Mmmmmmmmmmmm as Homer would say it

Julie <garden@...> wrote:In my family, halusky are made with a
separately cooked mixture of fried
onions and sauerkraut, seasoned with paprika and caraway seeds. The
halusky are boiled (per each cup flour, one egg, a little salt and enough
water to make a sticky dough) by cutting them, thumb-sized, into boiling
water. They get puffy and you fish them out. Mix with the onions mixture,
bake in the oven for a while, glob some sour cream on those puppies and
your stomach will thank you.

Margita

Wow lots of interesting stuff in this discussion for us bohemiaphiles ;)

I haven't really come across much in my research about the Adamites - what =

I've read notes that they were pretty much exterminated by Zizka's army.  W=
hat
I know you probably already know - the Picardists/Adamites were part of the=

stream of Waldensian thought and came to Bohemia with high hopes for
religious tolerance only to be swept up in a religious war and all but
obliterated. Adamites were too radical for the radicals, with all that nudi=
ty and
free lovin'  heehee. Anyways, I understand that the movement enjoyed a brie=
f
revival in the 18th century, but once again were just too radical and had t=
o be
smashed down.

So... Don't have much information for you on that. You can check the Lollar=
d
Society Bibliography for sources both general to lollardy and specific to
Central Europe - there may be the odd unindexed reference in one of those
books to your interest area ;) http://lollard.home.att.net/bibhome.html

As for Women in Medieval Bohemia.  John Klassen argues that women
enjoyed a degree of freedom both financially and romantically which was
unusual for medieval Europe.  I wish there was someone else who had done
this sort of research as I would like to see a different perspective on it.=
.. but I
take what I can get!  See especially 'Development of the Conjugal bond' and=

'Marriage and Family' .  See also Alfred Thomas' _Anne_of_Bohemia_ for a
decent picture of pre-Hussite Society as reflected by contemporary literatu=
re.

OK... here are the references for the Klassen articles. They don't always h=
ave
page numbers - due to my getting lazy a few months ago!

Klassen, John. `The disadvantaged and the Hussite revolution', Internationa=
l
Review of Social History, 35 (1990), 249-272

Klassen, John. "The development of the conjugal bond in late medieval
Bohemia", in: Journal of Medieval History 13, 1987, p. 161

Klassen, John. "Gifts for the Soul and Social Charity in Late Medieval
Bohemia," Materielle Kultur und religiöse Stiftung im Spätmittelalter
(Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften philosophisch-historische
klasse sitzungsberichte, 554; Vienna, 1990), pp. 61-81

Klassen, John. "Household Composition" Journal of Medieval History. Vol. 16=
,
1990. pp 55-75.

Klassen, John. "Marriage and Family in Medieval Bohemia" East European
Quarterly, Fall 1985.

John M. Klassen, Women and Religious Reform in late Medieval Bohemia
(Renaissance and Reformation 5, 1981)

-Eliska (yes I finally decided on a persona name)

hi! interesting.
would anyone like recipes that i collected when i lived in slovakia? most of
them are from my students grandmothers. they will be modern, however
anya


Julie <garden@...> wrote:
In my family, halusky are made with a separately cooked mixture of fried
onions and sauerkraut, seasoned with paprika and caraway seeds.
[snipped by moderator]

then its eaten differently in slovakia than in russia. ive never seen it eaten
with borscht before! sounds good! can you send me a recipe?
anya

"Alexey Kiyaikin aka Posadnik" <Posadnik@...> wrote:

Actually, halushki is the thing Borsch is served with in Ukraine.
[snipped by moderator]

Rosanne,

The Bohemian women, especially townswomen, did, to use modern
terminology 'own' their sexuality and their right to seuxal satisfaction. C=
heck
'Marriage and Family in Medieval Bohemia' by John Klassen (referenced in
my other post two seconds ago). He uses divorce/annullment records to
explore the nature of sexual relationships in the 14th and 15th century- LO=
TS
of case studies.

