Reading Mani in the Mani

I remember buying my copy, but my memory is wrong. I remember buying it in Hay on Wye in Summer 2004, back in its glory days for second-hand books. I can even see the shelf. But I didn't go to Hay on Wye till the October. Who knows where I bought it. I certainly didn't know what it was. I was at the end of my Byzantine masters, caught up in the labyrinthine seductions of medieval Greece. I had barely read any travel literature at all, half of which other people had bought for me. I certainly hadn’t heard of its author, and I couldn’t have placed the peninsular on a map (this last is perhaps most embarrassing). I read it immediately, and I loved it. I bought pretty much the rest of the Fermor corpus in the months that followed. I even have the mediocre novel. And while the Constantinople trilogy is the most famous, it is to Mani that I keep returning. It is absolutely my favourite.

Because of this, I engineered taking my family to the Mani this Easter, and I reread it in the Mani, fifteen years after I last read it; more than twenty since I first did. And, as well as visiting his house in Kardamyli, we stayed in Areopoli, and drove to the southern tip. The roads were too terrifying to drive all the way round, but Fermor took a boat for most of that bit too, so I don’t feel bad about that. I got most of the locations, except that I forgot one of the nearest villages to where we were staying. It was superb. I even got to read out sections of it on location, which did not endear me to my children.

And we did it in a day. The astonishing thing about reading Mani is that the whole itinerary can be driven in less than three hours, if you don't stop. There are whole sections where they take mules up tracks; there are whole sections where Fermor doesn’t even take the track because it’s impossible and he takes a boat. In both cases, there is now a road, much of which isn't even single track. I don't know where you would source a boat, or for that matter a mule. In some villages, it's not clear where you would source anything. Some of the villages are pretty much empty; all of them are tamed. Kitta, famous for the last bloodfeud in the region, is now central for its supermarket. 

And yet, the geography is still the geography, and the history isn't very far away. Kitta was silent when we visited (apart from a couple of cars coming to the supermarket), but the towers of Nomia are still just across the valley. It is not a dramatic feat of imagination to take yourself back to those battles. The past lingers longer in empty backwaters than in bustling modern cities. It is easier to project back where there is little there. However, no matter how much was there, it would not be possible to change the absolute insanity of Vatheia’s hilltop towers, which have to be approached to be believed. The road was newer there – and I was profoundly grateful for it.

But the Mani itself isn't the only reason it is easy to scrape back the layers of history to the book; it's also because the book is already doing that for you. Fermor spends much more time talking about his sense of culture and history of where is than the experience of being there. Kitta's last feuds, which he evokes with such immediacy, happened in the 1870s. No one alive then was alive when he visited. This is not a thing you would know from reading the book. This blurring of past and present happens a lot. A shaky drawing of the coat of arms he sees in the church at Areopoli is presented with a rhetorical flourish as possibly imperial and Byzantine. In Areopoli, I went to the church. The board outside tells me it is the coat of arms of the most famous family in the Mani - the Mavromichalis. He will have known that, but it's a much better myth if the fact is left untold.

The precision of sites and locations in Areopoli is at the start of the book and the location of the coat of arms is testament to the clarity of description he was capable of. Only when looking to recreate the route, does it become very clear how skeletal the route actually is in the writing. Certainly the sequence of visits is uncertain. A string of villages get no more than namechecks in the text; he visits precisely one village on the east coast before doubling back to the west and then sailing up the Gytheio. Thre are great descriptive sections (I enjoyed reading Fermor's description Mezapos bay), and there are superb set pieces (I fell in love with it years earlier in the Byzantine flight of fancy right at the start), but the act of travel is very minimally present.

I've seen complaints about this. That Mani suffers in comparison to the Constantinopolitan trilogy because of their propulsion of their narrative. But it's clearly deliberate. This is a book about his Greece and the Mani is an exemplar of that. An extraordinary about Mani is the amount of time that is devoted to essentially atmosphere, a pleasing amount of which is about getting drunk. I remembered the sections where he goes off on tangents about his thoughts on (e.g.,) icon painting. I didn't remember the narrative asides where he directly addresses the reader apologising for those tangents. It's an act of course - we know every word was carefully weighed and edited - it's why his books took so long to write - but it's a very good act.

And it works. Reading Mani in the Mani gave me a loose itinerary, but it also suffused the whole trip with a distinctive vision of Greece that is hugely compelling. Every sight carried both the present and layers of past with it, and all of it evoked a world already gone when Mani was written, but still accessible because it was.

The Original Tudor

I've been listening - on repeat - to Horrible Histories' magisterial Glam Rock pastiche for Henry VII, the original Tudor. Here it is. 

Obviously, you like best the HH songs that match your preferred genre. This certainly matches mine. Visually and musically, it echoes the early 1970s Glam Top of the Pops performances perfectly. It is therefore amazing. Here are all the things I love about it:

Sound...

• The semi-spoken intro makes the same point about Shakespeare's plays that Thomas Penn did in his outstanding Winter King (2011),  
• It sounds primarily like The Sweet and Jean Genie era Bowie (the title is of course another Bowie nod). 
• Specifically, it voicechecks Steve Priest's falsetto from The Sweet  to give emphasis to the following rhyming couplet: 'The only way to end war and avert further disaster, there's got to be a way to unite York and Lancaster.' I have failed to explain successfully to the children why this is so amusing.
• The Sparks reference (at 1m56s. This town ain't big enough for both of us = this crown ain't big enough... for The Perkin Warbeck / Lambet Simnel)
• The Slade reference (at 2mins exactly, for slayed)
• The Mud reference ('That's right, that's right' is straight out of Tiger Feet - it's at 0m57s)

...and Vision 

• The whole blurred lit up 'graphics' can be pretty specifically dated to the early 70s and look like a) the stone age and b) The Sweet's 1973 Blockbuster Top of the Pops performance 
• The cutaway shots to the drummer and the driving guitars are both staples of performance shots from the same era, I just can't find them. 
• In fact the commitment to the 70s aesthetics is absurdly detailed. Even the audience of girls dancing is much shot for shot of era Top of the Pops.

