History and its Limits: Tolstoy’s War and Peace

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Famously, Henry James detested historical novels.  At best, he regarded them as derivative, and at worst, he thought them cheap.  The historical novelist appropriates materials from sources far removed from first-hand experience.  The historical novelist works not with character, which is for James the novel’s true subject, but types.  The historical novelist never knows when to quit and instead produces cumbersome narratives better used as doorstops.  He spared no one his withering appraisal of historical fiction.  Leo Tolstoy—to whom the word genius is ascribed with such regularity it begins to feel as if it were part of his name (the Genius Leo Tolstoy)—did not escape James’ cudgel.  For James, Tolstoy was guilty on all charges.  He also committed one other unpardonable error. He allowed himself as a writer to be constrained by a concern peculiar to historical novels:  fidelity to his sources.  Historical realism, for James, is the enemy of artistic freedom.

This is not a mere quarrel over two different approaches to literature.  Tolstoy is a writer who does not allow himself the luxury of imagining that freedom exists in an essentially unfree society.  Individuals may enjoy greater or lesser privileges, but privilege is not freedom.  On the contrary, privilege is exhibit A in demonstrating the extent to which individuals are not the masters of their own existence.  In his major works—War and Peace and Anna Karenina—Tolstoy does not deviate from his worldview.  Even the most influential men—those who appear to wield absolute power over the fate of nations—are not free.  In War and Peace, Tolstoy takes it upon himself to demonstrate how no-one escapes this rule, not even legendary figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte.  

In the 19^th century, Napoleon Bonaparte survived the maelstrom that followed in the aftermath of the French Revolution, seized power, and declared himself the emancipator of his country—and then of Europe.  Of course, he had his enemies.  But, he had far more supporters.   The conclusion drawn by historians goes something like this:  Napoleon was a great hero.  He did what great heroes do:  change history.  He could do all this because he was exceptional, and only the most exceptional persons know what to do with power.  Use it.  Tolstoy understood how such conclusions could be arrived at:  unchecked power is freedom at its absolute limit. But, Tolstoy would have none of it. He understood freedom defined by absolute power as abhorrent as well as false. He thought it the baldest lie.

Bonaparte had been dead less than a decade when Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born in 1828.  By the time Tolstoy publishes War and Peace (1869), he was an aristocrat in his mid-thirties, married, who has put behind him, by all accounts, a colorful and checkered youth.  He had fought in both the Chechen and Crimean wars.  His writings about his war experiences, together with other works, earned Tolstoy the reputation of being one of Russia’s most gifted writers.  It is in War and Peace that Tolstoy offers up a portrait of Bonaparte that is contrary to the legend of the great man.  For Tolstoy, there are no great men.  And not simply because great men, like all humans, have flaws, but because historians are either enthralled or duped by the very idea of greatness.  When Tolstoy attacks Napoleon, he does not do so out of a particular disdain for the ruler (although, certainly Tolstoy had no love for the emperor).  He seeks to exorcize the spirit of Romanticism that deifies people to the detriment of all rationale thought.

But, there is a long process of initiation before readers of War and Peace can appreciate the extent to which Tolstoy struggled with the concept of freedom. The author lived during times of reform and repression. Serfdom had not yet been ended but there were attempts, not to mention significant setbacks, to reform. Reformists from the upper-classes fought for greater liberty and were put down by the tsar. Foundational institutions—marriage, for example—were riven by hypocrisy and void of virtues. And then there was the Church, with its self-proclaimed power over heaven and earth, which instilled superstition in the masses while doing very little to improve the conditions of poor. Everywhere Tolstoy looked, people were punished for thinking for themselves. War and Peace addresses this dilemma on a scale that can only be described as epic.

Tolstoy is such a good writer at creating convincing characters and story lines—extraordinarily good—that it can be tempting to become irritated with his habit of inserting exposition where the reader expects the narrative to chug along on its tracks, as if it were a well-oiled machine. And important authors have criticized him for his digressions, sermonizing, and belief system. There is a temptation to skip the boring parts of War and Peace, as they say, and get on with the story. But, at a price. War and Peace takes the reader through the military campaigns beginning with the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 through France’s invasion of Russia in 1812. The war ends with the French army’s retreat after the Battle of Borodino, where some 70,000 lives are lost. The French arrive in Moscow to chaos—much of the city is in flames. The exposition makes it possible for the reader to understand why the beautiful city had to be destroyed in the most objective manner possible. For this task, Tolstoy settles on a detailed description of a dying beehive—and it is but one example of how the author asks us to consider the true complexities of historical events, so much so that the instigator of this destruction can never be named.

Kathryn A. Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain.

Turkey, History & Remembrance—& the Hittite Law of Adultery

By Judith Starkston

Much of the world recently marked the 100^th anniversary of the forced removal, loss of property and eventual slaughter of almost all Armenians in Turkey. The Turkish government objects to the use of the word genocide when referring to this tragedy.

Ottoman Empire population census document 1893-1897

Turkish textbooks and politicians use phrases like “the fog of war” to explain how a million and a half Armenians lost their lives (also they downplay the numbers). They subsume the plans perpetrated against Armenians in particular under the suffering WWI caused for so many in Turkey and thus hide the Armenian plight from memory. It’s good and proper to sympathize with the universal suffering that occurred, but that does not require selective amnesia. Historians, including a couple well-regarded Turkish historians, have culled the primary source materials and conducted interviews on this subject. These historians do not agree with the official Turkish government version. So we’ll see how things go over time with this issue of lost history in Turkey.

Meanwhile, I’m struck by the irony. The last few decades in Turkey have seen extensive—even extraordinary—efforts to use archaeology to uncover history that was for millennia quite literally buried in the sands of time. In the process, the empire I find utterly fascinating has come to light in ever greater detail: the Hittites. So in honor of Turkey’s laudable efforts to reclaim its Bronze Age history (1600-1100 BCE), even if it is still confused about its modern history, I bring you one interesting detail that we now understand about an empire that rivaled Egypt, the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Mycenaeans.

