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.
26.10.06
14.10.06
Historical Day
Saturday was my birthday and the government decided that there is no better day than 14 October to start the Week of History. This is a national week where lectures and other events are organised on an annual basis to bring historical themes and subjects to the attention of the general public. I attended the opening ceremony and lecture, and had already typed out quite a lengthy description of it but lost it through fault of my own and can now sadly not be bothered to write it all over again. Let's just say that it was very interesting and that my opinion of bishop Wiertz, who held a short introduction before the actual lecture, has not improved.
My birthday was a lot of fun and I got very nice presents, including Warfare in Medieval Brabant and John the Fearless, which I had asked for in a previous post, as well as Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (translated as The Waning of the Middle Ages and The Autumn of the Middle Ages) by Huizinga, one of the most famous and certainly influential Dutch history books, and Rubicon, a book about the fall of the Roman Republic and how it was turned into a dictatorship. This means I'll have plenty to read in the coming period, and as it's all good stuff it was rather hard to choose what to read first. However, I've now started in Warfare in Medieval Brabant, and it is truly excellent.
On friday, the day before my birthday, I was guide in a City Walk I organised for Tafelstraat. There was a good turn out, with some 17 people attending, and as they were all very interested it was a lot of fun. I showed them around the city walls, the Helpoort, the Pater Vink tower, the high bridge, the old streets of Wyck, and then on past the Dinghuis and the Roman baths to the Our Lady's square. Parts of this they already knew, but the history of the city was new to them. They asked a lot of questions, which is always a good sign.
This is enough for now, my creativity is not exactly on a high at the moment.
My birthday was a lot of fun and I got very nice presents, including Warfare in Medieval Brabant and John the Fearless, which I had asked for in a previous post, as well as Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (translated as The Waning of the Middle Ages and The Autumn of the Middle Ages) by Huizinga, one of the most famous and certainly influential Dutch history books, and Rubicon, a book about the fall of the Roman Republic and how it was turned into a dictatorship. This means I'll have plenty to read in the coming period, and as it's all good stuff it was rather hard to choose what to read first. However, I've now started in Warfare in Medieval Brabant, and it is truly excellent.
On friday, the day before my birthday, I was guide in a City Walk I organised for Tafelstraat. There was a good turn out, with some 17 people attending, and as they were all very interested it was a lot of fun. I showed them around the city walls, the Helpoort, the Pater Vink tower, the high bridge, the old streets of Wyck, and then on past the Dinghuis and the Roman baths to the Our Lady's square. Parts of this they already knew, but the history of the city was new to them. They asked a lot of questions, which is always a good sign.
This is enough for now, my creativity is not exactly on a high at the moment.
1.10.06
Köln/Keulen/Colon/Cologne
On Saturday (yesterday) I went to Cologne on a City Trip organised by Tafelstraat. The preparation had been rather chaotic (understatement) as the date and goal (Cologne) had been set a month ago, but no one had been assigned to organise it. So nothing had really been done until this Thursday, when Germa and I volunteered to do so. Which really isn't enough time.
Nevertheless, with 13 people on the trip (two of which didn't show up) we had a nice group of multi-national people, from the Netherlands (three), Brazil (three), the US (two), Singapore/Malaysia (one), Armenia (one) and Bulgaria (one). Steffen, Linda's boyfriend, also joined us during the day, as he had been visiting a friend in Marburg and he passed through Cologne anyway.
So, my impressions of the city made during this very short visit:
Cologne is big. Very big. With something like 1.1 million inhabitants it is bigger than any city in the Netherlands. Its historical centre is also very large, and I didn't get to see some very touristic and famous parts of the city, like the town hall and some of the market squares. It's just so large and despite using the underground to save time there was too much to see. Still though, I think I went to the right spots; my impression of the touristic centre (the Dom and adjacent areas) is that it is simply overcrowded with camera-wielding tourists. There's also a lot of noise, which makes being there a little tiresome (particularly if you have to keep any eye out on eleven group members who might be trailing behind taking photographs).
Despite its size and tourist overload it was nevertheless charming and quite inviting. The people there were generally friendly, although there were more drunks and homeless people hanging around than there would be over here (partly, I think, because we generally tend to arrest them if they hang around in city centres). There was also quite a bit of trash lying around, moreso than over here; then again, it was comparable to most Belgian, German, French and British cities I've been to. It made me remember something international students once told me: they thought Dutch cities were excessively clean and well-kept, and thought it actually made them look bad.
Also, Cologne has a considerable part left of their medieval city walls; I visited the gatehouse just to the north-west of the St Kunibert Church, with the Kölner Boor on it; also large tracts of the wall in the south part of the city, which had been creatively converted into apartments. It looked really cool, and ensured the structures still had a real use. Very neat idea.
The Dom (Cologne's famous cathedral), on the other hand, was rather overhyped. Its main point of interest seemed to be that it was fecking massive; but architecturally speaking it was just a pretty standard cathedral enlarged ten times. And from the inside it was largely empty, with no interesting effigies to admire; there's many more interesting churches than this one, such as the church of St Georg, which we visited later during the day. It was quite a small but charming Romanesque church with some nice and very old carving work still there. Can't say I liked the triptych much, though; it was either fake-medieval or by a mediocre medieval artist.
Nevertheless, with 13 people on the trip (two of which didn't show up) we had a nice group of multi-national people, from the Netherlands (three), Brazil (three), the US (two), Singapore/Malaysia (one), Armenia (one) and Bulgaria (one). Steffen, Linda's boyfriend, also joined us during the day, as he had been visiting a friend in Marburg and he passed through Cologne anyway.
So, my impressions of the city made during this very short visit:
Cologne is big. Very big. With something like 1.1 million inhabitants it is bigger than any city in the Netherlands. Its historical centre is also very large, and I didn't get to see some very touristic and famous parts of the city, like the town hall and some of the market squares. It's just so large and despite using the underground to save time there was too much to see. Still though, I think I went to the right spots; my impression of the touristic centre (the Dom and adjacent areas) is that it is simply overcrowded with camera-wielding tourists. There's also a lot of noise, which makes being there a little tiresome (particularly if you have to keep any eye out on eleven group members who might be trailing behind taking photographs).
Despite its size and tourist overload it was nevertheless charming and quite inviting. The people there were generally friendly, although there were more drunks and homeless people hanging around than there would be over here (partly, I think, because we generally tend to arrest them if they hang around in city centres). There was also quite a bit of trash lying around, moreso than over here; then again, it was comparable to most Belgian, German, French and British cities I've been to. It made me remember something international students once told me: they thought Dutch cities were excessively clean and well-kept, and thought it actually made them look bad.
Also, Cologne has a considerable part left of their medieval city walls; I visited the gatehouse just to the north-west of the St Kunibert Church, with the Kölner Boor on it; also large tracts of the wall in the south part of the city, which had been creatively converted into apartments. It looked really cool, and ensured the structures still had a real use. Very neat idea.
The Dom (Cologne's famous cathedral), on the other hand, was rather overhyped. Its main point of interest seemed to be that it was fecking massive; but architecturally speaking it was just a pretty standard cathedral enlarged ten times. And from the inside it was largely empty, with no interesting effigies to admire; there's many more interesting churches than this one, such as the church of St Georg, which we visited later during the day. It was quite a small but charming Romanesque church with some nice and very old carving work still there. Can't say I liked the triptych much, though; it was either fake-medieval or by a mediocre medieval artist.
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