#great peasants revolt

[racefortheironthrone]

About anti-monarchical rebellions: Doesn't Wat Tyler &co count? "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the Gentleman?" sounds more anti-hierarchical than "nobles should be nicer"?

So I talked about this in the links in my original post. (This is why I put them in, because I tend to develop these ideas in many places over time, so you have to step back a bit to see the whole tapestry.)

The Great Peasants' Revolt of 1381 would certainly count as anti-noble and anti-clerical, but that's not the same thing as anti-monarchical.

To quote myself:

For example, we can see the third face of power in the fact that, even though Wat Tyler had seized London, he still felt that he needed King Richard to give the commons a charter of liberty and trusted that the King would keep his word that he would issue one and his word that Wat Tyler would not be harmed during a parlay.

Wat Tyler, John Ball, Jack Straw and the rest of the Great Society were remarkably anti-hierarchical - they drew on Biblical authority to deny the existence of nobility as a concept and to challenge the right of clergy to hold secular property.

However, their radicalism stopped at the foot of the throne. Whether it was because Richard II was a boy-king or because of some lingering nostalgia over the memory of his father the Black Prince or the propaganda that had been drummed into them at birth that this was a god-anointed sovereign, they could not believe that the king was personally complicit in the oppression of the commons. It's all the fault of evil councilors around him like that bastard John of Gaunt.

Unfortunately, much like the poor deluded followers of Father Gapon, they were very wrong about their monarch. Richard II was very much ideologically aligned with his uncle of Gaunt, had no problems breaking his oath to Wat Tyler and his men, and as far as I'm concerned was a tyrant who was ultimately overthrown because he had lost the mandate of heaven.

But you don't see John Ball calling Richard II a "new Reheboam" in the same way that the religious radicals of the English Civil War called Charles I the "man of blood."

[hussyknee]

17/12/23 this masterlist has been completely revamped with free access to all material. It will be updated and edited periodically so please click on my username and reblog the current version directly from me if you're able.

14/8/24 reboosting this post with How to Help Palestine updated. Please scroll to the bottom to donate or boost the links.

The Big Damn List Of Stuff They Said You Didn't Know

(Yes, it's a lot. Just choose your preferred medium and then pick one.)

Podcasts

Backgrounders and Quick Facts

Interactive Maps

Teach-Out Resources

Reading Material (free)

Films and Documentaries (free)

Non-Governmental Organizations

Social Media

How You Can Help <- URGENT!!!

Podcasts

Cocktails & Capitalism: The Story of Palestine Part 1, Part 3

It Could Happen Here: The Cheapest Land is Bought with Blood, Part 2, The Balfour Declaration

Citations Needed: Media narratives and consent manufacturing around Israel-Palestine and the Gaza Siege

The Deprogram: Free Palestine, ft. decolonizatepalestine.com.

Backgrounders and Quick Facts

The Palestine Academy: Palestine 101

Institute for Middle East Understanding: Explainers and Quick Facts

Interactive Maps

Visualizing Palestine

Teach-Out Resources

1) Cambridge UCU and Pal Society

Palestine 101

Intro to Palestine Film + Art + Literature

Resources for Organising and Facilitating)

2) The Jadaliya YouTube Channel of the Arab Studies Institute

Gaza in Context Teach-in series

War on Palestine podcast

Updates and Discussions of news with co-editors Noura Erakat and Mouin Rabbani.

3) The Palestine Directory

History (virtual tours, digital archives, The Palestine Oral History Project, Documenting Palestine, Queering Palestine)

Cultural History (Palestine Open Maps, Overdue Books Zine, Palestine Poster Project)

Contemporary Voices in the Arts

Get Involved: NGOs and campaigns to help and support.

3) PalQuest Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question.

4) The Palestine Remix by Al Jazeera

Books and Articles

Free reading material

My Gdrive of Palestine/Decolonization Literature (nearly all the books recommended below + books from other recommended lists)

Five free eBooks by Verso

Three Free eBooks on Palestine by Haymarket

LGBT Activist Scott Long's Google Drive of Palestine Freedom Struggle Resources

Recommended Reading List

Academic Books

Edward Said (1979) The Question of Palestine, Random House

Ilan Pappé (2002)(ed) The Israel/Palestine Question, Routledge

Ilan Pappé (2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, OneWorld Publications

Ilan Pappé (2011) The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel, Yale University Press

Ilan Pappé (2015) The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge, Verso Books

Ilan Pappé (2017) The Biggest Prison On Earth: A History Of The Occupied Territories, OneWorld Publications

Ilan Pappé (2022) A History of Modern Palestine, Cambridge University Press

Rosemary Sayigh (2007) The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Bloomsbury

Andrew Ross (2019) Stone Men: the Palestinians who Built Israel, Verso Books

Rashid Khalidi (2020) The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917–2017

Ariella Azoulay (2011) From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950, Pluto Press

Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir (2012) The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine, Stanford University Press.

Jeff Halper (2010) An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Pluto Press

Jeff Halper (2015) War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification

Jeff Halper (2021) Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State, Pluto Press

Anthony Loewenstein (2023) The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the Technology of Occupation around the World

Noura Erakat (2019) Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press

Neve Gordon (2008) Israel’s Occupation, University of California Press

Joseph Massad (2006) The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, Routledge

Memoirs

Edward Said (1986) After the Last Sky: Palestine Lives, Columbia University PEdward Saidress

Edward Said (2000) Out of Place; A Memoir, First Vintage Books

Mourid Barghouti (2005) I saw Ramallah, Bloomsbury

Hatim Kanaaneh (2008) A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel, Pluto Press

Raja Shehadeh (2008) Palestinian Walks: Into a Vanishing Landscape, Profile Books

Ghada Karmi (2009) In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, Verso Books

Vittorio Arrigoni (2010) Gaza Stay Human, Kube Publishing

Ramzy Baroud (2010) My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story, Pluto Press

Izzeldin Abuelaish (2011) I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, Bloomsbury

Atef Abu Saif (2015) The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary, Beacon Press

Anthologies

Voices from Gaza - Insaniyyat (The Society of Palestinian Anthropologists)

Letters From Gaza • Protean Magazine

Salma Khadra Jayyusi (1992) Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, Columbia University Press

ASHTAR Theatre (2010) The Gaza Monologues

Refaat Alreer (ed) (2014) Gaza Writes Back, Just World Books

Refaat Alreer, Laila El-Haddad (eds) (2015) Gaza Unsilenced, Just World Books

Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke (eds)(2015) Palestine Speaks: Narrative of Life under Occupation, Verso Books

Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing (eds) (2022) Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, Haymarket Books

Short Story Collections

Ghassan Kanafani, Hilary Kilpatrick (trans) (1968) Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories, Lynne Rienner Publishers

Ghassan Kanafani, Barbara Harlow, Karen E. Riley (trans) (2000) Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories, Lynne Rienner Publishers

Atef Abu Saif (2014) The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction, Comma Press

Samira Azzam, Ranya Abdelrahman (trans) (2022) Out Of Time: The Collected Short Stories of Samira Azzam

Sonia Sulaiman (2023) Muneera and the Moon; Stories Inspired by Palestinian Folklore

Essay Collections

Edward W. Said (2000) Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, Harvard University Press

Salim Tamari (2008) Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture, University of California Press

Fatma Kassem (2011) Palestinian Women: Narratives, histories and gendered memory, Bloombsbury

Ramzy Baroud (2019) These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons, Clarity Press

Novels

Sahar Khalifeh (1976) Wild Thorns, Saqi Books

Liyana Badr (1993) A Balcony over the Fakihani, Interlink Books

Hala Alyan (2017) Salt Houses, Harper Books

Susan Abulhawa (2011) Mornings in Jenin, Bloomsbury

Susan Abulhawa (2020) Against the Loveless World, Bloomsbury

Graphic novels

Joe Sacco (2001) Palestine

Joe Sacco (2010) Footnotes in Gaza

Naji al-Ali (2009) A Child in Palestine, Verso Books

Mohammad Sabaaneh (2021) Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine, Street Noise Book*

Poetry

Fady Joudah (2008) The Earth in the Attic, Sheridan Books,

Ghassan Zaqtan, Fady Joudah (trans) (2012) Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me and Other Poems, Yale University Press

Hala Alyan (2013) Atrium: Poems, Three Rooms Press*

Mohammed El-Kurd (2021) Rifqa, Haymarket Books

Mosab Abu Toha (2022) Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, City Lights Publishers

Tawfiq Zayyad (2023) We Are Here to Stay, Smokestack Books*

The Works of Mahmoud Darwish

Poems

Rafeef Ziadah (2011) We Teach Life, Sir

Nasser Rabah (2022) In the Endless War

Refaat Alareer (2011) If I Must Die

Hiba Abu Nada (2023) I Grant You Refuge/ Not Just Passing

[All books except the ones starred are available in my gdrive. I'm adding more each day. But please try and buy whatever you're able or borrow from the library. Most should be available in the discounted Free Palestine Reading List by Pluto Press, Verso and Haymarket Books.]

Human Rights Reports & Documents

Information on current International Court of Justice case on ‘Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’

UN Commission of Inquiry Report 2022

UN Special Rapporteur Report on Apartheid 2022

Amnesty International Report on Apartheid 2022

Human Rights Watch Report on Apartheid 2021

Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ 2009 (‘The Goldstone Report’)

Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, International Court of Justice, 9 July 2004

Films

Documentaries

Jenin, Jenin (2003) dir. Mohammed Bakri

Massacre (2005) dir. Monica Borgmann, Lokman Slim, Hermann Theissen

Slingshot HipHop (2008) dir. Jackie Reem Salloum

Waltz with Bashir (2008) dir. Ari Folman † (also on Amazon Prime)

Tears of Gaza (2010) dir. Vibeke Løkkeberg (also on Amazon Prime)

5 Broken Cameras (2011) dir. Emad Burnat (also on Amazon Prime)

The Gatekeepers (2012) dir. Dror Moreh (also on Amazon Prime)

The Great Book Robbery (2012) | Al Jazeera English

Al Nakba (2013) | Al Jazeera (5-episode docu-series)

The Village Under the Forest (2013) dir. Mark J. Kaplan

Where Should The Birds Fly (2013) dir. Fida Qishta

Naila and the Uprising (2017) (also on Amazon Prime)

GAZA (2019) dir. Andrew McConnell and Garry Keane

Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019) dir. Abby Martin

Little Palestine: Diary Of A Siege (2021) dir. Abdallah Al Khatib 

Palestine 1920: The Other Side of the Palestinian Story (2021) | Al Jazeera World Documentary

Gaza Fights Back (2021) | MintPress News Original Documentary | dir. Dan Cohen

Innocence (2022) dir. Guy Davidi

Short Films

Fatenah (2009) dir. Ahmad Habash

Gaza-London (2009) dir. Dina Hamdan

Condom Lead (2013) dir. Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser

OBAIDA (2019) | Defence for Children Palestine

Theatrical Films

Divine Intervention (2002) | dir. Elia Suleiman (also on Netflix)

Paradise Now (2005) dir Hany Abu-Assad (also on Amazon Prime)

Lemon Tree (2008) (choose auto translate for English subs) (also on Amazon Prime)

It Must Be Heaven (2009) | dir. Elia Suleiman †

The Promise (2010) mini-series dir. Peter Kosminsky (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Habibi (2011)* dir. Susan Youssef

Omar (2013)* dir. Hany Abu-Assad †

3000 Nights (2015)* dir. Mai Masri

Foxtrot (2017) dir. Samuel Maoz (also on Amazon Prime)

The Time that Remains (2019) dir. Elia Suleiman †

Gaza Mon Amour (2020) dir. Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser †

The Viewing Booth (2020) dir. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz (on Amazon Prime and Apple TV)

Farha (2021)* | dir. Darin J. Sallam

Palestine Film Institute Archive

All links are for free viewing. The ones marked with a star (*) can be found on Netflix, while the ones marked † can be downloaded for free from my Mega account.