And, most importantly, it's right. Henry VII is vastly underrated in popular history. Henry VIII, who in my view is a fat, sexually incontinent buffoon, captures much of the real estate of the popular imagination, and much of the rest is taken by the contrarian revisionist faction that supports Richard III (who doesn't deserve condemnation for his political murders, but does deserve it for failing to hold the realm together). Henry VII, with far less of a claim than Richard, succeeds. His political murders work. He's 'the man who closes the Wars of the Roses.' 

Far more of a risk taker than his glamorous son; far more ruthless than even that other master of political murder, Henry I; just as decisive on the battlefield as William I (if less epochally significant); one of a handful of English kings to really grasp royal administration. He's absolutely the best Tudor, and probably my favourite English King, not least because he - and I love this line above, is the one 'returning power to the State.' He is not the one you would want to drink with, but he is definitely the one you would put in charge of, well, anything.

The long dawn of the dukes of England

I read Mantel's trilogy last month, and was immediately struck by the intimacy of the inner circle around the king, and specifically the very presence of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the only two adults to hold a title at the top of the peerage. Until I started looking into it, I hadn't realised quite how lonely it was to be a duke. In the 1530s, and in every other point in the history of England before 1663, there were never more than four non-royal dukes. Between the first non-royal dukedom in England (incongruously, Ireland. Created 1386) and the Restoration, only 35 people who weren't royal held a ducal title.

That feels very jarring to me. Partly that's because we're used to so many dukes - there were forty at one point in the eighteenth century. It's also because we think of the Tudors as relatively modern so we don't think about how very un-modern aspects of their peerage and court are. Our, or at least my, historiographical instincts are not friends to our understanding. But it's also because the story of the ducal numbers is counter-intuitive. It took three hundred years of using ducal titles for it it really catch on. I think we can see it in five phases.

The first dukes. Royal dukes come in under Edward III. The dukedom of Cornwall (for the Black Prince) in 1337, then Lancaster (for his male line second cousin Henry, then John of Gaunt) in 1531. I don't know why this happens. I've seen it written than it's in response to the loss of Normandy, but the chronology doesn't work. I suspect it is to do with the wars in France, but exactly how, I'm not sure. Inevitably, title inflation means that Richard II then makes more royal dukes (for his uncles: York, Gloucester) in 1385 and then non-royal dukes for his favourites. But this doesn't last. Of the five are created 1398, one becomes Henry IV, the others are all attainted by Henry IV. By 1400, only royal dukes remain.

Generals. Some of the families raised to ducal status in 1398 do make comebacks. In 1425, the son of the attainted Duke of Norfolk secures his father's title, primarily due to his military and political record; and I gather, critically, this resolves a dispute with the Earl of Warwick over precedence. For a while he is the only one, but in the 1440s, five new dukes are created. Exeter (also a 1398 restoration), Buckingham, Warwick, Suffolk and the royal dukes of Somerset. These are obviously, like under Richard II, rewards in an increasingly unstable political structure, but are also, apart from Warwick, leading figures in the Hundred Years War.

Dynastic imperatives. After the 1440s, there is a retrenchment of ducal titles, though some of the earlier creations endure for a while. Five dukedoms are created between 1450 and 1550 and all are dynastic. 

• Two are created for individuals who are intended to marry royalty: the Duke of Bedford (1470) who never got to enjoy it, and the Duke of Suffolk (1514), who did. 
• Two are for family: Jasper Tudor, Henry VII's uncle (1485) and Edward Seymour, Edward VI's uncle (1547). The purposes are different, but they are clearly aimed at burnishing the royal dynasty they are linked to. 
• One is for the illegitimate son of Henry VIII (1525). The first, but not the last, time a King's bastard is made a duke. In this case, it's a response to the lack of male Tudors.

In all of these, the factional rationale behind the 1390s and the 1440s seems to take second place to royal proximity. At this point, Norfolk is the only surviving older ducal line, and - I suspect - beginning to feel like a category all of its own.

A ducal desert. In 1551, the last ducal creation for seventy years was made. Northumberland's title is clearly factional, though he did try to get his daughter in law (Lady Jane Grey) onto the throne, that post-dates his elevation. Given how that ended, it's hardly surprising that neither Elizabeth and Mary felt no need to add any more. After the execution of the 4th Duke of Norfolk in 1572, there were no extant non-royal dukes in England for fifty years, though James I does makes his sons dukes.

Stuart profligacy. The early Stuarts do bring dukes back, but very slowly. James I makes but no non-royal dukes till the last years of his reign, in 1623, when he makes his second cousin Ludovic Stuart, the only Duke in the peerage of Scotland (of Lennox) also a duke in England (of Richmond). He does so at the same time as he makes George Villiers Duke of Buckingham. Presumably, this is to soften the blow of Buckingham's elevation. But they were both effectively unprecedented in living memory, and we would do well to remember that when we think about Buckingham's reception. Charles I makes no non-royal Dukes, only his children and his nephew. 

