September 30, 2013 · 10:28 am

This Honourable Fool

(Over the next weeks, I’m posting excerpts from my recent talks on “Game of Thrones and History”. This is the first.)

Niccolò Machiavelli cautioned against too much reliance on honour when he wrote his advicebook, The Prince. In Game of Thrones, honour is a luxury that few can afford. Certainly not Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, especially after his old friend, the king, makes Ned an offer he can’t refuse: to serve as Robert’s chief advisor or “King’s Hand”. But while Robert Baratheon might implicitly trust Ned Stark, that doesn’t mean that the two men see the world in the same way. Robert is all about vengeance and the utter annihilation of anyone he sees as a potential threat. Ned Stark is patently uncomfortable with the scheme that targets women and children as with Robert’s plan to assassinate Danaerys Targaryen, a representative of the old royal family he has supplanted and against whom he holds a grudge.

Ned Stark is the quintessential honourable man in Martin’s world of intrigue and betrayal. In some respects, he parallels the great English historical councillor, statesman and martyr, Sir Thomas More. More had risen high in the service of Henry VII and VIII, from London lawyer and Speaker of the Commons to Chancellor of the Realm. His great position brought him nothing but grief, however, as Henry’s chief goal in life was the getting of a male heir and his queen, Katherine of Aragon, was past the age of childbearing. Her nephew, Emperor Charles V, blocked Henry’s request for a papal divorce. The English king’s ambition turned to a break with the Roman church and adopting some of the newfangled approaches of Protestantism. More was intensely loyal to the church and would not assist in the endeavour or swear loyalty to the new queen he saw as illegitimately supplanting Katherine. More was, in his own words, “The king’s good servant but God’s first.” His honour and his religious sensibilities alienated the king and left him vulnerable. More was arrested, convicted of treason and executed in 1535.

Was Thomas More’s stand worthwhile? For him, personally, it was clearly the right decision. But for his goals of protecting the faith or serving the good of the realm, that was less clear. Henry VIII plundered the church, overturned the traditions of faith and, according to many critics, oppressed his subjects in pursuit of his goals. Ned Stark reconciles with Robert to take up his position as King’s Hand again, but faces another crisis with Robert on his deathbed. As Protector of the Realm, those around Ned urge him to assert his authority and push the queen’s family out.

Renly’s advice is clearly not indifferent: he seeks to supplant his ‘nephew’, Joffrey, as well as bypass his older brother, Stannis. Ned’s honour extends not only to the protection of women and children, but also the line of succession. If Joffrey is not eligible to be king because of his, erm, parentage, Stannis is the next in line. Ned’s idea of honour is incompatible with cutting deals of any sort. Renly’s offer to join forces and seize the day, for the good of the realm, is patently unwelcome.

In Chapter Eighteen of The Prince, Machiavelli observed “we see that in practice, in these days, those rulers who have not thought it important to keep their word have achieved great things, and have known how to employ cunning to confuse and disorientate other men. In the end, they have been able to overcome those who have placed store in integrity.”

Ned Stark’s honour renders him vulnerable to others’ plots. His offer of mercy to Cersei Lannister, warning to flee the court and save her children from Robert’s revenge, seems laughable given how ruthless we know that Cersei and others at the court are in pursuing their own interests. This clip from their confrontation sums up much of Martin’s and Machiavelli’s perspective on politics.

Ned Stark’s emphasis on honour and honesty made him vulnerable to the plotting of Cersei, Petyr Baelish, Varys and other ambitious individuals at the court.

Further Readings:
Marcus Schulzke, “Playing the Game of Thrones: Some Lessons from Machiavelli” Game of Thrones and Philosophy (New York: Wiley, 2012), 33-48.

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September 7, 2013 · 10:42 pm

Pet Project

I haven’t blogged about the newest addition to our menagerie: Xena, the Rottweiler, who joined our household in May.

