Whoops, back to the diatribes...
Don't get me wrong, I very much like public history. I work in a museum and have done for quite some time. I can easily see the results things like Horrible Histories (for my generation the books, for subsequent ones especially the TV show) have had on kids' ability to relate to and be interested in history.* Some works of popular history for adults are great, and in cities like mine tours quickly fill up with visitors hoping to learn about the local past.**
But (while this is probably not something most non-academics are aware of), having public history crammed down our throats is not ok. And this brings us to "impact", the dread buzzword that now haunts anyone in history and related disciplines.
Basically, the people with the money have decided that, if your work isn't accessible/understandable/relevant to the layman off the street, it's largely not worth funding.*** Work is going to be made available--before?! the editing process--online for anyone to get hold of (how will that look when all future citations come from inaccurate versions?); new PhD positions are being created with time to be taken off to do public history work... The "impact" of your work, though we all know how to judge scholarly value, is measured by what it does for non-historians.
That's all been said before, and griped about, in academic circles. But there were a few points I wanted to set down after a very interesting conversation with a friend/colleague (or two) yesterday. Fundamentally, most of them related back to this:
Who on earth would think of asking this of a scientist?
Now, like a good academic, let me qualify this. I am sure that some scientists are receiving money based on how they've been able to show a "public" dimension to their projects.**** There are super-cool public science initiatives; how many of us still hold Bill Nye in awe and reverence? But I think we can all understand that scientists really shouldn't be concerning themselves, when doing research, with being intelligible to non-scientists. I'm not bad at science; I've done some college-level calculus, physics, and astronomy, though I wouldn't want to pretend that this was any more impressive to a real scientist than them passing my history test. But if I can understand, as effortlessly as public history is meant to feel, your project, then it's probably not very useful. Science is about doing crazy things and pushing at the boundaries of human knowledge.
So is history. Historians aren't sitting here reinventing the wheel, we're discovering new wheels that make the cart roll in cool new ways.***** So why is there this idea that our research, if it will only interest other historians, shouldn't get the funding? That's demented, frankly. The behind-the-scenes research keeps refining our picture of the past, and that will affect how the public narratives get told, if that's what you're concerned with. Fund public history. But projects without immediate "relevance" or "impact" are just as valid. They are required to make any academic discipline rigorous and... well... alive. History without the obscure work doesn't get anywhere, because the public simply isn't equipped to handle all the nuance (and it's not all their fault, nor is there necessarily a reason they should care), and if we become obsessed with catering to it, actual research will get bogged down.******
Another angle opens up here. It is valid to say that the obscure research done by, say, medical researchers, while not intelligible in itself, has real impact on the community. Fine. It is also valid to say that since history deals with culture, it is part of its duty to hand this down and make this open to the people who, after all, make culture. That's also true. In fact, if I go into academia after my PhD, I can quite see myself preferring a teaching to a research position. But what bothers me about this line of thinking is that it assumes that all scientific research, by virtue of being Science!, is super-urgent and relevant, and that history, unless you try really hard, is irrelevant.
Nonsense. There are huge areas of science that have as much impact on our daily lives as historical studies. Did I mention I really like astronomy? But studying the origins of the universe does nothing, for the layman, beyond (if they keep up with it) increasing the bounds of knowledge. That's just historical research, for all intents and purpose. Studies about animal psychology--for instance, whether pigeons can distinguish between artists... again, not really sure what this does beyond letting us know that they can. Does it influence the public, or give it tangible benefits? Nope. It just means we know more things, and that is unambiguously good.******* History accomplishes this just as much. But it hasn't gotten the validation of the Science card, and so we're asked to do things unthinkable in other disciplines.
University PR departments will take scientific research and distort it (through simplification) to publish popular news articles; this produces grumbling (rightfully) and discussions about "scientific literacy". So we expect the public to get better-conversant with science, which is fine. Historians, however, are asked to do the legwork of making things accessible to the layperson, who isn't supposed to have to do any work. Far better would be to start assuming that the ability to understand culture--because we cannot escape culture any more than we can escape the laws of physics; it shapes us and always will, no matter how scientifically-advanced we become--is a necessary human skill; and understand that while history should always be made open to people, there is a ton of work that simply doesn't need to be because the historical discussion of academics is vital.
I wouldn't claim that history departments need as much of a budget as science ones do: we don't need to pay for, say, telescopes. (There's that astronomy thing again. Anyone want to give me a telescope?). But historians and scientists both do important work, and we shouldn't have to keep an eye on having to justify ourselves through "impact". The past is cool, and it's where we came from. That's enough reason to research it, right there. Anything that makes people love it more, I fully support. And some historians want to throw themselves into that work. While doing research, though, there's enough stress that I don't want to have to spend more time worrying about how to make people care about a 14th-century duchess in a corner of France. I could try, and would probably succeed; but that's not what my research is for. To each their own.
*Terry Deary's own attitude towards "actual" historians are, however, disturbingly erroneous and spiteful. But we won't deal with that here.
**Although the Telescope and the Corset of History do suggest how problematic the "take-away" can be.
***This is not yet a universal. I'm just trying to focus on the large problem, not the exceptions.
****I don't know of any offhand, but I don't want to make assumptions they don't sometimes share this problem.
*****This metaphor was ill-advised, perhaps, but I seem to have committed to it. You win some, you lose some.
******Again, we're not here yet. I'm talking about trends and implications!
*******Though really, it's also not--the development of better weapons is just really not something I can support. That's impact, but it's not a good thing.
Well, where would YOU keep it?
Enough ranting lately, so I'm going to start doing something I've always wanted to do and post pictures of odd street names I've run across. We'll start with one from Dinan, my favorite little medieval Breton town (it's lovely, you should absolutely go):
This means "Street of the ditch, called the Cat's Hole".
It opens through the town walls, hence the ditch or moat. But there are no felines running around here. A "chat" or cat was a kind of siege engine which protected men from missiles thrown above and was thus good for getting close to walls (I've got a 16th-century text here describing a 14th-century battle, which also has the cats serving "as towers for throwing rocks against the walls"; take that as you will). So this street was where you kept your cat when it wasn't in use.
This means "Street of the ditch, called the Cat's Hole".
It opens through the town walls, hence the ditch or moat. But there are no felines running around here. A "chat" or cat was a kind of siege engine which protected men from missiles thrown above and was thus good for getting close to walls (I've got a 16th-century text here describing a 14th-century battle, which also has the cats serving "as towers for throwing rocks against the walls"; take that as you will). So this street was where you kept your cat when it wasn't in use.
Progressively stupider?
There's been a lot of upsetting news on lately (as always, I suppose), but of especial immediacy are the EU election results, which have showed, in brief, an alarming rise in anti-Europe, ultra-conservative parties as a proportion of the representatives. The word "neo-Nazi" is cropping up with truly distressing frequency. We can only hope that people will come to their senses before too much bad comes of all this.*
But it's always moments like this which make me wonder why some people are so often insistent on viewing the course of history as one of "progress".** I'm not saying there can't be improvements over time: the enfranchisement of women, the abolition of (official) racial discrimination--these were great recent moments of progress. But we are always so close to being able to do this, because absolutely nothing guarantees that a future generation won't just muck it up again.
