Hiatus

Currently in Paris. Will return soon, once I start thinking of things other than my research...

Postponing the End

Lots of talk about endings recently. I talked about the end of The Sopranos and the end of Charlemagne. Euromad used the end of his time in Rome to riff on the end of both The Sopranos and Veronica Mars (a show, I'll admit, I never watched). And now comes new revelations (pun intended) that Sir Isaac Newton, that "discoverer" of gravity, examined the biblical Book of Daniel to figure out that the world would end no earlier than 2060 CE.

The article's absolutely fascinating. Not so much for the fact that Newton cared about the Book of Revelations or the coming Apocalypse or anything like that, but rather because he took such a common, ancient/medieval line in trying to do so.

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.

"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," Newton wrote. However, he added, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail." [my emphasis]

Postponing the end. Not saying that the end won't come (because you really can't do that in a Christian cosmography) but saying that it's a ways off -- not too far, but far enough that you don't really have to worry about it. Richard Landes has a fascinating article on this pattern of postponement in the early Middle Ages, as biblical exegetes would periodically reinterpret the age of the world so that the year 6000 AM (annus mundi) wouldn't be too close (Richard Landes, “Lest the Millennium Be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography, 100–800 C.E.,” in Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen (eds.), The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages (Leuven, 1988), pp. 137–211). One was never able to categorically reject the nearness of the Apocalypse, but these medieval scholars would postpone it just enough so that popular concern might be abated, at least for a while. And here Newton is, doing the same thing 1000 years later.

And here we are, doing similar things 300+ years after Newton. Remember Y2K? Remember 9/11? Why the modern Christian evangelical interest in supporting the state of Israel? That's right, the end is coming soon. Not right now but sometime soon. Fasten your seatbelts.

Tony, meet Chuck

Tony Soprano, please meet Charles -- also known as Charlemagne (or Karl der Grosse, if you're German).

Tony looks unimpressed...

If you live in the US, and unless you've been living under a rock lately, you know that the last episode of HBO's The Sopranos recently aired. And there has been great controversy among fans and critics as to what actually happened at the end of the episode. A brief summary can be found here, but that doesn't really do the ending justice. Tony is waiting in the restaurant with his family, then just as Meadow walks in, with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" caught mid-refrain (at "don't stop..."), the screen cuts to black. If you had Tivo (like I do), you thought it cut the end of the show off. But it didn't. That was the point. Cut to black. The end. Or is it? (Actually, I just found this article, which does the ending justice and you can see critical responses and even watch the final moments).

The controversy, as it were, is whether Tony is now dead or whether he still lives. My goodness, just use "the google" and you'll see how much is out there. Nevertheless, we're never going to know. Because, really, no one is sure. The writer and creator, David Chase, doesn't tell us and isn't going to tell us.

But what does any of this have to do with Charlemagne?

Well, 2 things. The first (and most superficial) similarity is that both are/were cold-blooded thugs, at their very core. Both were willing to go to any lengths to increase, or simply maintain their grip on power. For Tony, that meant stepping over his uncle, his colleagues in Brooklyn, whoever. For Charles, that meant stepping on the Lombards, the Saxons, the Avars, his own brother's family, whoever.

But the much more interesting similarity has to do with this whole controversy over whether the king (of North Jersey) is alive or dead. So too with Charlemagne. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that Charlemagne is dead. But, during the Middle Ages and most especially during the early Middle Ages, was he dead, not dead, mostly dead? People weren't so sure. Paul Dutton wrote convincingly about the birth of the "sleeping emperor" legend in the decades after Charlemagne's death in 814. Then, that legend merged with another, Christian legend that was simultaneously gaining currency in the medieval West -- that of the Christian Last Emperor. (An example of this synthesis can be found in the mid-10th century treatise on the antichrist by Abbot of Adso of Montier-en-Der. The paragraph on the Last Christian/ Frankish Emperor comes about half-way down the page. I also have an article on this synthesis in the Oxford Song of Roland and I'm working on a book that deal with this conjunction of ideas before the 1st Crusade.)

