J. A. Beard's Unnecessary Musings: history

Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Herding Historical Author Cats: An Interview with the Founder of the English Historical Fiction Authors Blog Debra Brown

1) Please tell us a bit what the English Historical Fictions Authors blog is all about. What sort of content is present on the blog?

The blog has a daily British history post written by one of many historical fiction authors. The eras and topics range widely from Roman Britain to World War II, and from warfare and weapons to tea, food, and dance.

2) What sort of other web presence does the group have other than the blog?
As a group we have a public Facebook page, English Historical Fiction Authors, where we chat on history and historical fiction with other authors, reviewers, and readers. Each member has their own web presence as well, book sites, blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. We interact frequently everywhere.

3) What motivated you to start the blog?

I was making an effort to market my first book and felt fairly alone in the jungle. I wanted to blog about England, but had very little background in history and had to do an overwhelming amount of research. I felt that there must be other people like myself who wanted to learn more about British history in small bites, and that we could have a steady stream of information if we had enough people to produce one daily post, so I invited people who had obviously done their homework to share what they had learned.

4) What's your goal with this group?

I hope we will continue as we have been for over two years now with a daily post and friendly conversations on Facebook. I believe it has been informative, fun, and helpful to us all.

5) What originally made you interested in English history?

As a child, I had a seven volume set of books called My Book House. They were captivating, with bits from great writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Keats. They also had detailed drawings and paintings that introduced me to castles, cliffs, land divided by hedgerows, fashions from past eras, and many things that I hardly understood from old English culture. I loved it, and over the decades to come I picked up information and began to better understand what I had seen.

6) A recent collection of essays from the blog came out, Castles, Customs, and Kings came out. Please tell us about that.

After we celebrated the first anniversary of the blog, one of our authors, Deborah Swift, suggested we put together a book from some of the first year's posts. After a year of sorting, editing, and proofreading, we have, with the help of Madison Street Publishing, released Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors—a large, thick book of topics just a few pages long. The subjects are organized chronologically so the book flows nicely over the passing of centuries. A person can pick it up and start at any point, however, and have a satisfying read during a coffee break. It would be a good waiting room book or a nice gift for someone who loves Britain or history. We also kept the price below $20 USD, so hopefully everyone who wanted a copy in print could have it.

7) Please tell us a bit about your work.

My first novel is The Companion of Lady Holmeshire, the early Victorian story of a former servant girl who receives a rude reception in polite society. It is an Austen type of story with surprising twists and turns. I have also started a Victorian novel I call For the Skylark, the story of adult twins who were raised isolated on an estate by their wealthy, reclusive mother. Evangeline cannot cope when she “loses” Dante, her brother and only friend, to love.

8) There is a lot of content on the blog. Please tell us about a few of your favorite entries.

I especially enjoy Richard Denning's post, Old English—The Language of the Anglo Saxons, in which he has a YouTube video of the Lord's Prayer read in the old tongue to eerie music. Though there are countless other fascinating topics, there have been a few by different authors on the Bayeaux Tapestry that stand out in my mind. It is a story of the Norman conquest of England told in complex, coded needlework on a long stretch of linen that has lasted for nearly a thousand years. The age of it alone is awe-inspiring, but I love the explanations given for the symbols sewn in above and below the actual stitched story itself.

----

Thanks, Debra.

The books mentioned are available at the following links:

Castles, Customs, and Kings:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Kobo

Companion of Lady Holmeshire at Amazon.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Mr. Beard's Regency Tour Day 24: Living Decoration: The Ornamental Hermit

Over at the EFHA blog, I discuss a most curious trend in the Georgian England.

For the Georgian landowner who has everything: the ornamental hermit.

Monday, September 23, 2013

From Rome to Napoleon: Portchester Castle and the Castles, Customs, and Kings Blog Hop

As many of you know, I occasionally pen historical essays over at the EFHA blog.

In an effort to provide an interesting not-so-little book of bits of English history, the powers that be from that blog (particularly Debra Brown and M.M. Bennetts) gathered up and edited a collection of the essays from the blog and did a bang up of organizing them by period. The result is a nice collection of English history from well, before there was an England all the way to modern times:

As part of celebration of the release of the book, there's a blog hop going on focused on castles (though, just to be clear, the book subject matters covers a lot of different aspects of English history, even beyond just the customs and kings of the title). There are many fine people discussing many fine bits (and giving things away as well), and you can find their blogs here:

For my part, I decided to discuss Portchester Castle, a castle that links the ancient past of England with the perhaps more familiar to many medieval and later period.

