The Dutch -- more interesting than you think

The Netherlands is a much-admired country, a modern success story. But the success story of today is based on a long history of prominence, remarkable for what is really a very small region. In the 17th century the Netherlands had a competitive position in world trade, a healthy domestic environment in an era of plague, and some of the best painters of all time who served to document it all. Thus the painting above of a Dutch raid on England, one of their chief rivals. Most of the famous and attractive paintings of this time are portraits of real people in their public settings. Can you say "Rembrant"? One of his most famous paintings is The Night Watch a group portrait of a civic militia. These were upper-class but not noble men who were a key part of the politics of the Netherlands (and especially Holland and the city of Amsterdam).

A modern take on the painting is the song "The Night Watch" by the eccentric progressive rock (?) group King Crimson. Another example of the public/personal element of the art of this Dutch golden age is a striking self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi.

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My review of Daniel Baloup's L’Homme armé from the Medieval Review

Baloup, Daniel. L’Homme armé: expériences de la guerre et du combat en Castille au XVe siècle. Madrid: Casa de Velaázquez, 2022. Pp. 309. €35.00 (pb). ISBN: 978-84-9096-361-6. Reviewed by Steven Muhlberger Nipissing University steve.muhlberger@gmail.com Daniel Baloup has written a massive book that seeks to reconstruct the place of warfare in the culture of Castile during the fifteenth century and to show how people of different types took part in it. His approach is more like a reference work than a monograph. The title is somewhat deceptive. Contemporary sources and modern scholars both have used “man-at-arms” to designate one type of warrior. Baloup is far more inclusive. He takes as his subject all types of warriors and others who were affected by war. Baloup does not neglect any of them. His self-set task is to create an “anthropology of the Castilian wars of the 15th century.”

L’Homme armé is divided into two parts, which are further divided into six substantial chapters.

Part one (two chapters) is “Thinking and writing on war” and is a survey of the literary sources and the writers and theoreticians who devoted themselves to the subject. B. places the writings of such people in their social and military contexts. Not many of these writers are well known but in some cases we have a rather full portrait. Chapter I, 1 is devoted to the case of Lope Garcia de Salazar, a prolific chronicler who has much to say about warriors, war and politics. Most of the writers cited by B. do not provide us with as much material as Lope Garcia de Salazar, but the historians, clerical writers, and biographers, taken together, provide a more extensive picture of what warriors thought and shared with each other than one might have expected. Chapter 2 is a detailed discussion of the historiographical characteristics of noble-written chronicles. Chapter 3 explores, rather briefly, women's involvement in war. I was rather surprised that more was not said about the role of women in romance literature who might be relevant to the themes of the book. Chapter 4 is concerned with the role of clergy (rather, of prelates) in war. B. begins with canonical legislation that restricted the participation of prelates and progresses to a long description of fifteenth-century prelates actually commanding troops and fighting. This is one of the longest and most interesting sections of the book.

Part two has four chapters on “The Culture of war and warlike practice.” I was particularly impressed by Chapter 5, “The Army in the shadows,” which gives a rather full survey of the communal militias that took on a particular importance because of their participation in the many wars foreign and domestic in and around Castile. The activities of the “commons” are often underrated by military historians. B. does better than most in bringing them out of the shadows. Similarly B. gives us a good amount of attention to clerics who not only preached and theorized about war but fought on the battlefield. Chapter 6 constitutes an interesting exploration of the dangers of warfare and the way warriors’ reaction to those dangers contributed to noble identity--a complicated subject.

I noticed too that B. seldom uses the word “chivalry.“ This a defensible position since chivalry means so many things that one can get lost in its complexities. More relevant to his subject are such characterizations of how nobles were motivated and gained renown: by service (to the land and the king) or by noble descent or personal reputation. These values could easily come into conflict, and such conflicts shaped life in fifteenth-century Castile. Various readers will come to this book for different reasons. Specialists in the history of the fifteenth century may find it to be a useful reference tool; beside the analytical material in the body of the text, there is a very large bibliography and indices of personal and place-names. Researchers whose main interest is not warfare in Castile but other topics such as chivalry, the literature of war, or the evolution of nobility, who wish to make wide comparative studies and include Castilian manifestations of their subjects, may find Baloup a valuable guide. Certainly the “anthropological” approach adopted by Baloup gives readers the opportunity to construct a fuller picture of war in Castile and warfare in general during the fifteenth century.