The point to all this uncertainty really, I think, comes down to an unwillingness on the part of the audience (either Tony's or Chuck's) to accept the fact that their gone. After Charlemagne's death, especially in his grandsons' generation, the world seemed to fall apart. Thereafter, people looked back with starry eyes at the "Golden Age" that they had lost. Like a fish tale, Charlemagne's deeds grew greater with every telling. People wished, prayed that he would come back to rescue them and restore the world to its "proper" state.

So too with Tony Soprano. The Sopranos has often been called the greatest TV show of a generation. So, now what? What will life be like without Tony? Please, the masses cry, bring him back! Maybe for a movie! Come back, Tony. Arouse from your slumber and blaze forth against your enemies just one more time to rescue us and our TVs from mediocrity and drivel.

The Problematic Crusades

The crusades as an historiographical (sub-)field have become increasingly problematic. Much of this has to do with 9/11 and the new emphasis on, and interest in, holy war and/or religious violence. But, in fairness, it was trending the way it's now going for a while now.

Take, for example, this recent interview with Dr. Marco Meschini, who is a professor at the Universittà Cattolica del Sacro Cuore ("Catholic University of the Sacred Heart) in Milan and has published a few books on the Crusades. Meschini has a new book out (in Italian) comparing jihad and crusade, in which he argues that they're fundamentally incomparable. Indeed, that's true but not for the reasons that Meschini says. Instead of saying that, to compare crusade and jihad, you're really comparing apples to oranges, Meschini gleefully seems to be arguing that these red apples are nothing like their orange counterparts and aren't they really pretty strange tasting to boot? Best example:

There are... other more significant asymmetries [between crusade and jihad].

First of all, jihad, whether defensive or offensive -- that is, as the instrument of the spreading of the Islamic religion -- means "submission" to Allah.

The crusades, instead, were born only after a millennium of Christianity and with a limited purpose: to recover Jerusalem and the Holy Land, which were unjustly occupied by the Muslims.

Most of this is true but it's also really misleading. First of all, "unjustly occupied by the Muslims?" In what sense? Arab Muslims took Jerusalem in 638 CE. The First Crusade was launched over 400 years later, in 1095 CE. Does anyone really talk about the "unjust" seizure of California from Mexico? That was less than 200 years ago. The crusades were an act of aggression to retake a land that was perceived -- perceived -- in the 11th century to be Christianity's patrimony. We should acknowledge that 11th-century perception but it doesn't make it reality.

This quotation also brings up a larger issue though. Crusading was born "after a millennium of Christianity" but Christian holy war wasn't. This is the apple to which Meschini (and we all) should be comparing jihad -- Christian holy war. Meschini doesn't make this distinction though and continues:

As was said, holy war is a prescription of the Quran -- and the Quran is the word of Allah, eternal and immutable -- practiced by Muhammad and furnished with a whole series of accompanying rules that define forms and conditions.

Still today, for all Muslims, jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam, that is, one of the precepts that constitute the identity of their religion.

On the contrary, there is no sacred Christian text that speaks of war in a similar way, and to say the least, the model of Christianity, Christ, does not foresee it!

For this reason, crusading, which certainly arose in a Christian context, need not be present in other Christian contexts; nor, above all, does it have anything to do with the kerygma, the core of Christian revelation.

There is no Christian text that speaks of holy war? What about the biblical books of Joshua, Judges, Kings, Maccabees, etc.? What about Revelations? What about Augustine, Eusebius, the Pseudo-Methodius, the Tiburtine Sibyl, Adso of Montier-en-Der? Even the Gospels are more ambivalent on the subject than you might think (Look specifically at the events in Gethsemane and Peter's use of the sword there. What does Jesus mean when he talks to Peter after he strikes the High Priest's servant's ear? It's not clear-cut.). And these are all before the First Crusade.