Let's look at a few angles here. Gay rights: a very strong movement at the moment, in the States and elsewhere. Great! But while I do think/hope we're reaching a tipping point in the US, it wouldn't take that much at the federal level to cause some real setbacks (2016, what will you bring?). Even when one judge might overturn a ban, it immediately gets challenged, and in some cases successfully reinstated (at least temporarily). Sure, that's all part of the juridical process we have; but it's emblematic of the ease with which anti-progressive change can occur. While it seems that successive generations are becoming more liberal, and the weight of precedent is always a good thing to have on your side, the laws are always the function of a prevailing mood in time and can be made to change in whatever direction that mood is facing.
OK, I'm not really a modern political scientist or anything, so let's turn back to historical problems with "progress". Women in society, for example. This is an extremely uneven process. They were effectively excluded from public life during the Roman Empire (a generally unfair place), but saw an increasing flexibility (if of a secondary standing) during the Middle Ages. The laws got progressively (hah!) more restrictive as the Renaissance came on, a lot of the turbulence of the final years of the medieval period having caused greater codification along gendered lines. But culturally/socially, the Enlightenment was quite a relatively-female friendly period (we're looking always at the elites here, since pretty much everyone else, men or women, simply did not function on the same way--but of course rights at the village level etc. were of significant importance too. This is, however, less germane to our current issue). Then the Victorians happened, and that was a distinctly conservative period compared to the previous century. Women were far more circumscribed, legally and socially, than they had been before the French Revolution.*** Moreover, as men gained in public rights, women were left further and further behind. That's not progress.
Technology? By definition, this one tends to have more of a progressive slope, since it requires previous knowledge of scientific principles to grow upon. This knowledge has been building up steadily for quite a long while. But it's not so simple, either: in fact, thinking of technological progress is the error that leads terrifying numbers of people to assume the Romans came after the Vikings. The Romans had baths, didn't they? And built big domes and shiny buildings while the Vikings just lived in huts! They were so progressive! ...That's nonsense, of course: the Romans were what they were, and (as always) it was great if you were, say, one of the well-to-do citizens using the baths instead of the slave scraping their sweat off with a strigil. But that's not really the issue. The fact is that the Romans had baths because they thought baths were important. The Vikings built amazing sea-faring ships that far outdid anything the Romans produced on the tranquil Mediterranean, and they sailed across the entire Atlantic because that was what was important to them. "Technology" isn't one thing, and so we can't really just give it one historical trajectory. Also, more of it doesn't necessarily mean "better": are you really going to tell me that the ability to play Angry Birds wherever I want is useful?****
And of course, all of this is just the Western-centric view. To say that there has been global "progress" can't even begin to cope with the scale of the problems we are still facing, nor can it adequately express how history works. You can't even tell me that the European colonies of Asia or Africa were progress over what had come before just because they were later; and it is equal arrogance to assume that our own societies are only moving towards the better. We are (i.e. there are people who are) perfectly ready to return, it seems, to a fractured Europe where wars can still happen between the neighbouring countries (did no one pay attention to the last two hundred years of history?!) instead of working together in a civil manner. At least, that's what seems to have gone on yesterday. We will always be hanging at the edge of a cliff, and the idea of "progress" makes us complacent and forget what can happen.
Pessimist? Maybe. But I think it's more an accurate assessment of how people have always tended to work. Please, society! I would love to be shown wrong.
*For the record, voting for bad people just because you're not thoroughly chuffed with the not-bad people is a crappy tactic.
**The opposite prevalent attitude, nostalgia, can be equally annoying and will, I'm sure, get its own rant at some point! Wait until I've had a lousy day at the museum.
***I think this is causal, but don't have time to investigate. Anyone want to do a hypothetical history study?
****Actually, I bet that's out of date already. What are we playing today?
PS. I'm embarrassed, France. I can usually be patriotic towards you in a way I can't towards the US, because I am shielded from the crazies you harbor. But now you're making that very difficult. Please get your reality out of my idealism!
PPS. Interestingly, progress has not always been seen as a good thing: for instance, in the Middle Ages, it tended to mean "new taxes", and no one liked that. But that's a topic for another time; just wanted to point that out.
But it's always moments like this which make me wonder why some people are so often insistent on viewing the course of history as one of "progress".** I'm not saying there can't be improvements over time: the enfranchisement of women, the abolition of (official) racial discrimination--these were great recent moments of progress. But we are always so close to being able to do this, because absolutely nothing guarantees that a future generation won't just muck it up again.
Let's look at a few angles here. Gay rights: a very strong movement at the moment, in the States and elsewhere. Great! But while I do think/hope we're reaching a tipping point in the US, it wouldn't take that much at the federal level to cause some real setbacks (2016, what will you bring?). Even when one judge might overturn a ban, it immediately gets challenged, and in some cases successfully reinstated (at least temporarily). Sure, that's all part of the juridical process we have; but it's emblematic of the ease with which anti-progressive change can occur. While it seems that successive generations are becoming more liberal, and the weight of precedent is always a good thing to have on your side, the laws are always the function of a prevailing mood in time and can be made to change in whatever direction that mood is facing.
OK, I'm not really a modern political scientist or anything, so let's turn back to historical problems with "progress". Women in society, for example. This is an extremely uneven process. They were effectively excluded from public life during the Roman Empire (a generally unfair place), but saw an increasing flexibility (if of a secondary standing) during the Middle Ages. The laws got progressively (hah!) more restrictive as the Renaissance came on, a lot of the turbulence of the final years of the medieval period having caused greater codification along gendered lines. But culturally/socially, the Enlightenment was quite a relatively-female friendly period (we're looking always at the elites here, since pretty much everyone else, men or women, simply did not function on the same way--but of course rights at the village level etc. were of significant importance too. This is, however, less germane to our current issue). Then the Victorians happened, and that was a distinctly conservative period compared to the previous century. Women were far more circumscribed, legally and socially, than they had been before the French Revolution.*** Moreover, as men gained in public rights, women were left further and further behind. That's not progress.
Technology? By definition, this one tends to have more of a progressive slope, since it requires previous knowledge of scientific principles to grow upon. This knowledge has been building up steadily for quite a long while. But it's not so simple, either: in fact, thinking of technological progress is the error that leads terrifying numbers of people to assume the Romans came after the Vikings. The Romans had baths, didn't they? And built big domes and shiny buildings while the Vikings just lived in huts! They were so progressive! ...That's nonsense, of course: the Romans were what they were, and (as always) it was great if you were, say, one of the well-to-do citizens using the baths instead of the slave scraping their sweat off with a strigil. But that's not really the issue. The fact is that the Romans had baths because they thought baths were important. The Vikings built amazing sea-faring ships that far outdid anything the Romans produced on the tranquil Mediterranean, and they sailed across the entire Atlantic because that was what was important to them. "Technology" isn't one thing, and so we can't really just give it one historical trajectory. Also, more of it doesn't necessarily mean "better": are you really going to tell me that the ability to play Angry Birds wherever I want is useful?****
And of course, all of this is just the Western-centric view. To say that there has been global "progress" can't even begin to cope with the scale of the problems we are still facing, nor can it adequately express how history works. You can't even tell me that the European colonies of Asia or Africa were progress over what had come before just because they were later; and it is equal arrogance to assume that our own societies are only moving towards the better. We are (i.e. there are people who are) perfectly ready to return, it seems, to a fractured Europe where wars can still happen between the neighbouring countries (did no one pay attention to the last two hundred years of history?!) instead of working together in a civil manner. At least, that's what seems to have gone on yesterday. We will always be hanging at the edge of a cliff, and the idea of "progress" makes us complacent and forget what can happen.