Hittite Cuneiform Tablet

Fortunately the Hittites were a literate culture and we have found and translated many of their records and literary pieces. These libraries of clay tablets were written in the Near Eastern cuneiform script although Hittite is an Indo-European language related to Greek. From all the hard work of archaeologists, scholars and translators, I bring you two Hittite laws regarding rape and adultery, translated by Harry Hoffner, Jr. Notice what these laws say about women, men, fairness, and other intriguing issues.

Law 197

If a man seizes a woman in the mountain(s) (and rapes her), it is the man’s offence, and he shall be put to death, but if he seizes her in (her) house, it is the woman’s offence: the woman shall be put to death. If the (woman’s) husband (lit. the man) finds them (in the act) and kills them, he has committed no offence.

Law 198

If [the husband] brings them [his wife and accused lover] to the palace gate (i.e. the royal court) and says: “let my wife not be put to death” and spares his wife, he must also spare the lover. Then he may veil her (i.e. his wife). But if he says, “Let both of them be put to death” and they ‘roll the wheel’ the king may have them killed or spare them.

I enjoyed this precise window into the human mind and values in about 1300 BCE.

First, I notice that if a man rapes a woman, the penalty is extreme and this speaks of value placed on a woman. Hittite law avoids the death penalty, so it’s pretty dramatic here and may not have been the actual course of action.

We are struggling in modern society with date rape and defining when to prosecute. I wouldn’t want to adopt the Hittite measure of rape, but I am intrigued to find the traces of a similar struggle. If you are “at home” you invited it, by Hittite standards—this presumes the family’s ability to protect its women in the usual course of events, I suspect. Far from home, where a woman is vulnerable, it is indisputably rape.

Gates of Hattusa, the King's Court

As has often been the case in history, a man can, with impunity, kill his wife and her lover if he catches them in the act. But notice he cannot kill only the man. And if he turns it over to the authorities (the King’s court held at the gates of the city), he must accept the same punishment for both wife and her accused lover. And if he accepts her back, he must publicly restore her respect and reputation by veiling her—that is restoring her as his bride.

We would love to know exactly what “roll the wheel” meant, but we don’t. In the Hittite murder mystery I’m working on, the relevant historical records that I used as background contain this same tantalizing phrase. It refers to a divination of some sort. Hittites loved divination. They put great effort toward discerning the will of the gods. Murder, divination and applied tidbits from this system of laws—all present and accounted for in my fiction!

My source for the translation and interpretation of these Hittite laws is:

The Laws of the Hittites A Critical Edition, Harry Hoffner Jr. Brill 1997

Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui (DMOA) Studies in Near Eastern Archaeology and Civilisation Volume XXIII

_________________________________________________________

Judith Starkston writes historical fiction and mysteries set in Troy and the Hittite Empire. She is a classicist (B.A. University of California, Santa Cruz, M.A. Cornell University) who taught high school English, Latin and humanities. She and her husband have two grown children and live in Arizona with their golden retriever Socrates. Her debut novel is Hand of Fire.

Find an excerpt, book reviews, historical background, as well as on-going information about the historical fiction community on www.JudithStarkston.com

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Visit on Goodreads Hand of Fire or Amazon 

A Dreadful Punishment – looking into the crime of “Petty Treason” and the beliefs surrounding it.

By Lindsay Townsend

There were a series of crimes in the Middle Ages that were thought so dreadful they were considered to be a form of treason. High treason is the offence of attempting to injure or kill the king or queen, and little or petty treason involves any “underling” killing his or her superior Under the law of petty treason, codified in 1351, wives accused of murdering their husbands, or clergy killing their prelates, or a servant killing his or her master or mistress could be tried under this charge.

                                                  

Why were such crimes considered treason? In the Middle Ages, hierarchy was seen as natural, as part of good order, created and ordained by God.  God was always seen as male and at the apex of creation. Earth mirrored heaven, it was believed, and so man was held above woman. To a medieval man, a wife should obey her husband and be inferior to him, and the same was believed to be true for servants and their masters and mistresses.

Attitudes held at the time and the the demands of the church reinforced such ideas. One of the most popular lay stories of the fourteenth century was that of Patient Griselda, who submits to her odious husband while he takes her children from her, tells her he has killed them and finally tells Griselda he has divorced her. As an ideal, patient wife, Griselda then forgives him when her bullying husband reveals that all these ordeals have been fake and a test of her obedience. The church may have raised the Virgin Mary as a perfect woman but all other females and wives were said to be tainted by the sin of Eve, tempted by Satan in the guise of a serpent into stealing an apple from the tree of knowledge and then tempting her husband Adam into sharing it with her. For that sin, the church believed women should be subservient to their husbands.

The message was clear: wives must obey. To murder one’s husband (whom a medieval wife had promised to obey in the marriage ceremony) was seen as the ultimate betrayal, a deadly, intimate act. Servants, too, were encouraged to be servile, especially since they lived with the family, inside the family.

Writing as I do about relationships and romance, I am particularly appalled by the crime of petty treason. For a wife convicted of it, the punishment was dreadful – she was burnt at the stake. It was a crime where the same act – murder of a spouse – was treated in different ways. A man could kill his wife and be tried for murder, but a wife killing her husband was committing treason. A man was allowed to beat his wife because, it was believed by philosophers like Thomas Aquinas that women were less capable of reason than men. This last did mean, strangely enough, that women could be acquitted of the crime of Petty Treason if it was discovered that she had no “accomplices”. Women were not considered able to murder their husbands alone! So in 49 cases of husband killing brought before the justices in medieval Yorkshire and Essex, 32 were released. For those desperate women who were convicted however, a terrible fate awaited. In one of my novels, A Taste of Evil, I have my heroine Alyson accused of the crime of petty treason, with that barbaric threat hanging over her.

  

This horrific punishment was the same as for relapsed heretics and for the same reason. For a wife to kill her husband was seen as a form of heresy, a move against God’s order. Some “mercy” could be offered by the executioner’s choking the woman by cords before the flames touched her, but that often went wrong as the cords could also be burnt by the fire. The law was finally repealed in 1790.

[Renaissance image of Patient Griselda from Wikimedia Commons]

http://www.lindsaytownsend.co.uk

http://www.twitter.com/lindsayromantic

A Miracle Close to Home: Chincoya, 1264

by J. K. Knauss

The restored castle at Almodóvar del Río looks the way Chincoya might have in 1264.
Photo by Jessica Knauss 2009 

Spain’s thirteenth-century Cantigas de Santa Maria are a treasure of medieval culture. Many of their stories recount events that had just happened in familiar places. This is especially the case for the songs that take place in Andalucía.

