Episode 1: Getting Medieval on Medieval History
Welcome! In this episode, I introduce myself and the argument for our course: training minds in the discipline of history so as to counteract the lies that modernity tells about the West, particularly about the role of Christianity in shaping Western civilization.
http://uatv.infogalactic.com (History and Logos Channel)“Fake news” is not the invention of the internet; it is an invention of language, the ability that human beings have to tell stories about things that have happened in other places, other times. “Fake news” is simply the flip-side of history. —Fencing Bear at Prayer
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References
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| “Inherited ideas are a curious thing” |
Milo Yiannopoulos, Diabolical: How Pope Francis Betrayed Clerical Abuse Victims Like Me—and Why He Has to Go (Bombardier Books, 2018), with Foreword by Rachel Fulton Brown
The Ruin (Old English poem in the Exeter Book)
Wulfstan II of York (d. 1023), Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (trans. Dorothy Whitelock)
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1820), Tales of the Crusaders: The Betrothed and The Talisman (1825)
Milo Yiannopoulos, Middle Rages (Dangerous Books, 2019) (paperback available at Amazon)
On William of Newburgh’s challenge to Geoffrey of Monmouth, see “Fake News.”
On my challenge to my colleagues in academia, see “How to Signal You Are Not a White Supremacist.”
For links to my academic publications and syllabi for the courses I have taught at the University of Chicago, see Rachel Fulton Brown.
Course Study Guide
Really outstanding first lesson, Professor. The lies about medieval ages didn't start with GRRM and a secular Westeros. Arguably, the modern media's hate for Christian civilization started with Mark Twain, and all because he resented Sir Walter Scott- who was a surprisingly tolerant author by anyone's standards, let alone those of previous centuries. That Scott was a popular author gives the lie to the notion of the past as monolithically intolerant: the lesser talent of current authors proves the notion that the old storytellers were better off for their faith.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to future lessons dispelling the fake news about Western civilization!
Thanks. I really enjoyed the intro and and am looking forward to your future episodes.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
ReplyDeleteI greatly enjoyed the first lesson, and I look forward to the rest.
ReplyDeleteI read Milo's book Middle Rages. How you managed to keep your sense of humor, I have no idea, but I salute you!
Very much enjoyed the first lecture – a terrific way of explaining the problems of historiography for the Medieval period. I appreciate your point – which is that much of what we think we know about the “Middle” Ages is the result of cultural imprints that come to us through popular writing: film, theater and literature, rather than through a serious investigation of the period.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought that it is sad how Hollywood or other dramatists feel a need to take actual events and further dramatize them in a way that confuses rather than illuminates the history. A classic is “Braveheart” where the film needed to follow form and so there had to be a woman, who had to be strong and smart and of course, the hero had to bed her. That this afforded a symmetry to the strategy articulated by the antagonist of the whole thing, Edward I (“Longshanks”) was also a form of poetic justice. Since real life rarely conforms this neatly to story form (just as no trial turns out like a Perry Mason episode) all of these “facts” are made up. This always seemed a shame to me, because the Scottish Wars are really interesting in and of themselves full of interesting people. Robert the Bruce and his family are quite interesting, and if there is a tragic (tragicomic?) hero, it has to be John Baliol who was clearly talented, but ruthlessly undermined by those who ought to have supported him. All of this is lost on the Braveheart viewer, who knows only that Scots wear white hats and the English black ones.
So yes, I think you are right to encourage us to read the primary sources (and even some decent secondary ones). On the subject of defining the Mediaeval, though, I think we really need to look earlier and ironically not to the English / British Reformations (plural) but rather to the church, since it was Erasmus, of that most modern of countries, the Netherlands, that actually divided time this way. He was simply revising the two period time schema of his earlier compatriot, the Venerable Bede (BC / AD). Erasmus was focused on Latin usage, but he remained a devout Roman Catholic and rejected Luther and other reformers.
But while the peculiarities of the British reformations and the inherent contradictions of the Stuart triple monarchies and the dramatists of that period had much to do with our understanding of the Medieval, maybe we need to take a wider view?
Also, on the subject of the Church, there was rather intense criticism even by some of its own members throughout the Middle Ages (though I suppose moreso during the Renaissance). And while it is true that the Church was a source of advancement for some, in the Medieval period it was mostly dominated by the same families that held the “temporal” power, was it not? Third and fourth sons and daughters for whom dowries were too extensive could instead acquire other lands to administer enabling familial plots to remain intact for the next generation.
