as small as a world and as large as alone, clatterbane: slashmarks: ...

2:38am June 15, 2015

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santorumsoakedpikachu:

deducecanoe:

shieldwitch:

beggars-opera:

kuttithevangu:

Barbara Tuchman says the widespread apparently juvenile behavior of medieval Europe should be considered in light of the fact that most of active society was in fact people in their teens and twenties

Which on the one hand is like one of those things that’s obvious once it’s pointed out

But also its funny to think there was a whole historians’ tradition of being like “why were medieval kings so overemotional” until Tuchman clears her throat and goes… “Ahem… Have you ever met an eighteen year old boy” and then everyone’s like “oooooh”

See also: revolutionary Boston

“Okay listen realistically I’m going to die of pox, plague, or The French Disease by the time I’m 25 if I’m not poisoned. It’s a miracle that I’m even standing here today. I’ve got a team of bishops paid to pray for my soul in shifts so I’ve got heavenly insurance in the likely occurrence I am stabbed as soon as I leave this chamber. So you know what? I’m gonna fuck shit up. The neighboring duke looked at me weird last feast day; let’s start with him.”

I’m probably going to die of this head cold. Better draw a woman plucking dicks from a tree in this margin and a monk buggering a dragon in the other.

This isn’t accurate, though? The main reason for the low mean life expectancy was the high infant mortality rate. People didn’t just expect to drop dead at 30.
There were times and places in medieval Europe where the average age of marriage was in the twenties. You can look at lists of medieval monarchs and see that they didn’t all die young. Heck, I saw a post about this going around just the other day.
(The tumblr app does not want me to write this post. It’s crashed twice already when I’ve tried. I should just finish here and not push my luck.)

Thank you SO MUCH.
The average age of marriage in the middle ages in fact almost never dropped below twenties/late teens except for nobility and royal families who made up a tiny sector of the population.
Also, the portrayal of the middle ages as juvenile, “dark,” backwards, and generally ridiculous is a propaganda technique meant to emphasize the glory of the Renaissance (Renaissance era scholars actually burned books published earlier to reinforce this), age of exploration/imperialism, and the beginning of “modern times.” AKA, to reinforce why Europe HAD to go conquer all those foreign countries in the process of becoming “civilized.”
Also adolescents are people, the only societies that have “adolescent problems” are ones where they’re disenfranchised, the age of adulthood varies a lot cross-culturally, and teenage monarchs have been every bit as competent and incompetent as older ones.
Also given that monarchs tended to rule for a very long time unless they died early, most middle ages monarchs spent most of their reigns as adults, even the ones that inherited young.
Also blaming juvenile age for the excesses and power displays of dictatorial rulers demonstrates a fantastic ignorance of politics and how they work, as well as an ignorance of real life atrocities and excesses by ruling classes of all countries. Much of this “dramatic” behavior is either exaggerated when passed down to us in the context of, you know, outright fiction and wild political lies by rivals, or is a display of absolute power by people with autocratic rule.
Like, I want to ask you why you think “haha teenagers are stupid” is a funny joke (if you are an adult and so mature, why do spend your free time mocking teenagers srsly?) but I also want to point out that this narrative of the middle ages, like all other narratives that claim people in the past were not people like US, has a specific political agenda.
It’s meant to enforce the idea that the age of imperialism and exploration was one of enlightenment that led to the glorious beacon that western civilization is supposed to be today; it’s also meant to emphasize the supposed reasonableness, intelligence and benevolence of today’s rulers. I understand people are reblogging it because of the jokes, but you’re unknowingly perpetuating propaganda and you should be aware of that.

I was definitely reblogging for the humor earlier, but good point.