Cantiga 185 begins, “I heard a miracle that took place a while ago, over in Chincoya.” This may be the first time the event was written about. Such immediacy gives the song a partiality and emotional weightiness the miracles about far-off lands lack. Any thirteenth-century Spanish listener would have understood the implications inherent in the reference to Chincoya, in modern Jaén, at the border of what was at the time the Muslim kingdom of Granada.

Both Chincoya and its corresponding castle on the Muslim side, Belmez, would have been responsible for maintaining security in a sensitive border region. The story focuses on the castles’ two alcaides, castellans appointed personally by their respective kings for upkeep, defense, and general administration. The Christian alcaide of Chincoya has been identified in real life as a man named Sancho Martínez de Jódar.

Sancho’s fictional double has a character flaw in spite of his best intentions: “the alcaide there protected it well, but he lacked the good sense to protect it completely” (lines 11-12). The concept of good sense recurs in the Cantigas time and again as the most important virtue. Sancho’s sin would seem innocent enough: “He had a great friendship with a Moor who was the alcaide of Belmez” (15-16a). Making friends with other castellans in the region could even be a good strategy, but this alcaide’s location across the enemy border makes it a bad idea.

From Cantiga 187 (185) of the Códice rico 

The alcaide of Belmez conspires with the King of Granada, Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and a vassal of Castile since the time of Fernando III in 1246. The Moor explains to his king that he can deliver Chincoya Castle to Granada by using the alcaide’s trust to lure him out and capture him. Sancho, unsuspecting, goes out to meet his friend, bringing two squires with him. The stage has now been set to show the gap between proper conduct and the irresponsible behavior of the alcaide of Chincoya.

The squires say they are afraid of the alcaide of Belmez and offer reasonable arguments against going to meet him: Unarmed and not dressed for self-defense, Sancho has failed to take even the minimal precautions. Because we have seen the alcaide of Belmez plotting to betray Sancho’s friendship, we are obliged to believe the squires in this instance. When the squires turn back to their castle, they not only do what is right, but also show themselves to be more sensible than their alcaide, who displays his stubborn intentions by proceeding to contravene a law in which anyone who has charge of a castle specifically on the border may not leave it without the king’s mandate. In line 51, Sancho crosses a river, which is presumably the border into Granada.

The alcaide of Belmez wastes no more time duping his supposed friend, and captures the Christian alcaide. Under threat of beheading, Sancho informs his captors that only fifteen Christians defend his castle, and that they have nothing to eat. Sancho then returns to Chincoya to ask the Christians to hand it over to the Muslims. This is the last time we hear anything about the alcaide of Chincoya. Because the second stanza indicates that he almost lost the castle, and the laws only indicate punishments for such behavior when the castle is lost to the enemy, we may guess that he assumes guardianship again after this incident. However, ignoring the man who is supposed to be in charge of the castle, especially during its victorious moments, is a serious criticism of his actions, not unlike the kind of insults so frequent in the cantigas de escarnno y de maldizer. His conduct throughout the cantiga is in direct opposition to the fearlessness recommended in the law books of the time.

A more appropriate response comes from those inside the castle. In spite of what would appear to be the hopelessness of their situation, they heroically refuse to give up on their duty to keep King Alfonso’s castle safe from invasion. They comply with the heroism legally suggested for the people who might find themselves inside a besieged castle.

When the alcaide is threatened by the King of Granada, he folds immediately and betrays Chincoya. Similarly defenseless against the King of Granada, the men inside the castle show what separates them from their incompetent leader by thinking of the Virgin Mary as protector rather than giving in to fear. They place a statue of Our Lady, which in the miniatures appears as a majestic enthroned Virgin and Child, on the outside walls and bargain with her, remind her that she, too, is under threat, and reiterate their devotion (“somos teus,” line 76).

Instantly, they see results. The host turns back, and the three Moors who get through are thrown over the castle walls, merely to make the King of Granada see that he should retreat because he knows that those protected by St. Mary cannot be defeated.

Defending Chincoya in the Códice rico 

Such a swift turn of events in such hopeless circumstances, directly after the people inside the castle enlist Mary’s help, clearly indicates the intervention of the Blessed Virgin in their favor. If the castellan of Chincoya had asked for her help, he might well have received it, but he lacked the good sense. Throughout the song, the unthinking alcaide, who trusts an enemy and abandons the castle to its fate, contrasts sharply with those of good sense, who stay to defend their king’s castle and who place their faith in St. Mary, the only being who is truly worthy of it.

Although it would be impossible to legislate faithfulness in the hearts of his soldiers, King Alfonso praises it as a common trait of the people of his kingdom and offers it as the best example of his soldiers’ potential. All of the laws concerning his citizens’ duties toward their king’s fortifications amount to suggestions for achieving this state of ultimate loyalty. A dependable armed force is the only one of real use to a king. The alcaide of Chincoya in 185 is an anti-example.

Chincoya Castle today. Photo from applicajaen.com 

The ending functions as a moral to the story, poising itself purposefully as the concept anyone listening should take away: It is right to praise Mary; she takes care of her own (and it is only too clear who they are in Cantiga 185); and her enemies will always be defeated. These are useful lessons for anyone, and perhaps especially for military men who find themselves in similar situations.

It is spectacular that only fifteen men without provisions successfully defend themselves against an army, but not completely incredible, because well-staffed castles turned back armies on a regular basis. By never straying far from everyday, almost prosaic, events that really occurred, such miracles invite the devotion of even the most skeptical. Here, the audience is absorbed in the story because its location is readily identifiable by the listeners and features situations someone they know will probably encounter in their lives. It is easy to look up to the defenders of Chincoya, close in space and time to the potential audience, and to identify their behavior as an ideal model.

Listen to a great recording of Cantiga 185. 

Learn more about the Cantigas de Santa Maria. 

I’ve written about the legal implications of the alcaide’s actions in Law and Order in Medieval Spain. I’m also working on a short story based on the incident in Cantiga 185—stay tuned for more Cantigas stories!