Our fine defensive fortification tale begins before there even was an England, in the 3rd century AD. At that time, the Romans, those ancient masters of defensive positions themselves, established a fort at the location of modern day Portchester, in Hampshire along the southern England coast. The area's access to the sea allowed the Romans to use the fort as a naval base, in particular in their attempts to deal with local pirates.

Once the Romans mostly withdrew from the area, the prime location of the fort still made it useful for later groups to use for similar reasons, such as the Saxons dealing with Viking pirates. The Saxons added some additional buildings and towers in the area, and the evidence suggests continual occupation from the 4th century on, even after the departure of the Romans.

Of course, 1066 and all that brought Norman domination of England. In the 11th and 12th century, Norman lords controlled and helped fortify the area even more by adding such features as additional defensive ditches, timber palisades, and additional towers.

The castle would move from mere nobles to royalty by the end of the 12th century. Three different England kings (John, Edward II, and Richard II) would occupy that castle at various points between the 12th and 15th century, and Henry V spent some time in the castle in 1415. Every new occupant brought new fortification, expansions (e.g., royal apartments), and remodeling of the area. Other important royal leaders from English history, including Queen Elizabeth I, would also grace its halls.

Ownership shifted back from royals to "mere" aristocracy in 1632, when one Sir William Uvedale (his descendants the Thistlethwaites still retain ownership of the castle) purchased the castle from Charles I. The shift from royalty also resulted in a shift from focus, as the castle was often used as a prison for prisoners of war in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. During this time, although the defensive fortifications of the castle were not strongly upgraded compared to earlier periods, many additional wooden houses were built to house prisoners.

Coalition victories in the Napoleonic Wars would lead to less necessity for military prison in the early 19th century, with the last prisoners of the war gone from the location by 1814. The military itself would leave in 1819.

Though I am not personally one who is inclined to believe in ghosts, the long history of the castle, combined with things like the deaths of prisoners there, may have contributed to Portchester Castle's reputation as one of England's more haunted castles.

Thanks for stopping by. I encourage you to stop by and visit the various other blog hop participants listed above.

In addition, as part of the celebration, I'm giving away an eBook copy (available in Kindle/Mobi, ePub, and PDF) of my Regency paranormal romance, A Woman of Proper Accomplishments, which doesn't feature any castles, but does reference the Napoleonic War. If you're interested, just leave a comment with a contact e-mail, and I'll pick someone next week at random.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Land of Morning Calm and Evening Struggle--Joseon Korea #1: Birth and Death of a Dynasty

Recently, in addition to the Regency and Heian Japan research I've been conducting, I've started researching Joseon Korea. Though I spent two years living in South Korea, until recently my knowledge of pre-20th century Korea was somewhat limited. These entries will occupy my third slot in my rotating Thursday historical entry series. As of this time, I have no plan to add another period to my historical series.

Joseon (Joseonguk, lit. Joseon Country or Kingdom of Joseon) was the political entity that controlled the Korean peninsula from 1392 to 1897. At its height, Joseon controlled the entire area of what is now the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Most of what we'd consider "Korean" culture today was established during this period.

The Joseon state was controlled by the Yi dynasty. The originator of the dynasty was one Yi Seong-gye, later Taejo. Throughout this series, I will be using the terms Yi Dynasty, Joseon, and Joseon Dynasty fairly interchangeably.

Originally Taejo was a military official under the previous Goryeo Dynasty (which, incidentally, also lasted 500 years). At the time Goryeo was dealing with being under the influence and presence of the Mongols, who had for several centuries prior also controlled China during the Yuan Dynasty period. The collapse of the Mongol-lead Yuan Dynasty and its replacement with the Han Chinese-lead Ming Dynasty provided an opportunity to eliminate Mongol influence. Goryeo military forces proceeded to eliminate Mongols remaining on the peninsula. Taejo made a name for himself during this period for actions against the Mongols, Japanese pirates, and certain Chinese forces, including an anti-Yuan rebel army.

