Journal Entries:

***God, Gold and Glory***

Stephen, Count of Blois in France, was one of the richest and ablest of the nobles who took part in the First Crusade, during which he was temporarily in command of the whole Christian army. His wife, Adele, was the sister of Henry I, King of England. Stephen wrote the letter below, dated March 29, 1098, from a camp outside the city of Antioch in Syria.

Text reference: Chapter 12, World History, The Human Odyssey; Chapter 2, Modern World History

Count Stephen to Adele, his sweetest and most amiable wife, to his dear children, and to all his vassals of all ranks his greeting and blessing.

You may be very sure, dearest, that the messenger whom I sent to give you pleasure, left me before Antioch safe and unharmed, and through God’s grace in the greatest prosperity. And already at that time, together with all the chosen army of Christ, endowed with great valor by Him, we had been continuously advancing for twenty-three weeks toward the home of our Lord Jesus. You may know for certain, my beloved, that of gold, silver and many other kind of riches I now have twice as much as your love had assigned to me when I left you.

You have certainly heard that after the capture of the city of Nicaea we fought a great battle with the perfidious [treacherous] Turks and by God’s aid conquered them. Next we conquered for the Lord all Romania and afterwards Cappadocia. There are [now] one hundred and sixty-five cities and fortresses throughout Syria which are in our power.

[After various other battles, and so severe a famine in the army ...the Crusaders arrived before Jerusalem.]

And after the army had suffered greatly in the siege, especially on account of the lack of water, a council was held and the bishops and princes ordered that all with bare feet should march around the walls of the city...God was appeased by this humility and on the eighth day after the humiliation He delivered the city and His enemies to us...And if you desire to know what was done with the enemy who were found there, know that in Solomon’s Porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of their horses.

D.C. Munro, ed., Letters of the Crusaders: Translations and Reprints from the Sources of European History, Vol. I, 4 (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania, 1902), pp. 5-10.

Questions:

1. What does Stephen’s letter suggest about the relationship between husband and wife? What makes you think so?
2. What statements in Stephen’s letter support the claim that the crusaders were extraordinarily dedicated to their task? What hardships did they endure?
3. What inferences (hints or suggestions) can you make about the objectives of the crusaders?
4. What does Stephen’s letter suggest about the crusaders’ attitude towards Muslims?

***What Caused the Black Death?***

This physician’s theory was most likely written in response to the French king’s request for information about the plague in 1348. The bacillus that actually causes plague (called the Black Death in the fourteenth century) was not discovered until 1894; that infection is transmitted to humans through rat fleas was not established until 1905; and the first truly effective drug against plague, streptomycin, was not developed until 1952.

Text reference: Chapter 13, World History, The Human Odyssey; Chapter 2, Modern World History

A PHYSICIAN OF MONTPELLIER, FRANCE, ARGUED FOR A CAUSE BY ANALOGY:

Since therefore this epidemic, according to some, happens only by the air, only by breathing, only by conversation with the sick, more say that it kills because, by means of the air breathed in by the sick and then by the well standing near, the latter are stricken and killed, especially when the sick are in agony; and that not suddenly, but at intervals and gradually. But the greater strength of this epidemic and, as it were, instantaneous death is when the aërial spirit going out of the eyes of the sick strikes the eyes of the well person standing near and looking at the sick, especially when they are in agony; for then the poisonous nature of that member passes from one to the other, killing the other. Whence whoever has seen the Book on Mirrors of Euclid about burning and concave and reflex mirrors will not wonder, but will grant that this epidemic can occur, and pass from sick to well, and the latter be killed naturally and in the nature of the case, and not miraculously; since a thing is miraculous when there is no reason or natural cause for its occurrence. But the aërial and subtle nature going forth and reflected from two mirrors, by means of the heat and brightness of the sun, immediately takes fire and, as it were, acts suddenly,…from which brightness buildings and houses and fortified places and trees, situated in that vicinity, are burned and destroyed,…thus also by corruption of the air attack is made on human bodies.

Anna Montgomery Campbell, The Black Death and Men of Learning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), p. 61.

Questions:

1. What is an analogy? What analogy is being made here?
2. On a scale of one to ten, how plausible or logical is the explanation provided, keeping in mind that people knew nothing about disease cause or transmission? What makes you say so? Compare your evaluation to those of classmates. Discuss reasons for differences.
3. Given this explanation for the plague, what preventive or coping measures would be appropriate? If a comparable fast-killing plague with an unknown cause broke out today, what measures do you think governments and individuals would, or should, take?

***Popcorn History: Braveheart***

One of the most popular movies of the past few years is the 1995 epic Braveheart. Directed by and starring Mel Gibson, the rousing drama about Scottish hero William Wallace was a hit and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Braveheart may be a good movie, but is it good history?

Gibson’s film tells the story of a poor, orphaned Scottish highlander who begins a war of revenge against the English after his wife is killed by the sheriff of Lanark. Wallace’s personal fight ignites a struggle for Scottish independence. Along the way, Wallace engages in a brief love affair with Princess Isabella, the wife of King Edward I’s son. In the end Wallace is betrayed and executed.