J. K. Knauss earned her PhD in Medieval Spanish with a dissertation on the portrayal of Alfonso X’s laws in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which has been published as the five-star-rated Law and Order in Medieval Spain. A driven fiction writer, Jessica Knauss has edited many fine historical novels and is currently a bilingual copyeditor. Find out more about her historical novel, Seven Noble Knights, and her other writing and bookish activities here. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter, too!

Selected Resources

Alfonso X, el Sabio. Cantigas de Santa María. 3 vols. Walter Mettmann, ed. Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1986-1989.

—. Cantigas de Santa María: Edición facsímil del códice T.I.1 de la Biblioteca de San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial, siglo XIII. Madrid: Edilán, 1979.

—. Las Siete Partidas del Rey don Alfonso el Sabio cotejadas con varios códices antiguos por la Real Academia de la Historia y glosadas por el lic. Gregorio López. Nueva edición. 3 volumes. París: Librería de Rosa y Bouret, 1861.

Montoya Martínez, Jesús. Historia y anécdotas de Andalucía en las Cantigas de Santa María de Alfonso X. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1988.

O’Callaghan, Joseph F. Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography. Leiden: Brill, 1998.

Paredes Núñez, Juan. La guerra de Granada en las Cantigas de Alfonso X el Sabio. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1991.

The Gate of Dawn

By M.J. Neary

The Gate of Dawn is the title of the novel I am currently working on and hope to have finished in the next few months. Last year I did a guest post regarding some of the pagan practices of Balts, so elements of that research have been included into the novel.  The title refers to one of the most religiously, culturally and historically significant manuments in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It was constructed in early 1500s as a component of defensive fortifications. Of the nine city gates, only the Gate of Dawn remains, while the others were destroyed by the order of the government at the end of the 18th century when Lithuania was annexed to the Russian empire.  Destroying indigenous culture of the former Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was a huge part of the Czarist agenda. In spite of the encroaching Imperial forces, Vilnius was still a diverse city, in which various ethnic groups lives in relative peace. The Gate of Dawn was left intact, having miraculously survived several attempted insurrections, the last symbol of old Baltic pride.
 

There is a chapel above the Gate of Dawn, containing the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Mercy, claimed to possess miraculous healing powers.  What sets the icon apart is that Mary is portrayed without Jesus, which is not common.  Since the 16th century the painting has been an object of venerations for both Catholic and Orthodox inhabitants, attracting pilgrims from neighboring countries to pray before it. Masses were held in both Lithuanian and Polish.
 
The idea of having a religious monument as the center of the novel came to me after re-reading Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (for the umpteenth time).  Given that it's my mission to highlight lesser known landmarks, I decided to make The Gate of Dawn in Vilnius the focal point of my next novel.
 
I am pleased to share the synopsis:

Welcome to 1880s Vilnius, a volatile Northeastern metropolis where Balts, Germans, Poles, Russians and Jews compete for a place in the sun. After sustaining fatal burns in a fire instigated by his rivals, Hermann Lichter, a German-born textile magnate, spends his final days in a shabby infirmary. In a hasty and bizarre deathbed transaction he gives his fifteen-year old daughter Renate in marriage to Thaddeus, a Polish widower twice her age who lives on a bucolic farm and toils side by side with his peasants. Renate's arrival quickly disrupts the harmonious flow of life. Outraged by her loss of freedom and familiar comforts, the arrogant city girl antagonizes every member of the household, driving Thaddeus to despair. During an excursion to Vilnius, Renate reunites with her secret lover, a young Jewish painter who sells his watercolors outside the Gate of Dawn chapel. Absorbed in her rekindled affair, Renate does not suspect that her life is in danger. Her resigned husband might be willing to look the other way, but his servants will not stand by and watch their beloved master humiliated. From the cobblestone streets of Old City swarming with imperial officials, to the misty bogs of rural Lithuania where pagan deities still rule, The Gate of Dawn is a folkloric tale of rivalry, conspiracy and revenge.

About the author

Marina Julia Neary is an acclaimed historical novelist, award-winning essayist, multilingual journalist, dramatist and poet. Her areas of expertise include Neo-Victorianism, French Romanticism and Irish nationalism. Her literary career to depicting military and social disasters, from the Charge of the Light Brigade, to the Easter Rising in Dublin, to the Chernobyl catastrophe. Neary declares that her mission is to tell untold stories, find hidden gems and illuminate the prematurely extinguished stars in history. She explores human suffering through the prism of dark humor, believing that tragedy and comedy go hand in hand. Her debut novel Wynfield's Kingdom: a Tale of London Slums (Fireship Press) appeared on the cover of the First Edition Magazine in the UK and earned the praise of the Neo-Victorian Studies Journal. Her subsequent novels include Wynfield's War (2010), Brendan Malone: the Last Fenian (2011), Martyrs & Traitors: a Tale of 1916 (2011), Never Be at Peace: a Novel of Irish Rebels (2014) and Saved by the Bang (2015).

The Moorish Loss of Muslim Granada in 1492

By Lisa J. Yarde

1492. A year most often remembered for significant change inspired by the Spaniards. Christopher Columbus’ initial voyage to the West under the auspices of King Ferdinand of Aragón and Queen Isabella of Castile occurred in the summer, as did the ascendancy of the new pope in Rome, Alexander VI, who was born Rodrigo de Borja in the Spanish province of Valencia. 

Granada's Alhambra

There’s another event in 1492 that forever altered Spain, the recapture of Muslim Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, who according to the chroniclers of the period, “... Always had in mind the great thought of conquering the kingdom of Granada and of casting out from all the Spains the rule of the Moor and the name of Muhammad.” Religious fervor and propaganda may have inspired Spanish Catholics to reclaim their land, once governed throughout seven centuries by Islamic rulers. In truth, the Moors of Granada needed little help to tip the scales of history against them. For the last 200 years of their rule, they had been destroying themselves from within their hilltop palace, the beautiful Alhambra.

Seville's Giralda

By the 13^th century, the territories of Moorish sovereigns had shrunk to major cities like Granada near the Sierra Nevada mountain range and Malaga on the coast. Catholic monarchs governed three-quarters of the country, occupied the gorgeous estates and palace of Seville, abandoned the observatory at Giralda, and turned the former mosque of Cordoba into a Christian cathedral. Even the bastion at Tarifa more often belonged to the Sultans of Morocco than anyone in Spain. 