The splintering dynastic transition lead to factions in the Goryeo court who supported both the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Yi, as you might surmise from his blade dancing with the Mongols, was more of a Ming man. Unfortunately, the Ming also wanted Goryeo to cough up a large portion of their northern territory. I won't dive into the details of all the various claims, but the Goryeo government planned a further northern invasion into Ming territory. Yi was selected to lead the invasion despite his protests.

Instead, he turned around and overthrew the king. There were some shenigans with puppet rulers for a little bit but, in the end, Yi eventually ascended the throne himself inaugurating a new dynasty. Over the five centuries of Joseon's existence, the country reached heights of culture, technology, art, and literature. During this period, King Seijong the Great commissioned scholars to create hangul, the modern Korean alphabet, to improve literacy.

Joseon had a mostly peaceful two-century span between the the 17th and 19th centuries accompanying a mostly isolationist period. Unfortunately, that period of peace was book-ended by intense instability. The early centuries of the period were marked by intense and often violent political struggles between various political and scholar-bureaucrat factions.

Geography didn't help matters. The Korean Peninsula's position between China and the rising power of Japan lead to a battlefield destiny. Invasions from Manchus and Japan made the first three centuries of the dynasty an often unstable affair. Japanese and Chinese pirates also were a persistent problem.

Both the Kingdom of Joseon and the Yi Dynasty (effectively the same thing) would last until Japanese chicanery, including the brutal assassination of the reformist Empress Myeongseong, at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century robbed the Korean Peninsula of its independence until the end of World War II.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Age of Tranquility and Peace: Heian Japan #15: Genji's Dreamer, Murasaki Shikibu

This is another in my continuing series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please check out my overview entry.

-----

As autumn advances, the Tsuchimikado mansion looks unutterably beautiful. Every branch on every tree by the lake and each tuft of grass on the banks of the stream takes on its own particular color, which is then intensified by the evening light. The voices in the ceaseless recitation of sutras are all the more impressive as they continue throughout the night; in the slowly cooling breeze it is difficult to distinguish them from the endless murmur of the stream.

--The Diary of Lady Murasaki

In an earlier entry, I discussed the large contributions of women to Heian literature, including the creation of Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji), a book some would give the title of "world's first novel." What about the woman behind this masterpiece, Lady Murasaki?

We perhaps know more than one would expect of a woman born over a thousand years ago but still not tremendously much. Despite the highly literate and records-obsessed nature of Heian society, our direct evidence of Lady Murasaki is limited to fragments of her diary (which is really a collection of writings, some autobiographical observations, some other materials like poetry) and a small number of indirect historical references. If Lady Murasaki had been born a man, we'd probably know a lot more about her, but at the time women were mostly viewed as a means to an end: children. The names, even of many high-status women, were often not recorded. Instead, when referenced, they were given titles that related them to male relatives.

Indeed, the "name" associated with Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, is a nickname of sorts referencing the color lavender and the government ministry employing her father. Do we have no clue of her real name? There's some circumstantial evidence from historical records that suggests she may have been one Takako Fujiwara.

So, what do we know? She appears to have been born around 973 to the northern Fujiwara. She had a brother and two sisters, along with several half-brothers and siblings. Her family line, in general, was known for their poets, something that in Heian society was quite well respected.

In a somewhat unusual move, she was allowed a decent amount of education in Chinese and Chinese literature alongside her brother. As I mentioned in my mistresses of literature entry, one of the reasons Heian women contributed so much to classical Japanese literature was because they were often both simultaneously denied a Chinese education (the prestige language at the time) and Japanese itself was somewhat devalued compared to Chinese in terms of its alleged literary value. These otherwise educated and intelligent women thus produced vernacular works to sate their creative and intellectual needs.

Initially, Lady Murasaki learned Chinese by listening at the door when her brother was receiving lessons. After her father realized how keen her mind was, he apparently allowed some more direct instruction and was even said to have lamented she was not born a boy. While her brother was not particularly stupid, the evidence suggests he wasn't as intelligent as Lady Murasaki and lacked a certain ambition. As much of this evidence comes from some comments in her diary, one cannot help but suspect some bias. That being said, she was very honest in her diary about her own perceived faults, so it'd be a mistake to dismiss her observations out of her hand.

She would be married around 998 to a distant cousin. What is interesting about this marriage is that it took place so late, relatively speaking, in her life. Normally, aristocratic women of this period were married off as soon as they hit puberty. It's unclear how she felt about her husband, but he didn't last long, dying in 1001 from cholera. She did manage to have a daughter with her husband before his death.

