medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Marjorie Greene <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> >I do allow myself the luxury of stating that William the Conqueror's
conquest of England was one of the worst things ever to happen to France.
Elaborating on Demand, Marjorie Greene <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This was the start of England's "meddling" in French affairs, at least to my
Gallocentric (is that a word?) eyes.
of course, one could put the "England's" in quotes, instead of the
"meddling".
>Once you have the king of England as vassal to the king of France, there's
bound to be trouble.
the Ducks of Normadie would have been trouble, in any case.
England just gave them a better resource base from which to be troubling.
and August Phil settled that question rather decisively, for over a hundred
years, at least.
>(However, I will concede that the language was marvelously enriched as a
result.)
whatever.
Fr. Guillaume can speak to that question better than i.
>And various marriages, especially Eleanor's, didn't help the situation
either.
well, that marriage was Louie the Kid's to loose, and he lost it, fair and
square.
can't really blame the "English" for that.
>As I see it, France suffered horrible consequences from the intermingling of
church and state, begun (sort of) at the baptism of Clovis, and so, I might
add, did the Church.
well, "England" didn't really have much to do with any of that, much less
Bill's Conquest of it.
blame Constantine, why don't you?
after all, "Church" and State were co-mingled up front, somewhere in the third
millenium, B.P.E.
hard to buck a Tradtion with that sort of petigree.
>And both countries, England and France, wasted endless resources trying to
conquer and avoid conquest. The 100 Years War is a good example.
agreed, but War was the Sport of Kings, and surely would have gone on
interminably, no matter who was on the throne.
> I realize my remarks may be offensive to my British colleagues and I
apologize in advance.
notoriously thin-skinned, they are.
the reason i questioned your original remark is that it seemed to me to be
some kind of typo, the argument for making the opposite case --that that
Bastard Bill's Conquest was one of the worst things to happen to *England*.
i'm primarily comming at this from an art historical persepctive, following
the outline of the disaster given by C.R. Dodwell in this interesting chapter
of one of his last books :
http://centrechartraine.freeservers.com/royalportal/comp/chapt7.rtf (129k
*.rtf file)
i suppose the permutations of "what ifs" are endless, all presumably playing
themselves out in parallel universes cheek by jowl with our own, and the sword
cuts both ways.
--No Norman Conquest => No Gothic Architecture ?
--No Norman Conquest => No 100 Years' War => No Reformation ?
--No Norman Conquest => No British Empire, upon which the Sun Never Sets?
which means, of course, no U.S. --though there might have been an Estados
Unidos.
clearly, a mixed blessing, mondially speaking.
the Mind Boggles.
best from here,
christopher
"But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to
be a great pretender and dissembler (disguiser, concealer) ; and men are so
simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive
will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived....
"Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I
have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall
dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is
injurious (harmful), and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear
merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright (honest), and to be so, but
with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able
and know how to change to the opposite....
"For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his
state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by
everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and
by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few
find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on."
http://www.the-prince-by-machiavelli.com/the-prince/the_prince_chapter_18.html
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/48/img/articles/early_signs_of_fascism.jpg
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