Pessimist? Maybe. But I think it's more an accurate assessment of how people have always tended to work. Please, society! I would love to be shown wrong.
*For the record, voting for bad people just because you're not thoroughly chuffed with the not-bad people is a crappy tactic.
**The opposite prevalent attitude, nostalgia, can be equally annoying and will, I'm sure, get its own rant at some point! Wait until I've had a lousy day at the museum.
***I think this is causal, but don't have time to investigate. Anyone want to do a hypothetical history study?
****Actually, I bet that's out of date already. What are we playing today?
PS. I'm embarrassed, France. I can usually be patriotic towards you in a way I can't towards the US, because I am shielded from the crazies you harbor. But now you're making that very difficult. Please get your reality out of my idealism!
PPS. Interestingly, progress has not always been seen as a good thing: for instance, in the Middle Ages, it tended to mean "new taxes", and no one liked that. But that's a topic for another time; just wanted to point that out.
"Medieval" witchcraft
So, this morning, I saw an article shared about how a woman was beaten to death after being accused of witchcraft on Facebook.
That's horrifying and horrible. There's no real reason to comment further on that, because it's obvious.
It does seem as good a place as any to start documenting and addressing misuses of the word "medieval" in the public discourse.
To anyone who is a historian, or hangs around with medievalists, or whatever, this is not a new peeve,* nor do I intend to highlight anything particularly new--if only because the uses are so entirely predictable. The term medieval, in newspaper-speak, always refers to "backwards", "barbaric", "evil", and so on. Honestly, it's not very interesting. However, it's worth pointing out specific instances where the Middle Ages are being abused, in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will learn something concrete about history. And so I can let out some steam.
In this instance, of course, I didn't even have to click on the article itself to confirm my suspicion that it would be misusing its historical comparisons. The tagline itself talked about "going back to the Middle Ages".
Well, funny fact: what you really meant, more or less, is "going back to the Renaissance".
See, while witchcraft has often been more or less prevalent as a known element of society--this is pretty much true, in different guises, for most of European history--it didn't really become an issue until after the Protestant Reformation.
There were inquisitions before then, because of all those pesky heretics running around; but they were annoyed by rather than interested in accusations of witchcraft. They would tell the accusers to go away, basically. It wasn't pretend uses of magic that bothered them, it was issues of theology. If you hear about someone being burnt in the Middle Ages, most probably it's for religious (mis)beliefs, not for magic. This is not to say "witches" never got into trouble--but actually, mostly people just kind of accepted witchcraft in the background.
But the security of Catholicism was shaken up by the advent of the Protestants, and that's where things started to get ugly. A group on the defensive is far more dangerous than one that feels confident in its place: just look at evangelical Christians in American society today. Now witchcraft, on one side of the religious line or the other, could join heresy in the array of fear and justification for violent action.
The date of the Salem witch trials? 1692-3. That's so not medieval it isn't even funny. And that's just the most famous example. Heck, even going onto Wikipedia produces very interesting results. In the article Witchcraft, under History: Europe, the very first sentence begins "In Early Modern European tradition..." Medieval witchcraft wasn't a thing; the most famous treatise on the prosecution of witches is late 15th-century. And, interestingly, the Spanish Inquisition dealt much less with witches than any other inquisition in, say, France or Germany: Catholicism was much less challenged by Protestantism there, so no one needed to be as bothered.
I don't intend to outline the entire history of EM witchcraft here,** especially when it's so easy to see that simply using "medieval" to describe its modern recurrence*** is both lazy and really, really inaccurate. But we daren't say anything against the Renaissance, now do we? It wouldn't convey the same point as using medieval, which everyone knows as a bad thing... Nonsense.
Get over it, and get it right!
*Not that many medievalists aren't ignorant about surprising amounts of the period which aren't directly in their familiarity. This one is actually a particular example, so pay attention, folks.
**Although it's very easy to quickly scrounge up some internet information, Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles provides an excellent précis.
***Also, does the fact that these things can apparently still happen today mean that we're travelling in time? how about "society is still messed up, because that's how people are"? Just throwing it out there.
That's horrifying and horrible. There's no real reason to comment further on that, because it's obvious.
It does seem as good a place as any to start documenting and addressing misuses of the word "medieval" in the public discourse.
To anyone who is a historian, or hangs around with medievalists, or whatever, this is not a new peeve,* nor do I intend to highlight anything particularly new--if only because the uses are so entirely predictable. The term medieval, in newspaper-speak, always refers to "backwards", "barbaric", "evil", and so on. Honestly, it's not very interesting. However, it's worth pointing out specific instances where the Middle Ages are being abused, in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will learn something concrete about history. And so I can let out some steam.
In this instance, of course, I didn't even have to click on the article itself to confirm my suspicion that it would be misusing its historical comparisons. The tagline itself talked about "going back to the Middle Ages".
Well, funny fact: what you really meant, more or less, is "going back to the Renaissance".
See, while witchcraft has often been more or less prevalent as a known element of society--this is pretty much true, in different guises, for most of European history--it didn't really become an issue until after the Protestant Reformation.
There were inquisitions before then, because of all those pesky heretics running around; but they were annoyed by rather than interested in accusations of witchcraft. They would tell the accusers to go away, basically. It wasn't pretend uses of magic that bothered them, it was issues of theology. If you hear about someone being burnt in the Middle Ages, most probably it's for religious (mis)beliefs, not for magic. This is not to say "witches" never got into trouble--but actually, mostly people just kind of accepted witchcraft in the background.
But the security of Catholicism was shaken up by the advent of the Protestants, and that's where things started to get ugly. A group on the defensive is far more dangerous than one that feels confident in its place: just look at evangelical Christians in American society today. Now witchcraft, on one side of the religious line or the other, could join heresy in the array of fear and justification for violent action.
The date of the Salem witch trials? 1692-3. That's so not medieval it isn't even funny. And that's just the most famous example. Heck, even going onto Wikipedia produces very interesting results. In the article Witchcraft, under History: Europe, the very first sentence begins "In Early Modern European tradition..." Medieval witchcraft wasn't a thing; the most famous treatise on the prosecution of witches is late 15th-century. And, interestingly, the Spanish Inquisition dealt much less with witches than any other inquisition in, say, France or Germany: Catholicism was much less challenged by Protestantism there, so no one needed to be as bothered.
I don't intend to outline the entire history of EM witchcraft here,** especially when it's so easy to see that simply using "medieval" to describe its modern recurrence*** is both lazy and really, really inaccurate. But we daren't say anything against the Renaissance, now do we? It wouldn't convey the same point as using medieval, which everyone knows as a bad thing... Nonsense.
Get over it, and get it right!
*Not that many medievalists aren't ignorant about surprising amounts of the period which aren't directly in their familiarity. This one is actually a particular example, so pay attention, folks.
**Although it's very easy to quickly scrounge up some internet information, Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles provides an excellent précis.
***Also, does the fact that these things can apparently still happen today mean that we're travelling in time? how about "society is still messed up, because that's how people are"? Just throwing it out there.