Sometime between 1001 and 1004, her already burgeoning talent as a storyteller was becoming known and, combined with the political connections of her father, it allowed her to be brought to the imperial court to serve as a lady-in-waiting for the Empress Shoshi.

Fujiwara succession politics actually resulted in a period of two empresses under one emperor, Shoshi and Teishi. Lady Murasaki seemed to have literary disdain for Sei Shōnagon, a poet and servant of Empress Teishi, and author of another famous work from the period, The Pillow Book.

It's hard to sort out how much of this bad blood was merely political (Teishi actually died before Murasaki even came to court) versus literary, but Murasaki's own words seem to suggest she found Shōnagon an aggressive and arrogant woman. Unlike The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book was a collection of personal observations and thoughts. Lady Murasaki, again judging by her diary, didn't seem to really think that highly of that type of work for general public consumption. Her diary also reveals that Murasaki was aware that many found her perhaps too aloof and intense. Given that Shōnagon had a reputation for more general ease about people, one wonders how much of Murasaki's feelings were just an indirect clash of personalities.

The diary (at least what we have) appears to have been started in 1008 and was maintained for at least two years. Her diary entries indicate she was a keen observer of court society, but somewhat disdainful of what she felt were the excesses of court.

Interestingly enough, her diary also reveals she somewhat concealed her knowledge of Chinese from many, as she feared it would be considered unfeminine, though apparently some other ladies-in-waiting thought she was flaunting her knowledge at times with the empress. Given that much of what we know about her life at court is from her own words, it's again hard to filter for the bias, but it should be stressed that Lady Murasaki was unusually educated even for a aristocratic woman. This was likely to cause jealously no matter how she presented herself.

Empress Shoshi's husband, Emperor Ichigo, died in 1011. So she retired from court, and this in turn meant her ladies-in-waiting had to retire with her. Although there are some records indicating that Murasaki was still around the empress in 1013, things get somewhat less clear by 1014. There's varying indirect evidence that she may have died in 1014, but other evidence suggests she may have lived for another decade.

It's unclear her seminal work, The Tale of Genji, was actually written. It may have at least have been started during her marriage, and large portions of it were read to Emperor Ichigo, so it must have been at least mostly complete before 1011. A 1021 diary entry by another noblewoman confirms its completion by at least that date. Given a possible death in 1014, one might think that it was definitely finished before then, but there is a certain amount of controversy about the last section of the book that is somewhat different in style and character focus. It's possible that someone else, perhaps even Lady Murasaki's daughter, may have written those chapters, so the mystery of the timing of authorship remains somewhat cloudy.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Schedule Change: Historical Thursday

My finite time pie is being sliced up more and more finely these days. Due to that, I've been thinking about the best way to handle certain things. I really enjoy sharing my historical tidbits with you, and the bulk of the time is spent on research I've been doing anyway. That being said, producing a half-way coherent blog post from my notes still requires time. After several weeks of messing with scheduling, what I've realized is that it doesn't seem too bad to get out one historical entry a week, but two is a bit of a strain.

People seem to be enjoying both my Heian entries and Regency entries, so I don't think I want to stop posting about either. In addition, I actually want to start a series on Joseon Korea soon.

So, what's the solution? Instead of having discrete days where I'm doing Regency or Heian (or Korean) material, I'm going to now post on historical matters once a week (on occasion two when I have time) with a general target of having the posts go up Thursday evening. As my last historical post was Heian, this upcoming week will be a Regency post. I'll then just alternate by week. The Korean entries probably won't be starting for a month or two.

Thank you for continuing to read my blog and leaving comments. I hope you'll continue to enjoy my historical entries.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Ancient Romans Unveiled: Pompeian Graffiti

I was just reading about the graffiti at Pompeii. It's an interesting combination of lame stuff (Saturna was here), sweet love declarations, rental advertisements, political ranting, jokes, and bawdy bathroom-stall style humor. It's a complete slice-of-life in an ancient Roman city.

Here's an article about it to place it context:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-ar...

The article discusses how graffiti in ancient Rome wasn't like it is today in say, New York or London. It was not something just delinquent kids do to deface things. It was something everything did both inside and outside of buildings for a variety of purposes.

The following is a link to some translations. Please note that many of these are extremely bawdy and/or sexual in nature.

http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancie...