If you find Guy Davidi's Innocence anywhere please let me know, I can't find it for streaming or download even to rent or buy.

In 2018, BDS urged Netflix to dump Fauda, a series created by former members of IOF death squads that legitimizes and promotes racist violence and war crimes, to no avail. Please warn others to not give this series any views. BDS has not called for a boycott of Netflix. ]

NGOs

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor

UNRWA

Palestine Defence for Children International

Palestinian Feminist Collective

Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

Institute for Palestine Studies

Al Haq

Artists for Palestine

The Palestine Museum

Jewish Currents

B’Tselem

DAWN

Social Media

Palestnians on Tumblr

@el-shab-hussein

@killyfromblame

@apollos-olives

@fairuzfan

@palipunk

@sar-soor

@nabulsi

@wearenotjustnumbers2

@90-ghost

@tamarrud

@northgazaupdates

Allies and advocates (not Palestinian)

@bloglikeanegyptian beautiful posts that read like op-eds

@vyorei daily news roundups

@luthienne resistance through prose

@decolonize-the-left scoop on the US political plans and impacts

@feluka

@anneemay

(Please don't expect any of these blogs to be completely devoted to Palestine allyship; they do post regularly about it but they're still personal blogs and post whatever else they feel like. Do not harrass them.)

Gaza journalists

Motaz Azaiza IG: @motaz_azaiza | Twitter: @azaizamotaz9 | TikTok: _motaz.azaiza (left Gaza as of Jan 23)

Bisan Owda IG and TikTok: wizard_bisan1 | Twitter: @wizardbisan

Saleh Aljafarawi IG: @saleh_aljafarawi | Twitter: @S_Aljafarawi | TikTok: @saleh_aljafarawi97

Plestia Alaqad IG: @byplestia | TikTok: @plestiaaqad (left Gaza)

Wael Al-Dahdouh IG: @wael_eldahdouh | Twitter: @WaelDahdouh (left Gaza as of Jan 13)

Hind Khoudary IG: @hindkhoudary | Twitter: @Hind_Gaza

Ismail Jood IG and TikTok: @ismail.jood (announced end of coverage on Jan 25)

Yara Eid IG: @eid_yara | Twitter: @yaraeid_

Eye on Palestine IG: @eye.on.palestine | Twitter: @EyeonPalestine | TikTok: @eyes.on.palestine

Muhammad Shehada Twitter: @muhammadshehad2

(Edit: even though some journos have evacuated, the footage up to the end of their reporting is up on their social media, and they're also doing urgent fundraisers to get their families and friends to safety. Please donate or share their posts.)

News organisations

The Electronic Intifada Twitter: @intifada | IG: @electronicintifada

Quds News Network Twitter and Telegram: @QudsNen | IG: @qudsn (Arabic)

Times of Gaza IG: @timesofgaza | Twitter: @Timesofgaza | Telegram: @TIMESOFGAZA

The Palestine Chronicle Twitter: @PalestineChron | IG: @palestinechron | @palestinechronicle

Al-Jazeera Twitter: @AJEnglish | IG and TikTok: @aljazeeraenglish, @ajplus

Middle East Eye IG and TikTok: @middleeasteye | Twitter: @MiddleEastEye

Democracy Now Twitter and IG: @democracynow TikTok: @democracynow.org

Mondoweiss IG and TikTok: @mondoweiss | Twitter: @Mondoweiss

The Intercept Twitter and IG: @theintercept

MintPress Twitter: @MintPressNews | IG: mintpress

Novara Media Twitter and IG: @novaramedia

Truthout Twitter and IG: @truthout

Palestnians on Other Social Media

Mouin Rabbani: Middle East analyst specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian affairs. Twitter: @MouinRabbani

Noura Erakat: Legal scholar, human rights attorney, specialising in Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Twitter: @4noura | IG: @nouraerakat | (http://www.nouraerakat.com/)

Hebh Jamal: Journalist in Germany. IG and Twitter: @hebh_jamal

Ghada Sasa: PhD candidate in International Relations, green colonialism, and Islam in Canada. Twitter: @sasa_ghada | IG: @ghadasasa48

Taleed El Sabawi: Assistant professor of law and researcher in public health. Twitter: @el_sabawi | IG

Lexi Alexander: Filmmaker and activist. Twitter: @LexiAlex | IG: @lexialexander1

Mariam Barghouti: Writer, blogger, researcher, and journalist. Twitter: @MariamBarghouti | IG: @mariambarghouti

Rasha Abdulhadi: Queer poet, author and cultural organizer. Twitter: @rashaabdulhadi

Mohammed el-Kurd: Writer and activist from Jerusalem. IG: @mohammedelkurd | Twitter: @m7mdkurd

Ramy Abdu: Founder and Chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Twitter: @RamyAbdu

Subhi: Founder of The Palestine Academy website. IG: @sbeih.jpg |TikTok @iamsbeih | Twitter: @iamsbeih

Allies

Lowkey (Kareem Dennis): Rapper, activist, video and podcast host for MintPress. Twitter: @LowkeyOnline IG: @lowkeyonline

Francesca Albanese: UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories. Twitter: @FranceskAlbs

Sana Saeed: Journalist and media critic, host and senior producer at Al-Jazeera Plus. IG: @sanaface | Twitter: @SanaSaeed

Shailja Patel: Poet, playwright, activist, founding member of Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice. Twitter: @shailjapatel

Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores: Researcher in curriculum studies, decolonial theory, social movements. Twitter: @Jairo_I_Funez

Jack Dodson: Journalist and Filmmaker. Twitter: @JackDodson IG: @jdodson4

Imani Barbarin: Writer, public speaker, and disability rights activist. IG: @crutches_and_spice | Twitter: @Imani_Barbarin | TikTok: @crutches_and_spice

Jewish Allies

Katie Halper: US comedian, writer, filmmaker, podcaster, and political commentator. IG and Twitter: @kthalps

Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: Associate Professor of Physics and Core Faculty Member in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Twitter: @IBJIYONGI | (https://chanda.science/)

Amanda Gelender: Writer. Twitter: @agelender | (https://agelender.medium.com/)

Yoav Litvin: Jerusalem-born Writer and Photographer. IG and Twitter: @nookyelur | (yoavlitvin.com)

Alana Lentin: Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University. Twitter: @alanalentin

Gideon Levy: anti-Zionist Israeli journalist and activist. Twitter: @gideonlevy

‼️How You Can Help Palestine‼️

Click for Palestine (Please reblog!!)

Masterlist of donation links by @sulfurcosmos (Please reblog!!)

Water for Gaza: Donate directly to the Gaza Municipality

Operation Olive Branch Linktree for vetted fundraisers, donations and political action resources. TikTok and Instagram: @operationolivebranch | Twitter: @OPOliveBranch

Gazafunds (vetted and spotlighted GFMs)

The Butterfly Effect Project (spreadsheet of vetted GFMs)

Spreadsheet of Gaza fundraisers vetted by @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi

If any links are broken let me know. Or pull up the current post to check whether it's fixed.

Political action to pressure the Harris campaign to stop arming Israel (for US citizens): Uncommitted Movement (TikTok: @uncommittedmvmt) (Please reblog!!)

"Knowledge is Israel's worst enemy. Awareness is Israel's most hated and feared foe. That's why Israel bombs a university: it wants to kill openness and determination to refuse living under injustice and racism."

— Dr. Refaat Alareer, (martyred Dec 6, 2023)

From River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

-----

Edit 1: took the first video down because turns out the animator is a terf and it links to her blog. Really sorry for any distress.

Edit 2: All recommended readings + Haymarket recommendations + essential decolonization texts have been uploaded to my linked gdrive. I will adding more periodically. Please do buy or check them out from the library if possible, but this post was made for and by poor and gatekept Global South bitches like me.

Some have complained about the memes being disrespectful. You're actually legally obligated to make fun of Israeli propaganda and Zionists. I don't make the rules.

Edit 3: "The river to the sea" does not mean the expulsion of Jews from Palestine. Believing that is genocide apologia.

Edit 4: Gazans have specifically asked us to put every effort into pushing for a ceasefire instead of donations. "Raising humanitarian aid" is a grift Western governments are pushing right now to deflect from the fact that they're sending billions to Israel to keep carpet bombing Gazans. As long as the blockades are still in place there will never be enough aid for two million people. (UPDATE: PLEASE DONATE to the Gazan's GoFundMe fundraisers to help them buy food and get out of Rafah into Egypt. E-SIMs, food and medical supplies are also essential. Please donate to the orgs linked in the How You Can Help. Go on the strikes. DO NOT STOP PROTESTING.)

Edit 5: Google drive link for academic books folder has been fixed. Also have added a ton of resources to all the other folders so please check them out.

Edit 6: Added interactive maps, Jadaliya channel, and masterlists of donation links and protest support and of factsheets.

The twitter accounts I reposted as it was given to me and I just now realized it had too many Israeli voices and almost none of the Palestinians I'm following, so it's being edited. (Update: done!) also removed sources like Jewish Voices of Peace and Breaking the Silence that do good work but have come under fair criticism from Palestinians.

Edit 7: Complete reformatting

Edit 8: Complete revamping of the social media section. It now reflects my own following list.

Edit 9: removed some more problematic people from the allies list. Remember that the 2SS is a grift that's used to normalize violence and occupation, kids. Supporting the one-state solution is lowest possible bar for allyship. It's "Free Palestine" not "Free half of Palestine and hope Israel doesn't go right back to killing them".

