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Quotes from Walter Scott's The Abbot
"And, by my faith, he is a man of steel, as true and as pure, but as hard and as pitiless. You remember the Cock of Capperlaw, whom he hanged over his gate for a mere mistake—a poor yoke of oxen taken in Scotland, when he thought he was taking them in English land? I loved the Cock of Capperlaw; the Kerrs had not an honester man in their clan, and they have had men that might have been a pattern to the Border—men that would not have lifted under twenty cows at once, and would have held themselves dishonoured if they had taken a drift of sheep, or the like, but always managed their raids in full credit and honour."
What a fascinating look at 16th century Scottish border life. It's totally honorable to steal a large herd of cows from an English target, but the fewer you steal (presumably because of the relative poverty of their owner) the more morally questionable, so the most honorable lads are raiding large quantities of livestock from wealthy English landowners. Meanwhile, stealing any amount of livestock from another Scottish person is punishable by death.
Their stately offices—their pleasant gardens—the magnificent cloisters constructed for their recreation, were all dilapidated and ruinous; and some of the building materials had apparently been put into requisition by persons in the village and in the vicinity, who, formerly vassals of the Monastery, had not hesitated to appropriate to themselves a part of the spoils. Roland saw fragments of Gothic pillars richly carved, occupying the place of door-posts to the meanest huts; and here and there a mutilated statue, inverted or laid on its side, made the door-post, or threshold, of a wretched cow-house.
Mostly I'm just sad we don't have documentary photo evidence of this practice.
"My master has pushed off in the boat which they call the little Herod, (more shame to them for giving the name of a Christian to wood and iron,)[...]"
Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his name on a bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received the carrier with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house, under pretence of important business, which, I believe, consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh.
Love to see whiskey in Gaelic.
“Peace, ye brawling hound!” said the wounded steward; “are dagger-stabs and dying men such rarities in Scotland, that you should cry as if the house were falling?”
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Lol, that reminds me of this description of the death of Juan Borgia in Rome in 1497:
By now Juan’s disappearance was causing consternation at the Vatican Palace. Alexander VI hoped that perhaps he had spent the night with a woman and had not wanted to be seen leaving her house in daylight. But the longer Alexander VI waited for his son’s return, the more anxious he became.
He made urgent enquiries in the area where Juan was known to have been the night before. One of those questioned was a timber merchant whose practice it was to have his wood unloaded from boats in the Tiber not far from the hospital of San Girolamo degli Schiavoni. This man said that he had been keeping a watch on a delivery of timber when, close to midnight, he saw two men walk down to the riverbank, where they looked about them, presumably to see if the coast was clear. Shortly afterward two other men stealthily approached the water, where they were joined by a man on a white horse, which appeared to have a corpse slung across its back. He and the four other men then moved silently along the riverbank, halting just past a place where sewage and rubbish were customarily thrown into the water.
Here the dead body was pulled from the horse and hurled into the Tiber. The rider who had brought it then asked the others if it had sunk. He was assured that it had; but, noticing the corpse’s cloak still floating on the surface, he threw stones at it until it had disappeared from view. The five men then left the river together and were soon lost to sight.
All this the timber merchant related when questioned. Asked why he had not reported these events earlier, he replied that he must have seen at least a hundred bodies thrown into the river at that point and had never thought much about it.
Christopher Hibbert, The Borgias.
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This is why Ada Palmer is always saying the Renaissance was a terrible time to live through, whatever fantastic art and innovative ideas it may have produced.
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The Renaissance especially though - it features a dazzling profusion of early modern innovations and advances and art that we want to know more about, so that can look really convincing until you start to look a bit closer.
I'm glad you mentioned her just now though! Maybe this is just what I've been looking for to read next alongside all the old stuff.
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She has a blog and a new book out, Inventing the Renaissance, which I haven't had time to read but is on my list. My wife also recommended a recent podcast episode in which she featured, talking about her new book--said Palmer was a great speaker, very engaging, top-notch. I can get the details if you like podcasts.
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Also, the only reason we generated 4 million words of historical discussion was because
It would never have worked if Selena and I had just talked to each other. It would have been too hard to guess what the other one already knew vs. what would be a good use of our time to talk about.
You can also talk to us about the Middle Ages and the 19th century any time you want! No pressure, just want you to know your desire to dive into minor details like 5th/6th century Alexandrian trade networks would help you fit right in!
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Also, If you think that's cute, check out this post from the beginning of salon in which
Things I knew about Frederick the Great before a year ago: he was king of... Prussia??
...
Also, there is apparently some subplot involving Russian fanboys that introduces an entirely new cast of people which I am dying to find out about
At first, Selena and I thought it would be too much to introduce a new character cast and plot to her, but she was like, "No, tell me everything!"
It wasn't long before Selena and I stopped telling her things we already knew and started telling her (and thereby each other) things we had just discovered that day.
And after enough time, we were telling her things that historians were wrong about or that had never been discovered before, i.e., original research. But we didn't start out that way!
