is this guy involved?

Hundreds already reported lost in yestreday's 7.7 earthquake in Pakistan. Death toll and destruction estimates expected to rise considerably.

DailyKos comics are great this week, at least. Especially Mark Fiore in 'Concealed Carry Control'. But I still think TomTomorrow should get one of those genius grants.

In Tlaxcala: Diaz On Marriages, Proseletyzing: September 1519

In the days following the entry into Tlaxcala, Cortes and the europeans were offered a number of the daughters of certain Tlaxcalan chieftains, in addition to all the food and provisions, as Bernal Diaz continues his tale. First they brought some small gold pieces and 'stones of little value' and heaps of maguey fiber. They explained that all their riches had previously been stolen, taken for the 'price of peace and truces' with the Mexica.

The Tlaxcaltecas wanted these gifts to be accepted as 'showing goodwill as something from friends and servants'. Cortes was delighted. The elder Xicotencatl then offered 'among their daughters and nieces, the most beautiful'. He wanted to cement their alliance. All the rest of the cieftains said they, too, would bring their daughters the next day. Cortes thought this 'a good time to get these chiefs to give up their idols and not to sacrifice'.  The Mercedarian friar with them replied, according to Diaz:

"Sir, that's all very well, but let's leave it until they bring the daughters, and then we'll have an occasion to talk about it. You'll say that you don't want to accept the women until they promise not to sacrifice any longer; if that works, good; if not, we'll do what we're obliged to do." [ch. lxxvi]

The next day, Diaz says, the chiefs brought five beautiful young maidens, each with their own servant, all daughters of chiefs. Xicotencatl offered his own daughter to Cortes. He accepted them, 'pleasantly', but said they should stay with their parents, for now. They asked why he would not 'take them now'. This is what Diaz says Cortes told them:

"Because I want first to do what is ordered by Our Lord God, in whom we believe and whom we worship, and what the king our lord sent us to do"--..."and believe in what we believe, which is one true God alone...."

Here Diaz explains that many other good things were said by the interpreters as 'they were already so expert with it', saying they should 'first leave their idols and believe in and worship Our Lord God'.

"Their reply to this was to say: "Malinche, we have already understood you before now ... look, you have only just now come to these our houses; as time goes on we will understand more clearly your beliefs, and we will see how they are and we will do what is best. How can you want us to leave our teules, whom our ancestors have considered as gods for many years and have worshipped and sacrificed to them?"

They wondered out loud what would their children or their allies in neighboring provinces think if they abandoned their way of life and idols now? They had already said they would 'destroy this whole province'. This response, Diaz says this was given 'in earnest and without fear'. The Mercaderian friar 'a learned man and a theologian', stepped forward and spoke to Cortes.

"Sir, don't try to press them hard on this any more, because it's not right for us to make them Christians by force, and I wouldn't want you to do what we did in Cempoala, throwing down their idols, until they have knowledge of our holy faith.... It's better that they continue hearing our admonitions, which are holy and good, so that they recognize going forward the good advice we give them."

Three captains of Cortes also came forward and told him the friar was right, that Cortes had fulfilled his duty and not to  'touch on this matter with these chieftains anymore'. But the Tlaxcala agreed that a cross and imge of Mary could be erected there where baptisms occurred. The daughter of Xicotencatl was one baptized and then Cortes gave her to Pedro de Alvarado. And there were many others, Diaz says.[ch. lxxvii]
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all quotes from chapter lxxvi-vii of 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

Entering Tlaxcala: Cortes: September 1519

There are three different versions, of course, of how the europeans first entered the city of Tlaxcala. Bernal Diaz has one that gives remarkable, picturesque first-person details of how their troop entered the city and the amazing reception that he says they received. The local's tale documented by Sahagun decades later, had a remembered version that is just as remarkable for how different it is than both that of Diaz and the one Cortes offered in his second letter to the young King and Emperor Charles V. The version that Cortes told is almost entirely about geography and local economics.

