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Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
H/T to Gateway Pundit
Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
H/T to Gateway Pundit
Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
H/T to Gateway Pundit
Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
H/T to Gateway Pundit
Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
H/T to Gateway Pundit
Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
H/T to Gateway Pundit
Elizabeth Hasselback doesn’t back down from Rosie on the View.
Medieval Myths Debunked
On a roll. Here’s another fascinating book – this time debunking the myths you probably believe about the Middle Ages – the source of medieval thinking that is so decried today. Turns out that we don’t know much about history in this country. The author is a historian/writer who works in the archives of the French National Library among original documents. Again, I am supplying a thorough review posted on Amazon instead of one by a professional reviewer.
The book is Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths by Regine Pernoud.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Regine Pernoud’s book THOSE TERRIBLE MIDDLE AGES:DEBUNKING THE MYTHS is a brief but instructive book which both undermines popular history (popular nonsense) of the loosely defined Middle Ages (c.500-1500 AD). This book refers to documents and the use of reason to debunk the notion that the Middle Ages were sterile and oppressive. One should note that Miss Pernoud also gives her readers an important lesson on how to learn history and how to produce historical works. Father Buckley, SJ, has a short but useful forward to this book. He gives examples of a brilliant age during which people saw the abolition of slavery, "checks and balances" on abosolutism, great architecture (the Gothic Cathedrals), the invention of the codex (bound book), the musical scale, and the mechanical clock. He could have easily included the development of bookhand or standard penmanship, and the remarkable achievement of Scholastic Philosophy and its insistence on logic and clear reason. Among the myths that have been perpetuated is that of the Medieval serfs. These people lived better than slaves during Ancient History, and these people had absolute rights such as access to their land. These men and women could not be removed from their land. While these people could not easily leave, they did indeed have social mobility. Furthermore, Miss Pernoud refers to documents such as deeds, bills of sale, etc., whereby serfs, including women, expanded their land holdings and could improve social mobility. She indicates that some who were serfs were able to go the Medieval monastic schools and later universities and rise in the rank of the Catholic Church and political structure. Miss Pernoud cites women such as Heliose, Peter Abelard’s wife, who knew Latin and Greek and composed literary works. Another myth re the Middle Ages is that of the status of women. Miss Pernoud cites documents of women who were in certain trades and businesses. The Catholic Church authorities were very opposed to arranged marriages,and the Canon Law jurists argued that since marriage was a Holy Sacrament which had to be voluntary, arranged marriages were not binding at least in theory. This is not to say that the Catholic authorites prevented arranged marriages. One should note that women of noble birth could be rulers and queens. One should note that St. Louis’ mother was his active regeant until he could assume power and ruled from 1226 to 1270. Women who entered the religious life held land tenure and even controlled both convents and monastaries. Miss Pernoud invites readers to look at documents and sources rather than media nonsense whose talking heads have little or no knowledge of anything. Miss Pernoud destroys the notion that Medieval women did not have souls. Those who propagate this nonsense refuse to acknowledge the number of Medieval women who achieved sainthood. Miss Pernoud again refers readers to documents rather than popular history (popular nonsense). One should also note Miss Pernoud’s remarks on Medieval law and contractual arrangements. The idea of a Medieval king being an absolute monarch was almost impossible. Kings, lords, and vassals had obligations and rights in their legal and political relations which limited trends towards absolute power. The Catholic Church authorities also worked to inhibit trends of centralized power. Another important issue that Miss Pernoud examines is that of the Inquisition which has been so badly portrayed. A Medieval inquisition was simply an invesitation based on some problem or complaint. It was simply an attempt of the Catholic authorities to investigate and possibly solve problems. Those who cite the Catholic authorities