To summarize, dating and mating occurred rather similarly to the way it doe=
s
now. People came together  at markets, fairs and festivals, exchanged gifts=
,
and fooled around, sometimes even had sex. Women who claimed damages
- for false proposal of marriage and subsequent loss of virginity- could ex=
pect
to receive about three months' wages for the plucking of their flower. Unwe=
d
mothers did exist, and non-virginhood did not appear to be an impediment to=

marriage.  People in Bohemia also travelled farther than other Europeans to=

find mates. Frequently people from significant distances would marry and
relocate. Women chose their sexual partners - in one case a woman asked for=

divorce because her husband could not give her children, and she wanted to =

bear progeny. Often their signals would get crossed - one young man thought=

that because a girl held hands with him, they were married (the girl was
asking for the annullment!).   Women's pleasure and involvement in mating
rituals is obvious and  the Church made no noises of disapproval about thei=
r
premarital sex etc etc like we would think they would.    Women fought for =

what few rights they had, and, according to the surviving records Prof.
Klassen uses, were active participants in all aspects of sexual relationshi=
ps.

Of course all was not peachy for ladies, spousal abuse was rampant and, as =

in current times, they could really only hope for a gentle husband. Wealthy=

townswomen or women of noble status could reasonably expect to have an
arranged marriage.  John Klassen makes much of the Bohemian style of
dowry which ensured a woman a modicum of financial independence and
allowed her to be an equal in an arranged marriage. Laws were in place to
prevent husbands from access to this money, protecting the bride's financia=
l
standing.

John Klassen's work is based on a small number of surviving records and
cannot possibly be representative of the whole of bohemian society. What I =

get from his research is that our notion of the 'extraordinary' medieval wo=
man,
who was closer to the modern woman in her expectation and achievement of
certain rights and freedoms, is not so extra-ordinary after all. In medieva=
l
Bohemia, it appears, women who used the channels available to them to
improve their lot in life were in slightly higher numbers than we expect. I=
n
other words, an ordinary woman - not touched by God or a highly poetic nun =

or a finessing noblewoman or any of the legendary medieval women- could
be personally successful in life, survival, and happiness.


[snipped by moderator.  Do not include entire posts in your replies.]

Yes, please!  I'm sure they're good, even if they take only a few hours to
prepare ; )

J


At 08:54 AM 7/9/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>hi! interesting.
>would anyone like recipes that i collected when i lived in slovakia? most
>of them are from my students grandmothers. they will be modern, however
>anya

[snipped by moderator.  Don't include posts that *other* people have replied
to.]

Yes, I'd be very interested in them also!

Soffya Appollonia Tudja
http://www.aeonline.biz/Links.htm
Argent, a patriarchal cross between three crescent gules on a chief sable
three fleur-de-lys Or



   At 08:54 AM 7/9/2003 -0700, you wrote:
   >hi! interesting.
   >would anyone like recipes that i collected when i lived in slovakia? most
   >of them are from my students grandmothers. they will be modern, however
   >anya


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Greetings Waclaw!

Friday, July 04, 2003, 3:15:27 PM, you wrote:

VvP> Are these authentic Slavic recipes? A researcher could (probably)
VvP> show a direct development of these recipes from the European
VvP> originals, but they are not authentic recipes of the late 19th/early
VvP> 20th century from central Europe.

Waclaw, and what about me? I'm not an immigrant's son or grandson, I
do live in Russia and, why are MY folk lore sources are ad initio called
false?  What immigrants changed THEM?


--
Bye,
Alex                            mailto:Posadnik@...

Greetings

Friday, July 04, 2003, 6:24:10 PM, you wrote:



Mac> Again, I will refer anyone interested in the subject to THE SINGER OF TALES
Mac> by A. Lord.

I Am interested. I AM involved. Please do the job usually required at
Laurel events for literature that can't be obtained & understood by
others (e.g. when there's a language barrier). In my case I can't get
the book even if it's in Russia. Lenin library's sources are blocked
mainly. Please do the citing if you really need my reaction to your
argument. I need not "get what you must know because we do" but the
correct idea you are referring to for the third time. I doubt I'm the
only one in this position here.



--
Bye,
Alex                            mailto:Posadnik@...

On Sun, Jul 06, 2003 at 10:06:21PM +0400, Alexey Kiyaikin wrote:
	 . . .
> Waclaw, and what about me? I'm not an immigrant's son or grandson, I
> do live in Russia and, why are MY folk lore sources are ad initio called
> false?  What immigrants changed THEM?