ReplyDeleteTo what extent did Rome’s arguments for the unity of the institution encourage historiographical portrayals of the institution as a corrupt 5th column, particularly in a post-Westphalian environment? Presumably, like any institution, it had its venal mendacious and avaricious types who cared more for politics and institutional advancement than for those whom the institution was instituted to serve? Indeed, to what extent was the understanding that the institution was serving God vs. serving the flock? I suspect the Medieval prelate would have argued he was *tending* the flock, not serving it (he was serving God by tending the flock). Independent will of the sheep is not the primary concern of the shepherd though, is it? Maybe this is all very modern.
But the Churches own seemingly endless efforts at reform and institutional renewal, whether the Cluniacs of the 9th century or the efforts to reduce or eliminate simony in later eras not to mention the multitude of efforts to stamp out heresy – Gnostic, Pelagian, Cathars, Waldensians, Lollards and others – indicate an effort to prevent the flock from wandering into sin and error.
Finally, I really appreciate your caution about primary sources. And your use of Wulfstan of York is perfect – because we need to recognize that the Medieval person, no less than the modern one, was aware of the shortcomings of himself and his times. And when he wrote of his period with such a dark lens, we should be careful to read those sources with the same skepticism with which we might read modern political advocacy journalism: the sort that generates statistics of questionable validity like medical bankruptcies, (see also here, and here) or frequent assertions that we are at the end of days (say from the climate crisis). This, in spite of the fact that humans today unquestioningly live in the most materially secure fashion ever.
It was no doubt helpful to those looking to characterize the Medieval period as one of darkness and despair found many helpful primary sources as evidence, not unlike the way that today’s blogs and writers link to other secondary sources that assert (rather than substantiate) that which the linker wishes to “prove”. I think you are right – there were many many innovations in the Medieval period that laid the foundations for modern society. And yet, how much of modern political theory would have been impossible without the classical views on everything from the nature of the State and Authority to the Natural world and ideas about matter?
I've found one of the best resources for getting the "unauthorized" truth about history is Holy Mother Church herself and the few holy priests, bishops and laymen we have left today whom are willing to speak out. Michael Davies, Bishop Sanborn, Bishop Williamson, and John Rao are a few who immediately come to mind. I could listen to these men talk all day. I highly recommend any of the talks and books by Michael Davies. The man was a true historian and I would argue one of the most important historians of the twentieth century.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfHAUDckags
I really enjoyed this and would like to add that anyone reading fiction about the middle ages should take that fiction to be saying as much about its own time as about the middle ages, and in many (if not most) cases, much more about their own time than about the middle ages. I love "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Mark Twain is one of the best writers our country has ever produced. But like "Huckleberry Finn," "Connecticut Yankee" is about both humanity and general, and people of Twain's time. "Huck Finn," as my father always told me, is best understood as really being over before the book actually ends -- the end of the book was tacked on to enable Twain to have it published; the end of the story is when Huck decides to save Jim because whatever everyone says and thinks, they are both people. This is a great theme of American literature, a difficult concept for most people to understand and act on in most times, and a universal lesson that Twain was teaching through characters of his own time and country. In "A Connecticut Yankee," he tells a similar story, in which King Arthur saves dying peasants while in disguise. It's a moving episode in which this basic American view of humanity is expressed using characters of a different time and place and who have different views of society. Is something real medieval people would have done? That's not the point of the story. Overall, "A Connecticut Yankee" tells us what the enterprising American Capitalist of his time thought about himself, about Europe, about England, and about history -- not necessarily what was true. And the end of the book implies that Hank is not correct in his thought, or at least not entirely. Alone, considered crazy, and having lost what is really important in life -- his family -- Hank has gone from Twain's hilarious version of the Wizard of Oz to a tragic figure who belongs in no land and no time, because there is no perfect human society and way of being. If that's not what you're getting out of the book, you're reading it wrong. Unfortunately, I think that few people see historical fiction this way. They think that the author is "telling the truth about the era," when even the best authors are doing something very different: creating a plausible fictional world that might or might not have much in common about the actual era.
ReplyDeleteWell said! I should do an episode on Scott's novels, which I use in the modern half of "History of European Civilization" to make exactly this point: Scott is showing us what a nineteenth-century Scotsman thinks "England" ought to mean, thus his use of the Jewess Rebecca of York as the heroine.
DeleteI would love to watch that. I've never made it through "Ivanhoe," I just know the general story. It would be fun to write a book on historical novels and why/if they are good or not...
DeleteBeen waiting for something like this for a while but just didnt fancy sifting through all the misinformation to get to the truth. Vox's approval was all that was needed. Watched the first episode, i think youre great.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this introduction. I'm a Scott fan, Stevenson too, and despite their protestant background, I have always found them to be models of charity. Some of Scott's finest characters like Waverley are from ancient Catholic families who survived the protestant persecutions. Stevenson wrote passionately in defence of Father Damien of Molokai, when slander and poisonous lies were spread by envious so called Christian pastors. May God forgive them!
ReplyDeleteBut Twain, yes I'm disappointed.