The last Muslim dynasty of the country, the Nasrids, rose to power in 1232 through marital and political alliance with another powerful family, only to terminate the foundations of friendship through a brutal civil war that lasted 10 years. The most brilliant rulers of Granada, Muhammad II, his great-grandson Yusuf I, and Yusuf’s son and heir, Muhammad V, staved off the inevitable through treaties. Even they lost the throne or their lives because of jealousies within their own households. A plague of greed and self-annihilation haunted the Nasrid family through each generation. Sons murdered fathers and brothers vied in bloody struggles. Exactly fifty years before their defeat at Granada, the Moorish people had seen no less than five members of the Nasrid clan claim power over the capital, all cousins and direct descendants of Muhammad V.

Out of such dizzying chaos, the last rulers emerged with a fragile grip on the Moorish frontier.  In 1482, Ferdinand and Isabella descended like vultures on the carcass of a civilization that had been in its death throes for several decades. No wonder the Catholic Monarchs assumed God was on their side alone, especially when the king and queen discovered bitter conflict dividing their adversaries.

As had occurred in centuries past under Yusuf I, the politics inside the harem influenced events outside its gilded walls. The penultimate sultan, Abu’l-Hasan Ali, better known as Muley Hacen to the Christians, had two wives, his cousin Aisha and a former Christian slave girl converted to Islam, named Isabel de Solis. Moorish propaganda from the supporters of Aisha claimed Abu’l-Hasan Ali intended to put aside his eldest son by her in favor of Isabel’s boy, who was still a child. 

Sword of Muhammad XI,
displayed in Museum of Cluny

Such fears and bigotry fractured the dynasty, ensured the removal of Abu’l-Hasan Ali from power, and consigned Granada to the ineffectual rule of Aisha’s son Muhammad XI (Boabdil in Spanish sources). A young man when he claimed the throne, he had the misfortune to fall into Christian hands for four years after his first foray. He lost his eldest son Ahmad as a hostage to Ferdinand and Isabella for so long that when Ahmad reunited with his parents, he could not speak Arabic and knew nothing of Islam.

Losses of cities like Archidona and Algeciras reduced the Moorish power bases. Desperate pleas for aid went unanswered by Morocco, Egypt, and the emergent Ottoman Empire. The cities of Alhama and Loja, where the Nasrids had relied upon governors to defend Moorish lands, fell. By 1489, Muhammad XI could count only Almeria, Baza, nearby Guadix and his home at Granada as part of his domain, but soon all but the last would be in Christian hands after brutal sieges at their walls. In 1491, Muhammad XI had no choice except to surrender. According to the Capitulations of November 1491, Ferdinand and Isabella offered him the option to leave his capital with his family for an estate in the hills of Alpujarras.

For Muhammad’s people, the king and queen pledged, “Any Muslim wishing to remain in Granada was granted secure status…” and “No Moor will be forced to become Christian against his or her will…” – first among many broken promises from Ferdinand and Isabella. While he sought a guarantee of his life and freedom, the last sovereign of Granada must have known the precariousness of his situation. His final request to the Catholic Monarchs received the following reply, “The obligation and the grant of lands will last, for so long as he (Muhammad) remains in the service of their highnesses.”  

Pradilla's The Capitulation of Granada

Christopher Columbus was in Granada during this tumultuous time, likely to beg the favor of Ferdinand and Isabella for his voyages that year. Columbus might have witnessed the departure of Muhammad XI for he wrote, “On January 2 in the year 1492, when your Highnesses has concluded their war with the Moors who reigned in Europe, I saw your Highnesses’ banners victoriously raised on the towers of the Alhambra, the citadel of that city….” 

The day must have been a terrifying nightmare for Muhammad XI, his young wife Moraima, his mother Aisha and Muhammad’s children. They departed for Alpujarras, but tragedy followed with the death of Moraima at Andarax. The last young queen of Granada was buried near Mondujar in the modern-day Spanish province of Almeria. Muhammad and his remaining family immigrated to Morocco, never to see their beloved birthplace again. As Muhammad wrote to the ruler of his new home, “... We hope we would not be returned and that our eyes will be satisfied and our hurt and grievous souls will be healed from this great pain....”

Seville's Alcazar

Throughout years of researching and writing about the Nasrids of Granada, a consistent theme of my Sultana series has been how internal squabbles among its members did more to weaken the dynasty than warfare with their Christian neighbors ever could. My study also revealed unexpected and pleasant surprises, such as the Christian heritage of some of the Moorish sultans like Muhammad II’s son Nasr I, the loyal Christian personal guards of Muhammad V, who followed him into his exile for a time in Morocco, and the lifetime of friendship between Muhammad V and his contemporary Pedro of Castile, who modeled the reconstruction of Seville's Alcazar on the architecture of Moorish Spain.

The struggle between the Catholics and Muslims of Spain was not just a religious war. Instead, for me, it was a civil war between peoples of a common Spanish heritage.   

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Images are mine, or from the public domain, or licensed from Fotalia.com

Sources include L.P. Harvey's Islamic Spain: 1250 to 1500, Barbara Boloix Gallardo's Las sultanas de la Alhambra, and Peggy K. Liss' Isabel the Queen: Life and Times 

Lisa J. Yarde writes fiction inspired by the Middle Ages in Europe. She is the author of two historical novels set in medieval England and Normandy, The Burning Candle, based on the life of one of the first countesses of Leicester and Surrey, Isabel de Vermandois, and On Falcon's Wings, chronicling the star-crossed romance between Norman and Saxon lovers before the Battle of Hastings. Lisa has also written four novels in a six-part series set in Moorish Spain, Sultana, Sultana’s Legacy, Sultana: Two Sisters, and Sultana: The Bride Price where rivalries and ambitions threaten the fragile bonds between members of a powerful family. Her short story, The Legend Rises, which chronicles the Welsh princess Gwenllian of Gwynedd’s valiant fight against English invaders, is also available.

Human Sacrifice: A Call for Divine Help in a Crisis

By Kim Rendfeld

One of the greatest emotional challenges in writing The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar is that my heroine belongs to a religion that sacrifices humans.