It's not just the immigration, but the passage of time and the
availability of new ingredients. These recipes are preserved and
passed on because they are loved. They become changed because they
are subject to the creative tendencies of the various generations of
cooks who learned them by imitating their parents.

"False" is the wrong word -- they are changed because of entropy.

I have a small book that I picked up in college that I was looking
at several months ago (and of course I can't find it right now).
It was published in Moscow in the 1950's and the title is approximately
"Exercises in Historical Russian Grammar" (cost 50 kopeks!) When
I bought it I was only interested in historical desinences, but I
recently wanted to look at what the author had to say about the
development of phonology. In the section where the author talks
about the Common Slavic *v in Russian, he says that this was
pronounced as a semi-vowel (like the English "w"), which he writes
as a Cyrillic "u" (looks like Roman "y") with a breve over it. He
gives the various developments in the different Eastern Slavic
languages and points out one Russian oblast where he says that "at
the current time" all "v", both initial and final, are pronounced
as "w".

Does such a dialect still exist after all these years of unified
national school curriculum? If it does, what does that imply about the
extent of this characteristic in the mostly unreported dialects of
150 or 200 years ago?

What is not written will change. What is written might be wrong, but
it can be preserved as a witness of someone's observations at the
time that it was written.

--
Waclaw von Pressburg  Veritas liberabit uos
vaclav@...

On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 08:54:10AM -0700, jennifer knox wrote:
> hi! interesting.
> would anyone like recipes that i collected when i lived in slovakia? most of
them are from my students grandmothers. they will be modern, however

This sounds wonderful!

--
Waclaw von Pressburg  Veritas liberabit uos
vaclav@...

> Waclaw, and what about me? I'm not an immigrant's son or grandson, I
> do live in Russia and, why are MY folk lore sources are ad initio called
> false?  What immigrants changed THEM?
>

Not 'false'. Just not 'period documentation'. Whether you like it or not,
whether your ethnic pride wants to believe it or not, cultures change over
time, and the stories they tell over time get subtly shifted. I know you
would like to believe that all Russian cultural artifacts, including
folklore, was preserved precious and unchanged, but social scientists have
shown, in areas where we do have documentation to compare to folklore,
that it doesn't work that way.



-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne@...
"If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so that we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving. " -- Robert Frost, "The Star-Splitter"

THE SINGER OF TALES is available from the American bookseller Barnes and
Noble on the Internet. They ship overseas.

  <A
HREF="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/textbooks/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?user\
id=2VFZZ6CNUW&sourceid=00393694018349308924&bfdate=07%2D10%2D2003+10%3A26%3A39&i\
sbn=0674002830&TXT=Y&itm=1">Barnes & Noble.com - The Singer of Tales, Second
Edition</A>

Which means, of course, that Amazon.com has it, too, and it's available as a
used book somewhere. It's not a new book.

I don't have the leisure at this time to do a summary, but when I come to the
subject in the course I teach this fall, I will try to post some notes on it.

Predslava.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 7/10/2003 7:35:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time, MHoll@...
writes:


> THE SINGER OF TALES is available from the American bookseller Barnes and
> Noble on the Internet. They ship overseas.
>

It's been almost 9 years since I left former USSR, but from what I hear "ship
overseas" doesn't mean it is easy for someone from Russia to get a B&N book,
even if they can afford to pay for the book and the shipping. Easier for
someone in Moscow, of course, than in other places.

Liudmila


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> It's been almost 9 years since I left former USSR, but from what I hear "ship
> overseas" doesn't mean it is easy for someone from Russia to get a B&N book,
> even if they can afford to pay for the book and the shipping. Easier for
> someone in Moscow, of course, than in other places.

For some very basic magazines articles on english-language analyses of
folklore vs. history you can go to http://www.findarticles.com/ and search
for 'history today and folklore'.

-- Jadwiga
Who is not going to post another word on this point.

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne@...
"If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so that we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving. " -- Robert Frost, "The Star-Splitter"

Hmm, the cottage cheese change may have happened as a substitution. I know
that when my sister makes lasagna she will use cottage cheese instead of
ricotta cheese. why? Mostly a cost issue but also it use to be very hard to
find ricotta cheese in the grocery stores here in the US. Quite possibly the
same change happened because it was hard to find the bryndza (or any other
soft sheep cheese) here in the US.