Due to the stark differences, it is worth quoting them at length and verbatim.

After concluding the negotiations, accepting the friendship of the Tlaxcala and after much pleading from them, he says, Cortes and Co. went to the city "six leagues from our camp". He writes to the King:

"The city is so big and so remarkable that, although there is much I could say of it which I will omit, the little I will say is, I think, almost unbelievable, for the city is much larger than Granada and very much stronger, with as good buildings and many more people than Granada had when it was taken, and very much better supplied with the produce of the land, namely, bread, fowl and game and fresh-water fish and vegetables and other things they eat which are very good. There is in this city a market where each and every day upward of thirty thousand people come to buy and sell, without counting the other trade which goes on elsewhere in the city. In this market there is everything they might need or wish to trade; provisions as well as clothing and footwear. There is jewelery of gold and silver and precious stones and other ornaments of featherwork and all as well laid out as in any square or marketplace in the world. There is much pottery of many sorts and as good as the best in Spain. They sell a great deal of firewood and charcoal and medicinal and cooking herbs. There are establishments like barbers' where they have their hair washed and are shaved, and there are baths. Lastly there is amongst them every consequence of good order and courtesy, and they are such an orderly and intelligent people that the best in Africa cannot equal them.

In this province, which is in size ninety leagues or more about, there are many beautiful valleys and plains, all cultivated and harvested, leaving no place untilled; and the orderly manner in which, until now, these people have been governed is almost like that of the states of Venice or Genoa or Pisa, for they have no overlord. There are many chiefs, all of whom reside in this city, and the country towns contain peasants who are vassals of these lords and each of whom holds his land independently; some have more than others, and for their wars they join together and together they plan and direct them."

 Cortes continues to give an account of them dispensing justice, as a demonstration. A local had stolen some gold from a Spaniard. They caught him, brought him to Cortes and asked what they shoudl do with him. He thanked them for their 'diligence' and said they should do with him as they normally would since they were in their own land. He was marched through the big market with a crier announcing his crime.

"They made him stand below a kind of stage which is in the middle of this marketplace, and the crier climbed to the top of the stage and in a loud voice again announced his crime; when they saw him they all beat him over the head with cudgels until he died. Many others we have seen in captivity, where they say they are held for thefts and other crimes. There are in this province, according to the investigation I had made, 150,000 inhabitants together with another small province which is adjacent, called Guasyncango, and there they live as thse do with their natural lord; and these are no less Your Highness's vassals than those of Tascalteca."

This generous and generally revealing depiction is also quite surprisingly, admiring. In addition, Anthony Pagden offers a couple notes to this story. He says trade was conducted by barter. That money was not used except sometimes in cacoa beans 'to balance an exchange'. "Quills of gold dust and crescent-shaped knives were also used, and among the Maya red shells or beads and copper bells were common" [n 21, p 463].

Also, of course, Tlaxcala and the Mexica empire had a history that went back since before the Aztec began expanding outward from the Great Basin, perhaps as early as 1428. Tlaxcala had been wealthy, benefitting from this great market and the roads all around to all the different regions they reached. Over decades, eventually, the Mexica had this region surrounded. Literally, all the surrounding areas paid their portions to the Aztecs. With Cholula and Huexotzinco - what Cortes calls Guasyncango - Tlaxcala had reached an arrangement with the Aztecs where they fought staged battles with each other which provided frequent sacrificial victims for the victors of these contests. As Pagden says, "...the appearance of open hostility was maintained for the benefit of the common people, and neither side would have passed over an opportunity such as Cortes offered to overthrow the other." [n 13, p 461]
Pagden points out the main sources for all this is found in La Historia de Tlaxcala, a single manuscript found in the Glasgow University Library and in La Historia Chichimeca, vol II, lxxxiii et seq.
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all quotes from pp. 67-69, and notes, pagination, from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001