prosecuting heretics as some sort of evil obviously have little knowledge about the challenge a well organized heretical movement presented. Of particular interest is the challenge presented by the Albigensians. When these heretics caught the attention of the Catholic authorities during the late 12th and early 13th centuries (the 1100s and 1200s), the Catholic authorities made an investigation and did not apply sanctions. However, when Catholic repesentatives were murdered, the Catholic authorities had to act. One must also realize that the Albigensians had political and military support from the southern French and northern Spanish nobility who were only interested in land and conquest. One must also understand that the Albigensains were so dualistic that they were fanatical and dangerous. The Albigensians were opposed to contrats in an age when rights and security were based on contractual relations. Miss. Pernoud mentions that the Albigensians worked against anything that promoted life such as marriage and birth. For these heretics to murder pregnant women or the elderaly was common as the Albigensians destroyed anyone who promoted life. To use a current expression, the Albigensians endorsed the culture of death. Miss Pernoud uses modern examples of modern inquisitions even though they do not go by that name. Rights groups and humanitarian organizations often make investigations (inquisitions) into serious problems and incidents. These moderns then make suggestions or recommendations. The comparison is obvious. Another aspect of the inquisitions is one of comparison. Miss Pernoud is clear that very few of those summoned by Medieval inquisitions were even sanctioned or punished. Yet, the 20th century moderns witnessed mass murder, concentration camp brutality, mass slaughter of civilians, etc., all in the name of political ideology and affiliation. One should note that that Medieval inquisitors had to honor due process and paid careful attention to evidence to avoid unjust prosecutions. As Miss Pernoud indicates the abuses of the Inquisiton came later during the eras of the Renaissance/Reformation and the Age of Absolutism. When secular authorities got control of the Inquisiton after the Middle Ages, the abuses mulitiplied. One should note that Catholic authorities protested these abuses. When popular media types talk about the Renaissance, they betray their lack of knowledge as Miss Pernoud clearly indicates. The Renaissance scholars did not add the Latin and Greek learning. They simply repeated it. On the other hand, the Medieval Scholastics embellished Ancient Greek thought and Latin learning. Medieval vernacular learning was rich and creative,but the Renaissance literature was simply too structured and to imitative of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Finally, Miss Pernoud examines the historical methods. Essentially, she argues that history without documents is simply empty opinion and so much propganda and nonsense. One should note that Miss Pernoud gives readers brief excerpts of manuscripts, documents, etc., which refute Media Land historical nonsense. Obviously, this reviewer is impressed with Miss Pernoud’s THOSE TERRIBLE MIDDLE AGES: DEBUNKING THE MYTHS. She carefully makes her case as a historian should. She is clear that historical study should not be politicized nor pandy to popular bias. One should read this book to find why, "A man of science, the historian is, delegated by his fellow man to the conquest of truth (p 141). Miss Pernoud makes this quote meaningful. – Here’s where you can find the book on Amazon for about ten bucks |
A Lesson on Carefully Examining a Brilliant Age of 1000 Yeras and What Honest History Means, August 9, 2006
Julia
Debunking the “Flat Earth” Myth
An incredible book has just come to my attention. It is all about the mis-use of invented history to bolster current-day beliefs. I knew that Columbus didn’t really believe the earth is flat or he never would have sailed West to reach India which was reached on land by going East. doh! But lots of people still believe that myth and this book is about how that came to be and who perpetrated that myth and why it continues to be believed today. Fascinating story about geography and history and the invention of the "Dark Ages" as a political tool.
It’s called Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by historian Jeffrey Burton Russell. It’s available at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/027595904X?ie=UTF8&tag=spiritualthoug09&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=027595904X
Rather than cite the professional review, I’ve copied a truly great review by an Amazon reader who lays out the essence of the book – that 19th century folks with an agenda invented the idea that Columbus thought the earth was flat – and the uses made of this myth.
