Author: Sarah Shurts, Professor of History, Bergen Community College
History in Practice engages students in the process of "doing history" via source analysis and synthesis. Its multi-step, inquiry-based approach guides students from the basics of understanding a source to creating informed examinations of the historical world. There are three sections within each module, and each section includes the following:
The sources, historical thinking prompts, and select active learning assignments have short answer variations when you integrate these materials into your LMS. For more information, ask your Oxford University Press representative.
Tyrtaios was a Spartan lyric poet who lived during the seventh century BCE. Much of his poetry supports the traditional view of Sparta as a city devoted to military might, but he wrote during a time of war against the rebellious Messenian helots so it is not unexpected that his poetry would reflect the importance of military values and themes of war at the time.
I would neither call a man to mind nor put him in my tale for prowess in the race or the wrestling, not even had he the stature and strength of a Cyclops and surpassed in swiftness the Thracian Northwind, nor were he a comelier man than Tithonus and a richer than Midas or Cinyras, nor though he were a greater king than Pelops son of Tantalus, and had Adrastus’ suasiveness of tongue, nor yet though all fame were his save of warlike strength; for a man is not good in war if he have not endured the sight of bloody slaughter and stood nigh and reached forth to strike the foe. This is prowess, this is the noblest prize and the fairest for a lad to win in the world; a common good this both for the city and all her people, when a man standeth firm in the forefront without ceasing, and making heart and soul to abide, forgetteth foul flight altogether and hearteneth by his words him that he standeth by. Such a man is good in war; he quickly turneth the savage hosts of the enemy, and stemmeth the wave of battle with a will; moreover he that falleth in the van and loseth dear life to the glory of his city and his countrymen and his father, with many a frontwise wound through breast and breastplate and through bossy shield, he is bewailed alike by young and old, and lamented with sore regret by all the city. His grave and his children are conspicuous among men, and his children’s and his line after them; nor ever doth his name and good fame perish, but though he be underground he liveth evermore, seeing that he was doing nobly and abiding in the fight for country’s and children’s sake when fierce Ares brought him low.
Credit - “Elegy and Iambus, Volume I J. M. Edmonds, Ed.” Translated by J M Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, Volume I, Volume 1, Tyrtaeus, The Elegiac Poems of Tyrtaeus, 1931.
Xenophon was an Athenian military commander and philosopher who lived during the fourth and fifth century BCE. As a military commander of a respected army of Greek mercenaries, Xenophon fought alongside Spartan commanders and gained great respect for Spartan soldiers and society. His histories are very favorable to the Spartan discipline and he emphasizes what he believes contributed to their military supremacy in his work.
Lycurgus thought the labour of slave women sufficient to supply clothing. He believed motherhood to be the most important function of freeborn woman. Therefore, in the first place, he insisted on physical training for the female no less than for the male sex: moreover, he instituted races and trials of strength for women competitors as for men, believing that if both parents are strong they produce more vigorous offspring. . . It might happen, however, that an old man had a young wife; and he observed that old men keep a very jealous watch over their young wives. To meet these cases he instituted an entirely different system by requiring the elderly husband to introduce into his house some man whose physical and moral qualities he admired, in order to beget children. . . . In case a man did not want to cohabit with his wife and nevertheless desired children of whom he could be proud, he made it lawful for him to choose a woman who was the mother of a fine family and of high birth, and if he obtained her husband’s consent, to make her the mother of his children. . . .
Instead of letting [the youth] be pampered in the matter of clothing, he introduced the custom of wearing one garment throughout the year, believing that they would thus be better prepared to face changes of heat and cold. As to the food, he required the prefect to bring with him such a moderate amount of it that the boys . . . would know what it was to go with their hunger unsatisfied; for he believed that those who underwent this training would be better able to continue working on an empty stomach, if necessary . . .
On the other hand, lest they should feel too much the pinch of hunger, while not giving them the opportunity of taking what they wanted without trouble he allowed them to alleviate their hunger by stealing something. . . . There can be no doubt then, that all this education was planned by him in order to make the boys more resourceful in getting supplies, and better fighting men. Someone may ask: But why, if he believed stealing to be a fine thing, did he have the boy who was caught beaten with many stripes? Because in all cases men punish a learner for not carrying out properly whatever he is taught to do. So the Spartans chastise those who get caught for stealing badly.
Credit - “Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians E. C. Marchant, G. W. Bowersock, Tr. Constitution of the Athenians., Ed.” Translated by G W Bowersock, Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians, Chapter 2, Harvard University Press, 1925.
Plutarch was a historian, biographer, and later priest at the Oracle at Delphi who was born in Greece and became a Roman citizen in the first century. His Sayings of Spartans is one of the very few sources on Spartan life but it is a controversial source to use on Sparta since it was written by a non-Spartan hundreds of years after the events recalled. Even the sources, now lost, that he used to write his Sayings of Spartans were written long after the Spartan lives they discuss.
Leonidas. When someone said, “Because of the arrows of the barbarians it is impossible to see the sun,” he said, “Won’t it be nice, then, if we shall have shade in which to fight them? When someone else said, “They are near to us,” he said, “Then we also are near to them.” When Xerxes wrote, “Hand over your arms,” he wrote in reply, “Come and take them.”
Lycurgus. Having introduced the abolition of debts, he next undertook to divide equally all household furnishings, so as to do away completely with all inequality and disparity. But when he saw that the people were likely to demur about assenting to this outright spoliation, he decreed that gold and silver coin should in future have no value, and ordained that the people should use iron money only. He also limited the time within which it was lawful to exchange their present holdings for this money. . . . And, by reason of this, no merchant, no public lecturer, no soothsayer or mendicant priest, no maker of fancy articles ever made his way into Sparta. The reason was that he permitted no handy coinage to circulate among them, but instituted the iron coinage exclusively, which in weight was over a pound and a quarter, and in value not quite a penny. . . . Having determined to make an attack upon the prevailing luxury, and to do away with the rivalry for riches, he instituted the common meals . . .
He took good care that none should be allowed to dine at home and then come to the common meal stuffed with other kinds of food and drink. The rest of the company used to berate the man who did not drink or eat with them, because they felt that he was lacking in self-control, and was too soft for the common way of living. . . .
When someone else desired to know why he instituted strenuous exercise for the bodies of the maidens in races and wrestling and throwing the discus and javelin, he said, “So that the implanted stock of their offspring, by getting a strong start in strong bodies, may attain a noble growth, and that they themselves may with vigour abide the birth of their children and readily and nobly resist the pains of labor; and moreover, if the need arise, that they may be able to fight for themselves, their children, and their country. . . .
In answer to a man who expressed surprise because he debarred the husband from spending the nights with his wife, but ordained that he should be with his comrades most of the day and pass the whole night in their company, and visit his bride secretly and with great circumspection, he said, “So that they may be strong of body and never become sated, and that they may be ever fresh in affection, and that the children which they bring into the world may be more sturdy.”
Credit - Plutarch. p243 "Sayings of Spartans.” Plutarch • Sayings of Spartans - 208B‑236E, University of Chicago.
Herodotus is a Greek historian of the fifth century who is often praised as the “father of history” since he is one of the first writers to collect evidence and offer analysis of events from the past. However, his work is laced with bias, inaccuracy, and even mythology and legends so it is treated cautiously as a primary source.
Lycurgus, a man of reputation among the Spartans, went to the oracle at Delphi. As soon as he entered the hall, the priestess said in hexameter: “You have come to my rich temple, Lycurgus,
A man dear to Zeus and to all who have Olympian homes. I am in doubt whether to pronounce you man or god, But I think rather you are a god, Lycurgus.” Some say that the Pythia also declared to him the constitution that now exists at Sparta, but the Lacedaemonians themselves say that Lycurgus brought it from Crete when he was guardian of his nephew Leobetes, the Spartan king. Once he became guardian, he changed all the laws and took care that no one transgressed the new ones. Lycurgus afterwards established their affairs of war: the sworn divisions, the bands of thirty, the common meals; also the ephors and the council of elders. . . .
Croesus, then, aware of all this, sent messengers to Sparta with gifts to ask for an alliance . . . [Spartans] welcomed the coming of the Lydians and swore to be his friends and allies; and indeed they were obliged by certain benefits which they had received before from the king. For the Lacedaemonians had sent to Sardis to buy gold, intending to use it for the statue of Apollo which now stands on Thornax in Laconia; and Croesus, when they offered to buy it, made them a free gift of it. For this reason, and because he had chosen them as his friends before all the other Greeks, the Lacedaemonians accepted the alliance. So they declared themselves ready to serve him when he should require, and moreover they made a bowl of bronze, engraved around the rim outside with figures, and large enough to hold twenty-seven hundred gallons, and brought it with the intention of making a gift in return to Croesus. . . .
. . . [Demaratus speaking to Xerxes] “So is it with the Lacedaemonians; fighting singly they are as brave as any man living, and together they are the best warriors on earth. They are free, yet not wholly free: law is their master, whom they fear much more than your men fear you. They do whatever it bids; and its bidding is always the same, that they must never flee from the battle before any multitude of men, but must abide at their post and there conquer or die.”
Credit - Herodotus. “Greek Texts & Translations.” Perseus Under Philologic: Hdt.+1.65.2, University of Chicago.
Plutarch was a historian, biographer, and later priest at the oracle at Delphi who was born in Greece and became a Roman citizen in the first century. His Parallel Lives provides biographical essays on famous figures from Greek and Roman history and pairs the individuals in order to show similar themes or character traits. Plutarch’s biographies of the Spartan leader Lycurgus is controversial since it was written by a non-Spartan hundreds of years after the events recalled.
The elders of the tribes officially examined the infant, and if it was well-built and sturdy, they ordered the father to rear it, and assigned it one of the nine thousand lots of land; but if it was ill-born and deformed, they sent it to the socalled Apothetae, a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taygetus, in the conviction that the life of that which nature had not well equipped at the very beginning for health and strength, was of no advantage either to itself or the state. . . . Their nurses, too, exercised great care and skill; they reared infants without swaddling-bands, and thus left their limbs and figures free to develop; besides, they taught them to be contented and happy, not dainty about their food, nor fearful of the dark, nor afraid to be left alone, nor given to contemptible peevishness and whimpering. This is the reason why foreigners sometimes brought Spartan nurses for their children. . . .
Of reading and writing, they learned only enough to serve their turn; all the rest of their training was calculated to make them obey commands well, endure hardships, and conquer in battle. Therefore, as they grew in age, their bodily exercise was increased; their heads were close-clipped, and they were accustomed to going bare-foot, and to playing for the most part without clothes. When they were twelve years old, they no longer had tunics to wear, received one cloak a year, had hard, dry flesh, and knew little of baths and ointments; only on certain days of the year, and few at that, did they indulge in such amenities. They slept together, in troops and companies, on pallet-beds which they collected for themselves, breaking off with their hands— no knives allowed—the tops of the rushes which grew along the river . . .
. . . And they steal what they fetch, some of them entering the gardens, and others creeping right slyly and cautiously into the public messes of the men; but if a boy is caught stealing, he is soundly flogged, as a careless and unskilful thief. They steal, too, whatever food they can, and learn to be adept in setting upon people when asleep or off their guard. But the boy who is caught gets a flogging and must go hungry. . . .
The boys make such a serious matter of their stealing, that one of them, as the story goes, who was carrying concealed under his cloak a young fox which he had stolen, suffered the animal to tear out his bowels with its teeth and claws, and died rather than have his theft detected.
Credit - Plutarch. P205 "The Life of Lycurgus.” Plutarch • Life of Lycurgus, University of Chicago.
Nigel Kennell is Lecturer in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia. Kennell has written four books on Spartan and Greek life and countless articles. He has challenged the traditional narrative of Sparta in favor of a view of their society that is not exclusively devoted to the military.
The Spartans of our imagination are familiar from films, novels, comics and even certain history books. The men were ruled by iron discipline and an utter devotion to the laws of their city and the freedom of Greece; the women were more or less equivalent to the liberated women of modern times. These images of the Spartan way of life have been transmitted down through the centuries from the pens of ancient Greek and Roman writers through the scribes of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance humanists and thence to the scriptwriters, pundits, and novelists of the twenty-first century. . . . In recent years, however, the traditional view of Sparta has come under increasingly intense scrutiny as historians and archeologists apply new techniques, perspectives and occasionally even new pieces of evidence to the question of what it was to be a Spartan.
As a result, the long-standing consensus over the fundamental nature of Spartan society has begun to crumble. In its place, intense debate has arisen over each and every facet of what we thought we knew about Sparta and the Spartans. Even the very definition of “proper” Spartan history has changed as more and more specialists examine different aspects of post-classical Sparta. . . . In no other area of ancient Greek history is there a greater gulf between the common conception of Sparta and what specialists believe and dispute.
. . . Constructing a history of Sparta is bedeviled by two complicating factors—the lack of a corpus of writings by Classical Spartan authors that might illuminate the inner workings of Spartan institutions and the mindset of the Spartans themselves and the existence of a large corpus of writings by non-Spartans claiming to do just that. This is the famous “Spartan mirage” through which the image of the historical city gradually became transformed through the work of philosophers, biographers, historians, and romantics into that of a radically unique state unlike any other in Greece. . .
. . . If Tyrtaeus’ poems conform to our expectation of what Spartan poetry was like, Alcman’s do not. His poetry reflects a sophisticated society reveling in the good life: Song, dance, physical beauty, splendid textiles, and the brightness of gold figure prominently . . . Archeological finds, notably from the shrine of Orthia itself, also attest to a love of luxury, humor, and even frivolity in the early Archaic period that hardly jibes with the dour, militaristic Spartans of the ancient (and modern) imagination.
Credit - Nigel Kennell, Spartans: A New History, (Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2010), 1-25.
Stephen Hodkinson is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Nottingham and Director of the University’s Center for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies. His expertise on Sparta specifically and Greek warfare and society more generally have led the modern day city of Sparta to grant him honorary citizenship. He has written more than eight books and edited volumes on Spartan history.
[The aspect of Spartan military] on which I shall concentrate – is the question of the effect of the Spartans’ approach to military matters upon the character of Spartan society. Was Plato right, for instance, to claim that key institutions such as the common meals, the gymnasia, hunting and the krypteia were devised with a view to war? . . .
. . . Scholars have often wanted to view the Spartans’ need to keep the large helot populations of Lakonia and Messenia under permanent subjection as the major driving force behind their creation of a cohesive society of citizens sharing a common public lifestyle. This hypothesis has naturally led scholars to assume that the society thus created must have been dominated by the requirements of military security. . . .
However, as I have already argued elsewhere, to ascribe the transformation and subsequent character of Spartan society to the helot problem is too extreme. Sparta was not unique in reducing a native population to a condition of servitude during the archaic period. . . .
. . . Indeed, so little were the Spartans normally in fear of a helot threat that they went about their daily lives unarmed. . . . In sum, there are no grounds for assuming purely from the presence of the helots that Spartan society must have possessed an especially military character.
Clearly, there are some respects in which military affairs were more prominent in Spartiate life than within the life of citizens in other poleis. The most basic respect was that liability for military service, in its primary form of hoplite fighting, extended to all Spartiates between the ages of 20 and 60. No other Greek polis equated citizenship with military service to quite this extent; although . . . all Greek poleis had very high rates of military participation. . . .
. . . Contemporary sources are silent about the provision of specialized military training for adult Spartiates. Not only, as we have seen, are the implications of the references to collective formation drill ambiguous; there is no mention at all of weapons practice or of any sort of mock combat training. . . .
. . . Evidence for their other daily activities suggests that adult Spartiates had sizeable amounts of time available for personal business, such as approaches to their patrons or pederastic partners, political negotiations, economic transactions in the agora, and supervision of their estates. An adult Spartiate’s daily life was not excessively dominated by his civic duties, still less by those aspects of his duties that pertained to his role as a warrior.
Credit - Stephen Hodkinson, “Was Classical Sparta a Military Society?” in eds. Stephen Hodkinson and Anton Powell, Sparta and War (2006) 111-162.
Paul Cartledge is A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow, Clare College and Emeritus A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University. He has written or edited over thirty books on Spartan and ancient Greek history and continues to support much of the traditional narrative on Sparta.
Helots are the single most important human fact about ancient Sparta. . . . The Helots provided the Spartans with the economic basis of their unique lifestyle. They vastly outnumbered the full Spartan citizens . . . The Spartans were exceptionally successful masters, keeping the Helots in subjection for more than three centuries. But they did so at considerable cost. The threat of Helot revolt, especially from the Messenians, was almost constant, and the Spartans responded by turning themselves into a sort of permanently armed camp, Fortress Sparta. Male Spartan citizens were forbidden any other trade, profession or business other than war, and they acquired the reputation of being the Marines of the entire Greek world, a uniquely professional and motivated fighting force. . . .
The legend of Lycurgus postulated a remarkable ‘Year Zero’ scenario when, at a moment of deep crisis, he was able to persuade his fellow Spartans to introduce the comprehensive and compulsory educational cycle called the Agoge . . . This system of education, training, and socialization turned boys into fighting men whose reputation for discipline, courage, and skill was unsurpassed. . . .
The Spartan myth was persuasively labelled a ‘mirage’ in the 1930s by the French scholar François Ollier, because the relation between the myth and reality was and is sometimes so hard to perceive without distortion. . . . Perhaps the most interesting and controversial of all its many facets is the position of Spartan women. . . . An Athenian girl would receive no formal education beyond training for the domestic duties required of a good Athenian wife and mother . . .
In sharp and complete contrast, Spartan women were—allegedly—active, prominent, powerful, surprisingly independent-minded . . . Girls had a similar education to that of boys, though separate . . . they threw the javelin and discus, wrestled . . . all completely naked and in full public view, to the consternation of Greek visitors from other cities. . . .
Spartan women could own property, including land . . . Helot women and men did the housework for them . . . Sexually too they seemed to be independent . . .
Credit - Paul Cartledge, The Spartans: An Epic History (Macmillan, 2002) 1-50.
Andrew Scott is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Villanova University. His primary expertise lies in Roman civilization and the history of Cassius Dio although he has written several articles on Spartan society.
According to several ancient sources, Spartan custom allowed for plural marriage, whereby two or more men might sire children by the same woman. It has been written that “[e]vidence for the custom of wife-sharing. . . is so unequivocal that it is impossible to disbelieve it altogether.” Taking this comment as a starting point, I suggest that an understanding of the institution of plural marriage is crucial for a greater understanding of archaic and classical Sparta. . . . since the institution of the practice is attributed to Lycurgus, we are within the limits of the so-called Spartan mirage . . . The purpose of marriage at Sparta was the propagation of healthy offspring, and in such a system, the value of a marriage was calculated with regard to the ability to produce such children. Spartan men and women were meant to marry at the acme of their physical fitness and so organized exercise was prescribed for both sexes. Once the marriage had taken place, men and women were not to spend an unlimited amount of time together, and forced separation was meant to increase desire and therefore produce more vigorous offspring. . . . Men and women allegedly did not cohabit until much later in life, probably not until the time that their first male offspring would have entered the agõgê. While the mother presumably lived with the offspring of the marriage, the male lived with his fellow Spartiates while his first children were still young. This weakened sense of paternity can also be seen in the relationships between Spartiates and younger boys. As Xenophon specifically points out, all Spartan males acted as fathers to Spartan boys . . . In a social system that did not emphasize the rights and emotional engagements of paternity, the practice of wife sharing accords with the sense of collective parenting. . . . Based on its ideological association of egalitarianism and consequent similarity to other social constructs that were conceived prior to the classical period, formalized plural marriage as an institution most likely dates to the archaic period, and the goal of the institution was the production of the finest offspring and to exploit the procreative ability of the most fertile women. On an ideological level, it most likely arose out of the sense of egalitarianism that was officially imposed on various Spartan institutions at this time.
Credit - Andrew G Scott, “Plural Marriage and the Spartan State” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 60, H. 4 (2011), pp. 413-424
Agnes Bencze is Assistant Professor of Art History at Hungary’s Pázmány Péter Catholic University. She received a Mellon Foundation grant to study at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012.
Archaeological finds . . . show that the image of Sparta, as a city-state without art dedicated exclusively to warfare, cannot be simply extrapolated to the Archaic period. In fact, in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., and especially in the first half of the sixth century B.C., Sparta and its region, Lakonia, had its own workshops in several genres of artistic craft, such as vase painting, metalwork, ivory and bone carving, and even stone sculpture, in which artists created works in an original, often well-recognizable style with a distinct iconographic repertoire. Painted pottery was produced in Lakonian workshops already in the eighth century B.C., in a local version of the geometric style, and circulated to most regions and centers of the Greek world. After the mainly nonfigural decoration of the Orientalizing period, around 630 B.C., Lakonian vase painters adopted the black-figure technique from Corinth . . . Although it cannot be compared to the Athenian in quantity and in artistic invention, Lakonian black-figure vase painting produced a characteristic style and reached even remote regions of the Mediterranean . . .
. . . Lakonian black-figure painters had a predilection for special variations on conventional mythological scenes, symbolic figures like winged human figures, sirens, and sphinxes, and floral ornamental patterns including pomegranates and tendrils . . . An outstanding field of Lakonian art and craft was bronzeworking, in particular small-scale bronze sculpture and the production of decorated bronze vessels. Solid cast, small-scale bronze figures usually embellished vessels, tripods, mirrors, and other utensils. . . . Lakonian bronze vessels are distinguished essentially on stylistic grounds from contemporary Corinthian, Argive, Athenian, and other products, taking into account both the shape and technical traits of the vessels themselves and the rendering of the figural decoration. One particular class of bronze objects can be entirely ascribed to Sparta on the account of their special iconography: disk-shaped mirrors supported by figures of nude girls . . . Literary sources confirm that in the sixth century B.C., Sparta was also a major artistic center and home to several important artists and workshops. Some of the artists may have been immigrants, mainly of East Greek origin . . . Others seem to have been born and educated in Sparta . . . While these works of art, however famous in late antiquity, are now lost, we can rely on some extant stone sculptures for an idea of Lakonian large-scale art . . . especially the monumental piece found in Chrysapha, and an early sixth-century B.C. female head in Olympia, which can be connected with Sparta on firm stylistic grounds.
Credit - Agnes Bencze, “Art and Craft in Archaic Sparta.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000
Alcman was a lyric poet from Sparta in the seventh century BCE. Most of Alcman’s poetry was lost in the Middle Ages except for brief lines included in other works. However, in the mid-1800s, a piece of papyrus was found in Saqqara Egypt containing one-hundred lines of an Alcman poem called the “Partheneion” (Maiden Song.) This piece would most likely have been performed at a public festival in Sparta by a chorus of maidens. The two leading roles would have been Agido and Hagesikhora. Additional poems by Alcman were found and translated in the 1960s after archeologists found a garbage dump in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt containing thousands of pieces of papyrus with literature and other writings.
And I sing the radiance of Agido, seeing
her as the sun, which for us
is shown by Agido—she is the eyewitness
to shine with its sunlight. But for me to praise her
or to blame her is not allowed by the glorious leader of the chorus
No, she does not allow me. For that one appears radiantly to be
outstanding, as when someone
sets among grazing cattle a horse,
well-built, a prize-winner, with thundering hooves,
something from out of those dreams that happen underneath a rock.
Don’t you see? One is a racehorse
from Paphlagonia. But the mane
of the other one, my kinswoman
Hagesikhora, blossoms on her head
like imperishable gold.
And the silver look of her face—
what can I tell you openly?
She is Hagesikhora.
But whoever is second to Agido in beauty,
let her be a Scythian horse running against a Lydian one.
I say this because the Pleiades,
as we bring the sacred veil for the Dawn Goddess,
are passing through the ambrosial night, rising up over the horizon
like Sirius the star, to do battle with us.
It is true: all the royal purple
in the world cannot resist.
No fancy snake-bracelet,
made of pure gold, no headdress
from Lydia, the kind that girls
with tinted eyelids wear to make themselves fetching.
No, even the hair of Nanno is not enough.
Nor goddess-like Areta,
nor Thylakis and Kleesithera;
you wouldn’t say so even if you went to the house of Ainesimbrota.
Even if Astaphis were mine,
or Philylla gazed at me,
Damareta too, and lovely Ianthemis,
still, it is Hagesikhora who wears me down.
For she, with her beautiful ankles,
Hagesikhora, is not there.
She stays at the side of Agido.
And she gives authority to our festive actions.
Credit - “Alcman's Partheneion.” Translated by Gregory Nagy, Alcman Partheneion - SB, Harvard University, 19 Dec. 2016, chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5294.
Simonides of Ceos, “On Those Who Died at Thermopylae” (400s BCE)
Simonides was a fifth-century BCE Greek lyric poet from the island of Ceos in the Aegean. His skill in composing epitaphs and poetry memorializing fallen warriors apparently won him great renown and many requests for his work during the Greco-Persian wars. His life and work are often difficult to date since most of his own work is lost. However, much insight has been gained from new pieces by Simonides found at the dig in Oxyrhynchus Egypt.
Of those who at Thermopylae were slain,
Glorious the doom, and beautiful the lot;
Their tomb an altar: men from tears refrain
To honor them, and praise, but mourn them not.
Such sepulchre, nor drear decay
Nor all-destroying time shall waste; this right have they.
Within their grave the home-bred glory
Of Greece was laid: this witness gives
Leonidas the Spartan, in whose story
A wreath of famous virtue ever lives.
Simonides of Ceos, “Epitaph”
The famous epitaph was supposedly written by Simonides of Ceos at the request of the Greek victors in the Greco-Persian wars and carved on a cenotaph at Thermopylae. It has been reproduced in other works over the centuries although the original cenotaph was destroyed.
Go, passerby, to Sparta tell
Obedient to her laws we fell
Credit - Wright, John Henry. “Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902)/Simonides of Ceos.” Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902)/Simonides of Ceos - Wikisource, the Free Online Library, Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1902.
The Athenian Constitution has an unknown author who is therefore sometimes referred to as the Old Oligarch after his supposed political preferences. The piece is critical of democratic rule although it acknowledges that the Athenian system does a good job of accomplishing democracy.
There the poor and the people generally are right to have more than the highborn and wealthy for the reason that it is the people who man the ships and impart strength to the city; the steersmen, the boatswains, the sub-boatswains, the look-out officers, and the shipwrights—these are the ones who impart strength to the city far more than the hoplites, the high-born, and the good men. This being the case, it seems right for everyone to have a share in the magistracies, both allotted and elective, for anyone to be able to speak his mind if he wants to. Then there are those magistracies which bring safety or danger to the people as a whole depending on whether or not they are well managed: of these the people claim no share (they do not think they should have an allotted share in the generalships or cavalry commands). For these people realize that there is more to be gained from their not holding these magistracies but leaving them instead in the hands of the most influential men. However, such magistracies as are salaried and domestically profitable the people are keen to hold. . . . Someone might say that they ought not to let everyone speak on equal terms and serve on the council, but rather just the cleverest and finest. Yet their policy is also excellent in this very point of allowing even the worst people to speak. For if the good men were to speak and make policy, it would be splendid for the likes of themselves but not so for the men of the people. But, as things are, any wretch who wants to can stand up and obtain what is good for him and the likes of himself. Someone might say, “What good would such a man propose for himself and the people?” But they know that this man’s ignorance, baseness, and favour are more profitable than the good man’s virtue, wisdom, and ill-will. A city would not be the best on the basis of such a way of life, but the democracy would be best preserved that way. For the people do not want a good government under which they themselves are slaves; they want to be free and to rule. Bad government is of little concern to them. What you consider bad government is the very source of the people’s strength and freedom.
Credit - Marchant, E. C. “Pseudo-Xenophon (Old Oligarch), Constitution of the Athenians E. C. Marchant, Ed.” Pseudo-Xenophon (Old Oligarch), Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 3, Harvard University Press, 1984.
Thucydides, an Athenian historian and former general recognized for using evidence and methodology in his history rather than simply storytelling, included a funeral speech by Pericles in his History of the Peloponnesian War. By 430, Athens and Sparta had been engaged in a war for a year and Pericles, a general and recognized leader among the people for over a decade, was asked to provide a speech commemorating those Athenians who had died. His speech, or rather Thucydides’s depiction of it, is more a celebration of the greatness of the city of Athens, particularly its democratic government, for which these men fought than for the men themselves. Pericles’s praise of Athenian democracy was not entirely disinterested since he played a significant role in proposing legislation that strengthened the role of the working poor in the government and expanding the Athenian empire overseas.
Let me say that our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbors. It is more the case of our being a model to others than of our imitating anyone else. Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people’s feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.
We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we obey the laws themselves....
. . . As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it. Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well: even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics—this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all. We Athenians, in our own persons, take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper discussions: for we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated. And this is another point where we differ from other people.
Credit - Thucydides. “Pericles' Funeral Oration.” Hillsdale College Online
Aristotle was a student of Plato—who was a student of Socrates—and was considered one of the greatest philosophers of the ancient world. He was a polymath who wrote on a variety of topics and fields of science, politics, the natural world, and economics. His brilliance in philosophy and other topics led to his position as tutor to Alexander the Great. Aristotle was not a supporter of democratic government since he considered it a distortion of constitutional rule but did devote much of his work on politics to analyzing and exploring its processes and principles.
Now a fundamental principle of the democratic form of constitution is liberty—that is what is usually asserted, implying that only under this constitution do men participate in liberty, for they assert this as the aim of every democracy. But one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not worth, and if this is the principle of justice prevailing, the multitude must of necessity be sovereign and the decision of the majority must be final and must constitute justice, for they say that each of the citizens ought to have an equal share; so that it results that in democracies the poor are more powerful than the rich, because there are more of them and whatever is decided by the majority is sovereign. This then is one mark of liberty which all democrats set down as a principle of the constitution. And one is for a man to live as he likes; for they say that this is the function of liberty, inasmuch as to live not as one likes is the life of a man that is a slave. This is the second principle of democracy, and from it has come the claim not to be governed, preferably not by anybody, or failing that, to govern and be governed in turns; and this is the way in which the second principle contributes to equalitarian liberty. And these principles having been laid down and this being the nature of democratic government, the following institutions are democratic in character: election of officials by all from all; government of each by all, and of all by each in turn; election by lot either to all magistracies or to all that do not need experience and skill; no property-qualification for office, or only a very low one; no office to be held twice, or more than a few times, by the same person, or few offices except the military ones; short tenure either of all offices or of as many as possible; judicial functions to be exercised by all citizens, that is by persons selected from all, and on all matters . . . ; the assembly to be sovereign over all matters, but no official over any or only over extremely few; or else a council to be sovereign over the most important matters . . . ; also payment for public duties, preferably in all branches, assembly, law-courts, magistracies . . . Also inasmuch as oligarchy is defined by birth, wealth and education, the popular qualifications are thought to be the opposite of these, low birth, poverty, vulgarity. And in respect of the magistracies it is democratic to have none tenable for life.
Credit - “Aristotle, Politics.” Translated by H. Rackham, Aristotle, Politics, Book 6, Section 1319a, Harvard University Press, 1944
Demosthenes was a fourth-century Athenian orator whose most famous speeches were those against the expansion of Macedon and the threat that Philip II and Alexander the Great posed to Greek independence. His speech “Against Leptines” was actually concerned with inheritance taxes and exemptions rather than a discussion of democratic government, but in it he compares Athenian law to that of cities like Sparta and Thebes, inviting a comparison of the governments as well.
I am quite aware that the Thebans and the Lacedaemonians and ourselves do not observe the same laws and customs, nor the same form of government. For in the first place, if this is their argument, they are about to do exactly what a man cannot do at Sparta—praise the laws of Athens or of any other state; nay, so far from that, he is obliged to praise, as well as do, whatever accords with his native constitution. Then again, though the Lacedaemonians do not hold with these customs, yet there are other honors at Sparta, which our citizens to a man would shrink from introducing here. What, then, are those honors? Not to take each singly, I will describe one which comprises all the rest. Whenever a man for his good conduct is elected to the Senate, or Gerusia, as they call it, he is absolute master of the mass of citizens. For at Sparta the prize of merit is to share with one’s peers the supremacy in the State; but with us the people is supreme, and any other form of supremacy is forbidden by imprecations and laws and other safeguards, but we have crowns of honor and immunities and free maintenance and similar rewards, which anyone may win, if he is a good citizen. And both these customs are right enough, the one at Sparta and the other here. Why? Because in an oligarchy harmony is attained by the equality of those who control the State, but the freedom of a democracy is guarded by the rivalry with which good citizens compete for the rewards offered by the people. . . . The Thebans, men of Athens, plume themselves more on brutality and iniquity than you on humanity and love of justice. If a prayer may be allowed, may they never cease to withhold honor and admiration from those who do them service, or to deal with kindred states in the same way . . . And never may you cease to do the opposite, honoring your benefactors and winning your rights from your fellow-citizens by debate and in harmony with the laws!
Credit - “Demosthenes, Against Leptines.” Translated by C A Vince and J H Vince, Demosthenes, Against Leptines, Section 109, Harvard University Press, 1926
The decree of Demophantos was the first piece of legislation passed by the people once they recovered their democracy after a coup in 411 during the Peloponnesian Wars. The decree is actually an oath supporting tyrannicide and assassination of would be tyrants in order to preserve Athenian democracy in the future. It also removes the stigma of religious impurity from the killers. The two names mentioned, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, were Athenian heroes who had attempted tyrannicide against the Peisistratid family and paved the way for the reforms of Kleisthenes that are considered the foundation of Athenian democracy.
If anyone overthrows the democracy at Athens, or holds any office when the democracy has been overthrown, he shall be an enemy of the Athenians and shall be killed with impunity, and his property shall be confiscated and a tenth part of it devoted to the Goddess; and he who kills or helps to plan the killing of such a man shall be pure and free from guilt. All Athenians shall swear over unblemished sacrifices by tribes and by demes [villages] to kill such a man. The oath shall be as follows: “I shall kill, by word and deed, by vote and by my own hand, if I can, anyone who overthrows the democracy at Athens, and anyone who, when the democracy has been overthrown, holds any office thereafter, and anyone who sets himself to be tyrant or helps to set up the tyrant. And if anyone else kills him, I shall consider that man to be pure in the sight of both gods and spirits, because he has killed an enemy of the Athenians, and I will see all the property of the dead man and give half to the killer and not keep any back. And if anyone dies while killing or attempting to kill any such man, I shall care both for himself and his children, just as for Harmodios and Aristogeiton and their descendants. And all oaths that have been sworn against the people of Athens, at Athens or on campaigns or anywhere else, I declare null and void.” All Athenians shall swear this oath over unblemished sacrifices, in the customary manner, before the Dionysia, and they shall pray that he who keeps his oath may have many blessings, but that for him who breaks it destruction may befall himself and his family.
Credit - The Laws of Solon: A New Edition with Introduction, Translation and Commentary By D F Leão, P. J. Rhodes
Josiah Ober is Mitsotakis Professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University. He is the author of multiple books on Athenian politics and democracy as well as over 75 articles on Greek political life and democracy.
The Athenian demos exercised its collective power in order to prevent elite political domination, and thus the “power of the people” was not a cover for elite rule. . . . Why are liberal theorists of democracy unwilling to countenance the possibility that the ordinary citizens really did rule in Athens? One possible reason is that [the common opinion of many historians] has been that Athens was not genuinely democratic: The real political business of Athens was done behind the scenes, by a few wealthy aristocrats who formed themselves into parties, factions, hetairiai, etc. And thus, since the name “democracy” concealed a crypto-oligarchy, the serious student of Athenian political life must learn to ignore the facade of popular rule and focus on relationships (political alliances, marriage connections, extended family ties, inherited clan enmity, etc.) between the power-brokers. . . . But, in fact, a substantial body of primary evidence supports the view that the ordinary citizens ruled in classical Athens . . . By the later fourth century, the citizen assembly (ekklesia) met 40 times each year. Meetings, which were usually announced several days in advance, ordinarily lasted about half a day, and were open to all citizens (adult, free, native-born males: a body of perhaps 30,000 persons). Some 6,000-8,000 men typically attended; those who arrived early enough were paid (about an average day’s wage) by the state. The agenda of each meeting was established in advance by a Council of 500 citizens selected by lot for an annual term of service; the Council also made recommendations on some agenda items. There is no reason to suppose that any class of Athenian citizens was systematically underrepresented at the Assembly . . . any citizen in attendance could get up to speak to the issue—advocating a negative vote, revisions to the Council’s proposal, or a completely new proposal-for as long as his fellow citizens were willing to listen to him. When the Assemblymen tired of listening to a speaker, they would shout him down. After everyone willing to undergo this gauntlet had had his say, the president conducted a vote, usually by show of hands. A simple majority determined the issue, and the president turned to the next item. In this manner, the Athenians conducted all important business, including foreign policy and taxation. The language of many preserved decrees demonstrates that the debate in the Assembly had substantial effect; frequently the actual decree had been proposed at the Assembly by a voluntary speaker.
Credit - Josiah Ober, “Public Speech and the Power of the People in Democratic Athens,” PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), 481-486
Mogens Hansen is a classical philologist, retired professor at the University of Copenhagen, and past director of the Copenhagen Polis Centre. He has written numerous books on aspects of Athenian government and polis life in Greece. Here he considers the similarity between Athenian values of liberty and equality and those of modern democracies.
Conceptually, democracy and demokratia are homonyms, not synonyms, and in our analysis we ought to distinguish between modern democracy and ancient demokratia . . . First, democracy is the rule of the whole of the people, to the exclusion of minors and maniacs only. Demokratia was rule by male citizens only, to the exclusion of women, free foreigners (metics) and slaves. Thus by our standards it was oligarchy, not democracy . . . It is true that the Athenian demokratia in the age of Aristotle does not square with the definitions of democracy proposed in the 1950s and 1960s, but . . . before ca. 1850, no one would object to calling demokratia democracy . . . Very few had qualms about democracies that excluded half the population, namely women. . . . In this article, I will focus on the Athenian democrats’ views about their own constitution and ask whether the democrats cherished the same ideas as we do today. To answer this question, we must analyze the two basic democratic values, liberty and equality. . . . Political liberty is either freedom to participate in political life or freedom from political oppression and both forms of liberty are explicitly connected with democracy. A similar duality is found in the ancient Greek description of liberty as a basic democratic value. Let me quote a passage from Aristotle’s Politics “A basic principle of the democratic constitution is liberty . . . Ruling and being ruled in turn is one element in liberty . . . another element is to live as you like.” . . . According to Aristotle, liberty is partly political participation by ruling in turn, partly freedom from political oppression. . . . It is significant that, when our sources report cases in which the Athenians disregarded individual rights, they tend to speak of infringements of the (democratic) laws, which proves in fact that the Athenians had the notion of individual rights but did not always live up to their own ideals. . . . All historians agree, correctly in my opinion, that equality in Athens was a political concept that never spread to the social and economic spheres. Equal distribution of land and cancelation of debts, for example, were hot questions in other Greek poleis but never in democratic Athens . . . but what did political equality mean to the Athenians? . . . the aspect of equality singled out by the Athenians and cherished as democratic was . . . equality of opportunity . . . each citizen must have an equal opportunity to demonstrate his excellence and deserves rewards according to merit . . . . Equality of nature was never an integral part of the Athenian democratic ideology.
Credit - Mogens Herman Hansen, Was Athens a Democracy? Popular Rule, Liberty and Equality in Ancient and Modern Political Thought (The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1989) 1-25.
Robin Osborne is Professor of Ancient History at Kings College, Cambridge University where he specializes in Greek history. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy. Over his long career he has written countless articles, books, and textbooks on Greek culture, art, and political life.
The key institution was surely the Council. The Council of 500 in which all ten of the artificial tribal units created by Kleisthenes [in] 507 were equally represented, was, more importantly, a body on which members of every community in Attica, every deme, always served, in numbers more or less in proportion to the size of the community . . . All these voices were there for the hearing. And they were there for the hearing on all the business of the state; for, with some exceptions but no systematic exceptions, it was the Council of 500 which chewed over all business that was to be discussed by the Assembly, and made more or less definite recommendations about what the Assembly should decide. No recommendation was made to the Assembly without someone from each of the communities in Attica having been able in principle to have a say, and to have a say in a body which, though large, had time enough for real deliberation. The Assembly did not always accept the advice of the Council, but it rarely formulated detailed decisions different from those recommended by the Council without referring the matter back to the Council in some way or other. The Council was not a government. It was not at all like the British Parliament. There were representatives of each community, but those representatives were chosen by lot (from whoever volunteered), not by election; they served for only a year at a time and not more than twice in a lifetime . . . Nor did the Council provide continuity; indeed it guaranteed that what came to the Assembly had been screened by a body that was constantly changing . . . Such continuity as Athenian politics enjoyed was provided not by the Council but by those who spoke in the Assembly. Once the suggestion of the Council had been read out to the Assembly, the 6,000 or so Athenians gathered on the Pnyx were asked, ‘Who wants to speak?’ Anyone could take up this invitation and there may well have been unknown faces addressing the Assembly . . . but some men spoke more than others. It was these men—some of whom gained public stature from holding repeatedly one of the few offices (the most important of which was general, which could be held more than once or twice)—who carried the corporate memory and made some degree of consistency of principle and practice possible. Democracy could not have worked without this elite.
Credit - Robin Osborne, Athens and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2010) 1-29
Daniela Cammack is Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley after teaching briefly at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale Universities. Her current research focus is on Athenian democracy with additional research in the work of Aristotle.
When an ancient Greek dēmos (people) deliberated, what did it do? On one view, it engaged in a form of public conversation along the lines theorized by contemporary deliberative democrats; on another, a small number of active citizens debated before a much larger, more passive audience. Both accounts represent deliberation as an external, speech-centered activity rather than an internal, thought-centered one. The democratic ideal, it is suggested, was at least occasional participation in public speech.
This article questions that interpretation. A study of βουλεύομαι, “deliberate,” and related terms from Homer to Aristotle reveals three models of deliberation: internal, dialogical, and another that I shall call “audience,” in which a deliberating audience came to a decision after hearing advice. Assembly deliberation was almost always represented as audience deliberation. The dēmos, or listening mass, deliberated, that is came to a decision about an action in its power, while those who spoke before it advised. Citizens did not fall short of a democratic ideal when they did not speak publicly. To the contrary, the dēmos was expected to exercise its authority through internal reflection, culminating in a vote.
This argument has profound implications for our conceptualization of ancient Greek democracy and its differences from its modern counterpart. A common criticism of modern representative democracy is that ordinary citizens play too small a part in it, their role typically being limited to voting in periodic elections. Ancient Greek democracy has been represented as more inclusive at least in part because ordinary citizens shaped policy through public speech. This article suggests that that view is based on a misinterpretation. The mass of citizens shaped policy by deciding it, not by speaking publicly. . . . Then as now the crucial medium of participation was the vote. . . .
. . . In Josiah Ober’s words, “if even one in a hundred citizens chose to exercise his isēgoria at any given meeting, the volume of debate that would precede the vote would cause the system to founder.” Yet meetings lasted no more than a few hours. Evidently only a tiny fraction of assemblygoers spoke at any given session; the rest simply listened and voted. . . .
. . . Audience members often shouted back to those who addressed them. Presumably still more frequently, they also spoke to one another. . . .
. . . But it was voting that enabled each attendee to participate in the decision-making process, thus giving the proceedings not only their collective character but also their deliberative one.
Credit - Daniela Cammack, “Deliberation in Ancient Greek Assemblies.”
Euripides was a highly regarded tragedian in fifth century Athens who authored as many as 92 plays, eighteen of which survive, including Medea and Electra. His story of the suppliant women tells of the aftermath of a battle for rule of Thebes between the two sons of Oedipus. When the battle is over, both brothers are dead, Creon has taken power in Thebes, and he refuses to allow the bodies of those killed in the war to be buried. The women of Thebes beg Theseus, mythical king and founder of Athens, to help them against Creon. The passage below shows Theseus challenging a Theban messenger from Creon and describing Athens as a democratic city. This is obviously anachronistic since the rule of Theseus at the founding of the city would not have corresponded to the time of reform after Kleisthenes in the fifth century. However, it allows Euripides to praise Athens for its participatory democracy and create a sense of pride in his audience.
Theban Herald. Who is the despot of this land? To whom must I announce the message of Creon . . .
Theseus. You have made a false beginning to your speech, stranger, in seeking a despot here. For this city is not ruled by one man, but is free. The people rule in succession year by year, allowing no preference to wealth, but the poor man shares equally with the rich.
Theban Herald. You give me here an advantage, as in a game of checkers; for the city from which I come is ruled by one man only, not by the mob; no one there puffs up the citizens with specious words, and for his own advantage twists them this way or that, one moment dear to them and lavish of his favors, the next harmful to all; and yet by fresh calumnies of others he hides his former failures and escapes punishment. Besides, how would the people, if it cannot form true judgments, be able rightly to direct the state? No, it is time, not haste, that affords a better understanding. A poor farmer, even if he were not unschooled, would still be unable from his toil to give his mind to politics. Truly the better sort count it no healthy sign when the worthless man obtains a reputation by beguiling with words the populace, though before he was nothing.
Theseus. . . . Nothing is more hostile to a city than a despot; where he is, there are first no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end. But when the laws are written down, rich and weak alike have equal justice, and it is open to the weaker to use the same language to the prosperous when he is reviled by him, and the weaker prevails over the stronger if he has justice on his side. Freedom’s mark is also seen in this: “Who has wholesome counsel to declare unto the state?” And he who chooses to do so gains renown, while he, who has no wish, remains silent. What greater equality can there be in a city?
“Euripides, The Suppliants E. P. Coleridge, Ed.” Translated by E P Coleridge, Euripides, The Suppliants, Line 1, Random House, 1938.
Aristophanes is one of the only comic playwrights whose comedies survived to the modern day. His comedy Acharnians is about an Athenian named Dicaeopolis whose frustration with his fellow citizens for not brokering peace with Sparta leads him to create his own individual peace agreement with the enemy. In this excerpt, Dicaeopolis gripes about his fellow citizens being late to the Assembly meeting. The mention of a “vermilioned rope” references a practice, repeated in other ancient sources, in which slaves were employed to carry a red-dyed rope stretched across the Agora, the open air marketplace, to visibly mark anyone loitering there when the Assembly was supposed to be meeting. This seems to indicate citizenship duties were expected of all.
Dicaeopolis: Still it is the day of assembly; all should be here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx is still deserted. They are gossiping in the marketplace, slipping hither and thither to avoid the vermilioned rope. The Prytanes even do not come; they will be late, but when they come they will push and fight each other for a seat in the front row. They will never trouble themselves with the question of peace. Oh! Athens! Athens! As for myself, I do not fail to come here before all the rest, and now, finding myself alone, I groan, yawn, stretch, break wind, and know not what to do; I make sketches in the dust, pull out my loose hairs, muse, think of my fields, long for peace, curse town life and regret my dear country home, which never told me to ‘buy fuel, vinegar or oil’; there the word ‘buy,’ which cuts me in two, was unknown; I harvested everything at will. Therefore I have come to the assembly fully prepared to bawl, interrupt and abuse the speakers, if they talk of anything but peace. But here come the Prytanes, and high time too, for it is midday! As I foretold, hah! is it not so? They are pushing and fighting for the front seats.
Credit - “Aristophanes, Acharnians Anonymous, Ed.” Aristophanes, Acharnians, Line 65, Liveright.
Herodotus is a Greek historian of the 5th century who is often praised as the “Father of History,” since he is one of the first writers to collect evidence and offer analysis of events from the past. However, his work is laced with bias, inaccuracy, and even mythology and legends so it is treated cautiously as a primary source. His Histories are one of the main sources scholars have for information on the Greco-Persian Wars from the perspective of a relative contemporary to the events. He was born six years after the Battle of Marathon in the Ionian city of Halicarnassus.
It was decided that they should guard the pass of Thermopylae, for they saw that it was narrower than the pass into Thessaly and nearer home. . . .
The pass through Trachis into Hellas is fifty feet wide at its narrowest point. It is not here, however, but elsewhere that the way is narrowest, namely, in front of Thermopylae and behind it . . . To the west of Thermopylae rises a high mountain, inaccessible and precipitous . . . to the east of the road there is nothing but marshes and sea. . . .
These places, then, were thought by the Greeks to suit their purpose. After making a thorough survey, they concluded that the barbarians could not make use of their entire army, nor of their horsemen. They therefore resolved, that they would meet the invader of Hellas here. . . .
The sum total of [Persian] fighting men is two million, six hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred and ten. . . .
Each [Greek] city had its own general, but the one most admired and the leader of the whole army was a Lacedaemonian, Leonidas . . .
. . . The Medes bore down upon the Hellenes and attacked. Many fell, but others attacked in turn, and they made it clear to everyone, especially to the king himself, that among so many people there were few real men. . . .
When the Medes had been roughly handled, they retired, and the Persians whom the king called Immortals, led by Hydarnes, attacked in turn. It was thought that they would easily accomplish the task. When they joined battle with the Hellenes, they fared neither better nor worse than the Median army, since they used shorter spears than the Hellenes and could not use their numbers fighting in a narrow space. . . .
The king was at a loss as to how to deal with the present difficulty. Epialtes son of Eurydemus, a Malian, thinking he would get a great reward from the king, came to speak with him and told him of the path leading over the mountain to Thermopylae. In so doing he caused the destruction of the Hellenes remaining there. . . .
It is said that Leonidas himself sent them [the other Greek soldiers] away because he was concerned that they would be killed, but felt it not fitting for himself and the Spartans to desert that post which they had come to defend at the beginning. . . .
In that place they defended themselves with swords, if they still had them, and with hands and teeth. . . .
This, then, is how the Greeks fought at Thermopylae.
Credit - “The Histories.” Translated by A D Godley, Herodotus, The Histories, Tufts University , 1920
Thucydides was an Athenian historian and former general recognized for using evidence and methodology in his history rather than simply storytelling. Although Thucydides was primarily interested in the later Peloponnesian Wars that occurred during his lifetime, the beginning of his history looks back to the Greco-Persian wars and the impact that Greek victory in those wars had on the rise of Athens as an empire.
Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians. Ten years afterwards, the barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation of Hellas. In the face of this great danger, the command of the confederate Hellenes was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the Athenians, having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. This coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two sections, which included the Hellenes who had revolted from the King, as well as those who had aided him in the war. At the end of the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas. For a short time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarreled and made war upon each other with their allies.
Credit - “THUCYDIDES.” Translated by Richard Crawley, Thucydides, Book 1, University of Calgary
Xenophon was an Athenian military commander and philosopher who lived during the fifth century BCE. As a military commander of a respected army of Greek mercenaries, Xenophon fought alongside Spartan commanders and gained great respect for Spartan soldiers. His work shows great admiration for the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great but he complains in the passage below that the Persians and their leaders who came after Cyrus were a disappointment in their character and physical stamina for battle.
In other ways also the Persians have degenerated. . . . All the Asiatics have turned to injustice and impiety. For what the leaders are, that, as a rule, will the men below them be. Thus has lawlessness increased and grown among them. And injustice has grown, and thieving. . . . Therefore, when any man makes war on Persia, whoever he may be, he can roam up and down the country to his heart’s content without striking a blow, because they have forgotten the gods and are unjust to their fellow-men. In every way their hearts and minds are lower than in days gone by. Nor do they care for their bodies as they did of old. It was always their custom neither to spit nor blow the nose, only it is clear this was instituted not from concern for the humours of the body, but in order to strengthen themselves by toil and sweat. But nowadays, though this habit is still in vogue, to harden the body by exercise has quite gone out of fashion. . . . Formerly no Persian was ever to be seen on foot, but the sole object of the custom was to make them perfect horsemen. Now they lay more rugs on their horses’ backs than on their own beds; it is not a firm seat they care for, but a soft saddle. As soldiers we may imagine how they have sunk below the ancient standard; . . . now the Persian grandees have manufactured a new type of cavalry, who earn their pay as butlers and cooks and confectioners and cupbearers and bathmen and flunkeys to serve at table or remove the dishes, and serving-men to put their lords to bed and help them to rise, and perfumers to anoint them and rub them and make them beautiful. In numbers they make a very splendid show, but they are no use for fighting; as may be seen by what actually takes place: an enemy can move about their country more freely than the inhabitants themselves. It will be remembered that Cyrus put a stop to the old style of fighting at long range, and by arming men and horses with breastplates and giving each trooper a short spear he taught them to fight at close quarters. But nowadays they will fight in neither one style nor the other.
Credit - “CYROPAEDIA.” Edited by John Bickers et al., Cyropaedia, by Xenophon, Project Gutenberg
Plutarch was a historian, biographer, and later priest at the Oracle at Delphi who was born in Greece and became a Roman citizen in the first century. His Parallel Lives provides biographical essays on famous figures from Greek and Roman history and pairs the individuals in order to show similar themes or character traits. His biographical sketch emphasizes Themistocles’s skill in strategy and manipulation of situations to bring victory.