Edit 10: added The Palestine Directory + Al Jazeera documentary + Addameer. This "100 links per post" thing sucks.

Edit 11: more documentaries and films

Edit 12: reformatted reading list

Edit 13: had to remove @palipunk's masterlist to add another podcast. It's their pinned post and has more resources Palestinian culture and crafts if you want to check it out

Edit 14 6th May '24: I've stopped updating this masterlist so some things, like journalists still left in Gaza and how to support the student protests are missing. I've had to take a step back and am no longer able to track these things down on my own, and I've hit the '100 links per post' limit, but if you can leave suggestions for updates along with links in either the replies or my asks I will try and add them.

Edit 15 10th August: added to Palestinian allies list and reworked the Help for Palestine section. There's been a racist harrassment campaign against the Palestinian Tumblrs that vetted the Gaza fundraisers based off one mistake made by a Gazan who doesn't understand English. If you're an ally, shut that shit down. Even if you donate to a scam GFM, you're only out some coffee money; if everyone stops donating to all the GFMs in fear of scams, those families die.

[psychotrenny]

I know that "revolutions always make things worse" people are so fucking stupid and annoying but can we please stop talking like serf revolts are what ended feudalism. Sure you can point to specific examples where rural violence was a contributing factor to the emergence and solidification of Capitalism in a region but like it was never the primary cause. Long story short in was the fucking Bourgeoisie who ended feudalism and in a lot of cases the peasantry primarily acted as a reactionary force to maintain feudalism due to a range of factors from religious sentiment to the preservation of the feudal privileges/concessions that Liberalism was to destroy. Successful progressive peasant movements are something you only really saw in the 20th century and even then these largely took place in the context of an alliance with the Proletariat and progressive Bourgeoisie against foreign Capitalist Imperialists and their Compradors who, while often ruling in a feudal manner, did so as subordinate agents for those Imperialist Capitalists.

Like we can just say that Communism is good actually. There's no need to talk about the end of Feudalism as though the Jacquerie personally tore down every castle in France and replaced them with polling booths. This isn't exactly esoteric stuff; it's in the fucking Communist Manifesto for god's sake. Like if you're going to align with Marxism it would be great if you read even a little bit of Marx

[mesetacadre]

What is the origin (and meaning) of the flag adopted by the Second Spanish Republic? The choice of colors seems rather unconventional to me...

The purple stripe was adopted officially by the second republic as a nod to Castille, a big region in the middle of Spain:

Hoy se pliega la bandera adoptada como nacional a mediados del siglo XIX. De ella se conservan los dos colores y se le añade un tercero, que la tradición admite por insignia de una región ilustre, nervio de la nacionalidad, con lo que el emblema de la República, así formado, resume más acertadamente la armonía de una gran España

Translation:

Today the flag adopted as the national one towards the mid 19th century is folded. From it, the two colors remain and a third one is added, which tradition takes as the insignia of an illustrious region, nerve of nationality, and therefore the Republic's emblem, thus formed, contains more accurately the harmony of a great Spain.

The purple as a symbol of Castille comes from a misunderstanding of what the 1520 revolt of Comuneros used as a symbol. The color of Castille has always been described as crimson, which is sometimes confused to have a more purplish hue. While it has been shown the Comuneros used a red cross as opposition to the imperial white cross, popular wisdom was that they used purple, and it gradually became an actual color used by Castillian regionalists.

Note on the Comuneros, Castillian regionalism, and some trivia about the Republic's coat of arms under the cut:

The revolt of 1520 happened in the context of emperor Carlos 1st (5th of the HRE) barely speaking the language, favoring politically and financially the Flemish court with the wealth extracted from the Americas, and also funding very expensive wars that didn't even have anything to do with the Crown of Spain. He was also a corrupt monarch who raised taxes. Both the nobility, which wanted more participation in governing, and the merchant/middle strata (including an embryonic bourgeoisie!), which were being overburdened with taxes, revolted against the king. The focus of the revolt and where they had more strength was in Castille, and one of the forms of territorial organization of the Crown of Castille was the Communities, which is where the name comes from. The people who participated in the revolt as well as the modern political movements that claim to descend from them (more on that later) are known as Comuneros, which I'd translate as Communards.

I won't go into very much detail, and this is still a debated topic. The character of the revolt had many axes, one of which was the more popular elements (peasants, bourgeoisie, artesans, merchants, etc), to the point that it is considered by some to be some of the first if not the first attempt at a bourgeois revolution in Modern Spain, another was the more opportunistic axis (fiscal reform, the nobility, etc.). What matters is that a very strong narrative has grown around the 1520 revolt, beginning in the Golden Era of the 17th century and its literature, that of a popular revolt and of a relatively old and legitimizing ancestor for the popular movements in Castille.

This is the Comunero flag nowadays, notice the purple field as a reclamation of this color as a Castillian symbol. What's of more interest to me is the following flag:

This flag and the movement it represents, Izquierda Castellana (Castillian Left) emerged after the end of the dictatorship, not as a separatist kind of regionalism, but as one that appreciates the history and culture of Castille. The red star is a very overt influence from communists and socialists, which are, as far as I'm aware, quite present in Izquierda Castellana.

So purple in Spanish politics has been, ever since the ~16th/17th century, associated with the popular movements and tendencies of Spain, particularly those in the peninsula's center. It became even more cemented in this role after the Second Republic adopted it, sort of hitchhiking the much bigger Republican tendencies.

The Second Republic's coat of arms subtitutes the monarchich crown for a castle in the shape of a crown, both as another nod to Castillianism and to symbolize the replacement of the monarchy for the people themselves

In the short life of the Republic, its symbols found their way into a lot of places or replacing old symbols, and almost all of them were destroyed during the dictatorship. The most prominent exception is the facade of Madrid's main train station, Atocha (originally named Estación del Mediodía (midday station)):

Notice it perched on the clock? I don't know if it went unnoticed, or if they did not care enough (unlinkely). It is possible it went unnoticed because I can't find information on it. Other examples of this castle-mural crown remaining in Madrid are:

This lightpole right in front of the Royal Palace

And this massive coat of arms on the facade of the Bank of Spain

[whencyclopedia]

Peasants' Revolt

The Peasants' Revolt, also known as the Great Revolt, was a largely unsuccessful popular uprising in England in June 1381. The rebellion's leaders included Wat Tyler and they wanted massive social changes which included a removal of the poll tax, an end to the cap on labour wages, redistribution of the Church's wealth and the total abolition of serfdom.

Continue reading...

[iwtvfanevents]

Rewind the Tape —Episode 1

Art of the episode

During our rewatch, we took note of the art shown and mentioned in the pilot, and we wanted to share. Did we miss any? Do you have any thoughts about how these references could be interpreted? How do you think Armand and Louis go about picking the art for their penthouse in Dubai?

The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Peter Bruegel the Elder, 1562

This painting is featured in the Interview with the Vampire book, and it was important enough to be included in the draft pilot script!

Bruegel the Elder was among the most significant Dutch and Flemish Renaissance artists. He was a painter and print-maker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes.

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

Francis Bacon, 1944

Bacon was an Irish figurative painter, known for his raw, unsettling imagery and a number of triptychs and diptychs among his work. At a time when being gay was a criminal offense, Bacon was open about his sexuality, and was cast out by his family at 16 for this reason. He destroyed many of his early works, but about 590 still survive. The Tate, where these paintings are displayed, says this about the work: "Francis Bacon titled this work after the figures often featured in Christian paintings witnessing the death of Jesus. But he said the creatures represented the avenging Furies from Greek mythology. The Furies punish those who go against the natural order. In Aeschylus’s tragedy The Eumenides, for example, they pursue a man who has murdered his mother. Bacon first exhibited this painting in April 1945, towards the end of the Second World War. For some, it reflects the horror of the war and the Holocaust in a world lacking guiding principles."

On the Hunt or Captain Percy Williams On A Favorite Irish Hunter and Calling the Hounds Out of Cover

Samuel Sidney, 1881 [Identified by @vfevermillion.] and Heywood Hardy, 1906 [Identified by @destinationdartboard.]

Sidney was an English writer, and his prints usually accompanied his publications about hunting, agriculture, and about settling Australia during the colonial period. Hardy, also British, was a painter, in particular an animal painter. There's also a taxidermy deer, ram, and piebald deer on the wall.

Iolanta

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, 1892

The opera Louis and Lestat go to was composed by Tchaikovsky, another gay artist. The play tells a story "in which love prevails, light shines for all, lies are no longer necessary and no one must fear punishment," as put by Susanne Stähr for the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Strawberries and Cream

Raphaelle Peale, 1816 [Identified by @diasdelfuego.]

Peale is considered to have been the first professional American painter of still-life.

Outfits inspired by J.C. Leyendecker

Leyendecker was one of the most prominent and commercially successful freelance artists in the U.S. He studied in France, and was a pioneer of the Art Deco illustration. Leyendecker's model, Charles Beach, was also his lover of five decades. You can read costume designer Carol Cutshall's thoughts on these outfits on her Instagram.

The Artist's Sister, Melanie

Egon Schiele, 1908 [Identified by @dwreader.]

Schiele was an Austrian expressionist painter and protege of Gustav Klimt. Many of his portraits (self portraits and of others) were described as grotesque and disturbing.

A Stag at Sharkey's

George Wesley Bellows, 1909 [Identified by @vfevermillion.]

Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City.

Mildred-O Hat

Robert Henri, undated (likely 1890s) [Identified by @nicodelenfent, here.]

Henri was an American painter who studied in Paris, where he learned from the Impressionists and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against American academic art.

Starry night

Edvard Munch, 1893 [Identified by @vfevermillion.]

Munch was a Norwegian painter, one of the best known figures of late 19th-century Symbolism and a great influence in German Expressionism in the early 20th century. His work dealt with psychological themes, and he personally struggled with mental illness.

If you spot or put a name to any other references, let us know if you'd like us to add them with credit to the post!

Starting tonight, we will be rewatching and discussing Episode 2, ...After the Phantoms of Your Former Self. We hope to see you there!

And, if you're just getting caught up, learn all about our group rewatch here ►

[ancientcharm]

Titus Flavius and his indelible traces.

Titus Flavius was born in Rome on December 30 of the year 39. He was a direct descendant of a loyal soldier of Pompey the Great during the Civil War against Julius Caesar. After Pompey's defeat at the Battle of Pharsalia, his life was spared by Julius Caesar, returned to home and became a Publicanus (tax collector). In an incredible twist of fate, the Flavians, a family of peasants, who came from the defeat of the past, ended up occupying the throne founded by Caesar's heir, and replacing the aristocratic Julio-Claudian dynasty with the Flavian dynasty.

