Renaissance Man

One of our weekly readings was a document supposedly traced back to the famous 14th century scholar and poet Francis Petrarch. In the document you get a unique perspective from one of history’s ‘Renaissance Men’. One thing that struck me was that Petrarch first and foremost did not think of himself as an ‘enlightened’ person who was a master in the realms of literature, philosophy etc. Instead he repeatedly says that the amount of respect he got from the nobility he was undeserving of.

The greatest kings of this age have loved and courted me. They may know why; I certainly do not.

Regardless of what Petrarch thought of himself, you get a pretty good snapshot of the type of man he was and the type of life that he lived. He was certainly an ambitious man and had a desire to expand his knowledge of the world, and also was very fond of travel. Being an intelligent and well liked person he was taken in and befriended some of the more powerful nobility in northern Italy at the time. Due to this his name carried with it a lot of clout and people listened to him.

This is the type of person I believe people are referring to when they speak of the renaissance. However, as we discussed in class, the vast majority of people at this time were not actively participating in a social and cultural revolution, they were merely common folk or peasants. So, if there was an actual ‘Renaissance’ it most certainty involved people of status, or people who were able to befriend and acquaint themselves with the nobility, and through this were given license to travel throughout Europe. Petrarch is the perfect example of this. He was well off, intelligent, well-schooled, and liked. Such people were most likely responsible for the spreading of ideas and culture throughout Italy, sparking the ‘Renaissance’.

Medieval Justice

In our weekly reading of ‘The Last Duel’, it struck me how meticulous the preparations and ceremony was for medieval events such as the joust between Le Gris and Carrouges, and how a person disturbing the event with yelling or any other distractions was subject to very harsh punishment. Some of these included having an ear or tongue cut off. The records from the time are filled with harsh punishments, many of them capital, for things as simple as stealing food. Animals were not exempt from punishment either, and were often tried and punished. This usually occurred when an animal had injured a person or damaged property.

Many trials were dictated by the Lords’ inherent right of property. Lords could always put an end to personal feuds, bring lawsuits to a close, and in doing so, stop the course of law within his own personal sphere of influence, usually determined by a set circumference of his residence. Anybody who infringed upon a Lord’s ban was subject to his court, and would often have to pay a fine.

For severe crimes, such as murder, rape, or heresy there were torture devices that are truly unfathomable. The Spanish inquisition is probably the most prominent example of this in the middle ages. The entire premise of ‘The Last Duel’ is essentially a story of cruel and unusual punishment handed down upon Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, by the king of France. Instead of a criminal investigation, and fair trial for both, which you would see today, ‘justice’ came in the form of a death match. As far as who was truly guilty or innocent goes, that was put entirely on God and his divine judgement. 

 

 

The Medieval Times

In one of the articles I read which was sourced from around 1063 CE by the Bishopric of Terouanne, we get a snapshot of what the rules of behavior were for ‘Holy Days’ and what was expected of people during those days. In doing so we also get to see what some of the common offenses of the time were among people.

How common some of these things were of course cannot be entirely known, but the fact that for a mere 4 days the bishop declared that these activities were to be prohibited, or offenders were to be excommunicated from the church shows that they were prevalent enough that the Bishop felt he needed to remind people NOT to do such things. This list includes:

“-no man or woman shall assault, wound, or slay another                                                                                                                                       -During the days of the peace, no one shall make a hostile expedition on horseback, except when summoned by the count; and all who go with the count shall take for their support only as much as is necessary for themselves and their horse

-All merchants and other men who pass through your territory from other lands shall have peace from you.”

You can clearly see that this particular region of France was one that probably had its fair share of conflict, with lots of raiding, stealing, and theft from foreign merchants or competing lords.

Much of this activity was most likely from the nobility, as they were usually the only ones with enough influence and weaponry who would be able to successfully raid other towns or merchants. We know that such activity was very common in Spain at this time, with El Cid being one of the most famous ‘raiders’ or ‘nights’ and was also a member of the nobility in Spain. It appears that France was not an exception when it came to such things. You can clearly see here that the church obviously had little or no control over these little conflicts that seemed to permeate medieval Europe. They were mostly against the fighting that regularly occurred among the nobility, but they had little power to stop it.