This one just made me laugh because it was sublimely mundane:

"On April 19th, I made bread."

Monday, November 21, 2011

Magical Mondays #8: The Cards Don't Quite Tell All: The History of the Tarot

Welcome to my eighth Magical Monday. In these segments, I'll be briefly examining various magical traditions, creatures, and elements that people have been believed in (or continue to believed in) throughout history. Eventually, I may also move onto depictions that appear only in novels, but there's plenty of historical material to keep me busy for a while.

-----

Ah, the ancient mystical arts. Proud magical traditions refined over the ages and kept preserved until the present day. Well, not always. Such is the case with Tarot cards.

How old do you think they are? I asked a few people this question recently and they thought Tarot cards had been around and used for fortune telling for around a thousand years.

If you said 500 or so years, you're right. The thing is, 500 or so years ago, they weren't use for anything approaching magic. I'll discuss the general mechanics of the Tarot itself in more detail in a future entry, but for now it's enough to know that Tarot cards are still commonly used as a method of divination and self-analysis.

Playing cards first appeared in Europe around the 14th century for rather mundane use in games. These original cards were the descendants of cards from the Mamluk Sultanate (which covered parts of Turkey, North Africa, and the Middle East). Those cards, in turn, likely were descendants of Chinese playing cards.

As early as the beginning of the 14th century, the cards that were in Europe weren't all that radically different from the modern card decks. They were 52-card decks of four suits and ten "pip" cards along with three "court cards". There were variations of both courts and suits depending on location. A modern person dropped back in time, though, could very quickly familiarize themselves with the deck even if some of the symbol were different. How that's for historical continuity?

Moving into the 15th century, Tarot decks arose. These were defined by the additional of allegorical and symbolic imagery in addition to the standard suits and court cards. Though some of the symbolism may seem a bit obscure today, at the time they were all very well-known images and ideas often expressed in Medieval art. These Tarot cards were used to play games throughout Europe. There was no hint of them being associated with magic. In some areas they were banned, but that was more out of their association with gambling--the fine mystical art of taking money from suckers.

There have been 16th-century documents found discussing the use of cards as part of a divination process, but these records do not seem to suggest that Tarot cards in particular were involved. Even in these non-Tarot cases, the cards seemed to be used as a randomizing device for certain aspects of ritual, but they were not ascribed power in and of themselves. Extant anti-Tarot statements by religious authorities in this period again focused on Tarot cards as a gambling tool.

The 17th century brought additional game variants. Though there was some expansion of normal cards with basic fortune telling (so your 52-card deck might be as good as the Tarot), it isn't until the end of the 18th century that French occultists laid the ground work for the use of Tarot as an independent symbolic divination method. The world's first professional cartomancer, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, published material associating the Tarot with astrology. He also produced a dedicated occult divination deck. Many of the specific elements still associated with the occult Tarot in some form were mostly defined by Alliette. He, along with several other writers, also further clouded the true history of the Tarot. They proposed various ideas with no historical basis, such as a link between the Tarot and various forms of ancient Egyptian, Jewish, and Gypsy magic.

The expansion of the idea of the Tarot as a deep, mystical occult tool was heavily promoted in the 19th century. The 20th century saw a bit of a push-back against the various "ancient mystical" aspects of the Tarot. Instead, various mystics, including Arthur Edward Waite, would try to correlate Tarot with a more universal symbols and correspondences. Note this isn't really a rejection of Tarot as a mystical tool, but rather just a rejection of an explicit link between Tarot and specific ancient mystical traditions.

Later 20th-century and early 21st-century interpretations of the Tarot are often influenced by Waite's ideas. The infiltration of Jungian ideas into the mainstream of thought somewhat mirror Waite's thoughts and have allowed many modern practioners a way to distance themselves from the more purely mystical, though relatively recent, Tarot tradition.

So, despite their heavy association with the occult in many cultures today, if you went back in time even during some of the periods of religious persecution, you'd be more likely to get a lecture about gambling then accused of sinister magic.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Magical Mondays #3: Poisonous Immortality: Taoist Alchemy

Welcome to my third Magical Monday. In these segments, I'll be briefly overviewing various magical traditions and elements that people have been believed in (or continue to believed in) throughout history. Eventually, I may also move onto depictions that appear only in novels, but there's plenty of historical stuff to keep me busy for a while.