At least, I think the pagan Continental Saxons did such a thing. Today, we know very little of this religion. Its followers didn’t have a written language as we know it, and the Church, with Charlemagne’s assistance, did whatever it could to obliterate what it saw as devil worship. We have clues in poems, folk tales, other religions, and the writings of their enemies.

Take Charlemagne’s 782 capitulary to the Saxons. It makes human sacrifice punishable by death, along with cannibalism, burning the dead, refusing baptism, raping the lord’s daughter, and many other offenses. This is far from an objective account of what really did happen, so it’s difficult to determine what was hysteria and what was reality.

But there is other evidence that human sacrifice was part of the Saxons’ worship. The 778 entry in the Royal Frankish Annuals complains of atrocities, and another source laments indiscriminate killing.

In the 21st century, we find this act heinous. But early medieval pagans were not doing this because of sadism. They needed divine help to win a war or end a famine. Such crises called for a sacrifice more valuable than the typical meat of the best animal slaughtered for a community feast.

One reason was to thank the war god, Wodan, for the victory in battle by giving him the first war captives instead of subjecting them to slavery. Think of it as a macabre first fruits offering.

Another reason was atonement. A great disaster such as a drought or famine was a sign of divine anger, and the only acceptable appeasement was human blood. Instead of the enemy, the faithful turned on the family in power. Either the ruler’s children or the leader himself had to give up their lives for the good of the people.

So my heroine accepts the need for this ultimate sacrifice, believing the death of a few people could save an entire community.

Sources

Teutonic Mythology, Volume 1, Jacob Grimm

Carolingian Chronicles, which includes the Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by

Bernard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers

Charlemagne: Translated Sources, P.D. King

Kim Rendfeld did her best to re-create the Continental Saxons’ religion for her latest release, The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar (2014, Fireship Press), a tale of the lengths a mother will go to protect her children after she has lost everything else. To read an excerpt and the first chapter, visit kimrendfeld.com. You’re also welcome to check out her blog Outtakes of a Historical Novelist at kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, like her on Facebook at facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld, or contact her at kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.

The Writings of Samuel Daniel (1562 - 1619) - Musophilus

By Ian Lipke

The Writings of Samuel Daniel (1562 - 1619) - Musophilus

Samuel Daniel's signature work, Musophilus, is written in the form of a dialogue between Musophilus ('lover of culture') and Philocosmus (lover of the status quo'). This article takes a passing glance at the views of Philocosmus but promotes the thoughts of Musophilus in greater depth since they reflect Daniel's own philosophies. Musophilus details Daniel’s view that history and culture reinforce one another in a complex definition of what makes one’s heritage. The poet argues for the importance of cultural memory as a way not just of retrieving the past, but of shaping the present. He imagines a space containing humanist exemplars of learning, and humanist supporters of real scholarship. Although the poet is subject to the public world and dependent on its patrons, he can counter that by imagining a space in which poetry and the classical humanist past shapes experience and reward.

Philocosmus warns that to be different from your fellows, to pursue a different course, is to live without the warming sustenance of a patron who provides for the material needs of the practising poet. All light and warmth in the hope of patronage are then withdrawn and the rebel poet cast into the icy cold of courtly exile. Learning is bounded by what tradition has taught and men have accepted. To attempt to extend or go beyond the boundaries that patrons expect, to fail “to compose our parts / Vnto the frame of men” (lines 80 – 81) is to “make our artes / Rebles to Nature and societie” (lines 82 – 83). Running a counter-course is suggestive of a sailor navigating his way through troubled waters and this image makes way for the more powerful picture of burial in an obscure grave. Philocosmus proposes a Stoic acceptance of conventional values, one that stresses adherence to society’s rules, and by projection, promotes self-governance and self-control. The essayist, Michel de Montaigne, while writing on an unrelated matter, argues that constancy is “courageous endurance of the inevitable, and control (not eradication) of human emotions” (Miles 87), a position closely akin to Philocosmus’s view. When defining Justus Lipsius’s understanding of what it means for a man to practise self-control, Miles asserts that “to be constant is to be stable in convictions, unmoved by emotion, ‘neither lifted up nor pressed down’ [as Lipsius notes in his De Constantia 79] by external events, and, hence, steadfast and immovable in adversity” (72). Philocosmus’s argument is that, since opinion is changeable, it is the source of all human ills. It is, therefore, the arch-enemy of constancy, which is, after all, the prime virtue. Further, Philocosmus’s “Rebles to Nature” infers a rejection of the accepted Christian religion and a transgression of Guillaume du Vair’s association of Stoic constancy with the Christian heaven. “Du Vair (like Lipsius) uses the image of the soul as a divine fire (De la constance 149) whose sparks aspire to rise upwards” (Miles 73). Hence, “audaciously, Du Vair fuses Christian salvation with the Senecan ideal of self-perfection through Stoic virtue” (Miles 74), and, hence in Philocosmus’s view, through adherence to convention.

Surprisingly, Musophilus agrees with Philocosmus on this point, but with a subtle distinction which qualifies his rival’s assertion. He repeats Philocosmus’s language of measurement and puns on it. The “frame of men” (line 81) is now determined “by that wrong measure of confusion / The vulgar foote: that neuer takes his ways / By reason, but by imitation” (lines 94 – 96). Here, in recalling “th’obscure graue of singularitie” (line 85) Daniel engages the language of physical measurement to re-assert a mental state viz. the humanist support for constancy. It is by the way people measure, through imitation of, and/or the judgments of others, that “ignorance will liue / By others square” (lines 100 – 01). The poet’s argument speaks out against men who follow historic precedent (example) instead of thinking for themselves (outside the square of other peoples’ judgement). The poet is at one with Lipsius who asserts that a constant man is a man who faces adversity with conviction and resolve and is never swayed by unsubstantiated opinion. Musophilus’s argument utilises emblems of vanitas to affirm his position in the references to the “proude aspiring pallaces” of line 123 and in the lines,

Then where is that proude title of thy name,
Written in yce of melting vanitie?                                                           (lines 129 – 30)

where a pessimistic outlook is portrayed in part as a decaying physical object and, on the other hand, a significantly important virtuous state, highly regarded by the poet himself and jealously guarded throughout his lifetime. That his name should disappear in the way of melting ice is unconscionable.

