This looks rather promising.
http://www.uwestfjords.is/icelandic_courses/gisla_saga_and_classical_icelandic/
Monday, March 15, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Dangers of Comparative History
This post deals with a different subject than normal, but important nonetheless. This is a review of an article by Professor Sherman comparing modern-day Afghanistan to early-modern France.
Professor Drake opened the first lecture of his Roman undergraduate research seminar by telling us: 'We always learn the wrong lessons from history.' In an article published in the recent Foreign Affairs, Professor Sherman argues that the processes of centralization in early-modern France can be used as models for state-building in modern-day Afghanistan. While the analogy works at a superficial level, a close look at the details shows that these processes cannot be of immediate usefulness for the Obama administration.
Professor Sherman presents an interesting analogy between 21st century Afghanistan, and pre-modern France. She identifies (correctly I think) that one key problem of the situation in Afghanistan is the lack of authority that the central government has at the local level. Warlords, drug-dealers or Talibans rule the areas not immediately adjacent to Kabul. Similarly, Hugh Capet, the first king of the Capetian dynasty, ruled little else but Ile-de-France at the time of his election as Rex Francorum (king of the Franks) in 987. The local leadership was in the hands of the local nobles (and that had been the case since Charles the Bald a century earlier). Perhaps the analogy should stop here, but she states that Louis XIII, and Louis XIV's policies of rendering the nobles dependent on royal authority can also be applied to Afghanistan.
What I feel Professor Sherman misses in her analogy is time. The processes of centralization in early-modern France are not limited to Louis XIV, or his predecessor. Rather, I would argue, they are the heirs of five-hundred years of policies on the part of the kings of France. Centralization of moneys, and especially single-currency date back to the time of Philippe the Fair. Key disputes were still resolved by the king. For instance, in the claim of inheritance of Artois, Mahaut and her nephew Robert appealed to Philippe the Fair and his sons to resolve their disputes. Talibans do not extend the same courtesy to adultery cases.
There emerges from these remarks a fundamental difference between medieval France and modern-day Afghanistan. There seems to be a respect of the royal office that is absent in Afghanistan. In both major dynastic shifts (from Merovingian to Carolingian, and then from Carolingian to Capetian), the new rulers required the help of the Pope in the first one, and the bishop of Reims, that is, the one who crowns the kings of France, in the second. By bringing in the clergy, Pepin the Short and Hugh Capet were able to secure divine support. Similarly, the feudal oath, albeit not as binding as legal constitutions or armed forces, also presupposes the recognition of a single authority as higher than another, with the top being the king or the emperor. When Rene I, duke of Lorraine, gave homage to the king of France, he effectively switched his allegiance away from the Holy Roman Empire and recognized Charles VII as his suzerain (see Feudalism chart).
Royal authority was strengthened tremendously in subsequent centuries, especially under Francis I and his impressive building program, as well as his building a professional army, independent of the levies provided by his vassals (nobles). Though there were rebellions against the royal order throughout the Middle-Ages and into the Renaissance (Cathar crusade, the Fronde), royalty was always on a different plane. Coronation rites suggested divine mandates, and the canonization of Louis IX in 1297 made the Capetians a holy family. Louis XIV capitalized on that. It was not enough to be considered holy, he would show it. Versailles, what Professor Sherman considers the symbol of centralization, was in fact its end, a visual marker to symbolize the magnificence of the king.
Central to state building is the idea of authority. To be viable, centralized authority must have the recognition of its constituencies (on that topic, see Constantine and the Bishops by H.A. Drake). In other words, the Versailles palace was symbolic of Louis XIV's authority, it did not create it, his authority had already been recognized by his constituency. Karzai can build whatever palace he wants, his constituencies will not recognize him in the same way that Louis XIV's noble did. Lastly, and perhaps most important, Sherman does not recognize that Louis XIV and the French kings were building an absolutist state, Karzai and Obama are trying to build a democracy. State building in early-modern France occurred in a different setting, with different variables, to achieve different results. So the question remains: what can we do to create a stable democracy in Afghanistan?
Professor Drake opened the first lecture of his Roman undergraduate research seminar by telling us: 'We always learn the wrong lessons from history.' In an article published in the recent Foreign Affairs, Professor Sherman argues that the processes of centralization in early-modern France can be used as models for state-building in modern-day Afghanistan. While the analogy works at a superficial level, a close look at the details shows that these processes cannot be of immediate usefulness for the Obama administration.
Professor Sherman presents an interesting analogy between 21st century Afghanistan, and pre-modern France. She identifies (correctly I think) that one key problem of the situation in Afghanistan is the lack of authority that the central government has at the local level. Warlords, drug-dealers or Talibans rule the areas not immediately adjacent to Kabul. Similarly, Hugh Capet, the first king of the Capetian dynasty, ruled little else but Ile-de-France at the time of his election as Rex Francorum (king of the Franks) in 987. The local leadership was in the hands of the local nobles (and that had been the case since Charles the Bald a century earlier). Perhaps the analogy should stop here, but she states that Louis XIII, and Louis XIV's policies of rendering the nobles dependent on royal authority can also be applied to Afghanistan.