During reing of Caligula (37-41) Vespasian,father of Titus, was Aedile of Rome. According Suetonius, Emperor Caligula passed by a street that was very dirty, ordered Vespasian to be brought and the garbage thrown on him, and then told him "Do your job well, keep the city clean."

During the reign of Claudius (41-54) Vespasian obtained the position of praetor and the command of one of the legions that went to the conquest of Britannia.

After revolt in Judea in the year 66, emperor Nero chose the experienced and brilliant general Vespasian to put an end to the rebellion. Vespasian went with his son, Titus, who was then 26 years old, and was an excellent army's officer.

In June 68, after of the death of Nero, the first civil war of the imperial era broke out, which would last until December of the following year. On December of the chaotic year 69, known as the year of the 4 emperors, in which three aristocrats came to the throne and were murdered, Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by the army. Titus was left in command against the rebellion in Judea.

A historical event of mystical relevance.

After months of bloody fighting, on August of the year 70, the Temple of Jerusalem was looted, burned and demolished by Titus's troops.

Titus made his triumphal parade in the year 71 in Rome. Years later, in the place where Titus passed, his younger brother, the Emperor Domitian, ordered the construction of the Arch of Titus; One of its extraordinary relief depicts the triumphal parade with the treasures of the Temple.

Emperor Vespasian decided to tear down the Domus Aurea, the palace that Nero had ordered to be built for his own enjoyment, and build "a palace for the enjoyment of the people". He saw his work almost completed but died of illness on June 23, 79, at his estate. The next day Titus ascends the throne.

A mess with the gods.

Exactly 4 months after his accession to the throne and while his younger brother was celebrating his birthday, a tragic event occurred. An inexplicable and terrifying news reached Rome: the peaceful mount Vesuvius roared, exploded and became something unknown, and several Roman cities with their inhabitants disappeared under "a sea of fire." Among the victims was the prestigious politician, soldier and writer Pliny the Elder, a close friend of the imperial family, who had dedicated the book 'Naturalis historia' to Titus.

Emperor immediately went to the scene of the disaster. He made immense works and donations to help those affected in the area. Early year 80 he went there for the second time and at that time a fire broke out in Rome for three days. Rumors began to circulate that the emperor had a "problem with the gods", and it was due to his forbidden relationship with princess Berenice, great-great-granddaughter of Herod the Great.

Although he was a very popular emperor, he did not want to risk those tragedies affecting his image and the people becoming angry, so he decided in 80 to accelerate his father's work, which still had to wait to be completed. And so began the inauguration of the most famous "stadium" in history : The Flavian amphitheater, better known as Colosseum.

There were 100 days of games. Those shows were free for the people. They had never seen an amphitheater of such grandeur. Very soon the people of Rome forgot about Vesuvius and Berenice.

Coins were minted showing the work started by his father but completed and inaugurated by him. In the image: a sesterce from the time of Emperor Titus.

The pseudo-Nero

After Nero's death, rumors began to circulate that his suicide was not real. Years later, this rumor had spread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. Suetonius wrote about an event that he experienced during the reign of Domitian: "Twenty years after his death, when I was young, a man of obscure origin appeared, who claimed he was Nero; And the name Nero was still in such favour with the Parthians that they supported him vigorously and surrendered him with great reluctance."

The Parthians were happy believing that Nero was alive because he had been the only Roman emperor they liked, as during his reign he signed the peace treaty and had a cordial attitude towards Parthia.

Titus had to face the rebellion of a guy called Terentius, another Pseudo-Nero that according to ancient historical sources "he sang with a voice equal to that of Nero, played the lyre and looked like him." The impostor had a lot of followers in the eastern Roman provinces. The Parthian king, Titus's enemy, received this man and made preparations for him to return to Rome as emperor but he was executed when his true identity was revealed.

On September 13, 81, Titus died at the age of 41 on his father's farm, due to fever. His brief reign was very prosperous and popular. Having only a daughter (Julia Flavia), his successor was his brother Domitian who would rule for 15 years.

According to Roman writers, his last words were: "I regret nothing except one thing"; And some believe that he regretted having said "no" to Berenice when she proposed marriage after the death of emperor Vespasian, the major opponent of the relationship between them.

The Colosseum and the Wailing Wall are undoubtedly the two indelible traces of Titus Flavius.

[curioushabitforarivergod]

I LOVE the historical context you add to tom riddle meta. im curious. at that time how important and wealthy would tom riddle sr likely have been? i.e. how nice was the life that Tom missed out on by growing up in the orphanage instead of with his dad?

Omg thanks so much!

We don't actually know much about the Riddles. They likely lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire, or the very west of Cornwall (200 miles from Surrey as per Goblet of Fire), but I think it's more likely they lived in the North, specifically in Yorkshire. The Riddle's name is probably locational rather than profession based, and from a village called Ryedale in the North Riding of Yorkshire. It was probably mutated over time because spelling wasn't standardised or even close to standardisation when last names were beginning to become a thing (roughly 11th century in Britain).

Okay, now the reason I went into that is because I believe the Riddles were the big guys back in the day (by which I mean late medieval period c. 1100s until the late 1500s) and were the kind of wealthy landowners who employed serfdom potentially even past the Peasant's Revolt of 1381. I know a lot of people place them as merchants who made money from trade but based on their name and location (Yorkshire is famous for its sheep) I think it's more likely they were landowners. They probably had pretty solid generational wealth, potentially even being landed gentry (a class of gentry who made their money on leasing land and known as lords of the manor), although I'm fairly certain they lost most of this later. I don't think they ever were part of the peerage (the level above gentry in the British aristocracy who hold hereditary titles) but gentry usually married into peerage and vis versa so they were likely quite connected despite never being "Lords" themselves. They got their name through their association with the village as the big whigs.

Even if the Riddles had kept up serfdom for a century or so after the Peasants Revolt (entirely plausible), serfdom was abolished by Elizabeth I in 1574. Whenever they stopped working as part of the feudal system, I don't think it had major impacts on their wealth. Like I mentioned above, they were probable landed gentry, making their money by leasing out land and still profiting off the lower classes.

With the Industrial Revolution and the Agricultural Depression of the 1870s, I think they would've lost quite a bit of money, potentially even their place as landed gentry. They would've still been quite rich, but their wealth was probably in decline and they had to look elsewhere. Maybe they never succeeded in this.

The thing is, we know next to nothing about the Riddles and the family we see through Tom Riddle's eyes is one that's lost status and connections because of the scandal of Riddle Snr. having run off with Merope without being married and (rumours have it!) having a child out of wedlock. The Riddle family probably declined economically with WWII (and to a lesser extent WWI) as well, although they never got a chance to really see the era through properly due to their… untimely deaths.

I think if Tom had been raised by the Riddles, they may not have fallen so far, providing Riddle Snr. married Merope before her death, or at least had falsified documents that he did. Tom would've still grown up in declining wealth, but more than enough money still to not have to work. Life for Tom would've been far better, what without starvation, disease, poverty and later, bombs and would've remain largely untouched by the war. The Great Depression wouldn't have it so hard, and Tom, not being surrounded by so much death, would've been fundamentally altered. I'm not sure what the Riddle's reaction to Tom being magic would've been like, but I'll leave that to any writers. All in all, Tom missed out on a far better life.

Thank you so much for the ask! It really made my day!!

[nadezhda-wexler]

It’s basically a peasants’ revolt

The Great 3x02- Choose Your Weapon

[himbeereule]

Hello! I just read the demo. I loved it!! I'm excited to read the remaining parts of this prologue. By the way, I'm surprised at the trouble you took with the reactions to MC's attractiveness. Depending on our appearance will there be an important impact on history?

Anyway, thanks for the demo! I loved everything ❤️❤️❤️

Ehmm I have quite a few questions: 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

1 - Why is MC so popular? What is the reputation of the siblings among the people?

2 -Is there any reason why the empress is so absent in the lives of her children?

3 - Who besides the emperor and brother knows about Lebedev's incident with f! MC?

4- Will there be a funeral for the royal family?

5- I just love Lavrentiy. It seems like he was jealous (?), although he equally loved MC

6 - What were the last thoughts of MC's family before being executed? Will we see more of them in the future?

7 -How did other monarchies react to this "revolution"?

8- How rich/relevant is Nevtskiya in the world? And it has great military power? Besides agriculture, is there any other important sector for the economy? Can we promote the development of the country?

9 - What is the standard of living of the general population?

10 -Will there be much difference in the story of a male or female MC?

11 - What religion does the country have?

12 - Were there many other popular protests in the past?

PS we are lucky that the rebels didn't leave MC's body hanging or decapitated in some public place haha

Hey~

About the attractiveness: there will be scenes like the ones with Sabilov where it'll play a role, but it won't have a really important impact on the story overall.

1- MC is popular because the newspapers pushed them as a celebrity. As for why they did that... you'll have to find out eventually. As for the siblings: Artemiy is revered as the Crown Prince, but he's a pretty distant figure, so it's more formal than personal popularity. Lavrentiy is very controversial due to his escapades (you'll learn more about that). Sasha/Tasha is very private and mostly unknown among the public.

2- This'll be expanded upon in the scenes with your siblings I'm planning to add to the Prologue - basically, she realized the person she married (arranged marriage, but initially she was very happy with it) was an absolute asshole. So she ended up getting the kind of depression where you isolate yourself from everyone and everything.

3- Nobody, though at least one person is guaranteed to find out. Towards the end of the story, though.

4- No. You'll see why later...

5- I said it before, but I'm super happy people liked Lavrentiy. I hope his additional scenes will cement his image of "would actually be lovely if he stopped being so mean"

6- Can't answer, spoilers ^^"

7- There won't be intervention armies, but they see it as a prime opportunity to expand their influence. Whether you'll let them sponsor you or your enemies at the cost of getting dependent and owing favours will be a major decision later on.

8- Nevetskiya is huge, and old, but that's pretty much it. It's a regional power, too far behind in economy, society and technology to really contend with any of the great powers - but it is still counted among them. Industrialization is already beginning to happen, hence the revolution, and its development will be a factor in the story and especially the gameplay.

9- For the nobility - extremely high. For the clergy and the emerging traders and industrialists - pretty high. For the accountants, bureaucrats and landowners - okay. For the peasants and workers (which is almost the entire population) - abysmal.

10- There will be some exclusive story arcs for all genders.

11- I haven't really touched on religion yet, as of now it's just a vague polytheistic copy of the Orthodox Church. I'll develop its lore more once it comes up in the story.

12- Yes, there were peasant revolts every one or two years, but they were quickly and brutally suppressed.