The History Test
Just a brief one, since I'm travelling at the moment but am also feeling guilty about not having said much for a while. (It also doesn't help that no one has done anything funny or noteworthy at the museum for a little while. Come on, people!).
What I want to do is try to figure out a reasonable baseline for judging history awareness.
The initial entry standard, developed based on multiple years of experience, is to establish whether the candidate knows which came first: the Vikings or the Romans?
Answer: The Romans, with a roughly four-century gap between them.* Hopefully, this did not surprise you, since you are actually on this blog of all places.
A vast number of people, due to the prevalent notion of "history as progress" (a topic for another time, although see the Telescope as well), as well as a profound absence of knowledge regarding either period, really**, will say the Vikings were first, however. Whether it's actually a majority or no, I haven't counted, but it's LOADS (not to mention the people who want to know whether the Vikings are "Bronze Age").
Anyhow, this basic standard will let you know what kind of conversation you can then have--probably a good idea to work with the big picture here. But it also got me wondering what is a fair expectation of peoples' knowledge. When are you allowed to despair?***
So, I've been exploring the standard of the Millennium-by-Century--in part to counteract the effects of the Telescope and make sure people can get at least a general sense of change-over-time. So, what the Millennium-by-Century quiz does is ask, very simply, for the candidate to name a significant person, event, phenomenon, or trend, from each of the 10 centuries of the last millennium (i.e. back to the year 1000). Just ten things from history. And knowing where, within 100 years, they fall.
As a rough guide to the level of precision we're looking at here, here are my answers off the top of my head (they're different every time I do this):
20th century: First and Second World Wars
19th century: Industrial Revolution
18th century: Enlightenment
17th century: (Most of the) rule of Louis XIV
16th century: Rule of Mary Tudor
15th century: End of the Hundred Years' War
14th century: Breton War of Succession
13th century: (Most of the) building of Chartres Cathedral (in its current incarnation)
12th century: So many Cistercians
11th century: Norman Conquest of England
Obviously, my answers are very Euro-centric, because that's what I do; they're also mostly political, because again that's a lot of what I do (though honestly I consider myself a social historians). But the choices are infinite. It's really hard to get a wrong answer, unless you just simply don't know your history. (I had wanted to bring it back all the way to the year 0, but to be honest I am not particularly good with the late Roman Empire--so I can't expect that from others. Use for bonus points?)
Is this fair? I think so. And then people can know what they should look into!
In other history-quiz news, I don't regularly read Hark A Vagrant, but her 1066 quiz is quite a marvel.
*This chronology is from the English perspective. Let's keep things simple.
**I mean, all the people who say they would quite like to live in the Roman period (or 'Roman times' as it's commonly known here), are obviously only able to picture the smallest, most elite segment of society! But this, too, is a topic for another time.
***Please don't actually. In reality this is a great teaching moment! Help them learn! It's fun!
What I want to do is try to figure out a reasonable baseline for judging history awareness.
The initial entry standard, developed based on multiple years of experience, is to establish whether the candidate knows which came first: the Vikings or the Romans?
Answer: The Romans, with a roughly four-century gap between them.* Hopefully, this did not surprise you, since you are actually on this blog of all places.
A vast number of people, due to the prevalent notion of "history as progress" (a topic for another time, although see the Telescope as well), as well as a profound absence of knowledge regarding either period, really**, will say the Vikings were first, however. Whether it's actually a majority or no, I haven't counted, but it's LOADS (not to mention the people who want to know whether the Vikings are "Bronze Age").
Anyhow, this basic standard will let you know what kind of conversation you can then have--probably a good idea to work with the big picture here. But it also got me wondering what is a fair expectation of peoples' knowledge. When are you allowed to despair?***
So, I've been exploring the standard of the Millennium-by-Century--in part to counteract the effects of the Telescope and make sure people can get at least a general sense of change-over-time. So, what the Millennium-by-Century quiz does is ask, very simply, for the candidate to name a significant person, event, phenomenon, or trend, from each of the 10 centuries of the last millennium (i.e. back to the year 1000). Just ten things from history. And knowing where, within 100 years, they fall.
As a rough guide to the level of precision we're looking at here, here are my answers off the top of my head (they're different every time I do this):
20th century: First and Second World Wars
19th century: Industrial Revolution
18th century: Enlightenment
17th century: (Most of the) rule of Louis XIV
16th century: Rule of Mary Tudor
15th century: End of the Hundred Years' War
14th century: Breton War of Succession
13th century: (Most of the) building of Chartres Cathedral (in its current incarnation)
12th century: So many Cistercians
11th century: Norman Conquest of England
Obviously, my answers are very Euro-centric, because that's what I do; they're also mostly political, because again that's a lot of what I do (though honestly I consider myself a social historians). But the choices are infinite. It's really hard to get a wrong answer, unless you just simply don't know your history. (I had wanted to bring it back all the way to the year 0, but to be honest I am not particularly good with the late Roman Empire--so I can't expect that from others. Use for bonus points?)
Is this fair? I think so. And then people can know what they should look into!
In other history-quiz news, I don't regularly read Hark A Vagrant, but her 1066 quiz is quite a marvel.
*This chronology is from the English perspective. Let's keep things simple.
**I mean, all the people who say they would quite like to live in the Roman period (or 'Roman times' as it's commonly known here), are obviously only able to picture the smallest, most elite segment of society! But this, too, is a topic for another time.
***Please don't actually. In reality this is a great teaching moment! Help them learn! It's fun!
Directions for Research (or, Why Everyone in History Has the Same Name)
(With excuses to those who have already seen this topic elsewhere).
Another ongoing theme from my own research is the fact that everyone I study has the same name (e.g. Jeanne de Penthièvre, Jeanne de Flandre, Jeanne de Montfort, Jean de Montfort, Jean IV de Montfort, Jean de Blois-Penthièvre, Jean III, Jean II le Bon; Charles de Blois, Charles V, Charles VI....) As a matter of fact, it appears that 25% of the nobility in Brittany was called "Jean". Meanwhile, it was common, when a lineage had been reduced to a single heiress, for her husband to be required to take up the family first name of his spouse, to carry it on;* and a couple would happily name more than one child that simultaneously, as did certain dukes of Brittany. And even if a child may have originally had a different first name, upon their inheritance it might well "revert"; Duke Jean V was Pierre until 1399.
This stream of discoveries prompted some of my friends to propose a new avenue for future research, which, in its edited form, I have decided to reproduce here in order to stimulate a broader historical community:
One of the most under-researched aspects of the fourteenth century is the chronic first name shortage. Feudal lords responded by pressuring their serfs to concentrate on Jean(ne), a hardy and resilient name crop which was intended to prevent identity famine. However, the resulting overproduction led to a surplus which caused, and continues to cause, a gret deal of confusion. The effects of this "name poverty" and associated strife are particularly striking in Brittany of the period, but in this they were reflecting the longstanding trend in increasing first-name poverty within the French monarchy. Whereas under the Merovingian kings name innovation was at its peak, under the Carolingians name repetition increased perceptibly. Full repetitive name disorder, however, did not develop until the Capetians, after whom virtually all French kings were called Louis, Philip, or Charles. By the fourteenth century, the name event horizon had been passed and all kings for all intents and purposes became the same person. Even the desperate attempt to introduce new names such as 'Henry', 'Jean', and 'François' were thoroughly unsuccessful. Name confusion of this kind resulted in increasing social and political unrest. Although the trend of name poverty amongst the serfs was a passing phase, it became increasingly institutionalized in the French monarchy. With the growing social mobility of the mercantile classes, the gap in name density between the two social levels became more apparent. The lack of name-variation dehumanized the monarchy and soon became a symbol of social repression, the more rigid name-systems of the aristocracy opposing the innovative name-culture brought about by the budding third estate. The situation reached a breaking point with a chain of for Kings 'Louis' from 1610-1792, which culminated in the French Revolution.