What I feel Professor Sherman misses in her analogy is time. The processes of centralization in early-modern France are not limited to Louis XIV, or his predecessor. Rather, I would argue, they are the heirs of five-hundred years of policies on the part of the kings of France. Centralization of moneys, and especially single-currency date back to the time of Philippe the Fair. Key disputes were still resolved by the king. For instance, in the claim of inheritance of Artois, Mahaut and her nephew Robert appealed to Philippe the Fair and his sons to resolve their disputes. Talibans do not extend the same courtesy to adultery cases.
There emerges from these remarks a fundamental difference between medieval France and modern-day Afghanistan. There seems to be a respect of the royal office that is absent in Afghanistan. In both major dynastic shifts (from Merovingian to Carolingian, and then from Carolingian to Capetian), the new rulers required the help of the Pope in the first one, and the bishop of Reims, that is, the one who crowns the kings of France, in the second. By bringing in the clergy, Pepin the Short and Hugh Capet were able to secure divine support. Similarly, the feudal oath, albeit not as binding as legal constitutions or armed forces, also presupposes the recognition of a single authority as higher than another, with the top being the king or the emperor. When Rene I, duke of Lorraine, gave homage to the king of France, he effectively switched his allegiance away from the Holy Roman Empire and recognized Charles VII as his suzerain (see Feudalism chart).
Royal authority was strengthened tremendously in subsequent centuries, especially under Francis I and his impressive building program, as well as his building a professional army, independent of the levies provided by his vassals (nobles). Though there were rebellions against the royal order throughout the Middle-Ages and into the Renaissance (Cathar crusade, the Fronde), royalty was always on a different plane. Coronation rites suggested divine mandates, and the canonization of Louis IX in 1297 made the Capetians a holy family. Louis XIV capitalized on that. It was not enough to be considered holy, he would show it. Versailles, what Professor Sherman considers the symbol of centralization, was in fact its end, a visual marker to symbolize the magnificence of the king.
Central to state building is the idea of authority. To be viable, centralized authority must have the recognition of its constituencies (on that topic, see Constantine and the Bishops by H.A. Drake). In other words, the Versailles palace was symbolic of Louis XIV's authority, it did not create it, his authority had already been recognized by his constituency. Karzai can build whatever palace he wants, his constituencies will not recognize him in the same way that Louis XIV's noble did. Lastly, and perhaps most important, Sherman does not recognize that Louis XIV and the French kings were building an absolutist state, Karzai and Obama are trying to build a democracy. State building in early-modern France occurred in a different setting, with different variables, to achieve different results. So the question remains: what can we do to create a stable democracy in Afghanistan?
The image is from
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/legacy/highschool/socstud/global2_review/feudal_chart.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/legacy/highschool/socstud/global2_review/the_middle_ages.htm&usg=__d66b9DtwbSZc_gtY5cEgXmc0xyw=&h=399&w=671&sz=19&hl=en&start=2&sig2=R65UVA3RihkopxcM1hhBjA&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=HGqZ2OhVuR_V-M:&tbnh=82&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfeudalism%2Bchart%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=H-iXS_9op860A-iluMIB
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
A Peaceful Transition: a Few Remarks
This blog post is a bit different from the others as it concerns the preliminary knowledge requisite to the understanding Walter Goffart's argument of peaceful transition. I have had many conversations, with many different people on the nature of the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, and most (both lay and professional historians) speak of transition rather than sudden change. This blog post is solely for lay historians who wish to understand the reasons behind the argument of peaceful transition.
The notion that the historical period is an artificial construction is philosophical in nature (see Breisach). For me, the historical period is fairly real on two levels: 1) when I apply to graduate school, I have to choose a field of inquiry, defined by a historical period; and 2) a historical period is defined as a general set of ideas that apply to a certain time period. For example, the Renaissance is clearly an age where Humanist ideals of grammar and rhetoric take precedence over theology, law and medicine, all prized disciplines in the Middle Ages. That this happens in different areas at different times is not necessarily relevant. At some point in time, a historian can say: 'we have left the Middle-Ages.' With this in mind, I will retrace some ideas pertaining to the blurring of historical periods: the peaceful transition between the classical and the medieval periods.
Walter Goffart's main argument in Barbarians and Romans deals with the allocation of land for the Goths, the Burgundians and the Lombards from a legal perspective. That is, why in 410, we have a western Europe governed by the Romans, when in 418, we see a Visigothic enclave, in 443, a Burgundian enclave, and in 500, no more Romans in Western Europe. In roughly 90 years, the territories of the western empire disappear. Why?, and perhaps most importantly how?