Now the rest of his countrymen thought that the defeat of the Barbarians at Marathon was the end of the war; but Themistocles thought it to be only the beginning of greater contests . . .
And so, in the first place, whereas the Athenians were wont to divide up among themselves the revenue coming from the silver mines at Laureium, he, and he alone, dared to come before the people with a motion that this division be given up, and that with these moneys triremes be constructed . . . The result was that with those moneys they built a hundred triremes, with which they actually fought at Salamis against Xerxes. . . .
. . . As Themistocles sailed along the coasts, wherever he saw places at which the enemy must necessarily put in for shelter and supplies, he inscribed conspicuous writings on stones . . . In these writings he solemnly enjoined upon the Ionians, if it were possible, to come over to the side of the Athenians, who were their ancestors, and who were risking all in behalf of their freedom; but if they could not do this, to damage the Barbarian cause in battle, and bring confusion among them. By this means he hoped either to fetch the Ionians over to his side, or to confound them by bringing the Barbarians into suspicion of them. . . .
. . . Themistocles, distressed to think that the Hellenes should abandon the advantages to be had from the narrowness of the straits [Salamis] where they lay united . . . planned and concocted the famous affair of Sicinnus.
This Sicinnus was of Persian stock, a prisoner of war, but devoted to Themistocles . . . This man was sent to Xerxes secretly with orders to say: “Themistocles the Athenian general elects the King’s cause, and is the first one to announce to him that the Hellenes are trying to slip away, and urgently bids him not to suffer them to escape, but, while they are in confusion and separated from their infantry, to set upon them and destroy their naval power.” Xerxes received this as the message of one who wished him well, and was delighted, and at once issued positive orders to the captains of his ships . . . to put out to sea at once, and encompass the strait round about on every side, including the islands in their line of blockade, that not one of the enemy might escape. . . . With a courage born of necessity the Hellenes set out to confront the danger.
Credit - Plutarch. “ The Life of Themistocles.” Plutarch • Life of Themistocles, University of Chicago, 1914.
Cornelius Nepos was a Roman biographer living over four hundred years after the Greco-Persian Wars. Most of his work has been lost but his Lives of the Eminent Commanders remains and includes the Roman perspective on Greek Persian War commanders like Miltiades and Themistocles.
Darius, when he had returned from Asia into Europe, prepared, at the exhortation of his friends, in order to reduce Greece under his dominion, a fleet of five hundred ships, and appointed Datis and Artaphernes to the command of it, to whom he assigned two hundred thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry; alleging as a reason for his enterprise, that he was an enemy to the Athenians, because, with their aid, the Ionians had stormed Sardis and put his garrison to death. These generals of the king . . . went to Attica, and drew up their forces in the plain of Marathon, which is distant from the city of Athens about ten miles. The Athenians, though alarmed at this sudden descent, so near and so menacing, sought assistance nowhere but from the Spartans . . .
. . . At home, meanwhile, they appointed ten captains to command the army, and among them Miltiades. . . .
Hence it happened that Miltiades had more influence than his colleagues, for the Athenians, incited by his authority, led out their forces from the city, and pitched their camp in an eligible place. The next day, having set themselves in array at the foot of the hills opposite the enemy, they engaged in battle with a novel stratagem, and with the utmost impetuosity. For trees had been strewed in many directions, with this intention, that, while they themselves were covered by the high hills, the enemy’s cavalry might be impeded by the spread of trees, so that they might not be surrounded by numbers. Datis, though he saw that the ground was unfavourable for his men, yet, depending on the number of his force, was desirous to engage . . . because he thought it of advantage to fight before the Spartans came to the enemy’s assistance. He led into the field, therefore, a hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse, and proceeded to battle. In the encounter the Athenians, through their valour, had so much the advantage, that they routed ten times the number of the enemy, and threw them into such a consternation, that the Persians betook themselves, not to their camp, but to their ships. Than this battle there has hitherto been none more glorious; for never did so small a band overthrow so numerous a host.
Credit - “CORNELIUS NEPOS.” Translated by John Selby Watson, Cornelius Nepos: Lives of Eminent Commanders (1886) Pp. 305-450, 2003.
Jack Balcer was Professor of History at Ohio State University until his death in 2004. His research included study of the Athenian Empire, the Persian Empire, and the cultural interactions between Greeks and non-Greeks in Western Asia Minor.
The Persians lost their wars in Greece, in part, because the triumphant Greeks wrote the histories and other texts that survive. . . . Yet, amid all the ancient explanations about excessive Persian hubris and despotic indifference to human dignity in contrast to Greek freedom, initiative, and arete, it was the critical Thucydides who noted that the Persians were defeated mainly through their own errors. . . . Let us, therefore, return to Thucydides’ often overlooked observation and ask what were the Persian military errors in Greece. Certainly they were far more complex than noted by the Byzantine scholiast that King Xerxes and the Persian navy had simply erred in trying to fight in the narrow straits of Salamis . . .
Once King Xerxes’ troops dismantled the two pontoon bridges that spanned the Hellespont, the supplies that had supported Persian forces during the land conquests of India, Egypt, and Nubia were critically lacking for the Persian conquest of Greece. Our ancient sources do not indicate that new Persian supply ships came to Xerxes’ support once his own supply fleet entered the European waters. The problems of the shortage of supplies began to appear as the Persians entered Thessaly south of Mt. Olympos and began their long approach to the critical pass at Thermopylae. Following the battle at that pass, food shortages necessitated that the Persians had to act militarily sooner than would have been desirable. At Salamis and at Plataia, if the Persians could have waited perhaps two to four weeks before engaging the Greek forces, the small united Greek defenses would have crumbled . . . The thesis of this article, therefore, is that time and supplies became the critical factors that led to the Persian failures and defeat in Greece, thus the errors alluded to by Thucydides. . . . The petty parochialism and antagonisms that had plagued the East Greeks during the Ionian Revolt also abounded in mainland Greece. If only the Persian forces could wait for that parochialism to fracture the Greek forces, the Persians could gain Greece and transform it into the satrapy of Ionia; but at each major event the lack of food and supplies forced the Persians to attack before the Greek military fractures occurred . . . To have relied upon perhaps two hundred ships for all supplies, food, water, cavalry supplies, and equipment, created for the Persians a significant reliance upon gaining food and supplies for the soldiers from the Greek lands . . .
Credit - Jack Martin Balcer, “The Persian Wars against Greece: A Reassessment,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 38, H. 2 (1989), 127-14
Jonathan Price is Fred and Helen Lessing Chair of Ancient History at Tel Aviv University. He has written extensively on the ancient world including ancient Jerusalem, Roman Judea, and the work of Thucydides.
Thucydides . . . reconstructs ancient history on the theory that ‘great’ and ‘noteworthy’ accomplishments by states or peoples required . . . organization around a strong power . . . This is not two processes but one, a voluntary combination by powers of unequal strength for mutual benefit: the weaker powers gave up independence while the stronger accepted responsibility for them . . . The combination of strong and weak for mutual benefit repeats as a kind of historical law in the Archaeology. Such combination, to be sure, was not always completely voluntary, but the question of coercion is irrelevant to Thucydides’ main point, which is that the Hellenes accomplished noteworthy things only when they had both mastered the sea and combined forces under the leadership of the strongest power. . . . While the Hellenic states were fighting each other after the Trojan War they did nothing noteworthy precisely because of that disunity. The Lelantine War is cited as the outstanding example of this, for that Hellenic war, far from representing an advance in the string of ever-greater accomplishments, represents rather a failure to unite for worthy accomplishment. . . . . In a similar way, the tyrants in various cities (Thucydides sees them as occupying a discrete period in Hellas’ history) did not lead Hellas to any worthy achievement because they were too concerned with their own private interests to take any common interest in Hellas or a union of Hellenic states, so that “no noteworthy achievement was accomplished by them”(Thucydides, 1.17) . . . Thucydides allows for the possibility of Hellenic unions being based on the equality of its members, but this is not offered as a preferable alternative to the unequal alignment of states of unequal strength, only as one possibility of Hellenic union for common action . . . Like the Trojan expedition, the defense of Greece against Persia is designated a ‘common effort’ and in each instance the strongest power assumed leadership. . . . When Thucydides says that ‘the Lacedaemonians, because they were the most powerful assumed leadership of the Hellenes’ and that ‘by a common effort they [the Hellenes] repelled the barbarian’, the Hellenic victory in the Persian Wars seems to follow the pattern, laid out in the previous chapters, by which the Hellenes combine under the leadership of the strongest power and do something ‘noteworthy.’ . . . Hellenic disunity had occurred in the past, of course, . . . [but these are] cited by Thucydides as a source of weakness and the reason for the failure to accomplish any great achievement.
Credit - Jonathan J. Price, “A Puzzle in Thucydides 1.18,” Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 50, Fasc. 6 (Dec., 1997), pp. 665-67
Peter Green was Dougherty Centennial Professor Emeritus of Classics in the University of Texas at Austin and currently teaches at the University of Iowa and writes historical fiction. His work has dealt primarily with Alexander the Great, Roman historians and poets, and the Greco-Persian Wars. In this excerpt he disagrees strongly with fellow historian J. F. Lazenby, author of The Defense of Greece: 490–479.
The Defense of Greece: 490–-479 [a book by J.F. Lazenby] . . . is very much a military history with all the limitations that this implies . . . We get the highly debatable thesis . . . that both on land and at sea Greeks were tactical and strategic innocents with no military or naval sense beyond the very simplest manoeuvres . . . To render this verdict even more incongruous, the Persians collect high praise for all those sophisticated functions the poor Greeks are regarded as too naïve or inexperienced to master: intelligence-gathering, diplomatic warfare, meticulous planning, engineering expertise, siege-works, and land operations . . . But Lazenby’s argument is simply not true: however rudimentary their preparation, the Greeks, for whom fighting one another was the prime occupation of life, were far more sophisticated and flexible in military as in naval affairs than Lazenby wants to believe. The victory at Marathon is one outstanding example . . .
. . . The Persians may have hoped to benefit by treachery [at the battle of Marathon] but it was the Athenians who actually did so. Some Ionian scouts serving with [the Persian commander] Artaphernes noticed the absence of [the other Persian commander] Datis’s task force, and slipped across to the Athenian lines before dawn, bearing a message which afterward became proverbially famous—”the cavalry are away.” . . . [Athenian commander] Miltiades realized, as soon as he heard the news, that here was the one possible chance for Athens to snatch a victory. . . . The troops were now drawn up in battle order . . . Now if [the other Athenian commander] Callimachus had massed his troops eight deep, in the normal way, the Persians would have easily outflanked him. A front of 1,250 infantrymen . . . is not all that wide . . . Callimachus and Miltiades therefore made a virtue of necessity. They deliberately thinned out their center, widening the space between each man, and reducing the number of ranks to three or four at most. Their most powerful striking force they massed on the wings. Here Miltiades’ intimate and detailed knowledge of Persian military customs proved invaluable. He must have guessed that Artaphernes, like all Persian commanders, was liable to place his crack troops in the center, and his conscript levies on the wings. To risk—indeed, to invite—a Persian breakthrough in the center was taking a calculated risk indeed. But if Callimachus and the Plataeans could knock out Artaphernes’ wings quickly, and then wheel about to reinforce their own weakened center, the battle was as good as won. . . . The Athenians had several other advantages . . . Greek discipline, Greek tactics, Greek weapons and body-armour were all very much superior to those of the Persians.
Credit - Peter Green, The Greco-Persian Wars (University of California Press, 1996) xxiii-36.
Roel Konijnendijk is Researcher at the University of Leiden whose work deals primarily with Classical Greek warfare and Greek tactics and strategy. In this excerpt, he disagrees strongly with fellow historian George Cawkwell on the nature of the Greek success at the battle of Plataea which effectively ended the Greco-Persian Wars.
Cawkwell’s . . . account is no more than a reiteration of the well-known claims of Herodotos and Aischylos that ‘it was a match between spear and bow’, a clash of armour versus cloth, which proved ‘the superiority of the Greek hoplite to Oriental infantry.’ This assumption, however widespread, is absurdly simplistic. What follows is an attempt to show that neither the military realities of the day, nor the account of Herodotos, insofar as it is reliable, support the notion that technological differences between Greek and Persian soldiers proved decisive at Plataia. . . . The wealthy Persian nobles who fought as cavalry certainly went into battle wearing heavy protective gear. Herodotos’ tale of the death of Masistios suggests that the armour worn by prominent Persians could in some cases be so elaborate and comprehensive that Greek hoplites were at a loss trying to pierce it at all . . . On an individual level, Classical Greek authors famously depict the Persians as effeminate and weak—a mass of untrained meat to be fed to the grinder. Yet Herodotos explicitly states that the Persian foot at Plataia lacked neither strength nor courage. In reality, Greek commanders of the early fifth century knew better than to underestimate Persian soldiers. . . . Had the Greek army consisted exclusively of hoplites, it might eventually have succumbed to the endless barrage of missile fire brought down on it by the Persians. But this was certainly not the case at Plataia. Despite the disdain reserved for them in Thucydides and others, light infantry armed with missile weapons [archers] certainly had their own place in Greek warfare; according to Herodotos they outnumbered the hoplites almost two to one at Plataia . . . How did these Greeks manage to win the battle of Plataia?. . . The Persian elite gathered around Mardonios was certainly far outnumbered locally by the Spartans; they killed many of their enemies until a rock thrown by a desperate Spartan brought Mardonios down. His death caused the morale of his bodyguards to plummet beyond repair. When they routed, the entire Persian army went with them. . . . The Greeks did not win because some of them may have been better armored but simply because they managed to outlast their enemies and break their morale—in the campaign as a whole as well as during the battle. It was their continued coherence and fighting spirit, despite the heavy losses suffered, that made them the last men standing at Plataia.
Credit - Roel Konijnendijk, “’Neither the Less Valorous Nor the Weaker’: Persian Military Might and the Battle of Plataia,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 61, H. 1 (2012), pp. 1-17
Barry Strauss is Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University. He is the series editor of the Princeton History of the Ancient World and author of seven books on ancient history. He also operates as a historical consultant offering lessons in leadership based on the ancient leaders he has studied.
Themistocles sent his trusted slave Sicinnus on a secret and dangerous nighttime mission to Persian naval headquarters. Sicinnus announced the imminent departure of the Greek fleet and urged the Persians to mobilize at once to stop them. They did so, and launched their fleet at nighttime. Before the Greeks at Salamis knew what had hit them, the Persians managed to surround them. As a result, there would be no more talk of running away to the Isthmus. The Greeks would have to fight at Salamis or they would have to surrender. In other words, Themistocles got exactly what he wanted. . .Why did the Persians believe Sicinnus? . . . To answer this question is to understand the genius of Themistocles and his ability to read the mind of his adversary. Themistocles knew how badly Persia wanted to hook a big Greek traitor. And so he sent the Persians Sicinnus. Themistocles knew how the Persians had used traitors at Thermopylae in August . . . The only lie that Sicinnus told was the big lie: that Themistocles was ready to join the Great King’s side . . . To be precise Sicinnus’s lie consisted of saying that Themistocles’ preference was in joining the Persian cause. In truth, Themistocles preferred to achieve victory for Greece. He proposed to do so by forcing a naval battle immediately.
. . . In any case, whether a Persian ship was inside the straits or outside, its crew was not at rest. A trireme fleet lined up in formation cannot maintain its order simply by dropping anchor. It is necessary for the rowers in each ship, or for a portion of them in turn, to alternate strokes in a continuous movement of rowing and backing, rowing and backing. . . . On and on they worked. “They didn’t get even a little sleep” says Herodotus . . . Little by little the hours of effort must have taken their toll. A commander who understood triremes would have thought twice before asking his men to go into battle so tired. The king of seafaring Sidon surely saw the danger, but [he] did not have the final say. Xerxes did and Xerxes had never touched an oar.
. . . Surprise is a weapon. Often underestimated, it is one of the most effective and cheapest of all force multipliers as well as the most versatile . . . Ariabignes and his other commanders knew that the entire Greek navy faced them. What they did not know . . . was that the Greeks were ready to do battle . . . The Persians had been swindled.
Credit - Barry Strauss, The Battle of Salamis: The naval encounter that saved Greece—and Western Civilization (Simon & Schuster, 2004) 1-174.
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian and also a soldier in the Athenian military who fought at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. His unique perspective on the wars as a participant in them gives his work added significance for modern historians. The piece most directly influenced by the wars was the tragedy The Persians, written from the perspective of the Persian royal family: mother Atossa, father Darius, and son Xerxes. In this excerpt Atossa calls up the ghost of her dead husband to beg his advice on the destruction of the Persian forces under Xerxes at the end of the Greco-Persian wars. Darius gives voice to the common Greek perspective that it was Persian hubris, excessive arrogance, that led to their destruction in the wars.
Ghost Of Darius. Ye faithful Persians, honour’d now in age,
Once the companions of my youth, what ills
Afflict the state? The firm earth groans, it opens,
Disclosing its vast deeps; and near my tomb
I see my wife: this shakes my troubled soul
With fearful apprehensions . . .
Say then, with what new ill doth Persia groan?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Atossa. . . . Darius, hear at once our sum of woe;
Ruin through all her states hath crush’d thy Persia.
Ghost Of Darius. By pestilence, or faction’s furious storms?
Atossa. Not so: near Athens perish’d all our troops.
Ghost Of Darius. Say, of my sons, which led the forces thither?
Atossa. The impetuous Xerxes, thinning all the land.
Ghost of Darius. By sea or land dared he this rash attempt?
Atossa. By both: a double front the war presented.
Ghost of Darius. A host so vast what march conducted o’er?
Atossa. From shore to shore he bridged the Hellespont.
Ghost of Darius. What! could he chain the mighty Bosphorus?
Atossa. Ev’n so, some god assisting his design.
Ghost of Darius. Some god of power to cloud his better sense.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ghost of Darius. . . . Hence these ills
Pour headlong on my friends. Not weighing this,
My son, with all the fiery pride of youth,
Hath quickened their arrival, while he hoped
To bind the sacred Hellespont, to hold
The raging Bosphorus, like a slave, in chains,
And dared the advent’rous passage, bridging firm
With links of solid iron his wondrous way,
To lead his numerous host; and swell’d with thoughts
Presumptuous, deem’d, vain mortal! that his power
Should rise above the gods, and Poseidon’s might.
Credit - “The Internet Classics Archive: The Persians by Aeschylus.” Translated by Robert Potter, The Internet Classics Archive | The Persians by Aeschylus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Simonides of Ceos became famous for his elegies of fallen soldiers including the commemoration of the Spartan 300 at Thermopylae. His services as memorialist were also requested for this inscription on the altar placed at the battleground of Plataea.
This altar of Zeus the Liberator did the Hellenes erect, an ornament for Hellas such as becomes a free land, after that, obeying their brave hearts’ impulse, they had driven out the Persians by the might of their hands and by the toil of battle.
Credit - “SIMONIDES : EPIGRAMS.” Translated by W R Paton, Simonides: Epigrams - Translation, 1916.
Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE) wrote the Res Gestae, things achieved, a few years before his death with instructions that it should be distributed throughout the empire after his death. It provides our best understanding of how Augustus wanted the Roman people to remember him.
1. At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order, giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; it also gave me the imperium [military and judicial authority].
As propraetor it ordered me, along with the consuls, “to see that the republic suffered no harm.” In the same year, moreover, as both consuls had fallen in war, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for settling the constitution.
2. Those who slew my [adoptive] father [Julius Caesar], I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law, and afterwards when they waged war upon the republic I twice defeated them in battle. . . .
4. . . . Although the Senate decreed me additional triumphs I set them aside. When I had performed the vows which I had undertaken in each war I deposited upon the Capitol the laurels which adorned my fasces . . . At the time of writing these words I had been thirteen times consul, and was in the thirty-seventh year of my tribunician power.
5. The dictatorship offered me by the people and the Roman senate, in my absence and later when present, in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius I did not accept . . .
6. . . . When the Senate and the Roman people unanimously agreed that I should be elected overseer of laws and morals, without a colleague and with the fullest power, I refused to accept any power offered me which was contrary to the traditions of our ancestors. Those things which at that time the senate wished me to administer I carried out by virtue of my tribunician power. . . .
34. In my sixth and seventh consulships, when I had extinguished the flames of civil war, after receiving by universal consent the absolute control of affairs, I transferred the republic from my own control to the will of the senate and the Roman people. For this service on my part I was given the title of Augustus by decree of the senate . . .
35. While I was administering my thirteenth consulship the senate and the equestrian order and the entire Roman people gave me the title of “Father of my Country.”
Credit - LacusCurtius • Res Gestae Divi Augusti (VI), University of Chicago.
Cassius Dio (155–235 CE) was a Roman historian who wrote eighty books on the history of Rome from the arrival of Aeneas in Latium to his own lifetime. Cassius Dio was equally involved in the political life of Rome, serving as a senator, provincial governor, and suffect (interim) consul under emperors Commodus and Severus Alexander.
[While] he had put into effect very many illegal and unjust regulations during the factional strife and the wars . . . he abolished them all by a single decree. . . . When, now, he obtained approbation and praise for this act, he desired to exhibit another instance of magnanimity, that by such a policy he might be honoured all the more and might have his sovereignty voluntarily confirmed by the people, so as to avoid the appearance of having forced them against their will. Therefore, having first primed his most intimate friends among the senators, he entered the senate in his seventh consulship and read the following address: “I am sure that I shall seem to some of you, Conscript Fathers, to have made an incredible choice. . . . You see for yourselves, of course, that it is in my power to rule over you for life; for every factious element has either been put down through the application of justice or brought to its sense by receiving mercy, while those who were on my side have been made devoted by my reciprocating their friendly services and bound fast by having a share in the government. . . . My military is in the finest condition as regards both loyalty and strength; there is money and there are allies; and, most important of all, you and the people are so disposed toward me that you would distinctly wish to have me at your head. However, I shall lead you no longer, and no one will be able to say that it was to win absolute power that I did whatever has hitherto been done. Nay, I give up my office completely, and restore to you absolutely everything,—the army, the laws, and the provinces,—not only those which you committed to me, but also those which I myself later acquired for you. Thus my very deeds also will prove to you that even at the outset I desired no position of power, but in very truth wished to avenge my [adoptive] father [Julius Caesar], cruelly murdered, and to extricate the city from great evils that came on unceasingly. . . . From all this I have derived no gain for myself except that I have kept my country from perishing; but as for you, you are enjoying both safety and tranquility. . . . Receive back also your liberty and the republic; take over the army and the subject provinces, and govern yourselves
Credit - “Vol. VIp193 Book LIII.” Cassius Dio - Book 53, University of Chicago, .
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56–120 CE) was a Roman historian whose two greatest works were the Annals and the Histories which together covered the history of Rome from the final years of Augustus to the reign of Vespasian in 70 CE. Tacitus also wrote an ethnography of the Germanic tribes and a history of General Agricola (Tacitus’ father in law) and his conquest of Britain. Tacitus is known for his somewhat cynical attitude toward political power and its corruption despite his own career as a senator.
Augustus, who, under the style of “Prince,” gathered beneath his empire a world outworn by civil broils . . . When the killing of Brutus and Cassius had disarmed the Republic; when Pompey had been crushed in Sicily, and, with Lepidus thrown aside and Antony slain, even the Julian party was leaderless but for the Caesar; after laying down his triumviral title and proclaiming himself a simple consul content with tribunician authority to safeguard the commons, he first conciliated the army by gratuities, the populace by cheapened corn, the world by the amenities of peace, then step by step began to make his ascent and to unite in his own person the functions of the senate, the magistracy, and the legislature. Opposition there was none: the boldest spirits had succumbed on stricken fields or by proscription-lists; while the rest of the nobility found a cheerful acceptance of slavery the smoothest road to wealth and office, and, as they had thriven on revolution, stood now for the new order and safety in preference to the old order and adventure. Nor was the state of affairs unpopular in the provinces, where administration by the Senate and People had been discredited by the feuds of the magnates and the greed of the officials, against which there was but frail protection in a legal system for ever deranged by force, by favouritism, or (in the last resort) by gold. Meanwhile, to consolidate his power, Augustus raised Claudius Marcellus, his sister’s son and a mere stripling, to the pontificate . . . Marcus Agrippa, no aristocrat, but a good soldier and his partner in victory, he honoured with two successive consulates . . . Each of his step-children, Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus, was given the title of Imperator . . . for he had admitted Agrippa’s children, Gaius and Lucius, to the Caesarian hearth, and even during their minority had shown, under a veil of reluctance, a consuming desire to see them consuls designate with the title Princes of the Youth. . . . The officials carried the old names; the younger men had been born after the victory of Actium; most even of the elder generation, during the civil wars; few indeed were left who had seen the Republic. It was thus an altered world, and of the old, unspoilt Roman character not a trace lingered. Equality was an outworn creed, and all eyes looked to the mandate of the sovereign.
Credit - “The Internet Classics Archive: The Annals by Tacitus.” The Internet Classics Archive | The Annals by Tacitus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Marcus Velleius Paterculus (19 BCE–31 CE) wrote The Roman History covering the period of the Trojan Wars through the death of Augustus’s wife Livia. Velleius Paterculus had a long military career serving in Macedonia, Greece, and Germany under Tiberius and a political career as a quaestor and praetor before being put to death, possibly due to his support for the corrupt prefect of the Praetorian Guards, Sejanus. He wrote under the patronage of Tiberius and his portrayal of the emperor is flattering rather than reliable.
There is nothing that man can desire from the gods, nothing that the gods can grant to a man, nothing that wish can conceive or good fortune bring to pass, which Augustus on his return to the city did not bestow upon the republic, the Roman people, and the world. The civil wars were ended after twenty years, foreign wars suppressed, peace restored, the frenzy of arms everywhere lulled to rest; validity was restored to the laws, authority to the courts, and dignity to the senate; the power of the magistrates was reduced to its former limits, with the sole exception that two were added to the eight existing praetors. The old traditional form of the republic was restored. Agriculture returned to the fields, respect to religion, to mankind freedom from anxiety, and to each citizen his property rights were now assured; old laws were usefully emended, and new laws passed for the general good; the revision of the senate, while not too drastic, was not lacking in severity. The chief men of the state who had won triumphs and had held high office were at the invitation of Augustus induced to adorn the city. In the case of the consulship only, Caesar was not able to have his way, but was obliged to hold that office consecutively until the eleventh time in spite of his frequent efforts to prevent it; but the dictatorship which the people persistently offered him, he as stubbornly refused. To tell of the wars waged under his command, of the pacification of the world by his victories, of his many works at home and outside of Italy would weary a writer intending to devote his whole life to this one task. As for myself, remembering the proposed scope of my work, I have confined myself to setting before the eyes and minds of my readers a general picture of his principate.
Credit - “;p177 Book II: Chapters 59 93.” LacusCurtius • Velleius Paterculus - Book II, Chapters 59 93, University of Chicago
Darryl Phillips is an Associate Professor of History at Connecticut College who specializes in the culture and history of the late Republic and early Principate during the time of transition under Augustus. His work tends to emphasize the continuity of the past rather than dramatic change, particularly during this transition period. His current project involves commentary on Suetonius’ Life of Augustus.
Despite this grand “restoration of the republic” the state had undoubtedly changed. Tacitus captures the fundamental paradox as he notes that although the titles of magistracies remained, few men were left who had actually seen the republic. As Tacitus knew well, while Augustus was bringing back the old forms of law and order, the princeps and his family became connected with state institutions so closely that Augustus’ lifetime marks the transition from republic to principate. Augustus’ family emerged as an imperial dynasty. The links between Augustus, his family, and the Roman state took many forms. Scholars have long been interested in the role that Augustus’ building program played in effecting the shift from republic to principate. Buildings celebrated Augustus’ military success, demonstrated his religious piety, and showcased his vast wealth. They also provided new venues for many civic activities in Rome. Revived and revised civic institutions and religious ceremonies were hosted in new complexes associated with Augustus and his family. The best studied of these sites has been the Forum of Augustus with the monumental temple to Mars Ultor. Here generals would make sacrifices before leaving Rome to take up their commands, the Senate would meet to award triumphs, the triumphant general would dedicate his regalia to Mars, and statues of new triumphatores would be set up for public view. . . . In the Forum of Augustus and the Temple of Mars Ultor we see the ways in which an Augustan site appropriated traditional civic functions and relocated these functions to a new venue associated with Augustus and his family. Such changes in context firmly established the family of Augustus as an imperial dynasty and helped to effect the transition from republic to principate. . . . Both the historical context and topographical considerations point to an early use of the temple Divus Iulius for voting, and suggest that it remained an important voting site throughout the Augustan era. Legislation sanctioned by the Senate and ratified by the populace was a central feature of the “restored Republic.” Legislative assemblies were brought back by Augustus and these assemblies continued to function just as they had in earlier periods, but they now might meet in a venue closely associated with Augustus and his family. Like the later Forum of Augustus, the Temple of Divus Iulius is a useful focal point for examining the transition from republic to principate and the establishment of Augustus’ family as an imperial dynasty.
Credit - Darryl A. Phillips, “The Temple of Divus Iulius and the Restoration of the Legislative Assemblies Under Augustus,” Phoenix 65, no. 3/4 (Fall-Winter 2011) 371–88.
Darryl Phillips is an Associate Professor of History at Connecticut College who specializes in the culture and history of the late Republic and early Principate during the time of transition under Augustus. His work tends to emphasize the continuity of the past rather than dramatic change, particularly during this transition period. His current project involves commentary on Suetonius’ Life of Augustus.
The institution of suffect [interim] consulships became a regular feature of Roman government toward the middle of Augustus’ principate. Though the development of this institution is noted by constitutional and political historians, little detailed attention has been paid to the procedural particulars that brought the suffect consuls to office . . . Suffect magistrates replaced other holders of office after the start of their term . . . .Thus from the start of the Republic we find that suffect consuls might be elected to replace either a consul who resigned from office or one who died in office. . . . During the Republic, when suffect consuls were usually elected to replace a consul who had died in office, there would be no need to put off the assumption of office. In the imperial period, however, when pre-planned suffect magistracies were introduced to increase the number of consulships available, it would often be expedient to elect suffect consuls well in advance of the planned start of their term in office. . . . Suffect consulships were relatively uncommon throughout the Republican period, but gradually became a regular feature of imperial government. The first suffect consul under Augustus was elected to replace the princeps who stepped down from his eleventh consulship on July 1, 23 B.C. Suffect consuls were later elected for the years 19, 16, and 12 B. C. and for almost every year after 5 B.C. With the introduction of annual suffect consulships we would expect to find a clear limit to the terms of office of the magistrates and set dates for the annual election of suffect officials. Our evidence however suggests no fixed rules existed for the terms of office or for the date of election of suffect consuls, at least not before 1 B.C. . . .The evidence for suffect magistracies between 23 B.C. and l B.C. shows a marked variance in the dates and lengths of tenure of office. After several years of experimentation with annual suffect consulships starting in 5 B.C., a set pattern emerged shortly after 1 B.C. and served as the model for suffect magistracies for years to come.
Credit - Darryl A. Phillips, “The Conspiracy of Egnatius Rufus and the Election of Suffect Consuls under Augustus,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 46, H. 1 (1st Qtr., 1997) 103–12.
Raymond Starr is Theodora Stone Sutton Professor of Classics at Wellesley College. He has published widely on Vergil, the circulation of Roman literature, and especially the Res Gestae of Augustus. His current work focuses on how readers in ancient Rome read texts and how these were circulated and reproduced.
The Res gestae divi Augusti begins with famous words: annos undeviginti natus exercitum pri vato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quern rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi. The opening phrase, annos undeviginti natus, is usually taken at face value and assumed to mean no more than “at the age of 19” or to position Augustus in relation to other famous conquerors. Yet the words do more: they connect Augustus to Romulus . . . . Augustus’ emphasis on his age of 19 also sets up an implied (and positive, needless to say) comparison with other historical figures: he was younger than Alexander the Great when Alexander took the throne, only a little older than the age at which Scipio Africanus burst on the stage, and younger than Pompey, who raised an army at 23. There is, however, another point of comparison for Augustus at such a young age, previously unnoted: Romulus. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who wrote under Augustus himself, emphasizes Romulus’ youth: “. . . after having been king for thirty-seven years, he died in his fifty-fifth year; for he became ruler extremely young, at 18, as all agree who have written his history” . . . Romulus, as has long been recognized, appears repeatedly in the campaign Augustus waged for Roman hearts and minds throughout his reign. Augustus had considered taking the name Romulus in 27 BCE (Suet., Aug. 7.2), to suggest that he was the second founder of Rome, an attractive message soon after the Battle of Actium, the Triple Triumph, and the start of his massive building program in the northern Campus Martius. Dio reports that Augustus “was extremely proud . . . that on the first day of the elections, when he entered the Campus Martius, he saw six vultures, and after that, when he was giving a speech to the soldiers, twelve others. For, comparing it with Romulus and the omen that befell him, he expected to obtain his royal power as well.” Augustus’ house on the Palatine, the location of the casa Romuli, connected him to Romulus, as we see in Dio’s remark that Augustus’ “residence received a certain fame from the [Palatine] Hill as a whole also, because Romulus had lived there previously.” . . . A connection to Romulus in the opening of the Res gestae divi Augusti, then, would be just one part, albeit the last to appear, of Augustus’ decades-long assertion of a connection with Rome’s founder.
Credit - Raymond J. Starr, “Annos Undeviginti Natus: Augustus and Romulus in Res Gestae 1.1,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 58, H. 3 (2009) 367–69.
William Turpin is Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College. His research began in the law codes of late antiquity but his interest has returned to questions of the transformation of the classical world and his current book projects center on the ancient historian Tacitus and the poet Horace. The references to RG indicate the line numbers of the Res Gestae.
The idea of publishing such a self-satisfied account of one’s own doings is so alien to our modern sensibilities that we tend to read the Res Gestae as though Augustus were capable of saying almost anything. We have concluded too easily, therefore, that at RG 34.1 Augustus is telling an outrageous lie, or at least an outrageous half-truth. After saying that he ended the civil wars, and acquired supreme power, Augustus claims to have handed over the state to the senate and the people of Rome. On traditional reading this last claim is seriously misleading; Augustus may have handed over the state, but he fails to mention that the senate handed it back. This paper will argue that Augustus’ claim is a much more reasonable one. The transfer of the state so important in R.G. 34 is normally understood to be the event which forms the dramatic climax to Dio’s detailed account, the speech in which Augustus offered, disingenuously, to retire from public life. I will argue instead that . . . what Augustus talks about at RG 34.1 is the reaction his speech provoked: the senate and people declared that he was indispensable and supreme, and Augustus describes this not unreasonably as the acquisition of supreme power with universal consent. The transfer of the state came next: once he had been confirmed in power, Augustus handed over a number of provinces to the senate, and he voluntarily defined his magistracy as one of limited duration. . . . The decision to limit his powers did not, of course, amount to a restoration of the Republic. But it was something that could reasonably be described as a transfer of the state to the authority of the senate and people of Rome. . . . It is important to recognize that the focus of chapter 34 is on the name Augustus and the other honours received in early 27. The famous conclusion, on auctoritas and potestas, explains not so much the constitutional position of Augustus as the nature of his prestige from that point on. For Dio, the interesting thing about the settlement of 27 was what went on behind behind the scenes and his account of Augustus’ manipulation of traditional institutions has an almost Tacitean tendentiousness. Dio’s cynicism is attractive, but it is important that we look beyond it, to appreciate the picture that Augustus himself was trying to present.
Credit - William Turpin, “Res Gestae 34.1 and the Settlement of 27 B. C.,” The Classical Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1994) 427–37.]
Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BCE) is the author of the pastoral poems the Georgics and the Bucolics but is best known for his epic the Aeneid which was possibly commissioned by his patron Augustus. Vergil was an early supporter of Augustus, lending his pen to support for Augustus as early as the civil war with Marcus Antonius. His work became essential to a Roman youth’s education and remains part of the curriculum in many schools today.
The Aeneid, written by Vergil under the reign of Augustus, tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero who survived the Trojan war and settled in Latium. At the end of the Aeneid, Vergil has Aeneas’ dead father Anchises share with him a prophesy about the future of the Trojan people as Romans saying, “Come, I will now explain what glory will pursue the children of Dardanus, what descendants await you of the Italian race, illustrious spirits to march onwards in our name, and I will teach you your destiny.”
Yes, and a child of Mars will join his grandfather to accompany him,
Romulus, whom his mother Ilia will bear, of Assaracus’s line.
See how Mars’s twin plumes stand on his crest, and his father
marks him out for the world above with his own emblems?
Behold, my son, under his command glorious Rome
will match earth’s power and heaven’s will, and encircle
seven hills with a single wall, happy in her race of men:
as Cybele, the Berecynthian ‘Great Mother’, crowned
with turrets, rides through the Phrygian cities, delighting
in her divine children, clasping a hundred descendants,
all gods, all dwelling in the heights above.
Now direct your eyes here, gaze at this people,
your own Romans. Here is Caesar, and all the offspring
of Iulus destined to live under the pole of heaven.
This is the man, this is him, whom you so often hear
promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified,
who will make a Golden Age again in the fields
where Saturn once reigned, and extend the empire beyond
the Libyans and the Indians (to a land that lies outside the zodiac’s belt,
beyond the sun’s ecliptic and the year’s, where sky-carrying Atlas
turns the sphere, inset with gleaming stars, on his shoulders):
Even now the Caspian realms, and Maeotian earth,
tremble at divine prophecies of his coming, and
the restless mouths of the seven-branched Nile are troubled.
Truly, Hercules never crossed so much of the earth,
though he shot the bronze-footed Arcadian deer, brought peace
to the woods of Erymanthus, made Lerna tremble at his bow:
nor did Bacchus, who steers his chariot, in triumph, with reins
made of vines, guiding his tigers down from Nysa’s high peak.
Do we really hesitate still to extend our power by our actions,
and does fear prevent us settling the Italian lands?
Credit - Virgil, The Aeneid. Book 6, Page 777-807. Translated by A.S. Kline, Virgil (70 BC–19 BC) - Aeneid: VI, Poetry in Translation, 2002.
Tacitus tells the story of his fellow historian Cremutius Cordus who was accused of treason under the reign of Tiberius for writing lines in praise of Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar. Cordus was accused by accomplices of Sejanus, the head of the Praetorian Guard who was given much authority over the administration of Rome while Tiberius retired to Capri.
XXXIV. In the year of the consulship of Cornelius Cossus and Asinius Agrippa, Cremutius Cordus was arraigned on a new charge, now for the first time heard. He had published a history in which he had praised Marcus Brutus and called Caius Cassius the last of the Romans. His accusers were Satrius Secundus and Pinarius Natta, creatures of Sejanus. This was enough to ruin the accused; and then too the emperor listened with an angry frown to his defence, which Cremutius, resolved to give up his life, began thus:—“It is my words, Senators, which are condemned, so innocent am I of any guilty act; yet these do not touch the emperor or the emperor’s mother, who are alone comprehended under the law of treason. I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship . . . Again, that book of Marcus Cicero, in which he lauded Cato to the skies, how else was it answered by Caesar the dictator, than by a written oration in reply, as if he was pleading in court? The letters of Antonius, the harangues of Brutus contain reproaches against Augustus, false indeed, but urged with powerful sarcasm; the poems which we read of Bibaculus and Catullus are crammed with invectives on the Caesars. Yet the Divine Julius, the Divine Augustus themselves bore all this and let it pass, whether in forbearance or in wisdom I cannot easily say.”
XXXV. He then left the Senate and ended his life by starvation. His books, so the Senators decreed, were to be burnt by the aediles; but some copies were left which were concealed and afterwards published. And so one is all the more inclined to laugh at the stupidity of men who suppose that the despotism of the present can actually efface the remembrances of the next generation. On the contrary, the persecution of genius fosters its influence; foreign tyrants, and all who have imitated their oppression, have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory for their victims.
Credit - “Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Ed.” Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, BOOK IV, Chapter 34, Random House, 1942.
Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE-18 CE) is a Roman poet who wrote during the age of Augustus and is best known for his work of mythological narrative poetry the Metamorphoses, and his love poetry Amores and Ars Amatoria. In 8 CE, he was banished to Tomis a town on the Black Sea on the edge of Roman territory, for an unknown reason. Scholars believe it must have been due to poetry that challenged the moral reforms, perhaps those of the Lex Julia on adultery, that Augustus wished to see implemented in Rome. This selection from the collected letters—Tristia— is a poetic plea to Augustus to be allowed a closer place of exile.
Spare me, father of the country, don’t take away
all hope of placating you, forgetful of my name!
I don’t beg to return, though we believe the great gods
have often granted more than that prayer.
If you granted me a milder, closer place of exile
a large part of my punishment would be eased.
Thrust among enemies, patiently I suffer the extremes,
no exile’s more distant from his native land . . .
and while others have been banished with greater cause,
no one’s assigned a remoter place than mine.
There’s nothing further than this, except frost and foes . . .
This is the furthest land subject to Italian law,
barely clinging to the edges of your Empire.
So, a suppliant, I beg you to banish me somewhere safe,
so that peace as well as my home aren’t taken from me,
so as not to fear the tribes the Danube scarcely checks,
so your subject can’t be captured by the enemy.
Justice forbids any man of Roman blood
to suffer barbarian chains while Caesars live.
Credit – Ovid. “Tristia, III.” Internet Archive.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (69–122 CE) was a member of the Roman equites, the wealthy elite, and held positions in the government under Emperor Hadrian before being dismissed from service for some infraction in 121 CE and devoting his time to literature. His portrayal of Caligula is therefore written some eighty years after Caligula’s death.
XIX. He made a bridge, of about three miles and a half in length, from Baiae to the mole of Puteoli, collecting trading vessels from all quarters, mooring them in two rows by their anchors, and spreading earth upon them to form a viaduct, after the fashion of the Appian way. This bridge he crossed and recrossed for two days together; the first day mounted on a horse richly caparisoned, wearing on his head a crown of oak leaves . . . and in a cloak made of cloth of gold; the, day following, in the habit of a charioteer, standing in a chariot, drawn by two high-bred horses.
XXXVI. He never had the least regard either to the chastity of his own person, or that of others . . . . Besides his incest with his sisters, and his notorious passion for Pyrallis, the prostitute, there was hardly any lady of distinction with whom he did not make free. He used commonly to invite them with their husbands to supper, and as they passed by the couch on which he reclined at table, examine them very closely, like those who traffic in slaves . . . Afterwards, as often as he was in the humour, he would quit the room, send for her he liked best, and in a short time return with marks of recent disorder about them. He would then commend or disparage her in the presence of the company, recounting the charms or defects of her person.
XXXVII . . . He built two ships with ten banks of oars, after the Liburnian fashion, the poops of which blazed with jewels, and the sails were of various parti-colours. They were fitted up with ample baths, galleries, and saloons, and supplied with a great variety of vines and other fruit-trees. In these he would sail in the day-time along the coast of Campania, feasting amidst dancing and concerts of music. . . . He spent enormous sums, and the whole treasures which had been amassed by Tiberius Caesar . . . within less than a year.
XLVI. At last, as if resolved to make war in earnest, he drew up his army upon the shore of the ocean, with his balistae and other engines of war, and while no one could imagine what he intended to do, on a sudden commanded them to gather up the sea shells, and fill their helmets, and the folds of their dress with them, calling them “the spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol.”
Credit - Tranquillus, C. Suetonius. “The Lives of Twelve Caesars.” Translated by Alexander Thomson, Project Gutenberg.
Cassius Dio (155–235 CE) was a Roman historian who wrote eighty books on the history of Rome from the arrival of Aeneas in Latium to his own lifetime. Cassius Dio was equally involved in the political life of Rome, serving as a senator, provincial governor, and suffect consul under Emperors Commodus and Severus Alexander.
Though he at first forbade any one to set up images of him . . . he afterwards ordered temples to be erected and sacrifices to be offered to himself as to a god.
. . . . He did not consider it any great achievement to drive a chariot on dry land; on the other hand, he was eager to drive his chariot through the sea, as it were, by bridging the waters between Puteoli and Bauli. Of the ships for a bridge some were brought together there from other stations, but others were built on the spot, since the number that could be assembled there in a brief space of time was insufficient, even though all the vessels possible were got together—with the result that a very severe famine occurred in Italy, and particularly in Rome. In building the bridge not merely a passageway was constructed, but also resting-places and lodging-room were built along its course, and these had running water suitable for drinking. When all was ready, he put on the breastplate of Alexander (or so he claimed), and over it a purple silk chlamys, adorned with much gold and many precious stones from India; moreover he girt on a sword, too a shield, and donned a garland of oak leaves. Then he . . . entered the bridge from the end at Bauli, taking with him a multitude of armed horsemen and foot-soldiers; and he dashed fiercely into Puteoli as if he were in pursuit of an enemy. There he remained during the following day, as if resting from battle; then, wearing a gold-embroidered tunic, he returned in a chariot over the same bridge . . .
One of the horses, which he named Incitatus, he used to invite to dinner, where he would offer him golden barley and drink his health in wine from golden goblets; he swore by the animal’s life and fortune and even promised to appoint him consul, a promise that he would certainly have carried out if he had lived longer. . . .
And when he reached the ocean, as if he were going to conduct a campaign in Britain, and had drawn up all the soldiers on the beach, he embarked on a trireme, and then, after putting out a little from the land, sailed back again. . . . Then of a sudden he ordered [the soldiers] to gather up the shells. Having secured these spoils (for he needed booty, of course, for his triumphal procession), he became greatly elated, as if he had enslaved the very ocean; and he gave his soldiers many presents. The shells he took back to Rome for the purpose of exhibiting the booty to the people there as well.
Credit - projects, Contributors to Wikimedia. “Dio's Roman History.” Wikisource, the Free Online Library, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 11 July 2018.
Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (25 BCE–50 CE) was a Jewish philosopher who was both a Roman citizen and a respected spokesman for the Jewish community of Alexandria Egypt. He was chosen as the representative of this community in an embassy to Caligula charged with resolving the conflict between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria. His On the Embassy to Gaius is his recollection of this meeting.
The golden age was said to have existed during the reign of Saturn upon earth . . . on account of the universal prosperity and happiness which reigned everywhere, and the absence of all grief and fear, and the daily and nightly exhibitions of joy and festivity throughout every house and throughout the whole people, which lasted continually without any interruption during the first seven months of his reign. But in the eighth month a severe disease attacked Gaius who had changed the manner of his living which was a little while before, while Tiberius was alive, very simple and on that account more wholesome than one of great sumptuousness and luxury; for he began to indulge in abundance of strong wine and eating of rich dishes, and in the abundant license of insatiable desires and great insolence . . . and in lust after boys and women, and in everything else which tends to destroy both soul and body, and all the bonds which unite and strengthen the two; for the rewards of temperance are health and strength, and the wages of intemperance are weakness and disease which bring a man near to death . . . . He began at first to liken himself to those beings who are called demigods, such as Bacchus, and Hercules, and the twins of Lacedaemon . . . in comparison of his own power. In the next place, like an actor in a theatre, he was continually wearing different dresses at different times, taking at one time a lion’s skin and a club, both gilded over; being then dressed in the character of Hercules; at another time he would wear a felt hat upon his head, when he was disguised in imitation of the Spartan twins, Castor and Pollux; sometimes he also adorned himself with ivy, and a thyrsus, and skins of fawns, so as to appear in the guise of Bacchus. . . . But the madness and frenzy to which he gave way were so preposterous, and so utterly insane, that he went even beyond the demigods, and mounted up to and invaded the veneration and worship paid to those who are looked upon as greater than they, as the supreme deities of the world, Mercury, and Apollo, and Mars. And first of all he dressed himself up with the caduceus, and sandals, and mantle of Mercury, exhibiting a regularity in his disorder, a consistency in his confusion, and a ratiocination in his insanity.
Credit - “The Works of Philo.” Translated by Peter Kirby, Philo: On the Embassy to Gaius, Early Christian Writings
David Woods has been a Senior Lecturer at University College Cork in Ireland since 2008. His research interests are in the Roman imperial age, particularly the reigns of Caligula and Nero and the Constantinian dynasty.
When Caligula ordered his soldiers to collect the conchae, he was referring to some small boats, not seashells. The surviving tradition is simply mistaken. We ought not to forget that ancient authors were quite capable of misinterpreting their sources despite their relative proximity to the events in question. So whose were these boats that Caligula ordered the soldiers to assemble? In so far as our main sources all agree that Caligula thought of these conchae as the spoils of war, it is clear that they must have been enemy boats, probably British. Hence Caligula merely ordered his soldiers to gather together some British boats which they had captured in the English Channel. The advantage of this interpretation is that it makes good sense also of the ballistas and other artillery which Caligula had apparently had arrayed upon the shore at this time . . .
Caligula did not order his soldiers to collect seashells for transport back to Rome as the spoils of the ocean. Rather our main sources for this event are heirs to a hostile tradition which misinterpreted Caligula’s original instruction to assemble some captured enemy ships, to which he derisively referred as conchae, ‘shells’, for transport to Rome. This is not to claim that the author of the original source which lies at the root of our surviving accounts of this event—Cluvius Rufus—deliberately misinterpreted this term. He made a genuine mistake. It is not difficult to see why, in the context of a discussion of events on a beach, he should have immediately assumed that the conchae were seashells. However, the wider context ought to have alerted him to the possibility that he was misinterpreting this term. He ought to have recognized the inherent improbability that any emperor would ever have ordered his soldiers to collect seashells, but his prejudice against Caligula was such that he was prepared to believe almost anything of him, however improbable. He, or perhaps some of those who used him later, then added to the original tradition on the basis of this misinterpretation. So, for example, Suetonius’ claim that Caligula ordered his soldiers to collect the seashells in their helmets and gowns surely represents a late addition to this original tradition, whether or not by Suetonius himself . . . The result was a very colourful story which has played a large part in the continued denigration of Caligula even to the present day.
Credit - David Woods, “ Caligula’s Seashells,” Greece & Rome, Second Series 47, no. 1 (Apr., 2000), 80–87
Marc Kleijwegt is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the cultural experience and mentalities of ancient Romans including the lives of youth and adolescents, freedmen, slaves and gladiators, Roman textile production and Roman food.
Caligula’s reign reads like a string of absurd acts and insane inspirations, either disbelieved or discarded by the historian. . . . Scholarship has declared him to have been either mad, bad, ill, or all three . . . In spite of the difficulties in evaluating his reign, certain acts of Caligula can be explained rationally without stretching evidence too much . . . An episode from Caligula’s reign may be said to show Caligula’s megalomania, but could with equal force be claimed to have been an act full of symbolism. The episode referred to is the building of the bridge of boats over the Bay of Naples . . .
Caligula could be a clever manipulator of religious symbols. In the dedication of the bridge at Naples manipulation of the image of the triumphator and the emperor as pater patriae is definitely present. The differences in the description of events by Dio and Suetonius warrant a closer look at the inconsistencies . . . The difference between the two accounts is obvious: whereas Suetonius depicts Caligula as riding back and forth without purpose, Cassius Dio describes the episode as a parody of a military expedition followed by a triumph. As we shall see later, Cassius Dio may have been closer to the truth than Suetonius . . . . The effort of building a bridge of boats across the Bay of Naples will have reminded the average Roman of the earlier megalomaniac projects of Darius and Xerxes. Imperial splendour was a necessary aspect of imperial power . . . The great deal of attention that Caligula paid on this occasion to his dress . . . indicate that the emperor himself took the show seriously: it was much more than a simple show of splendour. Since Augustus the crown, shield and title of pater patriae had been closely associated [with one another] . . . . The religious associations of this trinity include the idea of the Saviour of the State. Caligula’s cleverness in using religious symbols should not be underestimated. If we leave the tag of Caligula’s madness and the bias or misunderstandings of ancient authors aside for a while, the main problem we have to deal with is: what could have been the purpose in staging this show? To answer that question we have to discuss the symbolism associated with a triumph. The triumph had become a ritual in which the bonds between leader and soldiers came close to that of patronage. It was this spirit, I believe, which Caligula was looking for when he staged his mock expedition.
Credit - Marc Kleijwegt, “Caligula’s ‘Triumph’ at Baiae,” Mnemosyne, Fourth Series 47, Fasc. 5 (Nov., 1994) 652–71.
M. Gwyn Morgan is Professor Emeritus of Classics and History at the University of Texas Austin where he has been a professor of Classics and history since 1970. Much of his work dealt with Metellus, Caligula, Catullus, and Tacitus and his most notable book was on the period of the four emperors after the fall of Nero. This piece provides insight into both the original designation of Caligula as insane and the revisionist interpretation of his illness and recovery.