In case some people might be confused, this is entirely spurious; the trends highlighted are for the most part entirely false. However, what makes it work so well for me is that the idea of a title-holder "for all intents and purposes" being the same person is, in fact, exactly what the idea was, especially as the monarchy transformed into something superior to the individual holder of the role. Hidden truths...
And for the record, some historians seem hell-bent on calling Duke Jean IV of Brittany Jean V, his son Jean VI, and his father Jean IV (he never actually had any number, not being a duke). FOR THE LOVE OF ALL WE HOLD DEAR, PLEASE STOP. The numbers are all we have to save us from the madness. Leave them alone.
That is all.
*Philippe Contamine gives an impressive list of "family first names"; for instance, sons of the Laval family (in Brittany) took the name Guy, those of the Coucy family were Enguerran, and so on. Meanwhile, the husband of Anne de Laval, formerly known as Jean de Montfort, was required to become "Guy de Laval", making him the thirteenth of that name after Anne's father, the twelfth--and if he refused the name, he would be subject to a fine of 100,000 livres! (see La noblesse au royaume de France de Philippe le Bel à Louis XII, 217-8).
Another ongoing theme from my own research is the fact that everyone I study has the same name (e.g. Jeanne de Penthièvre, Jeanne de Flandre, Jeanne de Montfort, Jean de Montfort, Jean IV de Montfort, Jean de Blois-Penthièvre, Jean III, Jean II le Bon; Charles de Blois, Charles V, Charles VI....) As a matter of fact, it appears that 25% of the nobility in Brittany was called "Jean". Meanwhile, it was common, when a lineage had been reduced to a single heiress, for her husband to be required to take up the family first name of his spouse, to carry it on;* and a couple would happily name more than one child that simultaneously, as did certain dukes of Brittany. And even if a child may have originally had a different first name, upon their inheritance it might well "revert"; Duke Jean V was Pierre until 1399.
This stream of discoveries prompted some of my friends to propose a new avenue for future research, which, in its edited form, I have decided to reproduce here in order to stimulate a broader historical community:
One of the most under-researched aspects of the fourteenth century is the chronic first name shortage. Feudal lords responded by pressuring their serfs to concentrate on Jean(ne), a hardy and resilient name crop which was intended to prevent identity famine. However, the resulting overproduction led to a surplus which caused, and continues to cause, a gret deal of confusion. The effects of this "name poverty" and associated strife are particularly striking in Brittany of the period, but in this they were reflecting the longstanding trend in increasing first-name poverty within the French monarchy. Whereas under the Merovingian kings name innovation was at its peak, under the Carolingians name repetition increased perceptibly. Full repetitive name disorder, however, did not develop until the Capetians, after whom virtually all French kings were called Louis, Philip, or Charles. By the fourteenth century, the name event horizon had been passed and all kings for all intents and purposes became the same person. Even the desperate attempt to introduce new names such as 'Henry', 'Jean', and 'François' were thoroughly unsuccessful. Name confusion of this kind resulted in increasing social and political unrest. Although the trend of name poverty amongst the serfs was a passing phase, it became increasingly institutionalized in the French monarchy. With the growing social mobility of the mercantile classes, the gap in name density between the two social levels became more apparent. The lack of name-variation dehumanized the monarchy and soon became a symbol of social repression, the more rigid name-systems of the aristocracy opposing the innovative name-culture brought about by the budding third estate. The situation reached a breaking point with a chain of for Kings 'Louis' from 1610-1792, which culminated in the French Revolution.
In case some people might be confused, this is entirely spurious; the trends highlighted are for the most part entirely false. However, what makes it work so well for me is that the idea of a title-holder "for all intents and purposes" being the same person is, in fact, exactly what the idea was, especially as the monarchy transformed into something superior to the individual holder of the role. Hidden truths...
And for the record, some historians seem hell-bent on calling Duke Jean IV of Brittany Jean V, his son Jean VI, and his father Jean IV (he never actually had any number, not being a duke). FOR THE LOVE OF ALL WE HOLD DEAR, PLEASE STOP. The numbers are all we have to save us from the madness. Leave them alone.
That is all.
*Philippe Contamine gives an impressive list of "family first names"; for instance, sons of the Laval family (in Brittany) took the name Guy, those of the Coucy family were Enguerran, and so on. Meanwhile, the husband of Anne de Laval, formerly known as Jean de Montfort, was required to become "Guy de Laval", making him the thirteenth of that name after Anne's father, the twelfth--and if he refused the name, he would be subject to a fine of 100,000 livres! (see La noblesse au royaume de France de Philippe le Bel à Louis XII, 217-8).
The Corset of History
"It's too big? I thought it was too small!"
...
An accessory for the Telescope of History? Perhaps.
The other day at work I got to help someone try on a corset, one of the modern ones we have lying around just for such a purpose. (I own several myself, although I was too lazy to put one on that morning and had ended up shuffling into the other work-owned one just for fun.) She was the first visitor who wasn't too nervous to try it--in fact, she was downright excited as I helped her into it with a minimum of poking and prodding. It wasn't a smooth process, as I discovered the top clasp of the busk was missing* and it was, as suggested above, too big for her. But we had a great time. She was fascinated by the feeling of a garment we have, culturally, discarded (despite centuries of successful incorporation into fashion in different forms**), and of course, dressing up in historical outfits is a blast. I marvel that I can get paid to do it, sometimes.
Fine. That was probably the best part of my day. So what is the Corset of History?
I spent much of the rest of the day, when I wasn't actually slinging corsets about, looking through a really wonderful book of women's fashion in Britain from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries. Specifically, I was reading up on the waist sizes of these dresses, something I was curious about ever since a (real) Victorian dress was up for sale on eBay and I noticed that it quite exactly fit my corseted dimensions.** And what makes this book so good is that it's all based on actual surviving clothing, carefully drawn, measured, deconstructed (metaphorically), and placed in the context of current trends. And what this means is that, for once, we have a measure of how things actually worked for women of the time.
If the Telescope is all about period-based lumping, the Corset is about the idealization and the stereotype.
We often get onto the topic of corsets at work because there are two striking posters advertizing "Celebrated C.B. Corsets",*** which gets people commenting--usually in a negative way, because they're the ones who don't dare actually try one on. (Seriously, they're fine to wear, unless you're doing it up crazy tight. Mind you, I don't mind not having to wear one every day. It takes forever to put on (relatively speaking), is very warm, and means I can't slouch, which is probably for the best but still isn't a comfortable posture for me for long periods, because I'm broken. But it's been replaced by some really unhealthy diets and the ideal of skinniness hasn't gone away--in fact, it's become even more a cultural fetish of late, since along with your corseted waist you were generally supposed to have some curves!--only now there aren't the fashion tools to help women accomplish this look.)