-----

Humanity has conquered the skies, even walked on the moon. We can transmit information almost instantly from one side of the globe to the other. Despite all our knowledge, one of the most ancient desires, immortality, escapes our grasp. Different attempts at achieving immortality using modern technology are being attempted, such as cryonics. Technologically-based movements such as the transhumanists conjure up all sorts of schemes involving using the power of technology to free themselves from the shackles of mere mortal life. In this, these modern day seekers share a common bond with the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang (247 BC-221 BC), who was obsessed with immortality.

Of course, the ancient Chinese emperor couldn't even conceive of the technological innovations that inspire modern day immortality seekers. Instead, he focused his efforts on various potions and elixirs of immortality. In doing so, he often turned to Taoist alchemists.

Taoism, which emerged roughly six centuries prior, was originally relatively free of a lot of low-level mystical and directly magical attachments. The original texts are defined by a modest simplicity. As Taoism spread throughout China, it fused with and absorbed different folk beliefs. By the time of Qin Shi Huang and later contemporaries, complicated Taoist magic and alchemy was associated with many schools of Taoist thought.

While going into detail about Taoism is well beyond the scope of this entry (and would probably require an lengthy series of its own), there are a couple of relevant concepts I should briefly mention that are relevant to the emperor's quest for immortality. The Taoist alchemy tradition is divided into the so-called "inner"/"spiritual" alchemy and "outer"/"physical" alchemy. Incidentally, European alchemy also had a similar mix between spiritual and more physical elements.

The basis of inner alchemy were the "Three Treasures" of Jing, Qi, and Shen. Though it is a gross simplification, one can think of this as roughly equivalent to physical vitality, general life energy, and spiritual essence. A balance of these elements and proper maintenance of Jing were believed to extend life.

Inner alchemy depended on a variety of rather mundane techniques including eating a controlled diet, meditation, breathing exercises, and other things that make a certain logical sense even in our modern technological world. It also depended on other less straight-forward things including sperm retention and menstrual control.

Outer alchemy, on the other hand, made use of various herbs and chemical substances. Despite the mystical overtones, it was effectively proto-medicinal chemistry. They were used to manipulate the Treasures and the elements that make up the body (in Chinese philosophy these are wood, fire, water, metal, and earth). As with inner alchemy, manipulating the balances of the essences and treasures of the body could lead to extended life or even immortality. Jade, gold, hematite, and cinnabar (a mercury ore) were popular ingredients in immortality elixirs.

Taoist outer alchemy was also just as concerned with turning base metals into gold as European alchemy, but the alleged point of the quest for gold was to consume it to extend life. One Taoist sage was alleged to have remarked, "Have you ever seen a rich immortal?"

Now, an astute reader will probably notice that the continued consumption of things like toxic mercury ore is likely to lead not to immortality but to illness and/or death. Several Chinese emperors likely died of mercury poisoning. Qin Shi Huang, mighty first emperor of China, himself likely died from the consumption of mercury either in pill or elixir form.

The respect for mercury is obvious from the descriptions of Qin Shi Huang's tomb, which include entire scale "rivers" of mercury. Although once thought mere exaggeration, the emperor's tomb was re-discovered in 1974, and subsequent chemical testing has confirmed extremely high mercury residual vapor levels in the soil.

*The tomb was supposed to be a scale model of the imperial lands including the major rivers. Even if they were mere "creeks" of mercury, that is still a staggering amount.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Mr. Beard's Regency Tour Day 2: The Forbidden Dance, The Waltz

Welcome to my second post on Regency England. If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, please check out this post.
-----

"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies."

"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance."

--- Sir William Lucas and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice

Oh, the scandal! Some strange foreign dance has invaded your country. It's bad enough that it's foreign, but it is also scandalous, indecent, and riotous. People are practically kissing when they dance! The young people in particular are very vulnerable to this insidious attack upon morality.

A decade into the 21st century, we often forget (or simply find quaint) that the line between acceptability and decadence is often quite subjective. During the British Regency, dancing, despite Mr. Darcy's complaints notwithstanding, was an acceptable activity. Anyone who has ever seen a film adaptation of almost any film set during the Regency that doesn't focus on the Napoleonic Wars probably witnessed a dance scene. The key, though, was people performing only "acceptable" dances.