Then Charles II makes fourteen; more new ducal titles than have, at that point, ever been created in the entire history of England. He restores some old ducal titles (Norfolk is back!), he makes his allies dukes, he makes his bastard sons dukes, he makes his mistresses dukes. I'm sure much has been written on this, but to me, I think there are two obvious reasons. Firstly, he wanted to emphasise the Restoration. Nothing says monarchy more than titles, especially if you give them to old families as well as new ones. Secondly, I think it's the French. France has had loads of dukes for ages. It certainly wouldn't have been the only thing that Charles II imported from the French court. As a result, after three hundred years of profound ambivalence about ducal titles, Dukes properly enter the peerage and the political landscape of England. I still remain surprised it took them so long.

Yuste

We went to see King Lear earlier this week. I've not seen it before - I don't really know why - and I loved it (both production and play). I had two reflections. Firstly, on Jacobitism: there must be a book on the staging of Shakespeare, but I assume that Lear wasn't ever staged at all between 1688 and at least 1715.  The themes of ungrateful daughters and a French invasion may have been a little too raw.

By far my most common thought though was of Yuste, the location of the retirement of Charles V. I've long been fascinated by Charles V as a pivot point in European history. His own, memorably described, 'genealogical joyride,' brought into single ownership an unprecedented profusion of crowns and though I think his power in practice operated below the level of all those coronets, it was still vast. The consequences are still with us. Under him, the Reformation began and took hold, vast sections of the New World were colonised, the Union of Austria and Hungary was created, and in some ways, much of the next hundred years and beyond was shaped simply by his will. The partition of his domains between his brother and son in itself changed the dynamic of Europe. That he detached the Low Countries from the German Habsburg inheritance and linked it to Spain could be described as leading to the creation of up to six modern states. Portugal, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Lichtenstein include at least two of my favourite places in the whole world, but they are all, to some extent, dynastic accidents.

That decisive partition is even more extraordinary because it was made while Charles remained alive. in the mid 1550s, he gradually abdicated all his possessions and retreated to a monastery, where he remained for over two years before dying. It would be wrong to argue that Charles was at the peak of his powers - he was in the middle of war with the French for a start - but this was in no way a forced abdication due to weakness (though I think there is some evidence of excruciating pain from gout playing a factor). For me though, extraordinary though the decision is, the truly astonishing thing is the period following: for over two years the most powerful European polity had two kings, and two very different kings at that. In that period, Philip II was fighting the French and indeed the Pope, while Charles apparently continued to correspond abroad. Yet, there are no suggestions of clashes, or that disaffected factions ran to Yuste. This is not the norm.

Though fascinating, to my knowledge there is nothing written in English at least about this almost unique period of two kings and about the self-imposed internal exile of the most powerful man in Christendom. I suspect it is little known (I wonder if early Jacobean audiences would have known of it), and little thought of. This is a great shame.

The Alteration (a historical prosopography)

I reread The Alteration a couple of months ago (I love The Alteration). A friend who read it at the same time noted the sheer wealth of historical allusion. I thought there would be a list somewhere, but couldn't find it, though wikipedia is a decent crib for some of it. So I made my own. For those who have not read the Alteration, 1) read The Alteration, 2) it's an alternative history where the divergence from ours comes in the Reformation: Luther, Calvin and Thomas More are successively Pope ('The three Northern Popes') and Arthur, Henry VIII's (here, Henry the Abominable) elder brother has a son (Stephen II) who is restored to the throne by Catholic forces. Britain is therefore catholic and the church is triumphant. As a result, almost every historical figure (unless they are American) has been pressed into the service of the church, usually in painting one of them or composing for it. Amis spends much of his time amusing himself by having real figures pop up in unlikely places.

So here goes. Page references from the Vintage Classics edition and refer to their first appearance only.

Contemporary figures - it's set in 1976 (*denotes a any reference that's less than obvious):

• A.J. Ayer, Professor of dogmatic theology (119)
• Tony Benn, as 'Lord Stansgate', head of the Holy Office in England (122)
• Beria, Monsignor (8) 
• Enrico Berlinguer, Cardinal and chief of staff to Pope John XXIV (109) 
• Anthony Burgess, still a novelist, but who has met an unspecified bad end by the 70s (194) 
• Francis Crick, a disastrous scientist (194)
• Philip K. Dick, who Amis has great fun with, making him an alternative history writer, whose Man in the high castle outlines 'our'  history  - or something close to it (25)
• Ian Fleming*, as author of the Father Bond novels - with a nod to Chesterton (78)
• [Paul] Foot, a policeman for the church, not a crusading journalist (126) 
• Harry Harrison*, I think this is who is meant as the engineer who builds the channel tunnel, as an homage to his SF story on the issue (105)
• Himmler, Monsignor (8)
• Ernest Lough, singer, presented as the case for castration - his career faltered once his voice broke (50)
• Paulo Maserati*, the Papal 'inventor general' [There's no useful contemporary Maserati, but the link is clear] (194)
• [Corin] Redgrave, a policeman for the church (126)
• Keith Roberts, as another alternative history author - I'm told there's complicated reference about dancing, Galliard here doing duty for the real life Pavane. (132)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Monsignor and Jesuit (though I've not actually found the reference)
• Tolkien*, or at least an author of Lord of the Chalices, (78)
• Harold Wilson*, reinvented as Pope John XXIV (109)
• John Wyndham*, as J.B. Harris - Wyndham's real name - author of The orc awakes (100)
• Fritz Wunderlich*, the castrato Federicus Mirabilis (9)
• Wolfgang Windgassen*,the castrato Lupigradus Viaventosa (9)

Historical references:

• Benedict Arnold, American leader. So significant, he gets the capital named after him (164)
• John Bacon, sculptor (16)
• William Bartholomew*, called Bartley here, but the writer of Hear my prayer (50)
• Beethoven, here dying young (28)
• Blake, though only as a painter of frescoes (8)
• Brunel, who Amis credits with designing the highest cathedral spires of the world (10)
• George Butterworth (201)
• Jefferson Davis, ambassador to England (63)
• Rudolf Diesel, whose eponymous invention is ubiquitous as electrical ignition is discouraged (13)
• Epstein, Anglicised to Epstone here, but still a sculptor (8)
• Gainsborough (7)
• Richard Grenville, knight and sailor, who fights at Lepanto, with not against the Spanish (109)
• Kenneth Grahame*, assuming that's what's meant by The Wind in the Cloisters (77).
• Hockney, referred to, maliciously, as 'excessively traditionalist, almost archaizing' painter (8)
• Holman Hunt, painter (8)
• Willem de Kooning, painter (78)
• Rudyard Kipling, the First citizen of 'New England' 1914-18 (56)
• Thomas Kyd, whose version of Hamlet is famous (14)  
• Labelye, bridge builder, who builds here the London bridge he never did in reality (173)
• Michelangelo*, here 'Boonarotty', ie.Buonarroti, who kills himself when Luther, as pope, stops the construction of St Peter's (111)
• William Morris (8)
• Mozart, given both extra years and more compositions (8)
• Nelson, here famous for defeating the Turks at Lipari (200)
• Purcell, seemingly unaffected: there's a Dido and Aeneas here too (12)
• Edgar Allen Poe, a New England General (177)
• Satie*, though a piano maker rather than pianist (61)
• Schumann composer (30)
• Shakespeare, famous only in America, banned in England (152)
• Percy Shelley, who survived longer and led an expedition that burnt down the Vatican in 1853, but dismissed as a 'minor versifier' (199)
• Sopwith, engineer, but a builder of a channel bridge rather than aeroplanes (105)
• Jonathan Swift*, only a book Saint Lemuel's Travels (77)
• Zachary Taylor, one imagines still American President, certainly important enough to get a major New York bridge named after him (164)
• Tintoretto, the painter of the victory at Lepanto in Amis' and the real world (109)
• Turner, who paints a ceiling devoted to the restoration of Catholicism in England (7)
• Velluti, the most famous castrato in this version of history, as in ours (34)
• Weber, composer  (30)
• Wagner, composer (201)
• James McNeill Whistler, though we only know he had airship named for him  (177)
• Wren, architect (7)
• Yamamoto* (maybe), in Amis' world he's an architect. He's most likely the same as the real commander in chief of the Japanese navy (155)

There are a few others who may be specific individuals (e.g., Joshua Pellow, the 'archpresbyter'), but I think they are pure inventions. There are also references to places which suggest different roles for the individuals concerned, all in the US - Cranmeria, Hussville and Wyclif city - but not enough to go on. 

What have I missed?

Beware the backwaters

When I sat finals, my modest hopes for the seventeenth century were dashed when my banker question, on the Thirty Years War, the great conflagration primarily fought between the Habsburgs, Dutch, French and Swedish, turned out to be about Bavaria. I didn't know very much about Seventeenth century Bavaria. I still don't know very much about seventeenth century Bavaria (though I do think someone should write a parallel biography of Maximilian II and Prince Eugene of Savoy). I'm still not convinced it was a legitimate question. Bavaria was a unit of real weight, as it is now, but it was a backwater. Nothing important happened in Bavaria in this period - they were just a useful source of senior catholic marriages - almost Kings of Spain, but only almost. 

Backwaters occasionally become important. I read last month Bulgakov's novel, the White Guard, set in the aftermath of the Great War in Ukraine. I know even less about this than I do about Bavaria. It turns out the Ukrainian theatre was important in the Russian civil war of the early twentieth century. I note also that any resolution then was only temporary. I feel we're watching a later act play out out right now. If we all knew more about Ukrainian history, we'd be able to speak more intelligently about the crisis.

I revel in these byways. Under no circumstances can the later Byzantine Empire be described as central to the flow of history. The depth and texture of history relies on specialists getting to grips with alien, obscure periods and people and the temptation of these oddities and alien places is vast. Norman Davies wrote a lovely book about them (NB. Not all of these are actually backwaters). Any half decent library will show the deviations it owner has taken. For example, I have more books on the county of Foix and the Languedoc than I do on the USA (a low bar), while my 'Germany' section is almost entirely books on the Habsburgs (including, because of my technical definition of 'Germany,' Hungary). It is easy to build up a historical view that is entirely covered with beautiful, fascinating, vignettes, often of obscure, sleepy or forgotten places (I did buy a book about Liechtenstein the other day).

It would be easy, enchanting. And wrong. These are all still backwaters, wonderful backwaters, but but backwaters nonetheless. We forget the main trunk roads of history at our peril. This is exactly the trap that curricula fall into when they lose sense of chronology (hence the thrust of Michael Gove's somewhat imperfect reforms to ours). They are the ornaments, not the branches. Now, I think everyone should read about both, but if you only read one, read about the important thing. Then read about the obscure, possibly for longer, but never first.

All borders are equal, but some are more equal than others

In my books database I categorise European history geographically into only six countries, and everything east of Austria is 'Russia.'* In part this is a function of my interests (I refuse to have a Poland section with only two books in it; I'd have many more subdivisions if I was a specialist in Bulgaria), but it also reflects a genuine difficulty in the history of Eastern Europe: the geographical units aren't stable, whereas in the west, they are. Here's a map from 1000 where you can see most of the big western countries, but not a lot that's recognisable in the east. And many of the eastern countries are false friends too. Ironically, the centre of 'Russian' civilisation is in Kiev, and Asia Minor doesn't yet have any Turks in it. Even into the nineteenth century, it still looks pretty strange, though at least the Turks have arrived in Turkey. 