First, Goffart, as opposed to Ward-Perkins (see previous post), states that this process was peaceful and smooth (it is actually the first sentence of the book). Ward-Perkins' remark that the Vandals raped nuns is not necessarily the best one to use. Goffart himself states that the Vandals expropriated sometimes violently the Romans. Again, the argument here would be that processes of change occur differently, in different areas, at different times.
Goffart is right to question the idea of violent transition. First of all, almost of the initial barbarians (Franks, Goths, Alamanni, Burgundians, the Huns being the sole exception-- and even then...) had been in contact with the Empire for extended periods of time. The Franks were probably a conglomerate of peoples already mentioned by the first century author Tacitus in Germania. The Goths are known as Goths in the literary sources by the mid-third century (ostensibly later than the Franks), but Wolfram states that the Goths' arrival in the Roman orbit might have occurred as early as 238, and the Cernjachov culture (possibly Gothic culture according to Peter Heather) as early as the second century. Thus, those barbarians, that supposedly caused the Roman Empire to collapse had been in contact with Rome for a few hundred years. In other words, if one is to say that the barbarians caused the fall of Rome, the history of decline must start as early as the first century (which few will actually do).
Furthermore, barbarians, via the military had clearly infiltrated the Roman civil life. Silvanus, a Frank, was a Roman general, and a brief usurper in 355. More successful were the barbarians Stilicho (regent in 400-408), Ricimer (de facto ruler 456-472), and Odoacer (general and king of Italy after he deposed the Emperor Romulus Augustulus, whose own father Orestes was at least partially non-Roman). The army provided the barbarians with a way in, an apparatus to use to gain access to Roman civil power (for more on this, see the first chapter of Before France and Germany by Patrick Geary).
To conclude: the barbarians we are dealing with are NOT foreign invaders. They were settled peoples, whose life, as Goffart states, resembled the life of the Gallic (and thus 'Roman') peasants. Thus, back to our original question: how did these barbarians acquire land?
Next post will deal with Goffart's argument on the matter.
The notion that the historical period is an artificial construction is philosophical in nature (see Breisach). For me, the historical period is fairly real on two levels: 1) when I apply to graduate school, I have to choose a field of inquiry, defined by a historical period; and 2) a historical period is defined as a general set of ideas that apply to a certain time period. For example, the Renaissance is clearly an age where Humanist ideals of grammar and rhetoric take precedence over theology, law and medicine, all prized disciplines in the Middle Ages. That this happens in different areas at different times is not necessarily relevant. At some point in time, a historian can say: 'we have left the Middle-Ages.' With this in mind, I will retrace some ideas pertaining to the blurring of historical periods: the peaceful transition between the classical and the medieval periods.
Walter Goffart's main argument in Barbarians and Romans deals with the allocation of land for the Goths, the Burgundians and the Lombards from a legal perspective. That is, why in 410, we have a western Europe governed by the Romans, when in 418, we see a Visigothic enclave, in 443, a Burgundian enclave, and in 500, no more Romans in Western Europe. In roughly 90 years, the territories of the western empire disappear. Why?, and perhaps most importantly how?
First, Goffart, as opposed to Ward-Perkins (see previous post), states that this process was peaceful and smooth (it is actually the first sentence of the book). Ward-Perkins' remark that the Vandals raped nuns is not necessarily the best one to use. Goffart himself states that the Vandals expropriated sometimes violently the Romans. Again, the argument here would be that processes of change occur differently, in different areas, at different times.
Goffart is right to question the idea of violent transition. First of all, almost of the initial barbarians (Franks, Goths, Alamanni, Burgundians, the Huns being the sole exception-- and even then...) had been in contact with the Empire for extended periods of time. The Franks were probably a conglomerate of peoples already mentioned by the first century author Tacitus in Germania. The Goths are known as Goths in the literary sources by the mid-third century (ostensibly later than the Franks), but Wolfram states that the Goths' arrival in the Roman orbit might have occurred as early as 238, and the Cernjachov culture (possibly Gothic culture according to Peter Heather) as early as the second century. Thus, those barbarians, that supposedly caused the Roman Empire to collapse had been in contact with Rome for a few hundred years. In other words, if one is to say that the barbarians caused the fall of Rome, the history of decline must start as early as the first century (which few will actually do).
Furthermore, barbarians, via the military had clearly infiltrated the Roman civil life. Silvanus, a Frank, was a Roman general, and a brief usurper in 355. More successful were the barbarians Stilicho (regent in 400-408), Ricimer (de facto ruler 456-472), and Odoacer (general and king of Italy after he deposed the Emperor Romulus Augustulus, whose own father Orestes was at least partially non-Roman). The army provided the barbarians with a way in, an apparatus to use to gain access to Roman civil power (for more on this, see the first chapter of Before France and Germany by Patrick Geary).
To conclude: the barbarians we are dealing with are NOT foreign invaders. They were settled peoples, whose life, as Goffart states, resembled the life of the Gallic (and thus 'Roman') peasants. Thus, back to our original question: how did these barbarians acquire land?
Next post will deal with Goffart's argument on the matter.
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