English Country Dancing, a type of contradancing (which basically describes dances where couples dance in opposing lines), was still popular though starting to fade somewhat in popularity. Most people have probably seen it depicted something like this (5 minute video) where it is calm and stately. The general historical evidence suggests the actual dances were actually rather lively in contrast to the more modern sedate forms.

Other popular forms included precursors to traditional square dancing such as the quadrille and cotillion. Despite the connotative baggage the term square dancing is currently associated with, originally a square dance just meant a dance where various couples danced in a roughly square formation.

Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett and conradancing in the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (5 minute video)

Lively or stately, these various dances were a major aspect of the social scene, especially among the elites and the upwardly mobile. Today, though, I don't want to spend a huge amount of time talking about the complete history of Regency dance. I'll revisit some of the other dances in the future.

Instead, I want to talk about the shocking import that I alluded to in my first paragraph--the waltz. Yes, the waltz, not exactly a dance one would normally find questionable. Performed in triple time and with its requisite closed position (where the dancers were not only holding each other continuous, but doing often mere inches away from each other), the dance was distinct from the square dance precursors and line dances.

The waltz grew from other gliding dances of the 16th and 17th century. Most of its development took place in Austria and Bavaria. By 1780, it had become relatively popular in Vienna and by 1800 had spread to Paris. The British, however, resisted the dance with more force than those on the Continent. There's some contradictory information out there on when, exactly, it finally broke through, but generally many dance historians suggest 1810 or 1812 as dates. Arrival,however, was not the same thing as acceptance.

In 1816, the always fun-loving Prince Regent held a ball that included the controversial dance. The Times was not at all pleased (emphasis mine):

"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."

(source: http://www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/waltz.htm).

Residual resistance would linger for the next several decades in England, but by 1819 the dance had generally attained acceptance among most segments of society. The end of the Georgian era would all but crush the final anti-Waltzers. None other than Queen Victoria herself, not a woman normally associated with indecency or moral turpitude by British conservatives, was fond of dancing the waltz.

So next time you are feeling scandalous and wish to be shocking and indecent by the standards of Regency England, go find yourself a ballroom.

I haven't spent a lot of time describing the waltz in detail. Instead, I think it would be best if you just watched it:

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Mr. Beard's Regency Tour Day 1: The Regency defined and the Madness of King George

Welcome to the first day of Mr. Beard's Regency Tour.

Today, we're going to start off with something deceptively simple: What is the Regency?

Properly speaking, the Regency era is the period of British history comprising the years 1811-1820. During this period, the then Prince of Wales (the later King George IV) ruled the United Kingdom as Prince Regent for his father, King George III.

Why did they need a regent when they had a perfectly good king? Unfortunately, there was the slight matter of King George III's insanity. This is an area of historical controversy. Some historians think he suffered from the genetic disorder porphyria. Whatever the cause, through the late 1700s, George III would occasionally have bouts of derangement. His disorder would afflict him on and off throughout the years. With the death of his youngest daughter, Princess Amelia, in 1810, he fell fully into insanity by 1811.

The Regency Act of 1811 (officially called the the Care of King During his Illness, etc. Act) set his son, the 48-year-old George, Prince of Wales, up as Prince Regent. He would continue on as Prince Regent until the death of his father at which point he assumed the full throne as King George IV.

1811-1820. Nine years? That's it? That's the grand period so many movies and books are set in? Actually, no. Often, the "Regency era" is used to describe a period from the end of the 18th century up to the time of Queen Victoria, in other words, the transition point between Georgian and Victorian England. That is the rough definition of Regency era I'll be using for these blog posts.

This was a time of great transition both in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. Industrialization and land reform had begun to transform the fundamental nature of British society. Violent labor unrest rocked the countryside and cities.

The bloodbath of the French Revolution gave rise to the Le Petit Caporal, the brilliant French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The Napoleonic Wars raged across Europe becoming an intercontinental slug-fest costing millions of lives.

In contrast, this was also a period of genteel society. The Prince Regent, in particular, was fond of parties, fashion, and luxury. The upper-classes took their cue from him. Lavish parties and balls made famous in many film treatments of the period spread. Industrialization led to a new class of wealth. Landed gentry and aristocrats began to find their social circles invaded by a growing class of increasingly wealthy merchants and industrialists.