Just a thought on how substitutions can happen.
Kathws

Alex sent on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 1:40 AM:> Greetings!
> >
> > well, as far as the halushky goes, ive never seen it with egg noodles or
any of that. it was always a small dumpling made from potato and flour, with
bryndza cheese sauce on it. the halushky is the noodle. cottage cheese isnt
used. bryndza is a soft sheeps cheese, that is what is used. halushky can
also be served without the cheese if you put something else on it like
chicken or another kind of sauce. but bryndzova halusky (or halusky a syr)
would have been what i described. what you described is definately a
blending of recipes

Vsem--

I know this has been bandied about in the past, but I don't recall
what came of it...

Does anyone have any info (even just bibliographical info) in English
or Russian on court procedures in period Russia?  I'm looking for
protocol, courtesies, etc.

I'll be going to St Petersburg in September, so I can dig around the
bookstores & museums there, too, & report back what I find.

(Background: my Dear Wife made a comment regarding a possible theme
for my Barony's Midwinter Dance Revel, and in a flash it became
Russian.  Works for me, but I may be *in* Russia for the event...)

Interesting link, for those who can read Russian:
http://www.lants.tellur.ru/history/danilevsky/index.htm
It's a series of lectures on various aspects of Rus' history &
culture, given by one Igor' Nikolayevich Danilevskiy, a Kandidat Nauk
who is a "specialist in the history of the Russian feudal era."

Spasibo za vnimanie i pomoshch'--

Michael Suggs/Mikhail Novgorodets

In a message dated 7/10/2003 10:23:14 AM Central Daylight Time,
LiudmilaV@... writes:

> It's been almost 9 years since I left former USSR, but from what I hear
> "ship
> overseas" doesn't mean it is easy for someone from Russia to get a B&N book,
>
> even if they can afford to pay for the book and the shipping. Easier for
> someone in Moscow, of course, than in other places.

I realize that. I did ship books from B&N to my sister in Moscow a couple
years ago. She got them without any trouble.

Predslava.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Mikhail Novgorodets napisal:

> Interesting link, for those who can read Russian:
> http://www.lants.tellur.ru/history/danilevsky/index.htm
> It's a series of lectures on various aspects of Rus' history > & culture,
given by one Igor' Nikolayevich Danilevskiy, a
> Kandidat Nauk who is a "specialist in the history of the
> Russian feudal era."


!!!!  This is fantastic!  Thanks so much for passing it on.

For those who don't read Russian, here's a rough translation of the table of
contents.  (Please feel free to correct my translations!)

I. N. Danilevskii
Ancient Rus' through the eyes of contemporaries and descendents (9 - 12th c.)*

Introductory lecture:
- Do we understand the author of the ancient Russian source?
- Levels of incomprehension
- "There is no hope..."?
- How to understand him [the author]?

Lecture 1:  Indoeuropeans and their origin: The modern position on this question
- Who were the Indoeuropeans?
- The great-grandmotherland of the Indoeuropeans
- The dispersion of the Indoeuropeans

Lecture 2:  Baltic Slavs and "the great resettlement of the peoples"
- Who were the Baltic Slavs?
- "The great resettlement of the peoples"

Lecture 3:  Eastern Slavs: Sources and Hypotheses
- The "ants" and the "veneds" [Tr: I think he's referring to tribes?]
- The first mentions of the Slavs
- Eastern Slavs

Lecture 4:  The formation of the ancient Russian state
- First mentions
- Does the "Norman question" exist?
- Rus': Varangians or Slavs
- The origin and initial meaning of the word "Rus'"
- The ethnic affiliation of the first Russian princes
- Why were the first princes of Ancient Rus' foreigners?
- The role of the Varangians in the formation of the Eastern Slavic state

Lecture 5:  Authority in Ancient Rus'
- Sources of the system of government of the Eastern Slavs
- City and village
- The city in Ancient Rus'
- The council [veche] of Ancient Rus'
- The prince and his guard [druzhina]. The origin of the guard
- The strength [numbers] and make-up of the guard
- The fundamental relationship between the prince and his guard
- Tribute and the gathering of tribute [poliud'ye]
- The "Service organization" [Tr: i.e. servants]

