Medieval Crows

The crows are out in force again, with walnuts in their beaks. The sun glints off their backs and wings as they flap through the air. They scour the fields and jump the road and break the nuts by throwing them down from great height. Their aptitude at this practice is not always convincing; occasionally one tries to break it by dropping it onto the field itself, something that, even if done from thirty metres high, will yield no results unless a lucky rock gets in the way. But still they try, as they apparently value the nut inside to such a great extent that they rather fail ten times than look for something else to eat.

After a short period of complete and utter silence, I’m here again to reassure everyone that I did survive my twenty-first birthday after all. I threw a birthday party and visited a few more lectures during the national week of history. Interestingly enough, Maastricht won first prize of all 600+ programmes nationwide. It is was well deserved, I think, as they had explored the theme – belief and superstition – in quite some depth, hosting lectures on subjects ranging from Protestantism to Mary devotion and from witchcraft to Saint Lambert (who was bishop of Maastricht). However, I do think that it was a very academic programme, and many of the speakers and subjects wouldn’t really appeal to a larger audience. Now, I’m not exactly sure what the goal of the national week of history is, so this might not be relevant at all, but if it has anything to do with trying to get it under the attention of the masses it might not achieve its goal. The theme for next year will apparently be “living”, which might be a little easier for people to relate to, because of course it is very easy to compare your own situation with that of, say, someone in the middle ages. I like the middle ages a lot, but not when compared to my own situation.

Speaking of the middle ages, I have today completed Warfare in Medieval Brabant, by self-confessed AoK player Sergio Boffa. It is a very good and professional study indeed, and comparable in some way to In the Shadow of Burgundy: Culture at the Court of Guelders. Both examine a subject that has been meticulously researched for the larger players – England, France, Burgundy, Austria – but not at all or not sufficiently for the numerous semi-independent principalities that were all over the place in Western Europe. It is interesting that, much like major league football clubs that just can’t compete, these principalities often had to suffer serious debts in order to keep up the appearance of their court. As to their armies, these would of course be raised only in time of war, and so it would be most effective for a ruler not to get into any conflicts. However, that would again be the opposite of what their position would dictate them to do: a prince was expected to be victorious in war, and whether this would be against pagans in the Baltic, heathens in the Middle East or just neighbours across the river didn’t particularly matter, as long as there were heroics to put on paper (or rather, parchment).

Ah great, now I’ve done it again. Another blog entry turned into a history class. At least my texts suffer from an overdose of knowledge rather than emo-sentiments. A rare thing on the interweb these days.