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41 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
This slim book shows how the idea medieval people thought the world flat didn’t exist prior to 1820. Rather, it was invented and carefully cultivated by 19th century humanists like Washington Irving and Frenchman Antoinne-Jean Letronne. The book sets the record straight with a discussion of actual geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages, what Columbus and his contemporaries did believe, then looks at how the flat-earth idea snowballed in the 19th century. There is a nice section on how Columbus fudged his distance estimates to sell the 1492 voyage which discovered the New World. The text is 77 pages long, with another 30 pages of references to original sources. If you have speculated about the loaded terms involved when people (who see themselves as "Enlightened") talk about "The Dark Ages", this book is for you. Others will find it uncomfortable. 19th century humanists like Letronne, seeking to replace centuries of human experience (built into traditions and law), with their personal ideas, recognized the job becomes much easier if the ideas of the past are seen as part of a "Dark Age". The Darker the past, the more irresistable the new ideas seem. Who doesn’t want to be thought Enlightened? Assignment of flat-earth thinking to people long dead dramatically expanded from 1870 to 1920, when Darwinists developed it further as a weapon against their opponents. Even today, if one questions a Leftist dogma, the attempt will be made to link the opponent to common heritage with people who "thought the world was flat", thus dispatch him in disgrace. There is little evidence of flat-earth thinking prior to the "Enlightenment" itself, and much showing its sphericity was known. Augustine (400’s) observed the Bible gives no description on the shape of the earth, thus was an irrelevant subject. Other church figures came down firmly on the side of sphericity, as did Bede (700’s) Neither Columbus nor his contemporaries thought the world was flat. Scientific revolutionaries, such as Copernicus, Galileo and Campanella seemed not to consider it a matter needing correction. Nor did skeptics like Montaigne, Rabelais, Bruno or Bacon refer to it as problem; they actually described roundness as having been determined long ago. The phenomenon of ship masts slowly sinking as they went to sea, of new stars appearing as one moved North or South was well known among educated Europeans and even the common man. To construct the Dark Ages, when people were so dim-witted they thought the world was flat (e.g. thus believed all sorts of silly things), modernists Irving and Letronne drew on a couple isolated authors like Lactantius, and Cosmas Indicopleustes and some pagan writers, whose influence and credibility was non-existant until sought out as villains after the "Enlightenment". The skids were greased for humanists here by Hume, who implied that science and religion were at odds, and by Comte, who said humanity was struggling "upward" to science. These were personal opinions, and with perspective, not supportable ones. This was the same Hume who declared: "Reason is and ought only to be, the slave of passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them", so there is ample cause for concern regarding intent. But the marketing success of the "Dark Ages" vs. "Enlightenment" theme, with the underlying irrationality of Hume and the others, have dominated the past couple centuries. Beginning with The Terror of the bloody French Revolution, through to the 20th century, where it was necessary to invent the word genocide, our Enlightened times have seen more than 200 million killed in massive wars by (and billions enslaved to) secular states, justified as the means of creating great secular Utopias (be it communist, socialist or fascist) that are emotionally appealing to some, their judgement being based on the passions of Hume and Rousseau — people they don’t even know. The residents of the Dark Ages past would be astonished at what our educated elite are proudly insistent of. Modern school children still study the Salem Witch trials 400 years later, as part of the ongoing campaign against the past. The 20 people executed that summer (for reasons more to do with the politics of small town revenge than any religious teaching) would have been considered a "slow morning" under Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. Inventing the Flat Earth", itself a historical detective story, leads one to conclusions about the danger of letting hostile people tell you what history is. Humanists say everything is a "narrative myth", especially religion. This book effectively illustrates they are projecting onto others what they themselves have to do for propaganda purposes (being at odds with reality). Truth is secondary to their "greater" objective, hidden in unexamined assumptions and emotional cravings. This book has relevance to methods of the elite ranging from the environment to gay rights. The gamut of "P.C." causes on campus. The educated tend to forget their limitations. Simple people know theirs. Flatter the elite into thinking they are Enlightened and they will accept anything. It’s easy to know a smattering about different things and end up confusing this dim awareness with sophistication … if you are flattered in the process. |
Traces the modern origins of the flat-earth theory., May 27, 2001Boy, in addition to addressing two of Stix’s main interests – history and geography – this book could give you things to consider about today’s claims that those not in line with Al Gore are ignorant folks who probably also deny the world is round. Hmmm I’m going to get this book, for sure.
Julia
Halloween Is Not a Pagan Festival
Today November 1st is All Saints’ Day, a Roman Catholic feastday which originated in the period immediately following Constantine’s legalizing the Christian religion in the 300s. There had been so many martyrs in the centuries while Christianity was illegal and punishable by death that a single day was set aside to honor all of them in Rome and the Eastern part of the Empire – the Celtic areas of the world were not yet Christian. Last night was the Eve of All Saints’ Day aka All Hallows in England (which became Christian many years after the origin of the feastday) and All Hallows Eve became Hallowe’en in English speaking countries. Catholics also have a special day for All Souls on November 2nd, which remembers those who may or may not have gone straight to heaven like the known Saints honored on November 1st.