Lecture 6:  Ancient Rus'
- General characteristics
- What is the State?
- Was Kievan Rus' a State?
- "Russian earth"

Lecture 7:  Pagan traditions and Christianity in Ancient Rus'
- Some general questions about studying culture
- Paganism
- The first centuries of Christianity in Rus'
- The "third" culture
- The question of "double faith"

Lecture 8:  The everyday conceptions of the Ancient Russian
- Nature
   - Quantity and numbers
   - View of space
   - Time
   - The animal world
   - Temple-cosmos
   - Conception of harmony
- Person
   - Personal names
   - Nicknames
   - Position of women
   - Parents and children
   - Marriage and sexual relationships
- Society
   - The collective and the individual
   - Authority and the individual
   - The individual and freedom
   - The individual and the law
   - Ethnic identity

Conclusions
The historical destiny of Ancient Rus'

See also:
Appendix 1:  Empty quantities of "new chronology" on Sergei Fatiushkin's site
"Antifomenkism" [Tr: Huh??]
I. N. Danilevskii:  Legendary Rus'
I. N. Danilevskii:  Our other history
I. N. Danilevskii:  Mysteries of "Rus'ian earth"


* Aspect Press, Moscow, 1998.  Mikhail, is Danilevskii the author of this book? 
I have it at home, but haven't read through it yet...


-- Kseniia


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lady Kseniia Smol'nyanina
Shire of Dragon's Mist
kseniia@...
          ********
MKA: Christine Jacobs
www.geocities.com/chrstnj
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote:

> * Aspect Press, Moscow, 1998.  Mikhail, is Danilevskii the
> author of this book?  I have it at home, but haven't read
> through it yet...


Oh, for goodness' sake.  I took a *class* with this guy at RGGU!  That's why the
name is familiar.  "Russian history in an anthropological light" (or something
like that).  Time to dig out my notes...

-- Kseniia


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lady Kseniia Smol'nyanina
Shire of Dragon's Mist
kseniia@...
          ********
MKA: Christine Jacobs
www.geocities.com/chrstnj
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--- In sig@yahoogroups.com, Kseniia Smol'nyanina <kseniia@e...> wrote:

> > * Aspect Press, Moscow, 1998.  Mikhail, is Danilevskii the
> > author of this book?  I have it at home, but haven't read
> > through it yet...

Couldn't tell you.  In going through the intro to the lectures, he
waxes a little poetic about how "lectures are to supplement, not
replace textbooks..." and how he's glossing over detail of historical
events to get more at the "how and why"...

I just sorta tripped over that, searching for courtly info...

Glad you like!

YIS--

Mikhail Novgorodets
mka Michael Suggs

Yes, that was a major factor I should have mentioned when I talked about the
need to extrapolate.

I've read a number of  things by John Klassen, including a book Warring Maidens,
Captive Wives and Hussite Queens, which contains the info you mention. In this
book, he also analyses about the central myth of Libusa, Vlasta and the War of
the Maidens and how that could have influenced Bohemian women's perceptions of
themselves.

And while you point out that the women Klassen talks about may not be 'typical',
they do indicate such expectations were not unknown. And women active in certain
heretical sects would be very likely to hold them!

Rosanne

--------- Original Message ---------

DATE: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 16:09:17
From: "Annah Almaziful"
>Rosanne,
>
>The Bohemian women, especially townswomen, did, to use modern
>terminology 'own' their sexuality and their right to seuxal satisfaction. C^@
>heck
>'Marriage and Family in Medieval Bohemia' by John Klassen (referenced in
>my other post two seconds ago). He uses divorce/annullment records to
>explore the nature of sexual relationships in the 14th and 15th century- LO^@
>TS
>of case studies.
>



____________________________________________________________
Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail!
http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005

I don't know if anyone has seen them, but I found
these really cool pictures on the Library of Congress
website, evidently they ended up with these plates
after someone's estate was settled. They are pictures
of russia taken with various color filters and them
layered to make it look like they are color photos, in
the pre-color-photo era.

Check it out...
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
> "False" is the wrong word -- they are changed
> because of entropy.
I would LOVE to see the math for this!! ;)

this email brought to you by entropy,

Margarita


=====
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What saves man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same
step, but you have to take it."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shannon Anderson
kitonlove@...