Daniel uses the language of Stoic wisdom as a means of evoking rational thought when arguing the case against remaining unmoved. Inaction is paradoxically revealed as a negative form of action by nature of the fact that it destroys virtue. Musophilus argues:

For what poore bounds haue they whom but th’earth bounds,
What is their end whereto their care attaines,
When the thing got relieues not, but confounds,
Hauing but trauaile to succeed their paines?
What ioy hath he of liuing that propounds
Affliction but his end, and griefe his gaines?                                         (lines 105 – 10)

The continued use of images evoked by such terms as “poore bounds” and “th’earth bounds” suggests the Stoic conception of the virtuous man who remains constant to himself. It also suggests Christian humility as distinct from stoic constancy, potentially nodding to Lipsius’s attempt to reconcile stoicism with Christianity in De Constantia. In this passage, Musophilus is arguing the negative; in living as he is man will not achieve a favourable outcome. He has “but trauaile” as the reward for his efforts, “affliction but his end, and griefe his gaines” (line 110). The metaphor is the reversal of the Stoic understanding that, whatever the burden, if the activity is right, the effort of remaining unmoved will be worthwhile. The poet accepts the rationality of stoic constancy but employs it in a way that Seneca and his followers never intended. In early essays Montaigne (Essais, I. 12) “defines constancy in moderate terms as courageous endurance of the inevitable, and control (not eradication) of human emotions” (Miles 87). Like Montaigne, Daniel is attracted to “the ‘beauty’ of the ideal of Stoic heroism” (Miles 88). However, unlike in Montaigne’s essays, there is little evidence in the Musophilus passage under discussion of inconsistency in the world and in human nature as such would have been anathema to Stoic beliefs.

Daniel now develops his metaphor through a body-spirit dichotomy. “Gath’ring, incroching, wresting” and the like are strong and troubled links to man’s actions on earth, his “bodies trauailing” (line 114). Yet they link also to “his soules toyle” (line 114), indicating there is a continual struggle between the soul and the body. In these verses Daniel describes a hurried process of vain labour using the metaphors of building rather than describing a metaphorical building per se. His point is more to do with the fact that wise men should be labouring more wisely to obtain spiritual rather than worldly rewards in virtue.

 Gath'ring, incroching, wresting, ioining to,
Destroying, building, decking, furnishing,
Repairing, altring, and so much a do,
To his soules toyle, and bodies trauailing:
And all this doth he little knowing who
Fortune ordaines to haue th'inheriting.                                                            (lines 111 – 16)

When Musophilus mentions “his faire house’ (line117) that has been constructed “on blood and wrong” (line 118), Daniel reminds us of the massive building projects of the 1590s but also asks the question whether so much energy is being put into projects that will, in the end, be quite transient. An attitude of transparent and virtuous humanism, a mental construct, is projected by the physical nature of a building programme, one where “the profanest piles of sinne” (line 122) suggest that the buildings may, after all, be just for show. Here Daniel, the self-confessed “remnant of another age” attacks newness and expresses his preference for older and traditional forms.

And his faire house rais'd hie in enuies eie,
Whose pillars rear'd perhaps on blood and wrong,
The spoyles and pillage of iniquitie,
Who can assure it to continue long?
If rage spar'd not the walls of pietie,
Shal the profanest piles of sinne keepe strong?                                                (lines 117 – 22)

In the persona of Musophilus, but in a voice that becomes the poet’s own as the poem proceeds, Daniel invokes the physical destruction of the monasteries during an earlier reign as a link to the issue that he is really addressing, that of a just transmission of ownership or power. Through the spatial metaphor of physicality, the destruction and subsequent re-making of the churches – the palaces have been “leuell’d with th’earth” (line 125) - to represent an issue of powerful mental significance to Daniel himself, “an orderles / Order pretending change” (lines 127 – 28) - the poet continues to answer his opponent’s concerns.

How manie proude aspiring pallaces
Haue we known made the pray of wrath and pride,
Leuell'd with th'earth, left to forgetfulnes,
Whilst titlers their pretended rights decide,
Or ciuill tumults, or an orderles
Order pretending change of some stronge side?                                   (lines 123 – 28)

Daniel emphasises the role of the text in the creation of memory; through the poet’s work “wrested from time”, men can understand past civilizations. The mind will “speak”; it will become a place that witnesses the defeat of time, a page upon which is recorded the memories and the knowledge of this and other civilizations. In this picture lie the thoughts of those who have laboured to understand the human condition. Commenting on the outstanding contribution that Chaucer made to English letters, his having “wrested from time, / And won vpon the mighty waste of daies”, Daniel directs us to “the speaking picture of the minde” (line 178) and “The extract of the soule that laboured how / To leaue the image of her selfe behind” (lines 179 - 80).

Since Chaucer liu'd, who yet liues and yet shall,
Though (which I grieue to say) but in his last.
Yet what a time hath he wrested from time,
And won vpon the mighty waste of daies,
Vnto th'immortall honor of our clime!                                      (lines 151 – 55)

Aristotle had claimed that poetry will enable virtue. History can only instruct men to virtuous action if it is bolstered by memory. History will record facts but memory will record sensation through poetry. When the feelings that cultural memory releases are added to the factual history man absorbs, virtuous action is demonstrated.

The concept of a literary work as a ‘speaking picture of the mind’ is based on the understanding that to make a poem ‘the extract of the soule’ a poet must hone his powers of expression to such an edge that he can achieve close communion with the great minds of the past.  This implies devoted effort – not just any verse will do. Musophilus constructs a metaphor of literary fame as a reasoned dialogue between learned individuals and, in so doing, suggests a new understanding of the alleged ‘singularitie’ of scholar and poet. We accept that literary fame is sufficient recompense for isolating the laureate poet from his contemporaries, as Musophilus has argued from the beginning. More important now is the intrinsic value of being able to commune with the great minds of the past.