And sure, the advertisements show some seriously hourglass-shaped women, with a lovely, small waist. It's actually lovely artwork. But somehow this gets translated instantly into a perception of the reality of the period. Caveat time: sure, some women did go in for tightlacing; some still do. Sometimes it was more in fashion than others. And some of the stories that you hear about breaking bones are true; certainly, wearing a tight corset will, over time, reshape your ribcage. But none of that matters. What's going on here is that, despite the fact that this pictures are a) advertizements and b) not actual photographs, but drawings, that image instantly becomes that of every woman in the Victorian period (or the 18th century, let's be honest, because of the Telescope and the fact that people really don't know what period they're imagining (I know this because they ask)).
That's a problem. The movies don't help here because of the obligatory "put the girl in tight stays"**** scene--think Pirates of the Caribbean 1, anyone? But in history, women were real women who had real lives to live, and most of them didn't have the luxury of not being able to bend down.
To return to my research in the book, it's not a huge sampling because not all of the dresses had the waist sizes marked--but many of them did. The smallest waist I saw was 19 inches. That's pretty darn tiny; I think it was for a younger woman, and was definitely one of the more "elite" dresses there. So yes! People did make their waists very tiny, sometimes--if they were rich and would never have to do much, and if fashion was a major concern for them, and above all if they were actually built to be able to do this.
This caveat is important. There were waists of 30 inches or more, with bodices on--that's more than mine without. There were dresses owned by the same person from different periods in her life; the waistline got larger over time as she aged.
And after Miss-19-Inch, I think (off the top of my head) there was one at about 22, and then most were 24 and up. 25 inchest-27 was very common, right about where I'm at if I wear a very-comfortably-laced corset. I'm practically Victorian!
Because these women were all different sizes and shapes, and they had lives to live. The mistake that's being made at the museum is to take an advertisement as reality--literally like looking at a fashion mag today and saying "how did women manage to go around, live, work, play, without an ounce of fat or muscle on them?"***** Well, they don't. Models are not your average woman, even if the photo itself is accurate. The cultural ideal itself is interesting, if you make sure to bear in mind that it actually evolved over the decades, with looser/tighter looks, and even entirely different body shapes (think the shift from the Victorian hourglass to the Edwardian S-bend, visible even in the late 1890s) coming in and out of style. And looking at the models in a modern magazine might give you information about why it is some women diet and why dolls like Barbie are the subject of social commentary. But the assumption that if you were a Victorian woman (Telescope! because that was totally a thing), you would have to be squeezing yourself down to a 16-inch waist (considered the ideal among corset-connoisseurs today), is just wrong. And heck, even if you did, your body would get used to it eventually. It's only because we're not trained to it any more that corsets--which, on the scale of ridiculous fashions, is actually fairly tame in terms of long-term body impact--can be uncomfortable.******
There's also the issue that the haute couture of the rich is a lousy model for the rest of society, and I'm saying this as someone who studies the aristocracy. Corsets, as a fashion item, were not restricted to the elite, but the luxury of adhering to tiny waistlines would not have been available universally. People have always been willing to do stupid things for fashion, but there's a reason that such fashions are usually a status symbol--the extremes don't apply to most people. Once the ideal has spread to cover all of society, we're in real trouble about how we understand the actual significance of cultural elements, and the real experience of the time.
In short, the Corset of History warns us not to get stuck in the image, and to try the damn corset on.
*How is this even possible to break? I don't know.
**Sadly, it was too delicate for actual wear. Weep.
***Did you know Victorians did "hot pink"? I didn't.
****Yes, stays rather than corsets usually (if fashion historians want to quibble, feel free, but I'm not one and I'm just talking shape here), because those straight-sided creatures are distinctly less human-shaped and are going to be a lot cosier on the ol' ribs there. Regardless of the fact that in some movies (Disney's Brave leaps to mind) that's not even a period garment. Medieval corsets had an entirely different construction, without ribs (so far as I know).
*****This is not to attack models, but the fact that the pictures are so often airbrushed (increasingly less often, however) means that their relationship to reality is actually about as good as the Victorian corset drawings.
******Unless you break a rib. That's always uncofmrotable.
...
An accessory for the Telescope of History? Perhaps.
The other day at work I got to help someone try on a corset, one of the modern ones we have lying around just for such a purpose. (I own several myself, although I was too lazy to put one on that morning and had ended up shuffling into the other work-owned one just for fun.) She was the first visitor who wasn't too nervous to try it--in fact, she was downright excited as I helped her into it with a minimum of poking and prodding. It wasn't a smooth process, as I discovered the top clasp of the busk was missing* and it was, as suggested above, too big for her. But we had a great time. She was fascinated by the feeling of a garment we have, culturally, discarded (despite centuries of successful incorporation into fashion in different forms**), and of course, dressing up in historical outfits is a blast. I marvel that I can get paid to do it, sometimes.
Fine. That was probably the best part of my day. So what is the Corset of History?
I spent much of the rest of the day, when I wasn't actually slinging corsets about, looking through a really wonderful book of women's fashion in Britain from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries. Specifically, I was reading up on the waist sizes of these dresses, something I was curious about ever since a (real) Victorian dress was up for sale on eBay and I noticed that it quite exactly fit my corseted dimensions.** And what makes this book so good is that it's all based on actual surviving clothing, carefully drawn, measured, deconstructed (metaphorically), and placed in the context of current trends. And what this means is that, for once, we have a measure of how things actually worked for women of the time.
If the Telescope is all about period-based lumping, the Corset is about the idealization and the stereotype.
We often get onto the topic of corsets at work because there are two striking posters advertizing "Celebrated C.B. Corsets",*** which gets people commenting--usually in a negative way, because they're the ones who don't dare actually try one on. (Seriously, they're fine to wear, unless you're doing it up crazy tight. Mind you, I don't mind not having to wear one every day. It takes forever to put on (relatively speaking), is very warm, and means I can't slouch, which is probably for the best but still isn't a comfortable posture for me for long periods, because I'm broken. But it's been replaced by some really unhealthy diets and the ideal of skinniness hasn't gone away--in fact, it's become even more a cultural fetish of late, since along with your corseted waist you were generally supposed to have some curves!--only now there aren't the fashion tools to help women accomplish this look.)
And sure, the advertisements show some seriously hourglass-shaped women, with a lovely, small waist. It's actually lovely artwork. But somehow this gets translated instantly into a perception of the reality of the period. Caveat time: sure, some women did go in for tightlacing; some still do. Sometimes it was more in fashion than others. And some of the stories that you hear about breaking bones are true; certainly, wearing a tight corset will, over time, reshape your ribcage. But none of that matters. What's going on here is that, despite the fact that this pictures are a) advertizements and b) not actual photographs, but drawings, that image instantly becomes that of every woman in the Victorian period (or the 18th century, let's be honest, because of the Telescope and the fact that people really don't know what period they're imagining (I know this because they ask)).
That's a problem. The movies don't help here because of the obligatory "put the girl in tight stays"**** scene--think Pirates of the Caribbean 1, anyone? But in history, women were real women who had real lives to live, and most of them didn't have the luxury of not being able to bend down.