__________________________________
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http://search.yahoo.com

oh please!!!!! id love some of this info too! someones fighting for me in
october crown and if he wins, well, ill need to know that kind of thing!!!!
pleeeease if anyone has information on this, id really love it!!!!!
anya


Michael Suggs <chayka@...> wrote:

Does anyone have any info (even just bibliographical info) in English
or Russian on court procedures in period Russia?  I'm looking for
protocol, courtesies, etc.


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I strongly believe that it should read "Russian Land" instead of "Russian
earth," most likely translated from Russkaya zemlya.



> I. N. Danilevskii
> Ancient Rus' through the eyes of contemporaries and descendents (9 - 12th
c.)*
>
> Lecture 6:  Ancient Rus'
> - General characteristics
> - What is the State?
> - Was Kievan Rus' a State?
> - "Russian earth"

I second the motion.  It's "Russkaya Zemlya".  [Quotes are in the
original, btw--but a quick scan of the text gives the context
for "Russian Land".)

--Mikhail

--- In sig@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Grant [T]" <tower@a...> wrote:
> I strongly believe that it should read "Russian Land" instead
of "Russian
> earth," most likely translated from Russkaya zemlya.
>
>
>
> > I. N. Danilevskii
> > Ancient Rus' through the eyes of contemporaries and descendents
(9 - 12th
> c.)*
> >
> > Lecture 6:  Ancient Rus'
> > - General characteristics
> > - What is the State?
> > - Was Kievan Rus' a State?
> > - "Russian earth"

Whoops, thanks Mikhail and Alex for catching that!  I wasn't paying attention. 
*sheepish grin*

-- Kseniia

-------Original Message-------
From: Michael Suggs <chayka@...>
Sent: 07/10/03 12:12 PM
To: sig@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sig] Re: Russian Court...

>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lady Kseniia Smol'nyanina
Barony of Three Mountains
kseniia@...
          ********
MKA: Christine Jacobs
www.geocities.com/chrstnj
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The request for Russian info has me wondering what it was like for the Pols
as well. Also, does anyone know where I can find a record of when nobles were
alive and reigning (other than kings)? I am needing this for my persona. Stuff
such as the heads of the more powerful noble families or cities perhaps.
Thanks!

Zygmunt Nadratowo "L/otrzyk (the rogue)"
MOFIT, Mid/Northwoods/Talonval
"One wishing to play must always attach himself to the most valorous of deed
and reputation. Because...the glory of the victor depends on the valor of the
vanquished." Manciolino, fencing master, 1531.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Take a look at this book review...

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne@...
"If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so that we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving. " -- Robert Frost, "The Star-Splitter"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 19:35:54 -0400
From: tmr-l@...
To: tmr-l@...
Subject: TMR 03.07.08 Wolverton, Hastening Towards Prague (Michalski)

Wolverton, Lisa. <i>Hastening Toward Prague. Power and
Society in the Medieval Czech Lands</i>. The Middle
Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2001. Pp. 406. ISBN 0-8122-3613-0.

    Reviewed by Maciej Michalski
         Adam Mickiewicz University
         Poznan, Poland
         michalsk@...

Studies on the medieval history of Central Europe are
almost absent from contemporary historiography written
in English, which makes the work of Lisa Wolverton on
<i>Power and Society in the Medieval Czech Land</i>
even more interesting. The book has been written very
carefully, even to the point of preserving Czech
orthography and diacritical characters (which may be
difficult to pronounce for people who are not familiar
with the Czech language).

The book covers 150 years of Bohemian history, between
the last years of ruling duke Bretislav I (1037-1055)
until the beginning of the reign of the duke and next
king Premysl Otakar I (1193-1232, king after 1198).
Its aims are, first, "to study society and politics in
the Czech Land between roughly 1050 and 1200", and
secondly to "reexamine the nature of power in the High
Middle Ages generally" (1).

The title, Hastening Toward Prague, refers to the
aspiration of dukes to control the central castle in
Prague which functioned in the awareness of the Czechs
as the capital of Bohemia and "was understood to
constitute the locus of authority" (83). On the other
hand, the "hastening toward Prague" also means the
endeavors of the freemen to support one or another
duke in his aspirations to achieve the Prague throne.