Xena on her pillow

She’s closing in on six months and has integrated well into the pet dynamics although when the cats get wild and crazy, Xena can’t help but get equally excited. Xena is the most orally-obsessed animal I’ve owned: every walk is a challenge as she seeks to ingest any and everything she encounters. Seriously: she licks the dry street and sidewalk if nothing interesting presents itself (although blowing leaves, sticks and stones are best).

Amusingly enough, our geriatric, tiny Sheltie still rules the roost. One emphatic snarl from Goldie has Xena on her belly, signalling her submission. You have to know that Goldie happily abuses her power every chance that she gets.

Xena has been a real project pet: she’s more high-energy than previous pups in that she really needs not one, not two, but three brisk walks a day of a mile, preferably more. I’m getting a lot of exercise, which I probably need. So much walking that, in fact, my lovely exercise bike sits idle in the basement because, if I have twenty or more minutes to use that, why am I not walking the dog(s)?

Hrm. Ask me that again in the depths of winter when I’m bundled up and praying that my boots don’t slip on the icy mess that our sidewalks become after the first thaw/freeze cycle.

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September 3, 2013 · 5:13 pm

The Incentive Program

A lot of habit-changing programs or groups incorporate some sort of incentive. Lose X pounds of weight, get a branded star or reward yourself with a coveted item. Let’s be honest: sometimes it works. I’ve found it very useful for me this summer as I’ve powered my way through several writing projects as well as my recent round of course preps.

I have to say, my incentive program doesn’t involve tangible goods that are purchased or expensive experiences. My incentive program is game time. Yes, deep inside, this fifty-year-old academic is rather akin to a tween gamer. What’s embarrassing is what game is my reward: Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. Gone are the days of playing EQ or DaoC, WoW or Warhammer: Online. These days the only game I’ve got is a silly one with matching virtual jewels in one-minute bursts.

Despite that, this incentive program works exceedingly well. I have to log in every day to the game to maintain my free points reward level. Never mind the fact that I have 1.5 million points banked. I can’t let those points slide. So I’m inspired on a daily basis to achieve a goal, say, five hundred words of writing or another completed section of my course outline, all so I can fire up the game, do my free spin and play a few rounds.

Extra bonus confession? If I’ve completed my entire day’s work goal, I can play not only a three-game streak but I allow myself a half hour of the addictive mess.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a game to play. Be back soon!

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August 17, 2013 · 10:58 pm

Dialect, Despoilation and Disrepute

I should be working on some of my other writing projects but today I was back at The Old Bailey Online, pouring through some cases I’d noted earlier that had to do with topics of women’s reputation. One such case that I’d searched out and saved, unread, in my workspace had also turned up in another context – my interest in dialects and the representation of the spoken word. I figured that the case had to be interesting, spanning two such divergent aspects, so I finally settled down to read it in detail.

I’m not entirely certain it was a great idea as the case rather disturbing once you delve into the text. The case involves a claim of rape involving an eleven-year-old girl so you may want to hit the back button on your browser now.

The story begins with an indictment from 1735 against Julian Brown, an Italian-born resident of London who was charged with ravishing the young (disturbingly termed by the court as an “infant”) Susan Marshall, eleven years of age. According to Marshall’s own testimony, which opened the case, she had been sent to Brown’s shop to purchase two red herrings when he promised her another for herself should she come back privately. Marshall explained did so and was taken to a back room where he forced himself upon her: Continue reading →

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August 10, 2013 · 5:46 pm

Fertility: What Historical Data Can’t Tell You

This story came across my Twitter feed today:

In the linked article at The Atlantic, How Long Can You Wait to Have a Baby?, which is mostly about modern women’s anxieties and experiences regarding getting pregnant in their thirties, I came across a singular, an astonishing factoid that illustrated how history is horribly misused by other researchers:

The widely cited statistic that one in three women ages 35 to 39 will not be pregnant after a year of trying, for instance, is based on an article published in 2004 in the journal Human Reproduction. Rarely mentioned is the source of the data: French birth records from 1670 to 1830. The chance of remaining childless—30 percent—was also calculated based on historical populations.