When as perhaps the words thou scornest now
May liue, the speaking picture of the minde,
The extract of the soule that laboured how
To leaue the image of her selfe behind,                          (lines 177 –80)

But, in lines 179 – 80, the soul is described as leaving the body behind. Throughout the poem Musophilus has been deploying Stoic language to present a humanist argument. But in these lines he finds an argument that is unsettling. An element of psychic anxiety creeps into his verse. Poetry (the speaking picture of the mind) will live on in his manuscript, but also now in print. Verse is an integral part of the poet, the extract of his soul, and his labours have revealed his inner secrets to the world. His world, a coterie audience of his friends and patrons, has changed to become the wide world of anyone who can read or be read to. The poet is, at least outwardly, opposed to the public and market-driven world of print since print devalued literature and knowledge by dispersing it in the world and opening it up to the judgment of the masses. This unsettles the poet.

The implications we draw from traditional thought allow us to build a bridge between nature, which is immutable and uniform, and change which is subject to the knowledge that man himself defines. “If it [i.e. knowledge] was obviously cumulative and potentially beneficial, it could also be a sinister force when misapplied and especially when untempered by a respect for historical continuity” (Ferguson 201). Musophilus asserts that knowledge untempered with a respect for historical continuity was responsible for overthrowing “that holy reuerent bound / That parted learning and the laiety” and took away the honour and respect that had traditionally been the due of the clergy:

For since our fathers sinnes puld first to ground
The pale of their disseuered dignitie,
And ouerthrew that holy reuerent bound
That parted learning and the laiety,
And laid all flat in common to confound
The honor and respect of pietie:                                       (lines 689 – 94)

Daniel is interested in the poet’s role in preserving the lessons of history. “Posteritie” is of great significance to him.

Wherein posteritie that loue to know
The iust proportion of our spirits may find.                  (lines 181 – 82)

The poet animates history and creates a memorial to it. Animating history’s lessons for a didactic purpose requires him to clarify precisely what he wishes to make known and he does this by employing images related to the human body. His lines become “the vaines, the Arteries, / And vndecaying life-strings of those harts (183 – 84) that still seek after knowledge, and so poetry becomes the means through which man utilizes memory for the benefit of posterity, and thereby acquires truth. The veins and arteries are the texts – the verse, thoughts, and philosophies - that learned men before him have introduced into a community of scholars. Such a community is bounded, just as the physical human body is enclosed, but within the boundary are networks communicating with the separate parts. The lines in this extract speak in metaphorical terms of Daniel’s ‘proper frame of men’ that conforms to both nature and society. That frame is exclusionary in that membership is available only to those humanists that men of virtuous action consider worthy:

For these lines are the vaines, the Arteries,
And vndecaying life-strings of those harts
That still shall pant, and still shall exercise
The motion spirit and nature both imparts,
And shall, with those aliue so sympathize
As nourisht with their powers inioy their parts.                      (lines 183 – 88)

Daniel saw “blessed letters” as the medium through which history itself spoke to successive generations.

Like Aristotle and Sidney before him, Daniel argues that it is through poetry that history comes alive, its events can be told in metaphors that derive energy and substance from the recorded actions of great men, and reasons for what history records they did can be expressed through the power of verse.

O blessed letters that combine in one,
All ages past, and make one liue with all,
By you we do confer with who are gone,
And the dead liuing vnto councell call:
By you, th'vnborne shall haue communion
Of what we feele, and what doth vs befall.
Soule of the world, knowledge, without thee,
What hath the earth that truly glorious is?
Why should our pride make such a stir to be,
To be forgot? what good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading, and the worlds delight?
And let th'vnnaturall and waiward race
Borne of one wombe with vs, but to our shame,
That neuer read t'obserue, but to disgrace,
Raise all the tempest of their powre to blame;
That puffe of follie neuer can deface,
The worke a happy Genius tooke to frame.                    (lines 189 – 206)

The “blessed letters” metaphor is used to describe the humanist project of learning from the past. It makes no distinction between the dead and the living since the “blessed letters” combine all ages into one.  The dead can call the living, the living can speak to the yet unborn, and understanding of the emotional depths of the living and the thoughts of the ancients can be felt truly and understood fully. Past and future now commune in a perpetual present. While Montaigne would argue that the world is neither in a state of decrepitude nor in a state of progress; it is as it always has been, and nature has neither lost its power nor suddenly produced men of outstanding qualities (Essais III 115 – 16), the assumption about the course of human history which was most widely held in the Renaissance is the cyclical or tide theory. According to this point of view, men and nations and the arts have their origin, rise, flourishing, and decay; when the process is once completed, it does not stop but repeats itself over and over again.

Cyclic alteration is one of Samuel Daniel’s standard themes as in his invocation to his “blessed letters”. His purpose is to celebrate the ‘knowledge’ which instructs and civilizes men through example and design, which sensitizes man to his history through cultural memory. We have “communion” with one another because knowledge is the medium through which all ages are united. Knowledge is the soul of the world and without it there is nothing about the Earth that is glorious. We have nothing to be proud of if all we have is destined to be forgotten,

what good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading, and the world’s delight?               (lines 197 – 200).

It does not matter if some choose to blame since
That puffe of follie neuer can deface,
The worke a happy Genius tooke to frame”                   (lines 205 – 06).

As man grows in experience and knowledge he begins to make decisions that are distinctively his own. If the judgements he makes are sound, he creates a mature and enriched life. In Renaissance times, history’s position was about progress, about seeking to generate old forms such as classical learning; it was about returning in order to progress. Daniel intersects these ideas with the argument that if cultural memory sensitizes history through poetry there will be no need to return since men will have learned virtuous action. Mankind, by these means, obviates the need for always having to go back in time since he will no longer be called upon to repeat his actions. These are not new ideas; their origins are deep in classical culture and some of them have, for the most part, a vigorous history through the Middle Ages. The clue for historical research is not so much to seek original ideas as to discover the cumulative flow of old ideas, and to analyse what new combinations have been made and under the impetus of what new needs and forces. What changes as a result of new demands are the forms of recombination of old ideas.

Ian Lipke became a teacher of primary children in 1958, transferring to secondary schools in 1964. He has taught in schools in remote and metropolitan areas of Queensland, Australia. He left school teaching in 1977 to lecture at the University of Queensland and at Queensland University of Technology. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, he was a deputy principal at several high schools, before retiring to manage his own tutoring business. In 2006, he returned to postgraduate studies through research at the University of Queensland. His whole life has been devoted to academic studies, which he very much enjoys. He is the author of NARGUN.