[aelyxmagnus]

I was thinking about Egg’s reforms and they almost certainly had something to do with giving peasants the right to take legal action against their lords, especially the laws of pit and gallows, both the hedge knight and the sworn sword have scenes where peasants have arbitrary punishments tandem against them by someone higher up the social ladder than them, with Tansel and Aerion in book 1 being the most obvious example.

There’s also the sworn sword literally opening with a lower class person (the septon) being executed for talking shit about those with ‘god given rights’ (the king and bloodraven), there’s also the webber man who loses an ear to Ser Bennis who thinks he can do it with impunity as he’s a knight, Ser Bennis also abuses Egg and pinches him repeatedly and thinks Egg can’t do shit about it because he’s just a squire who’s below him in the hierarchy. There’s no way none of his reforms did nothing about it, and this also explains why the lords hated it so much, as a lord having rights of gallows is a right guarded jealously by lords, as we see in the sworn sword with Ser Eustace iirc. Taking this right from a lord would be extremely offensive to the prideful ones. This problem of arbitrary punishment is even stronger in westeros than in the medieval period I think because the church isn’t as strong. Egg probably continued to see this problem in his adulthood as he saw the ‘measures’ taken by Aerion in BR3, probably war crimes against smallfolk, that made him even more certain of the need for reform. It’s possible that he persuaded Maekar to do something which led to the Peake uprising and Maekar’s death, and his association with that might have been the reason why Bloodraven thought a great council would be necessary as otherwise the lords might revolt, or maybe our boy Childpastemaker just wanted to kill some more Blackfyres. This might also be why Egg chose Summerhall, a relatively new Targaryen construction, only about a 50 years old or something, post-Dance, instead of Dragonstone. He knew the risks and didn’t want more smallfolk to die cuz they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, like the poor stableboy Gregor killed in his combat with Oberyn.

[racefortheironthrone]

Are you descended from Wat Tyler? In any event unless it is tongue and cheek considering all the other targets you could go after why hold onto a grudge for that long?

I'm not descended from Wat Tyler, I'm descended from someone who worked for him. According to family lore, my ancestor who fought in the Great Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was named Adam Attewell. As it turns out, there is a brief mention of Adam in the historical record that allows us to learn quite a bit about Adam's life.

Adam Attewell was a London butcher - which means we know he was a guildsman - who shows up in the judicial record as someone who during the very earliest days of the Revolt was an emissary from the people of London to the peasantry of Essex, calling on them to rise up in rebellion and promising that London would rise in support. He then seems to have later been "very prominent in the troubles in the capital." This pattern of behavior suggests that Adam was more than likely a member of John Ball's illegal organization known as the Great Society, part of the activist core that supported Wat Tyler's uprising from the beginning.

After Wat Tyler and his rebel forces seized the city of London, burning John of Gaunt's Savoy palace and seizing the Tower of London, they forced King Richard II into negotiations that revolved around a few key points:

the abolition of serfdom.

equality before the law.

redistribution of Church property to the people.

a purge of evil councilors from the King's councils, most notably including John of Gaunt's conservative faction.

a general amnesty for all rebels.

When William Walworth murdered Wat Tyler at Smithfield and then turned the London militia against Tyler's horrified supporters, he enabled King Richard II to abrogate all of his concessions and promises to the revolutionaries. This included the amnesty for rebels - John Ball would be drawn and quartered in King Richard's presence, royal troops would be sent out to suppress the later rising in the North of England and hunt down any rebel leaders who escaped the massacre in London - so it's an ominous sign that my ancestor's mention in the historical record comes from the "Essex indictments and the Sheriff's reports."

While I consider RIchard II to be an odious oath-breaking tyrant, on June 15th 1381, the king was utterly a broken and spent political force driven into total capitulation. It was William Walworth's use of murder and military repression that shattered the leadership of the Great Peasants' Revolt and allowed the royal government to organize a successful counter-revolution.

So that's why I include William Walworth on my list, for single-handidly setting back the cause of freedom and equality in England for several hundred years and facilitating the probable execution of my ancestor for treason against the crown.

[avelera]

My two favorite character-related cheat codes for writing that I've spent a lot of time practicing lately are:

1 ) When in close character point-of-view (POV, 1st or 3rd) ie, "we're in this character's head and no other, and we're set immediately in their thoughts", try filtering the description and narration through their POV.

Ex. "The coffee machine was broken." -> "The coffee machine was broken, because of course it was, just when Bob needed it most."

Note: Like all tools, this can be overused and it's not suited to every story, but narration flavored by the character's POV can really make a story pop.

Caveat: There can be limits as far as what this character would notice and describe when this deep in their head. For example, neutral narration might say, "Bob's cheeks darkened with anger." However, Bob cannot see his own cheeks (unless he's got a mirror or is going through an out of body experience, I suppose) and so even if one is not in 1st person, it can be jarring for the character to note things they can't see. Also applies to some descriptions like, "Bob's dulcet voice that called to mind a nightingale." Bob would probably not think that about himself, unless maybe he does, but that's a very specific type of self-confident character who thinks something like that about themself. Whereas another character can think that about Bob, or a neutral word-of-god narration style can.

2 ) If you, the author, don't know how something works in your story or what the character would do next, the POV character doesn't have to know it either! And in fact, exploring this can add richness and texture to your story!

This can be applied to multiple situations you might be stuck on as an author. For example, in a sci-fi story, maybe you feel under obligation to explain how the Space Widget works in space. But the thing is, most people don't know, for example, how their microwave works, let alone know it well enough to build one. You're absolutely allowed to have a character in a genre setting like sci-fi/fantasy, when confronted with the futuristic technology of their time, not actually know how it works or how to build it! Unless the character is a space mechanic, it's completely reasonable and can lend to humor and character realism if they don't.

Along these lines, coloring your narration with incomplete knowledge, whether it's true or false, and opinion is another way to enrich your story. Most people don't have perfect knowledge of the history of our world, let alone knowledge that's 100% correct! Two people having different opinions about that historical event that happened 600 years ago is a great way to do exposition and to reveal character, for example, if it was a peasant revolt a character with a peasant background might sympathize with the peasants, an aristocrat sides with the king! Also, people might just not know much about that revolt that happened 600 years ago, or perhaps it's been erased from history, or mythologized to the point of falsehood, or turned into propaganda for the winning side. When worldbuilding, sometimes it matters less what actually happened and more what people think actually happened. This also feeds into what are the opinions and the entertainment people enjoy to in this world? What does that say about your characters?

You can also use this trick for bigger questions like, "Should my character forgive their deadbeat father in the next scene?" You, as the author, might feel as if you should have this figured out but the thing is, realistically, your character might not have the answer either and it's a complex enough emotional question that it is, in fact, more realistic that the character doesn't have a ready made answer or decision too! Adding a scene where you, the author, sit in the characters head, in a scene, maybe talking to a friend of theirs going through their options of whether or not they should forgive their deadbeat father is another opportunity both for a character moment and for you the author to work through which option the character would pick as the character. You can always toss the scene later but then at least you have the knowledge in your head.

And finally, it's ok to have other characters react with surprise to the character's choice in the same way the reader or you, the author, would. "Wow, I really thought you were going to forgive your deadbeat dad, but you didn't, that's great/terrible!" That is a character revealing exchange and might be a great jumping-off point for future drama. Don't sweep it under the rug. As noted above, it's normal, human, and interesting for characters to have opinions about the world around them and the actions of people they know (or don't know, vis a vis, tabloids, famous people, current events, etc). Indeed, word of god objective truth rarely exists in the real world, history is a myth agreed upon, and everyone's got a different take on every story. This is extremely valuable to utilize when worldbuilding and constructing narratives/narration.

[nesiacha]

In your post on 10 August you correctly pointed out how often the violence under the Ancien Régime gets always overlooked and you mentioned the Beast of Gévaudan, the deliberate repressions by Louis XIV or Louis XVI, the repression of the Flour War. What happened during these events?

Warning: Regarding the case of the Beast of Gévaudan, there are some shocking elements related to the criminal investigation. So, please refrain from reading if you feel uncomfortable with this. Sensitive souls should refrain from reading this part of text. I want to mention that I am not very knowledgeable about the Ancien Régime, so feel free to correct or add to what I say (especially regarding the Flour War).

Dragonnades under the reign of Louis XIV to force Protestants to convert to Catholicism ( The engraving dates from 1686 and is by Engelmann, Les nouveaux missionnaires)

Ah, here we are again, discussing the Ancien Régime. There are many things to say (some of which are positive; we should also fight against the demonization, but I will limit myself to starting with the period under Louis XIV rather than Henri IV).

Louis XIV, what can be said? Well, ironically, if we want to better study the issues that led to the Revolution, it starts with him (in my eyes). I will quickly touch upon his reign and the reasons why he wanted an absolute regime (due to the trauma he experienced as a child during the trials he endured during the Fronde, under the regency of his mother and Cardinal Mazarin). One day, I came across a phrase on a forum that I found revealing about the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. It said something like, "Louis XIV creates the debt, Louis XV manages it and passes it on to his successor (Louis XVI), who, due to his character and actions, causes the Revolution to break out." Although reality is more complex, I think this phrase aptly describes the origin of the massive debt of the Kingdom of France.

His wars financially drained the kingdom of France, showing that, in reality, wars of conquest can be more harmful than beneficial due to their expenses, especially if the territories do not bring in revenue (at least when Tsar Peter the Great waged war against the Turks, it was to gain access to the Sea of Azov for long-term commercial purposes). By the end of his reign, the state was financially ruined, all due to excessive conquests and wars that could have been avoided. Let's not even talk about horrific episodes like the Sack of the Palatinate in 1689 and how he alienated foreign powers. Here’s what Voltaire had to say on the subject: "This beautiful country was ravaged under Louis XIV for the second time; but the flames with which Turenne had burned two towns and twenty villages in the Palatinate were mere sparks compared to this final conflagration. Europe was horrified. The officers who carried it out were ashamed to be the instruments of such cruelties" (excerpt from The Age of Louis XIV).

This led to several revolts due to the increasing tax burden, the most notable of which was in Brittany. It is important to note something about Brittany and taxes. In 1491, Duchess Anne of Brittany married Charles VIII. France then annexed the Duchy of Brittany, but in return, Brittany retained a fiscal system specific to the former duchy, and no additional levies could be imposed without the agreement of this former duchy.

Louis XIV violated this fiscal exception and increased taxes as part of his war against Holland. This led to what would be called the Revolt of the Red Bonnets in Brittany, and across France (as there were other zones of insurrection like Grenoble, Bordeaux, Pau, Besançon), it would be known as the Stamp Paper Revolt in 1675, triggered by the ever-growing misery of the population. The revolt in Brittany was the most significant, with castles being attacked and uprisings against their lords. On July 2, the rebels demanded the abolition of seigneurial abuses, among other things, and proclaimed a Peasant Code, which included a series of texts, some of which apparently echoed aspects of the grievance lists of 1789.

