[Artemisia] Historiography and Richard Lionheart

[Stephanae Baker]

Milord Ryryd,

If you are accusing me of historiography, then I must protest that  
you didn't read me very closely. I was saying that historiography is  
what we all do when we read history if we're not careful. We posit  
theories--hopefully educated ones--based on how we read the sources.  
It's when we decide our theories are fact that we go awry. I don't  
think I attempted to impose any facts on what I said; however, you did:

> 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)

I don't disagree about this, but one of my points in my first email  
was that even applying contemporary ideas of homosexuality and  
bisexuality to Alexander or Richard is an automatic form of  
historiography. Homosexuality and bisexuality were not identity- 
defining labels in the period as they are today. People participated  
in homosexual acts but they were not therefore forcibly homosexual in  
the modern sense.

> 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)

Were you in Lincoln's bed with him? I wasn't. I don't pretend to know  
whether Lincoln had sex with another man or not. (Which is, again,  
not the same question as "was he homosexual?") I think history  
doesn't confirm it but also doesn't eliminate the possibility as you  
suggest. I'm not particularly invested in one possible truth over the  
other. But then allowing multiple possibilities is much more  
interesting to me than deciding what I believe and believing it just  
because.

> 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)

I'd have to push absurdity to argue with this one; I agree with your  
interpretation. But I do still have to insist that it IS an  
interpretation. We're interpreting the word "love." We can't  
necessarily prove that our interpretation of the word is the absolute  
truth. It's the more likely truth, but there's no "absolute truth"  
when language and people are our sources, especially when you're  
dealing with multiple languages and people from multiple cultures and  
times.

> 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.

I'm beginning to speak in circles, but here we go anyway. It's  
unlikely these men happened to be homosexual. As I stated, homosexual  
in the modern sense is not a period concept. Is it just as unlikely  
that they had sex with men once or twice or 25 times? Not remotely as  
unlikely. Is it unlikely that homosexual practices are the only thing  
that made them great? Definitely. Is it just as unlikely that  
possible homosexual practices contributed to who they were, what they  
did, and their fascination to us? Definitely not.

> 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".

I think what you meant, correct me if I'm wrong, is that a  
fundamental problem is that English has only one word for love  
(although we also have the word "like," which is more than you can  
say for French, for example). A language like Greek has four words  
for love--all of which get translated as "love" in English. This is  
indeed a problem, but even a word like eros is not as straightforward  
as you suggest. In fact, etymologically, your invented word pedoeros  
is exactly the same as the word pederast, which Lord Conrad earlier  
translated as "boy-lover." While eros's meaning does incorporate sex  
and desire, it also simply expresses passion stronger than philia, so  
that even when the Greeks use the word eros, we can't be 100% certain  
whether or not they were talking about sex.

All of which brings me back to my original point that we can't state  
fact. Humans can only interpret, even when we think we're not  
interpreting. Discussing whether Richard's (or Napoleon's or Peter  
the Great's) possible sexual practices affected his place in history  
is a no more or less legitimate discussion than whether or not his  
abilities as a warrior and tactician affected his place in history.  
They're all pieces of the puzzle. A single human being is  
complicated, and history concerns itself with billions. That's what  
makes HL Tamar's original question completely deceptive in its  
simplicity. Trying to answer what made Richard interesting (or great  
if you want) to billions of people in dozens of cultures over a  
millennium of time creates something impossible to calculate or pin  
down to fact. Richard is obviously not interesting to me for the same  
reasons he's interesting to you. I don't think I'd give a damn about  
Richard if I didn't love the play "The Lion in Winter," which paints  
its fictional Richard as having a conflicted sexual relationship with  
Philip. I don't think James Goldman, who authored The Lion in Winter,  
would pretend his fictional account of Richard was based entirely on  
fact, but he created a Richard who was credibly possible based on  
historical sources and who was also an extremely complex and  
interesting character. You can disagree with me that part of what  
creates a person's place in history is our collective imagination, if  
you'd like. I'd respect your position. But it is the one theory I am  
positing--not as fact (which is something I don't think we have the  
ability to parse), but as a theory I think is strong enough to  
defend. It's my theory that we only actually go wrong and fall into  
historiography when we pretend that we can know much of anything at  
all for certain.

Respectfully,
Lady Belladonna


On May 8, 2007, at 9:47 AM, 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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