Robert S. Katz has emphasized the need to reconsider the traditional view of Caligula, and he has attempted to show that even if the emperor was not entirely normal, he was certainly not insane in our meaning of the term. There can be no doubt that it is past time for a reassessment of Caligula, but there can also be no doubt that the thesis advanced by Katz is unacceptable in detail. In essence, he maintains that Suetonius’ description of the emperor’s physical appearance points to his being a man suffering from hyperthyroidism, that this thyroid malfunction was brought on by the “emotional shock and psychic trauma of newly-gained imperial power after years of virtual impotency under Tiberius,” and that the task of being emperor exacerbated this condition, producing the breakdown—physiological rather than psychological—of September A.D. 37. There are two major flaws in this theory. First, it takes for granted the accuracy of Suetonius’ description of the emperor’s physical appearance. And second, it attaches excessive significance to the illness which Caligula suffered . . . In either case we have no option but to conclude that Suetonius’ description has been conditioned by his preconceived ideas of the emperor’s character. And when the description itself differs so markedly from the representations of Caligula to be found in Roman art, we cannot simply dismiss the latter as untrustworthy idealizations. Suetonius’ picture is no less distorted, and therefore cannot be used to support theories about the emperor’s physiological condition. This is not to say that we must return to the view that the illness of September A.D. 37 was a “nervous breakdown,” even if this is widely held by modern scholars. It may be emphasized first that neither Suetonius nor Dio consider that illness a significant element in the emperor’s behavioral patterns . . . This leaves Philo our principal source; and his evidence has too often been misinterpreted. He states clearly that the illness was strictly physical and, no less clearly, that the emperor made a full recovery. To decide whether Caligula was mad is a problem which requires a much fuller and more thorough discussion than it can be given here. For the moment, it is enough to recognize that the illness of September A.D. 37 was purely physical. Let us hope that the myth of Caligula’s “nervous breakdown” can now be consigned to the oblivion it so richly deserves.
Credit - M. Gwyn Morgan, “Caligula’s Illness Again,” The Classical World, Vol. 66, No. 6 (Mar., 1973), 327–29.
One of the most famous allegations made against the emperor Caligula was that he had intended to appoint his favourite horse, Incitatus, as consul. While Suetonius and Cassius Dio both preserve this allegation, neither explains the basis for it. . . .
. . . So what is one to make of the claim that Caligula had planned to appoint Incitatus as consul? Most modern commentators seem inclined to treat it as a misinterpretation of some joke or sarcastic comment that was taken out of context and subjected to a literal interpretation. The problem lies in identifying the nature of the joke. Willrich suggested that Caligula had intended his remark as a sarcastic comment on the qualities of the consuls, something to the effect that so many asses had already reached the consulship that he ought to consider appointing the noble steed Incitatus to this post as well . . .
The purpose of this note is to propose a new explanation for the origin of the belief that Caligula had wanted to make Incitatus a consul . . . The appointment of Claudius as suffect consul warrants attention here for two reasons, the first being the meaning of the nomen Claudius itself, the second being the fact that it must have been a controversial appointment. On the first point, the name Claudius derives from the adjective claudus meaning ‘lame, halting’.
Hence there was clear potential for some form of witty opposition between his name and that of Incitatus, ‘fast-moving’ . . . . Perhaps Caligula sought to defend his appointment of Claudius as consul by deliberately misinterpreting the objections of those who queried this appointment, as if they were objecting to him on account of his name rather than of his physical or mental handicaps. One may envisage a rhetorical question asking them whether they wanted him to appoint a ‘fast-moving’ rather than a ‘lame’ consul, where it is they who are made to look foolish by seeming to want him to appoint the horse Incitatus as consul rather than Claudius. . . . There is an alternative possibility, however, since the appointment of Asinius Celer as suffect consul draws attention also, his nomen, Asinius, derives from the noun asinus (‘ass’), and his cognomen, Celer, derives from the adjective celer (‘swift’). Hence the name Asinius
Celer is easily misrepresented to mean ‘swift ass’. The potential for witty plays between the names of the ‘swift ass’ Asinius Celer and that of the ‘fast-moving’ horse Incitatus is obvious.
Credit - - David Woods, “Caligula, Incitatus, and the Consulship,” Classical Quarterly 64:2 (Dec., 2014) 772–77.
Titus Flavius Josephus (37-100 CE) was a Jewish scholar born in the Roman province of Judea. Josephus had fought against Rome during the first Jewish–Roman war but flattered Vespasian after the surrender by proclaiming a Jewish prophesy foretold Vespasian would become emperor. When Vespasian became emperor, he gave Josephus his freedom, Roman citizenship, and the emperor’s own family nomen, Flavius. He later took the praenomen Titus after Vespasian’s heir, the next emperor Titus. He claimed to provide a fair and unbiased approach to both Jews and Romans in his two main works, The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews.
Gaius [Caligula] did not demonstrate his madness in offering injuries only to the Jews at Jerusalem, or to those that dwelt in the neighborhood; but suffered it to extend itself through all the earth and sea, so far as was in subjection to the Romans, and filled it with ten thousand mischiefs; so many indeed in number as no former history relates. But Rome itself felt the most dismal effects of what he did, while he deemed that not to be any way more honorable than the rest of the cities; but he pulled and hauled its other citizens, but especially the senate, and particularly the nobility, and such as had been dignified by illustrious ancestors; he also had ten thousand devices against such of the equestrian order, as it was styled, who were esteemed by the citizens equal in dignity and wealth with the senators, because out of them the senators were themselves chosen; these he treated after all ignominious manner, and removed them out of his way, while they were at once slain, and their wealth plundered, because he slew men generally in order to seize on their riches. He also asserted his own divinity, and insisted on greater honors to be paid him by his subjects than are due to mankind. He also frequented that temple of Jupiter which they style the Capitol, which is with them the most holy of all their temples, and had boldness enough to call himself the brother of Jupiter. And other pranks he did like a madman; as when he laid a bridge from the city Dicearchia, which belongs to Campania, to Misenum, another city upon the sea-side, from one promontory to another, of the length of thirty furlongs, as measured over the sea. And this was done because he esteemed it to be a most tedious thing to row over it in a small ship, and thought withal that it became him to make that bridge, since he was lord of the sea, and might oblige it to give marks of obedience as well as the earth; so he enclosed the whole bay within his bridge, and drove his chariot over it; and thought that, as he was a god, it was fit for him to travel over such roads as this was.
Credit - “Antiquities of the Jews - Book XIX.” Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIX, University of Chicago.
Lucius Annaius Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a philosopher of the Stoic school and a dramatist during the Silver Age of Roman literature after the death of Augustus. He served as tutor and advisor to Nero who named him suffect consul in 56 but was ordered to commit suicide by Nero after being suspected in a plot to assassinate the emperor. This piece is written to his friend Paulinus who was in charge of managing the grain supply of Rome. In addition to giving his friend advice on how to live life to the fullest, Seneca also gives a picture of life under Caligula.
The greater part of your life, certainly the better part of it, has been given to the state; take now some part of your time for yourself as well. . . .
. . . You win love in an office in which it is difficult to avoid hatred; but nevertheless believe me, it is better to have knowledge of the ledger of one’s own life than of the corn-market. Recall that keen mind of yours, which is most competent to cope with the greatest subjects, from a service that is indeed honourable but hardly adapted to the happy life, and reflect that in all your training in the liberal studies, extending from your earliest years, you were not aiming at this—that it might be safe to entrust many thousand pecks of corn to your charge; you gave hope of something greater and more lofty. There will be no lack of men of tested worth and painstaking industry. But plodding oxen are much more suited to carrying heavy loads than thoroughbred horses, and who ever hampers the fleetness of such high-born creatures with a heavy pack? Reflect, besides, how much worry you have in subjecting yourself to such a great burden; your dealings are with the belly of man.
A hungry people neither listens to reason, nor is appeased by justice, nor is bent by any entreaty. Very recently within those few day’s after Gaius Caesar died—still grieving most deeply (if the dead have any feeling) because he knew that the Roman people were alive and had enough food left for at any rate seven or eight days while he was building his bridges of boats and playing with the resources of the empire, we were threatened with the worst evil that can befall men even during a siege—the lack of provisions; his imitation of a mad and foreign and proud king was very nearly at the cost of the city’s destruction and famine and the general revolution that follows famine. What then must have been the feeling of those who had charge of the corn-market, and had to face stones, the sword, fire—and a Caligula? By the greatest subterfuge they concealed the great evil that lurked in the vitals of the state—with good reason, you may be sure. For certain maladies must be treated while the patient is kept in ignorance; knowledge of their disease has caused the death of many.
Credit - Translated by Gareth D. Williams, Full Text of "Seneca On The Shortness Of Life", Internet Archive.
Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a French author, journalist, philosopher associated with absurdism and existentialism (despite his denials of this) and voice of the French intellectual resistance in World War II. Camus’ play Caligula, written in 1938, is not an ancient work of literature that reflects Caligula’s Rome but rather a modern play that indicates the way in which Caligula has been remembered, imagined, and represented by contemporary audiences. Camus picked Caligula as the perfect historical figure to represent his idea of a man devastated by grief who chooses to practice his own morality and court his own destruction.
Caligula. Well, I’ve just devised a strategic plan. We’re going to reform our whole economic system. In two moves. Drastic and abrupt . . . First phase: Every senator. Everyone in the Empire who has any capital, small or large it’s all the same thing, is ordered to disinherit his children and make a new will leaving his money to the State.
Intendant. But Caesar.
Caligula. I’m not finished! Second phase: As the need arises, we shall announce the death of those individuals, following the order of a list drawn up arbitrarily. On occasion we may modify that order. Again, arbitrarily. (an insight) By lottery perhaps. And the Treasury shall inherit their money. . . .
Caligula. (imperturbably Of course the order of the executions is not of the slightest importance. (precisely) Or, rather, all these executions have an equal importance; from which it follows that none has any importance. Indeed, if you think about it, it is no more immoral to rob citizens directly, than to slip indirect taxes into the prices of the commodities they cannot do without. Governing amounts to robbing, as everyone knows. But there are different ways of going about it. As for me, I shall rob openly. That will be a change from you penny pinching politicians. . . .
Caesonia. Is this really you, Caligula? Was that supposed to be some kind of a joke?
Caligula. Not exactly, Caesonia. Let’s say it was a seminar in public administration.
Scipio. But this isn’t possible Caligula.
Caligula. That’s the point!
Scipio. What do you mean?
Caligula. I mean, I’m concerned with the impossible, or rather with making possible the impossible.
Scipio. That’s nothing more than the pastime of a lunatic.
Caligula. No, Scipio. It’s the vocation of an emperor. (He lets himself sit down, wearily) I’ve finally understood the uses of power. It gives the impossible a chance. From now on my freedom will not be limited by convention.
Credit - Camus, Albert. "Caligula Act 1." Cape Breton University
Titus Livius (59 BCE–17 CE) was a historian and author of the immediately popular, extensive volumes of The History of Rome which covered the period from the mythological founding of the city to the reign of Augustus during which Livy lived. Livy was neither a soldier nor a statesman but devoted himself wholly to his writing. He wrote under the reign of Augustus but although he did mentor the future emperor Claudius there are no clear indications of patronage.
The Sabines, too, came with all their people, including their children and wives. They were hospitably entertained in every house, and when they had looked at the site of the City, its walls, and its numerous buildings, they marvelled that Rome had so rapidly grown great. When the time came for the show, and people’s thoughts and eyes were busy with it, the preconcerted attack began. At a given signal the young Romans darted this way and that, to seize and carry off the maidens. In most cases these were taken by the men in whose path they chanced to be. Some, of exceptional beauty, had been marked out for the chief senators, and were carried off to their houses by plebeians to whom the office had been entrusted. One, who far excelled the rest in mien and loveliness, was seized, the story relates, by the gang of a certain Thalassius. Being repeatedly asked for whom they were bearing her off, they kept shouting that no one should touch her, for they were taking her to Thalassius, and this was the origin of the wedding-cry. The sports broke up in a panic, and the parents of the maidens fled sorrowing. They charged the Romans with the crime of violating hospitality, and invoked the gods to whose solemn games they had come, deceived in violation of religion and honour. The stolen maidens were no more hopeful of their plight, nor less indignant. But Romulus himself went amongst them and explained that the pride of their parents had caused this deed, when they had refused their neighbours the right to intermarry; nevertheless the daughters should be wedded and become co-partners in all the possessions of the Romans, in their citizenship and, dearest privilege of all to the human race, in their children; only let them moderate their anger, and give their hearts to those to whom fortune had given their persons. A sense of injury had often given place to affection, and they would find their husbands the kinder for this reason, that every man would earnestly endeavour not only to be a good husband, but also to console his wife for the home and parents she had lost. His arguments were seconded by the wooing of the men, who excused their act on the score of passion and love, the most moving of all pleas to a woman’s heart.
Credit - Livy. "History of Rome." Translated by Benjamin O. Foster, Topsongtexte
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56–120 CE) was a Roman historian whose two greatest works were the Annals and the Histories which together covered the history of Rome from the final years of Augustus to the reign of Vespasian in 70 CE. Tacitus also wrote an ethnography of the Germanic tribes and a history of General Agricola (Tacitus’ father in law) and his conquest of Britain
A motion was then introduced to qualify the terms of the Lex Papia Poppaea. This law, complementary to the Julian rogations [religious ceremonies], had been passed by Augustus in his later years, in order to sharpen the penalties of celibacy and to increase the resources of the exchequer. It failed, however, to make marriage and the family popular—childlessness remained the vogue. On the other hand, there was an ever-increasing multitude of persons liable to prosecution, since every household was threatened with subversion by the arts of the informers; and where the country once suffered from its vices, it was now in peril from its laws. This circumstance suggests that I should discuss more deeply the origin of legislation and the processes which have resulted in the countless and complex statutes of to-day.
Credit - Loeb, James, and Jeffrey Henderson. “TACITUS, Annals.” Loeb Classical Library, 24 June 2019.
According to Suetonius, under Augustus’ marriage reform law, the Lex Julia, women had one year from the death of a husband to remarry before becoming subject to penalties. This was later extended to two years by the Lex Papia Poppaea. After a divorce, they had six months to remarry.
Some laws he abrogated, and he made some new ones; such as the sumptuary law, that relating to adultery and the violation of chastity, the law against bribery in elections, and likewise that for the encouragement of marriage. Having been more severe in his reform of this law than the rest, he found the people utterly averse to submit to it, unless the penalties were abolished or mitigated, besides allowing an interval of three years after a wife’s death, and increasing the premiums on marriage. The equestrian order clamoured loudly, at a spectacle in the theatre, for its total repeal; whereupon he sent for the children of Germanicus, and shewed them partly sitting upon his own lap, and partly on their father’s; intimating by his looks and gestures, that they ought not to think it a grievance to follow the example of that young man. But finding that the force of the law was eluded, by marrying girls under the age of puberty, and by frequent change of wives, he limited the time for consummation after espousals, and imposed restrictions on divorce.
Credit - “C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Divus Augustus Alexander Thomson, Ed.” C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Divus Augustus, Chapter 34, Gebbie & Co., 1889.
Karen Klaiber Hersch is Associate Professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Classics at Temple University. Her research deals primarily with Roman religion, gender, social history, and marriage. Her recent book on Roman weddings explores how the ceremony became an instruction for youths, both male and female, in societal expectations and cultural roles. She is currently working on a book about Tanaquil, the fifth queen of Rome.
Roman authors … do not fail to mention the public presentation of the bride before her community. The combined force of the evidence from written sources makes clear that there was one necessary and invariable event at the Roman wedding: the parading, probably on foot, of a heavily veiled woman in the direction of a groom’s house. The leading of a veiled woman by her attendants distinguished it from all other Roman rituals and seems to have made the event immediately recognizable. In fact so prominent are the procession and the veil in our sources that these two items were used to prove that a legal wedding had occurred . . . [Public procession] gave to young Roman women an instant lesson about the expected trajectory of their lives. It was the ancient equivalent of a modern billboard, which stated plainly that a wedding was the goal of a woman’s life.
Credit - Karen Klaiber Hersch, “Introduction to the Roman Wedding: Two Case Studies,” The Classical Journal 109, no. 2 (December 2013–January 2014) 223–32.
Gary Forsythe is Associate Professor of History at Texas Tech University where he specializes in the history of ancient Greece and Rome. He is the author of a textbook on Western Civilization and seven books on Roman antiquity, the most recent of which is a collection of essays on Roman religious history and the theme of time.
Plutarch in Quaestiones Romanae 30 indicates that a Roman bride was expected to utter the phrase ubi tu gaius, ego gaia. Cicero in the Pro Murena 27 further suggests that this nuptual formula was associated with coemptio, one of the three forms of marriage in which the wife entered the manus of her husband. As revealed by the confused remarks of Cicero, Plutarch, and Quintilian, the Romans of historical times no longer knew the significance of this utterance but supposed that gaius and gaia were personal names, and that the bridal expression somehow signified the wife’s entry into the husband’s household. . . . Modern scholars have fared no better in interpreting the phrase. They have understood gaius and gaia alternatively as either praenomina or nomina and have tried to extract some symbolic significance from the formula.
These modern explanations are to be rejected since there is no evidence that Roman women upon marriage ever changed their names in any way, and Gaius is clearly a praenomen and is never attested as a nomen. A new approach to this longstanding enigma is called for . . . The forms gaius and gaia are best understood as adjectives . . . thus the original meaning of ubi tu gaius, ego gaia must have been “where thou art happy, I am happy.”
Although Plutarch . . . indicates that the bride in later historical times uttered the phrase in question at the threshold of her husband’s house, it seems reasonable to suppose that it was originally spoken by the bride at the conclusion of the coemptio when she had passed from her father’s power or guardian’s supervision into the control of her husband. The utterance would have therefore signified the woman’s acknowledgment of her new legal status and of the fact that she was no longer under the authority of her father or legal guardian. Finally, although the surviving literary sources incline modern scholars to concentrate almost exclusively on the legal aspects of Roman marriage, the use of the adjective gaius, gaia (= happy) in this legal formula suggests that even in early times one normal Roman expectation of marriage was the happiness of the husband and wife, albeit the latter expressed the subordination of her happiness to that of her husband.
Credit - Gary Forsythe, “Ubi tu gaius, ego gaia”: New Light on an Old Roman Legal Saw,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 45, H. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1996) 240–41.
John Hilton is Professor of Classics at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa whose extremely wide-ranging publications indicate his interest in literature and reception of classical texts. Lydia Matthews is lecturer at Oriel College at the University of Oxford. Her research and scholarship focus on imperial Roman history and the history of gender and sexuality. Her current research explores the Roman concepts of sexual deviancy and treatable ailments.
Valerius Maximus and Plutarch differ markedly in their accounts of the divorce of Sulpicius Galus. Plutarch states that Galus repudiated his wife because she went about in public with her head covered, while Valerius says the very opposite. The present note attempts to elucidate this problem. . . . Divorce at this time was highly controversial. . . . In early Rome, divorce proceedings could only be instituted on specific grounds (such as wine-drinking, substitution of children, poisoning and theft of keys). During the late Republic, however, divorce was much easier. The cases discussed by Plutarch must therefore belong to a transitional period in which at least some explanation needed to be given (in this case the accusation of veiling), when the action fell outside the traditional ambit of the law. . . . The circumstances surrounding Galus’ repudiation of his wife, the loss of his son, and the possible need for a new heir, and consequently a wife capable of producing one, suggests that the charge that Sulpicius’ wife had gone about in public with her head uncovered might be construed as a mere pretext for divorce . . . The law mentioned by Sulpicius can only have been the Augustan lex de pudicitia mentioned by Suetonius which accompanied his law on adultery. Valerius frequently adapts his anecdotes to convey his own moral views, and he portrays Augustus in restrained terms as ‘defender of legitimacy and the family’. Dress was of some interest for Valerius and his rhetorical amplification of Sulpicius’ dramatic divorce of his wife for going unveiled in public is entirely in keeping with this . . . Plutarch appears to assume that most Roman women in earlier times wanted to veil but were prevented from doing so by their husbands. At any rate, he accepts the possibility that Roman women did not regularly cover their heads in public at this time. . . . Valerius Maximus, writing at a time of heightened awareness of female modesty and the importance of dress, shapes his discussion in conformance with his own views on the subject. Plutarch, on the other hand, was attempting to answer the question of female veiling practices in early Rome about which he evidently had little knowledge.
Credit - J. L. Hilton and L. L. V. Matthews, “Veiled or Unveiled? (Plut. ‘Quaest. Rom.’ 267B-C),” The Classical Quarterly 58, no. 1 (May, 2008) 336–42.
Thomas A. J. McGinn is Professor of History and Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University. His extensive work includes scholarship on marriage, prostitution, the family, and the status of women and children. His interests also include research into case law and family law in Rome.
Did Augustus, in his marriage legislation, encourage sub-senatorial ingenui [men who were born free] to marry freedwomen [former slaves]? If so, what was his motive? The answers to both questions are given by Cassius Dio, who explicitly relates this liberalization, which was evidently designed to promote a change in custom, not law, to a deficit of females among the upper orders of society. This shortage was enhanced by the law’s insistence that males marry by age 25 and females by age 20, which in practice seems to have produced a tendency to lower the age at first marriage for elite males but not females, a result which would have widened the gap in numbers of eligible partners according to sex, insofar as men who might have died without marrying were now more likely to marry. . . .
My view is that to list a group of persons prohibited for marriage in the context of a law which insists, through a complex of rewards and punishments, on marriage, is to encourage marriage with those not named in the group . . . . The real difficulty is that several modem historians have doubted Dio ‘s reliability in this matter or have even argued forcefully that no deficit in females existed among the elite. For example, Susan Treggiari admits the possibility that an imbalance between the sexes was caused by abandonment or malnutrition of female babies, but expresses doubt about Dio’s accuracy on the ground that if Augustus perceived this as the root of the problem, he would have framed measures against abandonment. . . . The stakes were higher for women than for men in the matter of matchmaking, since their social position was generally more dependent on that of their husbands than the reverse. Added to this was the sheer force of custom, which shaped the expectation that highstatus women married relatively young. A gender imbalance in favor of males would have aggravated this tendency, without having created it. Upper-class widows were desirable as marriage partners and often remarried . . . This gender deficit had an important implication, which was tied to the question of status. Higher-status women saw their value on the marriage market rise—even those less well situated at the start might attract more prominent men willing to descend the social scale in search of a partner. This was perfectly consistent with elite Roman notions of gender hierarchy, which viewed the male as ideally the partner of superior rank in marriage.
Credit - Thomas A. J. McGinn, “Missing Females? Augustus’ Encouragement of Marriage between Freeborn Males and Freedwomen,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 53, H. 2 (2004) 200–08.
David Cherry is Professor of History at Montana State University. His research deals primarily with Roman North Africa and the history of the Roman frontiers. From this emerged an interest in the question of citizenship under Roman law.
A lawful Roman marriage could be contracted only by two Roman citizens or by a citizen and a Latin or foreigner (peregrine) who possessed conubium, which the jurists defined as the right of contracting a marriage valid in Roman law (iure civili) . . . Conubium was rarely awarded to non-Romans without simultaneous enfranchisement. . . . Children born of a marriage for which the partners possessed conubium took their father’s status: conubio interveniente liberi semper patrem sequuntur (“where the right of intermarriage exists, children always follow their father”). . . . Children born of a marriage for which the partners did not possess conubium were illegitimate and took their mother’s, not their father’s, status: non interveniente conubio ma.tris condicioni accedunt (“where the right of intermarriage does not exist, they take their mother’s status”). Under the law of nations then children born to a Roman man and a non-Roman woman (Latin or foreigner) with whom he did not have conubium were illegitimate non-Romans. Conversely, children born to a Roman woman and a Latin or foreign man who did not have conubium were illegitimate Roman citizens. . . . And it was not until sometime during the principate of Hadrian that a decree of the Senate declared that where a child was conceived in accordance with foreign laws and customs, and its mother acquired the Roman citizenship before its birth, it was born a Roman citizen only if the citizenship was also awarded to its father. The rule was derived from the principle that the child of a lawful marriage, Roman or otherwise, took its status from the time of conception.
Credit - David Cherry, “The Minician Law: Marriage and the Roman Citizenship,” Phoenix 44, no. 3 (Autumn, 1990) 244–66.
Titus Maccius Plautus (254–184 BCE) was a Roman comedic playwright during the Republic. His works tended to emulate or even directly imitate earlier Greek comedies. He was the author of over 130 plays of which twenty have survived intact. In his Casina, a female infant who was about to be exposed is brought to Cleostrata, who names her Casina. When Casina is of age, both Stalino, Cleostrata’s husband, and Euthynicus, Cleostrata’s son, fall in love with her. Neither man would be allowed to marry an illegitimate girl so Cleostrata, plans to give Casina in marriage to Chalinus, Euthynicus’ servant, as a covert method of putting her in the household of Euthynicus. On the other hand, Stalino wishes her to be married to Olympio, the bailiff of his farm, as a means of getting her into his own possession. Cleostrata defeats Stalino’s plan by dressing Chalinus in a wedding veil that makes him look like Casina, who is taken by the bridegroom Olympio to a house where Stalino awaits. In the end, Stalino and Olympio are both chased from the home by an angry Chalinus and it is discovered Casina is really the daughter of a Roman Senator and his wife Myrrhina who live next door, and she is therefore able to marry Euthynicus.
Prologue: There are some here, who, I fancy, are now saying among themselves, “Prithee, what means this, i’ faith?—the marriage of a slave. Are slaves to be marrying wives, or asking them for themselves? They’ve introduced something new—a thing that’s done nowhere in the world.” But I affirm that this is done in Greece, and at Carthage, and here in our own country, and in the Apulian country; and that the marriages of slaves are wont to be solemnized there with more fuss than even those of free persons . . .
Cleostrata. Myrrhina, good morrow.
Myrrhina. Good morrow, my dear Cleostrata. But, prithee, why are you sad? . . .
Cleostrata. Why, against my will, he demands a female servant of me, who belongs to myself, and was brought up at my own expense, for him to give to his bailiff. But he is in love with her himself.
Myrrhina. Pray, do hold your tongue.
Cleostrata. looking round . But here we may speak at present; we are alone—
Myrrhina. It is so. But whence did you get her? For a good wife ought to have no property unknown to her husband; and she who has got any, it is not to her credit, for she must either have purloined it from her husband, or obtained it by unfaithfulness. Whatever is your own, all that I take to be your husband’s.
Cleostrata. Surely, you’re saying all this out of opposition to your friend.
Myrrhina. Do hold your tongue, will you, simpleton, and attend to me. Do you forbear to oppose him, will you. Let him love on; that which he chooses let him do, so long as nothing’s denied you at home.
Cleostrata. Are you quite in your senses? For really, you are saying these things against your own interest.
Myrrhina. Silly creature, do you always take care and be on guard against this expression from your husband—
Cleostrata. What expression?
Myrrhina. “Woman! out of doors with you!
(Out of doors—the order is presumed to be that given by husbands divorcing their wives). . .
Olympio. to one of the Musicians. Come, piper, while they are escorting the new-made bride out of doors, make the whole of this street resound with a sweet wedding-tune. He sings aloud. Io Hymen hymenæe! Io Hymen!
. . . Enter, from the house, two Female Servants leading Chalinus, veiled and dressed in women’s clothes, as Casina.
Two Maid-Servants. Move on, and raise your feet a little over the threshold, newly-married bride; prosperously commence this journey, that you may always be alive for your husband, that you may be his superior in power, and the conqueror, and that your rule may gain the upper hand. Let your husband find you in clothes; you plunder your husband; by night and day to be tricking your husband, prithee, do remember.
Olympio to Stalino . Upon my faith, at her downright peril, the instant she offends me ever so little!
. . . The Players. Now it’s only fair that with your deserving hands you should give us deserved applause. He who does so, may he always keep his mistress without the knowledge of his wife. But he who doesn’t with his hands clap as loud as he can, in place of a mistress, may a he-goat, soused in bilge-water, be palmed off upon him.
Credit - “Titus Maccius Plautus' Casina.” Latin Texts & Translations, University of Chicago.
Gaius Valerius Catullus (84–54 BCE) was a Roman poet of the late Republic who wrote poetry about his personal life rather than mythology or great epics. His subjects often included his own love life and its struggles, witty and generous poems about friends, and biting, often explicit, poems eviscerating his social and political foes.
Come, laughing boy; thy flowing hair
With fragrant marjoram adorn;
Thy saffron veil with speed prepare,
That veil by brides in marriage worn!
And let thy yellow sandals glow
On thy bright feet that vie with snow!
O, rous’d by this auspicious day,
Prepare the hymeneal song,
Beat the firm ground in measures gay,
And carol sweet with silver tongue!
Then, brandishing thy torch in air,
Bless with its flame the happy pair!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hither, ye boys, your torches bring;
She comes, in saffron veil array’d;
She comes! ye boys your pæans sing;
Go, and with transport greet the maid!
God of the tender nuptial tie;
O, hither, sacred Hymen, fly!
Soon shall the wanton song be heard;
And thou, that hast so frequent crown’d
The passions of thy lustful lord,
Throw to the boys thy nuts around:
For see, thy master, virtuous grown,
Disdains such worthless love to own.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
To am’rous pairs tho’ Venus proves
Indulgent; yet nor honest fame,
Nor honour wait their fruitful loves;
Unless thou sanctifiest the flame:
Then of all pow’rs, what power shall dare
With matchless Hymen to compare?
No sire of noble birth can grace
Posterity with boasted name,
No heritage can bless his race;
Unless thou sanctifiest his flame:
Then of all pow’rs, what pow’r shall dare
With matchless Hymen to compare?
If not beneath thy influence born,
None e’er can subject people sway;
But subject people will not scorn
A genuine offspring to obey:
Then of all pow’rs, what pow’r shall dare
With matchless Hymen to compare?
Credit - “The Poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus; with Notes and a Translation : Catullus, Gaius Valerius : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, London, G. Bell, 1 Jan. 1970.
Decimus Iunius Juvenal (c. 60–c. 127) is a Roman poet most famous for his sixteen satires of Roman life. The poems are critical, bitter, sarcastic, insulting, misogynistic and xenophobic and can therefore be used for insight into Roman life but only with understanding of the bias involved. His insults extended beyond the poems he wrote and earned him an exile by either emperor Domitian or Trajan.
Who, however devoted, doesn’t loathe
The wife he lavishes so much praise on? Who’s so devoted he
Can’t hate her, too, for seven hours or so out of every twelve?
Some faults may be minor, yet too much for husbands to take.
What’s more disgusting than this reality; no woman considers
Herself a beauty, unless she’s transformed herself from Tuscan
To Greek, abandoned Sulmo for Athens? Every sigh’s in Greek:
It’s far less attractive to them to show their ignorance in Latin.
You’ll not find any woman who’ll spare a man who loves her.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Though she’s on fire, she’ll still love to torture and fleece him;
So much the less suitable as wife, then, for a man who wishes
To be a good and desirable husband. And you’ll never be able
To send a gift if your bride objects, you’ll never be able to sell
A thing if she happens to disagree, nor buy one if she says no.
She’ll control your affections: the friend whose first beard your
Threshold witnessed, older now: he’ll be barred from the door.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Despair of any harmony if your mother-in-law’s alive.
She’ll teach a daughter how to strip her husband bare;
She’ll teach her how to reply to letters seducers send,
You don’t really expect the mother, to pass on honest
Behaviour, morals other than her own? Its appropriate
That a vile old woman begets an equally vile daughter.
There’s rarely a lawsuit brought a woman didn’t begin.
Credit - Juvenal, Satires. “Satire 6.” Translated by G.G. Ramsay, Juvenal, Satires. (1918). Satire 6, Tertullian, 1918.
In this activity, you will take on a difficult task for students and scholars: condensing and converting knowledge from scholarly and primary resources into a format more engaging for the general public. Historians often choose to write in different styles and formats—for example op-eds in newspapers, blogs and podcasts, fiction, or even graphic novels and screenplays—in order to reach a diverse audience. It was in this spirit that Jerry Toner, a Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, wrote the fictitious The Roman Guide to Slave Management: A Treatise by Nobleman Marcus Sidonius Falx. Toner presents the book as if it were written by a Roman slave owner, Falx, who is not an actual historical figure but an amalgam of slave owner characteristics and attitudes. The book is a humorous how-to, instructional guide for managing a household of slaves. Throughout it, Falx is revealed to be prone to violence and abuse of his slaves whom he considers property, interested in the social status and appearance of wealth his slave ownership confers, sexually predatory toward his female slaves, and suspicious and secretly afraid that his slaves might rebel against him. Toner warns readers that Falx’s views may be understood today to be wrong and immoral but that during the first century CE in Rome, his beliefs, attitudes, and practices regarding slavery were not seen as anything other than perfectly normal and acceptable.
In this activity you will create your own explanation of Roman slavery for the general public. Begin by reading the excerpt from Toner’s fiction book below. What information taken from scholarly or primary sources about Roman slavery does he impart to a general reader through Falx’s character?
Now try to create your own retelling of one aspect of Roman slavery for a general audience. You can use any style or format to get your points across but your piece must display use of the scholarly, primary, literary, visual, or other disciplinary sources as its basis of factual information. Think about what you want your reader to understand about a certain aspect of Roman slavery and how you will emphasize this in your work.
I failed to notice a small hoe lying in the pathway. As I stood on the metal end, the wooden handle sprang up into my shins, causing me to cry out, more in alarm than pain. A certain slave, who was standing nearby and whose tool it was, smirked as he saw me hop about on one leg. Naturally I was outraged that this worthless idiot, a man who is himself nothing more than a tool that can speak, should laugh at his master’s mishap. I summoned the bailiff. “This slave thinks that injuries to the leg are amusing. Let us break his legs and see how much he laughs.” That wiped the smile from his face. Ignoring the pitiful begging which slaves always resort to when faced with their just desserts, the bailiff and two sturdy attendants pulled the man down to the ground . . . My barbarian guest cried out, “No!” . . . “Surely you would treat your slaves the same way?” “We do not have slaves,” was his extraordinary reply. Imagine that? A society without slaves! Who has ever heard of such a thing! How would it function? Who would perform the basest tasks, those that are beneath even the lowest-born free man? What would you do with all the captives acquired in wars of conquest? How would you display your wealth? . . . Rome is full of slaves. I have heard it said that as many as one in three or four of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula are in servitude. Even in the vast expanse of the empire as a whole, whose population cannot fall short of 60 or 70 million persons, perhaps as many as one in eight is a slave. . . . Perhaps a million live in the capital city and some claim that at least a third of them are slaves . . . We Romans need our slaves. . . . The slave has no kin, he cannot assume the rights and obligations of marriage, his very identity is imposed by the owner who gives him his name . . . All slaves share the same lack of legal rights. . . . My father taught me what slaves were also for—showing off! Slaves may be morally worthless, mere things and possessions, but despite this they confer high status upon their owners. In the same way that a fine horse reflects well upon its rider, so a well-mannered and deferential slave highlights the merits of its owner.
[Credit - Toner, Jerry., Beard, Mary. The Roman Guide to Slave Management: A Treatise by Nobleman Marcus Sidonius Falx. United States: Overlook Press, 2014.]
Socrates of Constantinople was a fifth-century Christian historian whose most recognized work is his Historia Ecclesiastica or History of the Church. The history traced the emergence of Christianity from the reign of Constantine in 305 to Socrates’ own lifetime.
After the Synod the emperor spent some time in recreation, and after the public celebration of his twentieth anniversary of his accession, he immediately devoted himself to the reparation of the churches. This he carried into effect in other cities as well as in the city named after him, which being previously called Byzantium, he enlarged, surrounded with massive walls, and adorned with various edifices; and having rendered it equal to imperial Rome, he named it Constantinople, establishing by law that it should be designated New Rome. This law was engraven on a pillar of stone erected in public view in the Strategium, near the emperor’s equestrian statue. He built also in the same city two churches, one of which he named Irene, and the other The Apostles. Nor did he only improve the affairs of the Christians, as I have said, but he also destroyed the superstition of the heathens; for he brought forth their images into public view to ornament the city of Constantinople, and set up the Delphic tripods publicly in the Hippodrome.
Credit - “Church History (Book I).” Translated by A.C. Zenos, CHURCH FATHERS: Church History, Book I (Socrates Scholasticus), Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890.
Justinian was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was notable for his reconquest of sections of the western Roman empire including Italy and north Africa. He also commissioned the compendium of Roman law called the Corpus Juris Civilis or Body of Civil Law. The collection preserved and clarified all the old Roman laws from the previous fourteen-hundred years and created from them a more comprehensible code. It was divided into three sections, the Codex which was a compilation of all imperial enactments, the Digest which was a collection of writings from all the noted Roman jurists, and the Institutes which were designed as an instruction for students of the law.
The Emperor Caesar Flavius Justinianus, Pious, Fortunate, Renowned, Conqueror and Triumpher, ever Augustus, Greets Tribonian his Quaestor . . .
1. Whereas, then, nothing in any sphere is found so worthy of study as the authority of law, which sets in good order affairs both divine and human and casts out all injustice, yet we have found the whole extent of our laws which has come down from the foundation of the city of Rome and the days of Romulus to be so confused that it extends to an inordinate length and is beyond the comprehension of any human nature. It has been our primary endeavor to make a beginning with the most revered emperors of earlier times, to free their constitutiones (enactments) from faults and set them out in a clear fashion, so that they might be collected together in one Codex, and that they might afford to all mankind the ready protection of their own integrity, purged of all unnecessary repetition and most harmful disagreement. . . .
4. We therefore command you to read and work upon the books dealing with Roman law, written by those learned men of old to whom the most revered emperors gave authority to compose and interpret the laws, so that the whole substance may be extracted from them, all repetition and discrepancy being as far as possible removed, and out of them one single work may be compiled, which will suffice in place of them all. In these fifty books—the entire ancient law in a state of confusion for almost fourteen hundred years, and rectified by us—may be as if defended by a wall and leave nothing outside itself. . . .
10. . . . We wish only those rules to remain valid . . . which the long-established custom of this generous city has sanctioned, in accordance with the text by Salvius Julian, pointing out that all civitates (states) ought to follow the custom of Rome, the very head of the world, and not Rome that of other civitates (states). And by Rome we must understand not only the old city but also our royal one, which, with the favor of God, was founded with the best auguries.
11. We therefore command that everything is to be regulated by these two works: the Codex of constitutiones (enactments), and the other of the law clarified and arranged in the book that is to be. . . .
12. We command that our complete work, which is to be composed by you with God’s approval, is to bear the name of the Digest or Encyclopaedia.
Credit - “Digest of Justinian, Volume 1.” Translated by Alan Watson, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.
Procopius of Caesarea is one of the most recognized historians of the sixth century. As a member of General Belisarius’s staff, he was a witness of Justinian’s wars to reconquer the western Roman empire and wrote the history of these wars upon his return home. Although this history of the wars was very favorable to Justinian, Procopius also wrote a private text called the Secret History that is highly critical of the emperor and his court.
The Roman expedition, already on its last legs, now collapsed entirely. And this is how Belisarius concluded the Gothic war. In despair he begged the Emperor to let him come home as fast as he could sail. And when he received the monarch’s permission to do this, he left straightway in high spirits, bidding a long farewell to the Roman army and to Italy. . . .
I now come to the tale of what sort of beings Justinian and Theodora were, and how they brought confusion on the Roman State. . . .
. . . Justinian, while still a youth, was the virtual ruler, and the cause of more and worse calamities to the Romans than any one man in all their previous history that has come down to us. For he had no scruples against murder or the seizing of other persons property; and it was nothing to him to make away with myriads of men, even when they gave him no cause. He had no care for preserving established customs, but was always eager for new experiments, and, in short, was the greatest corrupter of all noble traditions. . . .
. . . But this man, not one of all the Romans could escape; but as if he were a second pestilence sent from heaven, he fell on the nation and left no man quite untouched.
For some he slew without reason, and some he released to struggle with penury, and their fate was worse than that of those who had perished, so that they prayed for death to free them from their misery; and others he robbed of their property and their lives together.
When there was nothing left to ruin in the Roman state, he determined the conquest of Libya and Italy, for no other reason than to destroy the people there, as he had those who were already his subjects. . . .
. . . Now this went on not only in Constantinople, but in every city: for like any other disease, the evil, starting there, spread throughout the entire Roman Empire.
Credit - “Medieval Sourcebook: Procopius of Caesarea: The Secret History.” Translated by Richard Atwater, Internet History Sourcebooks Project, University of Michigan Press, 1961.
Theophanes the Confessor was a member of the Byzantine elite who was raised and educated in the court of Emperor Constantine V. He later became a Christian monk and historian and chronicler, writing of the events from the beginning of Diocletian’s reign in 284 through his own lifetime in 813. To compose the earlier entries, he made use of Byzantine and Roman source material that is no longer available in the modern day, preserving its contents in this way for modern scholars.
[595]In November Phokas became Emperor. As was said before, the rebel killed Maurice and his five sons. He ordered their heads placed in the Camp of the Tribunal for a number of days. The inhabitants of the city went out to look at them until they began to stink. Maurice’s brother Peter and many others were also killed, but there was a strong rumor that Maurice’s son Theodosios had got away and still survived.
The Persian king Khosroes strengthened this rumor: he lied now one way, now another, saying he had Theodosios with him and intended to restore him to rule over the Romans. He hoped to conquer the Roman Empire by deception, as was proved in many ways, most of all by his inciting unforeseen enemies and devastating Roman territory. When Phokas sent Bilios as an ambassador to him, he seized the man and imprisoned him so he could not return to Roman land, answering Phokas with dishonorable letters. . . .
[596]Khosroes arrived at Arxamoun at the same time as the Romans; he began the battle by assaulting the fortress with elephants, and won in a great victory. He took many Romans alive and then put them to death. After doing this Khosroes returned to his own country, leaving
behind a force under Zonggoes. When Phokas learned this he became insanely angry at Leontios and brought him in disgrace to Byzantium in irons. He appointed his brother Domentziolos general, and also made him curopalates.
[597]In this year Khosroes sent out Kardarigas and Rousmiazas, who plundered many Roman cities. Domentziolos gave Narses a pledge and persuaded him with many oaths that he would not suffer a single unjust act from Phokas, then sent him off free to Phokas. But Phokas did not keep his word; he burned Narses alive. Since Narses had caused the Persians such great fear that Persian children shivered when they heard his name, the Romans were greatly distressed at his death, but
the Persians joyfully exulted. . . .
[599]In the same year the Persians crossed the Euphrates, took prisoners throughout Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia, and did great damage to the Romans.
Credit - “Full Text of ‘The Chronicle Of Theophanes, Trans. By Harry Turtledove ( 1982)".” Translated by Harry Turtledove, Full Text of "The Chronicle Of Theophanes, Trans. By Harry Turtledove ( 1982)", University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus was emperor from 945 to 959 and was active as a scholar and a patron of the arts and learning throughout his reign. He translated his knowledge of kingcraft, diplomacy, and foreign affairs to his son Romanus in this didactic text. The text is designed to help his son better administer what modern scholars call the Byzantine empire but what he very clearly and consistently still refers to as the Roman empire and the Roman people.
Constantine, in Christ the Eternal Emperor, Emperor of the Romans to his son Romanus the Emperor Crowned of God and Born in the Purple . . .
Lo, I set a doctrine before thee so that being sharpened thereby in experience and knowledge, thou shalt not stumble concerning the best counsels and the common good: first, in what each nation has power to advantage the Romans and in what to hurt, . . . concerning also the difference between other nations, their origins and customs and manner of life, . . . and moreover concerning events which have occurred at various times between the Romans and different nations; and thereafter what reforms have been introduced from time to time in our state, and also throughout the Roman empire. . . .
1. Of the Pechenegs and how many advantages accrue from their being at peace with the emperor of the Romans
. . . It is always greatly to the advantage of the emperor of the Romans to be minded to keep the peace with the nation of the Pechenegs and to conclude conventions and treaties of friendship with them . . .
4. Of the Pechenegs and Russians and Turks
So long as the emperor of the Romans is at peace with the Pechenegs neither Russians nor Turks can come upon the Roman dominions by force of arms, nor can they extract from the Romans large and inflated sums in money and goods as the price of peace for they fear the strength of this nation which the emperor can turn against them while they are campaigning against the Romans.
Credit - “Constantine Porphyrogenitus De Administrando Imperio.” Edited by GY. Moravcsik. Translated by R. J. H. Jenkins, Google Books, Google, 1967.
Emperor Andronicus III ruled the Byzantine empire from 1328 to 1341. His wife Eirene was from Brunswick-Lüneburg, a duchy in what was at the time the Holy Roman Empire and is today Germany. In this excerpt, “Latin” is used to describe the western Holy Roman empire in contrast to “Roman” which the Byzantines used to describe themselves. The concept of inheritance described here is from the Salic law introduced by the Franks to the Holy Roman Empire in the sixth century and still in use there until the sixteenth century. Emperor Michael VIII mentioned at the end ruled from 1261 to 1282.
Eirene, the wife of Emperor Andronicus, a woman ambitious by nature, desired that her sons and her descendants inherit, in perpetuity, as successors, the imperial rule of the Romans, and that the imperial authority preserve her memory as immortal through the names of her descendants. Even more unusual, she desired, not according to the fashion of monarchy as is the custom prevailing among the Romans since antiquity, but in conformity with Latin practice, that [all of Andronicus’s] sons divide the cities and provinces of the Romans among themselves, and that each son rule a portion, as if they were dividing a private inheritance and personal possession, and as if the empire were something passed down to them by their fathers in accordance with the laws concerning the property and possessions of vulgar [ordinary] people, and in the same manner transmitted in turn to their children and descendants. She proposed this because she was by birth a Latin and, having learned of this innovation from them, she wished to introduce it among the Roman people. . . .. . . For Emperor Michael VIII desired, and had for a long time cherished in his heart, the aim of cutting off the area around Thessalonika and Macedonia from the Roman Empire as a whole and giving it as a personal domain and private ‘empire’ to his son Constantine Prophyrogenitus.
Credit - John Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p71.
Cyril Mango was Professor of Byzantine Archeology at Harvard University, Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History at Kings College, London, and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek at Oxford University. He is also a fellow in the British Academy. He has written or edited over eleven books on Byzantine history and remains one of the most recognized authorities in the field.
About a thousand years after its foundation Byzantium was chosen by Constantine the Great as his imperial residence . . . and renamed Constantinopolis nova Roma. That was not an unprecedented step at the time: Constantine’s great predecessor, Diocletian had already established his seat at nearby Nicomedia and strove ‘to make it the equal of Rome.’ . . .
In the long perspective of history Constantine’s inspired action took on the appearance of what it was not in reality, namely a translatio imperii, a new beginning in a new place under the auspices of a new religion—a renovation, however, that did not entail a break with the past. The New Rome encapsulated the Old. . . .
Constantine’s successors continued to regard themselves as the legitimate emperors of Rome, just as their subjects called themselves Romaioi long after they had forgotten the Latin tongue. They did not claim for themselves any other ancestry. . . .
The pretense of Romanity began to wear thin only in the age of the Crusades when the eastern empire and the West were increasingly forced into a loveless embrace. From a western perspective the kingdom of Constantinople looked decidedly Greek. . .
. . . On any reasonable definition Byzantium must be seen as the direct continuation of the Roman empire in the eastern half of the Mediterranean basin. . . Being a continuation, it had no beginning, although a number of symbolic dates have been advanced as marking that elusive birthday: the accession of Diocletian (AD 284), the foundation of Constantinople (324). . .
Where then do we draw the line? If we abandon the fruitless quest for a precise occasion when Rome was transformed into Byzantium and seek a broader period or periods that witnessed a profound shift, two such dividing bands suggest themselves. The first may be placed in the fourth century, the second roughly between 575 and 650. . . . The first mutation was more cultural than political and was associated with the adoption of Christianity as the official ideology of the state. . . .
The second . . . was marked not only by vast territorial losses in both the Balkans and the Near East, but also by the collapse of the urban life that had been the chief feature of antiquity. . . . The elites that had been the mainstay of provincial governance as well as of polite letters disappeared. Life became ruralized and militarized.
Credit - Cyril Mango, “Introduction” in The Oxford History of Byzantium (Oxford University Press, 2002) 1-–22.
Warren Treadgold is Professor of History at Saint Louis University. He has written or edited ten books on Byzantine history and written countless other articles and chapters on the topic.
Diocletian had no son, but decided he needed another emperor to share his powers and the dangers he faced. . . . At Milan in July 285, Diocletian adopted as his son one of his Illyrian comrades in arms, Maximian, giving him the rank of Caesar or junior emperor. Henceforth, the defense of the provinces west of Illyricum became the primary responsibility of Maximian, while the defense of Illyricum and the East remained that of Diocletian. The next year, when Maximian faced a usurping emperor in Britain, Diocletian strengthened his colleague’s hand by promoting him to Augustus, the highest imperial rank. . . .
. . . In practice, Maximian continued to defer to his senior colleague’s judgement. But each emperor maintained his own court and ran his own army and administration, with a separate praetorian prefect . . . as his chief lieutenant. Although the empire remained juridically one, and on occasion was ruled by a single emperor again, after 285 its eastern and western parts always had different prefects and separate administrations. From this point forward we can follow the history of the East with only occasional attention to the West.
Before Diocletian, jurisdiction over the eastern and western parts of the empire had sometimes been separated for a time, either by a rebellion in the East, like Diocletian’s own, or as an emergency measure . . . But Diocletian’s arrangement was more systematic than those temporary divisions. Although for an emperor without a son to adopt an heir and title him Caesar had long been standard practice, Diocletian meant Maximian, who was only a few years his junior, to be a colleague rather than an heir. Diocletian plainly realized that, at a time when internal rebellions and external invasions had become endemic, the empire was too big for one emperor to rule and defend. . . .
. . . Although his motives cannot be reliably reconstructed, he evidently believed that the East, with Illyricum, was at least as important a part of the empire as the West, and an appropriate domain for the senior ruler. . . .
By the standards of a modern nation, the Byzantine Empire was an artificial state, largely created by its rulers. The form it took after 285 was the result of an administrative division of the Roman Empire made by Diocletian. Constantine I chose the empire’s religion and built its future capital. . . .
Byzantium never depended on the perceptions of racial or linguistic unity that define a modern nation-state.
Credit - Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997 15-20, 847.
Averil Cameron is Professor Emeritus at Keble College, Oxford University. She is the chair of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and the President of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. She has written numerous books on Byzantine studies and the eastern Mediterranean word in late antiquity.
Byzantium is the modern name given to the state and society ruled almost continuously from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) from the dedication of the city by the Emperor Constantine in AD 330 until its sack by the Ottomans under the young Mehmed II in 1453. But Byzantium is hard to grasp, and ‘the Byzantines’ even more so. . . . How significant was the supposed separation of the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire in AD 395? Did Byzantium begin with the reign of Constantine the Great. . . or with the dedication of Constantinople (AD 330) or later, perhaps in the sixth century or the seventh? Was Byzantium a society, a state or an empire? . . . And, above all, who were its inhabitants, how were they defined and how did they think of themselves? Byzantine high culture used Greek as its medium, and the language of the state was always Greek. But while the title of this book implies that the Byzantines were a distinct people, the inhabitants of the empire were defined neither by language or ethnicity, but by their belonging to the Byzantine state, and during much of the period by their Orthodox Christianity. They called themselves ‘Romans’, or at times, simply ‘Christians.’ . . .
New settlers in fourth century Constantinople were not immigrants from outside: they came from within the existing territories of the Roman Empire. This makes the change from Roman Empire to Byzantium both difficult and challenging for historians to trace. . . . Though Greek was, and continued to be, the language of Byzantine government and culture a large part of the population at many periods of the empire’s history spoke other languages. . . . When the emperor Justinian collected and codified the law in the sixth century it was Roman law in Latin that his team of lawyers made available to the Latin west and which became the basis of several European law codes. . . .
. . . Even after 476 it was still possible to think of a united Mediterranean world. But the Eastern Empire . . . had begun to take on a new role. It is a moot point whether the Eastern empire in this period should be seen as Byzantine. . . . Whenever its beginning is postulated, whether in the reign of Constantine . . . or that of Justinian . . . or in the seventh century, it came into being as a separate entity slowly, developing out of the existing structures and it changed shape many times during its long history.
Credit - Averil Cameron, The Byzantines (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2006), 1–21.
Sarolta A. Takács is Professor of History at Rutgers University. She has written three books and many articles on the Roman and Byzantine world and has given special attention to the life of women in the Roman empire. Although she identifies Justinian as the last Roman emperor based on his use of Latin and his western Roman viewpoints, she also argues that the cultural influence of the empire extended much later and that the Byzantine empire remained linked to the west through its values and spirit.
The purpose of this study is to provide a historical analysis of the process by which Roman traditional virtues became absorbed and embodied in the emperor, and of the dynamic behind Rome’s discourse of power, authority, and legitimization. . . .