More Spectacular Astronomy from Phil Plait

Read about it here.

Remember Ukraine?

When Trump is destroying the American Constitution and the world economy, it's all too easy to forget Ukraine and its vital place in the current moment. Catherine Merridale has not forgotten and >has written an essay on Ukraine past and Ukraine now. Her historical survey ends rather optomistically:

It is all the more impressive, then, that Ukraine’s citizens, knowing their past, should seek and find paths out of it. This outcome was not guaranteed in 1991, the time of the country’s independence. The young state was divided along multiple deep faults. In some regions — the Donbas in particular — allegiance to Russia remained high, Russian-speakers dominated (resenting the imposition of the Ukrainian language in schools), and Soviet political traditions endured. Ukrainian-speaking cities like Lviv might have seemed foreign, even sinister, if you came from the East. A political culture steeped in corruption — again inherited from Soviet times — brought Kyiv into disrepute. But all that changed in 2014. The loss of Crimea played a part, uniting people in outrage, but the mass of citizens had made their choice already months before. Whatever their land used to be (and whatever their own ethnic origins), the Maidan protesters agreed. They wanted a new country and they’d all call it Ukraine. Their novel form of nationhood demands no mist-wreathed past. To focus on pre-history is to sink into a trance. Since Putin’s long essay appeared, I have caught myself checking the dates of the medieval Grand Duchy of Volhynia and laughed at the absurdity. Independence and democracy are concepts that address the present, not the legacies of hate. Kyiv has asked for patriotic service, true, but only on behalf of a free, confident community. Addressing the liberal West, President Zelensky’s call is for democracies to think and act; the courage that Ukraine has shown has put NATO to shame. But Ukraine is bilingual so it speaks to Russia, too. Though Putin’s clique blocks out the sound, one day it will get through. A peaceful state, and democratic, sworn to heal old wounds? ‘Everything is Ukraine.’ It shouldn’t need another war for that to resonate.

IMAGE: St Vladimir's Ortthodox Cathedral, Windsor, Ontario ;

The single scariest thing I have read on the Internet

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQZTzgqNPJhnFntClMkXlnQgCQc

Two thoughtful posts about the current crisis

Let mw recommend Timothy Burke's Academia: No Lessons From History and Umair Haque's Trump Just Nuked the Economy, or, America is a Submerging Market Now.

Not the saame old stuff.

Lumberjacks

A fascinating topic and a fascinating story.

Two statistics: 1,000,000,000/8,000,000,000

I drew attention last year to the fact that 1,000,000,000 Indians were eligible to vote in the recent elections in that country. (And it seems to have been a reasonably honest election as things go these days.) It is generally accepted that the human population is about 8 billion.

I don't quite know what to think about this, but it seems to be worth thinking about.

IMAGE: If your serious about democracy, you have to work hard to make it real.

Happy Election!

That is what a CBC radio host said to a political guest the other day at the end of an excerpt on the upcoming Canadian election.

And you know I think that Canadians are genuinely happy to have an opportunity to have this election.

A medieval sketch from Novgorod

The usual writing medium in the Russian North during the 13th century was birch bark. One of the most important centers of the "Rus" people in that period was Novgorod, and the inhabitants generated a lot of commercial, religious, and perhaps personal documents.

Thanks to the vast supplies of birch trees there is a lot of work for archaeologists. I've never heard how this trove compares to the Cairo Geniza, but perhaps I'll look.

The image above comes from Live Science which often includes neat stuff.

The explanation of this document is that it was written by a 13th-century boy named Onfim who got bored with his schoolwork and started drawing on some. See Wikipedia for more on Onfrim.

Authoritarianism watch -- USA

In the last few months people have been debating with themselves whether the United States has lost its constitutional orderand is now in the hands of an authoritarian regime, a police state instead of a democracy. Lots of the discussion focuses on details of Trump and Musk's arbitrary and illegal actions and efforts to use the courts to restrain him.