To return to my research in the book, it's not a huge sampling because not all of the dresses had the waist sizes marked--but many of them did. The smallest waist I saw was 19 inches. That's pretty darn tiny; I think it was for a younger woman, and was definitely one of the more "elite" dresses there. So yes! People did make their waists very tiny, sometimes--if they were rich and would never have to do much, and if fashion was a major concern for them, and above all if they were actually built to be able to do this.
This caveat is important. There were waists of 30 inches or more, with bodices on--that's more than mine without. There were dresses owned by the same person from different periods in her life; the waistline got larger over time as she aged.
And after Miss-19-Inch, I think (off the top of my head) there was one at about 22, and then most were 24 and up. 25 inchest-27 was very common, right about where I'm at if I wear a very-comfortably-laced corset. I'm practically Victorian!
Because these women were all different sizes and shapes, and they had lives to live. The mistake that's being made at the museum is to take an advertisement as reality--literally like looking at a fashion mag today and saying "how did women manage to go around, live, work, play, without an ounce of fat or muscle on them?"***** Well, they don't. Models are not your average woman, even if the photo itself is accurate. The cultural ideal itself is interesting, if you make sure to bear in mind that it actually evolved over the decades, with looser/tighter looks, and even entirely different body shapes (think the shift from the Victorian hourglass to the Edwardian S-bend, visible even in the late 1890s) coming in and out of style. And looking at the models in a modern magazine might give you information about why it is some women diet and why dolls like Barbie are the subject of social commentary. But the assumption that if you were a Victorian woman (Telescope! because that was totally a thing), you would have to be squeezing yourself down to a 16-inch waist (considered the ideal among corset-connoisseurs today), is just wrong. And heck, even if you did, your body would get used to it eventually. It's only because we're not trained to it any more that corsets--which, on the scale of ridiculous fashions, is actually fairly tame in terms of long-term body impact--can be uncomfortable.******
There's also the issue that the haute couture of the rich is a lousy model for the rest of society, and I'm saying this as someone who studies the aristocracy. Corsets, as a fashion item, were not restricted to the elite, but the luxury of adhering to tiny waistlines would not have been available universally. People have always been willing to do stupid things for fashion, but there's a reason that such fashions are usually a status symbol--the extremes don't apply to most people. Once the ideal has spread to cover all of society, we're in real trouble about how we understand the actual significance of cultural elements, and the real experience of the time.
In short, the Corset of History warns us not to get stuck in the image, and to try the damn corset on.
*How is this even possible to break? I don't know.
**Sadly, it was too delicate for actual wear. Weep.
***Did you know Victorians did "hot pink"? I didn't.
****Yes, stays rather than corsets usually (if fashion historians want to quibble, feel free, but I'm not one and I'm just talking shape here), because those straight-sided creatures are distinctly less human-shaped and are going to be a lot cosier on the ol' ribs there. Regardless of the fact that in some movies (Disney's Brave leaps to mind) that's not even a period garment. Medieval corsets had an entirely different construction, without ribs (so far as I know).
*****This is not to attack models, but the fact that the pictures are so often airbrushed (increasingly less often, however) means that their relationship to reality is actually about as good as the Victorian corset drawings.
******Unless you break a rib. That's always uncofmrotable.
History... but with Dragons
First up, let me say that I am all about "history, but with dragons".
Did I mention that I'm writing a novel? Well, I am, and now I have mentioned it: and it's very much the Hundred Years' War only with some more magic, some cultural changes when I feel like it, and of course some dragons.* Shameless plug!
And that seems to be a trend right now, sort of. Not a trend like, say, "vampires" (too popular for their own good) or "plucky heroines in a dystopia"--nothing so big. But there are a lot of them nonetheless, although in some ways it's ridiculous to lump them all into one category.
For instance, my novel, like those of GRRM (though I have a distaste for lumping his work, which I have major problems with, next to my own!**), is really just "fantasy", with a historically-inspired flavor, that also likes dragons. Because dragons are awesome.
And then there are works that are much more strongly linked to actual history. At the furthest end of the spectrum are works such as Naomi Novik's Temeraire and subsequent books, which I can highly recommend. It's the Napoleonic era, only there's an Air Corps in England--because people ride dragons. Dragon-riding, of course, has been done before (because, I must reiterate, dragons are awesome--why would you not want to ride one?)***. But the historical context is new.
What does it add? Well, it's an original context for dragons, obviously, and creates a particular kind of "let's revisit history" feel not otherwise attainable. But we can also ask, what does adding dragons to history do? It serves, if you will, as a highlighter to make unfamiliar issues we're accustomed to in a purely-historical context. It heightens themes. The Napoleonic era was characterized by increasing trends of colonialization, growing contact with unfamiliar, far-off societies. On a practical level, having dragons flying about lets you visit those places much more easily! But narratively, they act as a focus for the issues arising from the colonial aspirations of Europeans. Dragons themselves are, in their way, subjugated: is this acceptable? Their relations across cultures are shaped by, but in important ways different from the ways human strangers interact: what lessons can be learned from that?
[Aside: Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is also related to category, although it lacks any actual dragons, which does give it a different feel. I mention it in part because it is one of the most brilliant works of modern fantasy (the term is not meant to be ironic) I have ever read. You should read it too. Although it lacks the iconic dragon-ness, it again uses fantasy to elaborate upon historical themes (again in the Napoleonic era), especially gender balances, national myths, and the relevance of history itself. In young adult lit, Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy (and the fourth stand-alone book) does much the same: power is concentrated in the hands of demon-summoning magicians, whose magical power and relationships with their otherworldly servants (and the rest of society) is indicative of the problematic structures of power within an oligarchic polity.]
Most recently, I just finished Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw, which is actually a dragon society. That's cool: when was the last time you actually had an entire civilization of dragons, rather than dragons simply incorporated into human society? More specifically, that society is, with the necessary changes to accommodate dragon-ness, essentially early/mid-nineteenth-century England. There were humans in the past, and they still exist somewhere in the world, but are almost entirely physically absent from the story, and the dragon culture gets along just fine without them. Within their own sphere, then, the familial dynamics and social structures reflect values of our real historical time (including tensions between Protestants and Catholics, uncomfortable relations with the serving classes, and gender roles) but heighten them through the unfamiliarity of having it all be done by hat-wearing dragons. It makes you take notice of the underlying mechanics much more aggressively (though this is not to say that they cannot become evident in other historicizing genres, of course!).
[Second aside: Interestingly, the Novik books also have at least one dragon society (I have only read the first six, after which they no longer had pretty covers and are hard to find in England): in the heartlands of the African continent--I'm guessing it's the Great Rift Valley, but that could be entirely wrong--there are a group of dragons living without contact with humans. That opened up yet another social model with which to compare the human-dragon society.]
I have always felt that dragons (and, in fact, elves/fairies/whatnot) are most interesting insofar as they stem from different elements within the human disposition. Dragons, in addition to being awesome, are often the embodiment of negative human tendencies such as greed, violence, or a lust for power. (I explore this in a short story, The Price of Gold. Oops, second plug!). Clarke's fairies embody human actors in very much a historical mode, but without an essential element of human compassion; this makes them both familiar and unsettling.