. . . To sustain the Roman empire, a successful leader displayed virtus (virtue, manliness, moral stature, courage and other qualities) to secure loyalty and employed rhetorical discourse, grounded in traditional virtues (the mos maiorum) established and accepted by the ancient Romans. . .
. . . Constantine I brought the Christians back into the political sphere as a means of unifying the empire under his leadership. In the process, Constantine fused the Christian ethics of the virtuous with those of Rome’s pagan past. Thus, the foundation of the Christian Roman empire rested on the relationship between the spiritual Father and the emperor, who was perceived as His viceroy on earth.
The final chapter will begin by taking a closer look at the reigns of Justinian I (527–565), arguably the last Roman emperor, and Heraclius (610–641) the first Byzantine emperor and a crusader in the name of Christianity against non-believers, in this case the Zoroastrian Persians. . . .
In the West as well as in the East, newly formed empires clung to the rhetoric and moral blueprints of old. The Roman emperor, whether Byzantine or Frank, continued to embody the virtues that defined him as the father of the country. . . .
If one takes the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as the terminal date, Rome had created and perpetuated the notion of empire for more than two millennia. And, even when it no longer existed, Rome still set the standard. Empire created the space for virtuous behavior. The custom or tradition of the ancestors, the mos maiorum, put forth a set of core virtues and behavioral standards that not only were emulated but also determined a Roman’s socio-political and, consequently, his economic status. Essentially, it provided a vocabulary for how public achievements were evaluated. . . .
The mos maiorum was a set of core virtues and behavioral standards that shaped a Roman’s life. Peer recognition of actions as virtuous actions most often performed on behalf of the state, garnered glory and remembrance. . . .
Constantine I set the political stage and Christian intellectuals created the rationale that re-engaged Christians in community life. The pagan discourse became a Christian one. . . The old and the new were seamlessly forged into a synergy, ensuring that the heavenly kingdom sustained the worldly one
Credit - Sarolta A. Takács, The Construction of Authority in Ancient Rome and Byzantium: The Rhetoric of Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
John the Lydian was a sixth-century Byzantine bureaucrat under the reign of Emperor Justinian, who received imperial favor for his history of the wars with Persia. His work shows a strong preference for the Roman values of antiquity and a longing for the lost Roman past. He was an advocate for the continued use of Latin in literature and therefore earned the admiration of Justinian.
I have spoken sufficiently about the fact that the month of January was defined as the beginning of the priestly calendar by King Numa; in it, they would offer sacrifice to the [beings] above the moon, just as in February [they would offer sacrifice] to the [beings] below it. . . .
They say that 12 officials were established by Numa—the ones called Salii, who sing hymns to Janus—in accordance with the number of the Italian months. And Varro, in the 14th book On Divine Matters, says that among the Etruscans he is called “heaven” and “overseer of all actions” and Popano—on account of the fact that cakes [popana] are offered [to him] on the Kalends. . . .
Dio the Roman says that Janus [was] a certain ancient hero, who, on account of the hospitality he gave Cronus, received the knowledge of the future and the past, and was represented with two faces for this reason by the Romans—and on this basis, the month was called January, and the beginning of the year takes place in this same month. . . .
The name of the month of February came from the goddess called Februa; and the Romans understood Februa as an overseer and purifier of things. But Anysius says in his work “On the Months” that Februus in the Etruscan language [means] “the underground [one]”—and that he is worshipped by the Luperci for the sake of the crops’ increase. Labeo, however, says that February was named from “lamentation”—for among the Romans, lamentation is called feber4—and in it, they would honor the departed. . . .
The Romans considered March the beginning of the year, as I have already said, and they dedicated it to Ares; it was previously named Zephyrites and Primus. For Romus, the one who founded Rome and made in it a sanctuary of Ares in this very month, gave it the name “of Martius” [i.e., “Mars’ (city)”]—that is, Ares’ [city], in his ancestral speech.
Credit - Lydus, John. “John Lydus On The Months Tr. Hooker 2nd Ed. ( 2017) : Mischa Hooker : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Translated by Mischka Hooker, Internet Archive, 2017.
The word Qur’an or Koran means recitations in Arabic and is believed by Muslims to be God’s word shared with Muhammad through the angel Gabriel beginning in 609. The text is divided into chapters called sura with individual titles. There are several passages about the prophets of Judaism and Christianity indicating the relationship Islam has to these other faiths and their believers.
Chapter 9 Sura CIX: UnbelieversSay: O ye Unbelievers!I worship not that which ye worship,And ye do not worship that which I worship;I shall never worship that which ye worship,Neither will ye worship that which I worshipTo you be your religion; to me my religion
Chapter 18 Sura XC: The SoilBesides this, to be of those who believe, and enjoin stedfastness on each other, and enjoin compassion on each other.These shall be the people of the right hand:While they who disbelieve our signs,Shall be the people of the left.Around them the fire shall close.
Chapter 65 Sura 21: the ProphetsWe gave of old to Moses and Aaron the illumination, and a light and a warning for the God-fearing, Who dread their Lord in secret, and who tremble for “the Hour.” And this Koran which we have sent down is a blessed warning: will ye then disown it? Of old we gave unto Abraham his direction for we knew him worthy. . . And we gave him Isaac and Jacob as a farther gift and we made all of them righteous: We also made them models who should guide others by our command and we inspired them with good deeds and constancy in prayer and almsgiving, and they worshipped us.
Chapter 78 Sura 40: The BelieverAnd of old gave we Moses the guidance, and we made the children of Israel the heritors of the Book—a guidance and a warning to men endued with understanding. . . They who treat “the Book” and the message with which we have sent our Sent Ones as a lie, shall know the truth hereafter.
Chapter 98 Sura 61: Battle ArrayAnd bear in mind when Moses said to his people, “Why grieve ye me, O my people, when ye know that I am God’s apostle unto you?” And when they went astray, God led their hearts astray; for God guideth not a perverse people: And remember when Jesus the son of Mary said, “O children of Israel! Of a truth I am God’s apostle to you to confirm the law which was given before me, and to announce an apostle that shall come after me whose name shall be Ahmad! [Muhammad]” But when he (Ahmad) presented himself with clear proofs of his mission, they said, “This is manifest sorcery!” . . . God guideth not the wicked!
Credit - “The Koran.” Translated by Rev. J.A. Rodwell, Google Books, E.P. Dutton & Co. , 1909.
Al-Baladhuri was a ninth-century Arab Muslim historian whose work, the Book of the Conquests of Lands, recorded the battles of Muslim expansion from the seventh century through his own lifetime. The battle of Yarmuk, on the border of Syria, took place in 636 between the Muslim armies and the army of the Byzantine empire under Heraclius. The Byzantine army had hoped for support from the Persian Sassanids, their erstwhile enemy, against the new threat of Muslim invasion of both kingdoms. However when the Sassanids did not arrive, Heraclius engaged the Muslim army for six days before being forced to retreat and withdraw his defensive line against the Muslim invaders to Egypt, losing Syria to the new Islamic empire.
The story of Jabalali: According to another report, when Jabalah came to ‘Umar ibn-al-KhattAb, he was still a Christian. ‘Umar asked him to accept Islam and pay sadakah [a Muslim alms tax] but he refused saving, “I shall keep my faith and pay sadakah.” ‘Umar’s answer was, “If thou keepest thy faith, thou hast to pay poll-tax”. The man refused, and ‘Umar added, “We have only three alternatives for thee: Islam, tax, or going whither thou willest.” Accordingly, Jabalah left with 30,000 men to the land of the Greeks [Asia Minor]. ‘Ubadah ibn-as-Samit gently reproved ‘Umar saying, “If thou hadst accepted sadakah from him and treated him in a friendly way, be would have become Moslem.” . . .
. . .’Umair marched until he came to the land of ‘the ‘Greeks and proposed to Jabalah what he was ordered by ‘Umar to propose; but Jabalah refused the offer and insisted on staying in the land of the Greeks. ‘Umar then came into a place called al-Himar—a valley—which he destroyed putting its inhabitants to the sword.
Christians and Jews prefer Moslem rule. . . . When Heraclius massed his troops against the Moslems and the Moslems heard that they were coming to meet them at al-Yarmuk, the Moslems refunded to the inhabitants of Hims the kharaj [tribute] they had taken from them saying, “We are too busy to support and protect you. Take care of yourselves.” But the people of Hims replied, “We like your rule and justice far better than the state of oppression and tyrannv in which we were. The army of Heraclius we shall indeed, with your ‘amil’s’ help, repulse from the citv.” The Jews rose and said, “We swear by the Thorah, no governor of Heraclius shall enter the city of Hims unless we are first vanquished and exhausted!” Saying this, they closed the gates of the city and guarded them. The inhabitants of the other cities—Christian and Jew—that had capitulated to the Moslems, did the same, saying, “If Heraclius and his followers win over the Moslems we would return to our previous condition, otherwise we shall retain our present state so long as numbers are with the Moslems.” When by Allah’s help the “unbelievers” were defeated and the Moslems won, they opened the gates of their cities, went out with the singers and music players who began to play, and paid the kharaj.
Credit - The Origins of the Islamic State, being a translation from the Arabic of the Kitab Futuh al-Buldha of Ahmad ibn-Jabir al-Baladhuri, trans. by P. K. Hitti and F. C. Murgotten, Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, LXVIII (New York, Columbia University Press,1916 and 1924), I, 207-211
The Pact of Umar is a collection of treaty terms between Muslim rulers and the conquered non-Muslim peoples ostensibly created by Rashidun caliph Umar ibn Khattab around the year 800. Although the authenticity of the pact is debated, the terms described in it became part of Muslim law and practice over time. The pact terms describe the creation of dhimmi (protected) status for non-Muslims who are “People of the Book,” that is Christians or Jews. However, this protected status comes with restrictions, additional taxes, and distinctive clothing for non-Muslim subjects.
In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God, Umar [ibn al-Khattab], Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, churches, convents, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.We shall not teach the Qur’an to our children.We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair. . . .We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our persons.We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.We shall not sell fermented drinks.We shall clip the fronts of our heads.We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunar round our waistsWe shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly. . . . We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims. (When I brought the letter to Umar, may God be pleased with him, he added, “We shall not strike a Muslim.”)We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe-conduct.
Credit - “Medieval Sourcebook: Pact of Umar, 7th Century?” Edited by Paul Halsall, Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Jan. 1996.
The Constitution of Medina was supposedly created for Muhammad in 622 after his followers arrived in the city of Medina. It specifically mentions Jews as a protected minority religion within the new Muslim community and promises freedom of religion for all who “follow the believers” and recognize the prophets; which would include both Jews and Christians.
(1) This is a document from Muhammad the prophet (governing the relations) between the believers and Muslims of Quraysh and Yathrib, and those who followed them and joined them and labored with them.
(2) They are one community (umma) to the exclusion of all men. . . .
(15) God’s protection is one, the least of them may give protection to a stranger on their behalf. Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders.
(16) To the Jew who follows us belong help and equality. He shall not be wronged nor shall his enemies be aided. . . .
(24) The Jews shall contribute to the cost of war so long as they are fighting alongside the believers.
(25) The Jews. . . are one community with the believers, (the Jews have their religion and the Muslims have theirs), their freedmen, and their persons, except those who behave unjustly and sinfully, for they hurt but themselves and their families. . . .
(37) The Jews must bear their expenses and the Muslims their expenses. Each must help the other against anyone who attacks the people of this document. They must seek mutual advice and consultation, and loyalty is a protection against treachery. A man is not liable for his ally’s misdeeds. The wronged must be helped.
(38) The Jews must pay with the believers so long as war lasts. . . .
(46) The Jews . . . their freedmen, and themselves have the same standing with the people of this document in pure loyalty from the people of this document. Loyalty is a protection against treachery. He who acquires ought acquires it for himself. God approves of this document.
Credit - A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad — A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1955; pp. 231-233.
George I was patriarch of the East Syrian Church until his death in 681. The canon laws (church law created by papal or other pronouncement) below are from a synod (an assembly of clergy) that met in 676 in modern day Bahrain. Canon 14 deals with intermarriage between Christian women and “pagans.” “Pagan” was originally used to designate polytheists but under Arab rule could also be used to describe Muslims. Canon 19 forbids the authorities from collecting the poll tax (jizya) from the bishop due to his religious position.
Canon 14 Concerning that Christian women should not unite with pagans who are strangers to the fear of GodWomen who once believed in Christ and want to lead a Christian life, with all their might let them avoid uniting with pagans, as uniting with them they accustom themselves to practices that are foreign to the fear of God and they acquire a weak will. Therefore, Christian women should completely abstain from dwelling with pagans. And, in accord with our Lord’s word, let any woman who dares to do this be far from the church and from all Christian honor.
Canon 19 Concerning the Bishop and his due honor and that those believers placed in authority are not allowed to demand tribute from him.The honor of the bishop who beautifully fulfills his ministry and is upright in his service—let him be distinguished from his flock by all suitable things that he might be honored and pleased by them. For those believers holding authority are not permitted to demand the poll tax and tribute from him as from laity.
Credit - “When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam.” When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam, by Michael Penn, University of California Press., 2015, pp. 75–76.
Michael Philip Penn is the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. He has written numerous books on early Christianity and particularly on the eastern Syriac Christians who were the first Christians to encounter Muslim rule.
When Muslims first encountered Christians they did not meet Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople. . . They first encountered Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living primarily in what constitutes present-day Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Eastern Turkey, these Syriac Christians were under Muslim rule from the seventh century onward. They wrote the earliest and most extensive accounts of Islam and described a complicated set of religious and cultural exchanges that were not reducible to the solely antagonistic. Nevertheless, because so few scholars read Syriac, there has been relatively little analysis of these sources. . . . Instead studies most commonly focus on works whose martial context often reinforces an oppositional clash-of-civilizations model of interreligious encounter. . . .
. . . Under Muslim rule, Syriac churches expanded to form the most geographically extensive branch of Christianity the late ancient and early medieval world had ever seen. . . . In the Islamic empire, elite members of this expansive church held key government positions, attended the caliph’s court in Baghdad, collaborated with Muslim scholars to translate Greek science and philosophy into Arabic, accompanied Muslim leaders on their campaigns against the Byzantines, and helped fund monasteries through donations from Muslims. . . Syriac Christians ate with Muslims, married Muslims, bequeathed estates to Muslim heirs, taught Muslim children, and were soldiers in Muslim armies. Members of the Syriac churches had a very different experience of Islam than did most Greek and Latin Christians.
These direct interactions did not result in uniformly positive images of Islam. Syriac texts do not suggest that early Christian-Muslim interactions were a paragon of harmony and co-existence, a claim that would simply replace one reductionist model of interfaith encounter with another. Nonetheless the enormous diversity of Syriac writings about Islam makes them especially challenging for depictions of a uniformly hostile reaction. They remind us that Christians’ and Muslims’ first interactions were not characterized by unmitigated conflict. . . .
. . . One reads numerous Syriac references to Muslims requesting Christian exorcists, attending church, seeking healing from Christian holy men, visiting Christian shrines, and endowing Christian monasteries. There are also references to Christians attending Muslim festivals, becoming circumcised, referring to Muhammad as God’s messenger, and draping their altar with a Muslim confession of faith. . . . Their portrayal of a world of overlapping religious influence, fuzzy boundaries, and categorical ambiguity is even more devastating to a clash-of-civilizations model. . . .
[This work questions how] seventh—through ninth-century Syriac Christians navigated a world in which Christianity and Islam were much less distinct than is commonly imagined.
Credit - Michael Philip Penn, Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
Ahmad Shboul is Associate Professor of History at the University of Sydney. His research includes work on the historiography of the Arab-Islamic world; Arab-Greek (especially Byzantine) cultural relations and mutual perceptions. Alan Walmsley is Director of the Materiality in Islam Research Initiative at the University of Copenhagen. His work deals primarily with the continuity and change in Syro-Palestinian society and evidence of this in the material record.
Two profound and far-reaching outcomes of the Arab Islamic conquest of Syria-Palestine (635-40) need to be especially underlined in the context of the geopolitics, economy, and cultural identity of the east Mediterranean. The first is the transformation of the role of the Arabs from a ‘marginal’ people in the pre-Islamic period to that of ‘main actors,’ not only in Syria-Palestine but in the whole of what is now known as the Middle East and North Africa. Secondly, the conquest did not only result in replacing Byzantine rule and a Greek-speaking elite by Arab Islamic rule and an Arabic-speaking elite. It also led to a radical geopolitical reorientation of the entire region. . . .
To begin with, Syria’s old provincial connection with Constantinople and Byzantine Asia Minor were severed. . . .
. . . With the establishment of Arab rule, Syria’s links were greatly strengthened with [the Arabian peninsula, Egypt, and Mesopotamia] as parts of the emerging Arab Islamic empire. . . .
Not only did Syria now assume an increasingly Arab Islamic identity but within twenty-five years of the Arab conquest . . . it also played a central role in the new polity. However, this does not necessarily mean that Islamic Syria totally discarded its Byzantine and Hellenistic heritage or entirely turned its back to the Mediterranean in economic and cultural terms.
While it is a simple truism that Byzantine rule was replaced, practically overnight, by Muslim-Arab rule, it cannot be said that such obvious change necessarily affected other areas of life and culture in Syria in the same drastic way. Thus for the first fifty years, at least, financial administration in Syria under Arab Islamic rule is known to have continued to follow, more or less, the procedures inherited from the outgoing Byzantine administration. . . . Ultimately, administrative change did take place of course. However specific measures of “Arabization” and Islamization” of certain symbols of the state were officially begun in earnest no earlier than the last decade of the 7th century. . .
. . .Examples of the continued employment of non-Muslims are found in Syria-Palestine (and for that matter Egypt and Iran) as late as the reign of Hisham (727-43) which is more than a century after the establishment of Islamic Arab rule. . . .
. . . Nor was the Arabization of the taxation register necessarily followed by the complete abandonment of the use of Greek (and/or Coptic in the case of Egypt) for example in documents relating to a bilingual or trilingual environment. Both incidental literary evidence and documentary data reflect a more realistic policy of inclusion and continuity and thus provide the modern student with crucial correctives to the traditional picture.
Credit - Ahmad Shboul and Alan Walmsley, “Identity and Self-Image in Syria-Palestine in the Transition from Byzantine to Early Islamic Rule: Arab Christians and Muslims,” Mediterranean Archaeology, Vol. 11, Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity: Proceedings of a Conference held at the Humanities Research Centre in Canberra 10–12 November, 1997 (1998), 255–87.
Credit - Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge University Press, 2011) 1–13, 120–28.
Milka Levy-Rubin is a Lecturer in History and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has written several articles and books on the early Islamic Empire.
The policy adopted by the conquering Muslims towards the huge and heterogeneous population that they now dominated has attracted the attention of many scholars of Islam. Research in this field has concentrated first and foremost on the examination of the canonical document called Shūrūt Umar [the Pact of Umar] . . .which defines the relationship between the Muslim conquerors and the non-Muslim population and delineates the status of the latter in Muslim society. . . .
. . . [Historian Albrecht] Noth raised several issues, one of which was the purpose of the Shūrūt. He asked specifically whether its purpose was, in fact, to humiliate the non-Muslims. Based on an exhaustive analysis of the document itself, he concluded that the document’s intention was not in fact to humiliate but rather to differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims. He reasoned that the fact that the Muslim conquerors were but a small minority among the conquered population caused the need for a means of differentiation . . .
. . . This book endeavors to look for [Shūrūt Umar’s] roots and origins. . . Shūrūt Umar which gradually replaced the surrender agreements. . . did not emerge deus ex machina; rather it was conceived in a long and complex process, and must have been inspired by some former patterns and concepts that guided its creation. These may have originated in the Arab society most familiar to the Muslim conquerors but may have also stemmed from the ancient societies of the conquered peoples, including Hellentistic–Roman–Byzantine culture. . .
In this respect, this research joins a growing group of scholars who assume that the development of Muslim society can be better understood in its wider historical context, rather than as a world apart. . . .
. . . The surrender agreements . . .have their origin in an ancient tradition of international diplomacy and law which . . .was still prevalent throughout the territories when conquered by the Muslims. . . .
. . . The non-Muslims, or dhimmis, were now treated as the lower class had been in Sasanian society, thus becoming an inferior class of resident aliens in the new social order that was being promoted. This was reflected in the Muslim appropriation of ancient Iranian status symbols, which were thenceforth forbidden to the non-Muslims. The Shūrūt document thus needs to be seen within the comprehensive context of this new Muslim perception of a social order that was being formed, and not just as a set of rules pertaining to the non-Muslims which was invented ex nihilo by the Muslim rulers following the conquest.
Credit - Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge University Press, 2011) 1–13, 120–28.
Wadād al-Qādī is Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago. She has written countless books and articles on early Islamic culture and has taught at Yale, American University in Beirut, and the University of Chicago, and been a visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia, the University of Stockholm, and Oxford.
This paper deals with the question of whether non-Muslims served in the Muslim army, including the fleet, from the beginning of the conquests until the end of the Umayyad period in 132/750, when the conquests came virtually to a halt. . .It should also allow us once more to reflect, among other things, on the issue of the continuity between the pre-Islamic and Islamic Near East. . .
. . . The Christian Arabs, in particular the Taghlib, were granted a special tax status conducive to winning them over to the side of the Muslims. What is of interest for the topic under discussion is how the Islamic sources presented the information on this participation: Did they try to avoid mentioning the confessional difference or did they articulate it, and if they did articulate it, did they express any qualms or embarrassment about it?
An examination of the reports on this subject indicates that, whereas the information is not abundant, it is straightforward in delineating the difference in religion between the fighting Muslims and the assisting Christian Arabs. . . It is unapologetic about the whole matter, in no way trying to find what could be construed as a justification on the part of the Muslims for doing “irregular” things. . . .
. . .The Islamic sources mention several non-Arab groups who, while non-Muslim, served in one way or another with the Muslim army. . . The concessions given by the Muslims to the local peoples varied from place to place, although they always included safety and protection of life, children, and property; in some cases they included provisions and promise of military assistance, of non-enforcement of conversion, and of exemption from the jizya. . . There is no doubt that non-Muslims of various faiths and ethnicities served in the Muslim armies during the conquests, in practically all of the lands these armies undertook expeditions, and the same applies to the Muslim fleets of Egypt, the East, and Africa. . . They served in a variety of capacities, assisting the Muslims as couriers, guides, lookouts, spies, advisors, laborers, workmen, technicians, sailors, and mercenaries. While some were . . . forced to serve as part of the compulsory public service requirement of the tribute, others came forward voluntarily to the aid of the Muslims for a variety of motives, ranging from fear to profit.
Credit - Wadād al-Qādī, “Non-Muslims in the Muslim Conquest Army in Early Islam” in Christians and Others in the Umayyad State, Antoine Borrut and Fred M. Donner, eds. Late Antique and Medieval Islamic Near East no. 1 (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2016) 83–127.
Mark Cohen is Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East, Emeritus and Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus at Princeton University. His extensive work focuses on the history of Jews living in Arab lands in the Middle Ages.
The Qur’an contains a mixed message about the Jews (as well as about the Christians). This mirrors the ambivalent feelings of the Prophet, reflecting the gulf between his high expectations and the Jews’ disappointing response.
At the outset, most scholars agree, Muhammad assumed the Jews would flock to his preaching and recognize him as their own prophet. . . Originally the new religion—the ‘community of believers’ as he calls them—was meant as an ecumenical community open to Jews and Christians. And so the Prophet’s attitude was at first largely conciliatory. . . . Muhammad incorporated biblical stories in the Qur’an, often with postbiblical midrashic embellishments presumably gathered from local Jewish oral traditions, to add to the store of Jewish reference points he hoped would attract the Jews. He also adopted or adapted several Jewish practices in hopes of drawing Jews near. . . .Most of the Jews rejected his preaching. His disappointment and frustration are reflected in many unfriendly verses in the Qur’an.
His policy, however, was in many ways tolerant. One of the most important Qur’anic policies regarding the Jews—indeed, all People of the Book—is summed up in the famous verse “There is no compulsion in religion.” (Sura 2:256). It gives voice to a realistic pluralism in early Islam. . . .
The “no compulsion in religion” verse should be seen in conjunction with other statements in the Qur’an that illustrate the pluralistic attitude of the nascent Islamic umma toward other monotheists. . . .The sura begins with a set of revelations preached to the mushrikūn (idolaters, polytheists). Their fate, if they fail to believe in Muhammad and the message of Islam, is to be fought to the death or until they accept Islam. This is the source of the proverbial image of “Islam or the sword.” Verse 29 declares a different policy for the People of the Book. It grants the Jews, Christians, and other scriptuaries a third choice: freedom to remain in their religion as long as they pay tribute and assume a humble position vis-à-vis the majority religion. . . .
“Tribute” here translates the Arabic word jizya, which in time, in imitation of Byzantine and Sasanian taxations systems, evolved into a discriminatory poll tax incumbent upon every non-Muslim scriptuary once a year. “Being brought low” Arabic ṣāghirūn, later constituted the prooftext for the regimen of humiliating restrictions (saghār) imposed on non-Muslims by Islamic law as it evolved in succeeding centuries.
Credit - Mark R. Cohen, “Islamic Policy toward Jews from the Prophet Muhammad to the Pact of ‘Umar” in A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton University Press, 2013) 58–74.
St. John of Damascus viewed Islam as a heresy and claimed the Muslim empire under which he lived was the forerunner to the anti-Christ. He took on the task of collecting and summarizing the Christian works of the previous 700 years in order to develop a clear theology for Christians living under Muslim rule so that they could better resist the dominant faith and enticement to convert. He also brazenly attacked Muhammad’s recounting of the receiving of the Qur’an and the beliefs of the Muslims.
There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist. They are descended from Ishmael, [who] was born to Abraham of Hagar, and for this reason they are called both Hagarenes and Ishmaelites. They are also called Saracens, which is derived from Sarras kenoi, or destitute of Sara, because of what Hagar said to the angel: ‘Sara hath sent me away destitute.’ These used to be idolaters and worshiped the morning star and Aphrodite, whom in their own language they called Khabár, which means great. And so down to the time of Heraclius they were very great idolaters. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration. . . .
Moreover, they call us Hetaeriasts, or Associators, because, they say, we introduce an associate with God by declaring Christ to the Son of God and God. We say to them in rejoinder: ‘The Prophets and the Scriptures have delivered this to us, and you, as you persistently maintain, accept the Prophets. So, if we wrongly declare Christ to be the Son of God, it is they who taught this and handed it on to us.’ But some of them say that it is by misinterpretation that we have represented the Prophets as saying such things, while others say that the Hebrews hated us and deceived us by writing in the name of the Prophets so that we might be lost. And again we say to them: ‘As long as you say that Christ is the Word of God and Spirit, why do you accuse us of being Hetaeriasts? For the word, and the spirit, is inseparable from that in which it naturally has existence. Therefore, if the Word of God is in God, then it is obvious that He is God.’
Credit - St. John of Damascus. “‘Heresies in Epitome: How They Began and Whence They Drew Their Origin’ (c. 750).” Orthodoxinfo.
A new form of poetry called muwashshaha, was created in tenth-century al-Andalus, Muslim Spain. These poems were written in both Arabic and Hebrew and eventually appeared in a new vernacular language called Mozarabic that mixed Iberian, Hebrew, and Arabic. Since the muwashshaha was musical and often sung, they had refrains that were called kharjas. These poems, but particularly the kharjas, represent a hybrid of the Christian, classical tradition of repeated choruses with the Arabic tradition of poetry whose subject matter was daily life and romantic love. It is not surprising, given this mixture of forms and contributing cultures, that kharjas became important topics of study for scholars of Arab, Jewish, and Spanish culture.
Mamma, how can I believe his promises
or his lies? He never speaks at all!
I want to stop seeing him —
yet being apart from him is so hard!
. . .
Mamma, someone cautioned my love:
“The loyalty of women? That’s bullshit.”
Perhaps; but I have one firm belief:
I will only love a man who is loyal to me.
Credit - “String of Pearls: Sixty-Four ‘Romance’ Kharjas from Arabic and Hebrew Muwashshaḥāt of the Eleventh-Thirteenth Centuries.” Translated by James DenBoer, EHumanista, University of California San Bernadino.
Procopius was a legal advisor and secretary to the Byzantine general Belisarius under the reign of emperor Justinian in the mid 500s. As the general’s secretary, Procopius was an observer of the wars in the west to regain Roman territory as well as those against the Persians in the east. As an educated elite, he was also aware of the politics of the court in Constantinople.
About the same time there came from India certain monks; and when they had satisfied Justinian Augustus that the Romans no longer should buy silk from the Persians, they promised the emperor in an interview that they would provide the materials for making silk so that never should the Romans seek business of this kind from their enemy the Persians, or from any other people whatsoever. They said that they were formerly in Serinda, which they call the region frequented by the people of the Indies, and there they learned perfectly the art of making silk. Moreover, to the emperor who plied them with many questions as to whether he might have the secret, the monks replied that certain worms were manufacturers of silk, nature itself forcing them to keep always at work; the worms could certainly not be brought here alive, but they could be grown easily and without difficulty; the eggs of single hatchings are innumerable; as soon as they are laid men cover them with dung and keep them warm for as long as it is necessary so that they produce insects. When they had announced these tidings, led on by liberal promises to the emperor to prove the fact, they returned to India. When they had brought the eggs to Byzantium, the method having been learned, as I have said, they changed them by metamorphosis into worms which feed on the leaves of mulberry. Thus began the art of making silk from that time on in the Roman Empire.
Credit - “History of the Wars/Book IV.” History of the Wars/Book IV - Wikisource, the Free Online Library, Wikipedia, Wikisource.
The Han dynasty was the first to mention the land of Ta-ts’in in the west which many scholars have determined to be the western Roman empire. However others have argued that the mention of storax, a product from the Levant, indicates it might only have described the eastern provinces of the empire like Syria. In either case, contact and exchange of goods seems to have occurred between the Roman empire and the Han Chinese. In later accounts, the exchange and diplomatic efforts are with the land of Fu-lin which scholars agree was the Byzantine empire.
From the Sung-shu, ch. 97 (written c. 500), for the period from 420 to 478:
As regards Ta-ts’in [Roman Syria] and T’ien-chu [India], far out on the western ocean [Indian Ocean], we have to say that; although the envoys of the two Han dynasties [Chang Ch’ien, and Pan Ch’ao] have experienced the special difficulties of this road, yet traffic in merchandise has been effected, and goods have been sent out to the foreign tribes, the force of winds driving them far away across the waves of the sea. There are lofty ranges of hills quite different from those we know and a great variety of populous tribes having different names and bearing uncommon designations, they being of a class quite different from our own. All the precious things of land and water come from there, as well as the gems made of rhinoceros’ horns and king-fishers’ stones [chrysoprase], she-chu [serpent pearls] and asbestos cloth, there being innumerable varieties of these curiosities; and also the doctrine of the abstraction of mind in devotion to the shih-chu [“lord of the world” here meaning “the Christ”] all this having caused navigation and trade to be extended to those parts.
From the Liang-shu, ch. 54 (written c. 629), for 502 to 556:
In the west of it [India] they carry on much trade by sea to Ta-ts’in [Roman Syria] . . . especially in articles of Ta-ts’in, such as all kinds of precious things, coral, amber, chin-pi [gold jadestone], chu-chi [a kind of pearl], lang-kan, Yu-chin [turmeric?] and storax. Storax is made by mixing and boiling the juice of various fragrant trees; it is not a natural product. It is further said that the inhabitants of Ta-ts’in gather the storax plant, squeeze its juice out, and thus make a balsam [hsiang-kao]; they then sell its dregs to the traders of other countries; it thus goes through many hands before reaching Zhongguo [China], and, when arriving here, is not so very fragrant.
From the Chiu-t’ang-shu, ch. 198 (written mid-tenth century), for 618 to 906:
The emperor Yang-ti of the Sui dynasty [605–617] always wished to open intercourse with Fu-lin [Byzantium], but did not succeed. In the 17th year of the period Cheng-kuan [643], the king of Fu-lin Po-to-li [Constans II Pogonatus, Emperor 641–668] sent an embassy offering red glass, lu-chin-ching [green gold gems], and other articles. T’ai-tsung [the then ruling emperor] favored them with a message under his imperial seal and graciously granted presents of silk.
Credit - Hirth, F. “East Asian History Sourcebook: Chinese Accounts of Rome, Byzantium and the Middle East, c. 91 B.C.E. - 1643 C.E.” Edited by Jerome S. Arkenberg, East Asian History Sourcebook, California State University Fullerton, 2000.
The Accounts of China and India is an example of rihlas, Arab travelogues, common in the early medieval period. Book One was written in 851 by an anonymous author but often attributed to Sulaymān the Merchant who is mentioned in the text. In this excerpt, Khānfū is the modern Chinese city Guangzhou and Sīrāf is a town in Iran, on the Persian Gulf.
Maritime Commerce between the Arabs and the ChineseGoods are in short supply. One of the reasons for such a shortage is the frequent outbreak of fire at Khānfū, the port of the China ships and entrepôt of Arab and Chinese trade, and the resulting destruction of goods in the conflagration. . . . Another reason for shortages is that outbound or returning ships might be wrecked or their crews might be plundered or forced to put in to some place en route for long periods and thus end up selling their goods somewhere other than in Arab lands. It can happen to that the wind forces them to land in Yemen or elsewhere and they end up selling their goods there. . . . Sulaymān the Merchant reported that, in Khānfū, the meeting place of the merchants, there was a Muslim man appointed by the ruler of China to settle cases arising between the Muslims who go to that region, and that the Chinese king would not have it otherwise. . . The Iraqi merchants, Sulaymān added, never dispute any of the judgments issued by the holder of this office, and they all agree that he acts justly, in accordance with the Book of God, mighty and glorious is He, and with the laws of Islam. Regarding the ports where the merchants regularly go ashore, they have said that most of the China ships take their cargoes on board at Sīrāf. Goods are carried from Basra, Oman, and elsewhere to Sīrāf and loaded there onto the China ships. The reason for this is that, at the other ports of this sea, the water is often too rough and too shallow for the bigger vessels to put in. . . . Once the goods have been loaded at Sīrāf, they take on board fresh water there, then they “take off” for a place called Muscat. This is at the end of the territory of Oman. . . There are also sheep and goats in plenty for sale from the land of Oman. From Muscat the ships set sail for the land of India, making for Kūlam Malī. The distance from Muscat to Kūlam Malī is a month if the wind is constant. . . . And if God grants safe passage from Ṣandar Fūlāt, the ships set sail from there to China and reach it in a month. . .
Credit - Two Arabic Travel Books: Accounts of China and India and Mission to the Volga Edited and translated by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and James E. Montgomery (New York University Press 2014) P29-35
The Nestorian Christians, also known as the Assyrian Church of the East, tried to explain the simultaneously human and divine nature of Jesus and were deemed heretical by a Byzantine council of bishops in the fifth century. This may have led to their movement eastward to China by the mid 600s. According to a text written in Syriac and Chinese on a stele (stone slab monument) erected under the Tang dynasty in Xi’an China, the Nestorian missionary Alopen came to China from Christian Syria in 635. His Bible was translated from Syriac to Chinese and his teachings deemed beneficial for the Chinese people by the emperor.
Behold the unchangeably true and invisible, who existed through all eternity without origin; the far-seeing perfect intelligence, whose mysterious existence is everlasting. . . This is our eternal true lord God, triune and mysterious in substance. He appointed the cross as the means for determining the four cardinal points, he moved the original spirit, and produced the two principles of nature; the somber void was changed, and heaven and earth were opened out; the sun and moon revolved, and day and night commenced; having perfected all inferior objects, he then made the first man. . .Thereupon, our Trinity being divided in nature, the illustrious and honorable Messiah, veiling his true dignity, appeared in the world as a man; angelic powers promulgated the glad tidings, a virgin gave birth to the Holy One in Syria; a bright star announced the felicitous event, and Persians observing the splendor came to present tribute; the ancient dispensation, as declared by the twenty-four holy men [the writers of the Old Testament], was then fulfilled . . .
In the time of the accomplished Emperor Tai-tsung, the illustrious and magnificent founder of the dynasty, among the enlightened and holy men who arrived was the most-virtuous Olopun [Alopen], from the country of Syria. Observing the azure clouds, he bore the true sacred books; beholding the direction of the winds, he braved difficulties and dangers. In the year of our Lord 635 he arrived at Chang-an; the Emperor sent his Prime Minister, Duke Fang Hiuen-ling; who, carrying the official staff to the west border, conducted his guest into the interior; the sacred books were translated in the imperial library, the sovereign investigated the subject in his private apartments; when becoming deeply impressed with the rectitude and truth of the religion, he gave special orders for its dissemination. In the seventh month of the year A.D. 638 the following imperial proclamation was issued: “. . .The greatly virtuous Olopun, of the kingdom of Syria, has brought his sacred books and images from that distant part, and has presented them at our chief capital. Having examined the principles of this religion, we find them to be purely excellent and natural. . . it is beneficial to all creatures; it is advantageous to mankind. Let it be published throughout the Empire, and let the proper authority build a Syrian church in the capital in the I-ning May, which shall be governed by twenty-one priests.”
Credit - Horne, Charles F. “East Asian History Sourcebook: Ch'ing-Tsing: Nestorian Tablet: Eulogizing the Propagation of the Illustrious Religion in China, with a Preface, Composed by a Priest of the Syriac Church, 781 A.D.” Edited by Jerome S. Arkenberg and Paul Halsall, Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Fordham University , 1996.
Peter Brown is Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University and a widely recognized expert in Late Antiquity. Much of his work has dealt with religious life in the late Roman and early Medieval world. He has written thirteen books and countless articles on a variety of topics during this time period.
The Silk Road has long been known as a place of mirages. There are two academic mirages that account, in large part, for the fascination which the Silk Road holds for both scholars and the general public. . . .
. . . The Silk Road has been associated with a remarkable eastward expansion of forms of art and religion whose origins lay in the long familiar world of Greece and Rome. . . .
. . . For those who study it, a large part of the magic of late antiquity consists in watching the ancient world of classical Greece and Rome changing under one’s eyes under the impact of new ideas, new religious forces, and of new horizons. . . .
I think we must bear this thrill in mind when we approach the other mirage of the Silk Road. That is, the view of the Silk Road as a purely commercial highway. . . . Goods were imagined to whizz briskly along the Silk Road between Rome and China. . . .
What I would like to do here is suggest what we might gain by stepping aside from these two potent mirages. Instead of seeing the Silk Road either as a fascinating conservatory of exotic mutations of Western forms of art and religion on their long way across Eurasia, or as a corridor of trade, in a modern manner, I would like to attempt to catch the Silk Road in the heavy gravity of the distinctive societies—from China through Inner Asia and Iran to Byzantium—through which it passed in the late antique period. . . .
. . . It strikes me that the old debates on the nature of cultural contact . . . have been bedeviled by false models of cultural interchange. “Influences” appear to travel mindlessly from distant regions. They are absorbed or rejected on an organic—indeed, a medical—model. Byzantium catches “oriental influences” much as one would catch a common cold.
But what happens if we see cultural contacts in terms of a process of “archaic globalization” in which differences were valued, in their own right, and consciously set in place as markers of distinction? . . . .
Elements of “archaic globalization” were brought to the fore by constant diplomacy and warfare, and not by the invisible hand of the market that pulled goods along as Silk Road as if it were a modern commercial highway. . .
. . . From one end of Eurasia to the other, the game of the day was the game of the competing glory of the kings. . . [and the glory of] their respective empires.
Credit - Peter Brown, “The Silk Road in Late Antiquity” in Reconfiguring the Silk Road: New Research on East-West Exchange in Antiquity eds. Victor H. Mair and Jane Hickman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) 15-22.
Warwick Ball is a near Eastern archeologist who has led excavations in Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. He has written numerous works on archeological evidence in these areas including The Monuments of Afghanistan, History, Archaeology and Architecture and the more recent Rome in the East: Transformation of an Empire.
Any evidence for Roman trade with south-east Asia is largely illusory, more likely to have arrived through Indian middlemen rather than directly, and in any case is evidence for sea trade, not overland. In Central Asia there have been occasional Roman coin finds, from Tiberius through to Justinian, as well as a few other Roman and Roman-derived objects. . . Most of the coin finds, however. . .are questionable as evidence for trade and none compare in quantity with those found in India.
Perhaps the most spectacular archeological evidence for a Roman cultural presence in Central Asia is the discoveries at Begram. Begram was one of the royal cities of the Kushan Empire in the first–third centuries AD. Two rooms in the palace contained an astonishing treasure that comprised an eclectic collection of art works from all over Asia. It include stuccoes, bronzes, ivories from India, lacquers from China and—most important for the present discussion—among the most impressive collections of Roman glassware ever discovered. . . . It is graphic evidence indeed for both the trade between China, India, and the Roman world and the nature of the goods traded. . . .
. . . More important for the present discussion are the Egyptian and Red Sea origins of the glassware. This implies that the glass reached Begram by sea via the Red Sea and India, thence by land to the Hindu Kush. . . The Begram treasures therefore support a sea route from the Mediterranean to Central Asia rather than the land route initially implied. . . .
. . . Silk, the most publicized item of the China trade, in fact only arrived indirectly via India, rather than on any purported ‘Silk Route’ overland through Asia. . . . With little to no trade in return, commodities had to be paid for in gold coinage. This makes the almost complete absence of Roman coins in China all the more surprising, especially when compared with India. . . . Once again this paucity suggests that the China trade was largely indirect, coming via India rather than overland through Iran. . . .
The route to China from the Mediterranean was, therefore, at best indirect. It was mainly subordinate to the India trade and the sea routes; there were never any direct overland routes established with China. . . . None of the routes therefore were part of any concerted overland trade mechanism aimed at linking China and the West. . . .
The whole story of Rome-China trade has been vastly exaggerated by the myth of the Silk Route.
Credit - Warwick Ball, Rome in the East: Transformation of an Empire (Routledge 2016), 150–56.
Michael McCormick is Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History at Harvard University. He has written numerous books on the economy of Late Antiquity and early medieval Europe including an award-winning book on European economic and commercial history.
Muslim merchants trading in Carolingian Rome add a new piece to the puzzle of early Europe’s commercial connections with the much bigger and more advanced economies of the south and east. . . . Routes linking western Europe and the eastern Mediterranean altered markedly. In 700, there was only one way from, for example, Paris to the eastern Mediterranean: the old ‘main trunk’ sea route [Marseilles to Greece then to Syria] . . . By 875, on the other hand, there were at least six ways to reach the Middle East. . . .
Coins also travelled long distances. . . 108 mentions of Arab coins [are] preserved in European deeds of sale, loans, wills etc. . . . A final set of independent indicators came from soundings in the substantial body of data concerning luxury imports. Here I will highlight only two: Arab drugs or spices, and silks. . . . [Spices] functioned as medicine. . . . The notion that Europe had no access to Asian spices collapses as soon as one opens the well-worn medical handbooks of eighth- and ninth-century physicians. . . . In other words, in the very years when the new Arab pharmacology was being born, the new spices and drugs entering the Arab empire from the Indian Ocean and points east were reaching the heartland of Charlemagne’s Europe. And it cannot have been a question simply of new substances. What Venetian merchant would have bought or sold an expensive new drug without (at least) oral instructions on how to use it? The implication goes beyond the history of economic exchange, for it suggests that Arab science actually began its revolutionary impact on European thinking two centuries earlier than has been observed . . . A record of silk consumption at the papal court illustrates the availability of this imported and fabulously expensive item in the reign of Charlemagne. . . .
Within a seven-year period in the 770s, Pope Hadrian I gave away a minimum of 837 hangings and altar coverings of silk. . . . A relative surge of Middle Eastern imports into western Europe is unmistakable. The imports included silk, spices, and drugs. But they also include Arab gold. . . That the Venetians (and others) who were going to the markets of the Arab world and coming home with silk, drugs, spices and cash suggests they were exporting something worth more than the silk, drugs and spices they were acquiring. . . Europe financed the early growth of its commercial economy by selling Europeans as slaves to the Arab world.
Credit - Michael McCormick, “New Light on the ‘Dark Ages’: How the Slave Trade Fuelled the Carolingian Economy,” Past & Present, no. 177 (Nov., 2002) 17–54
Rachel Laudan has taught history at Carnegie-Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech and the University of Hawaii. She is the author of two books on the history of food focusing particularly on the history of fusion and exchange of foods across cultures and borders.
The high Perso-Islamic cuisine of Baghdad, like its clothing and architecture, was disseminated along the trade routes of empire to other Islamic cities, including those of southern Spain. . . .
. . . In Seville, Granada, and above all Cordoba, the new rulers set about reproducing their cuisine. The first emir of Cordoba . . . was homesick for his familiar landscape and planted date palms, while his chief justice imported a fine variety of pomegranate. The second emir founded new towns on old Roman foundations and established Persian-style farming in the rich bottomlands. Artisans, including potters and probably cooks, were ordered to move from east to west. Persian ways of well making, water raising and irrigation were introduced to upgrade older Roman installations. Water mills for grain were built. . .
. . . By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Perso-Islamic cuisine in al-Andalus rivaled that of Baghdad.
Cities such as Samarkand, Bukhara, and Merv in Central Asia, Nishapur in Northern Iran. . . became Islamicized between the end of the tenth century and the middle of the twelfth century, putting an end to earlier Buddhist (and to a lesser extent Christian) dominance of the Silk Roads. Much of India became ruled by Muslims from the tenth to eleventh centuries. . . .
Trade flourished as never before in the history of the world. Spices and sugar moved through the system, and Vikings brought honey from the north. Merchants made their way along the Silk Roads. The Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean were Islamic lakes dominated by Arab traders. . . .
Islamic rulers and their agronomists, according to historian Andrew Watson, pulled off an agricultural revolution in the arid and often exhausted landscapes of the Islamic empires. They encouraged the westward transfer of “Indian” crops as they were then called—sorghum, rice, sugarcane, citrus (Seville oranges, lemons, limes, pomelos), banana, plantain, watermelon (from Africa via India) spinach and eggplant. . . .
. . . By mid-thirteenth century the Mongols controlled northern China, Persia, and Russia, and then they went on to take Baghdad and, by 1280, much of southern China as well. . . .
The vast area ruled by the Mongols was traversed by the Silk Roads, which linked northern China with India, Persia, and Iraq. . . In the 1230s, anticipating their later culinary politics, they ordered Guillaume Bouchier, a French goldsmith, to construct a drinking fountain that spouted the alcohols of their empire: wine from Persia, mead from the northern forests, chiu from China, and their own koumiss—fermented mare’s milk—from the steppes.
Credit - Rachel Laudan, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History (University of California Press, 2013) 132-150.
Abdul Ahad Hannawi is the Near Eastern catalog librarian at Yale University. He received his MA from the American University of Beirut Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages.
The Chinese used silk and linen cloth and brushes made from camel’s hair to paint the signs of their language. The breakthrough came in the year 105 C.E. when the Chinese invented the art of manufacturing paper from the macerated fibers of vegetable plants in a cheap and efficient manner. Yet, this extraordinary invention was confined to the place of its birth for more than six centuries before starting its long and laborious journey toward the West. It is very likely that the Chinese kept the manufacturing of paper both a state secret and a state monopoly, as it was originally invented by one of the high officials of the royal palace. This might explain the long period (ca. 650 years) which this invention took to reach Samarkand in Central Asia, and then only through the divulgence of the secret by some Chinese prisoners of war who happened to be papermakers, in the year 751 C.E. There is no record that the Chinese actually traded this commodity with other nations. . . .
The year 751 C.E. constitutes a remarkable turning point in the history of paper: the lengthy journey of papermaking out of the Orient had started and “the Arabs were the people destined to bring the Chinese invention of paper westward.” . . . Arabic and Chinese documents give the exact date of the battle [of Talas] in the month of July of that year. The Chinese and their allies were defeated and pursued to the border of China. Some of the Chinese prisoners brought back to Samarkand were papermakers, and it was they who first established papermaking mills in Samarkand and shortly thereafter in Khorasan. Thus, the Arabs were introduced to the art of papermaking. It is probable that the Arabs had some access to Chinese-made paper some time in the seventh century or even earlier. It might have been brought from the East via the traditional land routes, or by sea carried by South Arabian merchants and seafarers. . . . After it had reached Egypt, papermaking proceeded toward Morocco and from there it crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and landed in Spain. . . . Once paper arrived in the Iberian peninsula, the exposure of the European nations to it, and the art of its manufacture, should have been a matter of a few years. . . . However the question remains whether Europeans at that time were interested in this new material or not.
Credit - Abdul Ahad Hannawi, “The Role of the Arabs in the Introduction of Paper into Europe” MELA Notes no. 85 (2012) 14–29
The Silsilat a-Tawarikh was written around 916 and is often compiled with the earlier ninth century Account of China and India attributed to Sulayman the Merchant. It is an example of rihla or travelogue literature that was immensely popular during this time. Abu Zayd al-Sirafi did not even claim to have visited China himself but compiled stories and anecdotes about travel to China from sailors and merchants and turned these into an entertaining literature for eager readers.
The situation has changed in China in particular. Because of events that occurred there, the trading voyages to China were abandoned and the country itself was ruined, leaving all traces of its greatness gone and everything in utter disarray. I shall now explain what I have learned concerning the cause of this, God willing.
The reason for the deterioration of law and order in China, and for the end of the China trading voyages from Sīrāf, was an uprising led by a rebel from outside the ruling dynasty known as Huang Chao. . . . He marched on the great cities of China, among them Khānfū: this city is the destination of Arab merchants and lies a few days’ journey from the sea on a great river where the water flows fresh. At first the citizens of Khānfū held out against him, but he subjected them to a long siege—this was in the year 264 [877–78]—until at last, he took the city and put its people to the sword. Experts on Chinese affairs reported that the number of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians massacred by him, quite apart from the native Chinese, was 120,000, all of them had gone to settle in this city and become merchants there. The only reason the number of victims from these four communities happens to be know is that the Chinese had kept records of their numbers. Huang Chao also cut down all he trees in Khānfū, including all the mulberry trees; we single out mulberry trees for mention because the Chinese use their leaves as fodder for silkworms; owing to the destruction of the trees, the silkworms perished, and this, in turn, caused silk, in particular to disappear from Arab lands.
Credit - “Ancient Accounts of India and China : Sirafi, Abu Zayd Hasan Ibn Yazid, 10th Cent : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, London, Printed for S. Harding, 1 Jan. 1970.
Sinbad the Sailor is a character beloved by children in the One Thousand and One Nights. The collection of stories were supposedly told by the clever wife Scheherazade in short pieces to her husband the Arab ruler Shahryar who had vowed to marry a new wife each day and kill the previous one to prevent infidelity. While the stories of the seven voyages of Sinbad appear in English language translations of the One Thousand and One Nights, they, like the stories of Aladdin and Ali Baba do not appear in the Arabic originals. However, these stories of Sinbad did exist separately in the Arabic tradition dating back to the ninth century in Baghdad. They tell of a sailor named Sinbad who on a series of seven voyages in the seas around Africa, India, and China, encounters monstrous creatures and has exciting adventures. These stories of imaginary travel and fantastical discovery complemented the more factual rihlas [travel accounts] of the time.
When Sindbad the Seaman’s guests were all gathered together he thus bespake them:—I was living a most enjoyable life until one day my mind became possessed with the thought of travelling about the world of men and seeing their cities and islands; and a longing seized me to traffic and to make money by trade. . . Then I went down to the river-bank, where I found a noble ship and brand-new about to sail, equipped with sails of fine cloth and well manned and provided; so I took passage in her, with a number of other merchants, and after embarking our goods we weighed anchor the same day. Right fair was our voyage and we sailed from place to place and from isle to isle; and whenever we anchored we met a crowd of merchants and notables and customers, and we took to buying and selling and bartering. At last Destiny brought us to an island. . . Methought a cloud had come over the sun, but it was the season of summer; so I marvelled at this and lifting my head looked steadfastly at the sky, when I saw that the cloud was none other than an enormous bird, of gigantic girth and inordinately wide of wing which, as it flew through the air, veiled the sun and hid it from the island. My wonder redoubled and I remembered a story I had heard aforetime of pilgrims and travelers, how in a certain island dwelleth a huge bird, called the “Rukh” which feedeth its young on elephants; and I was certified that the dome which caught my sight was none other than a Rukh’s egg. . . . The Rukh rose off its egg and spreading its wings with a great cry flew up into the air dragging me with it; nor ceased it to soar and to tower till I thought it had reached the limit of the firmament; after which it descended, earthwards, little by little, till it lighted on the top of a high hill. . . . I took courage and walking along the Wady found that its soil was of diamond, the stone wherewith they pierce minerals and precious stones and porcelain and the onyx. . . Moreover, the valley swarmed with snakes and vipers, each big as a palm tree, that would have made but one gulp of an elephant
Credit - “The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night .” Translated by Richard F. Burton , Burton's Arabian Nights, Volume 6, Wollashram.