The broad outline of the story is historically accurate. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, William Wallace and fellow Scotsman Andrew Moray (not portrayed in the movie), led a rebellion against Edward “Longshanks” and the British army. For years men flocked to their banner and by the end of the century, nearly all Scotland was under their control. Marion Braidfoot, who may have been Wallace’s wife, fiancée, or mistress, was killed by Sir William Heselrig, the Sheriff of Lanark, whom Wallace subsequently hacked to pieces. Wallace did win an incredible battle at Sterling, was knighted by Robert the Bruce, eventually faced defeat at Falkirk, and was betrayed and executed in 1305.

While Braveheart gets many of the general historical facts right, it does contain a number of falsehoods—some of them glaring. For example, the film’s depiction of Wallace as a poor, orphaned, blue-faced, kilt-wearing highlander is incorrect. Wallace, whose father was a lowland knight and still living when his son began his fight, probably never wore a kilt. While the Picts, the original settlers of Scotland, may have worn blue face paint centuries earlier, the Scots themselves did not. Also, Wallace had been fighting the English prior to his wife’s death. In fact, it was because Wallace had escaped an English patrol that the Sheriff of Lanark had his house burned and his wife killed.

The biggest liberty of the movie is in its portrayal of Wallace’s affair with the French princess Isabella. By the end of the thirteenth century, when Wallace was defeating the British at Sterling bridge, Isabella was still an infant in France. She did not marry Edward II until three years after Wallace’s death. Isabella, nicknamed the She-wolf of France, did despise her husband and eventually had him murdered.

Scotland had not endured, in contradiction to the film’s assertion, a hundred years of rape, murder, and theft at the hands of the English. For most of the previous century, Scotland enjoyed peaceful relations with England. The situation between the two deteriorated when the heir to the Scottish throne, three-year-old Princess Margaret, died before she could be married to Edward I’s son. The power vacuum resulted in infighting among the Scottish nobles (rightly por-trayed in the movie), and warfare with England.

The movie downplayed Wallace’s execution. After his capture Wallace denied the charge of treason, claiming that he had never given his allegiance and fealty to the English king. For his stubbornness he was dragged by horse four miles over the cobblestone streets of London, hung, and then cut down before dying, castrated and disemboweled (they burned his intestines before his eyes), and finally decapitated. His heart was cut out, his head placed on a pike, and his body quartered.

Questions:

1. Who is the character portrayed by Mel Gibson in Braveheart?
2. What are five things that are historically accurate about the movie?
3. What are five things that are historically inaccurate?
4. Is it the obligation of historical movies to be historically accurate? Explain your answer.

***Joan of Arc***

Perhaps the most famous teenager in history is an illiterate peasant girl who lived in a time when neither peasants nor girls carried any weight or influence in society. Joan of Arc helped a king win his crown, saved her people, and eventually became a saint in the Catholic Church.

When Joan was born in the village of Domremy in eastern France in 1413, England and France had been at war for nearly eighty years. The French dauphin, son of King Charles VI, and the English king, Henry VI, both claimed the throne of France. The duke of Burgundy (an indepen-dent French-speaking region to the southeast of Paris) aligned himself with the English. The pros-pects of the dauphin, who was indecisive and despondent, seemed hopeless.

In 1429 a young peasant girl, who called herself Jehanne la Pucell (Joan the Virgin), claimed that she heard the voices of St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and St. Michael. The voices told her to lead an army in driving the English from France and pave the way for the coronation of the dau-phin as Charles VII, King of France.

Heeding the voices, Joan left home and persuaded the captain of a nearby garrison to give her a horse, sword, men’s clothing, and a small group of soldier retainers. After making her way to the court of the dauphin, Joan underwent numerous tests, during which she convinced the skeptical court and dauphin of her divine destiny to save France. Knowledge of this remarkable seventeen-year- old girl quickly spread through the ranks of French soldiers, who knew of the legend that a maiden would one day save the kingdom.

Joan convinced the dauphin to send her to Orléans, where the English had been besieging French troops for five months. After a dangerous journey of a hundred miles through English occupied territory, Joan led a ten day campaign that resulted in the liberation of Orléans. Despite having been wounded in the neck with an arrow, Joan continued to fight.

Soon Joan and the French army had cleared the roads to Rheims, the traditional coronation site of French kings. There the dauphin was crowned Charles VII. To her liege lord, Joan said, “You are the true king, to whom the kingdom of France should belong.” Joan was ready to continue her fight and take Paris. She sent the English a message:

Surrender to The Maid sent hither by God, the King of Heaven, the keys of all the towns you have taken and laid waste in France .. . If you do not, expect to hear tidings from The Maid who will shortly come upon you to your very great hurt.

But Charles no longer needed Joan and signed a treaty with Burgundy, England’s chief ally. Joan eventually attacked the Burgundians and the British without Charles’s permission and was captured in 1430. She was sold to the British for 10,000 gold crowns.

In iron chains and constantly guarded by soldiers, Joan was interrogated for three months. The charges against her were heresy, witchcraft, and the wearing of men’s clothing. (According to Church law “the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man.”) Joan was found guilty. With her head shaved and a sign hung around her neck which read, “Heretic, Relapsed, Apostate, Idolater,” she was burned alive at the stake. She was nineteen years old. Almost five centuries later the Roman Catholic Church reversed itself and declared Joan of Arc a saint.

Questions:

1. Why do you think that the king of France did not make an attempt to save Joan?
2. If Joan were alive today, how do you think that society would react to her claims?
3. Use a dictionary to define the following terms: heretic, relapsed, apostate, idolater.