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Replying to
“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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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.
Replying to
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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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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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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Finally at halfway point of book. Lengthy telenovela type chapter on papal succession conflict, return of papacy from Avignon to Rome, Catherine of Siena, and much else. This is deep inside baseball of European history. Kinda tedious. Pope Urban vs Pope Clement schism splits EU.
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Still working through this book. Now into commoners revolts in England, Netherlands and France. Pattern: they revolt over taxes, are suppressed brutally, bunch of executions, ceremonial apologies and heavy fines follow, king distributes fines to nobles doing the suppressing.
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Big lesson from this book: never bet on the commoners. They get their periodic opportunities to blow up violently but pay a heavy price later. Being a countryside noble is good. Being a town noble is sketchy. Being upper bourgeoisie is dangerous. Being Jewish is very dangerous.
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Still reading this. Now several chapters into part 2, rise of Coucy. Not as much to summarize or highlight since it’s more biographical. Our hero goes on diplomatic missions and military campaigns, plays a part in court intrigues etc. Among the better reps of a decadent class.
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General theme here is a nobility in decline but not aware of it. Basically an extractive financial class that still thinks of itself as a military class but lacks the actual military culture. Shades of modern Wall Street. Mangy dogs believing themselves to be wolves.
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Evil uncles removed from scene in France and Coucy gets to be the Grand Butler to Charles VI. Various intrigues that sound like a cross between Seinfeld and bizarro Camelot. General bloodiness seems to have given way to palace intrigues with young kings in England and France.
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Everything seems to be falling apart by the late 1380s but our man Coucy is doing well for himself. A ghostly portrait is starting to emerge: balding, sage, epitome of chivalry and knightly virtue but apparently not the vices that are rotting the median knight.
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This book just goes on and on piling on the shittiness. Dumb mini-crusade against Tunisia. Tedious religious crap, a bad king Wenceslas. I suspect we’re headed for an exhausted whimper of an unhappy ending.
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Generally impressed by the sheer amount of 14th century information that seems to be available to historians. This whole reconstruction is very vivid. I’d like to watch a solid TV show based on this book.
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Mad king Charles VI on throne for decades. Makes Trump look actually stable if not a genius. Evilunclocracy in England and France. Rise of occult and magic. Torture and extraction of confessions to devil worship a routine way to cancel people. OG cancel culture. We are at 1393.
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Well, more intrigues in Italy and a misguided crusade later, out man Coucy is dead in Turkish captivity waiting to be ransomed. Kinda sad. He’s the hero of this story even though he never quite comes alive. Tuchman chose him because his life intersected a lot of key events.
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He’s a better example of chivalry and missing the corrupting weaknesses of the class. Sagacious and level-headed. Tuchman suggests he might have been a Washington style leader in a non-monarchical time but I don’t buy it. He comes across as a COO type. Execution, not vision.
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Tuchman’s own tldr of the ~60 years spanned by Coucy’s life: elites had exciting times, commoners had plague, pillage and taxes. Book does a fair job balancing the two, if favoring elite storyline a bit. Fair because there’s more to tell. Elites were mobile and agenty.
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