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Replying to
Apparently very few broad generalizations can be made about the effects of the Black Death. Fir every claimed effect in one place there was an opposite one elsewhere. Labor shortage and stronger peasant/artisan position was the strongest broad effect. Inflation/wages spiral.
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The church got generally richer through legacies and Clement VI 1350 jubilee, where you could get absolutions fir money. But it grew much more hated. I guess the seeds of the reformation were planted here.
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Tuchman argues that dissatisfaction with the meaninglessness of the suffering, with no changes for the better, is what unleashed the social forces of change. Argues it created modern man, hungry for a better answer than mysterious will of god.
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Interesting: in the wake of the Black Death, both England and France raised knightly orders nostalgically modeled on King Arthur’s round table, with the practical purpose of preventing independent withdrawal by feudals in battle. Chivalry was already a fandom larp in 1351.
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Now we’re on to examples of how the whole era was full of ultra-violent psychopaths killing each other, like Charles of Navarre. Tuchman suggests perhaps as a result of Black Death memento mori. This era is motorcycle gangs basically. Pandemics cause Hobbesian conditions.
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Honor killings, rape, torture, heads on stakes, arms, legs, ears cut off for crimes... These are horrible, miserable people. Why does fantasy fiction love this age so much again? Not an age for smart people.
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Tuchman offers theory that since neglect was the standard of childcare till age 7 or so, everyone grew up severely messed up. Sounds about right. A world where having a serial killer psyche is the norm, and being nice is a form of mental illness
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Replying to
Money printer go brr. King Jean tries to get clever debasing currency and trying to reform the military. Long account of Battle of Poitiers, another debacle for the French. The 100 years war seems to develop one confused and stupid battle at a time. Each is harambe-like.
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“Complaints were heard that the archers had killed too many who might have been held for ransom” This business of capturing enemy knights for ransom is hilarious. The business model was ransoms. Like LatAm gangs. Military objectives had to compete with ransom objectives.
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This tension between archers (remote work, pragmatic war) and knights (melee work, honor war) appears to have been a much bigger deal than I thought. It’s like Jane Jacobs commerce vs guardian syndromes. Archers = win effectively, via strategery. Knights = honor points.
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The French apparently underutilized their archers for honor reasons. Besides being limited to crossbows and lacking longbow capacity. Must resist crossbow vs longbow Internet bunny trail and return to book.
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Now we’re talking commerce and urban life in Paris. Apparently streets didn’t have names then and people spent hours lost. Also curfew on economic production work after dark and sumptuary laws still constraining conspicuous consumption . Guardian > Commerce. Economy no go brrr.
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“... furniture was meager. Beds, which served for sitting as well as sleeping, were the most important item. Chairs were few: even kings and popes received ambassadors sitting on beds”
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Long section on brigand bands, some the size of small armies ravaging France as it became ungoverned. English knights staying behind to loot after Poitiers and ransomed and bankrupt French knights joining them. Gallantry gone rotten. Medieval mad max.
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These English bands in 14th century France, looting merrily in a nominal truce during the 100 year war, are basically what we’d call terrorists today, except they had no ideology beyond loot. Reminds me of post-Soviet-withdrawal transformation of mujahideen into terror groups.
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“Country families hastened with their goods to take refuge in cities, monks and nuns abandoned their monasteries, highways and roads were unsafe” So cities were like Rivendell in LOTR 🤔
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Third estate assault on dauphin/regent loses support of nobility. So now it’s peasants plus third estate vs nobility and lame duck monarchy. Meanwhile king Jean is living luxuriously in England as captive waiting to be ransomed. French still trying to do so despite extreme terms
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Ah shit. Clearly I backed the wrong conceptual horse here as Rick would say. The Jacques have been slaughtered by the knights. Bloodbath.
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This era in Europe is relentlessly stupid with no redeeming qualities. Just pointless slaughter, plague, and general shittiness. No wonder it triggered the age of exploration in the next century. Who would want to live like this?
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“...short of a fluke like the capture of a king at Poitiers, medieval armies had no means of achieving a decisive result, much less a surrender.” On Edwards’s weird campaign in France in the winter if 1958 trying to exactvthe biggest possible ransom for Jean
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Our hero, Enguerrand de Coucy is among the nobles exchanged for the king. Eng is apparently going to end up as the son-in-law of Edward... this hostage/ransom shit among royalty was all very nominal. The royalty treated each other like royalty.
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Writer dude Jean Froissart is on the ship carrying noble hostages back to England. He’s gonna make Eng famous. Geoffrey Chaucer is also onboard. Eng is curiously lifeless so far in this long 7 chapter setup. Finally he’s getting foregrounded. I never read the Canterbury tales.
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It’s a be somebody or do something century. Tuchman says unless you were royalty nobody cared about your appearance or character. You were known only by your deeds. Curious kind of dehumanization. Much klout. Very karma.
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No live portraits of Eng exist, only one painted 200y after his death. He was apparently tall, dark, and handsome. And could sing and dance well. Basically a generic harlequin romance cover hero.
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1361, plague is back after 12 years. Everybody is gloom-and-doom. This is relentless shittiness. Including actual shit. London is awash in manure apparently. No wonder the rich lived a barbell life of death sports and nihilistic hedonism.
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“Between the happening of a historical process, and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretched, full of pitfalls” The rulers here are half-criminal brigands anyway. The poor really seem to need the monarch for hope.
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tfw the highlight of your day is half an hour of bedtime reading about the Black Death enjoying the schadenfreude. At least one group of people
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Chapter about women. Seems like the age had a theory of submission around women’s role in the works but in practice they had a lot more unofficial agency than anyone admitted. They ran things while the men were off fighting or being held ransom etc.
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Eng and Isabella now married, with 2 daughters. It’s 1367 and they’ve been given a lot of wealth, titles and territory in both England and France. Dude’s married up. Still not gone to life though. Isabella is better portrayed so far.
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Eng and Isabella now back to France, 3/4 of which is now overrun by brigand companies who are getting institutionalized. Description is a bit like gang-run Mexico or Afghanistan today. Except line between them and “legitimate” royalty/nobility is really just a matter of taste.
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The old king jean and pope innocent are now dead. Charles and the new pope urban try to export the brigand companies to Hungary for a crusade against Turks and fail, but succeed in exporting them to Spain where Anglo-French proxy wat is unfolding under excuse of fighting Moors.
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This is very confusing 4d chess. Also the brigands are weirdly religious enough to demand both loot and absolution when attacking the clergy. Everybody tries to pay off brigands to go away with other people’s money. Stationary bandits pay off roaming bandits with OPM.
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Brigands are zeroth estate really. Includes both fuckit knights and even destitute clergy. First and second estate are trying to get rid of them by taxing the third to the limit. Had anyone made up zeroth estate concept? If not I claim it. Hobbesian ground state of humanity.
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