All
- What the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily was
- Who Emperor Frederick II was
- What the Saracenic States were
- What struggle Frederick had with the Papacy
- What “measures” Frederick took, especially “after the year 1231”
- What “Mohammedan usages” are
- What the “cruel and vexatious methods” of Frederick’s tax-collecting were
- In what way the University of Naples “restrict[ed] the freedom of study”
- What Burckhardt means by “the East”
- What “Mohammedan rules” Frederick followed
- Who the Fatimite Caliphs were
- What their “esoteric unbelief” was
- What the nature of Frederick’s “religious inquisition” was
- What heresies he attempted to put down
- Who “the representatives of a free municipal life” were
Always interesting when you’re reading a work of history, in this case Charles Norris Cochrane’s matchless Christianity and Classical Culture, and find something that shines a bright and direct light on your own moment.
To Eusebius the glorious and unexpected triumph of the Church constituted decisive evidence of the operatio Dei, the hand of God in human history. At the same time, by an easy and natural confusion of thought, it suggested the dangerous error that Christianity was a success-philosophy. Eusebius quotes with approval the emperor's own profession of faith, made after the defeat of Licinius had delivered him from his last formidable enemy:
… It appears that those who faithfully discharge God’s holy laws and shrink from the transgression of His commandments are rewarded with abundant blessings and endued with well-grounded hope as well as ample power for the accomplishment of their undertakings. On the other hand, those who have cherished impiety have experienced consequences in keeping with their evil choice…. I myself was the agent whose services God deemed suitable for the accomplishment of His will. Accordingly... with the aid of divine power, I banished and destroyed every form of evil which prevailed, in the hope that the human race, enlightened through my instrumentality, might be recalled to a due observance of God's holy laws and, at the same time, our most blessed faith might prosper under the guidance of the almighty hand….
Our concern is not so much with the truth or falsehood of these sentiments as with the consequence of their acceptance. From this standpoint, Constantine is portrayed as the champion delegated by the Most High to be the minister of His vengeance upon the persecutors, whose fate is described in terms which recall the fulminations of Hebrew prophecy.
Inordinately pleased with my little hack of hanging the jacket of the album I’m listening to from a binder clip. This record, by the way, is a neglected masterpiece, with Miles as a sideman (if Miles ever actually is a sideman, which I doubt). Also: Blue Note’s design staff in this era! This jacket was designed by the great Reid Miles. 🎵
I’m very frustrated by Ezra Klein’s timidity in his interview with Jensen Huang. Ezra seems unaware that Huang is a salesman; he should have conducted the entire interview with that in the forefront of his mind. He offered very little pushback and effectively let Huang make a 2-hour sales pitch for his company and his industry.
Chilling after a nice long walk through the neighborhood, during which two different people I don’t know said “Hi Angus!” So my dog is a local hero as well as an internet celebrity.
When Grant conquered Vicksburg, did Lincoln say, “The Union now controls the full length of the Mississippi River”? He did not. Instead he said, “The Father of Waters flows unvexed to the sea.”
South Pole of Mars. Bigger version here.
Known Unknowns
When you’re writing a historical narrative, you can’t explain everything — you have to assume that your audience has a certain level of knowledge. But it’s tricky to establish just what that baseline should be. You don’t want to insult your readers’ intelligence by overexplaining, but you also don’t want to leave them confused.
And as a reader of historical narratives, you want to look for books that set that baseline appropriately for you. (Of course, the same general principle applies when you’re reading anything, from a cookbook to a treatise on mathematics, but I’m focusing on history here.) I find it helpful to have this issue in mind whenever I begin reading a work of history, because if I’m alert, I can know within a few pages whether a given book will work for me.
One of the most famous classics of historical writing is Jacob Burckhardt’s The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, first published in 1860. Here is a characteristic passage from the early pages of that book:
The internal condition of the despotically governed States had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor Frederick II. Bred amid treason and peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself to a thoroughly objective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and administration of the Saracenic States was close and intimate; and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the field all the resources at his command. Frederick’s measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal State, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralized, in a manner hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration. No office was henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants. The taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects; who were forbidden, for example, to marry out of the country without special permission, and under no circumstances were allowed to study abroad. The University of Naples was the first we know of to restrict the freedom of study, while the East, in these respects at all events, left its youth unfettered. It was after the examples of Mohammedan rules that Frederick traded on his own account in all parts of the Mediterranean, reserving to himself the monopoly of many commodities, and restricting in various ways the commerce of his subjects. The Fatimite Caliphs, with all their esoteric unbelief, were, at least in their earlier history, tolerant of all the differences in the religious faith of their people; Frederick, on the other hand, crowned his system of government by a religious inquisition, which will seem the more reprehensible when we remember that in the persons of the heretics he was persecuting the representatives of a free municipal life.
That’s only part of a paragraph, by the way. Historians wrote long paragraphs in those days.
Here are some of the things that Burckhardt expects that you already know:
Now, I have firm knowledge about a couple of these things and an in-the-ballpark awareness of a few more, but beyond that … the less said, the better. So maybe this book is not for me.
But The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a very important and influential book! Yes, it is. But that doesn’t mean that it’s something I need to read – not until I acquire the requisite knowledge, which, let’s face it, I am not especially likely to do.
To Daniel Moran's question about the reasons for the decline of The Simpsons, I have an answer: There are only so many stories you can tell and jokes you can make about characters who are forbidden to change.