Regardless of the big movements, it is certainly the case that, even in Western Europe, detailed borders took a very long time to work out. We just about stabilise the borders of the UK component countries in the sixteenth century (if we ignore 1922); Spain in the seventeenth, France in the eighteenth, and Italy in the nineteenth, though all of the continental countries had border adjustments well into the twentieth century. Germany, of course, was completely redrawn in 1945. Some of those borders have only been bought with a lot of blood, and a lot of time. And it remains messy: ask the German speakers  in eastern Belgium, or the Poles in the Baltic states. Borders are complicated, and there's no simple principle in determining them that will arrive at a perfect answer. I don't think the Anglosphere really understands that. America only really thinks about the frontier; though I'm fascinated by the thought that they took seriously at one point the assumption that the US would include all Mexico, and although they get some credit for Canada, there was plenty of room to go round. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are islands so its relatively simple. Even in Ireland, which we've made such a great job of, the counties are old, so the lines themselves are easier, even if the principles aren't. 

This is important. When we argue about Ukraine, we do so from the perspective of stable, relatively simple borders and national identities. In reality, all the Soviet states had their already pretty fluid ethnic and historical geography wrecked by the communists - Vilnius, until the Russians got their hands on it, was Wilno, one of the great Polish medieval cities (along with Lwow, ironically now in Ukraine) - and only in some cases effectively reconstituted. Certainly Ukraine had no pre-existing independent identity before the 1990s and no recent history outside Russia. When the Russians essentially say that Ukraine isn't a country, they have point. It's certainly not a country with the same stable, deep rooted identity of a Britain or a France. Of course, it's more of a real country than Austria, or Portugal, or any of the other accidents of European history, but that's another matter.

None of this means that territorial integrity isn't important - borders are critical for stability and respecting them is the best means yet to avoid barbarism. Nor do I want to give any credence to anti-American bilge that parts of the left have been spouting. However, in the inevitable deal that will be brokered, we shouldn't look for false equivalences: Ukraine surrendering Crimea is not Alsace-Lorraine again, the Donetsk region is not like Britain losing Kent, or even Gibraltar. Let's not pretend it is. 

By the by, should Ukraine fracture, I've been trying to work out what to call the western bit. I think its Galicia (i.e., the old Austrian Kingdom of Galicia), but I'm not sure that's quite right. Ruthenia doesn't work either. Historically of course it's southern Poland, but I don't think that's an option. I'm really hoping they hold together.

*For the record, the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia. Outside Europe, they only get five categories - the Colonies (including the entire Americas), the Near East, Africa, India and China (NB. includes Japan). Obviously, the classical world and its successor states are catalogued differently.

Bring back Paul III

As the cardinal-electors gather in Rome, doubtless trying to consider the challenges of the modern world, I suggest they should instead be thinking about the past, and the character of the great popes of history. There's a nice looking book on some obvious candidates, though I've not read it and would have a less  modern list. It does, however, include my absolute favourite Pope, Paul III (1534-49). And I think the cardinals would do well to consider his example.

Granted, there are some difficult elements in Paul's biography. It's doubtful he was very devout, as he delayed his ordination well into his church career, which he probably owed to his sister's relationship to the Borgia pope. He had numerous illegitimate children. For whom he carved out careers and titles for them at the expense of the papal patrimony. He made his 14 year old grandson a cardinal. Nor was the external situation he inherited promising. At his accession, the reformation was gaining traction across Germany, England had gone over the divorce, and only seven years before, his staunchest 'ally' had led an army into Italy that sacked Rome itself. 

By the time he died though, the catholic church was back. It took longer than his fifteen year reign to remodel the church, but the foundations were all laid under Paul: the Council of Trent was called, the Curia subject to proper scrutiny, the Jesuits founded, some nice art commissioned, and the work on improving the quality of priests begun. All these were to prove difficult, the latter so much so that Paul IV (1555-59) resorted to condemning errant monks to the galleys. Nonetheless, in 1534, the church chose a politician, a leader, and an administrator rather than a saint or a theologian, and it has many reasons to be thankful it did.

Were I catholic, and a cardinal, I would be looking to find the modern equivalent of Paul III.

The eighteenth century

Were you listening to Today on Monday (which you should be every day save the Sabbath) and you'd kept listening to the end, you'd have heard an extraordinary debate about British history between Chris Skidmore MP and Trevor Fisher. Actually, it was a fairly mediocre debate about a suggestion in a report from an all party parliamentary group that we should teach history in a more narrative fashion (written up here, not easy to actually find the report).

I don't know Mr Skidmore, though I should, we were at the same college at the same time doing the same subject, though I was rescuing my degree when he came up not meeting first years - my mistake perhaps. He seems like a good egg, and although I don't agree entirely with his proposals, the opposition was extraordinarily weak. Specifically, his opponent proceeded to argue that narrative history would be 'boring' as if that's something an effective curriculum and effective teaching couldn't stop, and then - amazingly - that he didn't know anything about the eighteenth century despite having taught for thirty-odd years.* And somehow he didn't see any problem with this. 

I'm not surprised he's never needed to know about it; but I'm surprised he thought it was acceptable not to. Personally, I'm not a massive fan of the eighteenth century, but it's pretty important period. Immediately, and in rough order of importance at the time, I'd go for:

• The French Revolution (1789)
• The American revolution (1775)
• Walpole and the formation of the Prime Ministerial office (1721-42)
• The Act of Settlement (1701) & The Hanoverian Succession (1714) 
• Union between England and Scotland (1707)
• Union between England and Ireland (1800)
• Plassey and the entry of Britain into India (1757)
• The '45 (1745)

It's noteworthy that most of these fall outside the 'short' eighteenth century, 1715-1789, usually dated with reference to France and dominated by the dreary ineffective years of Louis XV, but that wasn't being discussed and if I were doing the continent, I'd mention - amongst others - the War of Spanish Succession, Peter the Great's modernisation of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia. Nonetheless, this is pretty strong list, and I've probably missed a few off. I rather think this therefore gives weight to the view that we should teach more eighteenth century history and history teachers (and others) should certainly be ashamed of not knowing much about it.