In other words, millions of women are being told when to get pregnant based on statistics from a time before electricity, antibiotics, or fertility treatment. Most people assume these numbers are based on large, well-conducted studies of modern women, but they are not. When I mention this to friends and associates, by far the most common reaction is: “No … No way. Really?”

Now, I’m going to set aside the whole broad swipe that statistics about childbearing before electricity must be inherently problematic to say that my concern, as a historian, takes a different tangent. I followed up on that lead, found and read the article in question by Henri Leridon, “Can assisted reproduction technology compensate for natural decline in fertility with age? A model assessment” Human Reproduction 19:7 (2004), 1548-1553. Leridon explains that he relies upon a 1961 study for the historical data and reveals some interesting assumptions imbedded into that analysis:

It can be assumed that fertility control did not exist in these populations, or that if it existed it was fairly ineffective (except in a small proportion of the population, such as prostitutes or highly educated women). This situation was called ‘natural fertility’

You know what we say about assumptions, don’t you? They make an ass out of “u” and me, only, in this case, I’m reserving the scorn for the medical researchers hijacking historical material in pursuit of a biologically “natural fertility”. Other historical scholars have long been showing that premodern societies were not artless, especially when it came to childbearing. To the contrary, reproduction was a fraught and tightly managed part of human society, going back millennia. Take a look at Angus McLaren’s magisterial overview from 1992 A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) or any one of a dozen or more works in demography, gender studies and other related fields which demonstrate that early modern Europeans practiced family planning and regularly procured early-term abortions.

This historical data set from early modern France cannot and should not be used to document the “natural fertility” level of women at various ages. Pregnancy and reported childbirths were already being shaped by the traditions of marriage, concepts of legitimacy and socio-economic factors. Even if early modern contraceptives and abortifacents were much less effective than modern medications, we still haven’t tackled the question of agency.

How many of these women in the records desired children? How many had other, underlying conditions that might have interfered with pregnancy? How many were living apart from partners? How many breastfed and how many didn’t? How many struggled with starvation and malnutrition which compromised their ability to reproduce? These are all factors that can greatly alter the outcomes from what one might expect would be a basic biological record and they’re just a few of the elements at play in the complex realities of early modern France.

Colour me appalled that this old and wrong-headed historical conflation of early modern birth records with “natural fertility” data is still powering twenty-first century fertility science. I sure as heck hope some medical researcher is pursuing a much better baseline for “natural fertility” than digging through our historical databases in hopes that olden-days people are just the same as laboratory control groups!

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July 22, 2013 · 9:59 pm

Pain Management

Over the past week, I’ve battled a horrific headache that’s felled me by the late afternoon most every day. I’ve described it as rather like having a rusty icepick slowly inserted and twisted from the base of your skull into your eyeball. At first I thought it was a simple neck strain, but it didn’t really respond to ibuprofen the way that has in the past. Then I wondered if it was a particularly long-lasting migraine of the type that I occasionally suffer for a three-day stretch.

These were getting so bad I was a snarling mess: pity my poor family who bore the brunt of my ill-temper, try as I might to bite my tongue. I longed to curl up somewhere and lie down and just turn my brain off for a while, hoping to get away from the pain that dogged me most of the day and into the night.

Yesterday, after spending much of the day pain-free, it clicked. The pain only appeared once I’d spent half an hour or more sitting in my customary seat in the living room where I computer and also hangout with the family. My comfy spot is literally causing me agony. I confirmed that today by avoiding my usual seat entirely, opting instead for either the floor, the dining room chairs or the wing chair. If I sit in any one of those, I’m good, although trying to mouse anywhere other than with my elbow at my hip causes some twinges. But even just sitting on the slightly reclining seat I normally use causes the lower point of my right trapezius to tweak like a son-of-a-gun.