In reading Wolverton's book, one has the impression of
a continuous condensation of the problems analyzed.
The author starts with the presentation of the
components of society and power in medieval Bohemia
and then analyzes their mutual relations. In the first
part of her book, Wolverton guides us into the denser
and denser network of the constituents of Bohemian
society and power structures in order to show us a few
landscapes of the complicated relations between those
elements in the second part.

Consequently, in the first part the author presents
"the structure of power," which means the basis of
ducal lordship. She incorporates in it land
possession, the control of fiscal incomes from tolls,
taxes, sales taxes, etc., as well as the juridical
supervision and control of castles and army. The
second element of this social mosaic is freemen,
defined as "free, land-owning warriors of all ranks"
(44). Magnates linked through family bonds were
divided according to their wealth and their closeness
to the duke. Wolverton describes interconnections
among the ducal offices and the dynamic of changes
among the freemen occupying them. The next phase of
the condensation of the problems presented leads to
the characterization of the process of achieving
independence by magnate families, mainly in the
process of lands concentration. Somewhere on the
margin of Wolverton's considerations is the Bohemian
Church, which, according to the author, was not a real
actor on the political scene, but only sometimes
assisted in major events. Wolverton claims that the
Church was "marginal to the structure and dynamics of
power in the Czech Lands" (111).

The main fact which influenced the Bohemian history
throughout the second half of the tenth and the
eleventh century was the so-called will of Bretislav's
I. It established the rule of succession to the Prague
throne by a senior member of the Premyslid dynasty and
gave to the youngest sons the rule over Moravia at
Olomouc, Brno and Znojmo. It induced the division of
the dynasty into the senior and junior group and also
the division among the freemen supporting them. Such
interdynastic tensions characterized internal Bohemian
politics till the moment when Premysl Otakar I took
the royal crown. Those tensions are the subject of the
third and sixth chapters of Wolverton's book. She
presents the methods used by the dukes in order to
extract obedience from their subjects, such as forcing
to exile, either confiscating and bestowing
properties, removing and nominating certain
individuals for offices, and in external policy,
creating alliances, for example with the German
Emperor or with Hungarian and Polish rulers.

The second part of the book, which is significantly
more interesting, presents the strategies and
variations of the structures of power. This part is a
kind of a portrait, focused on three issues. The first
presents the political use by the Bohemian dukes of
the divine authority of two martyrs, St. Vaclav and
St. Adalbert. The first was a member of Premyslid
dynasty, the duke of Bohemia, and was murdered by his
brother, Boleslav I, at the beginning of the tenth
century. After his death, Vaclav quickly became an
object of Christian cult of saints and was recognized
as the patron-saint of Bohemia. The next Premislid
dukes willingly referred to the authority of the
martyr and used it for political propaganda and to
strengthen their position among other members of the
dynasty. The person of the other martyr, the bishop of
Prague, St. Adalbert, was not so easy to use for such
purposes. He was a member of Slavnikid (Slavnikovici)
<i>gens</i> and his family was murdered by duke
Boleslav II (in 995) in the same way as the Vrsovici
<i>gens</i> by duke Svatopluk in 1108. St. Adalbert,
after his death in Prussia, became the patron-saint of
the Polish metropolis of Gniezno and in 1039-40 his
relics were stolen from it and taken to Prague by
Bretislav. St. Adalbert, like st. Vaclav, became the
patron-saint of Bohemia and the Bohemian Church and
was also called <i>noster patronus</i> by the Czechs.
Both saints were actively used by Bohemian dukes to
strengthen their power and authority against other
candidates to the Prague throne and against the
freemen supporting them.

In a second consideration of the mechanisms of power,
Wolverton describes relations between Prague and the
Moravian line of the Premislids (and the freemen who
supported them). The marginalization of younger sons
by duke Bretislav I led to the situation in which they
raised their claims to taking power in Prague. This
Achilles heel, as Wolverton calls it, was often
prompted by rebellions and revolts of <i>iuniores</i>
and freemen. The autonomy of Moravia in the Bohemian
state was not strongly marked and this caused frequent
tensions to "hasten toward Prague" among young
Premislids. Also inside Moravia, the rivalry between
centers at Olomouc, Brno, and Znojmo was very strong.