*Oddly enough, this was lie. Mr Fisher does know about the Eighteenth century, or at least enough to write about it. Curious.

Explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews

When I sat GCSEs, a perspective-distorting 17 years ago, I don't remember any questions like this:

Explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews (AQA Religious Studies 2012)

And it's got everyone very irate. I'm disappointed in the Secretary of State who has claimed that it shouldn't have been set because it 'suggest[s] that antisemitism can ever be explained, rather than condemned.' I've always had time for Mr Gove's pursuit of academic rigour, if not in agreement of this methods, but I'm now thinking I have overestimated him. There is transparently no tension between explanation and condemnation and that kind of reaction makes me think he is thick. In fact, I think that kind of reaction makes me want to have them set the question. Understanding why hideous things happen helps us stop them. I'll return to whether it belongs in a GCSE below.

For the record, and off the top of my head, I'd suggest the following answer:

1. Let's assume by prejudice we mean irrational hostility, not a response to genuine enemies. For example, I would suggest the Philistines were not 'prejudiced' against the Jews, but rather fighting a war (see 1 Samuel 17)
2. Said prejudice is probably borne out of 'problems at home', perhaps fear or poverty, i.e., they're lashing out at a target (I simplify, but we brevity has been stipulated). As GCSE students won't have studied any history, they'll all talk about the depression and the Holocaust, but they could also point to other examples, perhaps the Great Persecution in an insecure Empire Galerius 
3. At which point you might ask, why the Jews. And there are two ways of tracing this: said prejudice is old, and modern antisemitism draws directly on historical hostility to Jews. There's lots of this, but I think it can squarely be rooted in the Jewish nations resolute non-identification with the establishment in antiquity. The Jews rejected the Emperor-cult in Pagan Rome and obviously the Christian identity that followed. That's bound to make you unpopular. Of course, you could suggest that the modern Islamic antisemitism also owes something to the position of Israel and have a useful discussion over which came first, drawing in the career of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
4. The second point to trace is extraordinary tenaciousness of the non-geographic national identity of the Jews. many groups draw hostility but national hostility tends not to last if they don't. I don't have views on the undesirability of Goths as neighbours (OK, I do, but that's rare - they'd be fine). The Jews don't, and they're exceptional in that respect. Unfortunately this functions as a multiplier effect for prejudice for much of their history, which is unfortunate. 

Of course, it's actually much more complex than that, but I think it's pretty interesting, and important. I'm not sure how useful it is to ask 16-year-olds as they don't have the breadth of knowledge and understanding to say anything meaningful. I don't think they should be taught the Nazis and the Holocaust in history either, so I would be very happy if they objection was that this stuff is hard and complex, so we should delay it. However, it's not. The objection seems to be that the world is unpleasant, so we shouldn't examine it. And that's pathetic.

A.E.I.O.U.

At the centre of my dining room is a large family tree of the Habsburg dynasty. I bought it in Austria in 1997 and had it framed once returned. It's brilliant: visually arresting as it shows the slenderest of threads on which this greatest of dynasties hung when Maria Theresa succeeded and the vast sprawl of her many descendants; and important because it is the greatest of dynasties.

I don't mean the greatest in formal achievement, despite the motto signified by the vowels above - Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan. While Charles V and Philip II genuinely bestrode Europe at the head of an enormously powerful transnational empire, most Habsburg Emperors occupied places towards the bottom of Europe's top table, usually eclipsed by at least one other crowned head. However, as a dynasty it was unparalleled, leading to the rather waspish description 'let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, marry!' I prefer the description I read many years ago which described the inheritance of Charles V as a 'genealogical joyride' - either way, they were magnificent, and enduringly fascinating as the increasingly complex and baroque Empire moved through the centuries. It was a tragedy for the dynasty, their people and for Europe that they ended up on the losing side in the First World War.

The person whose life it changed most was Otto von Habsburg - Lothringen (the formal name for the dynasty since the union with Lorraine). Born in the purple in 1912 as the heir (but two) the Empire, his father was the last Habsburg Emperor and from 1922, aged nine, he has been the head of the dynasty and claimant to the thrones of central Europe. He died on Monday aged 98.

Death of exiled potentates is not normally of great interest, but Otto mattered. The Nazis were terrified of a restoration and named the Anschluss Operation Otto; after the war, he was instrumental in securing Austria for the free world rather than let it be partitioned amongst allied soldiers, and he served as an MEP for decades, rather ironically given the Habsburg rivalry with the Wittelsbachs, for Bavaria. During his term, he is most famous for removing Ian Paisley from the chamber when he began to shout 'antichrist' repeatedly at the Pope. He was a magnificent man, and a monument to a vanished age, recalling the dedication of his great-great-uncle Franz-Josef, and the transnationality of his distant ancestor Charles V.

It's fitting perhaps that he goes at the same time as Patrick Leigh Fermor who recorded the world that outlasted its rulers for a single doomed generation between the wars. Yet, while Leigh Fermor was rightly lauded by the full set of news outlets a few weeks, only two broadsheets covered the Habsburg death in Britain, an oddly matched pairing of the Guardian and the Telegraph. We were relatively poor and the rest should be ashamed.