European Exploration, Perception of the Other, and the Columbian Exchange
How did Europeans perceive the new people they encountered and how were they in turn perceived?
Albert of Brandenberg, born to a noble family, was given the position of Archbishop of Mainz at the age of 24 and became cardinal at age 28. The archbishop had borrowed a large sum of money to gain this position and to rebuild part of the cathedral in Mainz. He began selling indulgences in order to make this money back, with half of the proceeds going to the pope. Martin Luther protested against this sale in a letter in 1517.
May your Highness deign to cast an eye upon one speck of dust, and for the sake of your pontifical clemency to heed my prayer. Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter's are circulating under your most distinguished name, and as regards them, I do not bring accusation against the outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived from them; to wit, the unhappy souls believe that if they have purchased letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation; again, that so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory; furthermore, that these graces [i.e., the graces conferred in the indulgences] are so great that there is no sin too great to be absolved, even, as they say—though the thing is impossible—if one had violated the Mother of God; again, that a man is free, through these indulgences, from all penalty and guilt.
. . . For this reason I have no longer been able to keep quiet about this matter, for it is by no gift of a bishop that man becomes sure of salvation, since he gains this certainty not even by the "inpoured grace" of God, but the Apostle bids us always "work out our own salvation in fear and trembling," and Peter says, "the righteous scarcely shall be saved." Finally, so narrow is the way that leads to life, that the Lord, through the prophets Amos and Zechariah, calls those who shall be saved "brands plucked from the burning," and everywhere declares the difficulty of salvation. Why, then, do the preachers of pardons, by these false fables and promises, make the people careless and fearless?
Credit - Luther, Martin. “Letter to the Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, Volume 1, Pp. 25-28.” Translated by Adolph Spaeth et al., Internet Christian Library, Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915.
By 1520 Luther had clarified his doctrine of salvation by faith alone and explored its tenets in his work Concerning Christian Liberty which he sent to Pope Leo X with an open letter encouraging him to ignore Luther’s detractors and free himself from what Luther claimed was the corruption of Rome.
Preface
Is it not true that there is nothing under the vast heavens more corrupt, more pestilential, more hateful, than the Court of Rome? She incomparably surpasses the impiety of the Turks, so that in very truth she, who was formerly the gate of heaven, is now a sort of open mouth of hell, and such a mouth as, under the urgent wrath of God, cannot be blocked up; one course alone being left to us wretched men: to call back and save some few, if we can, from that Roman gulf. . . . Therefore, Leo, my Father, beware of listening to those sirens who make you out to be not simply a man, but partly a god, so that you can command and require whatever you will. It will not happen so, nor will you prevail. You are the servant of servants, and more than any other man, in a most pitiable and perilous position. Let not those men deceive you who pretend that you are lord of the world; who will not allow any one to be a Christian without your authority; who babble of your having power over heaven, hell, and purgatory. These men are your enemies and are seeking your soul to destroy it, as Isaiah says, “My people, they that call thee blessed are themselves deceiving thee.” They are in error who raise you above councils and the universal Church; they are in error who attribute to you alone the right of interpreting Scripture. All these men are seeking to set up their own impieties in the Church under your name, and alas! Satan has gained much through them in the time of your predecessors.
Concerning Christian Liberty:
… But you ask how it can be the fact that faith alone justifies, and affords without works so great a treasure of good things, when so many works, ceremonies, and laws are prescribed to us in the Scriptures? I answer, Before all things bear in mind what I have said: that faith alone without works justifies, sets free, and saves, as I shall show more clearly below. . . .
Now, since these promises of God are words of holiness, truth, righteousness, liberty, and peace, and are full of universal goodness, the soul, which cleaves to them with a firm faith, is so united to them, nay, thoroughly absorbed by them, that it not only partakes in, but is penetrated and saturated by, all their virtues. For if the touch of Christ was healing, how much more does that most tender spiritual touch, nay, absorption of the word, communicate to the soul all that belongs to the word! In this way therefore the soul, through faith alone, without works, is from the word of God justified, sanctified, endued with truth, peace, and liberty, and filled full with every good thing, and is truly made the child of God, as it is said, "To them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name" (John i. 12). From all this it is easy to understand why faith has such great power, and why no good works, nor even all good works put together, can compare with it, since no work can cleave to the word of God or be in the soul. Faith alone and the word reign in it; and such as is the word, such is the soul made by it, just as iron exposed to fire glows like fire, on account of its union with the fire. It is clear then that to a Christian man his faith suffices for everything, and that he has no need of works for justification.
Credit - Luther, Martin. “CONCERNING CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.” Edited by Elizabeth T. Knuth and David Widger, Concerning Christian Liberty, by Martin Luther, Project Gutenberg, 2013.
Luther’s discourse and conversations at his home with students and fellow Protestant reformers including Philip Melancthon were collected into volumes and published for the reading public. The Catholic Church ordered the work banned and burned but a copy was found in early the 1600s and republished. In this selection Luther speaks of the Church, Henry VIII’s reformation, and tells a humorous story discrediting Catholic relics.
When our Lord God intends to plague and punish one, He leaves him in blindness, so that he regards not God’s Word, but condemns the same, as the papists now do. They know that our doctrine is God’s Word, but they will not allow of this syllogism and conclusion: When God speaks, we must hear him; now God speaks through the doctrine of the gospel; therefore we must hear Him. But the papists, against their own consciences, say, No; we must hear the church.
It is very strange: they admit both propositions, but will not allow of the consequences, or permit the conclusions to be right. They urge some decree or other of the Council of Constance, and say, though Christ speak, who is the truth itself, yet an ancient custom must be preferred, and observed for law. Thus do they answer, when they seek to wrest and pervert the truth.
If this sin of antichrist be not a sin against the Holy Ghost, then I do not know how to define and distinguish sins. They sin herein willfully against the revealed truth of God’s Word, in a most stubborn and stiff-necked manner. I pray, who would not, in this case, resist these devilish and shameless lying lips? . . . Henry VIII of England, is now also an enemy to the pope’s person, but not to his essence and substance; he would only kill the body of the pope, but suffer his soul, that is, his false doctrine, to live; the pope can well endure such an enemy; he hopes within the space of twenty years to recover his rule and government again. But I fall upon the pope’s soul, his doctrine, with God’s word, not regarding his body, that is, his wicked person and life. I not only pluck out his feathers, as the king of England and Prince George of Saxony do, but I set the knife to his throat, and cut his windpipe asunder. We put the goose on the spit; did we but pluck her, the feathers would soon grow again. . . .A German, making his confession to a priest at Rome, promised, on oath, to keep secret whatsoever the priest should impart unto him, until he reached home; whereupon the priest gave him a leg of the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem, very neatly bound up in silk, and said: This is the holy relic on which the Lord Christ corporally did sit, with his sacred legs touching this ass’s leg. Then was the German wondrous glad, and carried the said holy relic with him into Germany. When he got to the borders, he bragged of his holy relic in the presence of four others, his comrades, when, lo! it turned out that each of them had likewise received from the same priest a leg, after promising the same secrecy. Thereupon, all exclaimed, with great wonder: Lord! had that ass five legs?
Credit - “The Table Talk of Martin Luther, : Luther, Martin, 1483-1546 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Translated by W Hazlitt, Internet Archive, New York, World Pub. Co, 1 Jan. 1970.
Mark U. Edwards is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for Harvard Divinity School. His work on the Reformation casts Luther’s protest as a print event notable for its masterful use of this medium.
The Reformation saw the first major, self-conscious attempt to use the recently invented printing press to shape and channel a mass movement. The printing press allowed evangelical publicists to do what had previously been impossible, quickly and effectively reach a large audience with a message intended to change Christianity. For several crucial years, these evangelical publicists issued thousands of pamphlets discrediting the old faith and advocating the new. And they managed to accomplish this with little serious opposition from publicists of a Catholic persuasion. . . .
Not only did the Reformation see the first large-scale “media campaign,” it also saw a campaign that was overwhelmingly dominated by one person, Martin Luther. More works by Luther were printed and reprinted than by any other publicist. In fact, the presses of the German-speaking lands produced substantially more vernacular works by Luther in the crucial early years (1518–1525) than the seventeen other major Evangelical publicists combined. During Luther’s lifetime, these presses produced nearly five times as many German works by Luther as by all the Catholic controversialists put together. Even if consideration is restricted to polemical works, Luther still outpublished all his Catholic opponents five to three. By Hans Joachim Köhler’s calculation, Luther’s works made up twenty percent of all the pamphlets published during the period 1500 to 1530. . . Within the larger topic of printing and propaganda in the Reformation and the narrower focus of Martin Luther’s dominance of the press, this book develops three interrelated arguments on how the history of the early Reformation should be written in light of this Evangelical propaganda campaign. First any future history needs to bear in mind what most people likely knew of Luther and his message and when they likely knew it. Such an approach yields a narrative that differs in significant ways from the conventional account. Second, the message Luther intended in his writings was not always the message that his various reading publics received, and the discrepancy between the two—message sent and message received—has profound implications for the story of the early Reformation. Third, the medium of printing not only conveyed challenges to traditional authority with particular force but raised in its own right new issues of authority concerning the propriety of public debate on matters of faith . . . the medium itself became entangled with its message.
Credit - Mark U Edwards, Jr., Printing, Propaganda, and Luther (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994)
Andrew Pettegree is Professor of History at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland and founding director of the St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute. He has written thirteen books and countless articles on Reformation in Europe several of which have won major history prizes around the world.
Wittenberg, Luther’s base in Saxony, had no printing press at all until 1502; the whole of the half century of experimentation and growth since Guttenberg had passed it by. Luther himself had reached his maturity…without publishing a book. Yet within five years of penning the ninety-five theses, he was Europe’s most published author—ever….Luther blossomed almost overnight as a writer of extraordinary power and fluency, a natural stylist in a genre that had not to that point particularly valued these skills. In the process, Luther created what was essentially a new form of theological writing: lucid, accessible, and above all short. Crucially at an early stage of the furor caused by the criticisms of indulgences, Luther made the bold and radical decision to speak beyond an informed audience of trained theologians and address the wider German public in their own language, German. This decision to move beyond the language of scholarship, Latin, was deeply controversial, but it allowed complex theological ideas to be presented to a non-specialist audience. It also put his opponents at a disadvantage from which they never fully recovered. Certainly it vastly increased the potential market for Luther’s books; Germany’s printers responded with a hungry enthusiasm.
Credit - Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther: How an unheralded monk turned his small town into a center of publishing, made himself the most famous man in Europe, and started the Protestant Reformation (Penguin Books: New York, 2016).
Steven Ozment was Professor of History at Yale University and then Professor of History at Harvard University. He is the author of eleven books on Reformation and early modern European history and the author of both Western Civilizations and World History textbooks.
During the early 1520s and still two decades later, Luther’s books made up one-third of all German publications. . . . In 1520 [Lucas] Cranach was forty-eight and Luther thirty-seven, both men in their remarkable prime. In the same year, Cranach, at the Saxon elector’s bidding and Albrecht Dürer’s urging, engraved an official court portrait of the emerging reformer while Luther himself stood as godfather to Cranach’s lastborn child—a merging of their two families as well as their talents in the cause of reform.
Cranach’s portrayals of “Luther the monk” made the reformer’s name and face a household word and image throughout Saxony. Already a condemned heretic of the Church, Luther now became an outlaw of the Holy Roman Empire by the imperial decree of the Edict of Worms in May 1521. In that same year, he and Cranach answered back with their first collaborative blast against Rome: twenty-five irreverent pamphlet pages depicting and declaring the Holy Father to be the “Anti-Christ.” . . .
The comparative absence of Cranach from the modern American mind is a lamentable deficit of historical knowledge . . . Without him, German Renaissance art might well have remained a pale imitation of High Italian, and the German Reformation have died aborning in the 1520s, so vital was Cranach to both. . . .
. . . It took a Luther to turn Erasmus’ Greek edition and Latin translation of the New Testament into a readable German vernacular Bible the masses could read and wield like a sword against Rome’s ever encroaching encyclicals. And it took a painter of Cranach’s force and subtlety to dramatize on countless church altars and single-leaf wood-cuts the heartfelt jeopardy created in the souls of contemporaries…The reformers’ first collaborative work of religious propaganda set its sights directly on the Holy Father in Rome. Entitled Christ and Anti-Christ (1520) it was a bludgeoning twenty-six-page block-printed pamphlet that enumerated the many reasons that the “Holy Father in Rome” deserved the Protestant cudgel.
. . . Cranach created his own “light cavalry” designed to demoralize the enemy in heart and mind, while cheering on the faithful . . .
A popular example from the late 1520s. . . . Christ Blessing the Children, its message accused the papists and Anabaptists of not having humility and trust enough to enter the kingdom of God. . . . In the background of this popular painting, the enemies of salvation by faith alone and infant baptism are seen scoffing and grumbling as Jesus welcomes a throng of new mothers.
Credit - Steven Ozment, The Serpent and the Lamb: Cranach, Luther, and the Making of the Reformation (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2011).
Rebecca Wagner Oettinger has published on early music history and won the Sixteenth Century Society & Conference’s Roland H. Bainton Prize for her work Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation.
In 1523 Martin Luther wrote, “I also wish that we had as many songs in the vernacular which the people could sing during mass . . . I mention this to encourage any German poets to compose evangelical hymns for us.”
. . . German songs sung by the people helped Luther’s Reformation spread like wildfire, not only through the scholarly and literate, but through all levels of German society. In the first four decades of the Reformation, hundreds of songs written in a popular style and set to familiar tunes appeared in German territories. Some of these works expressed the high ideals and deep faith of sixteenth-century German Christians, others were slanderous, scandalous cries of anger at the papacy, at the clergy, at merchants who benefited from the Catholic Church’s downfall, at Luther or at theologians whose specific articles of faith were at odds with those of a song’s composer. . . . No matter the length, subject, or approach, however, songs were perfectly adapted to spread rapidly through the still primarily oral culture of sixteenth-century Germany. While the literate had access to the full flowering of printed information about Martin Luther’s movement, most people depended on the more traditional media of woodcut, sermon, and song.
. . . The propagandistic music of the Reformation. . . [is] a rich treasury of information about the issues that most inflamed those living through the German Reformation.
. . . Church politics, however, were the driving force behind hymn composition in the sixteenth century and it is difficult to draw the line between political songs that are religious and religious songs that are also political. . . I will argue, however, that the use of familiar songs was of utmost importance to ensure that the ideas expressed in the lyrics would reach a large audience. The Bohemian Brethren acknowledged this in the foreword to their 1575 songbook. The authors of the dedicatory preface commented that ‘our singers took up [secular melodies] intentionally in order that the people be attracted to a grasp of the truth more easily through their familiar sounds’. . . .
This study addresses the propagandistic songs of the early Reformation . . . While polemical songs continued to be published in the late sixteenth century, as areas became more confessionalized, there was less need for musical attacks on other believers, and the pieces created after about 1560 generally lack the anger and fire of earlier publications. . . .
. . . Luther’s music was a powerful symbol of protest and Protestantism in itself and would have been recognized as such by practically any hearer.
Credit - Rebecca Wagner Oettinger, Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation (Routledge: New York, 2016) 1-20.
In 1523 Luther wrote new lyrics for the popular traditional song “Von erst ßo woll wir loben” which had been a song praising Mary. The new lyrics condemned the Catholic pope as the antichrist.
To begin, we will praise
Gentle God on high.
He is so high above us
And has had mercy on us
Because we were so long in error
[and] the Antichrist confused us
That is why [they have] erred regarding Luther
Who also will have no rest
Until the Antichrist is dead.
Credit - Wagner Oettinger, Rebecca. “Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation.” Google Books, Routledge.
Luther’s “Ein newes lied wir heben an” tells the story of two Augustinian monks in Brussels who were burned at the stake for their Lutheran beliefs. Luther’s lyrics explain that martyrdom and saintliness is not something ordered by the Catholic Church which executed them and continued to defame them after death but something revealed by the act of dying for one’s belief in God.
A new song here shall be begun -
The Lord God help our singing!
Of what our God himself hath done,
Praise, honour to him bringing.
At Brussels in the Netherlands
By two boys, martyrs youthful
He showed the wonders of his hands
Whom he with favour truthful
So richly hath adorned.
[2] The first right fitly John was named,
So rich he in God’s favour;
His brother, Henry - one unblamed,
Whose salt lost not its savour.
From this world they are gone away,
The diadem they’ve gained;
Honest, like God’s good children, they
For his word life disdained,
And have become his martyrs.
[3] The old arch-fiend did them immure
With terrors did enwrap them.
He bade them God’s dear Word abjure,
With cunning he would trap them:
From Louvain many sophists came,
In their curst nets to take them,
By him are gathered to the game:
The Spirit fools doth make them -
They could get nothing by it.
[4] Oh! they sang sweet, and they sang sour;
Oh! they tried every double;
The boys they stood firm as a tower,
And mocked the sophists’ trouble.
The ancient foe it filled with hate
That he was thus defeated
By two such youngsters - he, so great!
His wrath grew sevenfold heated,
He laid his plans to burn them.
[5] Their cloister-garments off they tore,
Took off their consecrations;
All this the boys were ready for,
They said Amen with patience.
To God their Father they gave thanks
That they would soon be rescued
From Satan’s scoffs and mumming pranks,
With which, in falsehood masked,
The world he so befooleth . . .
. . . Their greatest fault was saying this:
“In God we should trust solely;
For man is always full of lies,
We should distrust him wholly:”
So they must burn to ashes.
[8] Two huge great fires they kindled then,
The boys they carried to them;
Great wonder seized on every man,
For with contempt they view them.
To all with joy they yielded quite,
With singing and God-praising;
The sophs had little appetite
For these new things so dazing.
Which God was thus revealing.
[9] They now repent the deed of blame,
Would gladly gloze it over;
They dare not glory in their shame,
The facts almost they cover.
In their hearts gnaweth infamy -
They to their friends deplore it;
The Spirit cannot silent be:
Good Abel’s blood out-poured
Must still besmear Cain’s forehead. . . .
[11] But yet their lies they will not leave,
To trim and dress the murder;
The fable false which out they gave,
Shows conscience grinds them further.
God’s holy ones, e’en after death,
They still go on belying;
They say that with their latest breath,
The boys, in act of dying,
Repented and recanted.
[12] Let them lie on for evermore –
No refuge so is reared;
For us, we thank our God therefore,
His word has reappeared.
Credit - Speratus, Paul. “Salvation unto Us Has Come.” Lutheran-Hymnal, The Lutheran-Hymnal, 1400.
“A Hymn of Law and Faith, Powerfully Furnished with God’s Word,” later shortened to “Salvation unto Us is Come” is one of the oldest and best known of Luther’s hymns. It was probably written in the fall of 1523 and then included in the first Lutheran hymnal, the so-called Achtliederbuch, entitled Etlich christlich lider, in 1524. The song explains the Lutheran belief in salvation by faith alone rather than through good works and the sinful nature of man that only God’s grace can redeem.
Salvation unto us has come
By God's free grace and favor;
Good works cannot avert our doom,
They help and save us never.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,
Who did for all the world atone;
He is our one Redeemer. . . .
It was a false, misleading dream
That God His Law had given
That sinners should themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.
From sin our flesh could not abstain,
Sin held its sway unceasing;
The task was useless and in vain,
Our gilt was e'er increasing.
None can remove sin's poisoned dart
Or purify our guileful heart,-
So deep is our corruption. . .
Since Christ hath full atonement made
And brought to us salvation,
Each Christian therefore may be glad
And build on this foundation.
Thy grace alone, dear Lord, I plead,
Thy death is now my life indeed,
For Thou hast paid my ransom.
Credit - The text is a composite of the translations of Richard Massie, as found in Leonard Woolsey Bacon, Dr. Martin Luther’s Deutsche Geistliche Lieder: The Hymns of Martin Luther, London, 1884, No. 5, and George MacDonald, Exotics, 1876, as found in the American Edition of Luther’s Works, vol. 53, pp. 214–216, with additional alterations for the Free Lutheran Chorale-Book. The music is chiefly from Friedrich Layriz. Both text and music may be freely used and reproduced for any purpose whatever, and are offered with the prayer that they may serve for the edification of Christian people everywhere.
Olympia Fulvia Morata was an extremely well educated young woman from the Italian region of Ferrara whose classical education was eventually turned toward writing in support of the Reformation. She died in 1555 before the age of thirty but her work was collected by her protestant husband and published by instructors at the University of Basel. The letters here were to Caelius, a close friend of her father who had been concerned for her wellbeing after her father died, and to Lavinia, a beloved friend.
Letter to Caelius Secundus Curio October 7, 1550You should know that my father, after having undergone many labors with remarkable faith in God, left the tumult and confusion of this world two years ago. After his death . . . I was immediately abandoned by my lady and received only in the most humiliating manner . . .This is the reward we got from our princes, for our labors we naturally got hatred . . . If I had remained any longer in that court, it would have been all over for me and my salvation. For while I was there, I was never able to undertake anything high or divine—not even to read the books of either the Old or New Testament. But after the duchess was estranged from our family by the hatred and slanders of certain evil people, these brief, fleeting, and transitory things no longer affected me with so great a longing. Instead God has increased my desire to live in that heavenly home, in which it is more pleasant to live for just one day than to spend a thousand years in the courts of princes.
Letter to Caelius Secundus Curio October 1, 1551We are not now planning to return to Italy. It has not escaped your notice how dangerous it is to profess oneself a Christian there where the Antichrist has so much power, who even now I hear is raging against the saints and beginning to foam at the mouth . . . he has sent his spies to all the cities of Italy and just like the last one [previous pope] he cannot be moved by any prayers. Last year (I don’t know if you heard) he ordered a certain Fanini, a pious man of the most constant faith, after he had been in prison for two years (for he was never willing to abandon the truth not from fear of death, not from love of his wife and children) to be strangled . . . I would rather go to the ends of the earth than return to where that man has so much power to be cruel.
Letter to Lavinia della Rovere Orsini winter 1552 . . .I’m also sending you some writings by Dr. Martin Luther which I enjoyed reading. They may be able to move and restore you, too. Work hard at these studies, for God’s sake, ask that He enlighten you with true religion.
Credit - Olympia Fulvia Morata, The Complete Writings of an Italian Heretic (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
Argula von Grumbach was a noblewoman from Regensburg, Bavaria, who converted to Lutheranism. In 1523 Arsacius Seehofer, an instructor at the University of Ingolstad was arrested and forced to recant his Lutheran beliefs. Argula wrote an open letter to the faculty condemning their act and it gained immediate public recognition. This letter gained her immediate public recognition and sparked controversy and attacks on her character.
How in God’s name can you and your university expect to prevail, when you deploy such foolish violence against the word of God; when you force someone to hold the holy Gospel in their hands for the very purpose of denying it, as you did in the case of Arsacius Seehofer? When you confront him with an oath and declaration such as this, and use imprisonment and even the threat of the stake to force him to deny Christ and his word? Yes, when I reflect on this my heart and all my limbs tremble. What do Luther or Melanchthon teach you but the word of God? You condemn them without having refuted them. Did Christ teach you so, or his apostles, prophets, or evangelists? Show me where this is written! You lofty experts, nowhere in the Bible do I find that Christ, or his apostles, or his prophets put people in prison, burnt or murdered them, or sent them into exile. . . . Don’t you know that the Lord says in Matthew 10 ‘Have no fear of him who can take your body but then his power is at an end. But fear him who has power to despatch [sic] soul and body into the depths of hell.’ … For my part, I have to confess, in the name of God and by my soul’s salvation, that if I were to deny Luther and Melanchthon’s writing I would be denying God and his word. . . I had to listen for ages to your Decretal preacher crying out in the Church of Our Lady: Ketzer! ketzer, ‘Heretic, heretic!’… But if they are to prove their case they’ll have to do better than that. I always meant to write to him, to ask him to show me which heretical articles the loyal worker for the gospel, Martin Luther, is supposed to have taught. However I suppressed my inclinations; heavy of heart, I did nothing. Because Paul says in 1 Timothy 2: ‘The women should keep silence, and should not speak in church.’ But now that I cannot see any man who is up to it, who is either willing or able to speak, I am constrained by the saying: ‘Whoever confesses me’, as I said above. And I claim for myself Isaiah 3: ‘I will send children to be their princes; and women, or those who are womanish, shall rule over them.’
Credit - Argula von Grumbach, “To the University of Ingolstadt,” in Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation, ed. Peter Matheson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 75–77, 78–79, 81–82, 83–84, 85, 86, 88–89, 90–91.
For what God has given you and revealed to us women, no more than men should we hide it and bury it in the earth. And even though we are not permitted to preach in public in congregations and churches, we are not forbidden to write and admonish one another in all charity. Not only for you, my Lady, did I wish to write this letter, but also to give courage to other women detained in captivity, so that they might not fear being expelled from their homelands, away from their relatives and friends, as I was, for the word of God. And principally for the poor little women wanting to know and understand the truth, who do not know what path, what way to take, in order that from now on they be not internally tormented and afflicted, but rather that they be joyful, consoled, and led to follow the truth, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . For as you well know, the female sex is more shameful than the other, and not without cause. For until now, scripture has been so hidden from them.] No one dared to say a word about it, and it seemed that women should not read or hear anything in the holy scriptures. That is the main reason, my Lady, that has moved me to write to you, hoping in God that henceforth women will not be so scorned as in the past. For, from day to day, God changes the hearts of his people for the good. That is what I pray will soon happen throughout the land. Amen. Not only will certain slanderers and adversaries of truth try to accuse us of excessive audacity and temerity, but so will certain of the faithful, saying that it is too bold for women to write to one another about matters of scripture. We may answer them by saying that all those women who have written and have been named in holy scripture should not be considered too bold. Several women are named and praised in holy scripture, as much for their good conduct, actions, demeanor, and example as for their faith and teaching: Sarah and Rebecca, for example, and first among all the others in the Old Testament; the mother of Moses, who, in spite of the king’s edict, dared to keep her son from death.
Credit - Marie Dentiere, Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre and Preface to a Sermon by John Calvin. Edited and translated by Mary B. McKinley. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004, Pp. xxx + 110.
The Monument (1582) contains several prayers for women “in long and dangerous travail of child to be used either of the woman herself, or by the women about her in her behalf.” In one such prayer, the woman in labor is to recite the following prayer:
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy upon me thy sinful servant, and woeful hand-maid, who now in my greatest need and distress, do seek thee: behold, with grievous groans & deep sighs, I cry unto thee for mercy.
According to Bentley, the Lady, Francis Aburgauennie prayed: Arm me, Oh mighty God with perfect patience, joyfully to bear thy correction, and in the midst of these sharp and bitter brunts of grief, give me grace to call upon thee. Strengthen me a poor wretched woman, give me comfort and heavenly consolation from above.
Credit - LaPratt, Delores. “Childbirth Prayers in Medieval and Early Modern England.” Symposia, University of Toronto, 2010.
Kirsi Stjerna is Professor of Lutheran History and Theology at California Lutheran University. Her book Women and the Reformation was instrumental in bringing protestant women into the history of the Reformation.
Much more has been written about the wars, the diets, and the reformers’ assorted treatises than about how the Reformation was experienced and transferred by women. . . .
Did the Reformation offer women new possibilities of embracing religious leadership roles and using their theological voice in public, or did it limit women’s options? What happened to the women mystics and visionaries of the medieval world? How well did the Protestants’ teaching of the priesthood of all believers apply to women? Did Protestant theology and reforms promote spiritual equality and emancipation for all concerned, including women? The answers are ambiguous.
On the one hand, a seed of radical emancipation was embedded in the reformers’ teaching of justification by faith as a gift from God for humans without a merit of their own. The priesthood of all believers would thus seem like a natural expression of—and a foundation for—spiritual equality. The eagerness with which many a woman joined the Protestant believers tells that they heard in the new preaching a promise worth responding to, without perhaps fully comprehending what that promise entailed for them as women in particular. On the other hand, there was no collective voice of women. . . . The apparent disappearance of women writers coincides with the Protestants’ dismissal of the mystics, prophets, and saints who in the medieval religious scene had often been important female counterparts to the otherwise exclusively male clergy . . . The late medieval context and women’s religious roles there offer a revealing mirror to examine how women’s situations changed both for better and for worse. . . .
. . . It is hardly a coincidence that many of the mystics were members of laity and women for whom mysticism offered the only possible platform for teaching and preaching and religious authority. . . .For everyone, male or female, who took part in the Protestant Reformation both the notion and expressions of spirituality underwent a fundamental change. Excluded from the pulpit and public teaching places, women also lost their role as female prophets and mystics in the Protestant church where their spiritual life was more or less confined to the domestic world. From now on women would need to find other callings to make their mark in the “new” church. . . .With the coinciding loss of convents, women lost the environment that had most essentially supported women’s individual spiritual development and mystical activity and nurtured many a visionary writer.
Credit - Kirsi Stjerna, Women and the Reformation (Blackwell Publishing, 2009).
Mack P. Holt is Professor Emeritus of History at George Mason University. His works have dealt primarily with the French Wars of Religion and with the reformed church movement in France.
Another sacrament that underwent considerable change as a result of both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations was the sacrament of marriage. How did the various reformations affect marriage and married life, relations between husbands and wives, ties between parents and children? That is, did the Reformation produce different family cultures that can be delineated by confessional identity? And finally, did the Reformation have any impact on gender roles within the family and in the public sphere? Social historians have made inroads in the last twenty years, and while they have certainly not reached total consensus on all issues, there is a good deal of common ground. For starters, it seems clear that both Protestant and Catholic reformers hoped to better tame the beast of sexuality that had always haunted the sacrament of marriage and had forever tainted the act of procreation with the sin of lust . . . Moreover, because marriage was an economic as well as a socio-sexual union, both confessions also sought to elevate the roles of fathers in different ways to allow for more parental control than the medieval church had done. . . .There is no question that Protestantism allowed wives whose husbands had abandoned them to remarry much sooner and much more easily than was possible within the Catholic church. In addition, Protestantism allowed women whose husbands committed adultery to divorce them. So, in a variety of ways the Reformation clearly had an impact on marriage as an institution. Nevertheless, social historians have not been able to form a consensus on whether the Reformation as a whole positively benefited women. . . .
Some historians argue that an analysis of the prescriptive literature on marriage written by the Protestant reformers suggests a positive and more modern view of marriage that allowed women more freedom and more responsibility than under the Catholic church. Moreover, these historians claim that Protestantism elevated marriage and sexuality within it by denigrating the Catholic ideals of celibacy and sexual abstinence. Steven Ozment, who focuses primarily on Lutheran Germany, offers the strongest case for this view. Others, however, like Merry Wiesner, challenge Ozment's view as being overly positive and deny that Luther had any intent to make married life more liberating for women. . . .The very best of these . . . suggest that the reformers clearly tried to reorder marriage in significant ways, but that success or failure depended as much on local factors as on reforming zeal.
Credit - Mack P. Holt, The Social History of the Reformation: Recent Trends and Future Agendas Journal of Social History, Vol. 37, No. 1, Special Issue (Autumn, 2003), pp. 133-144.
Colin Atkinson and Jo B. Atkinson edited an English translation of Thomas Bentley’s Monument of Matrons and have written several pieces on women and Reformation era history.
Suzanne Hull lists 163 English books written for women published between 1475 and 1640. Of eighteen books she classifies as devotional, the second . . . is Thomas Bentley's The Monument of Matrones (1582), an immense book-over 1500 quarto pages-containing prayers and meditations for a variety of occasions, extracts from the Bible, and brief lives of biblical and other model women . . . However, as we shall see Bentley does not simply transcribe the biblical accounts of women's lives in Lamp Seven: he frequently edits them to reinforce patriarchal values, a highly significant act in light of the importance of the Bible to Protestant women. The Protestant reformers had claimed that women would no longer be forcibly immured in convents but would lead more useful and godly lives as wives and mothers. However, in abolishing the convents, the Protestants had eliminated much that those institutions had offered to women: female communal life as well as opportunities for learning, prayer, and such service as teaching or nursing. As the family became the fundamental Protestant religious unit, subordination to priests was replaced by subordination to father or husband in spiritual matters. Protestant women "dwindled into wives," bereft not only of other vocations and female communities but also of those saints who had looked after women's interests, especially their pattern and model, the Blessed Virgin Mary. New religious models, more suitable for obedient wives and daughters, were essential. Where were these new models to be found? . . . For the most part the Book of Martyrs could show women how to die, whereas the Bible if suitably presented could show them how to live properly, and it was therefore from the Bible that most of the new Protestant behavioral models for women were taken. Bentley's using the Bible in The Monument of Matrones is typical in this respect, but it is the way in which he presents it to female readers that is problematic . . . Many of the women depicted in Lamp Seven illustrate the same sins: disobedience and rebellion, licentiousness and harlotry, and idolatry, often in combination. Although he does include the virtuous women of the Bible, his emphasis on feminine evil is clear even in his preface. Bentley not only emphasizes those biblical women who illustrate the sins that most threaten patriarchy, but also manipulates the biblical text when relating their stories . . . The Monument of Matrones, because of its size and date of publication, is a rich source of information on sixteenth-century social and religious attitudes toward women.
Credit - Colin Atkinson and Jo B. Atkinson, Subordinating Women: Thomas Bentley's Use of Biblical Women in "The Monument of Matrones" (1582) Church History, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Sep., 1991), pp. 289-300.
Mary E Fissell is Professor of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Her work in early modern English history has yielded books on early modern health care for the poor and on how the early modern world understood the human body. She saw discussions of reproduction to be a reflection of larger issues of political and social conflict.
England’s gradual and often reluctant move from Catholicism to its own kind of protestant faith was accomplished, in part, though the reform of women’s bodies. . . . In this essay, I suggest that the reform of women’s reproductive bodies was a crucial part of the cultural changes that made England a Protestant nation . . . The central narrative about reproduction in late medieval England was a sacred one: the story of Mary’s miraculous conception of Christ. Women looked to the Virgin Mary, or to other saints, to protect them from the hazards of childbirth. Women used saints’ relics and items associated with the Virgin Mary to try to ensure a safe delivery and were encouraged to identify with her while pregnant. Early-sixteenth-century women in labor employed a wide range of sacred objects to help them. . . . The late medieval church suggested that women in labor pray to the Virgin specifically to intercede for them and grant them an easier delivery. The church offered special masses for the same purpose, . . . Childbirth was thus like many other hazardous undertakings: an event for which the church offered specific help. . . . Some historians depict Lollardy as a kind of premature reformation because many of their beliefs foreshadowed those of protestant reformers. Some Lollards and other free thinkers did not like the usual accounts of the conception of Christ and said so in colorful and emphatic terms. What has come down to us is a series of fragments in which women and men disparaged Mary’s role in the conception of Christ. . . . In 1520, one John Morress said that the Virgin was but a sack. In Yorkshire in 1534, a priest stated that the Virgin was like a pudding when the meat was taken out. Two years later, a preacher in Kent employed a related image, maintaining that the Virgin was not the queen of heaven, “but the mother of Christ; and that she could do no more for us than any other woman, liking her to a saffron bag.” . . . As a part of his reforms of the excesses of the church, Henry VIII’s bishops addressed so-called superstitious practices around childbirth. Many relics loaned out to laboring women were destroyed when monasteries and convents were dissolved, but reforms went further. . . . Raynalde’s prayer book emphasized a second strand of Protestant thinking about pregnancy. Women were to connect their suffering in childbirth not with the Virgin Mary but with Eve. In this prayer, the speaker tells the Lord that she acknowledges that He has “justly” increased the pain and sorrow with which women bring forth children because of Eve’s “original transgression.”
Credit - Mary E Fissell, “The Politics of Reproduction in the English Reformation” Representations, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Summer 2004), pp. 43-81.
Peter Matheson is Principal Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne. He has written fourteen books and numerous articles with a focus on women and radicals in the Reformation and the role of the churches during the Third Reich.
Much less researched is the role of women of this period, not only individual women as authors and recipients of reforming views, but also the way in which networks of women acted to host and transmit new ideas. In the sixteenth century any women who were active in this way had to break out of the silence imposed on them in the public, ecclesiastical, and academic realms, and this at a time when their legal rights were being curtailed generally. Outer constraints for most women in the sixteenth century included lack of access to the key foci of decision making: courts, town halls, universities, church pulpits, and synods. To these had to be added social constraints, such as the conventional, fiercely guarded gender role; personal constraints, such as the fear of ridicule; religious constraints on the daughters of sinful Eve. The suppression of the woman's voice was enforced culturally by the mockery of such feeble men as allowed women to "wear the pants," but it was also interiorized as self-censorship . . . The case of Argula von Grumbach, a Bavarian noblewoman who wrote in the early 1520s and who was the first Protestant woman author to be published, illustrates how a constellation of new factors- the availability of printing, the advent of reforming ideas, the accessibility of vernacular scripture-combined with her own forthrightness and courage to create a window of opportunity. . . . The aim of this article is to focus on the reasons women in the sixteenth century had a particular interest in combatting censorship, and to see how Argula von Grumbach developed a religious rationale for opposing it. . . . For Argula von Grumbach, certainly, the leap out of the private realm was a momentous one. By "going public" in print she effectively gained access to the lectern, pulpit, and rostrum denied her as a woman. If a woman wrote a personal letter, any response was at the discretion of the recipient, or the letter could be set aside and ignored. . . . If, however, a woman's correspondence appeared in print and found resonance with a wider public, it exposed the addressees to societal pressure and made them publicly accountable. At a time when opinions on the Reformation were still being formed in Bavaria, Argula von Grumbach managed to gain significant leverage on public opinion by her writings, and she developed an explicit critique of religious repression. Her perspectives as a woman were reflected, moreover, in a distinctive understanding of scripture and an exploration of taboo themes, such as the violence done to women.
Credit - Peter Matheson, Breaking the Silence: Women, Censorship, and the Reformation The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 97-109.
"A Word about the Stauffen Woman and Her Disputativeness"
Mme. Argel, awful is your name
Much worse that you—without shame—
And forgetting every female trait
Are so wicked, such an apostate
That you would teach your sovereign
The new dogma through your pen
And then you have the impudence
To punish and abuse students
And the university
With your dumb prolixity
So curb your mettle and your zeal
And go back to your spinning wheel
Or go knit caps and do lacework
A woman shouldn’t flaunt God’s word
And try to teach the men
She should keep still like Mary Magdalen
I’m giving you good counsel
And if you want to know I’ll tell
My name’s Johannes and I’m free
I study at the university
Of Ingolstadt and I come from Landshut
So take a student’s word in this dispute
And don’t bring this up again
You and your kind will be defeated then
Credit - The Defiant Muse: German Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present. ed. Susan Cocalis (1986)
Argula von Grumbach was a noblewoman from Regensburg, Bavaria, who converted to Protestantism and followed the teachings of Martin Luther. In 1523 Arsacius Seehofer, an instructor at the University of Ingolstad was arrested and forced to recant his Lutheran beliefs. Argula wrote an open letter to the faculty condemning their act and it gained immediate public recognition. Her public rebuke earned her the anger of Catholics who slandered her reputation, disgraced her family, and attacked her character. She responded in verse to one slanderous poem by an instructor at the university.
“An Answer In Verse to a Member of the University of Ingolstad”
In God’s name let me begin
To answer that audacious man
Who calls himself Johannes—
And so I’ll know just who he is
He says that he’s from Landshut
If you’re honest and a Christian
Show up in Ingolstadt my friend
On any day that you may care
If I have erred then say it there
And if you can make me see the light
I’ll follow you without a fight
Show me where I’ve gone astray
And do so in a Christian way.
Just name the day and circumstance
Three weeks, four weeks in advance
So that more people can attend
To hear how I myself defend.
I will undertake the task with glee
Since its for God and not for me.
Christ himself has let me know
That I should not be afraid to go
Since I will represent Him well.
His father gives us words Himself
He sends his spirit to our words
He speaks for us; He is heard
You do not see whom you seem to see
Yes, this message gladdens me.
Although I am not educated
I am not afraid to say it
I will come and without fear
To honor God, whom I revere
Credit - The Defiant Muse: German Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present. ed. Susan Cocalis (1986).
Francis Duke of Guise, who is the father of Henry Duke of Guise, is credited with beginning the religious violence of the French Religious wars on March 1 1562 when he and his men massacred a group of Protestants in a barn in the town of Vassy near Paris. At the end of the massacre, over twenty were dead and more than a hundred wounded.
Honor be to God and to the King our Lord
Who protects us from the wrath of malicious Huguenots.
They want to kill us, but a day will come
When they will be made to die laughing.
We have a good lord in this country of France,
And a prince of great honor; valiant and humane.
He is the duke of Guise, who, by his great mercy,
Defended the Holy Mother Church at Vassy.
Sunday March first, Huguenots came from all around
To gather in a barn for preaching and feasting
On meat and fat lard, like so many rats,
Though it was a time for Lenten fasting.
And when the good prince of Guise went to hear a Mass,
And the priest his vestments was donning,
The Huguenots, ignoble toads, rang the bells for worship,
Preventing God’s service in the Holy Mother Church.
And so Monsieur de Guise said to his gentlemen;
Go over there and tell them to have patience,
Give us a moment’s peace, so to render God
Grace, honor, and reverence.
But the cursed Huguenots did something else instead
And replied that they did not have time to stop;
They struck and molested these noble persons;
With cannons and sticks they attacked them basely.
Monsieur de Guise went over there in haste,
And on those wicked ones took vengeance;
He killed most of their party and his troops
By their conquests did something great.
Credit - Diefendorf, Barbara. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: a brief history with documents (Bedford St. Martin’s), p71.
Giovanni Michiel had previously been the Venetian ambassador to the court of Mary I Queen of England and had watched and recorded the religious and political negotiations around the survival of the future Queen Elizabeth I in Mary’s court. His depictions of the French religious wars show similar mixtures of religious and political intrigue and violence.
At the dinner hour on Friday, while the admiral [Coligny] was returning on foot from the court to his lodgings and reading a letter, someone fired an arquebus at him . . . As you can imagine, news of the event caused great excitement, especially at court. Everyone supposed it had been done by order of the Duke of Guise to avenge his family, because the window from which the shot was fired belonged to his mother’s house . . . But before long the situation changed. Late Saturday night, just before the dawn of Saint Bartholomew’s day, the massacre or slaughter was carried out. The French say the king ordered it. How wild and terrifying it was in Paris (which has a larger population than any other city in Europe), no one can imagine. Nor can one imagine the rage and frenzy of those who slaughtered and sacked, as the king ordered the people to do. Nor what a marvel, not to say miracle, it was that the common people did not take advantage of this freedom to loot and plunder from Catholics as well as Huguenots, and ravenously take whatever they could get their hands on, especially since the city is incredibly wealthy. No one would ever imagine that a people could be armed and egged on by their ruler, yet not get out of control once they were worked up. But it was not God’s will that things should reach such a pass. The slaughter went on past Sunday for two or three more days, despite the fact that edicts were issued against it and the Duke of Nevers was sent riding through the city along with the king’s natural brother to order them to stop the killing. The massacre showed how powerfully religion can affect men’s minds.
Credit - Giovanni Michiel, A Venetian Ambassador’s Report on the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1572.
Jacques-Auguste de Thou was a historian and politician closely connected to the French court. He accompanied Henry III back from Poland when the latter was named King of France and served under both him and later Henry IV as councilor of state. His guidance was instrumental in producing the Edict of Nantes and religious toleration for France. Despite de Thou’s efforts to record the events of the massacre in an unbiased manner, his history of the wars was placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books.
So it was determined to exterminate all the Protestants, and the plan was approved by the queen . . .. The duke of Guise, who was put in full command of the enterprise, summoned by night several captains of the Catholic Swiss mercenaries from the five little cantons, and some commanders of French companies, and told them that it was the will of the king that, according to God's will, they should take vengeance on the band of rebels while they had the beasts in the toils. . . . The signal to commence the massacre should be given by the bell of the palace, and the marks by which they should recognize each other in the darkness were a bit of white linen tied around the left arm and a white cross on the hat. . . .
Meanwhile the conspirators, having burst through the door of the chamber, entered, and when Besme, sword in hand, had demanded of Coligny, who stood near the door, "Are you Coligny?" Coligny replied, "Yes, I am he," with fearless countenance. "But you, young man, respect these white hairs. What is it you would do? You cannot shorten by many days this life of mine." As he spoke, Besme gave him a sword thrust through the body, and having withdrawn his sword, another thrust in the mouth, by which his face was disfigured. So Coligny fell, killed with many thrusts. . . .
Then the duke of Guise inquired of Besme from the courtyard if the thing were done, and when Besme answered him that it was, the duke replied that the Chevalier d'Angouleme was unable to believe it unless he saw it; and at the same time that he made the inquiry they threw the body through the window into the courtyard, disfigured as it was with blood. When the Chevalier d'Angouleme, who could scarcely believe his eyes, had wiped away with a cloth the blood which overran the face and finally had recognized him, some say that he spurned the body with his foot. However this may be, when he left the house with his followers he said: "Cheer up, my friends! Let us do thoroughly that which we have begun. The king commands it." He frequently repeated these words, and as soon as they had caused the bell of the palace clock to ring, on every side arose the cry, "To arms !" and the people ran to the house of Coligny. After his body had been treated to all sorts of insults, they threw it into a neighboring stable, and finally cut off his head, which they sent to Rome. They also shamefully mutilated him, and dragged his body through the streets to the bank of the Seine. . . .
As some children were in the act of throwing the body into the river, it was dragged out and placed upon the gibbet of Montfaucon, where it hung by the feet in chains of iron; and then they built a fire beneath, by which he was burned without being consumed; so that he was, so to speak, tortured with all the elements, since he was killed upon the earth, thrown into the water, placed upon the fire, and finally put to hang in the air.
Credit - Jacques-Auguste de Thou, “ An eyewitness account of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre” Histoire des choses arrivees de son temps (1659)
Henry of Navarre was both a distant descendent of French King Louis IX and the king of the independent kingdom of Navarre on the border of France and Spain. His mother, Jeanne d’Albret, raised him as a protestant and he would be married to Marguerite de Valois in 1572 as a royal representative of the Huguenot nobility of France. After surviving the subsequent massacre and years of religious wars, Henry was the only remaining heir to the throne but was forced to convert in order to enter Paris. In 1598, he issued the Edict of Nantes to provide toleration for Protestants and end the violence of the religious wars.
We have, by this perpetual and irrevocable edict. established and proclaimed and do establish and proclaim :
We ordain that there shall be no difference or distinction made in respect to the said religion, in receiving pupils to be instructed in universities, colleges, and schools; nor in receiving the sick and poor into hospitals, retreats and public charities.
Credit - “Edict of Nantes (1598).” Translated by Roland Gennerat, The Edict of Nantes (1598).
Natalie Z. Davis was Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University until her retirement and continues to produce books on French and European history from fascinating new approaches. Her most famous work with the general public is The Return of Martin Guerre but she has written numerous works on women, slaves, and other figures on the margins of history. She was the second woman to be named president of the American Historical Association in 1987.
. . . We may see urban rioters not as miserable, uprooted, unstable masses, but as men and women who often have some stake in their community; . . . Finally, we may see their violence, however cruel, not as random and limitless, but as aimed at defined targets and selected from a repertory of traditional punishments and forms of destruction.
. . .There is a tendency to identify the "real" elements in the disturbance as the social ones, social being defined only in terms of a conflict of poor against rich, . . . There is no doubt that some religious violence has this character . . . but is this the only kind of social meaning inherent in a religious riot? What does one make of popular religious violence where class conflict of this type is not present? I will try to answer these questions in regard to sixteenth-century France in the course of this essay. . . .
What then can we learn of the goals of popular religious violence? What were the crowds intending to do and why did they think they must do it? Their behaviour suggests, first of all, a goal akin to preaching: the defence of true doctrine and the refutation of false doctrine through dramatic challenges and tests. . . .
A more frequent goal of these riots, however, is that of ridding the community of dreaded pollution. The word "pollution" is often on the lips of the violent, and the concept serves well to sum up the dangers which rioters saw in the dirty and diabolic enemy. . . .Crowds might defend truth, and crowds might purify, but there was also a third aspect to the religious riot—a political one. . . . When the magistrate had not used his sword to defend the faith and the true church and to punish the idolators, then the crowd would do it for him. Thus, many religious disturbances begin with the ringing of the tocsin, as in a time of civic assembly or emergency. . . .
. . . The overall picture in these urban religious riots is not one of the "people" slaying the rich. Protestant crowds expressed no preference for killing or assaulting powerful prelates over simple priests. As for Catholic crowds, contemporary listings of their victims in the 1572 massacres show that artisans, the "little people", are represented in significant numbers . . .
Is popular religious violence in sixteenth-century France never then correlated in a systematic way with socio-economic conflict? Not when it is among the city-folk, who account for most of the disturbances.
Credit - Natalie Zemon Davis, 'The rites of violence: religious riot in sixteenth-century France', Past and Present, 59 (1973), pp. 51-91.
Barbara Diefendorf is Professor emerita of History at Boston University. She has written four books and countless other pieces on Reformation history and the religious wars in France.
For four hundred years the principle preoccupation of historians writing about Saint Bartholomew’s Day has been to determine the respective roles played in these events by the king, the queen mother, and arch-Catholic leaders like the Duc de Guise. . . . Even historians who did not bring a confessional bias to their work have proved themselves uncomfortable with the elements of popular fanaticism and religious hatred in these events and they have preferred to turn away from the unseemly and brutish elements of popular participation in the murders to focus instead on their more respectable “political” aspects. In doing so, they have reinforced a long historiographical tradition that has tended to see the Wars of Religion—in spite of their name—as having been shaped more by political than by religious motivations. . . . On 4 September 1572 at the command of Charles IX a solemn procession of the relics of Saint Genevieve rendered thanks to God for the “defeat of the Huguenots.” . . . It allowed both king and people to sacralize their actions by placing them under the aegis of divine will. Although he had in his address to Parlement accepted responsibility for the massacre, Charles IX represented himself through this procession as merely the executor of the divine command to rid the kingdom of the pollution of heresy. . . . The violence that they had witnessed, the violence in which they had participated, had come from God and been dedicated back to him: they could look on it not with horror but with pride. . . . Only by viewing Saint Bartholomew’s Day in the context of fifteen years of religious conflicts that preceded it, can we appreciate the significance of the massacre not just as a crime on the part of the king . . . but also as a terrible act of faith on the part of an impassioned populace that believed itself to be executing the will of God. . . . It may seem strange that I should feel the need so to stress the role of popular religious passions. . . they are after all, known as the “Wars of Religion.” Traditional historical writing has, however, tended to empty these wars of much of their religious content, so that the clash of faiths takes second place to the personal rivalries and political factionalism . . . At the popular level, the religious wars represented a crusade against heresy, a crusade that had to be won if civil society was to be preserved and salvation assured.
Credit - Barbara Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
Mark Konnert is Professor of History at the University of Calgary and has written several books on early modern Europe and the local political tensions during the French religious wars.
In my previous book I attempted to come to grips with the turmoil of the Wars of Religion from the vantage point of the local community [Châlons-sur-Marne]. I concluded that to an extent previously unappreciated, the city councilors attempted, to the best of their ability, to pursue a civic agenda which in many ways predated the wars. . . . What emerged above all was that the city councilors were not mere ciphers, pawns of the military and political elites who have traditionally figured in accounts of the Wars of Religion . . .
This book extends my previous research in several different ways, . . . If the city council of Châlons was not a mere object of powerful interests . . . why should this not be true of other cities as well? . . .
. . . In the past, studies of the Wars of Religion have tended to focus on the high and mighty, on the national political elites, on the great noble factions and their manouverings, and on the religious parties. . . . To what extent can the successes and/or failures of noble elites and religious parties be attributed to their political aptitude at the local level? . . .
. . . In 1576, many Catholics came to question the royal government’s willingness or ability to combat the Huguenots and began to look to the Guise family and the Catholic League as the protectors of both Catholicism and of the kingdom. Previously the issues had been relatively clear-cut for civic elites. The kingdom was under attack by the Huguenots and their foreign supporters and . . . there was a general consensus in support of the royal government and its efforts. Now, however, the situation had changed and so did their responses. The duc de Guise was, as we have seen the governor of Champagne and therefore in a position of enormous influence and power within the province. . . . Guise attempted to build up his political influence within Champagne, often working at cross-purposes with the royal government. . . .
. . . In this type of war, the actions of civic elites became very important. . . . The decision to admit or not to admit, or to expel a Leaguer or royalist captain was in the hands of city councils, . . .
Exactly how and why these decisions were made as they were, and how Guise and the League attempted to influence them in their favor is one of the major themes of this book.
Credit - Mark W. Konnert, Local Politics in the French Wars of Religion: The Towns of Champagne, the Duc de Guise, and the Catholic League, 1560-1595 (Burlington: Ashgate, 2006) 1-30.