The third aspect of power politics described by
Wolverton concerns the relations of Bohemian dukes and
German Emperors. The author presents these as an
opportunity for the dukes to deepen their independence
from the emperors and to mark their position among
other actors of the political game in Bohemia. It is
especially visible at the occasion of three
coronations of dukes, Vratislav in 1086, Vladislav II
in 1158 and finally, when the duchy of Bohemia became
the kingdom, in 1198 after the coronation of Premysl
Otakar I.

This account of the book under review certainly
overlooks many aspects and interesting points of
interpretation in which Wolverton's work is rich. I
hope that this short introduction will encourage
medievalists to reach for it. Every book, however,
contains a few faults and defects and it is the duty
of the reviewer to indicate them. One of the problems
of Wolverton's book is its construction. The condensed
presentation which the author uses, for instance,
fails in the narratives of chapters 3 and 6 which seem
to concern the same subjects but from two different
points of view: many facts are related twice.

However, the main defect of <i>Hastening Toward
Prague</i> is the lack of any comparative perspective.
The author is aware of it and in many places declares
that Bohemian situation is similar to or different
from other medieval states, but the lack of comparison
with neighbouring countries of Central Europe is
clearly visible. This seems to have prevented the
fulfillment of the second aim of Wolverton's book,
which was to "reexamine the nature of power in the
High Middle Ages generally." For example the analysis
of the interdynastic relations would gain much if the
author compared the situation in Bohemia after the
death of Bretislav I with the political state of
affairs in Kievian Rus or Poland. In the first case,
the duke Yaroslav the Wise in 1054 also introduced
senioral inheritance of the throne. In 1138 in Poland,
duke Boleslaw III Krzywousty did the same thing. The
comparison of the situation at the moment of
overcoming the principle of ruling by the oldest
members of the dynasty by the youngest sons and
magnates would be especially interesting. Similar
points of comparison exist in the relations of Bohemia
with German Empire and could have been drawn out more
thoroughly. As matters stand, they are presented
without the links with internal history of the Empire,
where for example the change of the ruling dynasty
caused many shifts in external politics.

These critical remarks do not lessen the merits of
Lisa Wolverton's work in introducing the medieval
history of the Czech Lands into Anglophone
historiography.

Someone found a 17th c. Romanian cookbook...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:28:09 -0400
From: Patrick Levesque <pleves1@...>
Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks@...>
To: sca-cooks@..., sig@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Romanian Cookbook

(feel free fo post this to other lists or people)

Greetings! I've finally managed to get a copy of the 17th century Romanian
cookbook (translated from slavonic to latin script, however. The original
slavonic version is not available on the market, unfortunately). It
includes recipes for food and for other purposes, not all related to the
kitchen, as you'll see...

Although I do not have time to post every single recipe (I'm somewhat busy
as my lady and I are expecting our firstborn in 5 weeks!!!) I thought I'd
sent the main outlines, and what I've done so far:

The book includes:

Recipes for Fish: about 59 recipes (mostly translated)
Recipes for Caviar: 5 recipes
Recipes for Crayfish, shellfish, snails, oysters: 23 recipes (only
translated snail recipes so far)

5 recipes for hops (? haven't read yet, may be for beer)
6 eggplant recipes
6 gourd recipes
2 turnips recipes
1 recipe of an unknown vegetable: anghenarii (help, anyone?)

33 recipes for veal
8 beef recipes
9 recipes for sheep/mutton
4 pork recipes
1 dove recipe
11 chicken/hen/capon recipes.
15 dishes of lamb

10 recipes for pickled meat and vegetables
6 fruit recipes (translated)
10 sauce recipes.
12 salad recipes (translated)
8 recipes for sausages, pickled pork tongue, and the like

11 wine recipes
16 recipes of cordials and vodka (vutca)

15 deserts recipes
2 recipes for rosewater.

And also, some non-food stuff

3 recipes for writing ink
5 on how to clean silverware
2 on how to remove rust
3 to prevent weaponsw from rusting


And finally, 3 recipes of what seems to be... gunpowder.

Don't hesitate to contact me for more info. Some of those recipes I'll send
to the list as I translate. However, I will not publicly post recipes for
gunpowder, for obvious reasons :-))

YIS

Petru 'cel Paros' voda








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