[Artemisia] Historiography and Richard Lionheart

[Tamar Black Sea]

Thank you Ryryd for stating this point (historiography) so succinctly. I 
felt a little silly at first, posting a question that seems so obvious 
at first glance.

One unintended consequence of playing in our "current middle ages" is 
that we can become quite habituated to seeing everything in modern 
terms. There are all sorts of aspects of the middle ages that we avoid 
like the plague (such as the plague :-) in the SCA. For example, we 
DON'T recreate the role of the church in every day life. We do not 
recreate an inherited aristocracy. Advancement in the SCA  is merit 
based and, unfortunately, won't make us rich or powerful; (sigh), the 
list goes on and on.

I have been completely enthralled reading everyone's responses and have 
learned a lot in the process. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to 
post such thought provoking responses.

The teaching materials I am using for covering the middle ages are a lot 
of fun and give a good (extremely) broad  overview  of  the big issues 
in the middle ages.  The period covered is from the end of the Roman 
Empire to the early Italian Renaissance. It is such a huge time and 
place that it gets a little frustrating trying to do justice to any one 
subject. People can, and have done PhD's in any one of the subject areas 
that the book covers.

A few of the subjects that we will be hitting next include; the 
development of a legal system in England (during the reign of Henry II), 
King John and the Magna Carta, the role of castles and forts, the 
construction of catherdrals and the rise of the medieval university.

Thanks again to everyone for adding so much depth to the discussion. We 
are having a ball reading your posts.

YIS,
Tamar

OHH!! P.S. I wrote earlier that Henry the First reigned after King 
Stephan....I meant Henry II ...I am so embarrassed :-) Also, I didn't 
count the Empress Maud in the line of succession....you all can decide 
if she should be included or not.  :-)




rcfaevans at comcast.net wrote:
> Okay, I am jumping back into the fray...
>
> What we have going on here is called Historiography: The superimposing of non-contemporary concepts on contemporary events.  In other words: Trying to attach ideas from one period in time to a different period.  
>
> (The classic example of this was in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".  During Gibbon's time, there was a large anti-Christian bent within academia.  Gibbon's thesis was that Rome was destroyed by the inception of Christianity.  This thesis has been completely disproved, but was very popular ***during Gibbon's time***.  "Decline and Fall..." is still taught to History majors to this day to keep fledgling historians from falling into this trap.)
>
> So, what's going on?  About 30 years ago, with the greater acceptance of homosexuality as a social norm, historians began to reexamine historical figures with the intent of proving that many of these figures were homosexual.  In this way, homosexuality would be accepted at a greater rate.  Much of this historiography is, at best, taken out of context.  At worst, completely wrong.  A fundamental problem is the English word 'love'.  As we all know, 'love' can mean many things in many contexts, most of them non-sexual.  Even doctors make a mess of this in technical terms: Pedophilia means, literally "love a child as a brother".  Pedoeros would be the correct word, meaning "love a child sexually".
>
> Some examples of this effect:
> Alexander the Great had sex with men, therefore was homosexual: (bisexuality in Greece and Macedon were social norms, accepted, and expected.  About the only ones who condemned this at that time were the remaining Hebrew Tribes in Judea)
> Abraham Lincoln slept with a man, therefore was homosexual: (He slept with him because there was only one bed, it was large enough for two men, and it was too cold and stupid for one to sleep on the floor)
> Gilgamesh and Enki loved each other {from the Epic of Gilgamesh}, therefore Gilgamesh was homosexual: (First, Enki wasn't even human.  Second, as our good King mentioned in a prior post, this just means they were close friends)
>
> The absurdity of these arguments can easily be seen with common expressions we use all the time:
> "I love beer and peanuts at a baseball game": Odd that Security doesn't arrest you in the stands.
> "I love the Denver Broncos":  All of them? It would probably be wise to go to a clinic and get yourself checked.
> "I love Christmas": Okay, this is just getting weird.
>
> It is very unlikely that Napoleon, T. E. Lawrence, Augustus Caeser, Peter the Great, Richard Lionheart, and so many others just happened to be homosexual.  It is even more unlikely that it was homosexuality that made these figures, and others, great.
>
> The Church wasn't trying to cover-up anything.  "Cover-up" became part of the vernacular in the 1970s, following Watergate.  The Church didn't have to hide anything.  They were the just about the only ones who could read and write.  Universal literacy only came into existence about 100 years ago.  Things we take for granted today didn't even exist 20 years ago.  My admonition: be very careful with history.
>
>
> Ryryd  
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