Edwin Bezzina is Associate Professor of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His research interests include early Modern Europe, women and gender, and New France.
Those who knew Boisguerin in his earlier life certainly would have pondered the irony of his burial inside a Catholic church. They would have remembered his former involvement in the French Protestant cause during the Wars of Religion and the role that he played in the nearby Reformed community of Loudun, as captain and governor of that town. Boisguerin probably converted to Catholicism towards the end of his long and turbulent life. However, what remains clear in the years before is that this ennobled Protestant soldier was pulled by a number of increasingly incompatible imperatives: fidelity to his Reformed brethren, the desire to reinforce his newly granted noble title, and the powerful call to adopt the religion of his king, a call that grew louder as the royal government regained its strength and its resolute Catholic orientation . . . To be an ennobled Protestant and yet loyal to a Catholic king called for a moderate approach to confessional politics, but it needed the king's continued benevolence for that relationship to work. Once that working relationship broke down, Boisguerin first defied the crown, but then in the mid-1620s acquiesced and accepted the need for conversion.
The confessional heterogeneity in [Boisguerin’s] family mirrored his flexibility, his unwillingness to make religion, any religion, central, absolute, and all-encompassing. Boisguerin's progeny explored a variety of confessional paths. Some of his children remained even more loyal to their increasingly beleaguered religion, some converted to Catholicism, and a few gravitated to that narrow but hazy median between Protestant and Catholic. . . .
. . . The relationship between Protestant noble families and the crown evolved through the Wars of Religion and the period beyond, becoming more complicated and unstable as French monarchs began to insist that their subjects match their obedience to their king with the adoption of his religion. This began long before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The critical decade was the 1620s, a period of failed Huguenot revolt that heralded the virtual collapse of the Huguenot party and the evaporation of a strong Protestant military presence. Central to that collapse was the well-publicized conversions of a number of Protestant nobles who had once formed the nerve center of the Huguenot party's leadership. . . .
Microstudies of lesser Protestant nobles can focus on the depth of Reformed convictions, the politico-religious dilemmas they faced, the strategies they developed, the reasons for their conversion…
Credit - Edwin Bezzina, “Caught between King, Religion, and Social Ambition: Marc-Antoine Marreau De Boisguérin and His Family (ca. 1560-1680)” The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 2008), pp. 331-356.
Christopher Marlowe was a celebrated Elizabethan tragedian whose work influenced that of his contemporary Shakespeare. Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris, alternately titled the Tragedy of the Guise was performed ten times between its initial production in 1593/1594. The original manuscript no longer remains but actors who performed the play reconstructed parts of it for posterity. The excerpt below includes the role of Guise in the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre and the desecration of Admiral Coligny’s body.
Guise: My lord of Anjou there are a hundred Protestants which we have chased into the river Rene, that swim about and so preserve their lives: How may we do? I fear me they will live.
Dumaine: Go place some men upon the bridge, with bows and darts to shoot at them as they flee, and sinke them in the river as they swim.
Enter King of Navarre and Prince of Conde . . . Anjou: How now my Lords how fare you?
Navarre: My Lord they say that all the Protestants are massacred.
Anjou: Aye so they are but yet what remedy: I have done what I could to stay this broil.
Navarre: But yet my Lord the report does run, that you were the one that made this Massacre.
Anjou: Who I, you are deceived, I rose but now.
Guise enters: Murder the Huguenots
Navarre: Thou traitor Guise, lay off thy bloody hands
Conde: Come let us go tell the king.
Guise: And now sirs for this night let our fury stay. Yet will we not that the massacre shall end. Gonzago post you to Orleans, Retes to Deep, Montsorrell unto Roan and spare not one that you suspect of heresy. . .
Enter two with the Admirals body
Credit - Marlowe, Christopher. The Massacre at Paris: With the Defeat of the Duke of Guise.University of Virginia.
Alexander Dumas’s novel La Reine Margot was based on the story of Marguerite de Valois, sister to the Valois kings of France whose marriage to Henry of Navarre triggered the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. The novel shows her conspiring against her mother Catherine and the Duke of Guise to keep both Henry of Navarre and her real love interest, the protestant La Mole safe during the massacre and wars. The excerpt below begins when guests in an inn, La Mole and Coconnas agree to a card game and end up talking about religion and their meetings with the two rival nobles that night. Coconnas will end up joining Guise as a leader for hire in the massacre.
"Well and good!" cried Coconnas, "that's the talk! You are right, sir, a gentleman's word is as good as gold, especially when he has credit at court. Thus, believe me, I did not risk too much when I proposed to play for the first favor we might receive."
"Doubtless, and you might lose it, but I could not gain it; for, as I am with the King of Navarre, I could not receive anything from the Duc de Guise."
"Ah, the heretic!" muttered the landlord as he was at work polishing up his old helmet, "I got on the right scent, did I?" And he stopped his work long enough to cross himself piously.
"Well, then," continued Coconnas, shuffling the cards which the waiter had just brought him, "you are of the"—
"Of the what?"
"Of the new religion."
"I?"
"Yes, you."
"Well, say that I am," said La Mole, with a smile, "have you anything against us?"
"Oh! thank God, no! It is all the same to me. I hate Huguenotry with all my heart, but I do not hate the Huguenots; besides, they are in fashion just now."
"Yes," replied La Mole, smiling; "to wit, the shooting at the admiral with an arquebuse; but supposing we have a game of arquebusades."
"Anything you please," said Coconnas, "provided I get to playing, it is all the same to me."
"Well, let us play, then," said La Mole, picking up his cards and arranging them in his hand.
"Yes, play ahead and with all confidence, for even if I were to lose a hundred crowns of gold against yours I shall have the wherewithal to pay you to-morrow morning."
"Then your fortune will come while you are asleep."
"No; I am going to find it."
"Where? Tell me and I'll go with you."
"At the Louvre."
"Are you going back there to-night?"
"Yes; to-night I have a private audience with the great Duc de Guise."
As soon as Coconnas began to speak about going to seek his fortune at the Louvre, La Hurière stopped polishing his sallet and went and stood behind La Mole's chair, so that Coconnas alone could see him, and made signs to him, which the Piedmontese, absorbed in his game and the conversation, did not notice.
"Well, it is miraculous," remarked La Mole; "and you were right when you said that we were born under the same star. I have also an appointment at the Louvre to-night, but not with the Duc de Guise; mine is with the King of Navarre."
. . . "But before you begin, did you not say you had an appointment with the Duc de Guise?" Coconnas looked toward the kitchen, and saw the great eyes of La Hurière, who was repeating his warning.
"Yes," he replied, "but it is not yet time. But now let us talk a little about yourself, Monsieur de la Mole."
"We should do better, I think, by talking of the game, my dear Monsieur de Coconnas; for unless I am very much mistaken, I am in a fair way of gaining six more crowns."
"By Heaven! that is true! I always heard that the Huguenots had good luck at cards. Devil take me if I haven't a good mind to turn Huguenot!"
La Hurière's eyes sparkled like two coals; but Coconnas, absorbed in his game, did not notice them. "Do so, count, do so," said La Mole, "and though the way in which the change came about is odd, you will be well received among us."
Coconnas scratched his ear.
"If I were sure that your good luck came from that," he said, "I would; for I really do not stickle so overwhelmingly for the mass, and as the King does not think so much of it either"—
"Then it is such a beautiful religion," said La Mole; "so simple, so pure"—
"And, moreover, it is in fashion," said Coconnas; "and, moreover, it brings good luck at cards; for the devil take me if you do not hold all the aces, and yet I have watched you closely, and you play very fairly; you do not cheat; it must be the religion"—
"You owe me six crowns more," said La Mole, quietly.
"Ah, how you tempt me!" said Coconnas; "and if I am not satisfied with Monsieur de Guise to-night"—
"Well?"
"Well, to-morrow I will ask you to present me to the King of Navarre and, be assured, if once I become a Huguenot, I will out-Huguenot Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and all the reformers on earth!"
"Hush!" said La Mole, "you will get into a quarrel with our host."
Credit - Dumas, Alexander. Marguerite de Valois. Fred DeFau and Company Publishers, 1901.
The Oath of Supremacy was part of the Act of Supremacy revived by Queen Elizabeth in 1559 to proclaim the monarch the only head of the Church of England. All English clergy were required to take the oath declaring Elizabeth to be the supreme governor of the Church and failure to take the oath was treason.
I do utterly testify and declare in my conscience, That the Queen's Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm, and of all other her Highness Dominions and Countries, as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes, as Temporal; and that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate State or Potentate, hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction, Power, Superiority, Preeminence, or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within this Realm; and therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign Jurisdictions, Powers, Superiorities and Authorities, and do promote, that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true Allegiance to the Queen's Highness, her Heirs and lawful Successors, and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Preeminences, Privileges and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queen's Highness, her Heirs and Successors, or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm. So help me God, and by the Contents of this Book.
Credit - “Elizabeth's Supremacy Act, Restoring Ancient Jurisdiction (1559).” Edited by Henry Gee and William John Hardy, Hanover Historical Texts Project, Macmillan, 1896.
The Golden Speech was given by Elizabeth to 141 members of the House of Commons in what would prove to be her last speech before Parliament. In it she voiced her love of her people and her reflections on her role and responsibility as their monarch.
The zeal of which affection tending to ease my People, and knit their hearts unto Us, I embrace with a Princely care farre above all earthly Treasures. I esteem my peoples love, more than which I desire not to merit; And God that gave me here to sit, and placed me over you, knows that I never respected my self, but as your good was concerned in Me: yet what dangers, what practices, and what perils I have passed, some, if not all of you know, but none of these things do move Me, or ever made me fear, but it is God that hath delivered Me. And in my governing this Land, I have ever set the last Judgement day before mine eyes, and so to rule, as I shall be Judged and answer before a higher Judge, to whose Judgement-Seat I do appeal in that, never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my peoples good. And if my princely bounty have been abused, and my Grants turned to the hurt of my people contrary to my will and meaning, or if any in Authority under Me have neglected, or converted what I have committed unto them, I hope God will not lay their culps to my charge. To be a King, and were a Crown, is a thing more glorious to them that see it, than it is pleasant to them that bear it: for my selfe, I never was so much inticed with the glorious name of a King, or the royal authority of a Queen, as delighted that God hath made Me his Instrument to maintain his Truth and Glory, and to defend this Kingdom from dishonor, damage, tyranny, and oppression. But should I ascribe any of these things unto my self, or my sexly weaknesse, I were not worthy to live, and of all most unworthy of the mercies I have received at Gods hands: but to God only and and wholly all is given and ascribed. The cares and trouble of a Crown I cannot more fitly resemble, than to the Drugges of a learned Physitian, perfumed with some Aromatical savour, or to bitter Pils gilded over, by which they are made more acceptable or lesse offensive, which indeed are bitter and unpleasant to take; and for mine own part, were it not for conscience sake to discharge the duty that God hath laid upon Me, & to maintain his Glory, and keep you in Safety, in mine own disposition I should be willing to resigne the place I hold to any other, and glad to be freed of the Glory with the Labors: For it is not my desire to live or reign longer, than my life & reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and may have many mightier and wiser Princes sitting in this Seat, yet you never had, nor shall have any that will love you better.
Credit - The Golden Speech of Queen ELIZABETH TO HER LAST PARLIAMENT, 30 November, Anno Domini, 1601.
James, the son of Mary Stuart, was proclaimed King James VI of Scotland at the age of one year when Mary fled to England. Although Queen Elizabeth had her cousin Mary executed for treason, James was her only remaining heir and assumed the throne of England as James I in 1603. James argued that the monarch was the representative of God and in many ways above the laws.
The state of the monarchy is the supremest thing upon the earth. For kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. There be three principal similitudes that illustrates the state of the monarchy. . . In the Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to fathers of families, for a king is truly parens patriae, the politic father of the people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man.
Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth. For if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God has power to create, or destroy, make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be judged nor accountable to none; to raise low things, and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both soul and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects; they have the power of raising and casting down, of life and of death; judges over all their subjects, and in all cases, and yet accountable to none but God only. . . .
. . . Now a father may dispose of his inheritance to his children at his pleasure: yea, even disinherit the eldest upon just such occasions, and prefer the youngest according to his liking; make them beggars or rich at his pleasure; restrain, or banish out of his presence, as he finds them give cause of offence, or restore them in favour again with the penitent sinner. So may the king deal with his subjects.
And lastly, as for the head of the natural body, the head has the power of directing all the members of the body to that use which the judgement in the head thinks most convenient. . . .
. . . Therefore all kings that are not tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves within the limits of their laws; and they that persuade them the contrary are vipers and pests, both against them and the commonwealth. For it is a great difference between a king's government in a settled state and what kings in their original power might do. As for my part, I thank God I have ever given good proof that I never had intention to the contrary. And I am sure to go to my grave with that reputation and comfort, that never king was in all his time more careful to have his laws duly observed, and himself to govern thereafter, than I.
I conclude then this point touching the power of kings with this axiom of divinity . . . I will not be content that my power be disputed upon. But I shall ever be willing to make the reason appear of all my doings, and rule my actions according to my laws.
I do not find fault that you informed yourselves of the particular just grievances of the people, nay I must tell you ye can neither be just nor faithful to me or to your country if you do not do it. . . . But I would wish you to be careful to avoid three things in the matter of grievances. First that you do not meddle with the main points of Government; that is my craft; to meddle with that were to lesson me. I am now an old King . . . I must not be taught my office. Secondly I would not have you meddle with such ancient Rights of mine as I have received from my predecessors . . . for that would be to judge me unworthy of that which my predecessors had and left me. And lastly I pray you beware to exhibit for grievance anything that is established by a settled law . . . for it is an undutiful part in Subjects to press their King wherein they know beforehand he will refuse them . . .
Credit - Speeches of James I summarize his views on the divine right theory of kingship and were addressed to Parliament in 1609 and are noted in in James Harvey Robinson, Readings in European History, 2 vols (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1906), 2: 219-220.
James I was proud of his intellect and his education and wrote extensively throughout his reign. In 1598 when he was King of Scotland, but not yet King of England, he wrote his thoughts on the nature of kingship in The True Lawe of Free Monarchies: or, the reciprock and mutuall dutie betwixt a free King, and his natural Subiectes which was later published in 1616.
I have at length proved, that the King is above the law, as both the author and giver of strength thereto; yet a good king will not only delight to rule his subjects by the law but even will conform himself in his own actions thereunto . . . but general laws, made publicly in Parliament, may upon known respects to the King by his authority be mitigated and suspended upon causes only known to him. ...A good king will frame all his actions to be according to the Law; yet he is not bound thereto but of his good will . . . Since I have so clearly proved then out of the fundamental laws and practices of this country what right and power a king hath over his land and subjects, it is easy to be understood what allegiance and obedience his lieges owe unto him . . . and if it be not lawful to any particular lords, tenants, or vassals, upon whatever pretext, to control and displace their Master and overlord how much less may the subjects and vassals of the great overlord the King control or displace him . . . The people may not upon any respects displace their magistrates . . . yea even the poor schoolmaster cannot be displaced by his scholars: if these (whereof some are interior, subaltern, and temporal magistrates and none of them equal in any sort to the dignity of a King) cannot be displaced for any occasion or pretext by them that are ruled by them, how much less is it lawful upon any pretext to control or displace the great School-master of the whole land.
Credit - James I, King of England, 1566-1625, and Charles Howard McIlwain. The Political Works of James I. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918.
Thomas Hobbes was a seventeenth-century English philosopher best known for his political text Leviathan, which proposed a social contract between the people and their ruler. Hobbes wrote the work during the English Civil War when he was living in Paris. During those years he was also the tutor of the young Prince Charles whose father was executed by Parliament. Leviathan therefore reflects Hobbes’s personal concerns about civil rebellion against the chosen ruler.
Chapter XIIINature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself . . . .
From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one an other . . . .
There Is Always War Of Every One Against Every One Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man . . . . . . . Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of War, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short . . . .
Chapter XVIIThe only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to confer all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or Assembly of men, to bear their Person; and every one to own, and acknowledge himself to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their Person, shall Act, or cause to be Acted, in those things which concern the Common Peace and Safety; and therein to submit their Wills, every one to his Will, and their Judgements, to his Judgment.
Credit - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters XIII and XVII (1651)
Norman Jones is Professor of History at Utah State University. He has written eleven books on early modern England and its cultural, religious, and political history. His most recent books have explored the cultural and administrative worlds of Elizabethan England.
In the 1970s, the political world of the Tudors was understood to be a very top-down place. Scholars of the mid-twentieth century were interested in the emerging nation state and sought signs of its development. They understood that institutional and organizational sophistication were necessary to the more modern forms of the state that emerged in the seventeenth century, so they sought signs of it in Tudor government. . . . These were men whose political understanding was forged in the 1930s and 40s and whose sense of government was that it ran naturally toward centralization and totalitarianism of one sort or another. . . .
In the 1990s, work on the state in early modern England emphasized the role played by semi-independent local authorities and local people who used the state as a tool to solve particular local issues. . . .
Contractual concepts of service created a “public sphere” of a particular sort for the Elizabethan magisterial classes. Given the necessity of negotiation between the monarch and the ruling classes, it was important to Elizabeth to influence the opinion of the public that mattered. Burghley understood this instinctively and from his first days in office was using polemics, sermons, tracts, proclamations, legislation, progresses, public punishments, and other tools to influence the general understanding of events and support for royal policies. . . .
Steve Hindle has argued forcefully that law was a lever in the hands of people who sought to use the Crown in their own interest, increasing the power of the state from the grass roots up . . . ”The early modern state did not,” he says, “become more active at the expense of society; rather, it did so as a consequence of social need.” . . .
This raises the question of what role the monarchy played in the nation . . . It is obvious that Elizabeth was a very powerful presence in her state. Yet her power had to be transmitted beyond her court through men like Burghley . . .
. . . If the Elizabethan state was less a state than a composite formation, how did it work? If you were Elizabeth, how did you manage this unwieldy system as a monarch endowed by God with authority over everyone, but with little bureaucracy and no army? . . .
This system of magisterial virtue . . . limited the possibilities of the monarch . . . These limitations meant that much of the change that slowly crept into the Elizabethan state was driven from below, by magistrates who wanted to use the royal power for their own benefit, rather than from above.
Credit - Norman Jones, Governing by Virtue: Lord Burghley and the Management of Elizabethan England (Oxford University Press, 2015) 1-9.
Michael Braddick is Professor of History at the University of Sheffield in England. He has written five books on state formation in early modern England, the English Revolution, and other topics concerning political engagement.
This book examines the development of the English state in the long seventeenth century . . . The emphasis of the analysis is on the impersonal forces which shape the uses of political power rather than the purposeful actions of individuals or groups. It is, in short, a study of state formation, rather than of state building . . .
. . . Looking at the whole range of institutions embodying political power, it is clear that no single will, or group interest, lay behind all the uses made of these offices. Different groups, responding to a variety of challenges and opportunities, sought to make use of the resources at their disposal. They attempted to redefine the scope of existing offices, or to invent new ones, and in doing so they appealed to legitimating ideas current in society at large. As a consequence, the uses of existing offices changed and it was the shortcomings of existing offices that called forth the creation of new ones. This process was undirected, there was no defined end in view and, in the absence of a single blue-print or design, the term ‘state-building’ seems inappropriate. Instead, the more neutral term ‘state formation’ is preferred. . . .
. . . The state consisted of a network of offices exercising political power coordinated under the Tudor and Stuart crown . . . . No single will or interest lay behind the use that was made of these offices. Instead, agency was given to the state by activists, both officeholders and those who could influence them. These people responded to the problems and opportunities that they perceived around them by designing and implementing political innovations. . . .
. . . Political actors, however, were also constrained by the need to legitimate their initiatives – to justify and explain them in terms of beliefs in society at large and the formal requirements of office. . . . The form and function of the state were shaped by the collective interests of those who could define political issues and administrative responses to them, therefore, but also by the political languages available to justify and lend credibility to their actions. . . .
. . . This book has been particularly concerned with a range of questions arising from the historiography of seventeenth-century England. One such question is the relationship between centre and locality and the effect of that relationship on the development of the state. Clearly . . . exercise of political power was not something done by the center to the locality.
Credit - Michael Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2000) 1–25 and 425–33.
David Dean is Professor of History at Carleton University and specializes in public history, particularly museum and performance history, and in the history of early modern England. He is currently writing a cultural history of Shakespeare’s England.
On 14 July 1568, William Gerrard and Thomas Offley wrote to Secretary William Cecil attempting to explain why English people were resisting the appeal of England’s first national lottery, held to finance the repair of the nation’s harbors and havens . . . This first attempt at a public lottery tells us much about the limited ability of early modern governments to implement innovative ways of raising revenue . . . This is especially significant in light of recent work on political culture and state formation in early modern England.
. . . In deepening and broadening our understanding of what we mean by "the political" and "the state," these studies have also introduced a new vocabulary, speaking of negotiation, persuasion, and participation more than coercion and enforcement. Moreover, they place as much emphasis on the daily work of constables, parish officials, and jurors as on that of privy councilors, focus their attention on the household and the vestry as much as on a session of parliament, and elucidate the ways in which individuals shaped their own experiences within structures of authority rather than simply explaining how monarchs and their ministers sought to impose policies.
. . . An analysis of the process whereby the government tried to raise revenue through a lottery demonstrates the tension between formal and informal networks of power and authority and supports the view that power was as much a social relationship as a political one. Tracing how the process developed, from the lottery's announcement by broadsheet and chart, through the plethora of official proclamations and private letters, to the creation of a new administrative structure, suggests that early modern state formation was hesitant, reactive, and somewhat haphazard. . . .
However successful lotteries had been on the continent, in England they failed to raise the needed funds, and lotteries never become part of the fiscal strategy of later Elizabethan and early Stuart governments. . . . Established networks of power and authority had failed to persuade purchasers and provide the necessary administrative support. . . .
. . . The lottery—and undoubtedly a myriad of other projects and policies—revealed that new strategies were needed in the endless negotiations that characterized early modern governance. . . . Besides supporting recent work that emphasizes that early modern state formation is best seen as a negotiation, the early Elizabethan lottery is a striking example of what Steve Hindle has called "the experimental nature of early modern governance.”
Credit - David Dean, “Elizabeth's Lottery: Political Culture and State Formation in Early Modern England,” Journal of British Studies, 50, no. 3 (July, 2011) 587–611.
Steven Hindle is W.M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at the Huntington Library. He has written or edited several books on early modern England with topics including the experience of authority, social change, and poor relief.
It has long been argued that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were characterized by a significant reshaping of the forms and processes of English government. Indeed, the location of the emergence of ‘modern’ political structures in the Tudor and Stuart period has an ancient historiographical pedigree, and the pages of the secondary literature are littered with hypotheses about ‘new monarchies,’ ‘revolutions in government,’ and ‘experiments in absolutism.’ . . . Most observers would characterize sixteenth- and seventeenth-century government as ‘bigger’ and ‘more active’ than its late medieval counterpart: Tudor and Stuart England has become ‘early modern’ England. . . .
. . . This book explores the ‘increase of governance’ in early modern England . . . first the ‘centralizing tendencies’ of the Tudor and Stuart regimes; second the quickening tempo of local administration, especially during the personal rule of Charles I; and third the growth of litigation . . . ‘Centralization,’ active magistracy, and increasing litigation, I want to suggest, were manifestations of the elaboration of the role of the early modern state.
Credit - Steve Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550–1640 (Palgrave, 2002) 1-15.
William Shakespeare is believed to have written The Tragedy of Macbeth in 1606 during the reign of James I. The story and its characters had been previously told as part of Scottish historian Hector Boece’s History of the Scottish People in the early 1500s. Boece’s original telling may have been intended to strengthen the claim of the House of Stuart to the Scottish throne by suggesting the Stuarts were descendants of Banquo whose descendants are prophesied in the story to be the rightful heirs to the throne. Shakespeare’s version of the tragedy seemed to tread a careful line by having the witches prophesy Banquo’s heirs as kings but also condemning Macbeth as a king who holds himself above the law. James I was the patron of Shakespeare’s theater whose actors were renamed the King’s Men so critique was risky and yet Shakespeare’s plays often challenged James’s views on kingship. James’ True Law of Free Monarchies claimed kings were above the law and rebellion unnatural while Shakespeare’s Macbeth clearly condemns a tyrant king and glorifies the overthrow of the power-driven Macbeth. In Act 1 below the witches prophesy Banquo’s heirs will be kings while in Act 5 the opponents of Macbeth discuss his tyranny and their right to overthrow such a king.
Act 1 Scene 3
First witch. Hail!
Second witch. Hail!
Third witch. Hail!
First witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Second witch. Not so happy, yet much happier.
Third witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
First witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
Macbeth. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish
Banquo. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
Macbeth. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
Banquo. Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?
Macbeth. Your children shall be kings.
Banquo. You shall be king.
Act 5 Scene 2
Menteith. What does the tyrant?
Caithness. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.
Angus. Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
Menteith. Who then shall blame
His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?
Caithness. Well, march we on,
To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
And with him pour we in our country's purge
Each drop of us.
Credit - Shakespeare, William. "Macbeth." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, created by Jeremy Hylton
Cardinal Armand Jean Plessis, Duke of Richelieu was a Catholic cardinal but also foreign secretary and later the chief minister of King Louis XIII. His efforts to strengthen and centralize the state under the monarchy included alliances against the Habsburg monarchs, restrictions on protestant (Huguenot) freedoms, and the suppression of rebellious nobility.
At the time when your Majesty resolved to admit me both to your council and to an important place in your confidence for the direction of your affairs, I may say that the Huguenots shared the state with you; that the nobles conducted themselves as if they were not your subjects, and the most powerful governors of the provinces as if they were sovereign in their offices. I may say that the bad example of all of these was so injurious to this realm that even the best regulated parlements [courts of justice] were affected by it, and endeavored, in certain cases, to diminish your royal authority as far as they were able in order to stretch their own powers beyond the limits of reason.
I may say that every one measured his own merit by his audacity; that in place of estimating the benefits which they received from your Majesty at their proper worth, all valued them only in so far as they satisfied the extravagant demands of their imagination; that the most arrogant were held to be the wisest, and found themselves the most prosperous . . . . Notwithstanding these difficulties which I represented to your Majesty, knowing how much kings may do when they make good use of their power, I ventured to promise you, with confidence, that you would soon get control of your state, and that in a short time your prudence, your courage, and the benediction of God would give a new aspect to the realm. I promised your Majesty to employ all my industry and all the authority which it should please you to give me to ruin the Huguenot party, to abase the pride of the nobles, to bring back all your subjects to their duty, and to elevate
Credit - J. H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History vol II (Boston: Ginn, 1905), pp. 268-270.
Louis de Rouveroy, duc de Saint-Simon was a French nobleman today best known for his vivid memoirs describing his life in the court of Louis XIV and Louis XV at Versailles. He was a high-ranking nobleman of a powerful family and engaged in court intrigue while in residence at Versailles hoping to see a council of nobility take more control of the government—a hope he was disappointed to see fail. The crown confiscated his memoirs upon his death but returned them to the family in the mid-1800s, when they were published them to great acclaim.
His vanity, which was perpetually nourished—for even preachers used to praise him to his face from the pulpit—was the cause of the aggrandizement of his Ministers. He imagined that they were great only through him, mere mouthpieces through which he expressed his will; consequently he made no objection when they gradually encroached on the privileges of the greatest noblemen. He felt that he could at any moment reduce them to their original obscurity; whereas, in the case of a nobleman, though he could make him feel the weight of his displeasure, he could not deprive him or his family of the advantages due to his birth. For this reason he made it a rule never to admit a seigneur to his Councils, to which the Duke de Beauvilliers was the only exception.... But for the fear of the devil, which, by God's grace, never forsook him even in his wildest excesses, he would have caused himself to be worshipped as a deity. He would not have lacked worshippers....
Credit - Queen Elizabeth I playing the lute. This work is out of copyright, with photographic rights held by the Bridgeman Art Library.
Very early in the reign of Louis XIV the Court was removed from Paris, never to return. . . .The Court was therefore removed to Versailles in 1682, not long before the Queen's death. The new building contained an infinite number of rooms for courtiers, and the King liked the grant of these rooms to be regarded as a coveted privilege. . . . He availed himself of the frequent festivities at Versailles, and his excursions to other places, as a means of making the courtiers assiduous in their attendance and anxious to please him; for he nominated beforehand those who were to take part in them, and could thus gratify some and inflict a snub on others. He was conscious that the substantial favours he had to bestow were not nearly sufficient to produce a continual effect; he had therefore to invent imaginary ones, and no one was so clever in devising petty distinctions and preferences which aroused jealousy and emulation. . . . It was another distinction to hold his candlestick at his coucher (bedtime); as soon as he had finished his prayers he used to name the courtier to whom it was to be handed, always choosing one of the highest rank among those present.... Not only did he expect all persons of distinction to be in continual attendance at Court, but he was quick to notice the absence of those of inferior degree; at his lever (awaking), his coucher, his meals, in the gardens of Versailles (the only place where the courtiers in general were allowed to follow him), he used to cast his eyes to right and left; nothing escaped him, he saw everybody. If any one habitually living at Court absented himself he insisted on knowing the reason; those who came there only for flying visits had also to give a satisfactory explanation; any one who seldom or never appeared there was certain to incur his displeasure. If asked to bestow a favour on such persons he would reply haughtily: "I do not know him"; of such as rarely presented themselves he would say, "He is a man I never see"; and from these judgements there was no appeal . . . .No one understood better than Louis XIV the art of enhancing the value of a favour by his manner of bestowing it; he knew how to make the most of a word, a smile, even of a glance. If he addressed any one, were it but to ask a trifling question or make some commonplace remark, all eyes were turned on the person so honored; it was a mark of favour which always gave rise to comment....He loved splendour, magnificence, and profusion in all things, and encouraged similar tastes in his Court; to spend money freely on equipages and buildings, on feasting and at cards, was a sure way to gain his favour, perhaps to obtain the honour of a word from him. Motives of policy had something to do with this; by making expensive habits the fashion, and, for people in a certain position, a necessity, he compelled his courtiers to live beyond their income, and gradually reduced them to depend on his bounty for the means of subsistence. This was a plague which, once introduced, became a scourge to the whole country, for it did not take long to spread to Paris, and thence to the armies and the provinces; so that a man of any position is now estimated entirely according to his expenditure on his table and other luxuries. This folly, sustained by pride and ostentation, has already produced widespread confusion; it threatens to end in nothing short of ruin and a general overthrow.
Credit - "Memoirs of Louis XIV., by The Duke of Saint-Simon." Produced by David Widger. Project Gutenberg, 2016.
The priest Jacques Bossuet was the court preacher under Louis XIV and tutor to his oldest son, the dauphin, from 1670 to 1681. It was during these years that he wrote his treatise on the divine right of kings and the necessity of absolute power.
Rulers then act as the ministers of God and as his lieutenants on earth. It is through them that God exercises his empire. . . . Consequently, as we have seen, the royal throne is not the throne of a man, but the throne of God himself . . . . It appears from all this that the person of the king is sacred, and that to attack him in any way is sacrilege. God has the kings anointed by his prophets with the holy unction in like manner as he has bishops and altars anointed. But even without the external application in thus being anointed, they are by their very office the representatives of the divine majesty deputed by Providence for the execution of his purposes . . . The royal power is absolute. With the aim of making this truth hateful and insufferable, many writers have tried to confound absolute government with arbitrary government. But no two things could be more unlike, as we shall show when we come to speak of justice. The prince need render account of his acts to no one.
Credit - James Harvey Robinson (ed.), Readings in European History, 2 vols. (Boston and New York: Ginn and Company, 1906), 2:273–277.
Jean Domat was a lawyer and crown prosecutor in Clermont under Louis XIV until he was provided with financial patronage from the king to focus on legal studies and writing. Although the goal of Domat’s work was to create a rational system of laws from the jumble of past traditions and legislation, he based his defense of these laws on scripture and religious teaching.
Since government is necessary for the public good, and God Himself has established it, it is consequently also necessary for those who are subject to government, to be submissive and obedient. For otherwise they would resist God Himself, and government, which should be the bond of peace and unity that brings about the public good, would become an occasion for divisions and disturbances that would cause its downfall.The first duty of obedience to government is the duty to obey those who hold the first place in it, monarchs or others who are the heads of the body that makes up society, and to obey them as the limbs of the human body obey the head to which they are united.This obedience to him who governs should be considered as obedience to the power of God Himself, Who has instituted [the prince] as His lieutenant .... According to these principles, which are the natural foundations of the authority of those who govern, their power must have two essential attributes: one, to make that justice rule from which their power is entirely derived, and the other, to be as absolute as the rule of that justice itself, which is to say, the rule of God Himself Who is justice and Who wishes to reign through [princes] as He wishes them to reign through Him. For this reason Scripture gives the name of gods to those to whom God has entrusted the right of judging, which is the first and most essential of all the functions of government.... He permits that the power He shares with sovereigns be proportionately enhanced by them in ways suitable for arousing respect in the people. This can only be done by the splendor that radiates from the magnificence of their palaces and the other visible signs of grandeur that surround them, and whose use He Himself has given to the princes who have ruled according to His spirit
Credit - Jean Domat: Le droit public, suite des lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel, vol. 3, Oeuvres completes, nouvelle edition revue corrigée, ed. Joseph Remy (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1829), pp. 1-2, 15-2 1, 26-27, 35, 39, 40, 44-45. Translated by Ruth Kleinman in Core Four Sourcebook. Paul Halsall, 1998.
Nicholas Henshall was head of the history department at Stockport Grammar School in England, instructor at the University of Manchester, and editor of the magazine History Today. He is credited with sparking a historiographical debate on the concept of absolutism in early modern Europe which he declared to be a misnomer and a myth.
Four themes seem to encapsulate ‘absolutism’ as normally used. First, ‘absolutism’ is intrinsically despotic. It encroaches on subjects’ rights and privileges and overrides bodies empowered to defend them. . . .
Second, ‘absolutism’ is autocratic. Consultation is shunned, dialogue discouraged, and decision-making centralized . . . Power is monopolized by the monarch….
Third, ‘absolutism’ is bureaucratic. . . . By employing agencies dependent solely on the Crown, whether bureaucrats or ‘new men’ independent of the nobility, absolute rulers decouple themselves from society and its ability to sabotage their commands.
Fourth, ‘absolutism’ is not English. . . .
. . . Recent scholarship has exposed all of these propositions as misleading descriptions of what early modern European monarchs actually did—or tried to do. The edifice of ‘absolutism’ is cracking and the old cliché is repeated without conviction. . . .
. . . Some will say this is a quibble about terminology; as long as historical phenomena are accurately described the labels we attach make little difference. Historical experience teaches us the contrary. Terminology has a power of its own . . . Marc Bloch once wrote about wrong labels which eventually deceive us about the contents. What’s in a name? Quite a lot if it distorts realities.
This book challenges two ancient stereotypes . . . .[England and France] have mistakenly subscribed to a contrast between French ‘absolute’ monarchs who monopolized power and English ‘limited’ monarchs who shared it. Most monarchs were both. They were absolute when they wielded their sweeping prerogatives and limited when they negotiated over their subjects’ rights. Consultation and consent were as prominent in ‘absolutist’ Europe as in freedom-loving England; . . .
. . . France arguably did not attempt to create a fiscal–military state by ‘absolutist’ methods. It tried to use the same methods as England—consent and cooperation . . . Mainly because it lacked a national representative body to bind the realm, it was simply less successful. . . .
The ideology of ‘absolutism’ is merely the ideology of monarchy which taught that for some purposes power was most effective if concentrated in one pair of hands . . . The absolute monarchies of the early modern period bore little resemblance to nineteenth-century autocracy: they were more consultative, more constitutional, and more patriarchal. With these insights historians of the last two decades have tried to qualify the original concept as the discoveries of research made the old model untenable. The result is a monumental historiographical muddle. . . . To retain the title of ‘absolutism’ while removing most of the content is a hopelessly confusing half-measure . . . With the loss of its autocrats and its bureaucrats, its theory and its practice, ‘absolutism’ should heed the old advice. Kindly leave the stage.
Credit - Nicholas Henshall, The Myth of Absolutism: Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy (Taylor & Francis 1992).
Jay Smith is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and the author or editor of four books on early modern France. His work, in this case on the formation of centralized state power, often explores the use of language and its meanings to better understand historical change.
Traditional historiography has explained the growth of the French monarchy in the early modern era as a story of conflict. On one side stood titled aristocrats, petty nobles, parlements and other corporate bodies . . . On the other side were the kings who fought long and hard to centralize authority and govern their domains more efficiently . . . The palace of Versailles became the symbol of royal victory, for there the triumphant Louis XIV distracted his captive nobility with frivolous spectacles and thus neutralized the greatest obstacle to absolutism. Recent studies have challenged this older narrative by describing the mechanisms of provincial politics, patronage systems, judicial business, and royal finance. . . .Their conclusions indicate, on the one hand, that the French monarchy neither sought nor achieved truly "absolute" power in the seventeenth century, and on the other hand, that the creation of a stable, more effective monarchy proved mutually beneficial to kings and traditional elites. . . . The premise of this article is that one can view state formation in a revealing light by analyzing the process through the language nobles and kings used to express their relationship with one another . . . Nobles who served the king served him personally, expecting in turn that the king would reward them with offices, honors, and distinctions. . . .Although it is certainly true that many nobles opposed the theory and practice of raison d'Etat in the age of Louis XIII, they did not instinctively resist the growth of royal authority . . . Their dissatisfaction arose less from the objectives than from the methods of those who worked to strengthen the monarchy. Nobles struggled to defend a cultural tradition of royal service threatened by meddlesome first ministers and ambitious venal bureaucrats. From the nobility's perspective the new tendency to undermine the personal relationship between the monarch and his servants actually harmed the king's interests. . . . Louis XIV's court represented more than a haven of leisure and folly, where nobles could be distracted from the realities of power. The splendid entertainments offered the nobility did provide the king occasions to keep close watch over the great nobles who had once caused trouble. But court society did much more. It built on one of the nobility's central assumptions about royal service: that the king should evaluate and reward his servants personally and with care . . . Louis XIV did indeed work to gather power in his own hands, and he thus helped build the modern centralized state. But in reaffirming the idea that monarchy stood for personalized government, he proceeded on the basis of a cultural assumption important to his nobility. . . . Louis XIV found his nobles more acquiescent because he spoke to some of their key expectations.
Credit - Jay M. Smith, “ ‘Our Sovereign's Gaze’: Kings, Nobles, and State Formation in Seventeenth-Century France” French Historical Studies 18, no. 2 (Autumn 1993) 396–415.
Stephen Miller is Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Miller is a historian of old regime and revolutionary France whose interest in the history of the middle class and capitalism also influences his work.
This article is about nobles' opposition to royal absolutism at the end of the Old Regime. Discussion of this issue dates back to the late 1930s, when Georges Lefebvre . . . argued that conflict between the king and nobility was as old as the monarchy. Louis XIV compelled nobles to submit to his authority, but his successors allowed them to regroup and stage a political comeback during the eighteenth century . . . A host of historians have disputed Lefebvre's thesis. . . . While this literature has advanced our knowledge of the political culture of the eighteenth century, it has not provided much research about the upper classes' relationship to the absolutist state. Tocqueville . . . argued that nobles and bourgeois interacted on an equal footing in a social space independent of the crown . . . we are left with the idea that the king was a power unto himself. This conception of the monarchy is also implicit in Lefebvre's thesis that the king and nobility fought one another. . . . Our analysis shows that the monarchy did not centralize authority to the extent Tocqueville supposed. Financial practices were anything but modern and bureaucratic . . . Moreover, our evidence shows that administrative centralization had a long way to go before it would come to the end of venal judges' authority and remove lords from village affairs . . . Even the crown's efforts to strip the Parlement of its . . . jurisdiction over tax assessments, were inconclusive. These courts held fast to their jurisdictions down to the end of the 1780s . . . The absolutist state generally protected property, which included nobles' right to independent authority, both as lords and office holders. The monarchy still upheld laws guaranteeing an unequal distribution of taxes despite policies intended to make elites shoulder more of the burden. Nobles were the primary beneficiaries of these old regime customs and could defend them by virtue of the sovereign courts... It appears that these legally binding forms of inequality ultimately caused bourgeois to turn against nobles and absolutism in 1789. . . . Tocqueville argued that the central government, working through the intendants, had extended its tentacles so thoroughly over the countryside that nobles and well-to-do commoners no longer played a role in the administration of communities . . . Privileges were all that remained to nobles of their former status as feudal lords. Tocqueville maintained that the rural population became resentful of privileges when it saw no authority sustaining and justifying their existence. Our research reveals more social intercourse between villagers and the upper classes than Tocqueville believed.
Credit - Stephen Miller, “Absolutism and Class at the End of the Old Regime: The Case of Languedoc” Journal of Social History 36, no. 4 (Summer 2003) 871–98.
David Parker is Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds. His books include The Making of French Absolutism and State and Class in Ancien Regime France: The Road to Modernity?
Nineteenth-century historians largely thought that France’s absolute monarchy was a good thing, associating it with the advent of 'liberty, civic equality and national unity' as the great feudal nobility were gradually being brought to heel. This notion passed with some qualifications into general historical discourse. Until the 1970s the idea that Louis XIV's regime depended on the support of the middle classes or at least on new men was an unchallenged commonplace of textbooks. . . .
Part of the responsibility for this remarkably enduring myth lies, as John Salmon has recently indicated in a thought-provoking article, with those French jurists, writing in the last decades of the ancien regime, who had already associated the progress of individual liberty with royal absolutism and even with an emergent bourgeoisie. . . . Over the last two decades the concept of absolutism been subject to a sustained revisionist critique. Some historians now feel that the limitations on the exercise of royal authority were so great that they have ceased to use the term at all. Many of those, including myself, who continue to find it useful, fully acknowledge that the power of the monarch depended on the government's ability to manipulate an array of vested interests rather than its capacity to override them. If the independent military power of the old grandees was finished, the monarchy was now constrained by a system of administration dominated by the noblesse de robe who, through the purchase of office literally bought a share of royal power. It is highly arguable that absolute power really rested on a compromise with the families and groups who controlled the key institutions of central and provincial France. In return for the latter’s political conformity, the monarchy sustained their material interests through a system of patronage from which both parties benefited. . . . It is however impossible to describe these ennobled office-holding and land-holding elites of France in the seventeenth century as either middle class in the loose sense of the term or as a capitalist bourgeoisie in the Marxist sense. Few would now maintain that the absolute state depended to any significant degree on an emergent bourgeoisie . . . Merchants who wished to acquire social status, political influence or simply consolidate their assets invested in office and land. Nobody believes that in doing so they effected a transformation of agrarian social relationships or of French agricultural practice. On the contrary, the endurance of the seigneury as the basic framework of rural social relationships has been reflected in numerous excellent studies.
Credit - David Parker, “Absolutism, Feudalism and Property Rights in the France of Louis XIV,” Past & Present, no. 179 (May 2003) 60–96
Fénelon was a priest appointed by Louis XIV as tutor to his grandson between 1689 and 1697. In this role of tutor, Fenelon wrote The Adventures of Telemachus for the young prince, as a guide in virtuous living and just rule of a kingdom. Despite living at Versailles in the employment of the king, Fénelon did not mute his disdain for some aspects of Louis XIV’s reign. The story condemns quite clearly those rulers who indulge in luxurious living, excessive and irrational recourse to war, and mercantilist trade policies favoring the accumulation of excessive wealth. Unsurprisingly the king was not amused and Fénelon was relieved of his teaching position and was no longer welcomed at court after the book was published. The story uses characters from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey including Odysseus’ son Telemachus, who is traveling back home to Ithaca and learning of the various lands along his route. In the passage below, his mentor describes Crete as a utopia where luxury is unknown. Here, as in other passages, Fénelon condemns luxury and splendor in favor of labor and virtue in a clear rebuke to the court life and luxurious surroundings of Versailles.
They have no need of Laws to suppress Luxury and dissolution of Manners; for such Things are unknown in Crete. Every Man Works; yet no Man desires to be rich. They think all their Labour sufficiently recompenced with an easy and regular Life, in which they enjoy plentifully and quietly all that is truly necessary to Men. Costly Furniture, rich Apparel, delicious Feasts and guilded Palaces, are not permitted in this Country. Their Cloths are of fine Wool, wrought with Art, and beautiful in Colour, but without Embroidery or any other Ornament. Their Tables are sober; They drink little Wine; good Bread, with excellent Fruits, and the Milk of the Cattle, make the principal part of their Meals. At the most, their Meat is plain dress'd, without Sauce . . . Their Houses are neat, commodious, pleasant; but without Ornaments. They are not ignorant of the most magnificent Architecture; but that's reserv'd for the Temples of the Gods: They dare not live in Houses like those of the immortal Beings. . .
I ask'd him in what the Authority of the King consisted? And he answer'd thus. The King is above all the People; but the Laws are above the King. He has an absolute Power to do Good; but his Hands are tied, so soon as he attempts to do Ill. The Laws entrust him with the care of the People, as the most valuable of all Trusts, on condition to be the Father of his Subjects. They intend, that one Man shall serve by his Wisdom and Moderation to make whole Nations happy; and not that so many Men shall by their Misery and abject Slavery, serve to flatter the Pride and Luxury of one Man. The King ought to have nothing more than other Men, except such assistance as is necessary either to the discharge of his painful Functions, or to imprint on the Minds of the People that Respect which is due to the Person who is to maintain the vigour of the Laws. On the other Hand, the King ought to be more sober, more immune to Luxury, more free from Vanity, Haughtiness and Ostentation, than any other Man. He is not to have more Riches and Pleasures, but more Wisdom, Virtue and Glory than the rest of Men. Abroad, he is to be the Defender of his Country, at the Head of their Armies; at Home he is to distribute Justice to the People; to make them good, wise and happy! 'Tis not for his own sake that the Gods have made him King, but only that he may be the Man of his People.
Credit - The adventures of Telemachus, the son of Ulysses translated from the French. Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715., Littlebury, Isaac., Boyer, Abel, 1667-1729. London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchil ..., 1699-1700. Text Creation Partnership
Jean Rousset de Missy was a French protestant jurist, journalist, and writer who lived and worked in the Netherlands. De Missy wrote histories of both Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.
The tsar labored at the reform of fashions, or, more properly speaking, of dress. Until that time the Russians had always worn long beards, which they cherished and preserved with much care, allowing them to hang down on their bosoms, without even cutting the moustache. With these long beards they wore the hair very short, except the ecclesiastics, who, to distinguish themselves, wore it very long. The tsar, in order to reform that custom, ordered that gentlemen, merchants, and other subjects, except priests and peasants, should each pay a tax of one hundred rubles a year if they wished to keep their beards; the commoners had to pay one kopek each. Officials were stationed at the gates of the towns to collect that tax, which the Russians regarded as an enormous sin on the part of the tsar and as a thing which tended to the abolition of their religion.
These insinuations, which came from the priests, occasioned the publication of many pamphlets in Moscow, where for that reason alone the tsar was regarded as a tyrant and a pagan; and there were many old Russians who, after having their beards shaved off, saved them preciously, in order to have them placed in their coffins, fearing that they would not be allowed to enter heaven without their beards. As for the young men, they followed the new custom with the more readiness as it made them appear more agreeable to the fair sex.
From the reform in beards we may pass to that of clothes. Their garments, like those of the Orientals, were very long, reaching to the heel. The tsar issued an ordinance abolishing that costume, commanding all the boyars and all those who had positions at court to dress after the French fashion, and likewise to adorn their clothes with gold or silver according to their means.
As for the rest of the people, the following method was employed. A suit of clothes cut according to the new fashion was hung at the gate of the city, with a decree enjoining upon all except peasants to have their clothes made on this model, upon penalty of being forced to kneel and have all that part of their garments which fell below the knee cut off, or pay two grives every time they entered the town with clothes in the old style. Since the guards at the gates executed their duty in curtailing the garments in a sportive spirit, the people were amused and readily abandoned their old dress, especially in Moscow and its environs, and in the towns which the tsar often visited.
Credit - Jean Rousset de Missy, Life of Peter the Great (c. 1730)
John Perry was a lieutenant in the British navy and a military and civil engineer who was introduced to Peter the Great in 1698 when Peter was visiting England. Peter was impressed by his engineering skills and invited him to Russia where Perry lived and designed canals and docks for fourteen years. However Peter failed to pay him a salary, leading Perry to quarrel with the czar and return to England where he wrote very unfavorable descriptions of Russian life under Peter’s reign.
Among some other causes, one of the chief which makes the generality of the nobility at present uneasy, is, that the Czar obliges them against their will, to come and live at Petersburgh, with their wives and their families, where they are oblig'd to build new houses for themselves, and where all manner of provisions are usually three or four times as dear, and forage for their horses, etc. at least six or eight times as dear as it is at Mosco; which happens from the small quantity which the countrey thereabouts produces, being more than two thirds woods and bogs; and not only the nobility, but merchants and tradesmen of all sorts, are oblig'd to go and live there.
Credit - Perry, John, 1670-1732. The State of Russia, Under the Present Czar: In Relation to the Several Great And Remarkable Things He Has Done, As to His Naval Preparations, the Regulating His Army, the Reforming His People, And Improvement of His Countrey. Particularly Those Works On Which the Author Was Employ'd ... Also an Account of Those Tartars, And Other People Who Border On the Eastern And Extreme Northern Parts of the Czar's Dominions ... To Which Is Annex'd, a More Accurate Map of the Czar's Dominions, Than Has Hitherto Been Extant. London: B. Tooke, 1716.
Gilbert Burnet was Bishop of Salisbury and a confidant of King William III of England when Peter the Great came to England in 1698. He undertook the task of explaining the English protestant faith and constitutional monarchy to Peter but, as he explains, Peter was not particularly interested in implementing those ideas back in Russia.
I mentioned in the relation of the former year [1698] the Tsar's coming out of his own country; on which I will now enlarge. He came this winter over to England and stayed some months among us. I waited often on him, and was ordered by both the king and the archbishops and bishops to attend upon him and to offer him such information of our religion and constitution as he was willing to receive. I had good interpreters, so I had much free discourse with him. He is a man of very hot temper, soon inflamed and very brutal in his passion. He raises his natural heat by drinking much brandy . . .
He was desirous to understand our doctrine, but he did not seem disposed to mend matters in Muscovy. He was, indeed, resolved to encourage learning and to polish his people by sending some of them to travel in other countries and to draw strangers to come and live among them. He seemed apprehensive still of his sister's intrigues. There was a mixture both of passion and severity in his temper. He is resolute, but understands little of war, and seemed not at all inquisitive that way.
After I had seen him often, and had conversed much with him, I could not but adore the depth of the providence of God that had raised up such a furious man to so absolute an authority over so great a part of the world. David, considering the great things God had made for the use of man, broke out into the meditation, "What is man, that you are so mindful of him?" But here there is an occasion for reversing these words, since man seems a very contemptible thing in the sight of God, while such a person as the tsar has such multitudes put, as it were, under his feet, exposed to his restless jealousy and savage temper.
He went from hence to the court of Vienna, where he purposed to have stayed some time, but he was called home sooner than he had intended upon a discovery, or a suspicion, of intrigues managed by his sister. The strangers, to whom he trusted most, were so true to him that those designs were crushed before he came back. But on this occasion he let loose his fury on all whom he suspected. Some hundreds of them were hanged all around Moscow, and it was said that he cut off many heads with his own hand; and so far was he from relenting or showing any sort of tenderness that he seemed delighted with it. How long he is to be the scourge of that nation God only knows.
Credit - Bishop Gilbert Burnet, Peter the Great (1698)
Johann Georg von Korb was the secretary to the Austrian ambassador to Russia in 1699 and recorded his observations of Russian life and political events while he was there. He records here the return of Peter the Great from his Western European travels after hearing of a rebellion by the streltsy, Russian infantry troops, against Peter in favor of his sister Sophia. The streltsy were tortured for confessions and hanged by the hundreds for their treason.
How sharp was the pain, how great the indignation, to which the tsar's Majesty was mightily moved, when he knew of the rebellion of the Streltsi [i.e., the Muscovite Guard], betraying openly a mind panting for vengeance! He was still tarrying at Vienna, quite full of the desire of setting out for Italy; but, fervid as was his curiosity of rambling abroad, it was, nevertheless, speedily extinguished on the announcement of the troubles that had broken out in the bowels of his realm. Going immediately to Lefort (almost the only person that he condescended to treat with intimate familiarity), he thus indignantly broken out: “Tell me, Francis, son of James, how I can reach Moscow by the shortest way, in a brief space, so that I may wreak vengeance on this great perfidy of my people, with punishments worthy of their abominable crime. Not one of them shall escape with impunity. Around my royal city, which, with their impious efforts, they planned to destroy, I will have gibbets and gallows set upon the walls and ramparts, and each and every one of them will I put to a direful death." Nor did he long delay the plan for his justly excited wrath; he took the quick post, as his ambassador suggested, and in four week's time he had got over about three hundred miles without accident, and arrived the 4th of September, 1698—a monarch for the well disposed, but an avenger for the wicked.