The repression in Brittany was brutal. Six thousand men were sent to crush the rebellion. There were hangings, and some were sent to the galleys. The body of one of the leaders, Le Balp, was exhumed to be desecrated. Other leaders were tortured before being executed. The suburb of Saint-Malo was deemed too rebellious.

In October 1675, the city experienced violence, apparently at the hands of Louis XIV’s troops. Residents of certain streets were expelled to the point where the Marquise de Sévigné wrote, "Do you want to know the news from Rennes? An entire large street was driven out and banished, with the threat of death if they were taken in, so that one could see all these miserable people—old men, women who had just given birth, children—wandering in tears as they left the city." On February 5, 1796,

In his absolute control, Louis XIV sought to annihilate any rebellion. Under Louis XIV, there were 40,000 deserters, Protestants, counterfeiters, and salt smugglers condemned to the galleys, which was a horrific ordeal.

For criticizing absolutism, the theologian and tutor of the king’s grandson, Fénelon, fell out of favor. To better eliminate any opposition, a new position of Lieutenant General of Police was created in Paris, tasked with not only surveillance but also reforming justice to extend cases that could be judged directly by the King’s judges. During the inquisitorial process, the investigation was secret (which, as a law student, I admit can have both positive and negative aspects) and confessions were extracted, including through the use of torture (terrifying and horrible).

The Code Noir of 1685 authorized and even justified slavery with the goal of increasing the production of mineral and agricultural wealth.

The Edict of Nantes, which had allowed Protestants to live in peace, was revoked by Louis XIV. This led to the "dragonnades," a method in which "dragons," or royal soldiers, were forcibly quartered in the homes of Protestants considered heretics, using all possible means to force them to convert. I can hardly imagine the brutalities committed in the homes of these victims to obtain so many abjurations from the Protestants so that these soldiers would leave.

When Louis XIV died, he was deeply unpopular. Misery was widespread, and the peasant class could barely survive. In the event of climatic accidents, famine and mortality rates were extremely high, particularly in 1694 and 1709.

It is easy to see that the seeds of the Revolution were already being sown under Louis XIV. In 1694, there was the Red Bonnets uprising, and barely a century later, the Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy, and the uprising of the slaves. We can clearly see where the first seeds of the Revolution began to germinate.

The fight of Marie-Jeanne Vallet, known as the “Maid of Gévaudan”, against the beast. Sculpture by Philippe Kaeppelin.

Now we come to the case of Louis XV, and one example that struck me the most about the dysfunction of the country is the affair of the Beast of Gévaudan (though there are many others, and more important ones). This remains one of the most mysterious criminal cases that has never been solved. However, this example highlights another dysfunction of the Ancien Régime beyond slavery, famine, religious intolerance, and repression. It is simply the issue of security in the face of the crime that the lower class suffers in certain areas.

France had just come out of the Seven Years’ War (an extremely deadly conflict), relatively defeated by England and financially ruined. The incident took place in the county of Gévaudan (which is in the province of Languedoc). The area included the Margeride, a difficult-to-access region with mountain ranges and marshes. In Gévaudan, life was harsh, predominantly populated by peasants; life was very tough, life expectancy was very short, children started working very early, and the peasant class primarily sought to survive.

But it’s the problem of crime that will be highlighted here (so I won’t go into too much detail about the affair of the Beast of Gévaudan). However, it’s necessary to explain this criminal case to better understand what follows. This case is complex, and the aim is not to explain it fully but rather to show the attitude of King Louis XV’s government, which tends to indicate what could be called willful criminal negligence. Therefore, the mystery of the Beast of Gévaudan is quickly summarized, and if you’re interested in understanding the case from an "investigative" perspective, you won’t find it here (it would take at least two to three pages), especially for suspects and theories explaining this mystery.

It all began in June 1764. A shepherdess living in Langogne was attacked by a beast. She owed her life to the cows that charged to protect their calves. The most striking thing is that the beast completely ignored the cows to focus solely on her. She survived, but it was the beginning of a long series of attacks. The beast was described as a wolf with a black stripe down its back (even today, it’s unclear whether it was a dog or a wolf). This was surprising because the inhabitants were always close to wolves, and no attacks had been recorded.

The beast went on to claim several victims, some of whom were horrifically devoured alive in front of helpless witnesses. Some survivors were scarred for life, and several children died.

Initially, King Louis XV took the matter very seriously: he sent one of his close associates, François Antoine, and enormous resources were employed. However, when the beast was not conspicuously absent, bullets seemed to bounce off it, or it got back up (one of the reasons for speculating that the beast had been trained by a human, as the black stripe could have come from a boar’s hide used as a protective cuirass against pistol bullets). Very questionable means (to put it mildly) will be used such as poisoning the corpses so that the Beast of Gévaudan eats it and poisons itself. But it doesn't work. Then, on September 20, 1765, François Antoine (or one of his aides) killed the beast. Witnesses and survivors of the attacks confirmed it was the Beast of Gévaudan (about twenty of them). However, it had killed on the other side of the river, where it had not been very active. Despite this, Louis XV declared that the affair was over and that the Beast of Gévaudan had been killed. And yet, after a period of calm due to the winter (when herds were less exposed), the attacks resumed with even greater intensity in the spring, with more and more victims. The attacks were concentrated mainly in the Margeride.

This is where we see the indifferent side of the Ancien Régime. For the monarchy, which had been ridiculed by the Beast of Gévaudan, the matter was closed. Officially, the Beast of Gévaudan had been killed, and with censorship in place, there was no mention of other attacks by the beast after 1765. On gravestones, it was now forbidden to say that a victim had been killed by the Beast of Gévaudan. There would be no more assistance, and the inhabitants were left to fend for themselves. One must be cautious, but we can speak of willful criminal negligence: to save face, the monarchy pretended to ignore the deadly attacks and even censored news about the affair. Fortunately, the Marquis d’Apcher continued to organize hunts to kill the beast at his own expense. But his resources were not those of a state and therefore very limited. The attacks officially ended in June 1767. A man named Jean Chastel ended the Beast’s life under strange circumstances (I don’t want to accuse deceased people with little evidence; it’s just that some facts make him seem suspicious, while others exonerate him, especially since in those superstitious times, he was looked down upon for reasons we’d find foolish today. For example, he apparently didn’t attend church much, although when Marie Danty, a 12-year-old girl with whom he was friendly, was devoured alive, he began attending church and had his bullets blessed. He could read and write, which was rare for someone of the lower class, and he was allegedly the son of a healer, whom some called a witch. On the other hand, when Marie Danty died, he swore he would be the one to kill the Beast of Gévaudan, and according to some witnesses, when the beast saw him, it simply sat down, whereas when it was present, it wouldn’t let itself be caught. Moreover, its black stripe had disappeared, although survivors had said it had one. However, I ask that we avoid making accusations against Jean Chastel out of respect for his descendants,while there is a high probability that he is innocent , we cannot make accusations without evidence).

Another frightening aspect of France in this affair is that not all the crimes were committed by the Beast of Gévaudan. It’s clear that at least several murderers committed acts that were blamed on the Beast, especially considering how some victims were killed. In fact, Margeride was notorious for its lack of security, its criminality, and the maréchaussée (mounted police) had only just been established, with many brigands or worse. The last crime attributed to the Beast of Gévaudan was actually committed by a human who killed a woman, Marianne Thomas, in 1777. The woman, in her agony, said it was the Beast. But in reality, it was a man disguised as the Beast, wearing fur, who had committed the crime. So, in addition to famine, it seems that the Ancien Régime either did not want to or failed to ensure that the maréchaussée was effective in protecting the lower class.

Another negative aspect of Louis XV’s regime was the continued religious fanaticism. During the attacks of the Beast of Gévaudan, some believed the beast was the result of divine punishment for the inhabitants’ sins (another theory said that the beast of Gévaudan was suckling a werewolf and that silver bullets were needed to kill it) . There was the infamous case of Calas, where a father was tortured to death because he was Protestant, accused on very doubtful, if not nonexistent, evidence. Then there was the affair of the Chevalier de la Barre, in which a young nobleman was tortured and executed for the crime of blasphemy (desecration of a crucifix) and it seems that it was not sure if it was him who did that, not to mention the sect of the White Penitents in Toulouse, who were a model of intolerance at that time. Additionally, the Church owned at one point 6% of the land in the Kingdom of France and profited from it, while the state coffers did not benefit. Not to mention other legitimate criticisms that could be made against the Church.

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (French school, Palace of Versailles) (1727-1781)

Finally, here is the Flour War under Louis XVI. Ironically, the minister at the heart of these events was the most competent of Louis XVI’s ministers. Turgot is considered, in a way, a reformer (in fact, part of the nobility hated him for this), but also a liberal. There was much speculation because the monarchy was stockpiling grain. Turgot instead decided to impose the free circulation of grain. However, the poor harvests of 1773 and 1774 led to a significant increase in prices. This further deepened the misery of the peasants, as bread was their staple food. Consequently, riots broke out, with bakeries being looted and grain stocks seized. In response, 25,000 soldiers were deployed, leading to 548 arrests and the execution by hanging of two rioters: a 28-year-old wigmaker and a 16-year-old boy guilty of kicking a bakery door. The execution of these two scapegoats shocked the crowd.

So, my opinion on Turgot is that he was one of Louis XVI’s most competent ministers and the one who, among all his successors, had the people’s best interests at heart. But he was neither a political genius nor an engaged man like the revolutionaries who would take over after the Ancien Régime (at least many of them). I’m going to deliberately provoke by saying that if he was in the most committed political class concerning the Absolute Monarchy, he would likely have been on the far right during the French Revolution (though less conservative than Necker, for sure). But I’m probably being unfair because he died before we could know what he would have done, knowing that he didn’t play a false role as a friend of the people like Necker did, but rather acted more in favor of reforms, unlike the latter.

However, I must point out, in defense of Louis XV and Louis XVI, that absolutism had its limits in the form of the Parliaments, and they had to delegate certain powers to the Parliament. Yet, the Parliament opposed some necessary reforms for the people to ensure that the nobility could maintain its privileges while pretending to be friends of the poor people (we can clearly see where Necker learned this attitude).

P.S: I didn't mention the repression following the Reveillon affair, due to the events of April 26 to April 28, 1789 as it wasn't ask.