Here’s a great explanation of all of that and how the US is the only place in the world that celebrates Halloween as we do.
Surprise: Halloween’s Not a Pagan Festival After All
By Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.
Excerpted from Catholic Parent magazine in 2000.
We’ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety.
It’s true that the ancient Celts of Ireland and Britain celebrated a minor festival on October 31–as they did on the last day of most other months of the year. However, Halloween falls on the last day of October because the Feast of All Saints, or "All Hallows," falls on November 1. The feast in honor of all the saints in heaven used to be celebrated on May 13, but Pope Gregory III (d. 741) moved it to November 1, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter’s at Rome. Later, in the 840s, Pope Gregory IV commanded that All Saints be observed everywhere. And so the holy day spread to Ireland.
The day before was the feast’s evening vigil, "All Hallows Even," or "Hallowe’en." In those days Halloween didn’t have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans.
In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in southern France, added a celebration on November 2. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. This feast, called All Souls Day, spread from France to the rest of Europe.
So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory. What about those in the other place? It seems Irish Catholic peasants wondered about the unfortunate souls in hell. After all, if the souls in hell are left out when we celebrate those in heaven and purgatory, they might be unhappy enough to cause trouble. So it became customary to bang pots and pans on All Hallows Even to let the damned know they were not forgotten. Thus, in Ireland at least, all the dead came to be remembered–even if the clergy were not terribly sympathetic to Halloween and never allowed All Damned Day into the church calendar.
But that still isn’t our celebration of Halloween. Our traditions on this holiday center on dressing up in fanciful costumes, which isn’t Irish at all. Rather, this custom arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. Late medieval Europe was hit by repeated outbreaks of the bubonic plague–the Black Death–and it lost about half its population. It is not surprising that Catholics became more concerned about the afterlife.
More Masses were said on All Souls Day, and artistic representations were devised to remind everyone of their own mortality. We know these representations as the danse macabre, or "dance of death," which was commonly painted on the walls of cemeteries and shows the devil leading a daisy chain of people–popes, kings, ladies, knights, monks, peasants, lepers, etc.–into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was presented on All Souls Day itself as a living tableau with people dressed up in the garb of various states of life.
But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween; and the Irish, who had Halloween, did not dress up. How the two became mingled probably happened first in the British colonies of North America during the 1700s, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. The Irish focus on hell gave the French masquerades an even more macabre twist.
But as every young ghoul knows, dressing up isn’t the point; the point is getting as many goodies as possible. Where on earth did "trick or treat" come in?
"Treat or treat" is perhaps the oddest and most American addition to Halloween and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.
During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England, Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds of priests were martyred.
Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a Catholic uprising against the oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot was foiled on November 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot fizzled.
November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, became a great celebration in England, and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes for their celebration: trick or treat!
Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. But by the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun to give up, so eventually it moved to October 31, the day of the Irish-French masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.
The mixture of various immigrant traditions we know as Halloween had become a fixture in the United States by the early 1800s. To this day, it remains unknown in Europe, even in the countries from which some of the customs originated.
But what about witches? Well, they are one of the last additions. The greeting card industry added them in the late 1800s. Halloween was already "ghoulish," so why not give witches a place on greeting cards? The Halloween card failed (although it has seen a recent resurgence in popularity), but the witches stayed.
So too, in the late 1800s, ill-informed folklorists introduced the jack-o’-lantern. They thought that Halloween was Druidic and pagan in origin. Lamps made from turnips (not pumpkins) had been part of ancient Celtic harvest festivals, so they were translated to the American Halloween celebration.
The next time someone claims that Halloween is a cruel trick to lure your children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of All Hallows Even and invite them to discover its Christian significance, along with the two greater and more important Catholic festivals that follow it.
Julia Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/47/story_4771_1.html
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