Bring back the test act

There is, according to the Bible, no new thing under the Sun (Eccl. 1.9). I was reminded of this last week when A and I had a fun little argument one morning over the merits of the decision on the Christian couple barred from fostering. I don't think I'd like them; I certainly don't agree with them, but they seem to be perfectly good foster parents on most axes, and this all seems like a bit of a waste.

Essentially, this debate seems to have gone wrong somewhere. Namely, that while they have some dodgy views, they're probably better than care. And even if they aren't, there will be some people who are. We seem in this debate to make the ideal the enemy of the good. And, while I wish all was well in the world and that these kind of compromises didn't have to be made, they do. Here I am sceptical of the value of preventing people from providing services to the state because of some difficult opinions they have and some potential harm they may do. Overall, I suspect they would be beneficial as until and unless we have surplus of potential foster carers, I don't think we can be so picky. I don't hold with this nonsense about discrimination against Christians or anything silly like that, but I just feel we're stopping good but flawed activity from happening. Not being perfect is not a reason for not doing things.

A wasn't very interested in my view, instead concerned for another issue - namely, the growing discrepancy between what parents can do to their children and what is illegal for others to do - but she did point out that this isn't really a problem: people will just lie. A sensible couple who hold non-orthodox views on, say, sexuality, will simply pay appropriate lip service to the right views. Rather usefully, we have the legislation for this pre-prepared in the shape of the seventeenth century Test and Corporation acts which emphasised outward conformity as a requirement for public office, or in this case public service. Now I think this is an excellent idea. Outward conformity drives belief of the individual and the community, and that example prevents harm. As I think no right thinking person can object to orthodoxy, both against prejudice and for Anglicanism, both should be upheld.
So, bring back the test act, and push on with its modern equivalent. You don't have to believe what you're saying, but we're not asking you to do that.

Historia Lausiaca

Sometimes, it's hard to beat the early church. I've just found the following throwaway line in a description of Palladius' writings on Holy orders (R.T. Meyer, 'Holy Orders in the Eastern Church in the Early fifth century', SP 16 (1985), 46):

'A certain lector was falsely accused of fornication by a pregnant woman, who claimed he was the father. All too hastily the lector was deposed by his bishop. The lector then said: "Well, since I have fallen, give her to me in marriage, for I am no longer a cleric and she is no longer a virgin" (HL 70.2)

The account then goes on to show how the guilty woman was in pain and then confessed whence the pain miraculously stopped. And this proves the power of prayer. But I'd rather have clergy like the above without the ending.

Black and White

If political creeds had similar sanctified locations to religions, then Grantham is effectively the Bethlehem of modern economic conservatism. Now while it doesn't really live up to this billing, though I am told there is a plaque, it was the occasion of my having argument there about a more constant Tory problem.

I was taken to task for referring to the White Dominions and accused of casual racism. I cannot exactly remember why I referred to them, but it was just in passing. Yet not only did the people I was with have no knowledge of what they were, but nor did anyone else I asked that weekend. Some of them really ought to have done: Anna did twentieth century history, and others actually come from them, and they still didn't know.

To clear up any confusion, the White Dominions were:
Canada (from 1867)
Australia (1907)
New Zealand (1907)
Newfoundland (1907) - I had to look this one up
South Africa (1910)

Their dominion status refers to self-government under the Empire; White is, well, obvious. And the phrase doesn't really apply now, the wikipedia article on the dominions tries to claim they are known as the White Commonwealth, but this is nonsense.

Now, it doesn't really matter if most people don't know about them and what they are called, though I was surprised that no-one did. However, it does highlight a couple of problems. Firstly, everyone was scandalised, albeit mildly, by the perceived racism in the term. But that's not right. It isn't a racist term and we need a be a bit more careful about what we call out on that basis.

Secondly, and much more worrying, it is symptomatic about ignorance of the Empire. I don't know a great deal about the Empire - I never studied it and have never been formally taught about it (save for a very bad essay on the East India Company). But I am comparatively well informed, because schools don't teach it. And they should. It shaped the laws and lives of millions and it continues to do so for billions today. The murky moral waters of compulsion, reparation, asylum, immigration and international law are impossible to understand without a basic impression of the imperial age and why things are as they are. Instead, I learnt about the industrial revolution for three years, all more boring than the last.

Unrelated, in a further discussion, it was noted that I also don't really like black music, or - as I put it - 'I prefer it to be mediated by whites' (I'm really not doing myself any favours here). I'm not alone in this I discover, but it did cause me to go inspect my CD collection (OK, really the database) to check how true that was. I astonished even myself:

We have 724 CDs (at last count). Just over 50 are by black artists. This seems shameful, but it's almost all blues. And I think that's the point: I have a lot of music of black origin - you can trace a line from Chuck Berry through to any number of white rock & roll artists and beyond. I know I should have more Jazz, but I die a little inside when I listen to it so I haven't bothered. But I'm looking at where things come from, imperfectly and selectively of course, but I am trying.

And that doesn't happen when people don't get taught about the Empire. Because without that information, they can't argue.

(Early) Modern life is rubbish

The eternal doctorate rolls on this week. I went to my first proper Digital Humanities seminar today, where the slightly eclectic set of us working in the area (some of us here) are due to meet and talk about our research over the next few years. And we did today. One of us talked through the context and database structure of her prosopography about the high officials of the court of John III of Portugal (I didn't know either: 1521-1557). And it was profoundly disorientating. It has of course many of the basic elements that I recognise from what I am doing, as you would expect. King's is a major centre for prosopography and she has drawn heavily on the Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England (PASE). However, as she went through the nature of her sources, I was struck by just how different the material is. I've just been considering the problems of hagiographic material in my prosopography and what to do with information that is undated, fantastical and may in some cases refer to a saint who never existed in reality. Whereas Andreia's data - much of it official documents - is dated, sometimes by the day, countersigned, usually located and collected in helpful archives as well as being readable to the modern Portuguese speaker.