This is not a particularly new observation in itself: myths and legends have long tended to be analyzed in terms of projecting our own fears, hopes, worries, etc. on an imaginary prospect. I do find it interesting that this is often tied (and has been tied for a good while) onto specific historical moments, as if dragons and their fantasy friends actually belong most in a familiar world, to shake it up and make it into something new. There also seems to be a preponderance of 19th-century settings, which is significant in itself (even the more modern Stroud books rely heavily on the impact of the great magician Gladstone, and Britain still functions in the mode of an Empire): a moment when society shifted away from what it had been**** and had to be redefined, with good options and bad.
Dragons, perhaps even more so than other fantastic creatures, can exemplify these choices in society. Because nothing sends a message across like a creature that mirrors our own concerns, but wears wings and breathes fire.
*It's called The Gates of Yesterday and can be read on-line (still in-progress) if you drop me a line to give you access.
**Hubris!
***Oh right. That would be epically dangerous. Also, they are not real.
****The telescope of history strikes again in our obsession with this.
[Edit: I just remembered that, in France, Pierre Pevel has a trilogy that also does the dragons-in-history thing--in the Paris of Louis XIII this time, so it's kind of a fantastic Alexandre Dumas. To a degree that one's more literary in character, in that it's goal is more reimagining the Three Musketeers only with a magical twist rather than working directly with the historical situation proper. On the other hand, recasting the power balances of Europe as manipulated by dragons could be a fair analogy. Still, since the dragons are not the actual figures of political power--in that, say, Richelieu is not a dragon, nor are any of the Spanish leaders with which France was, at the time, at war--the feel is different; frankly, the dragons feel more like an intrusion into the historical world (however literary and dramatized it may be) than the ones which fulfill a more integrated, social role. Still, they're quite a fun read (everyone loves a musketeer...).]
Did I mention that I'm writing a novel? Well, I am, and now I have mentioned it: and it's very much the Hundred Years' War only with some more magic, some cultural changes when I feel like it, and of course some dragons.* Shameless plug!
And that seems to be a trend right now, sort of. Not a trend like, say, "vampires" (too popular for their own good) or "plucky heroines in a dystopia"--nothing so big. But there are a lot of them nonetheless, although in some ways it's ridiculous to lump them all into one category.
For instance, my novel, like those of GRRM (though I have a distaste for lumping his work, which I have major problems with, next to my own!**), is really just "fantasy", with a historically-inspired flavor, that also likes dragons. Because dragons are awesome.
And then there are works that are much more strongly linked to actual history. At the furthest end of the spectrum are works such as Naomi Novik's Temeraire and subsequent books, which I can highly recommend. It's the Napoleonic era, only there's an Air Corps in England--because people ride dragons. Dragon-riding, of course, has been done before (because, I must reiterate, dragons are awesome--why would you not want to ride one?)***. But the historical context is new.
What does it add? Well, it's an original context for dragons, obviously, and creates a particular kind of "let's revisit history" feel not otherwise attainable. But we can also ask, what does adding dragons to history do? It serves, if you will, as a highlighter to make unfamiliar issues we're accustomed to in a purely-historical context. It heightens themes. The Napoleonic era was characterized by increasing trends of colonialization, growing contact with unfamiliar, far-off societies. On a practical level, having dragons flying about lets you visit those places much more easily! But narratively, they act as a focus for the issues arising from the colonial aspirations of Europeans. Dragons themselves are, in their way, subjugated: is this acceptable? Their relations across cultures are shaped by, but in important ways different from the ways human strangers interact: what lessons can be learned from that?
[Aside: Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is also related to category, although it lacks any actual dragons, which does give it a different feel. I mention it in part because it is one of the most brilliant works of modern fantasy (the term is not meant to be ironic) I have ever read. You should read it too. Although it lacks the iconic dragon-ness, it again uses fantasy to elaborate upon historical themes (again in the Napoleonic era), especially gender balances, national myths, and the relevance of history itself. In young adult lit, Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy (and the fourth stand-alone book) does much the same: power is concentrated in the hands of demon-summoning magicians, whose magical power and relationships with their otherworldly servants (and the rest of society) is indicative of the problematic structures of power within an oligarchic polity.]
Most recently, I just finished Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw, which is actually a dragon society. That's cool: when was the last time you actually had an entire civilization of dragons, rather than dragons simply incorporated into human society? More specifically, that society is, with the necessary changes to accommodate dragon-ness, essentially early/mid-nineteenth-century England. There were humans in the past, and they still exist somewhere in the world, but are almost entirely physically absent from the story, and the dragon culture gets along just fine without them. Within their own sphere, then, the familial dynamics and social structures reflect values of our real historical time (including tensions between Protestants and Catholics, uncomfortable relations with the serving classes, and gender roles) but heighten them through the unfamiliarity of having it all be done by hat-wearing dragons. It makes you take notice of the underlying mechanics much more aggressively (though this is not to say that they cannot become evident in other historicizing genres, of course!).
[Second aside: Interestingly, the Novik books also have at least one dragon society (I have only read the first six, after which they no longer had pretty covers and are hard to find in England): in the heartlands of the African continent--I'm guessing it's the Great Rift Valley, but that could be entirely wrong--there are a group of dragons living without contact with humans. That opened up yet another social model with which to compare the human-dragon society.]
I have always felt that dragons (and, in fact, elves/fairies/whatnot) are most interesting insofar as they stem from different elements within the human disposition. Dragons, in addition to being awesome, are often the embodiment of negative human tendencies such as greed, violence, or a lust for power. (I explore this in a short story, The Price of Gold. Oops, second plug!). Clarke's fairies embody human actors in very much a historical mode, but without an essential element of human compassion; this makes them both familiar and unsettling.
This is not a particularly new observation in itself: myths and legends have long tended to be analyzed in terms of projecting our own fears, hopes, worries, etc. on an imaginary prospect. I do find it interesting that this is often tied (and has been tied for a good while) onto specific historical moments, as if dragons and their fantasy friends actually belong most in a familiar world, to shake it up and make it into something new. There also seems to be a preponderance of 19th-century settings, which is significant in itself (even the more modern Stroud books rely heavily on the impact of the great magician Gladstone, and Britain still functions in the mode of an Empire): a moment when society shifted away from what it had been**** and had to be redefined, with good options and bad.
Dragons, perhaps even more so than other fantastic creatures, can exemplify these choices in society. Because nothing sends a message across like a creature that mirrors our own concerns, but wears wings and breathes fire.
*It's called The Gates of Yesterday and can be read on-line (still in-progress) if you drop me a line to give you access.
**Hubris!
***Oh right. That would be epically dangerous. Also, they are not real.
****The telescope of history strikes again in our obsession with this.
[Edit: I just remembered that, in France, Pierre Pevel has a trilogy that also does the dragons-in-history thing--in the Paris of Louis XIII this time, so it's kind of a fantastic Alexandre Dumas. To a degree that one's more literary in character, in that it's goal is more reimagining the Three Musketeers only with a magical twist rather than working directly with the historical situation proper. On the other hand, recasting the power balances of Europe as manipulated by dragons could be a fair analogy. Still, since the dragons are not the actual figures of political power--in that, say, Richelieu is not a dragon, nor are any of the Spanish leaders with which France was, at the time, at war--the feel is different; frankly, the dragons feel more like an intrusion into the historical world (however literary and dramatized it may be) than the ones which fulfill a more integrated, social role. Still, they're quite a fun read (everyone loves a musketeer...).]
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