Moreover, Meschini's statements are particularly striking for a Catholic to make (I'm assuming he is. My apologies if that assumption is wrong.) because it casts off the weight of tradition -- the saints and fathers of the Church -- and argues that the "core of Christian revelation" exists solely in the Bible (and perhaps even more specifically in the Gospels). Huh? Isn't that what Luther, Calvin, et al. argued?

I don't mean to suggest that jihad and Christian holy war are the same. They're not. Historical context, among other things, matters. They arose in different circumstances, from different cultural traditions, and took different developmental paths. But just be sure you're comparing apples to apples. Or, if you're intent on comparing apples to oranges, at least be honest about it.

PS -- Dr. Meschini, jihad is often called the "6th pillar of Islam" but there are still really only 5 pillars. One need not practice jihad in order to be a good Muslim. Similarly, there are many things that many religious people ordinarily do, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a central tenet of the faith.


UPDATE: Slight edits made for clarity.

The 1-to-1 Comparison vs. Contextualization

2 things caught my eye recently.

1. The first was a review of Denys Arcand's latest film, which premiered @ Cannes. Entitled "Days of Ignorance" (a better, more literal translation of the French title would be "Days of Darkness"), it is the final part of a trilogy that began with Arcand's "Decline of the American Empire" and continued with "The Barbarian Invasions." It doesn't take a medievalist (or classicist) to recognize the arc of these stories -- Rome --> barbarians --> Dark Ages. Comparing the US to Rome has, of course, become quite fashionable nowadays, especially in the realm of politics. Jonathan Freedland has a summary in a recent piece in The New York Review of Books.
   
2. The second was an op-ed in The Daily Telegraph. Here, the author, who is a conservative columnist for the Telegraph and The Scotsman as well as a children's book author (who's written 1 book on the crusades), uses "creative" history to pour some cold water on all those climate "alarmists" who complain about global warming. Obviously, if the 13th century worried about the climate, we shouldn't be that worried about it.
   

See? We live in the modern Middle Ages. Well, except that we don't.

To point out the obvious, historical context matters. Yes, people worried about climate change in the past and we worry about it (rightly) now. Yes, the USA can be considered to be an empire, even perhaps complete with overseas colonies. But no matter how many parallels there may be between the 21st century USA and Rome (either in the 1st century BCE at the end of the Republic or the 5th century CE at the end of the empire in the West), they're still both not apples. They're just not. As I tried to show in a previous post, although you can't make 1-to-1 comparisons, you can show similarities and influences.

Empires overreach. Ok, good. But overreach how? Differing political, social, economic, and cultural factors at home will impact what that empire can do and how overreaching should be defined. Just because Rome fell because it did X, doesn't -- in any world -- mean that the USA will fall for the same reason. Just because the burghers of medieval Cambridge were worried about the putrid air they breathed doesn't mean that we shouldn't. Yes, the world will probably endure. But that doesn't mean we'll endure right along with it. Rotting meat in the streets of Cambridge probably isn't nearly as significant a problem as less arable land and rising sea levels.

It's a great fallacy that "history repeats itself." Better to think that the past echos forward, sounding similar but slightly distorted with each iteration.

Why Knowing Your Canon (Church) Law Might Be a Good Thing

A Mexican mother, in the US illegaly, has claimed sanctuary, in a Chicago church. See this LA Times article for more details. The Times article gives a cursory overview of the history behind this but there's so much more there. Rob Meens has a recent article in Speculum (2007) on this, and Sam Collins has a great dissertation from Berkeley dealing with sanctuary under the Carolingians (which hopefully will become a book soon) that I'd recommend for further reading.

What's interesting is that it's worked (so far). She's been there for over 9 months now and Homeland Security has refused to enter the church to take her. Seems that knowing your medieval canon law comes in handy. See your local medievalist for more.