I’d calibrate my pain levels over the past five days peaking at a 5-7 on a scale of 10. Today, the worst that I felt was a 3, somewhat stiff upon wakening and twinges again after trying to mouse on a slightly raised surface.

So, obviously, I have to engineer an entirely new work schedule and situation for the rest of the summer. Some days I can spend a bit of time at the office (not right now as the recent hot spell has left our under-ventilated chambers feeling like saunas) but I need to come up with a compact and comfortable solution at home. Wish me luck! If you’ve got any suggestions for how to help my trapezius relax any faster or better, I’m all ears!

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June 25, 2013 · 7:08 pm

University from Both Sides Now

Eldest has graduated high school and is preparing to start university this autumn. It’s been an exciting and occasionally stressful year in our household with her working through the process of deciding where to apply, waiting on the responses, applying for scholarships, making her decisions and, now, following through with the endless summer of paperwork still remaining.

As a second-generation academic, I realize that I have a wealth of information and experience about the entire university application and entry experience. Despite that, this has not been an easy or simple process: forms for financial aid, scholarships and even redeeming your own educational savings appear to be entirely opaque. I’ve availed myself of the phone helpline for the last more than once and it’s not like I’m doing all the work, here. She’s been doing her share, which is quite a bit.

Seeing university from the other side, now, a generation (or more) beyond my own freshman year, is sobering. This is a lot more work than I remember. Is it that I look on the past with rose-coloured glasses? I don’t think so. This is a lot more complicated than it used to be and there’s no good guidebook, at least for the Canadian experience. (Believe me, I’ve looked!)

Particularly, it’s the tricky part of knowing what to do and when that’s got to be the hardest part of university. Here at our institution, which serves a large proportion of first-generation students, I’m constantly made aware of how much they don’t know. But even with Eldest, who was raised in this milieu and can navigate her way around my campus blindfolded, was left adrift, time and again, especially with the scholarships and other funding opportunities.

University is hard. Getting into and staying in university is even more difficult in many ways. What could be accomplished with more sessions that not only invite questions but also lay out the key elements that students, coming from a publicly funded K-12 system, might not know they need to know about? That would be amazing, I suspect.

Now, because I can’t think of this phrase without thinking of the song, here’s a lovely 1991 cover of “Both Sides Now”:

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June 3, 2013 · 8:18 pm

Jades and Bawds

While I’m writing up two other projects (eep!) and house-training a 10-week-old puppy, I amuse myself in the breaks by reading up on the language of insult in early modern England. There’s a thriving literature on the subject: see this bibliography at Early Modern Web.

Of course, reading the literature’s only part of the fun. It’s the primary sources that draw me in as a historian. I often turn to the Old Bailey Online to see insults in the wild. Most recently, I searched “jade” and “bawd” in the Proceedings, insulting terms used to denigrate women.

The earliest appearance of “jade” dates to 1724 in the case of Penelope Adair, aka Bertless, aka Countess Spinello (what a string of pseudonyms), who was charged with grand larceny:

That he for some Reasons (which he did not think fit to mention in Court) took her another Lodging at Hoxton; she had a third Lodging in Wardrobe-Court in Carter-Lane, and a fourth at Mr. Falkenham’s in Thames-Street. So that in a little time she had cost him near a hundred Pounds. Yet, after all this, she ungratefully, and like a wicked jade as she was, had endeavoured to ruin him.1

The jade might be “vile” or “impudent” – it conjures a woman who is grasping, pushy and destructive. Here it’s used as a descriptor, after the fact, to let the judge know just what Aaron Pritchard thinks of this woman.