 

The remnants of Rome

The layman’s view that the downfall of the Roman Empire occurred rather swiftly between 300-400 CE can certainly be debated when you take into account that the Roman Empire actually took much longer to completely exit the scene as one of Europe’s powerhouses. The fact is that the Roman Empire continued well into the ‘Dark Ages’. The focus of this ‘new’ Roman State, known as Byzantium was primarily concerned with the eastern regions of the old Roman empire. This disconnect from the west has lead many to believe that after Rome ‘collapsed’ in the fourth century there were five centuries of cultural stagnation and disorganization throughout the regions that were formerly a part of the Roman empire. As noted by Paul Halsall from ‘An Introduction to Byzantine History’ this was not the case:

 It was, without any doubt, the continuation of the Roman state, and until the seventh century, preserved the basic structures of Late Roman Mediterranean civic culture: – a large multi-ethnic Christian state, based on a network of urban centers, and defended by a mobile specialized army

This is a stark contrast from what many (including myself) believe in regards to Rome and its aftermath. The fact is, Rome persisted for centuries after its supposed fall, except ‘Rome’ (the city) had very little influence on this new incarnation of the ancient empire. Byzantium was ruled out of Constantinople.

The next question is ‘how long did this new Roman state (Byzantium) persist, and what officially signaled its end? Byzantium was still a state with Imperial ambitions throughout the dark ages and well into the middle ages. The final and ultimate end of Byzantium occurred when the resurgent west on a conquest against Islam (the fourth crusade)  conquered Constantinople in 1204, officially ending any imperial pretensions of the Byzantine state.

 

 

Greek Historians

After discussing in class several different creek historians – Herodotus, Xenophon, and Thucydides we outlined each of their different approaches to attempting to create the most accurate picture of history, during a time when resources were scarce and reliable sources were few and far between. Given this knowledge, is there one particular historian that we should believe above all others?

I thought about this for a while before I concluded that (in my opinion) Thucydides approach to history is the most applicable way to approach ancient Greece. His view of attempting to connect multiple sources – whether it be from documents hundreds of years prior, word of mouth, or clay tablets and not worrying so much about the exact dates or chronology of events, will most likely give you the best picture of a certain culture and what it was like.

So wouldn’t such an approach include the other historians Herodotus and Xenophon? Yes it would. In my opinion all three of these men are important keys to Greek history, and while they might have disputed each others methods of recording history and tackling the challenge of documenting events that may have little record of occurring, the fact is we need to be able to incorporate the approaches of all three and attempt to blend them in a way that gives us the most complete picture of ancient Greece, and all that occurred in Greek culture.

Egypt: The Remains

After reading several articles on ancient Egypt I found it fascinating to consider how much of this early civilization has been buried by the sands of time and forgotten. When we take a look at all the information that has been gathered about this empire that existed for almost 5000 years, what we find is rather sparse. A few scattered documents here and there, some hieroglyphs in tombs and the remains of the pyramids, sitting in the desert almost like a carcass.

With this in mind, I was wondering how much of our current civilization would remain If it was abandoned and left to sit for 3,000 years. Most likely what you would find are articles/remnants similar to that of ancient Egypt. Much of our technology, books, houses, and infrastructure would disintegrate. The things that would remain (like in Egypt) would be well-built structures that would be able to resist the elements, and other documents that we purposely have taken the time to preserve.

Even though Egypt was not abandoned as in my hypothetical scenario for our current society, there still is a lot of ‘mystery’ surrounding ancient Egypt – which leads to lots of theorizing and speculation that they had super-advanced technology, aliens helped them build the pyramids etc. etc.

As new documents, carvings, or tablets continue to surface we begin to get a much clearer picture of the ancient Egyptians and their culture.