Sources: Antoine Resche For the Beast of Gévaudan: YouTuber Lionel Camy, who is very knowledgeable about criminal cases he explains. His video on the Beast of Gévaudan was excellent.But that does not prevent us from seeing historians given that Lionel Camy is more specialized in the analysis and theories of crime. Thierry Aprile

[heartofstanding]

Tell me everything about Joan if Kent, specifically which historians I should hiss at.

Oh man, Joan of Kent is awesome. It's hard to describe her life quickly because she had such a long and varied one. It spans from the end of Edward II's reign and the upheavals of Edward III's minority throughout the glory years of Edward III's reign to the decline in his latter years to the Peasants Revolt and the fragile beginnings of Richard II's reign. She can assume a number of different shapes: romantic heroine, powerful and influential woman, fashion icon, mediator, literary patron, scandal, survivor. She makes a status-defying match, ostensibly for love, and then follows it up by marrying the heir to the throne of England, again ostensibly for love.

Of course, it was the Middle Ages so a lot of medieval chroniclers and commentators saw her as the stereotypical wanton, transgressive woman.

Her story:

Joan was the daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent (Edward I's youngest son) and Margaret Wake, and was thus Edward I's granddaughter, Edward II's niece and Edward III's first cousin. She was born before or on 29 September 1326-1328 (the exact year is debatable). Her father was executed in 1330 in highly controversial circumstances for attempting to free the deposed and likely dead Edward II.* Joan is generally believed to have become a ward of Philippa of Hainault as a small recompense for Kent's execution (Edward III and Philippa are believed to have played no role in Kent's execution). In the winter of 1340-41, Joan was married to William Montagu, the son and heir of the Earl of Salisbury. This was an entirely conventional match: he was of similar age and status to herself, the marriage ensured she would become Countess of Salisbury upon his father's death. But about seven years later, there was a scandal: a knight, Thomas Holland, claimed that Joan had married him clandestinely and that they had consummated it before she married Montagu. He appealed to the papal authorities to return her to him.

A long, protracted dispute followed. Montagu appears to have kept Joan imprisoned in strict seclusion so she could not respond or appoint an attorney to respond on her behalf to the papal investigation. Eventually, she was able to do so and evidently supported Holland's claim: the investigation found in Holland's favour. Her marriage to Montagu was annulled and she and Holland were have their marriage solemnised publicly.

Because of the scandal and the struggle to have the marriage recognised, as well as the unusualness of the match itself, Joan and Holland's relationship has typically been seen as a romance for the ages. But Joan was, at most, 13 years old (and possibly even as young as eleven) and Holland, born c. 1315, was around 25 years old, i.e. close to, if not actually, double her age, when they married clandestinely. At around 12 years old, she was considered to be "marriageable age" and a medieval 12 year old was likely considered more mature than a modern girl of the same age. But she was, still, you know, a 12 year old girl marrying a 25 year old man. That it has been hailed as a great romance is not really surprising given the stereotypical view of the Middle Ages as a time when dirty old men married preteen girls and raped them and the fact that until very recently Lolita was published with a blurb calling it the "only convincing love story" of the 20th century.

There are a number of legends attached to Joan from around this time. Two stories refer to a Countess of Salisbury and Joan held the title for the last four years of her Montagu marriage, though her then-mother-in-law, Katherine Grandison, also held the title as the dowager. The first story records that Edward III raped the Countess of Salisbury - the details of the story make it clear that Katherine, not Joan, is who was meant, though that has not stopped some with connecting the story to Joan specifically. The story itself is unverifiable - the earliest, i.e. contemporary, recording of the story contains both factually correct and factually incorrect details, and it is French in origin, which might mean it was propaganda designed to smear Edward III (this does not prevent it from being true, however). Some have suggested that the story has been confused. We certainly have no way of proving or disproving it beyond a doubt, but the idea it was meant to refer to Joan are very slim.

A second, much lighter story involves the foundation of the Order of the Garter. In it, the Countess of Salisbury is dancing when a garter slipped from legs, producing amusement. Edward picked up the garter and returned it, admonishing, "Honi soit qui mal y pense!" ('Shame on him who thinks ill of it!'), which then became the order's motto. This tale has also been heavily doubted and whether it was Joan or Katherine who is meant is debated. In both stories, Joan is often the more prominent candidate but that likely reflects how b*etter known she is and how these stories "fit" with her reputation as a beautiful, sexually desirable woman.

From 1350 to 1361, Joan gave birth to five children: Thomas, John, Joan, Maud and Edmund (who died in infancy). In 1352, Joan's only surviving sibling**, John, died childless and she inherited the earldom of Kent. This led to a massive step up in status and wealth for her new family. Holland died on 28 December 1360 from illness.

By spring 1361, Joan had another husband in line: Edward of Woodstock. Edward was the eldest son and heir of Edward III, Prince of Wales, war hero, chivalric icon and known famously, if anachronistically, as "the Black Prince". Joan was not the obvious choice for the Prince's wife - a conventional choice would be a royal or noble woman from the European continent (there had been a number of failed marriage negotiations for this type of marriage for the Prince), and had the Prince outlive his father, Joan would have been the first English-born queen since the Conquest. She was also the first Princess of Wales since Wales was incorporated into the English crown. It's frequently asserted that the Prince had long-loved Joan and he does appear to have referred affectionately to her, but we don't really know what Joan felt about the Prince or her marriage.

As a result of the Treaty of Bretigny, the Prince was to rule Aquitaine on Edward III's behalf. Joan and her Holland children accompanied him when he sailed to Aquitaine the following year. We don't know a lot about Joan in Aquitaine. We know her fashion sense drew fairly predictable criticism and that she gave birth to two sons while there. The first, named Edward, died in Aquitaine in 1370, aged 5 years old and the second would become Richard II. The Prince was much-criticised for his arrogance and ostentatious style in ruling Aquitaine and it's possible Joan was a part of that. A lot of work has gone reassessing his rule, however, and found it was not necessarily as bad as has been assumed.

After 1367, the Prince became seriously ill and the war with France was set to reignite. Incapable of carrying out his duties in Aquitaine effectively, Edward, Joan and their family returned to England in 1371, where his health declined further. Joan often acted in his stead during this period, and when he died in 1376, she was made guardian of their son, Richard, who was now the ailing Edward III's heir and became king himself in 1377, aged only 10.

Joan remained a infinitely influential and powerful woman in the coming years, with some historians describing her as a "quasi-queen". A large portion of pardons and grants were made at her request, and as Countess of Kent and the dowager Princess of Wales, she had large estates of her own to administer. She also enjoyed a great reputation as an mediator: she mended the quarrel between John of Gaunt, Henry Percy and the city of London and mediated between Gaunt and Richard. Interestingly, her entourage included leading members of the Lollard movement, suggesting she may have been interested in reform of the church. This was also time of Geoffrey Chaucer and literary scholars has been suggested Joan served as inspiration for a various number of figures in Chaucer's work.

During the Peasants Revolt of 1381, she was harassed en-route to London and the rebels asked for her to kiss them. Chroniclers also recorded her state of terror when the Tower of London was broken into, though it may have been more of a rhetorical device on behalf of chroniclers to show what they saw were the horrors of the rebels' behaviour.

Joan appears to have taken a step back from court. Possibly, she was increasingly incapacitated by illness (it's been suggested Joan suffered from dropsy/edema; the chronicler Thomas Walsingham claimed she was so fat she could barely move, though no other chronicle made this claim), or possibly she retired once Anne of Bohemia married Richard II so not to overshadow the new queen. Despite illness and retirement, Joan attempted to mediate between Richard and another of her sons, John Holland, when the latter murdered Ralph Stafford and Richard had determined to execute him. One chronicler claimed Richard's refusal to hear her pleas caused her to die of grief. The stress of the situation could hardly have helped if she was suffering an illness. She died 7 August 1385 and was buried in the same church as her first husband, Thomas Holland. This has generally been taken as evidence that she loved him best but the situation may have been more complicated. The plans for the Prince's burial changed dramatically, which may have led Joan choosing to be buried elsewhere or she may have made her choice to as a gesture of affection for her less royal family. Richard did pardon John after Joan's death and they were reconciled, so one might say that even in death she was a successful mediator.

In terms of her descendents, Richard died childless but most of her Holland children had issue. She had descendents on both sides of the Wars of the Roses.

*If you're unfamiliar with the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, the short summary is that Edward II ended up basically alienating everyone through his relationship with and preferential treatment of Hugh Despenser the Younger (quite possibly his lover). The queen, Isabella of France, eventually allied with Roger Mortimer, Earl of March and spearheaded a rebellion that led to Edward's deposition and the execution of Despenser. His son, Edward III, became king but as he was a minor, Isabella and Mortimer effectively ruled in his reign. Edward II was said to have been murdered on 21 September 1327 and most historians accept this. However, there are some references to Edward II surviving well past this, including the plot to free him that Edmund was involved with, and there is a coterie of historians who believe it, namely headed by Ian Mortimer and Kathryn Warner. Given Edmund's royal blood, his execution was deeply unpopular - no one could be found willing to execute him until a criminal was given a pardon in exchange. Edward III is said to have wanted to pardon Edmund but was blocked by Isabella and Mortimer by doing so. When Edward III took control of government and ousted Mortimer, he posthumously pardoned Edmund and executed Roger Mortimer. One of the charges against Mortimer was that he'd duped Edmund into believing Edward II was still alive.

** Joan had two or three siblings. Her brothers were Edmund, the eldest boy who was born had died before 5 October 1331 and John, who was born posthumously on 7 April 1330, inherited the earldom as an infant and died childless on 26 December 1352. A sister, Margaret, is sometimes identified but she seems to be attested only from an authorisation to negotiate a marriage - Penny Lawne has argued that it was more likely that Joan was the intended bride but the clerk writing out the authorisation confused her name with her mother's (Margaret). There does not seem to be any other evidence of her existence - she is not mentioned as attending the baptism of John, though her other siblings are, and she is not mentioned in the Inquisition Post Mortems for John where Joan is named as his only heir. If Margaret had existed, she must have died sometime before John's death. Her death is sometimes given as 1352 but I'm not sure what the source for this is..

Historians To Hiss At.

As you might guess, Joan's life suggests a sexual impropriety and scandal, or in a slightly less misogynist sense, a life dominated by romance. She was a bigamist. She was married for love. She married three times and only one of them to a man appropriate to her status. She's both Lady Chatterley, driven by lust into the arms of a man of lesser status, and the relentless, cold-hard social climber like Philippa Gregory's Anne Boleyn.