His first anxiety after his arrival was about the rebellion—in what it consisted, what the insurgents meant, who dared to instigate such a crime. And as nobody could answer accurately upon all points, and some pleaded their own ignorance, others the obstinacy of the Streltsi, he began to have suspicions of everybody's loyalty . . . No day, holy or profane, were the inquisitors idle; every day was deemed fit and lawful for torturing. There were as many scourges as there were accused, and every inquisitor was a butcher. . . . The whole month of October was spent in lacerating the backs of culprits with the knout and with flames; no day were those that were left alive exempt from scourging or scorching; or else they were broken upon the wheel, or driven to the gibbet, or slain with the axe. . . .
To prove to all people how holy and inviolable are those walls of the city which the Streltsi rashly meditated scaling in a sudden assault, beams were run out from all the embrasures in the walls near the gates, in each of which two rebels were hanged. This day beheld about two hundred and fifty die that death. There are few cities fortified with as many palisades as Moscow has given gibbets to her guardian Streltsi. (In front of the nunnery where Sophia was confined) there were thirty gibbets erected in a quadrangle shape, from which there hung two hundred and thirty Streltsi; the three principal ringleaders, who tendered a petition to Sophia touching the administration of the realm, were hanged close to the windows of that princess, presenting, as it were, the petitions that were placed in their hands, so near that Sophia might with ease touch them.
Credit - Johann Georg von Korb, 1720, and Charles MacDonnell. Diary of an Austrian Secretary of Legation At the Court of Czar Peter the Great. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1863.
Donald Ostrowski is research advisor in the social sciences and lecturer at the Harvard Extension School. He also chairs the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies' Early Slavists Seminars at Harvard University.
From the middle of the nineteenth century until recently, the only acceptable way to discuss political developments in early modern Europe was in terms of the rise of absolutism. "Absolute monarchy" was the political theory of early modern states formulated by ideologues of their respective regimes. Later historians accepted this ideology as the way these monarchies operated and formulated a model called "absolutism," which posits a monarch who accrues power at the expense of the nobility. During the last three decades, however, a number of historians, whose studies focus on elite politics, have undermined this historiographical model. Through their archival research on the operation of regimes in early modern Europe, these historians have instead described an interlocking relationship between ruler and nobility in which the ruler acted as legitimizer of the nobility and adjudicator of differences among its members. . . .
Meanwhile, non-specialists still hold, write, and teach the construct as it was developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Textbooks still espouse "absolutism" as part and parcel of the centralization and nationalization of the state . . . the textbook continues to present the absolutism construct as the preferable way for describing early modern monarchies. In this construct, the government of France is considered the exemplar of absolutism while the government of Russia is an extreme variant, which historians often call "autocracy.”
No doubt, the transition from specialists' research to textbook surveys and popular accounts takes time, but there may be another reason for the prevailing dichotomy: the absence of a new model to replace the old one. A monarch in opposition to his or her own nobility is an easy construct to learn and remember . . . As a result, this old, unsatisfactory model continues to be espoused by teachers . . . In Russia, only those holding positions of power were part of the ruling order. No other group sought those positions, so there was no struggle between the "ins" and "outs." Thus, on one side was the ruling order, which was a relatively tightly bound group. On the other was everyone else, the ruled, who were distinguished only by not being part of the ruling order and who did not identify with others of their type in any significant way. This is an important distinction for I will argue that, while the dominant mode of behavior among members within the ruling order was cooperation and consultation, the dominant mode of behavior of the ruling order toward the ruled was one of absolute sovereignty backed by claims of divine origins of the ruler's authority.
Credit - Donald Ostrowski, "The Façade of Legitimacy: Exchange of Power and Authority in Early Modern Russia,”Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44, no. 3 (July 2002) 534–63.
Cynthia Hyla Whittaker is Professor of History at Baruch college where she works in the fields of Russian and Soviet history. Her recent books have focused on Russian political culture, intellectual life and education in eighteenth century Russia.
The idea of autocracy changed profoundly in eighteenth-century Russia. . . The official documents, political treatises, histories and various literary genres in which this discourse unfolded reveal attitudes that run contrary to current assumptions, since historians over the past century focused either on oppositional individuals and groups or on the alienation of society from government. A fresh reading of the materials indicates widespread support for autocracy and demonstrates its function as a source of integration and cohesion among the educated elite. These Russians discussed autocracy's legitimacy, debated its feasibility, and elaborated sophisticated arguments, drawn from the Enlightenment arsenal of ideas, to arrive at a critical and rational endorsement. . . . Eighteenth-century thinkers were not interested in stabilizing society but in improving it, and the lynchpin in these plans for making progress toward secular salvation was the enlightened ruler . . . . For eighteenth-century Russian historians, the most vivid example of the necessary connection between progress and the royal person was close at hand. The fullscale reform program of Peter the Great made him the prototype of enlightened monarchs in Europe and prompted Russian historians to advance a dynamic interpretation of autocracy that became a hallmark of the century. After Peter, rulers were expected to justify their enormous power by being "reforming tsars," activist agents of change and improvement . . . . The activity expected of a dynamic tsar went far beyond the centuries-old functions of warrior and judge and superseded the old primary role of defender of Orthodoxy . . . The new duties included: increasing the population, eradicating idleness, fostering prosperity, raising the cultural level, battling superstition, encouraging geographical exploration, and, more traditionally, expanding borders. Autocrats were to provide moral, if not necessarily spiritual, leadership . . . Mankiev lauded autocrats who tried to eliminate drunkenness; Mal'gin looked to them to banish anti-Semitism from the realm . . . As the century wore on, not only the traditional image of Orthodox Tsar but even that of Warrior-King receded in the wake of the perceived need for reform. . . . The historians also subscribed to the widely held opinion of the time that there existed three equally valid forms of government, each with its own corrupt form: monarchy (autocracy)/despotism; aristocracy/oligarchy; and democracy/anarchy. Their discussions therefore centered on whether autocracy, despite the risk of despotism, might still be preferable in Russia to aristocracy or democracy, with their threat of becoming oligarchic or anarchic.
Credit - Cynthia Hyla Whittaker, "The Idea of Autocracy among Eighteenth-Century Russian Historians,” The Russian Review 55, no. 2 (April 1996) 149-71
Lee Farrow is Professor of History at Auburn University Montgomery. Farrow’s work in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Russian history has been diverse, covering the relationship between nobility and the czars as well as topics like Seward’s Folly and other Russo-American interactions.
On 23 March 1714, Peter the Great published the Law of Single Inheritance, establishing new rules for the transmission of family lands and property. In doing so, he sought to ensure the conservation of noble estates and the protection of the peasantry's taxpaying ability. Peter argued that his goals provided for the long-term benefit of the Russian state and the Russian nobility alike. The nobility, as we shall see, did not share his view that the law would benefit them. Instead, they viewed the law as a threat to their vital interests, and by opposing it in various ways they demonstrated a considerable capacity to disobey the monarch and the law . . . It is worth asking why this particular law should have elicited such a negative response. The Law of Single Inheritance would seem to fit easily enough into Peter's general pattern of legislation. It was, in fact, just one of many laws designed to bring about Peter's dream of a rational and productive society. Despite some recalcitrance, the nobility had generally supported most of Peter's reforms, so their opposition to his inheritance law was all the more startling. What distinguished the Law of Single Inheritance from most of Peter's other legislation, however, was the scope of its attack on noble family interests. With this law, Peter went into the nobleman's home and dictated to him how he was to provide for his family and bequeath his ancestral lands. Many nobles considered this an infringement on their ability to provide for family members and protect their families' political and social interests, and thus saw Peter's new law as unjust and immoral. Family preservation was critical to eighteenth-century Russian nobles, who still relied heavily on clan and family connections to establish and maintain political and social status…. The Law of Single Inheritance has yet to receive the detailed historical analysis it deserves . . . For these reasons, a broader examination of the law is needed . . . Such an examination serves to clarify both the goals that Peter had for the nobility and the sources and capacity of noble opposition to his policies . . . From the moment it was enacted the nobility despised it and tried by various means to avoid complying with its letter and intent. . . . The nobility's opposition eventually produced results . . . In March 1731, Anna repealed Peter's law, calling it "contrary to God's justice" to deprive some children of their inheritance
Credit - Lee A. Farrow, "Peter the Great's Law of Single Inheritance: State Imperatives and Noble Resistance,” The Russian Review, 55 no. 3 (July 1996) 430–47
Nancy Shields Kollmann is Professor of History at Stanford University where she specializes in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian history. Her work focuses on the politics of autocracy and particularly how these early modern Eastern states tried to create governmental stability through ritual, ideology and violence.
The seventeenth century started a fundamental transformation in thinking about the ruler, the state, and society. . . . The crucial step had been made of enunciating a more secular vision of society and the state, whose worldly needs required the attention of the ruler and which existed separate from the religious life. . . .
. . . Petrine theory brought the concept of autocracy much closer to a claim of total authority than it had been in Muscovy. Peter declared often and unequivocally that "the prince's will is law, " acting on the claim in his unilateral assumption of the titles of " Emperor" and "Father of the Fatherland" in 1721 and his similarly unprecedented declaration in 1722 of the ruler's right to name his successor. His military and naval law codes made this vision of absolute power explicit . . . “For his Majesty is an autocratic monarch who is not obliged to answer for his acts to anyone in the world; but he possesses the force and the authority to rule his states and lands as a Christian sovereign, according to his will and best judgment.” Peter justified his claim to absolute authority by equating his self-interest with that of the state. . . . Peter believed that a ruler's duty was to enhance his state's worldly stature and prosperity by developing its resources, human and natural. . . .
Peter's goal was to cultivate social forces to contribute with him in the building of a stronger, more powerful state. . . .To cultivate a new elite, to change people's thinking and social interactions, Peter followed in his stepsister's footsteps by manipulating the symbolism of political life. He did this . . . with dress and demeanor. Peter urged German, French, and Hungarian garb on his elite and decreed that members of the upper ranks should shave their beards. He mandated that they entertain themselves, with their wives and daughters, at European-style soirees; he founded a new capital city, modeled on Amsterdam and situated far from Muscovy's traditional heartland; . . . with court ceremony based on the European model. He bestowed European titles of nobility, such as "Maltese cavalier" and "count." All these endeavors had the goal of shaping a vision of the state as an abstract entity embodying the will of educated society, whose representatives in turn regarded themselves as the state's worthy servants. . . . Peter's endeavors to create a new elite and inculcate a new attitude toward the state . . . bore fruit throughout the eighteenth century.
Credit - Nancy Shields Kollmann, By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia (Cornell University Press, 1999) 202–32.
Michael Lomonosov was a scientist and a poet whose contributions to both fields are extraordinary. Born into a wealthy but non-noble family, Lomonosov’s passion for learning led him to leave his village, on foot, to travel to Moscow for a higher education. He soon enrolled in the St. Petersburg Academy after which he traveled to Germany to complete his scientific studies. Here he also developed a passion for German literature and became a recognized poet as well as a noted physicist, astronomer, chemist and geologist. Below is an extract from Lomonosov’s unfinished epic poem Peter the Great.
I ask you, my Listeners, out of your knowledge to consider how much assiduous effort was required for the foundation and establishment of a judiciary, and for the institution of the Governing Senate, the Most Holy Synod, the state colleges, the chancelleries, and the other governmental offices with their laws, regulations, and statutes . . . and finally for foreign policy, missions, and alliances with foreign powers. You may contemplate all these things yourselves with minds enlightened by Peter. . . . Let us suppose that before the beginning of Peter's enterprises someone had happened to leave his native Russia for distant lands where His name had not thundered forth—if such a land there be on this earth. Returning later to Russia, he would see new knowledge and arts among the people, new dress and customs, new architecture and household furnishings, newly built fortresses, a new fleet, and a new army; he would see not only the different aspects of all these things but also a change in the courses of rivers and in the boundaries of the seas. What would he then think? He could come to no other conclusion than that he had been on his travels for many centuries, or that all this had been achieved in so short a time by the common efforts of the whole human race or by the creative hand of the Almighty, or, finally, that it was all a vision seen in a dream. From these words of mine, which reveal scarcely more than the mere shadow of Peter's glorious deeds, it may be seen how great they are!
Credit – From: M. V. Lomonosov, “Panegyric to the Sovereign Emperor, Peter the Great.” Trans. Ronald Hingley, in Marc Raeff, ed. Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966. Reprinted courtesy of Marc Raeff.
Aleksandr Sumarokov was a Russian poet and playwright born to a family of Russian gentry during the reign of Peter the Great. Sumarokov benefited from Peter the Great’s educational reforms by learning an appreciation for French literature and learning at his school in St. Petersburg. His admiration for Peter the Great is evident in his work.
The founder of our well-being, father of the fatherland, the honor of his people, a terror to his enemies, and an adornment of humankind . . . .
Russian Bethlehem: the Kolomenskoe village,
Which brought Peter into the world!
You are the source and the beginning of our happiness
In you Russian glory began to shine
The infant, whom you saw swaddled
Europe saw on city walls
And Oceanus surrendered to him his waters
Peoples of the entire Earth trembled in front of him
Credit – Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky. The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought, p28
Peter the Great decreed the creation of the first Russian book of manners and etiquette be published in 1717. He himself was considered to have atrocious manners when he went to the courts of Western Europe and reportedly shocked the courtiers at Versailles with his behaviors so much of what he had included here may be an attempt to bring Russian manners into line with those of the European courts he visited.
It is inappropriate to be at a wedding in boots and spurs and to dance that way because you could dirty the woman’s clothing that way and spurs make a great noise . . .
No honorably brought up young man should pick the nose as if you were winding a clock . . .
It is not a small abomination when one belches as if trumpeting into a trumpet. Doing this in the company of other people or in the church scares and frightens small children.
First, clip your nails. Wash your hands and sit down in a refined manner, sit upright and do not be the first to grab the dish. Do not eat like pigs and do not blow into the bowl so that it splashes everywhere. . . . When you drink, do not wipe your lips with your hand but use a napkin, and do not drink until you have swallowed your food. Do not lick your fingers, and do not gnaw at bones, but rather, take the meat off with a knife . . . don’t make a pile of bones and crusts of bread near your plate.
Credit – ETIQUETTE FOR PETER'S TIME: "THE HONORABLE MIRROR FOR YOUTH" NANCY S. KOLLMANN Russian History Vol. 35, No. 1/2, "Festschrift" for RICHARD HELLIE: Part 2 (Spring-Summer 2008 / Printemps-Été 2008), pp. 63-83.
Ptolemy was a Greek mathematician and astronomer who lived in Alexandria, Egypt as a Roman citizen. His treatise on astronomy called Almagest and a second text called Planetary Hypotheses created a geocentric model of the universe in which the cosmos was imagined as a set of nested spheres. This understanding of the universe and the placement of the earth would dominate knowledge of the cosmos until the sixteenth century.
In the same way it will be proved by what precedes that the earth cannot make a contrary motion to the aforementioned lateral sides, or ever be displaced at all from its position in the center [of the universe]. . . The earth occupies the central position in the cosmos, and all heavy objects move toward it. . . . If it had any one movement in common with the other heavy bodies, it would outstrip them all in its descent because its size is so much bigger. It would leave living creatures behind, and partly dense bodies floating on the air. For its part, it would swiftly drop out of the heavens, altogether.
Credit - Edward Rosen, ed., Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution (Malabar, Florida: Krieger, 1984), 139-140.
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish mathematician and astronomer who developed a heliocentric model of the universe in the early sixteenth century. He did not publish his findings until he was close to death since he knew it would challenge the traditional views of the Church and ancient philosophy. Below is his most famous work’s dedication to Pope Paul III.
I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected. For I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what others will think about them, and although I know that the meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgment of the laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in all things, so far as this is permitted by God to the human reason, I still believe that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy. Accordingly, when I considered in my own mind how absurd a performance it must seem to those who know that the judgment of many centuries has approved the view that the Earth remains fixed as center in the midst of the heavens, if I should, on the contrary, assert that the Earth moves; I was for a long time at a loss to know whether I should publish the commentaries which I have written in proof of its motion, or whether it were not better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and of some others, who were accustomed to transmit the secrets of Philosophy not in writing but orally, and only to their relatives and friends, as the letter from Lysis to Hipparchus bears witness. They did this, it seems to me, not as some think, because of a certain selfish reluctance to give their views to the world, but in order that the noblest truths, worked out by the careful study of great men, should not be despised by those who are vexed at the idea of taking great pains with any forms of literature except such as would be profitable, or by those who, if they are driven to the study of Philosophy for its own sake by the admonitions and the example of others, nevertheless, on account of their stupidity, hold a place among philosophers similar to that of drones among bees. Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.
Credit - Nicolaus Copernicus, Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies to Pope Paul III (1543). Harvard Classics volume, Famous Prefaces.
Galileo Galilei was a mathematician, astronomer, inventor, and physicist who lived in Pisa, Italy and taught at the University at Padua. He is often given the title the “father of modern science.” Some of his most notable contributions included the creation of a telescope, discovery of the moons of Jupiter, verification of Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the universe, and new laws of motion including pendulums and the trajectory of projectiles. In 1633 he was sentenced to house arrest by the Catholic Inquisition for his heliocentric beliefs which had been deemed heresy.
Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held among academic philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors—as if I had placed these things in the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the sciences. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.
Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them. To this end they hurled various charges and published numerous writings filled with vain arguments, and they made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properly, and which were ill-suited to their purposes. . . .
. . . Men who were well grounded in astronomical and physical science were persuaded as soon as they received my first message. There were others who denied them or remained in doubt only because of their novel and unexpected character, and because they had not yet had the opportunity to see for themselves. These men have by degrees come to be satisfied. But some, besides allegiance to their original error, possess I know not what fanciful interest in remaining hostile not so much toward the things in question as toward their discoverer. No longer being able to deny them, these men now take refuge in obstinate silence, but being more than ever exasperated by that which has pacified and quieted other men, they divert their thoughts to other fancies and seek new ways to damage me. . . .
Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way.
Credit - Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615
Galileo Galilei was a mathematician, astronomer, inventor, and physicist who lived in Pisa, Italy and later taught in the university at Padua. He is often given the title the “father of modern science.” Some of his most notable contributions included the creation of a telescope, discovery of the moons of Jupiter, verification of Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the universe, discoveries of laws of motion including pendulums and the trajectory of projectiles. In 1633 he was sentenced to house arrest by the Catholic Inquisition for his heliocentric beliefs which had been deemed heresy.
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; also, for having pupils whom you instructed in the same opinions; . . .
1. The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.
2. The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal action, is also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.
Therefore . . . , invoking the most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Most Glorious Mother Mary, We pronounce this Our final sentence: We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo . . . have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world; . . . From which it is Our pleasure that you be absolved, provided that with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in Our presence, you abjure, curse, and detest, the said error and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome.
Credit - The Case of Galileo: Indictment of 1633
Francis Bacon was a philosopher and a writer better known for being Lord Chancellor than for being a scientist. However, he has been credited with developing the scientific method due to his advocacy of observation, experimentation, and inductive reasoning.
It is our good fortune, (as we consider it,) for the sake of extinguishing and removing contradiction and irritation of mind, to leave the honour and reverence due to the ancients untouched and undiminished, so that we can perform our intended work, and yet enjoy the benefit of our respectful moderation. For if we should profess to offer something better than the ancients, and yet should pursue the same course as they have done, we could never, by any artifice, contrive to avoid the imputation of having engaged in a contest or rivalry as to our respective wits, excellences, or talents; which, though neither inadmissible or new, (for why should we not blame and point out any thing that is imperfectly discovered or laid down by them, of our own right, a right common to all,) yet, however just and allowable, would perhaps be scarcely an equal match, on account of the disproportion of our strength. But, since our present plan leads us to open an entirely different course to the understanding, and one unattempted and unknown to them, the case is altered. There is an end to party zeal, and we only take upon ourselves the character of a guide, which requires a moderate share of authority and good fortune, rather than talents and excellence. . . .
Let there exist then (and may it be of advantage to both) two sources, and two distributions of learning, and in like manner two tribes, and as it were kindred families of contemplators or philosophers, without any hostility or alienation between them; but rather allied and united by mutual assistance. Let there be, in short, one method of cultivating the sciences, and another of discovering them. And as for those who prefer and more readily receive the former, on account of their haste, or from motives arising from their ordinary life, or because they are unable from weakness of mind to comprehend and embrace the other, (which must necessarily be the case with by far the greater number,) let us wish that they may prosper as they desire in their undertaking, and attain what they pursue. But if any individual desire and is anxious not merely to adhere to and make use of present discoveries, but to penetrate still further, and not to overcome his adversaries in disputes, but nature by labour, not, in short, to give elegant and specious opinions, but to know to a certainty and demonstration, let him, as a true son of science, (if such be his wish,) join with us; that when he has left the antechambers of nature trodden by the multitude, an entrance at last may be discovered to her inner apartments.
Credit - Francis Bacon, Novum Organum 1620 Basil Montague, ed. and trans. The Works, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Parry & MacMillan, 1854), 3: 343-71.
William Stukeley was a physician, a minister, and a scholar of antiquities who wrote one of the first biographies of Isaac Newton, his friend. Newton was one of the most brilliant scientists of the era and was responsible for the theory of gravitation, laws of motion, creation of calculus, and other advances in mathematics, physics, engineering and astronomy.
After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden, & drank tea under the shade of some appletrees, only he, & myself. amidst other discourse, he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. “why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground,” thought he to him self: occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood: “why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but constantly to the earths centre? assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. there must be a drawing power in matter. & the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the earth must be in the earths center, not in any side of the earth. therefore dos this apple fall perpendicularly, or toward the center. if matter thus draws matter; it must be in proportion of its quantity. therefore the apple draws the earth, as well as the earth draws the apple.” That there is a power like that we here call gravity which extends its self thro' the universe. . . . & thus by degrees, he began to apply this property of gravitation to the motion of the earth, & of the heavenly bodys: to consider their distances, their magnitudes, their periodical revolutions: to find out, that this property, conjointly with a progressive motion impressed on them in the beginning, perfectly solv'd their circular courses; kept the planets from falling upon one another, or dropping all together into one center. & thus he unfolded the Universe. this was the birth of those amazing discoverys, whereby he built philosophy on a solid foundation, to the astonishment of all Europe.
Credit - William Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life (1752)
H. Floris Cohen was born in Haarlem, Netherlands and served as curator of the museum Boerhaave in the late 1970s. He was Professor of the History of Science and Technology at the University of Twente.
I continue to think now, that in what has set the West apart from other civilizations, modern science is little less than the key element. This is not at all to deny that other historical events and processes have equally helped bring about “the differentiation of the West from the Rest” . . . But my point here is that in the process of differentiation modern science was the key factor . . . What is certain is that the industrial and postindustrial worlds are inconceivable without the prior emergence of modern science. . . .
The term ‘scientific revolutions’ is generic. It stands for a philosophical idea about the ongoing process of science. It signifies the idea that scientific discovery generally proceeds in a convulsive way. Advances in science, in this view, take place in leaps rather than by small, incremental additions. Scientific revolutions are taken to occur with a certain frequency or even regularity; there is nothing unique about them. . . .
The term ‘Scientific Revolution,’ in contrast, is specific. It stands for a historical idea about one episode in the past of science. It signifies the idea that there has been a period in history, which is hard to date with precision but which almost always is meant to include the first decades of the 17th century, when a dramatic upheaval occurred in science. This upheaval was unique. . . .
. . . Largely through the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the political term ‘revolution’ lost its cyclical connotation and came increasingly to stand for radical advance in the sense of progress toward a better future. In simultaneously giving birth to early modern science, the 17th century made possible the rise of the idea that just like political events, science too might display progress attained through a revolt against the past. . . .
[Emmanuel] Kant agrees with his predecessors that science is a revolutionary affair. Only, for every science, or set of sciences, no more than one revolution takes place. This is what allows the emergence of early modern science to appear here is a unique phenomenon. Every such revolution is marked by a specific turnabout. In the case of the empirical sciences, this is the shift from aimless observations to conscious experimentation. Here, in Kant’s view, lies the key to the birth of early modern science. . . . Kant presents here a reconciliation . . . between the revolutionary nature of science in general and the unique upheaval of the birth of early modern science.
Credit - H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 1994) p1-26.
Steven Shapin is Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. Shapin’s background training was in biology and genetics before he became a historian of science. His work has won numerous awards and he has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
There is no such thing as the Scientific Revolution and this is a book about it. Sometime ago, when the academic world offered more certainty and more comforts, historians announced the real existence of a coherent, cataclysmic, and climactic event that fundamentally and irrevocably changed what people knew about the natural world and how they secured proper knowledge of that world. It was the moment at which the world was made modern, it was a Good Thing, and it happened sometime during the period from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. . . .
As our understanding of science in the seventeenth century has changed in recent years, so historians have become increasingly uneasy with the very idea of “the Scientific Revolution.” Even the legitimacy of each word making up that phrase has been individually contested. Many historians are not no longer satisfied that there was any singular and discrete event, localized in time and space, that can be pointed to as “the” Scientific Revolution. Such historians now reject even the notion that there was any single coherent cultural entity called “science” in the seventeenth century to undergo revolutionary change. There was rather a diverse array of cultural practices aimed at understanding, explaining, and controlling the natural world, each with different characteristics and each experiencing different modes of change. . . . And many historians do not now accept that the changes wrought on scientific beliefs and practices during the seventeenth century were as “revolutionary” as has been widely portrayed. The continuity of the seventeenth-century natural philosophy with its medieval past is now routinely asserted, while talk of “delayed” eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revolutions in chemistry and biology followed hard upon historians’ identification of “the” original Scientific Revolution. . . .
. . . Finally, historians have become much more interested in the “who” of the Scientific Revolution. What kinds of people wrought such changes? Did everyone believe as they did or only a very few? And if only a very few took part in these changes, in what sense, if at all, can we speak of the Scientific Revolution as effecting massive changes in how “we” view the world, as the moment when modernity was made, for “us”? The cogency of such questions makes for problems in writing as unreflectively as we used to about the Scientific Revolution.
Credit - Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 1996).
David Lindberg was Hilldale Professor Emeritus of History of Science and past director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until his death in 2015. Lindberg’s research contributed to understanding of the history of medieval sciences and the relationship between science and religion.
Herbert Butterfield writing in 1949. . . may have carried enthusiasm to an extreme. But he articulated a conception of the Scientific Revolution . . . namely that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a radical transformation of scientific ideas, so decisive and influential as to constitute a turning point in the history of civilization. . . .
It is no doubt true that attitudes toward the past were rapidly becoming more sophisticated, but sophistication did not lead to rejection of the humanists’ tripartite division of history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods. In short, commentators on the new philosophy were quick to perceive it as an extension and outgrowth of the humanist revival. If this seems a surprising claim, we owe our surprise to the influence of J. B. Bury and R. F. Jones who have vigorously propagated the opinion that the seventeenth century ushered in a new attitude toward the past. According to Bury and Jones, whereas the humanists conceived themselves to be engaged in a restoration of ancient philosophy, seventeenth-century scholars, seized by the idea of infinite progress, came to understand that what was required was a repudiation of antiquity and a radical redirection of philosophical and scientific activity. . . . [However] Seventeenth century attitudes toward antiquity looked at as a whole rather than scoured for “proof texts” are more complex and nuanced, and far more positive in tone, than the carefully selected quotations suggest. . . .
As we look back over early interpretations of the course of science, what is most remarkable is the near unanimity of opinion. From the humanists of the fifteenth century to the eighteenth-century philosophes, there is scarcely any deviation from a common conception of the progress of knowledge and a shared periodization of history. Everybody who addressed the question accepted a tripartite division of cultural history into ancient, medieval and modern periods. All agreed that the glories of antiquity had been followed by medieval darkness and that darkness had finally yielded to light with the humanist recovery of ancient learning , which substituted reason for medieval superstition. The scientific revival was dated to the days of Copernicus, in the first half of the sixteenth century, . . . Finally, eighteenth-century historians agreed that the achievements of the seventeenth century were continuous with the achievements of their own age.
Credit - David Lindberg, “Conceptions of the Scientific Revolution from Bacon to Butterfield: A preliminary sketch” in David Lindberg and Robert Westman eds. Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1990) 1-20.
Peter Lopston is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph and the author of several books on metaphysics and human nature.
Fred Wilson’s award winning book, The Logic and Methodology of Science in Early Modern Thought takes an important place . . . in restating, indeed reinstating, the older view of the scientific revolution as a genuine conceptual and theoretical as well as methodological and technological revolution. Wilson argues convincingly that the conceptions of the logic, the modal parameters, and the goals of the explanation of the phenomena of the natural world that were launched above all by Galileo and Bacon differed radically from the Aristotelian models they repudiated and displaced. . . .
. . . Wilson makes an impressive and mostly convincing case that the received view with regard to the scientific revolution is correct, viz., that notwithstanding partial anticipation of elements of that revolution, a quite new ensemble of methodology, theory and practice came into the world in the early years of the 17th century . . .
I have however some reservations or qualifications—some of them border on being objections . . . . He writes sometimes as though the Aristotelian scheme and that of Galileo and Bacon are profoundly differing systems, almost incommensurable paradigms, . . . This seems wrong. . . .
A second qualification has to do with a key part of Wilson’s differentiation between empiricist and rationalist scientific modernism . . . Rationalism is viewed as remaining in the Aristotelian camp in respect to . . . the active agency of God.
In fact, I think this overstates, and does not adequately correspond to, the historical record. Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, Locke, Newton, Berkeley, and lesser figures—thought closely and intently about God, the requirements of faith, and the formation of a world view that would include the deity in the new scientific framework for which they were revolutionary advocates . . .
At any rate, I think that Wilson understates the degree of interpenetration of theology, in fact, religion, and the new science—at least, the new science as it was actually conceived and practiced at the time (even if it contained from the beginning the embryonic seed of a starker, sparser, more purely secular and empiricist future); and that this understatement helps make it possible for him to see greater distance . . . between Aristotelian pre-modern Christians and rationalist and empiricist scientific modernists than is warranted. It is certainly true that after the period of Newton and Locke . . . God rather drops out of the picture in modern science . . . However, the great age of scientific revolution, the 17th century, is one rather more of transition in respect of theistic matters (and their serious role in scientific explanation), than Wilson allows.
Credit - Peter Lopston, “The Singularity of The Scientific Revolution: Fred Wilson’s Defense of the Early Modern Achievement in Philosophy and the Sciences” in Freedom, Nature, and World (University of Ottawa Press, 2007) 179-196.
Francis Bacon’s story tells of a ship reaching a new land called Bensalem where the crew discover a Christian population that cares for their needs but is hesitant to reveal the advances of their society. One of the people of Bensalem comes to talk with the visitors and describes the advances of their city.
We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials; that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effect; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance; and the like. We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them . . . By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind is; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is; and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of different kinds; which have produced many new kinds, . . . Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand, of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures will arise . . . .
We have also perspective-houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations; and of all colours: and out of things uncoloured and transparent, we can represent unto you all several colours; not in rain-bows, (as it is in gems, and prisms,) but of themselves single. We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and lines. . . . We find also divers means, yet unknown to you, of producing of light originally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing objects afar off; as in the heaven and remote places; . . . We have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen. . . .
. . . We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas . . .
For the several employments and offices of our fellows; we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for our own we conceal); who bring us the books, and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light.
We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practise for man's life . . . These we call Dowry-men or Benefactors.
Credit - Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626. Essays, civil and moral, and The new Atlantis, by Francis Bacon; Areopagitica and Tractate on education, by John Milton; Religio medici, by Sir Thomas Browne, with introductions, notes and illustrations. New York, Collier [c1909] The Harvard classics v. 4. Paul Halsall, 1998.
Immanuel Kant was a Prussian philosopher perhaps most famous for his work Critique of Pure Reason which tried to connect philosophy and reason to real life and human experience. His religious beliefs have been debated but he did note that there is no empirical evidence for the existence of God. His What is Enlightenment essay has helped define the concept for many modern scholars although he and his work were often at odds with other Enlightenment thought.
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
. . . Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on—then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous . . . . Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use—or rather abuse—of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage . . . It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers, even among the self-appointed guardians of the multitude. Once such men have thrown off the yoke of nonage, they will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of man's value and of his duty to think for himself . . . When we ask, Are we now living in an enlightened age? the answer is, No, but we live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now stand it is still far from true that men are already capable of using their own reason in religious matters confidently and correctly without external guidance. Still, we have some obvious indications that the field of working toward the goal [of religious truth] is now opened. What is more, the hindrances against general enlightenment or the emergence from self-imposed nonage are gradually diminishing.
Credit - Kant, Immanuel. “What Is Enlightenment .” Translated by Mary C. Smith , Kant. What Is Enlightenment, Columbia University.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher from Geneva whose most noted works include The Social Contract, Emile or On Education, and Discourse on Inequality. Rousseau supported many philosophes such as Diderot while clashing with others including Voltaire. His work, particularly Emile, defended religious faith but also claimed the equality of all faiths which led French authorities to ban Rousseau’s work and resulted in his forced exile to Prussia.
On the good constitution of mothers depends primarily that of the children; on the care of women depends the early education of men; and on women, again, depend their morals, their passions, their tastes, their pleasures, and even their happiness. Thus the whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to council them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them—these are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their infancy. Unless we are guided by this principle we shall miss our aim, and all the precepts we give them will accomplish nothing either for their happiness or for our own. . .
Give, without scruples, a woman's education to women, see to it that they love the cares of their sex, that they possess modesty, that they know how to grow old in their menage and keep busy in their house. . .
To cultivate in women the qualities of the men and to neglect those that are their own is, then, obviously to work to their detriment. Shrewd women see this too clearly to be duped by it. In trying to usurp our advantages they do not abandon their own, but from this it comes to pass that, not being able to manage both properly on account of their incompatibility, they fall short of their own possibilities without attaining to ours, and thus lose half their value. Believe me, judicious mother, do not make a good man of your daughter as though to give the lie to nature, but make of her a good woman, and be assured that she will be worth more to herself and to us.
Credit- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or Education. Translated by Barbara Foxley, M.A. (London & Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1921; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1921).
François-Marie Arouet took the pen name “Voltaire” and became one of the most prolific and well-known authors of the French Enlightenment. He famously wrote in any available format from theater and poetry to journalism and histories, political treatises and letters to pornography and novels in order to better reach an audience. His work actively condemned religious intolerance and abuses of power by the privileged class.
Some have said that if we treated with paternal indulgence those erring brethren who pray to God in bad French, we would be putting weapons in their hands, and would once more witness the battles of Jarnac . . . Haven’t the intellectual leaders of these people been affected by “time,” “the progress of reason,” “good books” and “the humanising influence of society”? And aren’t we aware that within the last fifty years or so most of Europe has come to look quite different?
. . . .
Let us leave our little corner and study the rest of our globe. The Sultan governs peacefully twenty peoples with different religions; . . .
Go to India, Persia, Tartary, and you will find the same tolerance and tranquillity. Peter the Great patronised all the cults in his vast empire, . . .
It is true that the great Emperor Yung-Chin, perhaps the wisest and most magnanimous emperor that China ever had, expelled the Jesuits. But it was not because he was intolerant; it was because they were. They themselves report. . . . the words of this good monarch to them: “I know that your religion is intolerant; I know what you have done in Manila and Japan. You deceived my father; don’t think you can deceive me in the same way.” . . .
Thus the whole of our continent shows us that we must neither preach nor practise intolerance . . . .
I speak here only of the interest of nations. While having a proper respect for theology, I am attending here only to the physical and moral well-being of society. I beg every impartial reader to weigh these truths, sharpen them, and expand to them. Attentive readers who discuss their thoughts among themselves always get further than the author.
We have Jews in Bordeaux . . . can we not allow and control Calvinists in about the same conditions as Catholics are tolerated at London? . . .
We know that many heads of families who have made large fortunes in foreign lands are ready to return to their homeland. All they ask for is
•the protection of natural law,•the validity of their marriages,•security as to the condition of their children,•the right to inherit from their fathers, and•their personal freedom.
They do not ask for public chapels, or the right to municipal offices or to dignities, which Catholics do not have in England or in many other countries. It is not a question of giving immense privileges and secure positions to a faction, but of allowing a peaceful people to live, and of moderating the laws that may once have been necessary but are no longer so. . . .
Human law must in every case be based on this natural law; and all over the earth the great principle—the universal principle of both—is: Do not do—to others—what you would not want to be done to you. Now, I don’t see how a man guided by this principle could say to another: Believe what I believe—which you cannot believe—or you will perish, which is what men say in Portugal, Spain and Goa. In some other countries they are now content to say: Believe, or I detest you; believe, or I will do you all the harm I can; monster, you don’t share my religion so you have no religion; you should be a thing of horror to your neighbours, your city, your province.
If it were a matter of natural law to behave like that, the Japanese should detest the Chinese, who would abhor the Siamese; the Siamese in turn would persecute the Tibetans, . . . and all together would fling themselves against the Christians, who have so long devoured each other.
So the “law of intolerance” is absurd and barbaric; it is the law of tigers; except that it is even more horrible, because tigers tear and mangle only so as to have food, whereas we wipe each other out over paragraphs.
Credit- “A Treatise on Tolerance 1763.” Translated by Richard Hooker, Voltaire, A Treatise on Tolerance, 1763, Washington State University.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher from Geneva whose most noted works include The Social Contract, Emile or On Education, and Discourse on Inequality. Rousseau supported many philosophes such as Diderot while clashing with others including Voltaire. After a period in Paris, Rousseau returned to Geneva. The extract below is from an essay he wrote for a competition for the Academy of Dijon (France), answering the question “What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by natural law?”
Above all, let us not conclude, with Hobbes, that because man has no idea of goodness, he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue; that he always refuses to do his fellow−creatures services which he does not think they have a right to demand; or that by virtue of the right he truly claims to everything he needs, he foolishly imagines himself the sole proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes had seen clearly the defects of all the modern definitions of natural right: but the consequences which he deduces from his own show that he understands it in an equally false sense. In reasoning on the principles he lays down, he ought to have said that the state of nature, being that in which the care for our own preservation is the least prejudicial to that of others, was consequently the best calculated to promote peace, and the most suitable for mankind. He does say the exact opposite… . . .
That men are actually wicked, a sad and continual experience of them proves beyond doubt: but, all the same, I think I have shown that man is naturally good. What then can have depraved him to such an extent, except the changes that have happened in his constitution, the advances he has made, and the knowledge he has acquired? We may admire human society as much as we please; it will be none the less true that it necessarily leads men to hate each other in proportion as their interests clash . . .
I have endeavoured to trace the origin and progress of inequality…It follows from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of property and laws. Secondly, it follows that moral inequality…clashes with natural right… a distinction which sufficiently determines what we ought to think of that species of inequality which prevails in all civilised countries; since it is plainly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that children should command old men, fools wise men, and that the privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the starving multitude are in want of the bare necessities of life.
Credit- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. "A Discourse on Inequality." 1754.
Nicolas de Condorcet was a marquis, a nobleman, but was an active participant in what is today viewed as the radical Enlightenment that advocated gender equality, free public education, abolition of slavery, and republican government. He was trained as a mathematician and began his political career as Inspector General of the Mint but later served as a deputy in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the Revolution.
[In the future] the progress of reason will have gone hand in hand with progress in the arts and sciences; that the ridiculous prejudices of superstition will no longer cover morality with an austerity that corrupts and degrades it instead of purifying and elevating it. Men will know then that if they have obligations to beings who do not yet exist, these obligations do not consist in giving life, but in giving happiness. Their object is the general welfare of the human species . . . Among the progress of the human mind that is most important for human happiness, we must count the entire destruction of the prejudices that have established inequality between the sexes, fatal even to the sex it favors. One would look in vain for reasons to justify it, by differences in physical constitution, intelligence, moral sensibility. This inequality has no other source but the abuse of power, and men have tried in vain to excuse it by sophisms. We shall show how much the destruction of customs authorized by this prejudice, of the laws it has dictated, can contribute to the greater happiness of families, and to the spread of the domestic virtues, the first foundation of all other virtues. It will promote the progress of education, because [education] will be extended to both sexes more equally, and because education cannot become general, even among men, without the cooperation of mothers. . . .
All these causes of the improvement of the human species, all these means that assure it, will by their nature act continuously and acquire a constantly growing momentum. We have explained the proofs of this . . .; we could therefore already conclude that the perfectibility of man is unlimited . . . Certainly no one will doubt that progress in medical conservation [of life], in the use of healthier food and housing, a way of living that would develop strength through exercise without impairing it by excess, and finally the destruction of the two most active causes of degradation—misery and too great wealth—will prolong the extent of life and assure people more constant health as well as a more robust constitution. We feel that the progress of preventive medicine as a preservative, made more effective by the progress of reason and social order, will eventually banish communicable or contagious illnesses and those diseases in general that originate in climate, food, and the nature of work. It would not be difficult to prove that this hope should extend to almost all other diseases, whose more remote causes will eventually be recognized. Would it be absurd now to suppose that the improvement of the human race should be regarded as capable of unlimited progress? That a time will come when death would result only from extraordinary accidents or the more and more gradual wearing out of vitality, and that, finally, the duration of the average interval between birth and wearing out has itself no specific limit whatsoever? No doubt man will not become immortal, but cannot the span constantly increase between the moment he begins to live and the time when naturally, without illness or accident, he finds life a burden?
Credit- From Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain (Paris: Masson et Fils, 1822), pp. 27985, 29394, 3035. Paul Halsall, 1996.
Jonathan Israel is Andrew Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. His work deals specifically with Dutch history, the age of Enlightenment and Jewish history. His recent work includes a multivolume history of the age of Enlightenment that contrasts a radical Enlightenment with a more conservative Enlightenment and argues that it was the radical version that truly combatted intolerance and inequality.
The Enlightenment conceived as a movement of ideas appears to be not just firmly in retreat and increasingly under siege but also fragmenting into disparate remnants with no coherent overall profile. . . . Yet, paradoxically, there are grounds for conjecturing that the Enlightenment despite all this, has actually been becoming . . . an even more crucial and robust force than it was before . . . One reason for thinking this is the extensive new material unearthed in the last few years . . . about the origins of “radical,” in the sense of egalitarian, secularist, Spinozist, and anti-colonial, thought. . .The Radical Enlightenment claim[s] that the improvement of human life inescapably involves emancipating men from the collective force of autocracy, intolerance, and prejudiced thinking, and establishing a predominantly secular morality, no less than it involves promoting the ideals of equality (sexual and racial), democracy, individual liberty, and a comprehensive toleration . . . . “Enlightenment thinking,” as one scholar recently expressed it, “remains the best foundation for any genuinely progressive politics not simply in the West but in those states that suffered most at its [i.e. the West's] hands.”' To anyone authentically committed to democracy, toleration, and personal liberty this seems undeniable and, what is more, as we see in Bayle, Diderot, the Abbe Raynal, Lahontan, Van den Enden, and other radical writers of the Enlightenment, the roots of anti-colonialism itself, as well as the modern idea of racial, ethnic, and sexual equality, are undoubtedly to be found precisely in the “philosophical” thought-world of the Enlightenment—and especially the Radical Enlightenment. . . . The radical philosophes never claimed that national and particular differences between peoples and religions should be wholly erased. What they roundly condemned was all forms of authoritarianism, orthodoxy, intolerance, xenophobia, and group chauvinism, insisting that “enlightened” values as defined by eighteenth-century “philosophy” have an unquestionable superiority . . . This is indeed a dramatic change in the situation regarding Enlightenment ideas as they appeared until recently. It means that historians must now be altogether more rigorous and discerning about what “Enlightenment” actually entailed, what it still means and, no less important, what it was not . . . Modernist critics of the Enlightenment, it emerges, by and large are really just questioning the credentials of Locke, Newton, Voltaire, and Hume. But these thinkers were moral and social—and in Locke's case also theological—conservatives who passionately, insistently, and wholeheartedly rejected the main line of egalitarian, democratic, republican, and anti-colonial thought [of the Radical Enlightenment].
Credit - Jonathan Israel, “Enlightenment! Which Enlightenment?” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 523-545.
Margaret Jacob is Professor of History emeritus at UCLA. She has written extensively on the Enlightenment including books on Newton, the Radical Enlightenment in France, Freemasonry, and the Scientific Revolution in addition to editing a collection of Enlightenment sources for students.
The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century movement of ideas and practices that make the secular world its point of departure. It did not necessarily deny the meaning or emotional hold of religion, but it gradually shifted attention away from religious questions toward secular ones. By seeking answers in secular terms—even to many religious questions—it vastly expanded the sphere of the secular, making it, for increasing numbers of educated people, a primary frame of reference. In the Western world, art, music, science, politics, an even the categories of space and time had undergone a gradual process of secularization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the Enlightenment built on this process and made it into an international intellectual cause. By asserting this expansion of secularity, I do not mean to downplay the many religious manifestations found in the age. This book does not claim that religion was en route to being cast aside like bad bacteria waiting to be knocked out by an antibiotic of deism or atheism. The chapters ahead do claim that attachment to the world—the here and now—to a life lived without constant reference to God, became increasingly commonplace and the source of an explosion of innovating thinking about society, government, and the economy to mention but a few areas of inquiry. In attaching to the world, many people lost interest, or belief, in hell. Its proprietor, the devil, still haunted popular beliefs but was no longer invoked on a daily basis by the literate and educated. Areas of human behavior once explained by concepts like miracles or original sin now received explanations inspired by physical science or the emerging studies of social and economic relations. Space and time were cleared of their Christian meaning, and people became more concerned with reorganizing the present and planning for the future than in their fate after death. … As early as the 1720s, an entirely new approach to religion emerged among a circle of exiled French Huguenot writers, German publishers, and engravers resident in the Dutch republic… it sought to treat all the religions of the world evenhandedly…The impulse to develop such a treatment can best be described as secular; it focused on people’s religious customs and ceremonies, not on the truth or falsity of their beliefs…Religion was now a cultural practice that varied across time and space; it could be explained in secular terms.
Credit - Margaret C. Jacob, The Secular Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 2019) 1-5.
Heidi Bostic is visiting assistant Provost for special projects at Furman University. Her recent book The Fiction of Enlightenment: Women of Reason in the French Eighteenth Century argues that women contributed to the Enlightenment and argued for their right to think and reason and receive an education comparable to men.
Eighteenth-century women authors . . . demonstrated women's ability to reason and thus to participate in Enlightenment. They deserve to be recognized—fully, on a par with male writers—as Enlightenment thinkers. In fact, by exposing and critiquing gender bias, these authors often embraced the egalitarian ethos of Enlightenment more completely than their male contemporaries. . . . I will argue that reading works of fiction authored by women helps to expose the “fiction” of common definitions of Enlightenment. And, most significantly, literary works by eighteenth-century women can help to clarify and refine our understanding of Enlightenment . . . First is [needed] a historical redefining and broadening of Enlightenment beyond mere acknowledgment of women's texts toward full inclusion of women's intellectual contributions. . . . The Age of Enlightenment's gender bias is increasingly well documented. We now recognize the irony of pervasive sexism in an age purportedly devoted to universal reason. . . . But should the fundamental eighteenth-century ironies—such as the simultaneous proclamation of universal liberty yet denial of full freedom to certain groups, including women—compel us, as some critics have suggested, to dismiss the Enlightenment project altogether? . . . Although many scholars, over the last twenty to thirty years, have reclaimed the voices and lives of eighteenth-century women, it has become increasingly evident that we still need to revisit our understandings of Enlightenment as simply an affair among men. Women's historical texts have not been brought to bear adequately on our definitions of Enlightenment . . . The question “What is Enlightenment?” remains open, lively, and pertinent today, yet . . . all discussions of this question tend to overlook women's role in Enlightenment. . . . We must ask: How does our definition of Enlightenment shift when we consider the role of gender in the construction of knowledge? How would our understanding of Enlightenment change if women's intellectual contributions were taken seriously?. . . Authors such as Graffigny, Riccoboni, and Charrière—whom we may justifiably characterize as women of reason—participated in a long-overlooked literary tradition (traceable to Christine de Pizan . . . ) in which women fight back against denials of their reason . . . All three of these texts reveal gender bias as an impediment to Enlightenment. The texts reclaim for women the right to reason, embodying the egalitarian spirit of Enlightenment. They question narrow rationalism while advocating a broader understanding of reason. Taking texts like these seriously means rethinking both the historical and the critical Enlightenment.
Credit - Heidi Bostic, “Literary Women, Reason, and the Fiction of Enlightenment,” The French Review, Vol. 85, No. 6, Les Lumières, au passé et à présent (May 2012),pp. 1024-1038.
James Schmidt is Professor of Political Science at Boston University where his research interests are in modern European Intellectual History. He has written prolifically on the nature of the Enlightenment and its legacy.
Critiques of the Enlightenment rest on two moves. The critic must first select, from among the myriad contesting visions of morality and politics that populate the eighteenth century, a set of ideals and aspirations (allegedly still active today) that constitute the “Enlightenment project.” Once this project has been identified, the critic must provide an account of its “failure.” This essay suggests that both moves are rather suspect. It argues, with regard to the first of these moves, that critics typically construct the “Enlightenment project” by projecting back onto the eighteenth century the positions they wish to criticize . . . Critics of the Enlightenment assume, not surprisingly, that there is something called “the Enlightenment” to criticize. The confidence with which they approach the task of specifying just what the Enlightenment was . . . is not shared by those of their colleagues who actually study the period . . . J.G.A. Pocock has suggested that we are moving toward a time “in which there will no longer be ‘The Enlightenment,’ a unitary and universal phenomenon with a single history either celebrated or condemned, but instead a family of discourses arising about the same time in a number of European cultures.” In the face of such a prospect, those who continue to speak of “the Enlightenment” would do well to reconcile themselves to the fact that it had a number of projects going, not all of which necessarily got along very well with each other. . . . On those rare occasions when a critic of the Enlightenment project actually engages an eighteenth-century thinker at any length, it tends to be Kant. . . . Kant was the author famous little essay, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”—which can all too easily serve as the manifesto of the Enlightenment project, especially for those critics of the Enlightenment who have not bothered to look at the many other answers to the question “What is Enlightenment?” . . . and who thus remain blissfully unaware of the degree to which Kant's definition of Enlightenment represented a significant departure from those of his contemporaries. . . . Critiques of the Enlightenment project thus rest on an act of projection in which unpleasant features of our own time are explained as the consequences of certain general principles whose ultimate origins are located in a particular eighteenth-century thinker or group of thinkers who are stipulated as representative of the Enlightenment. It is doubtful that such projections can tell us much about the problems of our own time, . . . It is certain that they tell us little about the Enlightenment.
Credit - James Schmidt, “What Enlightenment Project?” Political Theory, Vol. 28, No. 6 (Dec., 2000), pp. 734-757.
In 1755 one of the most destructive earthquakes in history destroyed much of Lisbon, Portugal. The Catholics claimed the destruction was punishment for the protestants living there while protestants blamed Catholics. However, Voltaire was most antagonized by the teachings of Gottfried Leibniz whose “philosophical optimism” tried to reconcile natural disaster with a loving God by claiming man lived in “the best of all possible worlds” created by God and therefore “whatever is, is right” including such suffering. The poem formed the introduction to Voltaire’s later novel Candide which continued his assault on Leibniz and philosophical optimism. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of several Enlightenment philosophes who opposed Voltaire’s arguments in the poem and in Candide.
Unlucky mortals! O deplorable earth!
All humanity huddled in fear!
The endless subject of useless pain!
Come philosophers who cry, “All is well,”
And contemplate the ruins of this world.
Behold the debris and ashes of the unfortunate—
These women and children heaped in common ruin,
These scattered limbs under the broken marble.
See the hundred thousand whom the earth devours!
Torn, bloody, and still breathing, they are
Entombed beneath roofs, and die without relief
From the horror of their suffering lives.
As the dying voices call out, will you dare respond
To this appalling spectacle of smoking ashes with,
“This is the necessary effect of the eternal laws Freely chosen by God”?
Seeing this mass of victims, will you say,
“God is avenged. Their death is the price of their crimes”?
What crime, what fault had the young committed,
Who lie bleeding at their mother’s breast?
Did fallen Lisbon indulge in more vices
Than London or Paris, which live in pleasure?
Lisbon is no more, but they dance in Paris. . .
“All is well,” you say, “and all is necessary.”
What! Do you think this universe would be worse
Without the pit that swallowed Lisbon?
Are you sure that the great eternal cause,
The creator and knower of all things,
Could not have thrown us into this miserable world
Without forming volcanoes seething under our feet?