Most people, I'd guess, have a hard time evaluating the significance of the various conflicts. I recommend two posts. First , from Talking Points Memo, a post by David Kurtz, one of the best people at this sterling source:

Columbia University Is Ground Zero For Trump Extortion

If you still harbored any doubt that President Trump’s ongoing attack on Columbia University – a private institution – is drawn straight from the authoritarian playbook, then the latest development should be clarifying. The Trump administration – specifically the Department of Education, HHS, and GSA – sent a letter yesterday to Columbia attempting to extort an array of concessions in how the university is run before it may consider restoring some $400 million in frozen federal funding. Imposing an arbitrary March 20 deadline, the Trump administration demanded that Columbia complete a laundry list of internal restructurings, policy changes, and submissions to federal authority. Among the most alarming demands: put the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department in what it calls “academic receivership” for at least five years. If Columbia complies by the deadline, then and only then will the Trump administration “open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms” at the university. If it’s not clear, it sure should be: Even if Columbia submits to this extortion letter, it doesn’t get federal funding restored. It merely sets itself up for a later round of bullying, exorbitant demands, and more extortion. The extortion letter came the same day DHS agents executed search warrants at the residences of two Columbia students. “According to the sources, it was part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on individuals it has described as espousing the views of Hamas and threatening the safety of Jewish students,” ABC News reported. This all transpired as Columbia graduate and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil remained in federal detention as the Trump administration attempts to deport him even though he’s a legal permanent resident. His lawyers amended their filings as they obtained new information about his detainment. In an interview with NPR, a top DHS official could not articulate what wrongdoing Khalil was being accused of.

The second post is from Brad DeLong, on the attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil

: Extending the penumbra of some political rights to non-citizens, extending the umbra of full civil rights to non-citizens, tolerating assemblies that turn into disruptions, and siding with causes that wish they were a threat to national security—those are things that a confident nation proud of itself and its liberties is willing to

support. But that is not us now. And that is certainly not the Republican half of us now.

We see here the intention of the Trump Regime to shut down free speech and free thought, especially at universities. Their ambitions are vast.

Vikings and Vikings Valhalla

I am currently watching the Vikings and Vikings Valhalla, and I am enjoying them immensely. I don't know if I can rate them with the Korean series Mr. Sunshine an ironic title for a story about a radicalized young woman resisting the establishment in the period of the Russian-Japanese War, and her lover, a Korean emigrant to the United States who comes back to Korea as a US Marine and finds himself conflicted as to his identity: Korean or American?

Mr. Sunshine is so wonderful that even though I started out talking about Vikings etc. I find myself swept away by my memories of this wonderful Korean saga...

Well, I think the viking saga is very satisfying. Professional medievalists who are experts in 9th century Northern Europe and especially Scandinavian culture will no doubt find lots of things to criticize, but I must say that the producers and writers have made a serious effort to recreate an interesting story about an interesting period: the building of viking kingdoms, and at the same time the conversion of the Scandinavians to Christianity. Here's what I liked: The beautiful cinematography, especially the dramatic land- and seascapes.

Horses and boats.

All the tools, costumes, furniture, buildings, etc. They were convincing

The great amount of care to create and develop characters who evolved over both series. This was quite an acccomplishment, given that IMDB lists for the first series 250 actors who had speaking roles and portrayed named characters.

The acting! The serious effsort to show what the conflict between Christians and Pagans might have been like. And more!

China Day at Muhlberger's World History

The most interesting posts I have read so far today are both about China, a world in itself. Fun and wonder: China Talk brings you China's Best Music of 2024 . It's a small selection by Jake Newby, who writes on Chinese music in a substack, of what is a tiny sample of what is obviously a very diverse and energetic music scene. Well, with a population of 1.4 billion and millenia of musical cultural, you might expect some good stuff. Well, without a maniacal dictator who thinks that the routine cure for all social ills is killing, by the millions,anyone who steps out of line, or send them to work in the fields, a lot of good stufff is being produced. Note that even with a milder dictatorship "the authorities" still interfere. But have fun with this, which shows that current Chinese musicians can do anything, in any genre.

Another perspective on Chinese culture is provided by Noah Smith in Is China inventing big important things? Noah has good ideas and writes well. You might want to follow him on