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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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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Adding this side readhttps://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-the-oldest-pub …
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Another side read: knights vs archers, contemporaneous Indian edition. https://twitter.com/mangozeus/status/1265843370624081920?s=21 …https://twitter.com/MangoZeus/status/1265843370624081920 …
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Back to the story. It’s around 1368 now. Coucy frees serfs for rent. The nobility appears to be slowly healing after 2 decades of war and plague. The brigand companies have been foisted onto Spain. Life sucks for most people but nobility is doing ok.
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Long passage now about the Visconti family of Italy who sound like psycho gangsters. They are challenging papal forces. Brigand company called the White Company fights on all sides of all conflict. Hobbesian ergodicity goingbon here.
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Here we go. Looting and explosions and sirens and choppers in DTLA outside as we pick up the story in 1360s Italy.
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Another boom outside my window. Fireworks? Meanwhile in 14th century Italy Duke Lionel of England dies after marrying Violante Visconti at a lavish wedding and elsewhere Philip of Burgundy marries Marguerite of Flanders which will apparently have consequences later.
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“The amount the rich could squander on occasions like these in a period of repeated disasters appears inexplicable, not so much with regard to motive as with regard to means. Where, in the midst of ruin and decline... did the money come from to endow the luxury?”
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France and England back at war. Eng begs neutrality and goes off to fight in papal-Visconti wars instead. Wins glory in future war that changes nothing and returns with honor to a France that’s winning. Plague back for third wave, Petrarch and Boccaccio dead. 1374.
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This section is a bit of a slog. Tedious chapter in the 100 years war. Very grimdark wind-down of futile shit. Age of chivalry slowly dying, nobody achieving any strategic aims. Key figures aging and dying. Eng has had a charmed career so far.
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Second half of book is turning into a bit of a drag. First half was going brrrr. Not author’s fault. The material is like our time. Running out of manic pandemic energy. Eng off to fight a war in Austria to claim some title. Financed by French monarchy to get rid of companies.
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This is the Gugler war. The mercenary army was barely in control, pillaging along the way. Half the intent was to lose them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugler
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So this was an attack on Switzerland against a dowry claimed from Austria. Swiss peasants beat back French-English mercenary knight brigands and this battle paved the way for Swiss independence later. Kinda interesting. Swiss and Flemish peasants were rare commoner non-losers.
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Dowries and marriages were like corporate board memberships looks like. High nobles all had claims on all sorts of titles all over Europe, via succession calculus. Church exercised power by sanctioning some consanguineous marriages but not others. Everybody was cousins.
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Fairly decent system for keeping ownership circulating in a fixed elite class of nobles since they didn’t marry out of the class. Feudal estates = crony corporations. Distant claimants of titles via dowries etc = activist shareholders. Buncha Carl Icahns basically.
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Most of the wars were carefully justified as just wars. Paper trails for religious-legal reasons. The church was sort of a spiritual SEC. Ransom ops make sense as stock and debt deals. This was just a very violent and inefficient capital market.
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Humanity has always been depressingly stupid, violent, and apathetic. Earth should just be demolished by Vogons to make the hyperspace bypass. On some key fronts we’ve learned nothing of importance in 700 years.
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Funny how they endowed perpetual rents on monasteries for perpetual prayers for their souls while going off to fight in constant corporate raider type wars. Hobbesian eternity with afterlife insurance. They really thought nothing would ever change on earth or heaven. Grimdark.
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Today’s equivalent: corporate barons endowing universities in perpetuity to eternally keep the family name laundered and clean forever.
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Back to this slog. Coucy returns to England in dual role as son in law to Edward looking in on lands, and emissary of France on the DL to broker peace. England is now in same shit of depopulation, brigandage, and restive peasants. The legend of Robin Hood is growing in popularit.
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Kinda interesting. The knights had their Arthurian legends, the peasants their Robin Hood and William Tells. Never noticed the Europe-wide pattern.
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Now reading about John Wycliffe who laid the seeds of secession from Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism to come centuries later. Never heard of him. Doh realization that Brexit is not the first English secession from an EU. It all makes sense now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe …
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Damn everybody of importance in this story is really young. Under 40 mostly. We are such an old society.
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Alright back to this slog. Can’t really read more than 20-30 minutes/night so I’m essentially live tweeting the 14th century at about 400x speed. 90 days to read about 100 years? I’m beginning to suspect this story won’t have a happy ending.
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My mansion must have a robot seneschal. Wtf how do I not have a seneschal. This is unfair. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneschal
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Tables turned. France ascendant, Edward and Black Prince both dead. Eng finally picks a side, the winning one, forfeiting both English allegiance and property and wife Isabella. French raudcEngkand triggering peasants rebellion. Karmic meat grinder here.
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Apparently this was when nationalism began superseding feudal allegiances crafted by marriages. Eng’s divorce was symbolic. This was when the channel became basis of boundary between England and France rather than noble family land titles. Nobility= tax-haven corps today.
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I’m struck by how much religion was an economics theory back then. Indulgences, confession. absolution, heaven/hell, grace: these were all monetary concepts in 14th century with church being spiritual bank. Even used metaphor of Jesus paying off debt of sins, treasury of merit.
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Modern idea that economics is a religion is false. Traditional religion when seriously believed and practiced is an economics. Modern half-assed religiosity is more like a fandom hobby. Abrahamic and karmic religions are schools of afterlife economics. With fiscal/monetary policy
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Very interesting chapter on the visit of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV to Paris in 1377 to visit his nephew Charles V. Dog and pony show to legitimate former’s resumption of hostilities with England. Lots of pomp.
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