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... in fact I think I currently know less about Frederick the Great than she says she did since I've never heard of the Russian fanboys.
But also I've never been interested in any early modern monarchs. I have a strong interest in material culture and the history of textiles and clothing - if I could go back to university for fun but without having to commute it'd probably be that - and also art at like a 101 level (my mom was an art teacher and she got her MA and TAed art history when I was a teenager)... but no university studies of history or in fact any of the humanities outside a bit of folklore, which is about half anthropology anyway. So like if there are pages on your community focused more on those areas, those are probably the only ones I could follow without looking up a ton of stuff. Or maybe I just didn't look deep enough in the community - if it's developed as you say there's probably a lot of more introductory material further back...
I did try to follow your link but it is broken - you forgot to paste the address!
But that reminds me, do you have a link to wherever the place is where people currently go to ask for pdfs of papers that are on JSTOR? Like, it's not Twitter anymore, surely? Is it Bluesky?
I was going to boot up my Windows machine and buy the ebook today, but I accidentally fell into hyperfocus on handsewing and lost most of the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow! I did listen to half of an episode of Ada Palmer's podcast. She is a good speaker and she has a good vibe with her co-host! I'll probably listen to some more of it soon.
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And Cahn would be too, so you'd be in good company, and that's exactly what we need!
So like if there are pages on your community
We're not that organized, we just start discussions on whatever random topic we're interested in at the moment. Just pop into the latest post and start a new thread on whatever you want to talk about, and people will either reply or not, depending on time and interest.
I admit textiles and material culture are not our main focus area, we'd be at more of a pre-100 level, but
... in fact I think I currently know less about Frederick the Great than she says she did since I've never heard of the Russian fanboys.
Neither did Cahn when she started, all she knew was that Frederick was king of somewhere! It was only after Selena and I started answering her questions and posting hundreds of comments that the discussion evolved to bring up Russian fanboys, which were completely new to her.
But that reminds me, do you have a link to wherever the place is where people currently go to ask for pdfs of papers that are on JSTOR? Like, it's not Twitter anymore, surely? Is it Bluesky?
I don't use Twitter or Bluesky, so I have no idea, but I do have JSTOR access and a Dreamwidth DM, just saying. ;)
I did try to follow your link but it is broken - you forgot to paste the address!
The salon link? It works for me, it takes me to
ETA: Oh, shoot, I see which one you're talking about. Here you go. It's the second post of salon, so it comes after about 200 comments' worth of complete beginner discussion, and is in response to same.
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Also now that I read one of the salon threads about Catherine the Great I realize that I have heard of this guy before albeit only briefly, because I totally watched several history explainer videos about her and read her wikipedia page when the first season of The Great came out, whenever that was.
And I see this guy came to power shortly before the Jacobite rebellion (the invasion that ended with the battle of Culloden, which I see now is called the Jacobite Rising of 1745... if I'd remembered that name the time overlap would've been more obvious...) - I read Waverley quite recently, and it was full of historical details, although Scott's focus is extremely Scotland-specific. There's lots of exciting things happening in the decorative arts in Europe in this period too, though it isn't my favorite. I mean, the birth of Rococo! Meissen porcelain figures! Actually this has inspired me to look up baroque furniture and interiors more. I don't know that much about them outside of (a) Britain and the US and (b) Sweden-Finland.
As for the others, I will probably message you soon.
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Haha, you are not the first person I have mentioned Frederick the Great to, and they have been like, "I know a little bit about this period from The Great"!
And I see this guy came to power shortly before the Jacobite rebellion (the invasion that ended with the battle of Culloden, which I see now is called the Jacobite Rising of 1745...
Ah, yes, and this guy actually kicked off the war that indirectly led to the '45 Jacobite Rising! See, a good time to invade England is when most of the troops are busy fighting on the Continent and there is limited manpower for dealing with threats at home. And when France is fighting England, they're often quite happy to have Scots invade England and force England into a two-front war (this has been going on since the 13th century).
Of course, I think this war would have started anyway, so I think Macaulay is overdoing it when he writes:
On the head of Frederick is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe— the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.
But never let it be said that Macaulay didn't have a way with words, whatever the quality of his opinions.
Meissen porcelain figures!
Frederick was super into porcelain! He got a porcelain industry going in Prussia, invaded Saxony, occupied Meissen and raided the manufactories and sent all the figures and recipes back home, and founded and ran an entire porcelain factory in Berlin!
From then on, it was called the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin ("Royal Porcelain Manufactory Berlin") and became a model of how to run a business. There was no child labour, there were regular working hours, above-average incomes, secure pensions, a healthcare fund and assistance for widows and orphans.
The manufactory's most important client was Frederick the Great, who sometimes jokingly referred to himself as his "best customer".
He also had his own subgenre of Rococo, named Frederician Rococo after him.
So there's lots to investigate there if you're into material culture! I'm somewhat into art history, so we might be able to find some common ground there.
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