To be termed a “jade” is bad enough but far worse of an insult is “bawd”. That’s a particularly sexual term. An “old bawd” was understood to describe a down-on-her-luck and aged prostitute or procuress. To call a woman a “bawd” was a grievous insult as seen here in a murder prosecution from 1722:

It appeared that as the prisoner and the Deceased were scolding, the Deceased said, My Mother never was a Bawd to me: Whose Mother was? says the prisoner. I tell you mine wasn’t says the Deceased. Why Impudence, says the prisoner, I’ll throw the Tea in your Face if ye call my Mother Bawd; and with that threw Tea, Cup, and all at the Deceased, which missing her, struck Mary Fennel , the prisoner’s Maid.2

We’re all told that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me’. That said, the evidence from the Old Bailey shows that, quite to the contrary, some insults could be deadly!

NOTES
_________
1. Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 04 June 2013), December 1724, trial of Penelope Adair , alias Bertless, alias Countess Spinello, alias Sylvia Anna Landina (t17241204-25).
2. Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 04 June 2013), September 1722, trial of Susan Higner (t17220907-64).

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May 7, 2013 · 7:30 pm

Another Crop of Students Done

Yesterday I participated in an excellent graduate student’s M.A. thesis defense (in French – now that kept me on my passively-bilingual toes). This is the third student in nine months to complete an M.A. under my direction or co-direction. It’s been an anomalous last two years with multiple students on the go, pursuing feasible and fabulous projects related to my own early modern specialty. Usually I’ll supervise one grad student every few years as more of our students are interested in modern Canadian history which definitely isn’t my strength.

Right now, I have no grad students lined up for next year and that’s all right with me. First off, most people don’t need a graduate degree in history. Second? Well, let’s just say that graduate students require a lot of work. It’s all the good kind of work: the real exercise of scholarship for which we all entered our fields. Still, I look forward to focusing on my own research and writing in the next while.

I pride myself on the fact that these three received excellent support, not just from myself but from our program!, and a chance to develop as researchers and writers. They can apply these skills inside and outside academia. That’s a vital consideration these days. Only one of the three is going on to doctoral work at the present and that’s because this student received full funding. Without that support, it’s really hard to justify the endeavour.

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May 4, 2013 · 10:07 pm

Bingeing on Books

I wrapped up my winter’s term marking just as the last of the ice melted off of the lake. While getting back into my academic writing that’s been shelved most of the past month and pulling together the reams of documentation necessary for my annual report, I’ve been reading lots. Bingeing, almost. Fiction, that is. Genre-style.

Over at Novel Readings, Rohan Maitzen has an intriguing post on binge reading. In her case, she’s doing it for a project, to review the novels of Dick Francis. When I saw mention of this on her Twitter update earlier in the week, I was intrigued. Not only because I was a big fan of Dick Francis’s work back in the day (when I was a teen, I binged on about twelve or fifteen books of his in quick succession, borrowing a stack at a go from our city library). I quickly recognized the formula (wiry, game ex-jockey who goes through some horrifying torture on his way to solving a racing-related mystery) and reveled in the easy read that predictability provided.

Today we read more about binge-watching television shows but binge-reading has its uses. Concentrated non-academic reading clears my mind of the detritus of a term of teaching. I’m not obsessing about the successes and failures of my students (or the recurrent problem some demonstrated in differentiating between hanged and hung in a discussion of early modern punishments). By reading a raft of mysteries, romances, fantasies and other completely non-work-related non-fiction, I’m attuned to words in a very different way than I was in the midst of marking. I’m thinking about what makes a story compelling and where it disappoints. I’m aware of how word choice can make or break a scene, all in a way that’s fun and energizing. I’m reminded about what I love in reading and ready to get back into writing, even my own much more sedate academic history.

Reading for teaching is diagnostic: you’re trying to find problems or help prescribe solutions. Reading for research is surgical: you’re in there to get some specific nuggets of information to fuel your own scholarship. Reading for entertainment is restorative: you’re in there to relax or explore or think in different ways. A balanced reading life includes all of these aspects. Sadly, when term’s crazy, I tend towards only the first two forms but this entertainment binge has me back in balance and just in time. Another deadline’s looming!

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