Literature and arts flourished. Many influential British novels were published during this period. Jane Austen would publish her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, in 1811. Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818. Walter Scott would publish Ivanhoe in 1814. Many of our current ideas about Robin Hood come from that novel. The modern vampire story was created by John William Polidori when he published The Vampyre in 1819.

The Regency and the later Georgian period was a time of surprising and fascinating contrasts. I will be exploring all aspects of this period, both the dark and the light.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Infusing History Into Pulse of Heroes: A Guest Post By A. Jacob Sweeney

Today, we have a guest post by A. Jacob Sweeny as part of the VBTC Romancing Your Darkside Book Tour.

She's going to talk to us about infusing history into her paranormal romance, Pulse of Heroes.

In addition, she's giving away a copy of Pulse of Heroes. Just leave a comment and we'll use random.org to pick a winner. You'll be receiving a physical copy, so the author will be contacting you for a shipping address.

Now on to the guest post:

-----

There was never a question about infusing history into Pulse of Heroes, as the entire idea for the story began with me wanting to bring ancient history back to life. My intention first and foremost was to bring the subjects of what most people today think of as legends into our modern reality, since the bulk of these tales have their roots in actual historical events. And this was to serve as the backdrop of my romance and very real coming-of-age story of 17-year-old Michelle. The immortals in my novel are the story tellers, and through them we get to learn about so much. Below, an example:

Elliot, our main immortal character, served in the military under King David’s command. Now most people are probably familiar with the legend of how David as a boy toppled the giant Goliath with a small sling shot. Whether this ever happened or not, perhaps we’ll never know. However, as I study archaeology and participate in actual excavations, I get to see firsthand how legends and history collide as we discover more and more. And this to me is the most exciting thing. I wanted to share this with people who would never dream of picking up a history book, let alone a field report from an ancient site. I will give you another example.

I had the unique privilege to actually excavate in the hills of Judea on a site that has been dated to the proposed time of King Saul (David’s predecessor) and King David. It overlooks the valley where the Philistines would meet the Israelites in battle. It also marks the exact place where David and Goliath’s story is said to have taken place. On a clear day one can see the outlines of the cities of the Philistines, now also active archaeological sites, from this hilltop (it is a royal pain in the behind to climb up that long steep pathway every day). The encampment was clearly constructed so as to have an unobstructed view of every side of the great valley as a military vantage point. The Goliath story might be legend, but the Israelite encampments are not. Knowing this gives the Goliath story a whole new dimension. I was there. I dug and lifted the broken dishes that these fighting men used to eat their dinners. They were every bit as real as we are today. Just last year, a carving of the name “Goliath” was found in one of the Philistine ruins. Suddenly, the name Goliath itself gains a new reality. We don’t know which Goliath, but the name was evidently used by these people. Another clue pointing to David’s existence has been found carved into a victory stele (a large stone) by Hazael, King of Damascus, or by one of his sons. The inscription is in Aramaic and commemorates victories over local ancient peoples including the Davidic Kingdom. The bracketed areas below denote missing fragments which have been filled in by recognized biblical and ancient near-East text experts.

5: And Hadad went in front of me, [and] I departed from [the] seven[...]

6: of my kingdom, and I slew [seve]nty kin[gs], who harnessed thou[sands of cha-]

7: riots and thousands of horsemen (or horses). [I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab]

8: King of Israel, and I killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g

9: of the House of David. And I set [their towns into ruins and turned]

10: their land into [desolation........................] ( Courtesy of Wikipedia)

This is what I wanted to share with my readers. I wanted to spread knowledge around. And if the reader is interested, all they have to do is search further.

So far I have received nothing but compliments with regards to the way I weave short historical tidbits into the main plot of Pulse of Heroes. The real history also provides a basis for the existence of the immortal characters. I have noticed that many people do not enjoy “high fantasy”, and yet historical reality is just as fantastic. As the saying goes, “Truth is indeed stranger than fiction”!

If anyone is interested, right now there is a continuing discussion on the Pulse of Heroes Facebook page about the historical elements of the novel. You should come check it out - it’s on the left side under the “Discussion” tab.

Thank you for having me here!

A Jacob Sweeny.

-----

Thanks for stopping by.

Check out AJ's site at http://www.pulseofheroes.com/.

Remember, if you want to be entered for a free chance to win a copy of Pulse of Heroes, just leave a common (preferably with some sort of e-mail address so we can contact the winner).