More glorious distractions! Thank you, Anne!
"they weren't idiots! shut up!" is a fine summary of discussions early americanists have about puritans, too. I wonder if there is a blog for us?
While some of my early Yankee ancestors were Puritans, a bunch of them were just trying to make a buck and get out of England. I'm glad my direct ancestors left the Salem, Massachusetts area for Beverly about 20 years before "the troubles" (AKA the witch trials). I'm glad one great * grandfather who was a minister was bounced from his church in Cambridge for daring to treat his ailing son on the Sabbath. I'm glad that a number of my ancestors were pragmatic
(though at least one pair of them were starved to death for daring to be Quakers).
In response to this rant, I direct you to:
http://
botticellophelia.blogspot...ia_archive.html
Scroll down to the entry for May 5, I believe. About a third of the way down the page.
And have yourself a good giggle.
I had to fight the urge to go into extended "Stop it!" mode today in Western Civilization. Our timeline is inexorably moving us along towards modern times and one student made a disparaging comparison to "the Dark Ages" which I know inspired my patented look of angry incredulity.
There are some phrases you just don't use around a scholar who studies the Middle Ages and that's one of them.
Agh! Stop it!
And in response to Meredith's blog ref...then we should all revisit "Didn't Say What I Said," an Entry of Which Anne Is Fond (sorry, no linking skills--or "[can]not link").
I think a lot of the bad 'Dark Middle Ages' we hear is probably Renaissance propaganda to make themselves look better. The dead usually can't defend themselves.
Arkbuilder,
even though I don't usually comment on comments -- I sorta like to let them have a life of their own without me interfering -- JUST because you are a New Orleans girl, you darling thing, I will give the link for "Didn't Say What I Said" --
http://creatingtext.blogspot.com...hat-i-
said.html
there you go.
Speaking as a Renaissance scholar, I find quite tiresome the funny guy who puts "-eth" on the end of every word, when he wants to convey the essence of Shakespeare. "Oh, youeth studyeth Shakespeareth? I'd bettereth maketh sureth I speaketh correcteth." "No, just don't speak to me at all."
Did you catch Mason-Dixon knitting?
From Kay: "The wool is so rough it's positively medieval."
This becomes much more difficult (and just as necessary) in Disability Studies. "They weren't idiots." Well, "They were idiots, but not the way you're thinking, and we don't use that word anymore, with good reason. Stop it!" (The Faulkner critics are particularly troublesome in this . . . at least this week.)
Oh dear. I just came to the comments to bust myself and found that June had already busted me.
So, if I am wrong, and the wool of the Middle Ages was like, merino or something, I do apologize.
In my defense, I went to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, in the 70s, and I didn't take Middle Ages anything although I once dated a guy who directed a production of Canterbury Tales that was very very good. Or I thought so at the time. When I was dating him.
What I'm saying is, I didn't have a Dr. Anne Brannen to enlighten me.
Being a Lutheran, I have quite a lot of information, correct or incorrect, about the Reformation. I may have an exaggerated sense of the whole 'pay money to get your mom out of purgatory' thing. Was that very prevalent?
xoxo Kay
Studying the Middle Ages in Omaha in the 70s would have been kind of redundant.
Oh, there I go again, insulting the Middle Ages. I'm rilly rilly sorry. xoxox Kay
So, sending crazy people out into the woods... isn't that kind of what we do these days, only with the city substituting for the woods?
(I lived in D.C. during the Reagan/Bush 1st era, when you could literally see a proliferation of people who were obviously in need of meds wandering around the streets...)
And I appreciate the comments about teaching Puritans. I usually have to let my students have the "weren't they kind of crazy?" observation so that we can MOVE ON and talk about what's actually at work in the texts...
Have you read "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis? If not, I can recommend it as a good read, and I ain't no medievalist, but it sure seemed to me that she played pretty fair with the middle ages(and debunked some common myths as well.) I certainly won't think the same way about the Black Death ever again.
Thank you for this post. I also do the hot-under-the-collar thing and was due for a rant. I linked to you instead: http://www.livejournal.com/users...lack/
51831.html
No, the church did not run every aspect of their lives whether they liked it or not, and also, let me just mention for the four thousandth time, no, medieval drama did not escape from the church and then run out celebrating into the market place, having a great old time until it ran into the fourth wall. Stop it.
LOL. I *heart* you for saying this. I write about and teach medieval drama, and even other *medievalists* get it wrong. For pete's sake, that old from-the-church-to-the-street chestnut was overturned in the 1950s (by O.B. Hardison)!
Came here by way of the History Carnival, btw. This whole entry cracked me up. Love it! (Love Carl at Got Medieval, as well.)
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