Do you set this limit for the supreme power?
Would you forbid him from exercising mercy?
Doesn’t the eternal craftsman have
Infinite means available for his handiwork?
Without offense to my master, I humbly wish
Only that the pit of fire and sulphur had erupted,
Spewing its fires in the desert wastes.
I respect my God, but I love the universe.
When one dares to moan of a terrible scourge,
It’s not arrogance; alas, it’s sensitivity!
Credit - Voltaire, "Poem on the Lisbon Disaster." The Complete Works of Voltaire. Garnier, 1877. Volume 9, page 470-478.
Daniel Defoe was an English author, journalist, and businessman most famous for writing the novel Robinson Crusoe. His prolific writing covered topics from marriage to politics and economics to the supernatural. In this piece, he argues for the education of women, placing him in opposition to the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the same question.
I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.
One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that women are conversable at all; since they are only beholden to natural parts, for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew or make baubles. They are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names, or so; and that is the height of a woman's education. And I would but ask any who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a man (a gentleman, I mean) good for, that is taught no more? I need not give instances, or examine the character of a gentleman, with a good estate, or a good family, and with tolerable parts; and examine what figure he makes for want of education.
The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond; and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And 'tis manifest, that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes; so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why then should women be denied the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty would never have given them capacities; for he made nothing needless. Besides, I would ask such, What they can see in ignorance, that they should think it a necessary ornament to a woman? or how much worse is a wise woman than a fool? or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught? Does she plague us with her pride and impertinence? Why did we not let her learn, that she might have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly, when 'tis only the error of this inhuman custom, that hindered them from being made wiser?
The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and their senses quicker than those of the men; and what they might be capable of being bred to, is plain from some instances of female wit, which this age is not without. Which upbraids us with Injustice, and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education, for fear they should vie with the men in their improvements. . . .
Credit - English essays from Sir Philip Sidney to Macaulay. With introductions and notes. New York, Collier [c1910], The Harvard classics v. 27. Paul Halsall, 1998.
Philosophy has directed a great Revolution in France. The reign of liberty and equality has been established on the ruins of despotism and all other abuses. The people of the country have smiled at a new order of things which shows them the happy perspective of a comforting future and a better existence…Is it not regrettable that this section of society, so hard working, so useful and so numerous finds itself deprived of the moral resources which are abundant for the man of leisure? An immense number of books and journals circulate throughout the Republic but they are foreign to the poor or illiterate citizen who does not know how to profit from them. To teach the people is to engage them in public affairs and put them on guard against seduction.
Credit - Bulletin des amis de la vérité [Texte imprimé] / publié par les directeurs de l'Imprimerie du Cercle social issue number 102 April 11 1793
Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk was a preacher who became a professor of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in what is today Germany. He was a devotee of Kant’s ideas on religion and philosophy and a defender of the Enlightenment against critics particularly during the Revolution.
We now live in a century of enlightenment. Should this be said to be an honor or a disgrace for our century? We also live in a century of revolutions. Is it enlightenment which currently undermines the peace of states? Men from all social ranks stand opposed to scholars. It is said that through enlightenment they have misled the sentiments of the people into discontent. They have spread principles among them which are dangerous for the peace of states. They have disparaged the religion of the people, and in this way have caused anarchy and a general corruption of morals. They bear the responsibility for all the maladies which provoked and which daily continue to provoke our age’s spirit of rebellion. Enlightenment, it is said, is the source of revolutions.
One seeks to make all the advances of human knowledge suspect, and for this reason one seeks to link the concept of enlightenment to all kinds of hateful accessory concepts. Today heresy, freethinking, Jacobinism, and the rejection of all authority, however respectable, are called enlightenment. Today enlightenment is treason. One must define the concept of enlightenment precisely and then the question can be posed: To what extent is it responsible for the events of our age?
Enlightenment means nothing more than progress in thinking for oneself and consequently also progress in morality. This endeavor is an appeal of rational nature and is the highest duty we owe ourselves and humanity. No holy and venerable truth, on which mankind relies and on which the welfare of civil society and the respect for virtue and religion depends can be harmed by that . . .
Thus how can one malign enlightenment, or the optimum use of reason, for the unfortunate overthrow of the French state and the destruction of old, well-established rights and titles? How can one regard enlightenment as the cause of the atrocious disgraceful deeds instigated by this political upheaval? . . .
Enlightenment instills obedience and respect for the rights of the sovereign while providing grounds for these rights. . . , Moreover, it teaches man that he has the state to thank for the most important parts of his happiness . . . Man would have to do without all this or possess it only in the most miserable and also the most burdensome way if no social contract—and with it relations between sovereigns and their subjects—had been introduced.
Credit - In ed James Schmidt What is Enlightenment?: Eighteenth Century Answers and Twentieth Century Questions (Univ of California Press, 1996) p217-218
Abbe Augustin Barruel was a French Jesuit priest who is most recognized today for his extremely conservative views on the Revolution and for his Memoirs. His Memoirs created a conspiracy theory that the Enlightenment philosophes had plotted and orchestrated the overthrow of the monarchy, even though it was realized decades after their own deaths.
We have seen men obstinately blind to the causes of the French Revolution: we have seen men who wished to persuade themselves that this conspiring and revolutionary Sect had no existence anterior to the Revolution. . . . Though circumstances may often have accorded the pretense or the occasion, yet the grand cause of the revolution, its leading features, its atrocious crimes, will still be found [in] one continued chain of deep-laid and premeditated villainy.…
. . . We shall demonstrate that these men under the name of Philosophers, after having sworn to crush Christ and his altars, bound themselves in a second oath to annihilate all regal power. . . . We shall show them leaguing together and by their united efforts accomplishing that part of the French Revolution which effected the overthrow of Religion and Monarchy . . . The Sect, applying this same Equality and Liberty to the empire of human laws and to civil society concludes that after having crushed the altar it was necessary to overturn every throne . . . The Sophisters believed their principles of Equality and Liberty to be demonstrated, they did not even suspect an error in their principles. They believed the war which they waged against Kings to be a war of justice and of wisdom. . . .
Voltaire loved kings, their favor and their caresses were his delight . . . He was not only partial to kings but to the monarchical form of government . . . How then could he adopt that liberty and sovereignty of the people . . . How could he wish to sanction an Equality and Liberty which was to level the castle with the cottage? . . . . . . It was but natural that men who had been taught to oppose their Equality and Liberty to the God of revelation, to his ministers and prophets, should also oppose them to the kings of the earth. . . .
However cautiously Montesquieu may have expressed himself, the grand principle of all democratic revolutions was nevertheless laid down in his writings. He had taught in his school “that in a free state, every man who is supposed a free agent ought to be his own governor.” This axiom evidently implies, that no man nor any people can believe themselves free, unless they are their own legislators . . .
He had opened the path and shown how far it might lead.…The first who undertook to widen this path [to critique of the government] was Jean Jacques Rousseau . . . Born a citizen of a republic, he imbibed with his milk, as he says himself, the hatred of kings.
Credit - Barruel, A. "Memoirs Illustrating The History Of Jacobinism : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, Real-View-Books, 1995.
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, diplomat, and historian whose two most famous works The Old Regime and the Revolution and Democracy in America have been valued sources for historians for over a century. In his work on the Revolution, Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was actually a continuation of, rather than a rupture with, the centralization of power and modernization begun under the monarchs. He gives the Enlightenment philosophes some credit for destabilizing the regime but does not find the resulting revolution to have been their intention.
[French philosophers] were not strangers to politics . . . They were to be heard day after day discoursing of the origin and primitive form of society, of the primordial rights of the governed and the governing power, of the natural and artificial relations of men one to the other, of the soundness or the errors of the prevailing customs, of the principles of the laws . . . They did not invariably devote particular or profound studies to these great problems. Many merely glanced at them in passing, often playfully, but none omitted them altogether. Abstract and literary views on political subjects are scattered throughout the works of that day; from the ponderous treatise to the popular song, none are wholly devoid of this feature.
The political systems of these writers are so varied that it would be wholly impossible to reconcile them together, and mould them all into a theory of government.
Still, setting details aside, and looking only to main principles, it is readily discerned that all these authors concurred in one central point from whence their particular notions diverged. They all started with the principle that it was necessary to substitute simple and elementary rules, based on reason and natural law, for the complicated and traditional customs which regulated society in their time. . .
. . . They had no practical acquaintance with the subject, their ardors were undamped by actual experience, they knew of no existing facts which stood in the way of desirable reform, they were ignorant of the dangers inseparable from the most necessary revolutions, and dreamed of none. There being no approach toward political liberty, the business of government was not only ill understood, it was not understood at all. Having no share in it themselves . . . these writers lacked the superficial education which the habit of political freedom imparts even to those who take no part in politics. . . .
Ignorance of the same kind ensured their success among the masses. . . . Popular passions thus disguised themselves in philosophic garb; political aspirations were forcibly driven into a literary channel, and men of letters, taking the direction of public opinion temporarily occupied the position which in free countries belongs to party leaders.
. . . But of all the strange phenomena of these times, the strangest to us, who have seen so many revolutions, is the absence of any thought of revolution from the mind of our ancestors. No such thing was discussed because no such thing had been conceived.
Credit - de Tocqueville, Alexis. The Old Regime and the Revolution. Translated by John Bonner. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1856. Page 170-176.
Condorcet was a French aristocrat and a philosophe and mathematician. He advocated constitutional government, abolition of slavery, civil rights for women, and more liberal economic policies. He was an active member of both French and foreign Academies of Science and Letters. In 1789 he was a champion of the Revolution and was elected as a deputy to the Legislative Assembly, eventually becoming its Secretary. He also contributed legislation on education and women’s suffrage. Despite his contributions to the Enlightenment as a philosophe and his active involvement in the early years of the Revolution he was arrested and guillotined by the Revolutionary government in 1794 after arguing that the King should not be executed.
For a long time I have considered these views as dreams which would only be realized in an indeterminate future, and for a world where I no longer existed. A happy event suddenly opened an immense opportunity in the hopes of the human race; a single instant to put a century of distance between the man of today and the man of tomorrow. From slaves, dressed for service or pleasure of a master, they are awakened, astonished to no longer have one, sensing that their force, their industry, their ideas, their will, belong only to themselves. In a time of darkness this awakening would have lasted only a moment; tired of their independence, they would have sought new shackles and a sweet slumber; in a century of enlightenment this awakening will be eternal. The only sovereign of the free people, Truth, of which men of genius are the ministers, will extend over the entire universe its sweet and irresistible power; by it all men will learn that which they ought to do for their happiness and they no longer will want anything but the common good of all. This revolution is not one of a government, it is one of opinions and wills; it is not the throne of a despot that it reverses, it is that of the error of voluntary servitude, it is not a people who break its chains; these are the friends of reason, common to all people, who have won a great victory, a sure omen of a universal triumph.
Credit - An electronic edition produced from the text of Condorcet, Five memoirs on public education (1791). Presentation, notes, bibliography and chronology by Charles Coutel and Catherine Kintzler. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1994, 380 pp. Collection: Full text. Translated by S. Shurts.
Daniel Mornet was an intellectual historian and a literary critic whose most famous work, The Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution, is still recognized by many current scholars as the starting point for any discussion of the intellectual foundations for the French Revolution. Mornet died in 1954 before the debates about his work began, but his book continues to inspire discussion and conflict today.
The French monarchy was really definitely doomed only when an important part of the population no longer thought it beneficent or inevitable. A revolution took place in men’s minds, or at least in the minds of many, before the Revolution of 1789 actually broke out. And it is possible to follow very clearly the progress of this revolution in public opinion . . .
In all this unrest, turmoil and revolt, there is really nothing that is directly philosophical. Neither the discontented nor the seditious nor their placards invoke the authority of Montesquieu, Voltaire, the Encyclopedia, or J. J. Rousseau. As we have shown, not one of the philosophers could be considered a revolutionist and they all profoundly distrusted popular government and even liberty. It seems quite certain that the revolution was in one respect the unreasoning protest against misery and the spontaneous revolt against suffering. Yet philosophy did play a very definite role. It taught neither revolution nor democracy. But it transformed men’s minds; it made them lose the habit of respect for tradition; it made them apt to reflect upon revolution and democracy. It cleared the soil in which the seeds of new harvests could germinate… . . .
The spirit that first proposed and then demanded a fundamental reform of the state was at first directed against religion. . . . In all discussions of these matters, the secular authority was intimately associated with the interests and positions of the church . . . Thus the war against fanaticism necessarily became a war against political authority; the state. It was the state that seemed fanatical. . . . Although writers did not seek fundamental political reforms, they were already proposing important social reforms. In justice, administration, and poor relief they were severely criticizing traditional procedures; they sought not only change but general upheaval. . .
All France was beginning to think. . . . Undoubtedly Frenchmen were very frequently interested in “philosophy,” but it was philosophy as they conceived it . . . it was love of knowledge, the desire to learn and think . . . In politics, neither Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau nor Diderot was a revolutionary nor even the boldest reformer. All the daring and ruthless arguments were stated by third or tenth rate writers. Besides, popular opinion was frequently unable to distinguish between men of talent and mere prattlers.
. . . Political causes would not have sufficed to bring about the Revolution as rapidly as it came. It was ideas that demonstrated and systematized the consequences of political unrest.
Credit - Daniel Mournet, “The Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution” (1933) in ed. William F. Church, The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution: Creative, Disasterous, or Non-Existant? (DC Heath and Co., 1964) 74-82.
Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, Emeritus at Harvard University where he has been a professor since 2007. From 1968 to 2007 he was Professor of History at Princeton University. Darnton has written or edited numerous books on French Enlightenment, literary culture, pre-Revolutionary France, and European intellectual history. Some of his most notable work attempts to connect the thought of pre-Revolutionary France, particularly the thought of the general public, to the outbreak of the Revolution.
Mornet’s question, with which we began, bears on some of the truly big questions of modern history: How did ideas penetrate into society two centuries ago? What was the connection between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution? What were the Revolution’s ideological origins? To be sure those issues are so complex, and they have been worked over so often that they may never yield definitive answers. . . .
. . . Even if we cannot recreate the literary world of pre-Revolutionary France in all its complexity, we can identify the books that actually circulated outside the law. And a full investigation of the forbidden literature should bring us closer to understanding the collapse of the Old Regime. …I would like to attempt some preliminary sorting out and then to suggest ways in which the study of forbidden books can be connected with the classic questions about the origin of the French Revolution. . .
. . .The Mornet model operated like a French filter coffee machine: it assumed that ideas trickled down from an intellectual elite to the general public, and that once they became absorbed in the body politic, they stimulated a revolutionary spirit—that is they functioned as a necessary if not a sufficient cause of the French Revolution. . . . It assumed the cause from the effect, reasoning backward from 1789 to a starting point in the heads of Voltaire and the other free thinkers of the early century. . .
Of course, origins are always construed retrospectively, and many of them may escape the consciousness of contemporaries. Perhaps as Chartier claims, the revolutionaries invoked the Enlightenment in order to legitimate their rule by providing it with a respectable intellectual pedigree. But even if that were so, it does not prove that the ideas of the philosophes had no part in the origins of the Revolution. The Enlightenment had established itself firmly in contemporary consciousness by the end of the 1750s. It cannot simply be dismissed . . .
. . . How did forbidden books contribute to this process? . . . Books fixed themes in print, preserving them, diffusing them, and multiplying their effect. Even more important, books incorporated them into stories with broad persuasive power. . . . It is not that the themes of the books determined the motifs of “public noises” or vice versa, but rather that the two forms of communication worked together, defining transmitting, and amplifying messages that undercut the legitimacy of the regime.
Credit - Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (WW Norton, 1995) 169-191.
Annelien de Dijn is Professor of Modern Political History at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research follows the interaction of politics and ideas and she looks for the origins of our current political systems in the normative ideas and values of their societies. Her recent book explores French political thought from Montesquieu to Tocqueville.
By the end of the eighteenth century, a mental revolution had been achieved. The events of 1776 and 1789 were the outcome of this intellectual sea-change…
We all know this story. It is, of course, the textbook version of Enlightenment history: the Enlightenment as a revolutionary force that contributed to the making of modern, political culture. Nowadays, not that many historians would admit to taking it seriously. The idea that philosophes like Voltaire or Montesquieu had anything to do with the overthrow of the Old Regime in Europe has been repeatedly dismissed as misguided, a myth. Nonetheless, this narrative arguably continues to inform much recent work on the Enlightenment. And recent work means not just the overviews produced by hapless textbook writers who lack the time or energy to wade through the latest scientific papers, but the scholarship produced by Enlightenment specialists . . . Why has this been the case?
. . . How did the modernization thesis come into being in the first place? Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau . . . believed that they and their brethren were united in a campaign to modernize the world—that is, to make it less superstitious, more rational, in a word, more enlightened. But they did not think they were trying to overthrow the Old Regime. When the philosophes talked about the need to ecraser l'infame, they meant the church, not royal absolutism. They defined their age as one of reason, not freedom. That did not mean they had nothing to say about politics. But . . . they certainly were not trying to establish a democratic republic in France or elsewhere.
The first to suggest otherwise were not the philosophes themselves, but their enemies. After the Revolution, Frenchmen on both the left and the right who tried to understand where it had all gone wrong were quick to fault the philosophes. Rousseau in particular was blamed for the violent overthrow of the Old Regime and for the descent of the Revolution into republicanism and the Terror. But the firm link thus established between Enlightenment and Revolution served the reputation of the philosophes well once painful memories had receded and a new and more positive view of the achievements of 1789 had taken hold. Under the Third Republic . . . Voltaire and the other philosophes were now celebrated as republican precursors who had rightly criticized the many abuses of the Old Regime . . . the philosophes were responsible . . . for what was best in modern political culture.
Credit - Annelien de Dijn, “The Politics of Enlightenment: From Peter Gay to Jonathan Israel” The Historical Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3 (September 2012), pp. 785-805.
Roland Stromberg was Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee from 1967 until 1987. He was the author of numerous books and textbooks on modern intellectual history and modern European culture.
Sweeping revisions in interpretation of the French Revolution during the last couple of decades, calling into question conclusions reached by previous generations of historians, seem to encourage renewed attention to intellectual history . . . A new general framework has emerged, it is focused on the realm of mentalities, of language, discourse, of words and rhetoric. . . .
It is argued that what was new in the French Revolution was the rhetoric of secular politics. A historian of the newer school opines that “a revolution can be defined as a transformation of the discursive practice of the community, a moment in which social relations are reconstituted and the discourse defining the political relations between individuals and the group is radically recast,” adding that this was what happened in France in 1789 . . .
Such an explanation was indeed familiar at the time of the Revolution. “It is by words that they accomplish their ends; words did everything,” Lynn Hunt quotes from a Frenchman of that day . . . What defined these Revolutionary parties or coteries or tendencies was, much more than social status or economic class, [it was] an ideology or a common vocabulary, or--dare we say-ideas. True, “ideas” is a word the new historians rather like to avoid; the “in” words are “discourse,” “the politics of language,” or “rhetoric.” But this may nevertheless provide us with an excuse to look anew at the role of ideas as a factor in the Revolution. Though it is a very old question, the relationship between Enlightenment ideas and the Revolution is itself up for reevaluation. . . . Thomas Schleich, asserts that “No direct connection between Enlightenment ideas and French Revolutionary events” has ever been demonstrated. This despite a long history of inquiry into this subject . . .
Among the difficulties with seeing the Revolution as deriving from the ideas of the Enlightenment, perhaps the chief is that the surviving philosophes almost all rejected it. . . Of the Holbach coterie, the leading late Enlightenment intellectual circle or salon that was seemingly so radical and revolutionary, virtually all, as Alan Kors shows, disliked the Revolution . . . The creation of a better world they expected to be the result “not of angry revolution but of gradual, controlled, and maximally predictable reform.” . . . Kors concedes that the rhetoric of revolution had been there; but the denunciation of tyranny, the call to liberty, the occasional hint that there might be justified revolt he thinks came only in moments of rhetorical exaggeration.
Credit - Roland N. Stromberg, The Philosophes and the French Revolution: Reflections on Some Recent Research The History Teacher, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1988), pp. 321-339.
Thomas E. Kaiser is Professor of History at the University of Arkansas Little Rock. His recent work deals with conspiracy in the French circles of power and the life of Marie Antoinette but his work deals more generally with eighteenth-century France and the Revolution.
The search for the missing link between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution is virtually as old as the Revolution itself. . . . Indeed, although the debate over the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution . . . has passed into the pantheon of great controversies . . . scholars have been showing signs of fatigue and frustration when addressing this possibly unresolvable issue . . . From such statements it would be possible to conclude that the scholarly community has reached an impasse and now seeks only to get on with other business. And yet, as I shall suggest in this article, the question of the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution has not been so much buried and abandoned by contemporary scholars as transformed. This transformation, I believe, has its roots in the ways the Enlightenment and the French Revolution have been redefined as political and ideological movements and the ways traditional issues regarding them have been reformulated. As I hope to show, we may be no closer to a resolution of the problem, but we have at least embarked on fresh approaches to it.
. . . As a result of the predominating tendency to view the Enlightenment as a “literary” phenomenon, relatively little effort was made until recently to demonstrate what the often imputed “radicalism” of the philosophes' ideas meant in practice and how the political language of the philosophes intersected with that of contemporary political controversy . . .
[In the 1970s and 1980s] there appeared, among other studies, Franco Venturi's essays on utopia and reform in the Enlightenment, Robert Darnton's influential article on Grub Street politics, Charles Stricklen's examination of the philosophes' conception of their political role. . . In addition to this research, largely devoted to the philosophes themselves, there have appeared seminal investigations of such phenomena as the publishing industry, the nature of eighteenth-century readership, the politics of “enlightened” reform within the royal administration, and the political role of the royal and provincial academies. It is hardly surprising that these studies reach no complete consensus regarding the Enlightenment and its politics. But they do point to two mutually enforcing conclusions at variance with traditional views. First, the philosophes cannot be dismissed as salon intellectuals hopelessly out of touch with political reality—the mere spinners of “abstract” political visions. Instead . . . they were political actors and publicists, self-consciously engaged in the very thick of contemporary political controversy and inclined as much to practical reform as to utopian musings.
Credit - Thomas E. Kaiser, “This Strange Offspring of Philosophie: Recent Historiographical Problems in Relating the Enlightenment to the French Revolution” French Historical Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), pp. 549-562.
Louis Sebastian Mercier was a French playwright and novelist during the age of Enlightenment in pre-Revolutionary Paris. His novel L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais (The Year 2440, a Dream if There Ever Was) was later translated into English and the title adapted from the year 2440 to the year 2500. In the novel, a man argues with a philosopher about the social injustices of Paris and then falls asleep to awaken in the year 2440. Here he discovers an advanced society where the problems of Paris, from prostitution to tax inequity to slavery to uncomfortable clothing have all been resolved rationally. The dreamer channels Mercier’s own wish to somehow see a future world where these problems of his own time have been solved.
The kings that now sit upon their throne shall be no more; their posterity shall be no more. Then shalt thou judge the departed monarch, and the writer who lived in subjection to his power. The names of the friends, the defenders of humanity, shall live and be honored, their glory shall be pure and radiant, but that vile herd of kings, who have been in every sense the tormentors of mankind, still more deeply plunged into oblivion than in the regions of death can only escape from infamy by the favor of inanity . . .
. . . While the thunders of despotism fall and vanish, the pen of the writer, bounding over the interval of time, absolves or punishes the masters of the universe.
I have exercised that authority which nature gave me; I have cited before my solitary reason the laws, the customs, and the abuses of the country in which I have lived, obscure and unknown. I have felt that virtuous hatred which is due to oppression from a being of humanity, I have detested, pursued with infamy, to the utmost of my power, opposed all tyranny. But alas! . . . Even now the voice of philosophy, wearied and dejected, cries in the midst of mankind as in the center of a boundless desert.
Oh! could I but divide the term of my existence, with what pleasure would I instantly descend to the grave! With what joy should I part from the gloomy, wretched aspects of my contemporaries to awake in the midst of those fair days that thou shalt bring forth, that blissful period when man shall have regained his courage, his liberty, his independence, and his virtue!
Credit - Mercier, Louis Sebastian. Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred. Translated by W. Hooper.
This statement was supposedly dictated by Napoleon, just weeks before his death, to the comte de Montholon in 1821 while he was in exile on Saint Helena. The collected ideas, according to Montholon, were to be given to Napoleon’s son as a form of political advice for his own rule. However, Napoleon’s son would never rule France or Europe despite being given the title of King of Rome while Napoleon still reigned. Instead, he died only eleven years after his father.
My son must have no thought of avenging my death: he must take advantage of it. Let him never forget my accomplishments; let him forever remain, as I have been, French to my fingertips. All his efforts must tend to a reign of peace . . . I have been obliged to subdue Europe by force; today Europe must be persuaded. I have saved the Revolution, which was on the point of death; I have washed off its crimes, I have held it up to the eyes of Europe resplendent with glory. I have implanted new ideas in the soil of France and Europe: their march cannot be reversed . . .
Credit - Testament to Comte de Montholon (April 17 1821)
Jérôme Bonaparte was Napoleon’s youngest brother and was given the role of King of Westphalia by Napoleon. Under his reign, a constitution was written, serfs were freed, and all men were entitled to trial by jury among other rights. After Napoleon’s abdication and exile, Jérôme continued to play a role in French politics in the administration of his nephew Napoleon III beginning in 1850 as Marshall of France.
What the peoples of Germany desire most impatiently is that talented commoners should have the same right to your esteem and to public employment as the nobles, that any trace of serfdom and of an intermediate hierarchy between the sovereign and the lowest class of the people should be completely abolished. The benefits of the Code Napoleon, the publicity of judicial procedure, the creation of juries must be so many distinguishing marks of your monarchy. And if I may give you my whole opinion, I count more firmly on their effects for the enlargement and consolidation of your kingdom than on the results of even the greatest military victories. Our people must enjoy a degree of freedom, equality and prosperity unknown to the people of the Germanies, and this liberal regime must produce, in one way or another, the most salutary changes affecting the politics of the Confederation of the Rhine and the power of your monarchy. This manner of governing will give you a more powerful shield against Prussia than the Elbe, fortifications, and French protection. What nation would wish to return under the arbitrary Prussian government once it has tasted the benefits of a wise and liberal administration? The peoples of Germany, the peoples of France, of Italy, of Spain all desire equality and liberal ideas. I have guided the affairs of Europe for many years now, and I have had occasion to convince myself that the buzzing of the privileged classes is contrary to the general opinion. Be a constitutional king.
Credit - Spielvogel, Jackson. Western Civilization. Cengage Learning. Page 590.
Napoleon would consider the Civil Code—the Code Napoleon—to be his most notable and lasting achievement. It required the codification of a uniform set of laws for all of France, replacing the Ancien Regime system that allowed 400 separate law codes for regions throughout the kingdom. The code also had to incorporate many of the 14,000 pieces of legislation introduced during the Revolution. Both the National Convention and the Directory had tried to codify the laws with no success before Napoleon personally led the effort in 1801.
1. The laws are executory throughout the whole French territory, by virtue of the promulgation thereof made by the First Consul. They shall be executed in every part of the Republic, from the moment at which their promulgation can have been known. . .
8. Every Frenchman shall enjoy civil rights.
9. Every individual born in France of a foreigner, may, during the year which shall succeed the period of his majority, claim the quality of Frenchman; provided, that if he shall reside in France he declares his intention to fix his domicil in that country, and that in case he shall reside in a foreign country, he give security to become domiciled in France and establish himself there within a year, to be computed from the date of that undertaking.
10. Every child born of a Frenchman in a foreign country is French. . .
213. The husband owes protection to his wife, the wife obedience to her husband.
214. The wife is obliged to live with her husband, and to follow him to every place where he may judge it convenient to reside: the husband is obliged to receive her, and to furnish her with every necessity for the wants of life, according to his means and station.
215. The wife cannot plead in her own name, without the authority of her husband, even though she should be a public trader, or non-communicant, or separate in property. . .
229. The husband may demand a divorce on the ground of his wife’s adultery.
230. The wife may demand divorce on the ground of her husband’s adultery only when he shall have brought his concubine into their common residence. . .
268. The wife, petitioner, or defendant in divorce, shall be at liberty to quit the residence of her husband during the prosecution, and demand an alimentary pension proportioned to the means of the husband. The court shall point out the house in which the wife shall be bound to reside, and shall fix, if there be ground, the alimentary provision which the husband shall be obliged to pay her. . .
371. A child, at every age, owes honor and respect to his father and mother.
372. He remains subject to their control until his majority or emancipation.
373. The father alone exercises this control during marriage.
374. A child cannot quit the paternal mansion without the permission of his father, unless for voluntary enlistment after the full age of eighteen years.
Credit – Code Napoleon (1804)
The Concordant of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII that was signed in Paris on July 15, 1801. It recognized the majority religion of France to be Roman Catholic and ended the breach between the French state and the Catholic Church. The breach had resulted from the Revolution’s Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the Church a department within the state government, made priests elected officials paid as employees of the state, and outlawed monasticism, among other violations of church power and practice. The Concordat returned some power to the Church, such as paying clergy’s salaries, but retained others, such as the requirement of an oath of allegiance to the state. The later Organic articles and an 1808 decree extended this state oversight, and state protection, to Jews and Protestants.
The government of the French Republic recognizes that the Roman, catholic and apostolic religion is the religion of the great majority of French citizens.
His Holiness likewise recognizes that this same religion has derived and in this moment again expects the greatest benefit and grandeur from the establishment of catholic worship in France and from the personal profession of it which the Consuls of the Republic make.
In consequence, after this mutual recognition, as well for the benefit of religion as for the maintenance of internal tranquility, they have agreed as follows:
1. The catholic, apostolic and Roman religion shall be freely exercised in France: its worship shall be public, and in conformity with the police regulations which the government shall deem necessary for the public tranquility. . . .
4. The First Consul of the Republic shall make appointments, within the three months which shall follow the publication of the bull of His Holiness to the archbishoprics and bishoprics of the new circumscription. His Holiness shall confer the canonical institution, following the forms established in relation to France before the change of government. . . .
6. Before entering upon their functions, the bishops shall take directly, at the hands of the First Consul, the oath of fidelity which was in use before the change of government, expressed in the following terms: "I swear and promise to God, upon the holy scriptures, to remain in obedience and fidelity to the government established by the constitution of the French Republic. I also promise not to have any intercourse, nor to assist by any council, nor to support any league, either within or without, which is inimical to the public tranquility; and if, within my diocese or elsewhere, I learn that anything to the prejudice of the state is being contrived, I will make it known to the government."
8. The arrangements provided by the organic articles of the Catholic worship upon the liberty of endowments, and upon the nature of the estates which can be the object thereof, shall be common to the Protestant churches.
9. There shall be two academies of seminaries in the East of France for the instruction of ministers of the confession of Augsburg.
10. There shall be a seminary at Geneva for the instruction of the ministers of the reformed churches.
11. The professors of all the academies or seminaries shall be appointed by the First Consul.
The deputies comprising the assembly of Israelites, convoked by the imperial decree dated 30 May, 1806, after having heard the report of the commission of nine, which was appointed to prepare the work to be undertaken by the assembly, deliberating on the most suitable system of organization to be given to their fellow Jews of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, regarding the exercise of their worship and their internal regulation, have unanimously adopted the following project: A synagogue and an Israelite consistory will be established in every department containing more than two thousand individuals professing the Mosaic religion. . . .
Credit - Frank M. Anderson, ed., The Constitutions and Other Illustrative Documents of the History of France, 2nd ed., revised (New York: Russell and Russell, 1908), pp. 296-297.
Napoleon gave an address proclaiming the benefits of his administration to the Dutch representatives meeting with him in preparation for the annexation of Holland and the Hanseatic towns to the French empire.
When Providence elevated me to the first throne in the world, it became my duty, while establishing forever the destinies of France, to determine the fate of all those people who formed a part of the empire, to insure for all the benefits of stability and order, and to put an end everywhere to the woes of anarchy. I have done away with the uncertainty in Italy by placing upon my head the crown of iron. I have suppressed the government which was ruling in Piedmont. I have traced out the constitution of Switzerland in my Act of Mediation, and I have harmonized the local conditions of these countries and their historical traditions with the security and rights of the imperial crown. I gave you a prince of my own blood to govern you. It was a natural bond, which should have served to unite the interests of your administration and the rights of the empire. My hopes have been disappointed. Under these circumstances I have displayed a degree of moderation and long-suffering which comported but ill with my character and my rights. Finally, I have but just put an end to the painful uncertainty in which you found yourselves, and to the death struggle which had ended by destroying your strength and resources. I have opened the continent to your industry, and the day will come when you shall bear my eagles upon the seas which your ancestors have rendered illustrious. You will then show yourself worthy of them and of me.
Credit - An Address to the Dutch Representatives (August 1810)
The Berlin Decree was announced November 21, 1806. The decree expressly stated “all commerce and all correspondence with the British Isles is forbidden” to all areas under Napoleon’s command and all areas allied to his empire. Pasquier was favored by Napoleon, who named him a baron in 1809 and Prefect of Police in Paris in 1810, but his later association with the restored monarchs led to a less favorable memory of his time under Napoleon.
[Napoleon’s behavior after the battle of Jena] was nothing compared to a measure adopted in the hour of intoxication of victory, and which, by erecting an insurmountable barrier so to speak, between France and England, condemned each of these two powers to entertain no hopes of peace and rest until its rival was completely destroyed. . . .
Napoleon flattered himself with the idea of having found the means to deal a blow at his most deadly opponent in the matter nearest his heart. Seeing himself master of the greater part of the European coast, or at least enjoying a domination over the mouths of the principal rivers of Germany, he persuaded himself that it depended on him to close all Europe’s markets to England and thus compel her to accept peace from him at his own terms. The conception was no doubt a grand one, and the measure was no more iniquitous than that of England, but the difference lay in the fact that the latter, in her pretensions to a blockade, was not undertaking anything beyond her strength, and did not stand in need of any other nation’s cooperation to carry it out. France on the contrary, was entering upon an undertaking which could not be put into execution without the voluntary or enforced cooperation of all the European powers. It was therefore sufficient, in order to render it fruitless—and the future went to prove this—that a single one of these powers, unable to submit to the privations imposed upon it, should either announce its firm determination not to lend a hand in the matter, or should be content with finding ways of eluding it. . . .
Not only was England in the position to supply the continent with numerous products of her industry, but she also controlled almost the entirety of all colonial wares and provisions. Hence it would become necessary, in the first place, to have recourse to all possible means calculated to make continental industry supply that which English industry would no longer furnish. In the second place with regard to colonial products, some of which, such as sugar and coffee, were almost indispensable necessities of life, and others of which were the actual raw material on which depended the manufactures which it was proposed to create, it was necessary to devise a means for allowing them the right of entry, . . .
Credit - Duc Etienne-Denis Pasquier, A History of My Time: Memoirs of Chancellor Pasquier vol 1 1789-1810 (Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York, 1893).
Benjamin Constant was a Swiss-French liberal political philosopher and author noted for his criticism of Napoleon’s rule. He was initially favored by Napoleon who appointed him to a French council in 1800 but later had him removed for his oppositional opinions. After the restoration of the monarchy and the 1830 revolution, Constant joined the Council of State under King Louis Philippe.
Because immediate usurpation was easy, he believed it could be durable, and once he became a usurper, he did all that usurpation condemns a usurper to do in our century. It was necessary to stifle inside the country all intellectual life: he banished discussion and proscribed the freedom of the press. The nation might have been stunned by that silence: he provided, extorted, or paid for acclamation which sounded like the national voice. Had France remained at peace, her peaceful citizens, her idle warriors would have observed the despot, would have judged him, and would have communicated their judgments to him. Truth would have passed through the ranks of the people. Usurpation would not have long withstood the influence of truth. Thus Bonaparte was compelled to distract public attention by bellicose enterprises. War flung onto distant shores that part of the French nation that still had some real energy. It prompted the police harassment of the timid, whom it could not force abroad. It struck terror into men’s hearts, and left there a certain hope that chance would take responsibility for their deliverance: a hope agreeable to fear and convenient to inertia. How many times have I heard men who were pressed to resist tyranny postponing this, during wartime till the coming of peace, and in peacetime until war commences! I am right therefore in claiming that a usurper’s sole resource is uninterrupted war. Some object: what if Bonaparte had been pacific? Had he been pacific, he would never have lasted twelve years. Peace would have re-established communication among the different countries of Europe. These communications would have restored to thought its means of expression. Works published abroad would have been smuggled into the country. The French would have seen that they did not enjoy the approval of the majority of Europe: their prestige could not have been sustained. Bonaparte perceived this truth so well that he broke with England in order to escape the British newspapers. Yet even this was not enough. While a single country remained free, Bonaparte was never safe. Commerce, active, adroit, invisible, indefatigable, capable of overcoming any distance and of insinuating itself through a thousand roundabout means, would sooner or later have reintroduced into the empire those enemies whom it was so important to exile from it. Hence the continental blockade and the war with Russia.
Credit - Benjamin Constant, Political Writings, ed. and trans., Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 161–63. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.
Katherine Aaslestad is Profess of History at the University of West Virginia where she specializes in German and European history. Her recent book Revisiting Napoleon’s Continental System: Local, Regional, and European Experiences explores the long-term effects of Napoleon’s Continental System on Europe. Karen Hagemann is James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her recent book Revisiting Prussia’s Wars against Napoleon: History, Culture, and Memory won the Hans Rosenberg Prize for the best book in Central European History in 2015.
This [article] seeks to raise awareness among historians about the importance of the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, in particular the Napoleonic era, for nineteenth- and twentieth-century central European history, and it aims to stimulate an intensive discussion about the place of this period in modern history . . . 1806 was a transformative year for German central Europe. It brought humiliating military defeat and occupation for Prussia, the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, and a complete territorial and structural reorganization for the region. Historians have long viewed this reorganization as essential for the rise of German nationalism, state-building, and modernization. . . . Following the French military occupation and subsequent annexation of German territories west of the Rhine in 1802, the secularization and consolidation of more than 300 polities within the Holy Roman Empire began in 1803 with the Imperial Recess . . . After the devastating defeat at Austerlitz in December 1805, the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of Pressburg and ceded its western territories to Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg, which became sovereign states. In August 1806 Emperor Francis II abdicated the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and de facto dissolved the Empire. Napoleon consolidated his military, diplomatic, and economic control over central Europe by tying sixteen German states to the French Empire in the Confederation of the Rhine or Rhinebund in July 1806 . . . Such territorial reorganization was essential to Napoleon’s effort to mobilize resources for his army by centralizing his authority and introducing administrative, financial, and military structures into the new satellite states. Many Rhinebund states welcomed the reforms required by Napoleonic administrators. The abolition of aristocratic privileges; the reform of state, military, and society; and the introduction of the Napoleonic Code . . . rationalization of taxation; standardization of weights and measures; installation of a rational state bureaucracy; and introduction of universal conscription enhanced state authority. The Napoleonic Code introduced the concept of equality before the law (of propertied and educated men), and religious toleration (among Christians), and reduced aristocratic privileges. Although often overlooked by scholars, the gendered consequences of the Code, which stabilized paternal power within the family and society, had lasting effects beyond the nineteenth century. In essence, the reforms enhanced the development of “modern” administrative state power . . . The events of 1806 and their aftermath emerged as one of the most important subjects in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German historiography . . . Yet after 1945 western historians of German central Europe lost interest in the era as a kind of counter-reaction to its earlier preeminence and the dominant pro-Prussian interpretation.
Credit - Katherine Aaslestad and Karen Hagemann, “1806 and Its Aftermath: Revisiting the Period of the Napoleonic Wars in German Central European Historiography” Central European History, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 547-579.
Alexander Grab is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Maine. His research interests lie in Italian history during the Napoleonic era. His 2003 book won the International Napoleonic Society book award in 2004.
Until recently, most English-language books on Napoleon have focused on France, devoting relatively limited space—a chapter or two—to developments in his annexed and satellite states. Yet one must insist that Napoleon was as much a part of European history as he was of French history.
Indeed, to fully understand Napoleonic policies, we need to study them in a European context. Clearly, a critical component of Napoleon’s historical role was his effort to consolidate French hegemony throughout Europe and establish himself as its dominant ruler. To achieve these goals, Napoleon incessantly intervened in other countries and reshaped the map of Europe. He annexed foreign territories, created new satellite states, altered borders, toppled dynasties, and imposed new governments. He also exploited the human and financial resources of occupied Europe, conscripted young men into his Grande Armée, and imposed taxes and war contributions. . . . Likewise Napoleonic economic policies must also be studied within a European setting. The Continental Blockade, his most significant policy after 1806, required the collaboration of the rest of Europe, and French economic domination in Europe meant that his satellite states had to grant French industry and commerce favorable conditions without reciprocity. . . .
. . . Reform programs that transformed and modernized the internal structures of various countries constituted a significant component of Napoleon’s continental impact. . . . To maximize revenues and recruit men more efficiently, Napoleon and his officials created broad reforms in the subject states, designed to create a central state apparatus consisting of a centralized bureaucracy, a uniform tax system, a conscripted army, a uniform court system, and an effective police force. They also launched the transformations of European societies by subjecting the Church to the state, reducing the power of the nobility, and advancing the interests of non-nobles by opening government and military positions to them and selling them national property. Other major changes included the introduction of the Code Napoleon, which stressed legal equality and property rights; abolition of the seigneurial system; elimination of internal tolls and the formation of national markets; secularization of Church property; and the introduction of secondary education. To be sure, the depth and impact of these reforms varied from country to country depending primarily upon how well prepared each society was to adopt the changes. But in many of the countries that comprised his Grand Empire, Napoleon’s policies undermined a great deal of the traditional structure and paved the road toward a more modern society.
Credit - Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe (Palgrave MacMillan: New York, 2003) ix-xiii.
Stuart Woolf is professor emeritus of contemporary history at the Ca Foscari University of Venice. His work has included books and articles on Italian history from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries covering topics as diverse as Napoleon and European fascism.
Precisely because of the importance of the national tradition, the Revolutionary-Napoleonic experience was played down or rejected in national historiographies as a foreign invasion that interrupted the autochthonous evolution of the national spirit. At best, the invasions were judged to have served the function of arousing the resistance of the population in ‘wars of national liberation’ : the phrase forms a standard part of the vocabulary of national histories in the major countries that experienced the Napoleonic invasion, such as Germany, Spain and Russia; . . . For French historiography, the European dimension of the Napoleonic episode was treated, at best, as an appendage of the French national epic; elsewhere, it constituted an almost total and undesirable rupture of the continuity embedded in national historical narratives. My starting point was to contest such a division between France and French-dominated Europe. For it seemed that the very conquest of Europe . . . left a legacy, certainly of varying intensity (which I relate to the length of period of French domination), but which conditioned the subsequent development of European societies, until the revolutions of 1848, and in some respects beyond. The main tenor of my argument is that the relationship between Napoleon and Europe cannot be reduced to his battles. . . . The very scale of the political changes that derived from the French victories, that were to extend the French republic of 83 departments with 28 million citizens (1790) into the Empire of 130 departments with 44 million (1812), confronted France with the problem faced by all successful imperial powers—how to replace military control by political and administrative systems of civilian rule that would win acceptance, if not consensus, from the conquered populations. . . . Military conquest provided the opportunity for France to fulfill her mission by forcing the pace of progress on the more backward states and societies of Europe through the administrative prism of rational reforms imposed from above. . . . The imprint left on those annexed to France for a substantial length of time, such as the future Belgium, the Rhineland or Piedmont, seems to me to be clearly visible during the Restoration: the Rhinelanders resisted Prussian attempts to replace the Code Napoleon with the Allgemeines Landrecht; the reactionary Savoy dynasty was forced to recognize the irrevocability of the changes wrought by the French; the Belgians, once independent, sought to retain the advantages . . . of the recent French past through a precociously progressive constitution and representative system.
Credit - Stuart Woolf, “Napoleon and Europe Revisited” Modern & Contemporary France (2000), 8(4), 469–478
David Bell is Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions at Princeton University. His six books and countless articles address the political culture of the Old Regime and the French Revolution including a 2015 biography of Napoleon.
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw fundamental changes in Western attitudes toward war and the start of a recurrent historical pattern . . . to characterize the conflicts that do arise as apocalyptic struggles that must be fought until the complete destruction of the enemy and that might have a purifying, even redemptive, effect on the participants. . . Since the terrible religious conflicts of the Reformation, war had become relatively easy to control and to restrain. Armies were relatively small, major battles relatively infrequent . . . This state of virtually permanent but restrained warfare seemed entirely natural and proper to the noblemen who led Europe’s armies under the Old regime . . . The conflicts of 1792 to 1815 did not witness any great leaps ahead in military technology, but Europe nonetheless experienced an astonishing transformation in the scope and intensity of warfare . . . Before 1790 only a handful of battles had involved more than 100,000 combatants; in 1809, the battle of Wagram . . . involved 300,000. Four years later, the battle of Leipzig drew 500,000 with fully 150,000 of them killed or wounded. During the Napoleonic period, France alone counted close to a million war deaths . . . the toll across Europe may have reached as high as 5 million. In a development without precedent, the wars brought about significant alterations in the territory or the political system of every single European state. Guerrilla fighting left livid scars in regions of Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and France itself. This, then, was the first total war . . . What marked the conflicts that began in 1792 was not simply their radically new scope and intensity but also the political dynamic that drove the participants relentlessly toward a condition of total engagement and the abandonment of restraints . . . It is this fusion of politics and war that distinguishes modern “total war” from earlier incidents of unrestrained or even exterminatory warfare. Needless to say, humanity had a long and sorry record of such conflicts before the eighteenth century. It did not, however . . . see concerted political attempts to harness entire societies—every human being, every resource—to a single, military purpose. This factor is what brings the continent-wide conflicts of 1792-1815 closer to the world wars of the twentieth century. . . . The political fermentation of 1789-1792 produced new understandings of war that made possible the cataclysmic intensification of the fighting over the next twenty-three years. Ever since, the same developments have shaped the way Western societies have seen and engaged in military conflict.
Credit - David Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as we Know It (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York, 2007)1-13.
Lisa Moses Leff is Professor of History and Senior Vice Provost at American University. Her work focuses on Jews in France including a book on Jewish international aid and another about a historian who stole French archives for US and Israeli libraries.
Unlike their ancestors, Jews in nineteenth-century France were no longer legally defined as Jewish. . . . By the end of September 1791, all Jews residing in French territory were made citizens. . . . The loss of communal authority created problems for enforcing Jewish law and collecting the taxes necessary for education, charity, and synagogue maintenance, and Jewish leaders petitioned Napoleon for a new organization to solve these problems. In 1806 and 1807, Napoleon convened two meetings of Jewish leaders (the first called the Assembly of Jewish Notables and the second the Great Sanhedrin), in part to deal with the Jews’ requests for organization. . . . At the meetings, Jewish rabbis and lay leaders answered questions about the relationship between Jewish religious beliefs and civic virtue . . . In so doing, they hoped to show not only that Jewish individuals could be good citizens but also that Judaism as a moral code would be a good pedagogy for citizenship in a state whose fundamental tenets were liberty, equality, and fraternity . . . In 1808, Napoleon created the Consistory system, and thereby assured that this particular interpretation of Judaism would function as an institution. As the only legal body of French Judaism, the Consistories were able to exercise an unprecedented degree of control over rabbinical sermons and the curriculum of Jewish schools. Consistory leaders developed teachings that articulated a clear connection between Judaism and the ideology of the French state. . . . Jewish leaders were largely pleased with the establishment of the Consistories. Yet they were far less pleased with Napoleon’s other decisions regarding France’s Jewish citizens . . . Jews—unlike Christian French citizens—remained responsible for the debts of the communautés to which they (or their ancestors) had belonged before the Revolution. Last, in 1806 and again in 1808, Napoleon issued decrees (the second of which is known as the “Infamous Decree”) forbidding the Jews of eastern France to borrow or lend money. . . . In struggling to free themselves from these burdens, Jewish leaders argued that they were contrary to the spirit of the new regime. In their minds, these were remnants of corporatism that should not be confused with the legitimate form of religious administration that Napoleon had established. . . .In these struggles, then, Jewish leaders distinguished between Judaism as a religion and Jewishness as a corporate civil status, deeming the former essential and the latter unacceptable in the new regime.
Credit - Lisa Moses Leff, “Jewish Solidarity in Nineteenth‐Century France: The Evolution of a Concept” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 74, No. 1 (March 2002), pp. 33-61
Alexander Pushkin was a Romantic-era Russian poet, playwright, and novelist. He was still a relatively new poet when he wrote “Napoleon” in 1821: he had only written his first long poem for publication a year before. His later writings— including his defense of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire —revealed him to be a social activist. As a Russian poet he glorified Russia’s victory over Napoleon but seems impressed by the French emperor despite this.
The wondrous destiny is ended,
The mighty light is quench’d and dead;
In storm and darkness hath descended
Napoleon’s sun, so bright and dread.
The captive King hath burst his prison—
The petted child of Victory;
And for the Exile hath arisen
The dawning of Posterity. . . .
There was a time thine eagles tower’d
Resistless o’er the humbled world;
There was a time the empires cower’d
Before the bolt thy hand had hurl’d:
The standards, thy prond will obeying,
Flapp’d wrath and woe on every wind
A few short years, and thou wert laying
Thine iron yoke on human kind.
And France, on glories vain and hollow,
Had fixed her frenzy-glance of flame—
Forgot sublimer hopes, to follow
Thee, Conqueror, thee—her dazzling shame
Thy legions’ swords with blood were drunken—
All sank before thine echoing tread;
And Europe fell—for sleep was sunken,
The sleep of death—upon her head.
. . . Up, Russia! Queen of hundred battles,
Remember now thine ancient right!
Blaze, Moscow!—Far shall shine thy light!
Lo! other times are dawning o’er us:
Be blotted out, our short disgrace!
Swell, Russia, swell the battle chorus!
War! is the watchword of our race
Lo! how the baffled leader seizeth,
With fetter’d hands, his Iron Crown—
A dread abyss his spirit freezeth!
Down, down he goes, to ruin down!
And Europe’s armaments are driven,
Like mist, along the blood-stain’d snow—
That snow shall melt ‘neath summer’s heaven.
With the last footstep of the foe.
Credit - Pushkin, Alexander. "Napoleon." Edinburgh Magazine, July issue, 1845.
Victor Hugo was a Romantic era French poet, playwright and novelist who was a child during Napoleon’s reign. His father was a high-ranking officer in Napoleon’s army and he remained an adamant supporter of Napoleon after his defeat. Victor Hugo is most recognized for his novels including Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame but was also a celebrated poet. He was originally a monarchist but became a republican around the time of France’s 1848 Revolution. He was adamantly opposed to the empire of Napoleon III and chose life in exile rather than remain in France. His respect for Napoleon I was all the more striking when compared to his contempt for the nephew Napoleon III.
Above all others, everywhere I see
His image cold or burning!
My brain it thrills, and oftentime sets free
The thoughts within me yearning.
My quivering lips pour forth the words
That cluster in his name of glory—
The star gigantic with its rays of swords
Whose gleams irradiate all modern story.
I see his finger pointing where the shell
Should fall to slay most rabble,
And save foul regicides; or strike the knell
Of weaklings ‘mid the tribunes’ babble.
A Consul then, o’er young but proud,
With midnight poring thinned, and sallow,
But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud,
And round pale face and lank locks form the halo.
And soon the Caesar, with an eye a-flame
Whole nations’ contact urging
To gain his soldiers gold and fame
Oh, Sun on high emerging,
Whose dazzling lustre fired the hells
Embosomed in grim bronze, which, free, arose
To change five hundred thousand base-born Tells,
Into his host of half-a-million heroes!
What! next a captive? Yea, and caged apart.
No weight of arms enfolded
Can crush the turmoil in that seething heart
Which Nature—not her journeymen—self-moulded.
Let sordid jailers vex their prize;
But only bends that brow to lightning,
As gazing from the seaward rock, his sighs
Cleave through the storm and haste where France looms bright’ning.
Alone, but greater! Broke the sceptre, true!
Yet lingers still some power—
In tears of woe man’s metal may renew
The temper of high hour;
For, bating breath, e’er list the kings
The pinions clipped may grow! the Eagle
May burst, in frantic thirst for home, the rings
And rend the Bulldog, Fox, and Bear, and Beagle!
And, lastly, grandest! ‘tween dark sea and here
Eternal brightness coming!
The eye so weary’s freshened with a tear
As rises distant drumming,
And wailing cheer—they pass the pale
His army mourns though still’s the end hid;
And from his war-stained cloak, he answers "Hail!"
And spurns the bed of gloom for throne aye-splendid!
Credit - “Poems by Victor Hugo.” Poems by Victor Hugo - Full Text Free Book (Part 1/7), Fullbooks.com, 1888.
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