I did quite a bit of early modern history throughout my academic career, some quite recently (2006), so I shouldn't be too surprised at this. Yet I am, which I suppose shows the extent of my engagement with the early modern papers I did for finals. However, leaving aside my failings, I think this cleavage between the (early) modern and medieval / ancient periods in history is quite profound, and there are two key issues, one apiece for specialists and one for laymen:


Firstly, the volume of data abruptly changes. No historian of any period before the early modern era has too much data anymore. Although when Theodor Mommsen (a Nobel laureate, who knew?) was working on the PIR in the nineteenth century, he was forced by technological and time constraints to restrict his data collection to the elite, this has pretty much been abandoned since at least the 1980s for us. But not in the early modern era, where a project such as this is restricted to an elite because there are too many sources and there just isn't time to read everything. This has obvious knock on effects on how we read this material, but now is not the time to do that, though I think it explains why I was never any good at modern history.

Secondly, the expectations of reliability and immediacy change (albeit gradually). And this is where non-specialists get turned over. I get the impression that those people who have never gone back to medieval sources (obviously, this is most people) don't really understand what evidence looks like for the period. It's been very noticeable in relation to the church over the last few years, with all this Da Vinci code nonsense. Most people don't understand what well attested looks like. On numerous occasions I have had to explain that that gaps in the Christian record are minor and entirely normal, yet they baulk at gaps in the post-Easter record of fifteen years before any attestation (Paul), and thirty plus before the first narrative account (Mark). Yet, this is normal and in many cases the gap is much greater: the first life of the prophet Muhammad is ninth century.


There is probably a moral here, but I'm sure what it is. It certainly doesn't make me more cheerful about ambiguity and lack of data in the modern world; on the contrary. But it is a lot more fun to study, even if you do have to explain things very slowly to people - too much information is cheating.

My favourite Louis

I've just bought what is probably a rubbish novel based on Louis XI from a charity shop, whom I described to Anna as my favourite Louis when justifying this purchase (I use a version of this excuse a lot), not least because of his glorious nickname, the universal spider.

Of course I didn't actually mean that he is my favourite person called Louis, though he might be. I really meant my preferred French King called Louis. As Anna is away this week and I don't have a great deal to do, I think this bold statement could do with some qualification, so I thought I'd list them in order of preference. This doesn't quite work at the bottom as I get a bit hazy with some of the later Carolingians, but they didn't do much so that's probably best. I should stress though that this is personal preference list, not a greatness in history ranking, but merely the ones I most like to read about and it inevitably contains almost all my biases. I've excluded Louis XVII (because there is nothing to say) and the non-reigning claimants. Wikepedia's helpful list with helpful dates is here. Anyway:


1. The Universal Spider (XI) - as above

2. The Sun King (XIV), inevitably high

3. Louis the Fat (VI). Many of the middle kings had to shrewd rather than bombastic and while Louis VI had an excellent biography, he was a master at playing his rather limited hand well.

4. Louis XIII. Often sandwiched between his glorious son and brilliant father (who is my favourite French king of all), but he did well to consolidate after the assassination of his father could have blown the wars of religion open again. And bonus points for Dumas' classic being set in his reign

5. Louis the Pious (I). I think a much glossed over figure, but he held his father's Empire together and passed it on intact.

6. Louis XVIII gets this ranking largely because of his spectacular refusal to acknowledge reality in almost any way, dating his reign ignoring Napoleon, maintaining hardline reactionary views and succumbing to gout such that his body literally disintegrated: one evening in 1823, as his valets were removing the king’s shoes, a gouty toe accidentally came away with his sock. A triumph.

7. Saint Louis (IX). I've never warmed to the Saint, associating him with the diversion of the crusades to more tactical and pointless theatres of war and cannot supress a slight shimmer of pleasure when he dies in Tunis in the lands of the infidel. But there is a reason for him prominence

8. Louis XVI. I almost put his disastrous reign higher, but just couldn't in the end. Nonetheless, despite the sadness of the end of the ancien regime in France, he is personally interesting.

9. Louis XII. A kind of management consultant (bland, but quite effective) of the early modern period, he piggybacks effectively on other policies in Italy for example and pulls in Brittany for which credit muct be given

10. Louis the Young (VII). Sufficiently interesting to drive Eleanor of Aquitaine to his greatest rival, but insufficiently challenging to be a match for Henry II in other spheres

11. Louis VIII. Not really around for long enough, but played a pretty good game in consolidating to the south, though most of the work had been done by Philip Augustus

12. Louis X. Likewise a short reign, and triggered off the succession crisis. The most interesting thing about him was his son, who has the glorious distinction of being born after his father died thus leaving the entire French court on tenterhooks over the succession.

13. Louis XV. By contrast, a massive reign, but very dull, like much of the eighteenth century

14. Louis IV. Quite fun this one, with a good English background, but ultimately restricted in scope by the Capetians and others so a limited story to tell.

15. Louis V. Only makes it this high because he represents the end of the Carolingians, who by this time tended to die young and not trouble the body politic much. Louis V was the apogee of this development, by also managing not to leave an heir.

16. Louis III

17. Louis II. Truly rubbish with one of the worst epithets - the stammerer - of all medieval monarchs (save of course Henry the impotent)

Astute observers will note this is really a top ten with padding, but there are limits even to my desire to list things. I probably should have stuck to Henrys (for the record: IV, II, I, III - though I don' t think that's controversial)