So of course historians through the centuries have replicated that bias. For some, like Anthony Goodman, she's a giddy romantic who follows her heart who never manages to mature. For some, she's a romantic heroine, her and Thomas Holland are the epic romance of the Middle Ages which, uh, doesn't really take into consideration Joan's youth at their marriage. For others, she's a saucy wench, hooker with a heart of gold - I've seen someone point out how young Joan was when she married Holland on Twitter and gotten the response of "well she was saucy ;)". For others still, she's just a slut and a selfish, slippery, scheming one at that. After all, all those good men wouldn't have been falling themselves over her without her seducing them, would they? Anyway, it's a Russian Roulette whenever you pick something up about Joan. Will it romanticise a guy having sex with a 12 year old? Will it call the 12 year old a giddy romantic? Will it slut-shame the 12 year old? I've only found one thing - Samantha Katz Seal's review of Anthony Goodman's biography of Joan - that actually suggested Joan was a victim of abuse without immediately offering a theory to work around it.

Two examples:

The peach that is renowned Ricardian crank and misogynist John Ashdown-Hill wrote that "the girl's [Joan was in her 30s) reputation left a good deal to be desired … she was deficient in some respects and rather too-well endowed in others".

Ian Mortimer's biography of Henry IV makes overly frequent comparisons between Henry and Richard II, who Henry deposed and had murdered, basically to the tune of "Henry was better than Richard! Henry had the biggest penis!" One repeated comparison is their mothers, where Mortimer describes Joan's legacy as "burdensome" for Richard and cast a shadow over his legitimacy, while "Henry’s mother, in contrast, was popularly regarded as one of the most lovely adornments of the English court". One's a burden, the other's a beautiful object.

But the historian that I really get my hackles up about is Kathryn Warner, probably I once thought really very highly of her. She talked a lot about going back to the original sources instead of repeating what other historians have said, not speculating without supporting evidence, and having progressive values. Notably, she called out the homophobia and misogyny that hung around depictions and discussions of Edward II and Isabella of France. She was originated (I think?) or at least got heavily involved with the Don't Defame The Dead movement with history bloggers and the histfic community on Goodreads.

Warner follows Mortimer's example, talking about how "embarrassing" Joan was for Richard II unlike the Saintly Dead Paragon Of Medieval Feminine Virtue That Was Blanche of Lancaster. She even deepens that comparison when talking about Joan being sexually harassed during the Peasants Revolt:

even the rebels in 1381 demanding kisses from her, though it may indicate that they liked her and found her considerably more approachable than other members of the royal family and the nobility, does not imply deference for a royal person and the king’s mother. It is difficult to imagine anyone demanding a kiss from Joan’s predecessors Philippa of Hainault or Isabella of France, or from Henry of Lancaster’s mother Duchess Blanche.

So... we're victim blaming Joan for being sexually harassed. After all, as Warner loves to point out (repeatedly) Joan did have a "habit of dressing in the style of a freebooter’s mistress" that "did Joan’s reputation no good whatsoever". In her Philippa of Hainault biography, Warner seems to imply that Joan's style of dress was the sole complaint about the Black Prince's conduct in Aquitaine.

Edward and Joan of Kent lived in magnificent, extravagant splendour, and not everyone approved: one observer stated that the princess of Wales and Aquitaine wore great furred gowns and low-cut bodices in the style usually worn by the mistresses of freebooters: ‘I am disgusted by those women who follow such a bad example, particularly the Princess of Wales.’ Even so, not a word of condemnation came from Edward’s parents the king and queen.

There are many, many complaints about the Prince's actual conduct but Warner chooses to single out Joan's fashion sense and implies that it was worthy of condemnation from Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. Given Philippa herself was an assiduous follower of fashion and it seems doubtful that she'd think Joan following the new fashion style was worthy of complaint.

Actually, it would be very reasonable to interrogate this. Richard Barber points out this is the "French view" of English fashion and it may well be that there was underlying xenophobia in the sentiment. Additionally or instead, we could read it as another entry in the age-old misogynistic tradition of men complaining about women's fashion. In short: we should not be replicating the biases of the Middle Ages as an excuse to talk about how embarrassing or condemnatory Joan's behaviour was.

But what was, you may be asking, a freebooter's mistress? A freebooter was a effectively a pirate so Warner is effectively saying that Joan dressed like a pirate's whore.

In discussing Joan's marriage, she gives Joan's age as "only thirteen or fourteen" before correcting herself to "at most thirteen and a half" and then notes Holland was in his mid-20s. Warner then says:

Evidently, though, she found him extremely appealing, and they married clandestinely and consummated the marriage, or so they later claimed.

I feel like if a man writing in the 1970s can recognise that Joan may have been coerced in marrying Holland, as Karl P. Wentersdorf did, saying Joan may have "been placed under pressure by her suitor and had not given her full and free assent", Warner can do much, much better than "clearly 13 year old Joan of Kent found him soooooo hot". We have no idea how they married or how Joan felt about her marriage as it happened. Of course it's possible that Joan found him hot - kids have crushes on adults all the time, though they don't really want to have sex with their crush except in the theoretical sense. But maybe Joan didn't, maybe Joan was pressured, as Wentersdorf suggested in 1979, or maybe she was groomed and believed she did. But I think it is just... a really irresponsible, victim-blaming line to take in relation to a 25 year old marrying a 13 year old (if Joan was as old as 13).

While Warner does recognise the creepiness of the relationship between Holland and Joan, she discusses it like so:

Thomas Holland was twice her age, a gap which makes their supposed love-match seem less romantic and more creepy and abusive to modern sensibilities (though contemporary opinion would have held an earl’s daughter and king’s granddaughter marrying a man so far beneath her in rank as a far worse misdemeanour.

I'm so glad she threw in the reference to how Joan, contemporarily speaking, was the worse offender in the relationship. We have no idea how people who actually knew her understood the relationship, it's possible they were horrified on her behalf. We only know what chroniclers - writing when Joan was an adult - made of it and chroniclers were frequently full of misogyny. As Warner has pointed out herself, they were the gossip magazines of their day.

Warner suggests that rather than using the money Holland had gained for fighting in the Crecy campaign to finance the very expensive process of appealing to the papal authorities, he felt that finally, with all this money, he could keep Joan "in the style to which she was accustomed", making her sound like a spoilt brat who'd been like "eww poor person" at Holland. Montagu, in Warner's telling "supposedly kept her prisoner". That neither Joan nor an attorney on her behalf responded a summons and that Pope Clement VI dispatched a brief to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other prelates enjoining them to ensure Joan could appoint her own attorney suggests that Montagu was preventing Joan from responding in some way.

This is all a prelude to the theory Warner believes in which is that Joan and Holland made up the story of their earlier marriage because they met while Holland was working as Montagu's steward and fell in "love or lust" and wanted to marry. So, in that regard, Joan isn't a victim of what today we would call child sexual abuse but actually an adulteress who lied to the papal authorities because she wanted to be Mrs Thomas Holland.

Only problem is that there is absolutely no evidence of this and quite a lof of reasons why it doesn't make sense. This post is long enough already so I'll write them up in a separate post. We can't even say that Holland was Montagu's steward because the only evidence of this is in John Hardying's chronicle, written during the Wars of the Roses - over a century on from events.

Some of this might sound like nitpicking or disagreements on historical record, and maybe it is. But Warner does have a Facebook post where she complains about Joan's "fans" who depict her as "amazingly special and unique and far more important than anyone else" (where are all these fans, I wonder). In the comments, she indicates her reasoning for the theory Joan and Holland lied which basically boils down to:

it's sickening that the story is treated as a great love story when it's not love and "just disgusting"

Not speaking up about his marriage makes Holland look like a coward, which he wasn't and it makes Holland look like an abusive groomer which she sincerely hopes he wasn't

she "prefers" the version where Joan wasn't groomed and raped and it's empowering to imagine her choosing Holland

Joan's fans are annoying

To which I would say:

It is sickening! But also: how people have interpreted and represented the relationship has nothing do with the reality of it.

It's not "brave" for a grown man to admit to having sex with a 12/13 year old. And he did very much admit to having sex with a 12/13 year old Joan - eventually. Being brave in battle does not make a man more or less likely to be an abuser. Finally, wishing and hoping does not make history.

It is a historian's job to interpret the evidence, not ignore it for a fantasy scenario in which they can feel good about what happened. It is also not really empowering or feminist to erase Joan's abuse.

How do people living almost 650 years on from Joan have any impact on Joan's lived reality? Girlbossed historical women is an annoying phenomena but it has nothing to do with the real Joan or her life.

[whencyclopedia]

Richard II of England

Richard II of England reigned as king from 1377 to 1399 CE. The son of the late Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376 CE), Richard would succeed his grandfather Edward III of England (r. 1327-1377 CE), but as he was only 10 years of age, he initially had to co-rule with his most powerful barons. The Peasants' Revolt of June 1381 CE was successfully put down but a failed campaign in Scotland, misguided favouritism at court, and the ambition of certain rival nobles all conspired to limit the power of a king who had, unwisely, considered himself divinely chosen to rule any way he wished. In August 1399 CE Richard was imprisoned, and the following February he was murdered and succeeded by his cousin and rival Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, who became Henry IV of England (r. 1399-1413 CE)

Family & Succession

Edward of Woodstock, better known as the Black Prince after his distinctive armour or martial reputation, was the eldest son of Edward III of England. Made the Prince of Wales in 1343 CE and one of the greatest of all medieval knights, Edward would not, however, become king. The Black Prince died, probably of dysentery, on 8 June 1376 CE and so Parliament selected as the official heir to Edward III the prince's surviving son Richard of Bordeaux (b. 6 January 1367 CE). The young king-to-be's mother was Joan, the countess of Kent (1328-1385 CE), and he had had one brother, Edward, who had died in 1371 CE. Richard was favoured over another of Edward III's sons, John of Gaunt (1340-1399 CE), the Duke of Lancaster, largely because the latter had supported a number of officials and nobles identified by Parliament as guilty of corruption and misrule. As planned then, when Edward III died on 21 June 1377 CE, Richard became king.

Richard was crowned on 16 July 1377 CE at Westminster Abbey, but he was a mere 10 years old and so his troubled kingdom was governed by a revolving council of nobles. The Hundred Years' War between England and France (1337-1453 CE) had started remarkably well for England with great victories at Crécy (1346 CE) and Poitiers (1356 CE) but by 1375 CE Charles V of France, aka Charles the Wise (r. 1364-1380 CE), had ensured that the only lands left in France belonging to the English Crown were Calais and a thin slice of Gascony. The war with France and its ally Scotland had also taken a heavy financial toll on the kingdom with an incessant round of taxes inflicted on the people, a situation only worsened by the arrival of the Black Death in 1348 CE which brought death and economic ruin. The failure to take the military initiative against France, high taxes and lasting economic disruption would all come back to haunt Richard later in his reign.

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